seal together with all your vain conversion and worship by tradition from your fathers yet you never learn'd it from our fathers in the word wherein shew me if you can from the beginning to the end save in Rom. 4.11 where in anosense sense viz. not to strengthen a weak faith but to honor great faith circumcision was set as Gods broad seal to confirm Abraham in his fatherhood any one of the four which you call Gods seals viz. either circumcision or the passeover baptism or the supper is call'd a seal by God himself Babist The formal term of a sign is no more to be found in Scripture to be given either to baptism or the supper then the term of a seal yet you grant it to be properly called a sign and so why may it not be called a seal though it be not so called in Scripture Baptist. Though the expresse denomination of a sign be not given in Scripture to either baptism or supper yet no lesse is sounded forth in sense and signification but the other term of seal as to these things is not consonant to the rule of faith for verily as no other is exprest so no more then one seal of the Gospel Covenant is so much as implied or hinted at in holy writ and that one seal is no other then the holy spirit by which those that believe are said to be sealed Eph. 1.13 Eph. 4.30 and howbeit God preacheth the Gospel to us outwardly by words oaths signes and visible resemblances viz. baptism and the supper and this in the ministration of men who may minister to us all these and set them close to our ears and to our eyes yet when he preaches it to us inwardly so fully and firmly as by seal he preaches it himself alone and though by a baptism yet a better baptism then that of water that is the holy spirit which though the sign may be set first to profest believers that are not so indeed secondly and this very visibly and openly to the view of others thirdly by men like our selves yet first is never set to any but believers in truth secondly and that secretly and indiscernably to any but themselves that are seald thirdly by none but God himself who onely sets that baptism close to the conscience within which baptism no man under heaven can administer what we set i. e. the sign may very easily be to a blank our ministration being liable to mistake but what Christ sets i. e. the seal that makes us most sure from himself that cannot possibly be misplaced for where and whensoever the spirit of God within is sent to bear witnesse and cry Abba i. e. father there and then God is a father indeed your own selves say that where the seal is that soul is sure at that time a real heir and from that time forth say you also for ever and so say I if that soul continue for ever cleaving to the Lord not quenching resisting or so grieving that holy spirit as to cause it to depart for ever for if so ther 's another tale told you from several Scriptures 1 Chron. 28.9 Heb. 6.4.5 Heb. 10 29. But if it be so as you say that Gods seal seals up none but such as are both true heirs by faith at present and must necessarily abide so for ever then first here 's an Argument ad hominem how ever i. e. an evidence to you out of your own mouthes that your baptism is none of Gods seal sâ—th it is set by you not onely to 1000s that after it fall from him but indeed to 1000s that never knew him their father nor never will I again therefore once more for all that I may not trouble my self with them when I meet them in other places protest against these your expressions of circumcision and baptism by the name of seals Gods seales of the Gospel Covenant c. first as none of mine wheresoever you are found fathering them on me as p. 6.7.14 Secondly as none of Gods expressions though I know not how many times ore viz. p. 4.6.7.8.13.14 you aver the ordinances to be Gods seals and father that very phrase on God himself who as he useth not such a phrase when he speaks of those foolish things as the world counts them 2 Cor. 1. which he chuses as his outward witnesses shews signs and love tokens from himself to us so he useth no such tools indeed as these Instrumental signes are when he ministreth himself for these he appoints men to minister in these are the instruments of the foolish sheapherds Zach. 11.15 even the outward instruments which God hath chosen for the under sheapheards to act by he uses none of these I say as his own seal and inward witnesse for that 's no lesse then the holy spirit which whattypes shews and signes of the Gospel Covenant soever there have bin outwardly both before and since the Gospel begun hath bin is and ever shall be the onely earnest that God hath given the only witnesse that him self hath us'd the onely seal that he hath set in any age whether before the law or under the law or under the Gospel Psal. 51.11.12 Eph. 1.13.4.30 2 Cor. 5.5 Rom. 8.15.23 So having removed the rubbish of rude expression with which your last argument was clouded and not a little over loaded as you delivered it I come now to consider it nakedly as it lies substantially enough compriz'd in these expressions viz. Vnder the Law circumcision was by Gods appointment dispensed to little infants Ergo under the Gospel baptism must be to infants also or else the Gospel Covenant is worse to the spiritual seed of Abraham now then it was to his carnall seed under the law This is in short the plain sense and ordinary way of urging this argument By way of Answer to which let me be so bold first as to ask you this one question viz. why you stand so stâ—fly to have baptism dispens'd so strictly after the manner of circumcision and yet stray and vary your very selves from the fashion of that administration in a manner as much as any men in the world for verily though the way of circumcision be that you stickle for yet you stragle from it and as to the very subject it self vary from it as much as in any thing else if that be rhe rule after which men must baptize as you plead why then do ye not baptize for so they circumcised First onely males and no females Secondly all male servants upon the masters single faith as well as male children on the fathers Thirdly on the eighth day onely and neither sooner nor later nor one day before it nor behind it Fourthly by the hands of parents fathers Mrs. Mothers as well as by the hands of the Priesâ—s onely Fifthly any where viz at home or abroad in Inns or other places as occasion is but onely or for the most part in your great stone houses for this is both
this because they understand not the nature of baptism it is Gods seal he sets it they that receive it are passive in that he appoints it to be set to whomsoever he hath made the promise and with whom he hath entered into covenant A seal of an estate made to infants in their cradles is firm so is God's Now here must be a sealing on the other side for both parties must seal in a Covenant we seal when we believe John 3.33 The Covenant is sealed on both sides when faith comes God may set to his seal as he did to many of the Iewes and the seed made void to them through unbelief The End of Gods setting it to such as he foresaw would have no benefit of it is the same with the making of his promises and sending of his Sonne to let them know how he would have received them how sure his mercies should have been unto them but they would not Re-Review The reason of all your Objectations against our way of baptism and pleas for Paedo-Rantism which you practise is this you understand not the nature of baptism it is not Gods seal which he sets which you sillily suppose for that is his spirit only as I shewed you plainly enough above but Gods sign which man sets which they that receive aright are not altogether passive in but voluntary and very active i. e. confessing their sins calling on the name of the Lord desiring to be baptized professing faith in order thereunto going down inâ—o the water with the dispenser and there setting their senses and understandings on work upon the sign and things thereby signified submitting their bodies freely to the dispensation Neither doth God appoint it to be set to whomsoever he hath barely made the promise for in the word preached he makes it to every Creature Mark 16.15.16 but to such as professedly believe in that promise he hath made and visibly verily for ought we can judge have entered into covenant with him to become obedient such only so far as it is possible for us to know are those with whom he hath entred into Covenant for say you there must be a sealing on the other side and both parties must seal in a Covenant we seal when and not before we believe neither is the Covenant sealed on both sides so that it can be said these two parties are now entertained into covenant each with other till faith come and that is not in infancy but after And this your manner of speech viz. when faith comes here implies to be your own opinion as well as ours though else where as p. 3.4.8.9.15.16.17.18 19. you strenuously contend it yea and to say the truth t is well nigh the whole businese of your book to assert and assay to prove it that faith comes to infants in their infancy and to make it appear to us as well as you can by contradiction that infants do believe Moreover if ever men were troubled with the simples I think you are is baptism Gods seal of an estate i. e. the heavenly inheritance made over to infants in their cradels and is that seal of his firm to i. e so sure that it cannot fail then I wonder how that seal for so you still stile circumcision and baptism is made void and infirm to so many Iews and Christian people as it is for not all yea few of many do obtain that estate at last and that most lose it for all that seal you tell us by their unbelief but I had thought you had been of the mind when you wrote your 4th page that children of Iews and of believing parents did believe all without any exception for asserting it there positively that the Iews children did believe and consequently that believers children do now you prove the Antecedent viz. that the Iews children did believe because God did witnesse it by setting to his seal circumcision which if it were Gods seal to them of their eternall salvation by faith and witnesse to the world that they had faith also that seal must be firm and that testimony true concerning them all being set to all as well as some so that unlesse they depart from the faith which you say God who cannot ly witnessed they once had and that your principle of not falling from faith will in no wise give way too they could not possibly void it by unbelief and so must necessarily and universally obtain the inheritance but sith t is most clear you selves also yielding it that they do not therefore assuredly one of these must be true viz. either that circumcision was not to infants in their cradels Gods seal of their eternal salvation as you say it was or else that that seal of God is not firm as you attest it is or else that God did not witnesse by it that those to whom it was set had faith as you say he did or else that Gods witnesse and testimony was not true which were blasphemy to think or else that they fell from that faith which at first they had in infancy and at the time of their circumcision and that self confutes you in another case among all which grant which you will to be true you must contradict and convict your selves of falshood And lastly if the end of Gods setting baptism to persons be no other then the very same with that of making his promises and sending his son meerly to let them know how he would have received them how sure his mercies should have been unto them but they would not not to speak of your telling truth here unawares viz. that mans own will rejecting God first and not Gods own will first rejecting them without respect to their fore-seen rejection of him in time is the true cause of their condemnation then as God makes his promises to all and sends his son in his love a Saviour to all so baptism should be dispensed to all without exception belonging as well as Christ himself tell they appear finally to reject him to every one as well as any one in the world but that being denied by both you and us doth shew that the end of baptizing a person is somewhat more viz. not to beget him to the faith before he doth but to improve him in it when he doth believe To conclude this whole train of stuff or long tail of that short shower of shot that went before it is not of so much force as a scottish mist nor scarce enough to wet a naked man to the skin therefore bear with my folly in sheelding my self so much against it i. e. in saying so much in answer to it for a wise man would have said no more to it but mumm Review The third argument is this Those that have the holy spirit that have faith the Anabaptists will not deny but are the subjects of baptism but children have so as their justification declares without which there is no salvation Hence it is that the
not cotten at all with that for the subject of Circumcision which you all say though falsely is one and the same with that of Baptism was one of at least eight daies old and an Infant of one day only was not a warrantable subject thereof nor an infant of seven daies neither though likely to die before the eighth but as for you though your chief plea for your timely untimely rantizing Infants be grounded upon that timely dispensation of Circumcision yet as if you had a mind to proclaim your selves be-blinded so that you cannot walk by Christs Right rules nor your own wrong ones neither you take the liberty to out-stand or anticipate the eighth day at your pleasure hence the birth day is as warrantable with you as the eight yea in case of imminent danger of death in which case circumcision might not alter ti 's a learned question among some Infant-sprinklers whether the mid-wife may not sprinkle it before it s born i. e. while is hangs yet between the womb and the world but too soon is too soon in all conscience and again when it fits better with your plum-cake occasions the tenth twelfth or eight and twentyth day must be as acceptable to God as the eighth yea when it seems good to the wisdom of the Church i. e. the Clergy it may be deferred for no less than two or three hundred daies together witness the old Rubrik which saith that in old time baptism was not ministered but at two times in the year viz. at Easter and Whitsontide but that custome being grown out of use for many considerations I know not any but the Clergies good will and pleasure cannot now well be restored Thus you ride people to and fro as you lift and run manie miles from your own rules as well as Christs for if Circumcision be your Rule for the time of Baptisms administration keep punctually to the particular time of the eighth day as well as to the generall time of Infancy or else you may tell me the eighth day is a circumstance not to be regarded whilst I tell you 't is such a substance that Moses was like to be slain for overslipping it yet by your favour Sirs and by the same reason that you take an inch I 'le take an ell yea if you can acceptably go a fingers bredth besides the rule of Circumcision I may go an hundred furlongs and by the same Authoritie that you delay the Dispensation beyond the eighth to the tenth twelft or the hundreth day I may delay it unless belief withall the heart do ingage to it before to the ten thousandth day or more nor can you question me why do you thus Secondly whereas for my undertaking to rectifie you in your gross misapprehension and reduce you from the misconstruction I saw you make of my speech which leaves you without excuse in this rude recording you record me as recalling what I said I protest against that as another of your figments which you had need both to recant and repent of there was but one thing recalled all that day that I know of viz. that Iohn Baptist spake so soon as he came out of the womb that being rashly uttered by one in a Black coat was indeed as readily recalled as for my self what I said then I was so far from recalling that I 'le give you the advantage of saying the same over again hear therefore you deaf that you may understand bring me the children of three or four years old not instructed only for so the wickedst heathen may be but instructed to conversion and profession of faith not verbal onely for a Parret may be taught to prate but real as may seem at least and to desire baptism in Christs name yea more bring me the Infants of three or four daies old thus truly discipled and blame me for ever if I be not as forward to baptize them as your selves are to rantize them undiscipled This is the sense I then spake in the Lord knows my heart to whom I appeal ultimately to judge between us I have spoken it thus over again you have now my mind more fully among you mistake it not but take it dexterously and make your best on 't Report Next you relate and that most fictitiously that I having asserted circumcision to be a seal of the righteousness of saith to Abraham only and not to his posterity and being urged to shew any Scripture that did import a change in the signification and told that such a change must needs intimate that the same covenant was not made with Abrahams seed that was made with himself I was so foundered that though you ingaged to become Anabaptists if I did it yet I answered nothing that carried any sense or reason to the purpose Reply This I say is another of your your figments for first to let pass the Sophisticall terms you used whilst you askt how or when Circumcision ceased to be a seal of the righteousness of faith even to Abrahams posterity as if I had granted that Circumcision was once a seal of the righteousness of faith even to Abrahams posterity as well as himself and then was changed ceased left off to be so wheras I told you then that though 't was so to Abraham himself yet it never was so to them at all do also tel you now that when a man saies of a thing that it never was so it is but an illiterate kind of quere to ask him again when it ceased to be so Secondly confessing that I then affirmed and also still affirming the same viz. that Circumcision was a seal of the righteousness of faith to Abraham only and not to his posteritie I profess thirdly before the world appealing to your own consciences to witness that as it is most plain in the Scripture so I then made a most plain discoverie of it from the Scripture that there were other ends uses and significations of Circumcision to Abrahams own person though in some respects there were also the same then those for which it was dispensed to his seed and that notwithstanding many things which were promised to Abraham were promised to all his seed together with him yet there were somethings also promised to Abraham in the Covenant of Circumcision which his seed had no promise of at all as namely First That he should be the Father of all Believers This I am most certain I then instanc'd in and according to your then demand cleared by Scripture even that very Scripture which was then quoted by your selves Rom. 4.11 and repeating the whole verse whereof you for your own ends mentioned but a part I told you t was evident even thence that Abraham had one preheminence and priviledge that none of his posteritie had ever after him which he obtained of God by his preheminence in believing viz. the Fatherhood of the faithful of which eminent faith of his which was imputed to him for
as then ended Reply But Sirs will this be taken for A true Account think you or A true Counâ—terfeit rather by wise men that were there present when they shall see how you huddle over the matter in such hast as to leave no less then half of it behind you what dispatching and patching up of things to an end you make before your heads are half heated in the handling of them for verily as Hanun shamefully intreated Davids servants shaving oâ—â— the one half of their beards cutting off their clothes in the midst and sending them away 2 Sam. 10.4 so have you dealt by the Disputation cutting off the business by the buttocks and so sending it out naked into the wide world your THEN Sirs is a word out of joint 't was not then but a pretty while after then before the Disputation came to this full point which you have already brought us too in your Account after which you say there was no other Answer given by me nor to be expected for as I often offered fuller Answer to all you urg'd in one intire Discourse but that 't was an unseasonable motion in your Account p. 10. and in no wise so pleasing to your Priestly patience as 't was to the peoples to expect so long as to hear it so there was much more then this uttered by some of your selves though you give us not not so much as the sum of it in this your sum Here 's but one particular mans influence toward the maintenance of Infant-baptism inserted here in your Account viz. onely Mr. Willcocks this was he who when had been the prime pleader in your cause was afterward and good reason too for he was the fittest for your turn though not the truths very gravely desired by you how justly judge you to be judge in it and to determine his own Disputation and be the main moderator of what came out of his own mouth and mine too a thing never heard of in Accademicall Disputations the Rules of which you were so stiff to have us steer by this was he who if he were as not I but Report saies he was your special Pen-man in the Account as he was your special spoks-man at the Disputation sets so light it seems by every mans else as to set down no mans Arguments but his own it 's like they were not very much to the matter and indeed they were not nor his neither though his own are exprest for the most material but better or worse there were more Arguments urg'd then these one by a Scotchman who then liv'd at Kenington what he is call'd I know not so well as whether for he had a call to Dover since that from whence whether he is now call'd I know not he laid down his Argument in this form viz. to whom the Covenant belongs to them the initiall seal of it belongs but the Covenant belongs to infants c. but seeing me startle at his Anti-scripturall term of Initial seal by which he denoted baptism whether he urg'd more or what more he urg'd I remember not well but I 'm sure he was at Ne plus ultrâ in that for I durst not admit of that improper term which made his Syllogism Sophisticall and his Disputation ex falso suppositis for he took it for granted by all men that baptism as he call'd it is an initiall seal about which yet sub judice lis est it being doubted by many whether baptism be a seal at all and deny'd by some of whom I profess my self one so opinion'd who in its due place shall I doubt not give good account on 't there was likewise another Argument urg'd by Mr. Vahan who from Acts 2. would have drawn the right of baptism to believers infants and being askt whether those Peter then spake to were believers or unbelievers when he spake to them and replying that they were believers heard the contrary both clear'd by my self and confessed by his Partner Mr. Prigg my quondam friend unless I became his enemy that day because I told him the truth who convening with me in that though not in the true Consequence of it did however so contradict Mr. Vahan that he came in to his help ore the shoulders There were also two more Arguments besides these in the Account urg'd by Mr. Willcock viz. one ex particulari the other ex negativo as I took occasion to give a hint thereof above which he or whoever was the pâ—nâ—man of these passages was it seems as little willing to own as his own name or his handy work it self sundry more Arguings there were and some Arglings also made by some who would have now and then a snatch and away which me thinks you might have given a transient glance at at least in A true Account for your utter silence concerning which you might justly be blamed yet I blame you not much when I consider how sensible you might easily be of liableness to more blame for the matters themselves had you shewn them such untempered morter were they then can well be conjectured by you you are now under for letting them alone altogether Report Another flat falsification and abuse of me and the world is this you misreport me and that in two places viz. at the bottom of both your sixth and seventh pages which makes you doubly guilty of that single fiction as having confessedâ—hat â—hat circumcision was the seal of the Gospel Covenant and that Ishmael who was that carnall seed of Abraham onely because born in Abrahams house had right to it and received it Reply That this is A true Account of what you then said I said I dare not deny but do deny it to be A true Account of what I said whether you understood or understood not my words I know not but I utter'd not a word to such a purpose and were you not men minded to mis-understand when to understand seems never so little to make against you I make no doubt but to make your own true Account make you eat some of that you have here uttered that Ishmael who was Abrahams carnal seed even meerly because born in Abrahams house had right to Circumcision and received it as every male so born also did I confess I confessed but denied all along that Circumcision was a seal as to Ishmael of the gospel-Gospel-Covenant or that he had it under such a notion as a Seal at all I said it was a Seal to none save to Abraham and that even to him 't was a Seal of not any thing at all save of the righteousness of the faith he had which words in the sense I then expounded them are not meant of the Gospel-Covenant but of that particular personal Covenant God made with him concerning his father-hood of the faihful a peculiar privildege which God gave to him and to none in all the world besides him as for Ishmael yea and Isaac himself they neither of them had it in this
sense as neither had they that Covenant or promise of a father-hood which it was a Seal of though even Ishmael himself and the lowest males in Abrahams house were all to be circumcised upon this account only if if there had been no other as he was commanded to circumcise all his males As to a fuller account of my grounds for this opinion I shall suspend it till I take my other Account of these passages in yours and take notice only here first of your sacred Sophistication in giving that out for granted which was so abundantly denied Secondly that close contradiction you here give not onely to the truth but your selves also for you give out in the next page but one before that I denied Circumcision to be a seal of the Righteousness of faith which in your own sense is as much as of the Gospel-Covenant to any of Abrahams posterity and that I multipli'd words in proof of the contrary and yet here in relation to that very Relation of your own in the weak wilfulness of your memories you give out that I had confessed Circumcision to be even to Ishmael the seal of the gospel-Gospel-Covenant that is with you still of the righteousness of faith thus for your own ends fathering your own false-tenet upon me ye have not lost all by the shift for you have fastn'd the fault of sorgery upon your selves and this puts me in mind of another of your mis-reports which because t is so suitable to this I 'le give you some little sense of it here though I find it farre off hence in your Review p. 13. l. 1.2 where looking or rather licking over all your arguments again as somewhat rude and deform'd in their first delivery and among the rest this from Circumcision of infants to their baptism you positively affirm thus that the Adversaries confess baptism to be the seal of the Gospel-Covenant whereas if by Adversaries you mean your friend my self among others besides what else shall elsewhere be produced in proof of my dissent from you in this point your selves can bear me witness or if you will not a thousand others will that on the very day of Disputation when the Clergy-man of Kenington stiled baptism an initial seal I deni'd it to be a seal at all and am sure it would have found you all more work then you are aware of to have made good that un-gospel like expression of it though I grant it to be a sign of the Gospel-Covenant Report Another as flat a falsiâ—y as ever fell from the mouths or pens of men who pretend to truth is that clause which lies in the last line of the seventh page and first line of the eighth wherein consider it with the words before you say I confessed that the spiritual seed of Abraham and their children had under the Gospel as good right to the seal thereof which is baptism as Ishmael who was that carnal seed of Abraham had right to the seal of the Gospel-Covenant Circumcision Reply Whereas besides my constant denial of Circumcision to be a seal to any but Abraham as I said immediately above and as your selves testifie of me and besides my denial of baptism to be a seal at all I either did deny the children of the spiritual seed i. e. of believers to have right to baptism or else to what purpose did you oppose me for this was the very question between uâ— which as you affirm'd so I from the beginning to the end of the Disputation all along most inalterably deny'd Indeed I confessed ore and ore again that Abrahams spiritual seed i. e. believers have right to baptism but that the natural seed of this spiritual seed of Abraham are Abrahams spiritual seed as so born or that believers children quâ— tales are semen fidei as well as their parents is a most silly saying of your own page 14. but that which all the day long I most strenuously stood against much more that they were the subject of baptism yet you say here in the Preter-plu-perfect tense that I had confessed their right to baptism as good as Ishmaels to Circumcision which me thinks if I had done so would have been exprest some where or other in the foregoing part of your true Account or else it is not so true as 't would be taken for but sith it is not to be found that I confest such a thing in all your Relation of the most materiall things that past among which this had it been confest as you here say had been the most materiall of all for it had been the full giving you the cause and saving you the labor of more Disputing we 'l take it for granted if you please rather then charge your true Relation of the most materiall things as not relating the most materiall of all that this your Testimony of my confession of this matter is most prodigiously false and abusive Sirs I wonder you are not ashamed so palpably to speak contrary to what you have here recorded I know not well what you mean by so many foul mis-reports unless as a certain great Benefactor to the Romish religion perceiving it unable to stand by the Scriptures bestowed a Legend of lyes towards its support which is call'd Legenda aurea so you supposing your Infant-baptism uncapable to be maintain'd any longer by principles of truth and reason have thereupon been so bountiful to the cause as to give in this golden-leaden-legend Another sorry tale and strange story you tell is not of me but of one of my side as you are pleased to speak and this me thinks if I be not mistaken with a kind of Emphasis of the Featlean strain as if it were some presumption for a Russet Rabby or secular Artizan to climb so high and flutter and sile so neer the pulpits and pompous Belconies of the Priests and as if he were a man Sacerdotalis ambitionis loving the uppermost Room and chief place in the Synagogue more to be taken notice of himself then that the truth should be taken notice of by the people in which things if you muse as you use yet know Sirs that we have no such custome nor the Churches of God of whom you say thus Report That having plac'd himself on the highest of the pulpit stairs to be seen of all and craved the liberty granted by the propositions to ask questions and receive satisfaction he profest himself a stranger and to come thither by accident though both afterwards appeared contrary Reply Though both will yet appear to be contrary to what you would have them appear to be if you could tell how viz. a couple of untruths for verily he was a stranger and so I then told Mr. Prigg who askt me of him that had not been long in the Countrey and was unknown both by face and name not to my self and some others yet however to most of that Auditory in which I believe not one of many could say who or whence he
because they have need of his protection and all the help they then have comes from him also though in infancy they knew it not nor him so as actually to hope and trust in him for it or properly to believe in his name even more then inanimate creatures in the other case this is the first way whereby you profess to prove infants of believing parent onely if you speak to your proposed purpose to have faith which how weak it is the weakest eye may discern it that is not disposed to be blind and the second is like unto it which is as followeth by two arguments of inconsequence Disputation Children of the Iews had faith Ergo children of believing parents now The Antecedent is proved thus viz. God himself did witness that the children of the Jews had faith by setting to his seal which was circumcision called by the Apostle the seal of righteousness of faith Disproof There 's but two things to be own'd or disow'd at all in this piece of proof as also in the former viz. the Argument and the Antecedent and I 'le deny him to be a Seer that sees not good ground whereon to deny them both O fine O fine O fy these you call your Arguments of Consequence but saying that you say so I am verily perswaded the verieft implicit Simpleton that ever saluted the University or sware Allegeance to your Crown and dignity or was ever implicitly canonized into the obedience of your faith will never see them so to be when ceasing to see through your eyes he shall come once to behold things with his own for really they are the most false absurd and inconsequent that ever I saw with mine Sirs give me leave to make an answer by these ensuing Interrogatories and I 'le expect your Answer to them again had the children of the Iews faith and did God himself witness that they had it by setting Circumcision to them as his seal of it i. e. for that 's the sense in which you take the word seal to assure men that they had it and is it the consequent that the children of believing parents have it now let me then ask you First do you conclude that all the children of believing parents have it now that I think for shame you will not say sith every experience witnesses the contrary or that some believers children have it now therefore all believers children are to be baptized and if so that is as silly an inference as if you had argued thus viz. some people believe therefore all must be baptized Secondly had the Jews children faith first I wonder how they came by it sith the word saies faith comes by hearing and how can there be believing on him of whom they have not heard and how can they hear without a preacher and how can they preach except they be sent and how can they be sent to preach to infants that understand not what is said except you say as you are fain to do not for want of blindness p. 18. that infants have an hearing and the spirit works upon them miraculously and yet not extraordinarily neither but in that ordinary way as he doth on men in the conversion of whom you say the spirits working is but ordinary and yet miraculous too which Popish Bull deserves well to be baited but I le fotbear to fall upon it till I meet it in its proper place in the Review Secondly when had they it begotten in them in the womb or if after birth on what day on the 1st 2d 3d 4th 5th 6th 7th or 8th for on some of these they received it if on the 8th day they were as you say they were circumcised in token that they had it but I muse and am yet to learn on which and so are your selves too I believe for all your confidence in asserting it Thirdly was Circumcision Gods witness yea Gods seal to assure men of thus much that those children to whom it was set had faith First Risum teneatis amici did you ever read or hear that circumcision was set to infants to this end viz. to testifie to the world that they had faith was it set to Ishmael as Gods witness that Ishmael had faith was it set to Esau as Gods witness that Esau had faith when God who would not witness a ly knew that neither the one of these had it nor yet the other unless they lost it again which sure you will not say for shame leave such sorry Shuffles are your Masters in Israel and know not this that Circumcision was set to the Iews children not to shew others that they did believe but as a permanent sign thereof to shew them when they should be at years to take notice of it by sight as of that transient unseen sign of sprinkling in infancy they cannot do what things they then should believe viz. Christ to come of Abraham after the flesh and circumcision of their hearts by him c. was it ever set under this notion as a seal of faith to any person in the world save to Abrahams proper person only to whom too t was a seal not so much to witness or assure men that he had faith as to honor that faith that more evidently and eminently then ordinary he had before with that famous title i. e. the Father of the faithful therefore circumcision as given to Abraham in Rom. 4.11 is not said to be the seal of the righteousness of faith as you corruptly rehearse the words leaving out the residue of the verse which makes them relate to Abraham only as if it had stood as a seal in such a sense to all Abrahams posterity but a seal of the righteousness of the faith i. e. that famous faith which he himself had and to this end that he might be as none of his meer fleshly seed ever were the Father of all them that believe Secondly if circumcision were Gods witness that these infants to whom it was dispensed had faith then certainly baptism which with you at least is of such Analogy and Identity with Circumcision that it hath the same subjects and significations must also with you be Gods witness to others that those infants to whom it is dispensed have faith also and if so then I must make bold to ask you two things First Is not this round about our coal fire to prove two things no otherwise then one by another for when you prove that children are to be circumcised or baptized which with you is all one who falsly call baptism as Paul doth not in Col. 2.12 for he means another thing by that phrase viz. that of the heart the circumcision without hands I say when you prove that children are to be circumcised either one way or other in answer to our why you say because they have faith and thereby right to the Covenant and the seals of it but when you come to prove that children have faith which we deny you say
of lessening the grace of God under the Gospel in comparison of what it was under the law because we deny the ordinances thereof to infants to whom the ordinances of the law were dispensed then you that judge us condemn your selves also as being in the same kind guilty of the same to this purpose le ts see what you bring in proof of your Minor in the last Syllogism and how punctually it concludes to your present purpose thus you argue Disputation Vnder the Law the seal of the Gospel Covenant was by Gods appointment set to little infants viz. circumcision which was the seal of the righteousnesse of faith which is the Gospell covenant and therefore is called by God an everlasting covenant and that I my self confesse it to be the seal of the Gospell Covenant and that even Ishmael onely because born in Abrahams house had right to it and received it Ergo this opinion denying the seal of the Gospell Covenant which the defenders acknowledge baptism to be to little infants makes the covenant of the Gospel worser to the spiritual seed of Abraham then it was to the carnall seed under the Law Disproof How often shall I adjure you the next time you write to write no more then truth at least in matter of fact if you will needs utter falsehood in matter of Doctrine do not your selves bear me witness before all the world not above two pages behind that I denyed circumcision to be a seal of the righteousness of faith to any but Abrahams person only and avouched it to be no such thing to his posterity and yet how quickly have you forgotten your selves so far as to the contradicting of your selves as well as the truth to represent it here as if I had confessed it and having began to faulter and falsifie things for your own ends how easily do you multiply misreport and run from ore shooes as the Proverb is to ore boots too for no less than a pair of pretty ones are here recorded for how be it my declared judgement then was now is and I believe ever will be for ought you can say to clear the contrary that circumcision though a seal to Abraham to honor the greatness of that faith he had and to notify him to be the father of the faithful as it is plainly exprest Rom. 4.11 was not set as a seal in any sense at all to any other but as a bare sign and token in their flesh to mind them upon sight thereof immediately of the Covenant that then was remotely as a type as every other thing under the law did of something in the Gospel Covenant viz. circumcision of the heart and that baptism it self is no seal at all but a bare sign of the Gospel Covenant and is not so much as a sign or any thing else but a meer nullity to little infants yet the world is here belied into the belief of it that I confesse both that circumcision was a seal of the Gospel Covenant and that under such a notion as a seal of that Covenant Ishmael himself had right to it and received it for so you expresse it p. 7. and that baptism is the seal of the Gospel Covenant even to little infants themselves as well as others I do therefore in answer to this last piece of yours and in order to your better understanding of me for the future and of the truth too as it is in Jesus at present professe against two things herein First your forgeries and misrepresentations of my opinion to the world which was not so darkly declared at that time as that you must needs mistake it Secondly against the falsities and mistakes that are in your own opinion in this point viz. in stiling both circumcision as dispensd to Abrahams fleshly posterity and baptism also as dispensed not to others onely but even to infants by the name of seals of the Covenant of grace As for circumcision that it was not so though I might adde much more to what hath been before spoken in proof hereof in my animadversion of your account yet I le save my self that labor and refer you for fuller understanding what circumcision was and was not to a certain book that is extant of one Mr. Iackson once of Bidenden in Kent stiled 19. Arguments proving circumcision to be no seal of the Covenant of grace whereunto is annexed the unlawfulnesse of Infant baptism upon that ground of which book I must needs give testimony thus far to the world that it being brought to me whilst it was but a manuscript and my self a Presbyter of your high places in some confidence that I could answer it how easily I might have shufled it off had I set my self so to do I will not say but I could not answer it solidly nor salva consciencia and therefore I let it alone for a time till considering further of it and of other things I was stirrd up to the study of by it I was at last converted to the truth whereupon as the best answer I was capable to give I signed it in such wise as I find Luther once signed another book in the like case viz. memorandum that taking this book in hand at first to confute it I was at last convinced by it Which 19. proofs of circumcision to be no seal of the Covenant of Grace if they be weak and invalid such a multitude as you are have time enough among you to disprove them but if you yield to them be silent and say nothing As for baptism I confesse it to be truly and properly a sign and that of the Covenant of Grace remission of sins by Christ his death and resurrection which are both not onely signified but also lively represented and resembled in the true dispensation of it to believers yet that it is so much as a sign at all to infants in infancy or when grown to years either if dispensed in infancy I absolutely deny and affirm that the very nature use and office of it as a sign to its subject is totally destroyed by such immature administration for a sign specially proprie dictum that is properly and not improperly so called in reference to that person whose sign it is is some outward thing appearing to the senses through which some other thing some inward thing is at the same time apprehended by the understanding This is the most true and proper difinition that your Divines give of a sign in general but in special of these signes viz. baptism and the supper so Pareus and Kekermaen both do define a sign out of Austin and so do you all define these signs viz. in oculis incurrentia signa but such a thing baptism cannot be to infants in their infancy nor after their infancy neither if dispensed while they are infants the sign and thing signified being not possible in that way to be ever apprehended both together as they must be viz. the sign by the senses
things let that or any judicious Gentleman spel and put together and see if it be not tantamount to such a testimony as this viz that those that believe and aâ—e not baptized shall be damned for to be damned and not saved are all one and as for children of Tuâ—ks and Pagans dying in infancy you record it it as a monstrous thing that I should say that for ought I knew they might be saved yea by the reply that was made to that speech of mine by one who said perhaps I thought the devills might be saved it appears that your party thinks it as possible that the devils may be saved as soon as the dying infants of Turks and Pagans and yet of the children of believing parents who in your opinion do also believe themselves you say the opinion of the Anabaptists which denyeth baptism to little children puts the parents out of hopes of their salvation und makes them to be in no better condition then Turks and Pagans yea you say believing parents may say of their children that dy without baptism what hopes of our child who is in no better condition then the children of infidels and really they say true if the state of infidels dying infants be so damnable as you saie it is is it you or we Sirs whose doctrine damnes believers if they be not baptized I le conclude this matter with you much what in your own words and form of speech Christ shuts out only unbelievers from heaven whosoever believeth not shall and be damned this doctrine of yours that little infants are believers and yet out of all hopes of being saved if not baptized shuts out believers if they be not baptized i e. if they be not rantiz'd for that is the best baptism you use and by consequence if your doctrine which you delivered in this Account as judicious Gentlemen that read it will affirm be true that even believers not baptized shall be damned you had need baptize your believing infants indeed i. e. to do more then cris crosse two or three drops of water on their faces or else for all your plea for their baptizing on pain of their damnation they l be damnâ—d if they be no more then sprinkled for want of true baptism when all is done for that is not so much as the Ceremony it self in truth which you are so hot for without the substance yet would I not have you be an abhorring for all this but pittyed and prayed for rather that you may in time for this and all other your follies and false accusations of others of things whereof you are more guilty your selves abhor your selves in dust and ashes that you may not be an abhorring as he is more then half blind that doth not see who will be once amongst both God and men Rev. 17.16 Rev. 19.2 And thus I have done with your first Argument Review The second is this little Children under the law received the Seal of the Gospel covenant for circumcision was the seal of the righteousness of faith which is the gospel-Gospel-Covenant The Law saith Do this and live the Gospel only believe in the Lord Iesus Christ and therefore God calls it an everlasting covenant and the Apostle saith the Law that came 430 years could not disannull it Gal. 3.17 and he saith expresly the Gospel was preached to Abraham ibid. ver 8. nay more the carnall seed of Abraham Ishmael and Esau men branded for Reprobates in Scripture yet because they were born in Abrahams house received that seal by Gods appointment Why then should not children under the Gospel receive baptism which the Adversaries confess to be the Seal of the Gospel-Covenant Re-Review This poor forlorn wretched Argument hath been handled and laid sprawling once or twice before where both its consequence is denyed and good reason gien of the senselessness of such syllogizing as is here from the Law to the Gospel therefore it is but needless to defend our selves any further against it it being a demi-dead man that is disabled from being dreadful to us already nevertheless sith he hath strengthens himself again what he can and comes up recruâ—ed and attended with a company of scambling and for the most part very unsound sentences at his heels t wil not be amisse to enter the lists a little with him and these his Auxiliaries First then Sirs whereas you come in again with that crooked consequence viz. infâ—nts must be baptized under the Gospel because circumcisied under the law we might more pertinently let up a shout at your shameful folly in this particular then set upon the shewing of it any more it is so palpable for verily as is proved sufficiently above these two viz. the Covenant of the law and the Gospel from the Identity of which you infer an Identity in the subject of the ordinances and administrations of both and by way of analogy would evince them both to belong to the same persons I must tell you these are two Testaments or wills of God concerning men in those two different times viz. before Christ and since and these two so specifically distinct that they not onely run upon different strains and require different terms as your selves here confesse the law saying do this and live the Gospell onely believe but also stand upon different promises whereof the Gospels being of the heavenly Canaan are better then the laws which were but of an earthly one and these also pertaining to two different seeds viz. the legal to the natural children of Abraham i. e. Isaac and his posterity by generation the Evangelical to the spiritual seed of Abraham i. e. such as are of Christ by faith and regeneration and they had also different dispensations the one circumcision the other another thing viz. dipping a thing no way like it and different subjects also for those different dispensations so that if men and their ministers were not all turned Momes they could not but must manifestly perceive it the old Testament admitting to circumcision onely males and these onely on the eighth day in case they were in the house so young and all the males in the house whether sons or servants whether born in the house or bought with money of any stranger and all this without respect to either faith or repentance in the persons to whom dispenst or any prae-preaching to them by the person dispensing the new Testament taking in to baptism as no servants upon the masters faith so all persons in the world both males and females upon their own and that upon any day and not the eighth onely wherein after they have been preacht to they professe to repent and believe Mat. 3. Act 2. Act. 8. Act. 18. The proof of which real specifical diversity of these two Covenant◠〈◊〉 yet farre more evident First because the spirit denominates them so to be in Scripture calling them expressely the two Covenants Gal. 4.24 and also very often in plurali the Covenants the covenants
that sense as the Gentiles were of old in reference to the Jewes either common or unclean and if no man can be called by birth common or unclean in reference to other then none may be called by birth holy in reference to other for this birth holinesse and uncleannesse are such Correlatives that the one cannot be supposed to be in the world without the other albeit I say no infants have now such standings in such external happines and salvation yet they are in no les capacity to be saved then the Jews children of old so neither their parents whoever they be in any worse condition in regard of their comforts in their children whether they dy infants or live to years then the godliest Jewes were in regard of theirs for either infants dy in infancy or else do not if any mans infants dy in such nonage as in which they never committed actual transgression our Ashford Pamphlet tells us they have not deserved to be exempted from the generall state of little infants declared in Scripture viz. that of such is the Kingdome of heaven yea I wonder what should damn such dying infants as never had iniquity of their own sith God himself assures us that the son shall not dy i. e. eternally for the iniquity of his father but every soul that dyes shall dy onely for his own iniquity Ezekiel 18. and no better hopes could be harboured of the Godliest Jewes infants then this that dying infants they were not damned But if any mans children even his that is ungodly and prophane do live to years then if they believe and obey the Gospel the tender of which is to every creature they may be saved though their parents be wicked when Iewes children not doing so shall be damned for all their father Abrahams faith and their own Church-membership for a time and that with so much the greater condemnation whereas theâ—efore Mr. Ba. tells us such a story of a meliority of being in the visible Church rather then out I tell him it is not universally true but as it may happen for besides that children may aswell be prayed for and instructed by their godly parents remaining unbaptized and non-members in their nonage as if in infancy they be admitted to both it may so fall out and mostly it did among the Iewes that a lifting up to heaven in respect of participation of outward priviledges and ordinances may prove an occasion unhappily through their abuse of it of their sinking deeper into hell His next Argument is drawn from Deut. 29 10.11.12 a place that doth as well prove that all the wives and the servants and the slaves even all the hewers of wood and drawers of water are to be taken into Covenant with God as his and admitted into Church-membership upon the Membership of Masters and Husbands as little ones upon the membership of the Fathers and so indeed it was in those daies wherein the whole body of the Nation was inchurched together though not so now therefore though I might easily discover that yea he is blind that sees it not in the same chapter notwithstanding it is alledged in that allusion of Paul in the tenth chapter of the Romans to that place to be no other then that covenant which was made with the nation in particular which God brought out of Aegypt yet I shall trouble my self to say no more to it then so His 13 Argument is from Rom. 4.11 where circumcision is said to be a seal of the righteousnesse of the faith which Abraham had is answer'd above where I have given out the genuine sense of that place and disproved that crooked construction which is by others aswell as him commonly made of it therefore I le say no more to it here His 14 Argument is also answered but a little above where I have shew'd the inchurching of that fleshly seed to be ceremonial and also what it typed out therfore no more of that also in this place His 15. plain Scripture-lesse proof for infants present churchmembership and baptism is this viz. If all infants who were members of any particular Church were also Members of the Vniversall Visible Church then certainly the Membership of infants he means by vertue of the membership of their parents is not repealed But all infants who were c. Ergo. The consequence saith he is beyond dispute because the universal Church never ceaseth here yea the whole Argument so clear that were there no more it is sufficient To which as unanswerable as he judges it I answer first by denying the consequence of his Major as most flatly false and inconsequent Secondly by saying as Mr. T. did whose answer is both solid and sufficient viz. that infants membership in the universal visible church was only by reason of their then membership in that particular national church neither can Mr. Ba. while he breathes prove them to have bin members of that universal visible as he calls it but as they were members of that and therefore when that particular nationall church of the Jewes ceased the standing of infants as members upon the meer account of their parents membership ceased also therewith as one of the things that were not essentiall to a church but circumstantial onely to that church as one of the particular accidental ceremonies pertaining onely to that individual nationall church for accidental ceremonies Mr. Ba. himself confesses and must confesse did cease still with that particular church to which particularly they related otherwise he will be paid home with his own weapon and in his own coin yea if Mr. Baxters consequence be true and if it be not so as we say that accidentall ceremonies and so this accidental ceremony and circumstance of infants being members upon the membership of their parents did cease with that particular church of the Iews t will passe all the braines Mr. Ba. hath in his head to answer his own argument if we retort it on him in proof of that which he denies as much as we do the inchurching of infants upon the fathers membership viz. the inchurching of wives and servants to this day upon the membership of their husbands and masters for whereas he argues thus viz. if all infants who were members of any particular church were also members of the universal visible church then certainly the membership of infants by vertue of their parents membership is not repealed but all c. Ergo What answer will he make if we answer him by arguing back upon him thus viz. if all wives and servants who were members by vertue of their husbands and masters membership of any particular visible church were also members of the universall visible church then certainly the membership of wives and servants hewers of wood and drawers of water by vertue of their husbands and masters membership is not repealed but all c. Ergo. I leave it to wise men to consider and examine whether Mr. Bs. argument doth not as
righteousness as well as of that eminent prerogative the Fatherhood of the faithful which God gave him upon that great faith Circumcision was given him as a seal in such a sence as t was never given to his seed a Seal I said for it was a sign only but no seal to his posteritie to honor the greatness not to strengthen the weakness of his faith i. e. to confirm him that was so great a believer even beyond hope n that honorable title which God put upon him therfore I told you it runs thus viz. he received the sign circumcision i. e. circumcision which in its ordinary use was a sign a seal to him in this special sense i. e. as a seal of the righteousness of that eminent faith which he had that he might be i. e. to that very end and purpose as to ratifie him in that royal title The father of all that believe to this purpose I then spake shewing withall that in the same sense in which the father is said to seal the sonne Iohn 6.27 to be the giver of that meat that endures to eternall life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 him hath the father sealed i. e. authorized to that business honoured with that office and as Pharoah honoured Ioseph with the sole Dispensation of all the Corn and Government of his Kingdome and as Kings under the Broad seal do seal men to i. e. honour them with and settle them in great Places Trusts and Titles c. in such a sense is God in that place said to give Circumcision to Abraham whereby to seal him up and settle him for ever in that glorious title viz. the father of all that believe in which sense Circumcision though a sign of some things in common to him with his posterity was never given to any one of Abrahams posterity at all this as it is clearly held forth in that place so was so clearly held forth to you from that place of your own naming at that very time that as I wondered you could be ignorant of it then so I much more admire that you are not ashamed to bewray such dissembling in the recording of it as you do and such wretched ignorance of it still besides I know not whether I instanc'd then in any other but I am sure as shy as you seem to be of it there were divers more promises made and priviledges made over to Abraham under the great Seal Circumcision which were neither made nor given much less confirmed by Circumcision as a seal thereof to all his posterity viz. that his seed should inherit Canaan this though it was made and made good to Abraham and that seed of his to whom it was promised yet not to the seed of all his seed for many of his posterity as Ishmael who was circumcised and his children by Keturah also and their whole race had none of all this seal'd to them by Circumcision Again that Christ should come out of his loyns that in his seed all Nations should be blessed these were made to Abraham and were as the rest also great Priviledges to the honour of which he was sealed yet though 't was signified to all his seed by Circumcision that Christ should come of him after the flesh all of them had not that previledge by promise that Christ should come of them after the flesh by all which it undeniably appears that the same Covenant of Circumcision in every of those respects in which Circumcision was given him as a seal of it was not given to all the Iews and their children and that fore-named place speaks of Circumcision onely in reference to Abrahams person and in that sense and respect in which it was given to him only as a Seal of his faith i. e. that strong faith he acted and gave glory to God by Rom. 4.20 for which God also gave that great glory and dignity to him viz. the father-hood of the faithfull All which notwithstanding and much to the same effect that was uttered then to shew that Circumcision had more ends and relations to Abrahams Person then to the Persons of his seed yea and though your own paper which lastly I appeal to doth testifie that I I multiplied words that is to say spake much about other ends of Circumcision to Abraham then to his seed yet you both be-lie me and give the lie to your selves so far as to say I was extreamly foundered which to say and yet to say in the very same line that I multiplied words about other ends of Circumcision the very point your selves had urg'd me to speak to if it be not at once to say and unsay then verily I know not what is for these two are contradictory to each other but perhaps you think to salve all with this that being call'd to speak punctually to that end viz. whether Circumcision were a seal of the righteousness of faith to Abrahams posterity at all or not or if not to shew it I answered nothing to that particular that carried any sense or reason in it but really Sirs I said no less to that very end but rather much more then I have said a little above which whether it have any sense or reason in 't or no yet was it both sensless and reasonless in you however to leave it wholly out and you had dealt far more ingenuously and judiciously in your own Account and in every rationall mans also had you set down what I answered and so put your Reader into a capacity of discerning whether it were to the purpose yea or no but that its like you were very loath to do least as nothing as it was to your purpose it should have been more serviceable then you desire it to be to ours As for that ingagement whereby how wisely a fool may see you bound your selves to become Anabaptists in case I made discovery of what I did abundantly discover I freely dis-engage you from that double performance and shall accept much more of your single submission to that ordinance it being no matter of rejoicing to to me to see any man translated from A-no-baptist to be an Anabaptist for that is from one extream to another Report Next you relate p. 5. that I said I did not deny but that little children might have the holy Ghost and these texts of Scripture viz. Mar. 10.14 Mat. 19.14 Luke 18.16 2. Cor. 13.5 did seem to intimate as much but that it could not be made appear that they had it to the making of them subjects of baptism Reply To this which is another flat falsity and counterfeit resemblrnce I reply thus first that little children might have the holy spirit if God please extraordinarily to infuse it I might then possibly not deny nor dare I yet deny but that possibly they may but it 's more then God hath manifested if they have to either us or you nor will this grant either prove the propriety of your Position who down-rightly
and supposing still that you speak of the right subject viz. infants of believing parents we will cast this your Enthusiasm into this Enthememe Disputation Little children of believing parents have faith Ergo little children of believing parents have the holy spirit Disproof First I deny your Consequence secondly your Antecedent as both stark false and that is as much as can well be false in an Enthememe First I shall be bold to tell you Sirs that your Argumentation from present faith to a present having the holy Spirit is most invalid and unconsonant to the Scripture for if by the holy Spirit you mean as you must else it serves not your turn at all to the proof of baptism the spirit in that special sense viz. the holy spirit of promise the consequenâ—e from faith to the having of it will not universally hold true for as much as faith not only must be in time before it unless God be better than his word and that he may be when he pleases and so he was Act. 10 44. where the spirit by Anticipation was given out before obedience at least in baptism which yet by promise cannot be expected till after it Ast. 2. 38. I say not only must be before it but also may be a pretty while without it this will be counted the mad mans mad Divinity with you I doubt not but I le clear it to the Dimmest Divine of you all yea see if the whole body of the Testament of Christ doth not tell you plainly that as faith must be before it in an ordinary way before we have warrant to expect it so it may for some while be without it and therefore cannot prove the holy spirit to be alwaies where it is for the spirit of promise is given after faith if given according to the promise and so long after it too now and then as is enough to make it undeniably appear that the having of faith is no proof of ones present having the holy spirit among sundry others let those Scriptures be seriously searcht into Ephes. 1.13 In whom after ye believed ye were sealed with the holy spirit of promise Act. 19.2 have ye received the holy spirit since ye believed they answered no also Act. 8.12 when they believed c. they were baptized c. but verse 16. the holy spirit was fallen upon none of them only they were baptized Act. 5.32 The holy spirit which God hath given to them that obey him yea the gift of the spirit though Gods ordinary way so limits not himself but that he may give it extraordinarily before Act. 10. yet is it neither promised nor as by promise to be expected but upon obedience in faith repentance turning to God baptism and prayer Pro. 1.23 Act. 2.38 Luke 11.15 Iohn 7.38.39 the places are so plain to the purpose that I 'le not disparage your judgement so much as like a fresh man to stand to frame formal Syllogisms to you out of them to conclude then as to your Consequence had you argued from the holy spirit in the special sence in which you take it to faith it might have past for me without correction but â—ith you began at the wrong end of your business I beseech you take it for a warning Sirs and begin again Secondly I deny your Antecedent which if your Consequence were never so true is most false for infants of believers have not faith if they have unbelievers infants for ought you make appear to the contrary have as much and so though that grieve and go against you and cannot be owned so kindly by you in opinion as it is in practise must de jure be baptized i. e. humano for Divino neither may as well as they but in truth as it will not appear by what you here bring to evince it by that faith is in either so I trust it will appear by what shall be said in disproof of your proofs that faith can possibly he in neither Disputation You prove infants of believing parents to have faith two waies as you say first by express texts of Scripture secondly Arguments of consequence Your express Scripture is Mat. 18.6 Whosoever shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the third verse say you they are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whence upon my confession and concession that in ver 2. and 4. is meant one in respect of age because it is said there he called to him a little child and who so humbleth himself as this little child you therfore argue that little ones in respect of age are meant in that 6 verse also Disproof Sirs let me ask you two questions first are you sure these are infants indeed Secondly are you sure they were infants of believers of whom Christ saies whoever offends one of these little ones that believe in me for my part if there were any probability that he spake of little ones literally taken at all as I know none there is yet I am sure there is none that they were the little ones of believers he then spake of in contradistinction to the infants of unbelievers for t is not specified either one way or other and is most probable that the child he occasionally called to him might be some unbelievers child or other the number of believers where e're he came being few and not comparable to them that believed not but what e're that child was yet this is much more then probable that by the term these litâ—le ones in v. 6. he means not infants but his Disciples whom having first perswaded them to become such as that little one or as little children in such things as are generally found in them viz. plainness of spirit humbleness innocency freedome from malice in which respects David saies Psal. 131.2 my soul is as a weaned child from that Analogy that was and ought to be between little ones and them he here bespeaks as it was very ordinary for him to do under the title of these little ones besides the plurall number he speaks in implies he spake of such of whom there was a plurallity then present for saith he these little ones pointing as it were to more then one but there was but one little one then in the midst of them of whom when Christ speaks he speaks in the singular saying this little child as to the term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is used in the third verse whence you argue that they were children in age spoken of by our Savior by which you seem much to strenghthen your selves in your Dabling of Infants foreheads I must tell you that of the two you more marre than make your matter by so much as mentioning of it in this case for first 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though by some philosophicall or poeticall license it may possibly be used to signify Infantem some youngling of three or four years old as though beginning to prattle can scarcely
not this absurdity ensue which I dare say you will evade if you can if the holiness be such as you say viz. that the unbelieving husbands and wives must be baptized and inchurched also upon their yoke-fellowes faith being sanctified thereby as well as the Inâ—ants therefore is it not rather think you a Civil and Matrimonial then an Ecclesiastical faederall sanctity Your usual evasion is this Babist The Parents are sanctified by the faith one of the other not so as to be in covenant themselves by their sanctification nor yet so as to be baptized thereupon but they are sanctified as a holy root so as to bring forth a holy issue that hath by vertue of its holiness a right to the Church Covenant and Baptism Baptist. Then it seems the unbeliever is with you a holy root as well as the other and gives holiness to the child and makes it holy as well as the other parent yea so holy that by that concurrence the child is in covenant and to be baptized First do you not say somtimes that the child hath its holiness from the believing party onely as if there were no influence passing from the unbeliever towards its holiness why then do you say sometimes again that from a holiness which is in both they are co-contributers of holiness to the Infant which of the two is most undoubtedly true for the holiness what ever t is is such and such it could not be if it were any but Matrimonial as is in and equally flowes from the unbelieving parent as much as the believing to the infant Secondly if the Root be holy are not the branches so and if the branches be holy is not the root at least as if not more so in the same sence with the holiness of the same kind which it conveyeth to the branches and if so then must not this unbelieving parent being a Root have the same kind of holiness the child hath is he not as holy as the child is and so as capable of being baptized and in covenant thereby sith you all agree that Nil dat quod in se non haâ—â—â— and Quodcunque efficit tale id est propriè est magis tale whatever is a proper efficient to make another so or so must be more so it self so that if the unbelivnig parent be as holy with your very covenant holiness it self as his child must he not as well by vertue thereof be admitted to the same priviledges having though no more faith then his child yet somewhat else viz. That holiness that with you intitles to baptism yea it is more eminently in him than the other either therefore deny those old received Axiomes and that I think you need not do for they are truths or else deny that which is so commonly asserted by you viz. that the unbelieving parents are sanctified so as to be holy Roots to their children by the faith of their believing yoke-fellows as well as the believing yoke-fellows are by their own and this you will be very loath to do for you will hardly coin such a handsome shift as that is in hast again if you let it go or else deny that the unbelieving husband and wife is sanctified or holy at all but that you cannot do for the text saith they are hallowed as well and in the same sense as their children and believing companions are in being married to them what sense soever that is or else grant us they are holy with the holiness we stand for as that onely which is meant in this place viz. Legitimacy freedome from the least tincture of uncleanness and baseness in their cohabitations generations and issue and this I believe you must do when all is done but then you lose such a supporter of your practise that let go one more viz. Act. 2.38.39 which must be handled also hereafter and Iachin and Boaz the two prime pillars that stand by the entry into your Temple i. e. Infants sprinkling which is your entring ordinance will be removed a matter of no small tendency to its ruin or else le ts see in you rejoinder for I put these things upon you by way of quaere expecting to see if by silence you give not the cause how well you will distinguish your selves out of the briars which your opinion upon the place brings you into and how well you will wind your selves out of those many absurdities which you are led aside into from the way of truth by the extravagancies and cunning concavities of your crooked logick lane Thirdly let it be considered that the holiness here predicated of the unbelieving parent and the children is not such as is the result of the faith and faederal holiness of the believing parent as is so frequently asserted among you but of the marriage Covenant which being holy by institution and honourable among all and undefiled gives the denomination of civil sanctity to the unbelieving couple and their seed as to a couple of believers and their seed as also the denomination of honourable in an unbelieving magistrate and master arises not from any praise worthy qualification in their persons much less in the persons of the Correllatives as you say the holinesse of the unbeliever doth from the faith of the believer but from Divine ordination which constitutes them as holy in their places this will be evident First if you consider the manner of speech here used by the Apostle who saies not the unbeliever is sanctified in the believing wife and believing husband but in the wife and in the husband i. e. in her being his wife and his being her husband and howbeit its true which is commonly return'd to this viz. that 't is the believing wife of the unbelieving husband and the believing husband of the unbelieving wife when the marriage is between believers and unbelievers yet the believing party is not here preferred before the unbelieving parent as to the conferring of this holinesse upon the issue but they are said to be both and that by your selves who confesse they jointly make one holy root equall in this influence and are sanctified not one by the faith of the other as you suppose the unbeliever to be by the faith of the believer but both by the ordinance of God viz. their marriage each of other so that they both alike do sanctifie the issue Secondly if you consider the true genuine proper direct tendency and weight of this Relative particle else which if you allow it a right reference relates not to the faith or believing of either but to their being true man and wife to the lawful wedlock of them both for that which is the ground of your error about this place is the forcing of this particle else the wrong way for Else i. e. say you if one of the parents be not a believer then the children are unclean wheras the sense of it runs thus vix else i. e. if you be not holy in your copulations
if you be not sanctified one in to and by the other as lawful man and wife by your union formerly contracted notwithstanding your now disunion in Religion then your children are unclean and this is truth for so the children are in this civil sense if begotten and born out of matrimony whether the parents be believers or no buâ— the other is not truth for whether both or but one or none of the parents believe the infants for that cause alone and without respect to matrimony are in no sense ere the more holy or unclean Thirdly and this will yet appear more plainly if you consider that faith alone in either one or both the parents begetting out of wedlock cannot sanctifie the seed so begotten with this civil holiness here meant no nor with that faederall holiness you plead for nor could it do so even then when that holinesse or birth priviledge you talk of was in force as now it is not viz. in the daies of the law for if two believers came together then out of marriage their seed were not onely base born and so unclean in this our sense but also to the tenth generation uncapable to be admitted into the congregation and so consequently unclean even in your own Deut. 32.2 whereupon how Pharez and Zarah were dealt with it matters not sith they were born before the law was given Ieptha was exempted from any inheritance with his brethren because he was the son of a strange woman Iudg. 11.2 and Davids unclean issue by Bathsheba that in the wisdome of God was taken away by death on the seventh day might not surely without breach of the law have been accounted holy and of the congregation if he had lived beyond the eighth whereupon your selves also are much fumbled about the holinesse of bastards and the baptism of base-begotten babies so that you scarcely know how to behave your selves about it though the parents sinning be believers at least en-churched in your Churches yea it s generally known saith Mr Cotton that our best Divines do not allow the baptism of bastards and though he is pleased to say they allow it not sine sponsoribus without Sureties yet I wonder sith Deut. 32.2 Gods denial of such of old is made the ground of their denial of such now to enter into the Congregation as unholy that our Divines dare take on them to admit cum sponsoribus and so to go besides their own Rule viz. the order of things under the law wherein God gave no such allowance but to let that tolleration pass which they take to themselves you may learn thus much of your selves if you will that though wedlock without faith make a holy seed in our sense yet faith without wedlock in the parents can make a holy seed neither in our sense nor in your own nor any at all for the infants of the married are holy but believers bastards are both civilly and federally unclean inso much that your selves see cause to refuse as federally holy the spurious seed euen of those whose lawfull issue you unlawfully sprinkle Fourthly if you more seriously consider that the holinesse in the Infant here must needs be the fruit and result of that and that must needs be the cause of the holiness here spoken of in the infant quo posito ponitur sanctitas sublato tollitur which being in the parents a holinesse must necessarily be thereupon which not being in the parents a holinesse cannot be in the seed for positâ causà ponitur effectus sublata tollitur abstract the cause and the effect cannot be suppose the cause and the effect cannot but be now that which if it be not in the parents the holiness is not but being in them the holinesse is consequently in the infants 't is not the faith but the conjugal or marriage Relation of the parents for as for the first of these viz. faith it may be in one yea in both of the parents and yet no federal holinesse at all be in the infants witness Ishmael the seed of Abraham the father of the faithful and his Sons by Keturah also born of him after Covenant made with him and his seed in Isaac and Iacob and yet neither of them in that Covenant witnesse the base born children of true believers among the Jews suppose David and Baâ—â—sheba which for all the parents faith could not by the law be admitted in thâ— Congregation nor have that birth-priviledge to be reputed holy which from the parents faith you universally intail to the infants moreover this birth-priviledge and Covenant-holiness by generation which did inright to Church ordinances which once was but now is a non-entity and out of date might be then when it was in being in children in whose parents faith was not found at all for most of the Iews were unbeiievers yet all their legitimate children were holy federally therefore faith in the parent cannot be the cause of such a thing yea if you will believe Mr Blake himself the strictest pleader for a birth-priviledge of federal holiness in Infants that ever I met with and that from this very place he condescends so far as to contribute one contradiction to himself toward the helping of the truth in this case viz. That faith in the parâ—nt is not the cause of this holinesse whilst making the holinesse in this text to be a birth priviledge or church-Church-Covenant holinesse and to be the fruit and result of the faith of the believing parents and consequently their faith to be the sole and proper cause of the same he confesses flatly elsewhere page 4. that a loose life in the parent and mis-belief which is as bad in some cases worse then unbelief for which is worse to believe false things or not to believe true yea Apostacy from the faith which all if they be not inconsistent with faith I know not what is do not divest nor debar the issue from having that holiness which himself saies is meant in this text Babist Perhaps he means not by faith strictly the parents true believing but in generall his being in the covenant and faederally holy himself and so a cause of this federal holiness in the issue Baptist. First Paul means true believing here in 1 Cor. 7.14 whether Mr Blake do or no. Secondly what will he get as to the point in hand by his Synonamizing faith and faederall holiness for still neither the one nor the other is made here the cause of the holiness of the seed for the holiness here spoken of may be where neither of them is and may not be in the seed even where they are both in the parent as for example in Ezras time Ezra 10 3. we find abundance of the Jews both Priests and people that were in the faith or at least in faederall holiness yet the children were put away as unholy as well faederally as otherwise because their marriage was unlawfull and that bed adulterous wherein they lay with strange
wives Ezra 10.3 and that both parents possibly may be faithful and faederally holy and yet their seed be in all senses utterly unclean is evident for the child of two believing Jews begotten besides the marriage bed was both a Bastard and also barr'd from the Congregation Deut. 32.2 again this faederal holiness as well as faith may be in neither parent and yet the issue not be unclean but holy still and so are all Matrimonially and civilly at least that among Pagans are the issue of the marriage bed and with the holiness of the Covenant of Grace too when they come to years and believe themselves as not a few children of unbelievers do and sometimes the seed of Turks and Tartars this therefore i. e. the faith or faederal sanctity of the one parent nor of both cannot be the cause of this sanctity is here denominated of the seed for holiness in the infants is not alwaies when this is and sometimes it is in the infant when this is not in the parent which being of each without other cannot be between a true cause and its effect but as for the second viz. the marriage sanctity in the parents it is that which being in the parents holiness is naturally and necessarily in the seed that is born of them whether they be both or either or either in faith or unbelief but being not in the parents there can be no holiness no birth holiness in their infants nor Matrimonial nor Congregationall neither therefore this is that which is the cause of the holiness of the issue in this Scripture the result of which and not of faith in the parents is this non-uncleanness in their posterity and so I have done with this kind of holiness and with this Scripture which speaks of this Matrimonial holiness and no other Thirdly Ceremonial holiness I call that same holiness which properly peculiarly and pro tempore only pertained to the whole nation and congregation of Israel denominating them all holy every one of them and distinguishing them from all other people and nations which during the time of the Iews pedagogy according to Gods own imposition were then accounted sinners common and unclean by a certain â—â—s-rationis an extrinsecall meerly notional and nominal rather then either real moral or substantiall sort of sin and uncleanness to which the others holiness was directly opposite and answerable The subjects of which Accountative holiness were not only the people of the Jews themselves which were a holy people Deut. 7. ver 8. Exod. 22.31 but also and more specially the Priests and more specially yet or in a higher degree but in the same kind of holiness for degrees do not vary nature the High Priests which were holiness to the Lord Exod. 39.30 also their parents which were not matrimonially only nor often morally yet to allow your own phrase here because they were outwardly in Covenant with God concerning outward promises and priviledges on performance of outward ordinances everâ— faederally a holy parentage a holy root Rom. 11. also their natural if withall matrimonial issue which were not at all in their infancy and but seldome when at years spiritually allwaies faederally holy branches a holy seed also their land of Canaan which was the holy Land their Metropolitan City Ierusalem which was the holy City their Temple which was a holy Temple the Utensills vessels vestments and other accomplishments which were all holy a holy Lavar a holy Altar a holy Ark holy Candlesticks holy Cherubims most holy place c. and in a manner all things belonging to the Law of Moses and that first Covenant made with Abraham and his fleshly seed whether hollowed or consecrated by God himself or dedicated to him by men at his appointment viz. the first born the first fruits tithes offerings sacrifices daies feasts which were al holy and had relation as shadowes and types for a while unto things Evangelically Spiritually and substantially holy that were to be there after yea with this same kind of holiness some meats were holy some flesh Hag. 2.12 13. was holy some birds and beasts were sanctified as holy and lawfull to be used and eaten when others were prohibited as prophane common and unclean not so much as to be touched without sin without contracting such an outward fleshly kind of guilt and impurity as made their souls in that ceremonial sense abominable yea with an uncleanness oppositely answerable to this carnall holiness those fleshly purities and purifyings that then were some actions as the touch of a dead body some issues of men and women some diseases as the Leprosie some bodily blemishes as crookedness dwarfishness blindness lameness yea the very easements and excrements that passed from them in the camp without covering did defile and render them sinners prophane unclean unholy and guilty before the Lord Levit. 5.2.3.5 11.43 to 46. also Chapters 14.15.22 also Levit 20.25.26 21.18 to the 24. Deut. 23.12.13.14 which defilements did then reach to pollute the flesh only which the bloud of Bulls and Goats that could not cleanse the conscience morally did sanctifie to the purifying of Hebr. chap. 9. ver 13. neither do these things defile any man now in any such sense at all This is the holiness which when you say infants of believers are holy I have ground to perswade my self you Ashford Disputants mean not but rather some inherent morall holiness when I consider how you talk of infused habits in the hearts of infants in your Disputation and Review and yet again I have ground to believe you mean this holiness which was in the Jewish infants and their implements if I may imagine your meaning by what is extant in the writings of your brethren upon the subject specially if I may measure your meaning by Mr Blakes in his Birth-priviledge or covenant-holiness of believers and their issue wherein he laies himself out at large and yet is too short when all is done in proving from the like under the law among the people of the Iews and their issue that even now in the times of the Gospel also a people that enjoy Gods ordinances convey to their issue a priviledge to be reputed by birth not unclean but holy persons and thereupon to be baptized the absurditie and inconsequence of which doctrine and so I hope to make it appear now I am upon it is little less then if he had argued thus as the Pope doth from that time to this viz. there was an Hierarchy or holy principallity among the Priests under the law therefore there must be such another under the Gospel and as then the high-Priests Aaron and his Sons who were holiness to the Lord wore holy garments in their ministration for glory and for beauty viz. Coats and robes embroydered with gold and blew and purple and scarlet and fine linnen and curious girdles of needle work nnd miters and holy Crowns upon the miters so his Holiness to the Lord the High-Priest of Christendome Appollyon
children but onely were pricked at the heart upon some measure of conviction that the person whom they had crucified was the Lord of life which thing the very Devils believe and tremble at for in order unto the begetting of that saving faith which yet they had not he spake these words of incouragement and exhortation to them and this to the contradiction of Mr. Vahan whod ag'd in an Argument by the head and shoulders from this place at the Ashford disputation was ingenuously acknowledged by Mr. Prig. Nor Secondly doth Peter make the promise any otherwise to them and their children then he doth to all others in the world i. e. on condition of their comming in at Gods call tis saies he to you and to your children and to them that are far off i. e. all manner of persons even so many in all nations and generations as the Lord our God shall call i. e. as are prevailed with to come when God calls them which to be the sense of this place is further illustrated by that pararel place of Paul Heb. 9.15 where he saies thus viz. they that are called received the promise of eternall inheritance Nor Thirdly when the parents did believe and were baptized were any of their infants baptized with them as they must have been had that promise been to their infants as well as to themselves on that single account of being their seed for recording how many were baptized at that time he concludes them under such a term as excludes the infants from that daies work while he saies thus as many meaning no more then those for else he deceives us utterly in his Relation as gladly received the word this infants could not do were then baptized which number as they are recorded to be about 3000 might in likelihood have amounted to three times 3000 if all the infants of all those had been dipped also Fourthly nor were there any more inchurched that day among the rest but such as gladly receiving the word were then and thereupon baptized for of these onely it is said and not of infants they continued together in the Apostles doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and prayers but all their infants must have bin inchurched also as well as they if equally with their parents and by vertue of the same promise the right of Church-membership had belonged to them Besides Fiftly It crosseth the current of all other Scripture to put such male-construction upon this for that the promise of old I mean the old promise of the Law which was of the earthly Canaan and but a type of this did appertain unto a fleshly holy seed I grant but that the new covenant or Gospel promise is made to any mans fleshly seed as such so that thereupon we may baptize them in token of it before they are called to profess faith in Christ is a thing which I confess I found in the common high way when I look'd not after it but since I searched narrowly for it I could never see it Sure I am the Scripture holds forth no other seed of Abraham himself to be heirs with him of the heavenly Canaan but his spiritual sead i. e. believers that do his works nor doth it own any but these to the right of membership and fellowship in his family i. e. the now visible Church for the visible Church is Abrahams family in all ages as well under the Gospel as under the Law Abrahams house i. e. the visible church as t is under the Gospel is much altered from that it was under the law yea so differently is it constituted and totally translated from its Mosaical form that it is even turned up side down and in a manner nothing remains the same it then was as the covenant is not the same with that of that of the law so neither is any thing else that appertains to it but every thing at it were divers from the other and no way answerable save as the Antitype is answerable to the Type for neither is there the the same Mediator nor the same Priest-hood nor the same Law for the Priesthood being changed there must of necessity be also a change of the Law Heb. 7.12 That being the Law of a Carnal Commandment only in the observation of which perfection was not to the conscience for it sanctified only to purifying of the flesh i. e. from those outward fleshly not morall uncleannesses and therefore with the ordinances thereof called carnall Heb. 9.9 this the power of an endless life i. e. available not to that temporal typical cleansing purifying and pardon only for the procuring of a Temporal life or well being in Canaan but to the obtaining of an eternal life by procuring remission of moral pollution Heb. 9.13 24. nor is there now the same Lawgiver under God that then was that being Moses the Servant who yet was faithful to him that appointed him in all his house the fleshly Israel for a Testimony of those things which were to be spoken after this Christ the son who was worthy of more glory than Moses and is now over his own house whose house we are that believe to the end Heb. 3.2.3.5.6 Nor yet the same Promises that being of of an earthly this of an heavenly inheritance nor yet the same holy Nation holy people holy seed to which the promises are made that being the typical promised seed Isaac and his posterity this the true promised seed i. e. Christ and his seed i. e. all the Saints that are born of God by faith in him Gal. 3.16 to Abraham and his seed were the promises made he saith not unto Seeds as of many but as of one and unto thy seed which is Christ nor the same ordinances and administrations signing the inheritance those being circumcision the Passeover these baptism in water and the Supper nor lastly the same subjects for those ordinances those being by nature Iewes or at least by profession and their Male seed only as to the one Male and Female as to the other and that whether believing yea or no these nor Iewes nor Gentiles by nature only but all persons whether Iews or Gentiles Males or Females yet only as believing for verily so far are the natural posterity of believing Gentiles as such and as yet not professing to believe themselves from being heirs apparent with Abraham of Gospel promises and priviledges and from title to the Gospel ordinances that sign them and from being holy ones by birth as the Iew once was and as Mr. Blake contends for it that these are and from the repute of Abrahams seed in the sense of the Gospel that even Abrahams own natural seed as such only are not at all his seed in this sence at this day nor at all holy with that kind of birth holiness they once had for that is ended and abolished in Christ crucified nor entailed as heirs of that Canaan without faith and repentance in their own
not by being the fleshly posterity of a believer though it should be of believing Abraham himself for even his own fleshly were not his spiritual seed but onely as they believed with him but by bringing forth fruits of repentance doing his works treading in the steps of his faith you belike have found more wayes to the wood then one whereof when ones failes you in the fight you commonly take your flight by the other and with you there 's two wayes whereby persons nay which is a greater mystery whereby the same persons even believers infants in their very infancy may and do become Abrahams spiritual sons and heirs viz. first by their own walking in the steps of Abrahams faith i. e. believing themselves which though it be the true way of becoming Abrahams spirituall seed yet infants are not capable to walk in it Secondly by being the natural progeny of believing parents which though infants are capable of it yet is none of the way whereby to be canonized according to the sense of Scripture the Spirituall seed of Abraham But it seems the terms upon which persons become heirs with Abraham of Gospel-promises and stand in true title to Gospel-ordinances are not uniform but multiform in your imagination for those on which persons in the capacity of parents are priviledged with the title of Abrahams spiritual seed and title to Gospel-ordinances and enjoyments are their own believings not anothers but those on which others i. e. all that are in the capacity of children to those parents are thus highly priviledged are the believing of their parents whether they have any faith of their own yea or no and yet some count that the childs own faith which the parent professes for him But Genus et pro avos et quae non fecimus ipsi vix ea nostra voco Sirs what pretty intricate blind bo-beep Divinity is this of yours do the same priviledges and promises belong to the believing parents and their children and yet though exhibited to them both alike in one and the self same phrase and form of speech for saith Peter the promise is to you and your children and to them that are farre off yea even as many meaning of you and your children and of them that are far off as the Lord shall call do they belong upon such various and different grounds viz. to the parents upon their own faith to the children upon the parents faith my father then it seems what ere his fathers were must prove his pedegree from Abraham by his doing as Abraham did or else he can be no gospel-son nor share at all in any gospel-priviledges and immunities but if he were a believer I his son may prove mine at easier rates by farr viz. by going no further then the faith and faederation of my father But Sirs will this hold a triall think you by the word is there any such manglements as these to be found there is it to be found there that now under the gospel-gospel-Covenant since that outing of the old Covenant and that fleshly seed that were heirs of it and all the tipical pertinencies thereof the faith and faederation of fathers inrights and enrouls all their fleshly seed as Heirs with them of salvation without any evidence of their believing themselves then tell me why the fleshly seed of those great believers Abraham Isaac and Iacob stand excommunicated from all Gospel-priviledges participations of ordinances promises c. even from the beginnings of the Gospel Church and first administring of baptism to this very day will you plead your own right above theirs to stand his children in the Gospel-Church by saying we had holy men and believers to our fathers but their fathers believed not the Gospel therefore worthily are they cut off with them I reply thus were not Abraham Isaac and Iacob their fleshly fathers and though remote ones yet were they not their true fathers after the flesh still as much as ever did Iohn Mat. 3. and Christ Iohn 8. and Peter Acts 2. deny them a standing in the Gospel house and admission unto baptism and membership without repentance and belief in their own persons and doing the works of Abraham did they I say put such off from all Gospel-expectations and priviledges who offered themselves thereto with this plea viz. we have Abraham to our father and dare you admit such without faith or repentance for whom you can make no higher pretence then this viz. they are the children of believers me thinks if meer birth-priviledges and fleshly descent must carry it still without faith in the seed themselves are not the Iews infants to this day higher born then any Gentiles infants in the world whose parents are believers for they verily can say no less then this we are the natural issue of the father of all the faithfull yet may they not be own'd barely upon that account to gospel-ordinances and if the natural seed and that by Isaac and Iacob of Abraham himself the grand believer which seed could of old claim a room by right of birth from Abraham in the house of Moses cannot possibly carry it so high under Christ as by the same descent onely without faith in themselves to gain a standing in his house or so much as right to be stiled their own natural fathers children as to the Gospel I am amazed to see you Gentile believers to conferre upon your meer natural seed the name of Abrahams spiritual seed and denominate your semen carnis his semen fidei 〈◊〉 The Iews though the natural seed of Abraham yet cannot have the account of the spiritual seed nor any right to Gospel priviledges because they believe not themselves which if they did they should have right to the Gospel as well as we who believe but sith they abide in unbelief they are cut off from all share in these things Baptist. Then learn once I beseech you this lessen from your selves which you will not learn from Iohn Christ and Paul viz. that the ground of standing Abrahams spiritual seed sons and heirs and Church-members under the Gospel is not the the faith and faederation of the parents by vertue of which you plead your childrens right to baptism saying they have believers as the Jews once to Iohn pleaded theirs saying we have Abraham to our father but faith it self in the particular persons so standing for so many Jews heathens infidels children as are of the faith of Abraham i. e. not born of faithful parents but faithful themseves as he was are incorporated incovenanted inchurched as Abrahams seed and Evangelically blessed with faithful Abraham but till even believers children yea Abrahams own believe themselves the parents faith cannot now possibly ingraft them the time of faith or standing by faith alone in the house or visible Church of God being now come in the standing by any fleshly generation what soever is done away yea Abrahams own children the naturall branches that grow out of his loynes are
the word of promise and not in actual being Ishmael dwelt in the house but soon after he came into the world Ishmael must abide in the house no longer so while Christ the true Isaac typified by the other to whom the Gospel promises were made was but barely in the promise the fleshly Israel vaunted it in the Church but when the fulnesse of time was come for him to be incarnate and in esse reali that fleshly holy seed much more the fleshly seed of believing Gentiles could have no right of residence in the family of Abraham nor are any saving believers allowed members thereof to this very day Babist But it seems to be the Iews themselves even the naturall seed of Abraham to which in that Rom. 11.19 Abraham is said by Paul to stand a holy root if it be considered with reference to the verse before where he speaks plainly of them as in contradistinction to believieng Gentiles therefore Abrahams own fleshly seed are holy branches still of that holy root Baptist. In no wise as they are his natural seed onely but as they may hereafter be hoped to become his seed by faith also and be grafted again upon their root Abraham and their own olive tree i. e. the visible Church their fathers family by believing and imbracing the Gospel from which they were broken off through unbelief in which if they abide not still they shall saith he verse 23. be grafted in again but never simply as they are his natural seed onely Abraham may be said to stand a holy root to his own bodily issue two wayes first onely as they were born of his body by Isaac and Iacob with whom and whose seed that typically holy Covenant was established which being now vanisht away he is no longer such a holy root to those natural branches of his body as that they have any birth holiness now therefrom Secondly as the same persons that were his natural seed might also be his spiri-seed by faith in Christ and so he is here said to be a holy root and the Jews in reference to him holy branches viz. in respect not to their fleshly birth of him for as they are his natural branches onely and no more they are broken off but in respect to their future calling to the faith and receiving in again in time to come upon account of their owning of the Gospel the spiritual branches onely are now grafted into the olive-tree and growing up upon the root the natural branches are broken off and the root as a holy root to them withered that holiness of it faded it is alive as a holy root now to none but the believer not its own natural branches muchlesse to the natural branches of believing Gentiles Babist When the Iews were broken off their naturall children were broken off with them therefore when the believing Gentiles were grafâ—ed in their stead their naturall children must in like manner be grafted in with them 〈◊〉 No such matter Sirs there 's either no good Antecedent or else no good Consequence in this for first if you mean as to the Gospel Church and Covenant the children of the unbelieving Jews are not so broken off and excluded with their parents in such a sence as you imagine i. e. upon the Account of their parents unbelief onely but for want of faith in their own persons and as succeeding their fathers in unbelief for if any children of the unbelieving Jews when they come to years and children when at years are the naturall seed of their parents I hope as well as in infancy it self if being the children of such or such parents alone would either ingraft or exclude if I say unbelieving Iews children do believe the promise is so made to them that their parents unbelief cannot exclude them but if the children at years do not believe the promise is so little made to believers and their seed as that the parents belief availes no further then to the engrafting of himself and he cannot at all entitle all his natural seed by his single faith nor as heirs of the same heavenly inheritance with him inright them to the ordinance in token of it but if you mean as to the old Church and Covenant then Secondly it follows no more then if you should go about to make a way for the needle by the thred that because the Iews and their seed under the law were taken in and thrown out of Covenant altogether so the Gentiles under the Gospel and their seed must be owned and disowned thus collectivâ—ly for as to that old Covenant of the law made with the fleshly Israel concerning the earthly Canaan the very promise of that was made to the whole body of that nation and people that came of Abraham Isaac and Iacobs loins in such a manner as that their infants were by very naturall descent according to the promise as tâ—uâ—y and fully heirs of it as themselves from which consequently when once God took his advantage by the breach first made on their part to break it on his part also he must necessarily turn them all out together and so he did discovenanting the whole nation at once and as it is said in Zach. 11.10 breaking the Covenant which he had made with all the people discarding and disinheriting them from all that glory in the lump but the Gospel-Covenant and promise concerning the heavenly inheritance is not at all on this wise but of a different nature taking in no whole nation in the world nor any one or more mens meer natural seed no not Abrahams Isaacs and Iacobs as the other did to all generations of its continuance but rather Sigillatim such several persons out of every nation tongue kindred and people that fear God and work righteousness Rev. 5.9 Act. 10.34 35. even all and onely such as obey him Singulos generum credentes not genera singulorum credentium vel non If therefore you speak of the Jews standing upon the Root Abraham and in the Church before Christ upon the old Covenant account then I confess that the whole body of them were broken off altogether and that as they and their fleshly seed were all incovenanted so they were all discovenanted at once when that covenant of circumcision which God gave to Abraham and his fleshly seed Gen. 17. concerning the land of Canaan was it self abolished in Christ crucified but then the consequence will not hold from that covenant to this of the Gospel these being two distinct and different covenants the terms of standing in which are in no wise the same But if you speak of the covenant of the Gospel then your Antecedent is false for I deny utterly that the Jews and their seed were altogether alienated from that further then every individual of them did cut themselves off from a right of standing therein by want of faith in their own persons for as this covenant was never made with any men and their meer fleshly seed
no not with Abraham Isaac and Iacob and their natural posterity so that a bare birth of their bodies doth ipso facto make them heirs of the heavenly inheritance promised therein nor give them a right as such only to be signed as true heirs thereof but only with Abraham and his spiritual seed i. e. Christ and all believers in him so no men and all their naturall posterity are outed from it together but as both they and their posterity do stand together in unbelief upon which account faith being the only way of standing heirs under the Gospel and the Iews Children proving unbelievers in all ages as well as their parents I confess they are broken off together and not otherwise for if the Children of the Iews did appear to have faith as in infancy they cannot and when they are grown up unversally they do not their parents infidelity could in no wise prohibit their standing and since neither in infancy nor at age they appear to be in the faith their parents in case they were never so faithful can in no wise intitle them to a standing for then the natural seed of those thousands of Iews which did believe in the Primitive times have a birth-priviledge and holiness to this day whereupon they may claim admittance unto baptism as well as any specially if those words Rom. 11.16 if the Root be holy so are the branches were to be taken in such a sense as you put upon them but we know that though they are branches growing naturally upon that holy Root as you call it of believing parents yet they are counted unholy by your selves because they believe not in their own persons yea if we should ask how the children of those Iews that at first believed did come to be such strangers to the Gospel Church your selves would answer vs because they believed not as their parents did by which you do no less than grant what we contend for viz. that the faith of Ancestors gives no right to their posterity to stand at all in the Gospel Church and Covenant but faith in the particular persons only so standing Well then they were broken off but why not because they had not believing parents for Abraham was the fleshly Father of all of them and the primitive believing Iews were the fleshly fathers of many of them and are to this day as much as ever if bare birth priviledge could ingraft them as it did of old in the family of the Iewish Church Nor was it because they wanted title upon which they might have stood still in the Iewish Church if that Church it self had stood to this day for they were Abrahams seed and that gave them capacity enough to dwell in the house before their own unbelief notwithstanding but because they do not believe themselves because the terms of standing in the Church which before Christ were these viz. We have Abraham to our Father we are the Children of such and such parents are now quite changed so that it boots not to say such a thing as Abraham is our father Mat. 3. unless we can also say we repent and believe the Gospel The Jews were broken off by unbelief and thou and thine o believing Gentile must stand by faith yet not thine by thy faith but thou thy self by thine and they by their own faith is that in which thou standing and not thy seed thou hast right to stand in the Church and not they in which they standing and not thy self they have right to stand in the Church and thou hast none Perpetuity in personall faith gives perpetual personal right to baptism and to Church-membership but not a perpetuity of the same right to any mans whole posterity there 's now no difference made at all as to Gospel interest by being either this or that by nature but in all the world any person Jew or Gentile male or Female seed of believer or of unbeliever Barbarian Scythian bond or free is capable both to be saved and signed as an heir of salvation by baptism upon personal faith but in no wise the progeny upon the faith of the parentage And yet to put it more out of doubt that the Covenant holiness and church-right of mens fleshly seed which was of old is not continuing under the Gospel but Ceremonial and so ended in Christ in whom your selves say Iudicialia sunt Mortua Ceremonialia Mortifera I will leave two or three consequences upon the file which either answer and that not invitâ Minervâ nor stretching your Genius beyond sense and reason rather than want somewhat whereby to prove your Iudaizing to be judicious or else by silence say you cannot I leave you to consult with them as you see occasion That holiness which sanctified the Iewes Land City Temple Altar all its untensils Priest-hood and the whole body of that people and all the pertinences of the first tabernacle and old Covenant was Ceremonial only and is now abolished and not abiding among believing Gentiles But that holiness that sanctified the Iewish seed was the same and no other then that which sanctified their Land City Temple Altar and its Utensils Priest-hood and whole people and all the appertenances of that first Tabernacle and old Covenant Ergo That holiness which sanctified the Iewish seed is now abolished and not abiding at all among believing Gentiles As for the Major I would wish you not to subject your selves so much to suspicion of superstition as you will do in these daies of light by putting me to prove it as to require proof on 't since no intelligent man or religious Christian save the Pope and Dr. Featley and the rest of their several fryes and fraternities will deny it or did ever in the daies of the Gospel attribute the same holiness to outward and inanimate things viz. places Lands profits Emolluments first fruits Tithes Oblations and other obventions Temples Altars Tables Lavers Chalices Vestiments nor yet to Priests and people that all these were denominated holy by under the Law for to me by the same reason that first fruits tythes and such like are now to be called holy the first born of every creature both of man and beast is still to be called holy also for even these were sanctifyed and holy Denominativè and Dedicativè as much as any of the rest Ezod 13.2 yea as Paul did in another case viz. appeal to the Pharisees to judge between him and the Sadduces so may I to you of the Presbyterian Priesthood to decide this matter between me and the Seducers of the Popish and Prelatick strain whose holy sandalls copes surplices and other superfluities viz. railes high Altars holy Tapers and Candlesticks holy Fonts holy Windows you your selves pulld down and prophaned before that part of the wheele where the Baptists dwell did at all appear so plainly as now it doth in the Horizon of this English Nation for which sort of sacriledge D◠Featley much mistaking you and
covenant whereof Christ is the Mediator is a covenant that promises better things better injoyments or a better inheritance then that of the Law did whereupon it there bears the name of a better Covenant then that of which Moses was the Mediator Secondly Mark whether our denial of infant baptism do at all contradict that for what if infants be not baptized doth that make that the promises of the gospel are worse than the promises of the Law nay verily who ever is or is not baptized the promises of the Gospel are both in our opinion and our constant manifestation of it too in this particular better and as far beyond the promises of the Law as the substance is beyond the shadow the City ir self beyond the map of it that is on the wall for the promises of the Gospel are of the whole world Rom. 4.13 of a heavenly inheritance incorruptible Canaan Crown Kingdome 1 Pet. 1.5 Iam. 2.5 Rev. 2.10 of eternal salvation Heb. 5.9 and this not to the Jewes only upon obedience to Moses voice but to all men in case of obedience to the voice of Christ the Mediator of it in point of faith baptism and other things which he requites in order thereunto of those onely which are capable to perform them but the promises of the Law were but of a spot of the world of an earthly Canaan inheritance kingdome c. to the posterity of one man only viz. Abraham and not to all his fleshly posterity neither for his posterity by Hagar and Keturah were excluded and that covenant established with Isaac and his seed only and that in case of obedience to the voice of Moses the Mediator of that Testament when God should give out his mind to them by him in that covenant more perfectly then he did in the daies of Abraham and in case of observance of the Law whereof circumcision was a part though given before and an Ingagement to them to keep the whole when it should be given and all this but as a Map and type for a time of the Gospel Covenant which was made and established on better promises with a better seed i. e. not a carnal but spiritual seed not such as are of Abrahams own much less of any inferiour mens flesh but such as are of Abrahams faith and do his works i. e. believers themselves this is our opinion which if it do not rather confirm then contradict that meliority of the Gospel-covenant and its promises above that of the Law which meliority is spoken of Heb. 8.6 your very selves being Judges of it then surely Satan hath shut up your eyes from seeing that you see But now as for your selves who stand so much in vindication of the Gospel covenant as a better Covenant then that under the Law and that in that very respect in which it is said to be a better Covenant Heb. 8.6 viz. established upon better promises I le shew you plainly how you are so far from making it better then the Law as that you make that of the Law at least equal to it for whereas that Scripture which you quote saies plainly that the Gospel is a better Covenant than that of the law forasmuch as it stands on better promises yet that is never the better for you in your cause whose tenet utterly denies flatly contradicts that for you say that the things promised in the word of the Law which were signed and as your phrase is not ours sealed by circumcision were the very same things that are promised in the word of the Gospel and signed and as you say sealed in baptism viz. the kingdome of heaven and howbeit this is most manifestly false for in reality though you jumble them together into one when it seems to seâ—ve your turn so to do in such a confused way as preaches to the world your present ignorance in both the Law and the Gospel the Law and Gospel are two distinct Covenants established on two distinct kinds of promises whereof the one was typical of and so inferiour to the other the one an old one and a first that vanished before the second and new one Gal. 4. Heb. 8.6 13-9 1 12.18 and though all that was then promised in the Law and signed in circumcision as well as circumcision it self were types of things under the Gospel yet the things then promised upon keeping the Law and immediately signed to Abraham and all his fleshly seed by Isaac save Esau and his seed that sleighted it in that covenant of circumcision which God gave him were no other then that literal Canaan that earthly land of promise flowing with milk and honey and not the heavenly inheritance Gen. 17.8 c. for they that were heirs of the other according to the Law are not thereupon heirs of this also according to the Gospel Rom. 4.13 Now howbeit I say that be very false yet you asserting it that the promise under the Law and under the Gospel is the very same do therein deny the one to be a covenant of better promises then the other for to say the promise of the law is the very same that the promise of the Gospel is is to say that the one is as good as the other and so to contradict that of Heb. 8.6 which saies the Gospell Testament and the promises thereof are better then the promises under the Law And secondly if you say the Meliority that you hold to be in the Gospel covenant consists not in the Meliority of the promises of it above the other but in the Meliority of the administration of it the Gospel ordinances belonging not to the same only but to more subjects then the ordinances of the Law in which respect we denying Gospel ordinances to infants which were admitted to the ordinances under the Law and so cutting of a Moity of the Christian world from the Church which stood members of it before do streiten the Gospel and make it worse and of less extent the Law I answer first That the Meliority of the Gospel covenant spoken of in Heb. 8.6 lies in the Meliority of the promises of it above the others which Meliority we affirm but you deny in saying the promises of both Covenants are one and the same therefore it is your selves however and not we that by your tenets make the Gospel Covenant at least no better than the Law contrarily to that of the Apostle Heb. 8.6 and so your opinions and not ours are false and wicked by your own Argument Bvt secondly if it be in very deed to make the Gospell covenant worse than the Laws as you say it is to hold infants no capable subjects of Gospel ordinances some of which were capable subjects of the ordinances of the law I shall first disprove your charge of us togeâ—her with your proof of it in that particular Secondly prove that if notwithstanding all that I shall say toward the clearing of our selves we must needs be held guilty
disputation having more mind that victory then verity should befal us and having fiâ—st given and granted to our selves the priestly prerogative of being sole judges and determiners of that daies disputation between us and our respondent do thereupon determine and by these our letters pattents give and grant the cause and the day to be wholly ours and least it should be hardly confessed and yielded to by fair means we will have it by fowle and wrest it from our Respondent as fully granted by him though we know it was not and take it from him pro confesso by force even by forged cavillation and false accusation and therfore know all men by these presents that though it be most expresly denied by our Respondent that infants of believers have right to be baptized yet it is most expresly confessed by him that infants of believers have good right to be baptized had you said thus well indeed might the world have cryed shame on it more then now but in effect it had been but the proper paraphrase of what you have more closely and covertly presented it with in this place Wherefore Sirs I do you and the world to wit once more to prevent any ones being charmed into a misbelief of me by your juggles how little I concur with you in these things and to say no more then what I have shewed above viz. First That baptism is no seal at all of the Covenant of Grace but a sign of it onely Secondly that believers infants have no right at all to be signed with it in infancy Thirdly That circumcision was no seal of the Gospel covenant but a sign only or token between God and Israel of the old Covenant concerning the Land of Canaan and some other particular peâ—sonal promises and priviledges pertaining to that people though it was a type of Circumcision in the heart where with Abrahams spiritual seed are circumcised and thereby inrighted to the heavenly inheritance Fourthly that it was no seal at all to any but Abrahams person and that in another sense then the word seal is accepted in with you Fiftly that it was dispensed to Ishmael under no such notion as a seal of the Gospel covenant but meerly as he was a male of Abrahams house on which account it was set to every male born in his house or bought with his money though visibly an heir to neither the earthly nor the heavenly Canaan as wicked servants were not and no doubt to his Sons by Keturah also as well as to Ishmael though both he and they before known to Abraham to be no heires of that covenant of circumcision which God gave him in Gen. 17. and told him that he would establish that with Isaac only Gen. 17.19.21 Determination It is further added for satisfaction how children have faith viz. in Semine radice munere habitu actu primo not in fructu folio usu actu secundo in a word they have the habit and the seed not ths exercise and fruit of it Detection You asserted above p. 3. from Mat 18.6 that little ones do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere believe in Christ which phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. to believe to drink to eat to read to teach to hear c. do ever expresse productionem potentiae in actum not simply the habit facultie gift inclination power seed c. but the very second act the use the fruit the putting forth of these faculties into their several acts and exercises this as all well studied Schollars know so your selves cannot but acknowledge that to believe is not only to have faith but to act faith and it cannot properly be said of any that they do believe but such as quoad nos do so indeed As for such as are onely in potentià ad fidem though proximâ and sâ—ch as are in capacity to believe and do not they cannot be said by wisemen to believe for then all men may be said to believe who have facultatem munus credendi as well as intelligendi ratiocinandi Eligendi c. though they never do it I appeal therefore to your own consciences whether your saying that infants do believe and yet cannot act nor shew that faith by any fruit of it hath not in it plus Idiotae quam Idiomatis and be not as palpable a contradiction as can fall from mens tongues or pens Determination Their not declaring of it themselves can no more conclude against infants faith then against their reasonable soul. Detection The Reasonable soul is in them universally essentially in the highest degree necessarily and praedicable concerning them de omni per se qua sic as being de esse constitutive for Animarationalis est forma hominis quae dat esse the very essential form of mankind so that he can as easily cease to be as to be without it therefore there can be no conclusion against that in any infants sith they are no longer then while they have it but faith in Christ is according to your selves Habiâ—us ad placitum a deo infufus only not innatus and is in them neither qua sic nor essentially nor universally in all nay but in a few infants by your own confession and you know not which neither for though you do altum sapere so far sometimes as to conclude it is in infants of believers yet you do insipere fo far sometimes as to undote that again and say the spirit is neither bound nor barred in his working of it in these or those so that till they are at yeares there ean be no conclusion made p. 18. therefore me thinks you should blush at this illiterate and indigested assertion viz. that there can be no more concluding against the being of faith in them then their having reasonable souls Secondly if from their non declaring it there can be no more concluding against their having faith then against their reasonable souls then there is no more concluding against the being of faith in one infant more then its being in another or against its being in unbelievers infants than in those of believers for the reasonable soul is in all even in the infants of unbelievers as well as of believers Secondly if their non-declaring it be no ground to conclude against their having faith yet I am sure it is ground enough to bar you from concluding that they have it specially that this infant hath it more then that for though you confess there can be no conclusion made till you see the fruits of their faith yet that is the bold conclusion you undertake to make Fourthly whether we can upon its non appearance conclude against their having faith yea or no yet upon its non appearance we may boldly conclude against their baptism and admittance into the visible Church here on earth into which not an invisible habit of faith gives right but an outward appearance and profession
presentment of the righteousness of Christ without faith is a figment of the Anabaptists without ground or reason from Scripture the Covenant of the Gospel being the righteousness of faith To which I contradictorily reply that there is another way revealed for the salvation and justification of little infants from all the guilt that lies upon them in infancy which is no other then that which comes upon them for the sin of Adam onely and from all that mischief which comes on them onely meerly and simply for that sin then that way of faith and that is the presentment of the righteousnesse of Christ to God on their behalf without faith and this way is no figment of the Anabaptist as you No-Baptists do foolishly fancy but that which hath such strong ground and reason from Scripture as you will never overthrow while you live although to men at years that have acted transgression in their own persons and are capable to act faith and other good as well as evil the Gospel is granted to be a Covenant that gives righteousnesse by Christ in no other way then that way of faith and obedience to him We usually put cloaths upon infants but men put their clothes on themselves and so must we put on Christ by faith in order to justification when we come to years of discretion Gal. 3.27 and not before I know the multitude of Scriptures that speak in general or at least in such indefinit terms as are in sense equivalent to universal concerning salvation to all them that believe and nothing but condemnation to all them that believe not as Mark 16.15.16 Iohn 3.15.16.18.19.36.11.26 Act. 10.42 Act. 13.43 Rom. 1.17.3.22.25.26.28.30.4.6.24 a most monstrous mistake of all which as also of the whole Scripture makes you miserably misbelieve this matter viz. the way that all dying infants are saved in for you deem or rather dream that the Lord by these expressions whosoever believeth in me shall never dye he that believeth not shall be damned he that believeth not on the Son shall not see life c. delivers his will and testament not onely concerning persons at age but concerning infants in their very infancy also whereas if you Divines had not Divin'd your selves to very dotage you could not but understand that little infants are not intended in any of these or any other places that hold out faith as the way of our salvation for do but judge in your selves were it not shameful senslessnesse to read thus out of those places viz. God so loved the world c. that whosoever infants in infancy as well as men believe in him should not perish but have everlasting life those infants that do believe on him are not condemned but those infants that believe not are condemned already and why because they have not believed in the name of the onely begotten Son of God And this shall be the condemnation of infants as well as men that light and life is come to them and yet infants believe it not neither will come unto Christ that they might have life but but love darknesse more then light because their deeds are evil for thus you may read it if infants as well as men be there meant and so were it not sottish to read thus out of Rom. 4.23 it was not written for Abraham onely that faith was imputed to him for righteousnesse but for infants also to whom it shall be imputed if they do believe on him that raised up Iesus our Lord from the dead c. so would it sound any whit savourly in the ears of one that 's of a sound judgement to read Mark 16.15.16 so as to understand infants together with others viz. go preach the Gospel to every creature who ere believeth and is baptized shall be saved but whoever believes not man or woman old or young infant or suckling shall be damned would not this grate harshly upon charitable ears but surely infants are not spoken of here nor are they in any other Scripture for ought I can find with the best sight I have where faith is spoken of as the condition on our part without which nothing is to be expected but condemnation I am sorry Sirs to see you Clergy men cloath your selves with such darke conceits and confusednesse of mind as not to know of whom and to whom things are spoken in the word nor whom in general the Scriptures you professe to be so profound in concern and preach to and I beseech you be not too wise in your own conceits to learn one lesson at least from him that is a fool among you for Christs sake viz. whereas you say infants must believe or not be saved the Scriptures declaring no other way to salvation but faith in Christ that the Scriptures were written only for our instruction that are at years to understand them and not for the use and instruction of infants in infancy in the way of life the Scriptures were given as a coppy of the testament and the will of God concerning men and women to declare to them what he requires of them and in what way he would have them to wait upon him in order to the attaining of that salvation he hath purchased by the blood of Christ and will freely confer on them for his sake viz. the way of faith repentance baptism supplication submission self-denial obedience both active and passive perseverance therein to the end and in a word attendance to the law of Christ the voice of that prophet that he hath now raised up in all things or else to have no part among his people from all which conditions and performances I say from every of them as well as any one of them from believing as well as obeying in baptism or any other part of his will or any other works of God under the Gospel among which belief is a chief one Iohn 6.28.29 little infants as being yet uncapable subjects to obey in any of these are universally exempred in their infancy otherwise I dare a vouch no dying infants in the world shall ever be saved for can they do any of these things in infancy so such as are to be baptized are called to do Act. 22.16 and who ever so doth shall be saved and whoever doth not shall perish Ier. 10.25 if the way wherein men are to be saved must be walkt in by all infants too in order to their salvation then wo to all infants that die in non-age for alas how shall infants call on him in whom they have not believed and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not yet heard and how shall they hear without a Preacher and who can preach to them before they can understand Rom. 10.14.15 so then they cannot believe for faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God some way or other outwardly as well as inwardly preached Babist The spirit here speaks de subjecto capaci onely viz of the way how men
purpose but nothing to their own viz. that when Christ saies go reach and baptize and he that believeth and is baptized in these expressions he speaks of persons at years not of infants for such must be taught first but that hinders not but that infants may be baptized before teaching and this is the very common wind away of you all to all whom as to them then so I say now again if the Scriptures and commands of your own assigning do speak of persons at age onely and there 's no mention at all of children in either of them for in those words Dr. Featley expresses all your minds concerning Mat. 28. Mark 16. when brought by us against infant baptism where are the Scriptures that do mention infants so as to institute their baptism if I should assert this that Christ commanded that infants should eat at his table and being put to assign what Scripture it s commanded in should name 1 Cor. 11.28 and when it s argued against me to the contrary saying that place permits them onely to come that can examine themselves as infants cannot therefore t is no command for infants to come should answer thus viz. there 's no mention at all of children in that text much lesse any prohibition of infants to come when Paul saies let a man examine himself he speaks of persons at years onely but that hinders not why infants may not come without self-examination would you not say I were half out of my wits yet thus do you all almost as well concerning places of your own assigning as those we bring viz. Mat. 28. Mark 16.16 Act. 2. Repent and be baptized Act. 8. if thou believest thou maiest return thus viz. those phrases speak of adult ones and not of infants and so say I of these and every Scripture else that speaks of baptism and I trow where is that place that makes mention of any such thing as the baptism of infants Secondly in president of which you send us to the housholds wherein your selves cannot tell that there was any infant therein at all which is as much as to say and urge ab exemplo thus viz. t is not certain by any one instance thereof that any one infant was baptized in those housholds which are said to be baptized in the primitive times Ergo no doubt but by the same example infants ought to be baptized now Again some of you urge Mat. 28. as the institution of Christ for baptizing men of ripe years at least yea and infants also as Mr. Marshall some of you again deny this saying that Mat. 28. is not an exact platform of Christs commission concerning the matter or subject of the administration of baptism as Dr. Holms p. 7. both which men direct their different doctrines to Mr. Tombes in order to his direction but how shall that man be resolved which shall he cleave to whose words shall he take the Doctors or the Divines Again some of you say that semen carnis a fleshly seed is intituled to the promise for even this seed with you is semen fidei some of you say semen sidei the spiritual seed onely i. e. as many as are of the faith and so faith the Scripture are blessed with faithfull Abraham but then semen fidei with you is no other but semen carnis the fleshly seed and that of such too as are Abrahams seed not after the flesh nor after the faith neither thus you wander in a wood and trace too and fro in a thicket moap up and down in a myst are rapt up in a cloud of confusion contradiction and unanswerablenesse about the proof of a popish practise dancing round and crossing the way one of another ever and anon and yet ken it not nor consider how all mens eyes that are but half open are half amazed at your shufles Again some of you pin your practise upon the score of the infants faith and of these again there are several subdivisions for some ground it on seminall faith onely i. e. the habit or on infants having faith denying utterly their capacity to act it i. e. to believe as Mr. Willcock and many more Some again deny that they do build it upon seminall faith but say they go upon more certain grounds as Mr. Blake p. 24. to Mr. Blackwood who saith of faith in the root or of this semniall faith this faith is not our ground for infants baptism being undiscernable Some again upon their acting faith which they assert infants capable to do though against their wills as well as to have it as to the clear contradiction of themselves Mr. Willcock and many more do whilst they with him and he with them speak of children in this phrase viz. that they do believe and thus they speak whilest they interpret that clause Mat. 18.6 i. e. these little ones which believe in me of little ones litterally taken for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere i. e. to believe expresses not the habit onely but the act of faith as to know to read to teach to love to learn do sound out non munus non actum primum onely but actum secundum also Some of you again put that practise upon score of the parents faith not the childs and of these which are also subdivided some the faith of the next parents onely as Dr Holmes who in his to Mr. Tombes p. 216.217 saith thus the children are not to be baptized whilst the next parents are unbelievers i. e. though the grand parents be believers and Mr. Cotton also who p. 87. of his book stiled the way of the Churches of New England saith thus God never allowed his Church any warrant to receive into Covenant the children of godly parents who lived a thousand years ago nay rather the text is plain that the holynesse of the children dâ—pendeth upon the faith of the next immediate parents or one of them at least as if the seed of parents were not their seed at two or three generations off others the faith of the remote parents as Mr. Rutherford Pres. p. 164 where he saith all infants born in the visible Church what ere the wickednesse of the neerest parents is are to be received into the Church by baptism yea p. 173 Joshua had commandement of God to give the seal of the Covenant to their children who were as openly wicked against the Lord as murderers drunkerds swearers c. also Mr. Marshall and Mr. Baily who commends Mr. Cottons learâ—ed maintenance of infants sprinkling in p. 132 and yet contradicts him in this thing no further off then p. 134. saying although the parents are wicked meaning the immediate parents yet the Lords interest is in the children i. e not of the 3 â— and 4 th but of the 1000 th generation and by this shift the Ishmaâ—â—â—ts the Edomites the Turks are of Abraham though not of Isaac and so Gods by birth yea we and the whole world are of Noah though not of Abraham and
lamb slain from the beginning of the world the same conditions of faith and repentance to be made partakers of the Covenant the same graces promised in the Covenant circumcising the heart to love the Lord c. Theirs was dispensed in darker prophecies and obscurer sacrifices types and sacraments ours more gloriously and in a more greater measure the clothes indeed do differ but the body is the same and so p. 13. The very self same priviledges formerly made peculiar to the Iews are now saith he through Christ communicated to the Gentiles Baptist. That the Covenant of grace is for substance not two but in all ages one and the same within it self who denies but what then is it therefore one and the same with another that most manifestly and downrightly differs from it and is as distinct a covenant also as that within it self for so verily the law which is also called the first covenant or the Covenant of Circumcision was varying wonderfully from that Gospel Covenant whereof yet we confesse is to be the type in both its Priesthood and People its Mediator and Attonement sacrifices and offerings precepts and promises inheritance and heirs birth-priviledges and seed ordinances and their subjects and all things thereunto pertaining I say they were very divers each from other saving still that one was to shadow out the other viz. Moses the Mediator Ioshua the Saviour Aaron the High-Priest and his burnt offerings for that temporal annuall Attonement Heb. 10.1 2. and purgation from fleshly impurities were all to point our Christ who is all this spiritually viz. the Mediator Saviour High-Priest Sacrifice and author of eternal Attonement between God and us and purification of our Consciences in the Gospel those earthly promises and inheritance were to represent our heavenly their fleshly heirship birth-priviledges seed and admission of new born babes to ordinances to shadow out what high born heirs those babes are who are begotten to the faith and their right and title to a standing in the Gospel Church O but saies Mr. Marshall they had the same Gospel Covenant that we have the same Christ the same conditions i. e. faith and repentance c. First take notice that with him faith and repentance are the conditions on which persons stood then and ever before and do now in the Gospell Covenant which things he knowes infants have not and therefore are not by right to be visibly inchurched and incovenanted under the Gospel till they visibly appear to have them yet under the Law they were in covenant and inchurched for all that and why because faith and repentance were not the conditions of that Church-covenant and ordinances nor of heirshâ—p to that Earthly Canaan but meer fleshly descent of Abraham Isaac and Iacob which whoever had had title to circumcision and Canaan though not to heaven thereupon if they never believed nor repented whilest they breathed Secondly but what if they had the same Gospel Covenant that we have held forth to them at least in a darker way will it follow therefore that they had not also another Covenant over and above that peculiar to themselves which we have not whereof circumcision was a token and which believing Gentiles much less their seed have nought to do with at all I trow not for though we grant Mr. Marshall that they had the substance of the Gospel among them as also Adam Noah and Abraham had and the same priviledges of that Covenant that we have excepting some circumstances of it wherein we are beyond them that will not run retro as Mr. Marshall would fain have it That the self same priviledges formerly made peculiar to the Iews are now through Christ conveyed to the Gentiles for the old Covenant priviledges viz. the fleshly birth holiness and heirship to Canaan and title to be signed as heirs upon a meer natural descent are such as the best Gentiles and best believers seed in the world can lay no claim to for that was as we see Gen. 17. a distinct proper Covenant to themselves as the fleshly seed of Abraham Isaac and Iacob whom the spiritual seed themselves have as such no right to partake with in their inheritance or earthly Canaan as this fleshly seed as meerly such have no right to partake with the other in their heavenly Canaan Babist But Mr. Marshal saies p. 11. that all their external promises in case of obedience all outward blessings which were to be enjoyed by them the land of Canaan and all the good things in it all outward punishments and threatnings losse of their Conntrey going into captivity and their sacrifices their washings their sprinklings their holy persons holy feasts and holy things were all of them but so many administrations of the Covenant of grace earthly things were not onely promised and threatned more distinctly and fully then now they are to them who are in Covenant but were figures signs and types and sacraments of spiritual things to be enjoyed both by them and us Baptist. As I grant the Covenant of Grace which promises eternal life on conditions as Mr. Marshall confesses of only faith and repentance to be for substance for ever the same within it self so I grant that the other covenant viz. all those external promises of outward blessings which were to be enjoyed by the Iews in Canaan in case of their obedience was a certain outward administration and lively type of that inward and true covenant of grace yet still must it be regranted by Mr. Marshall and all men that even that was a true real and really distinct covenant also of it self and though that were a plain picture and a map of the other and as it were a different dresse wherewith it was clothed upon and wherein it was exhibited to the world yet was it not onely an administration of the Gospel but also an entire covenant so substantially divided from that as that its most properly denominated another covenant and not that and they both are truly denominated to be two viz. an old and new one a first and a second which they could not genuinely be unless one were more then meerly another form and manner of administration or the other Nay seriously if that Gospel covenant which both you and wee say is one and the same in substance onely admitted variation in its circumstances doth multiply it self answerably to the number of those different clothings which that one body hath successively come forth in and must be as multifariously expressed as it hath shewed it self in various habits to our view and bear the names of two of first and second old and new from its severall and remarkable periods and administrations then sith there hath been not two onely but as you say truely your selves four remâ—rable periods and circumstantial appearances of that covenant viz. the first from Adam to Abraham the second from Abraham to Moses the third from Moses to Christ the fourth from Christ to the end the word would
compare Heb. 9.15 with Act. 2.39 answerable to that also is Rom. 9.7.8 where it s said in a figure that as the seed of Abraham himself by Ishmael were not children of God i. e. as to the old Covenant so as to be counted heirs of that Canaan and members of that Church though they were his true seed and the children of his flesh as well as Isaac was because Isaac onely and his seed were the children of that promise Gen. 17.19.20.21 for in Isaac shall thy seed saith he be called the children of Abrahams flesh the Ishmaelites these are not the children of God in the old legal sense but the children of the promise are counted for the seed so even the seed of Abraham by Isaac himself are not at all children i. e. the children of God as to the new covenant so as to be counted heirs of the Gospel Canaan and members in the Gospel church though they were his true seed and children of his flesh as well as Christ was because Christ onely and his seed are the children of this promise for in Christ who was the true Isaac of whom the other was but the type must Abrahams seed now be called i. e. they that are the children of the flesh onely whether of Abraham or of any other man in the world these are not now as of old the fleshly seed of Abpaham Isaac and Iacob were the children of God but the children of the promise are counted now for the seed T is true to Abraham and his seed the Gospel promises were made as well as those of the law but mark it he saith not unto seeds in plurali as of many but of one and to thy seed in singulari that is Christ Gal. 3.16 of whom being born by faith we are his seed to whom in and with him the promise is made for as the believer himself as a believer i. e. as Abrahams spiritual seed had no share in the old covenant promise i. e. Canaan if not descended from him by Isaac after the flesh because to Abraham and that fleshly seed onely in a type of something else and yet truly too those promises were made so a believers fleshly seed as barely a believers seed though born of believing Abrahams own body as the Iews are at this day and that 's a higher birth one should think to entitle to the Gospel if any fleshly birth could do it then to be born of our Protestant believers have no share in this new Covenant promise if not born as I may say of Abraham by Isaac i. e. Christ after the faith or by faith in Christ and so personally even every individual for himself not Catervatim or domesticatim whole families whole nations of parents and children at once ingraffed as branches upon the root and spirituallized into that stock or family of Abraham i. e. the visible Church in which his own natural branches much more any other mans meer naturall branches can have no place now any further then as they appear to believe Indeed the natural branches stood of right upon meer fleshly birth of believing Abraham without faith so long as that fleshly birth-priviledge lasted and could give a standing and till the time of faith and standing there by personal faith onely came and then they were broken off indeed because of unbelief yet not nationally as you say i. e. the whole body for the unbelief of some viz. the persons of the children through allages for the infidelity of the parents for its evident that as many as believed and those were not a few when the rest were rejected were then and thereupon admitted Act. 2. And as many children of them in any age as believe the unbelief of their parents shall not prejudice them but personally every individual that did not believe which the more is the pitty were for the most part both children and parents too in the primitive times save some few persons that did then believe whose children yet for all that promise to them and their children you so talk of out of Act. the 2.39 came all to nought through unbelief for else indeed the promise even after Christ crucified was to them as also to all others so sure in case of faith that that causelesse curse of their parents wishing the blood of Christ to be on them and their children should never have hurt any but them that wished it In further illustration of which yet I mean that personal faith onely not parental gives a standing in the Church now because I write to a generation of men that have more time to read then I to write I hope I may be bold to trouble my self and you with the transcription of at least a page out of a little treatise termed a confutation of infant-baptism by Thomas Lamb very plain and pregnant to this purpose and the rather because I fear you will not search the book it self soundly if I should send you to it onely by telling you t is worth your reading in this point though at your request I have all-to-be-read Dr. Featley in the 12. and 13 pages of which book of Thomas Lamb he writes as follows So then when Christ the true promised seed was come the seed in the flesh that lead to Christ ceased for the natural relation ceased at the death of Christ and not before at which time the distinction or different holinesse between Iew and Gentile ceased Act. 10.28 Eph. 2.13.15 In Rom. 11.20 it is said through unbelief they are broken off now t is manifest they were the true Church till the death of Christ and then broken off through unbelief why were not the Iews in the sin of unbelief before yes no doubt why then were they not broken off before and why then the reason is because the time of faith was come and therefore now they were broken off through unbelief the seed was come therefore the natural seed ceased Christ was come therefore the law ceased As long as the law lasted they did remain in the Church by being circumcised and observing the rites and ceremonies of the Law though they did remain in unbelief but when the time of faith was come Gal. 3.25 then they were no longer in the Covenant and Church by observing the rites and Ceremonies of the Law which they entered into by circumcision but now they were broken off through unbelief which notes out unto us that the standing in that Church before Christ in time of the Law and the standing in this Church since Christ in time of the Gospel is upon different grounds for the standing in that Church was by being circumcised and observing the rites and ceremonies of the Law but the standing in this Church is by faith and being baptized into the same faith Act. 2.38.41 Joh. 4.1 Gal. 3.26 27. Rom 11.20 And it is to be noted that the Iewes the same people that were circumcised and in covenant with Abraham according to the flesh and
thereby members of the Iewish Church could not be the visible church according to the Gospell unless they did manifest faith and so be in covenant with Abraham according to the spirit and baptized into the same faith Whereas if the Covenant now under Christ were the same that was before Christ with Abraham and his posterity in the flesh then by the same right they possessed circumcision and the Iewish Church state they must possesse this since Christ which they could not do therefore it is not the same It is true therefore that the Covenant of God makes the Church both in time of the Law and Gospel too for the Church is nothing else but a people in covenant with God now look how the covenant differs so the Church and people differs which is made by it and which enter into it Now the Covenant whereby God took a people outwardly to be his people then was that whereby they did being circumcised participate of all those outward meanes which led to Christ which was to come Psal. 149.19.20 But the Covenant whereby he takes a people outwardly to be his people now whereby they are admitted to be baptized is that profession they make of faith in Christ Acts 8.12.37 Mat 3.6 Whereby they have true and spirituall conjunction with God and are his people Heb. 3.6 Indeed it is true that Christ is and ever was the Mediator and Means of salvation and also that all those that were saved were saved through faith in him both before and since his comming But yet because the outward means of making Christ known doth differently depend upon his being yet to come and upon his being come in the flesh the one being more dark the other more plain the one more carnall the other more spirituall therefore the participation of these meanes doth make the state of the participants to differ Thus far are his words and then noting certain differences to the number of seven or eight between the Old Testament and the New which is 1. Established upon better promises 2. After the power of an endless life 3. In Christ. 4. And liberty of the spirit 5. A Celestial Jerusalem 6. A State of faith He very truly concludes that such onely as are in the New Covenant in Christ in faith of the promises born from above and partakers of the spirit and the power of that endless life or of the world to come are suitable to be admitted to Gospel Church priviledges In the time therefore before Christ saith he such as would circumcise themselves and their males and observe the Law in the rites and ceremonies therof together with their children by generation were the seed and in covenant with that Church but now since Christ only such as believe in Christ and are thereby children by regeneration are the seed and in covenant with this Church and this he proves further yet First Because None of the Natural seed of Abraham are in the Covenant by vertue of any natural relation though they did remain in the Iewish Church till the death of Christ and as that Church then ceased so their being in the Church by an natural relation ceased also Act. 10.28 Rom. 9.8 Gal. 5.28.31 3.7 8 9 14.16.19.26.28 29. Secondly The Gentiles have no natural relation to become Abrahams seed by therefore a believers child cannot become the seed of Abraham by being the seed of a believer unless such children do believe themselves and cannot otherwise in no respect be participants in the covenant made with Abraham p. 14 15. And again p. 18. No Gentile saith he is Abrahams seed at all but by believing the righteousnesse of faith allthough he be the child of believing parents Now therefore because you tell us not only First that believers children in infancy are Abrahams children though they yet do not the works of Abraham i. e. believe not on him that justifyes them as some of you dote they do but also Secondly that the promise of the Gospel is to believers and their seed These both are abundantly confuted by that quotation of mine which quotes more Scripture then you will ever answer so that I wonder you blush not to shoot out so boldly two such blind and unsound assertions together the second of which I shall say no more to it being virtually answered by what is more formally spoken to the first also because I have shewed so undeniably above that I know your consciences must yield to it and that from this Act. 2.39 whence you would wreâ—t a proof to the contrary that the promise if you take it for the profer of the Gospel Grace is to all men in the world every creature and so not to believers and their seed only but to all unbelievers and their seed also in case they shall believe for he conditionats the promise on calling for such these were whom Peter spake to whilst he was yet speaking that very word to them viz. the promise is to you and your children but if you take it for the thing promised which is not Church-membership and participation of baptism as some say whose absurdity therein I have declared but the spirit remission of sins and salvation this is made good also to the believer himself and it is mercie enough to him that it is so I think but not at all to his seed for his sake nor his faiths sake for if it be I testify his children need no faith of their own nay more God never made promise to save any of believing Abrahams natural seed without faith in themselves for Abrahams sake as neerly as he took Abraham to be his friend for even he had sin enough of his own to have sunck him if the same Mediator that saves any of his seed in that way of faith had not mercifully saved him the same way nor yet for Abrahams faiths sake for that merited not salvation for them nor was it instrumental but faith only in themselves to any one of his sonnes salvation for every one must bear his own burden if Christ bear it not and the just must live by his faith and not his fathers neither did he ever promise for his faiths sake to give faith to his natural seed as his for then they must all have had it qua sic including de omni and being universale summum or God should ly which he cannot neither could God blame them as he doth for unbelief but himself without whom say you they could not believe who had promised to make them believe and did not though yet he promised to circumcise i. e. by his spirit to sanctify the hearts of his spiritual seed as well as his own i. e. all such as believe and are in the faith with him for the promise being still sure to all the seed which it is made to they all must be blessed with faithful Abraham Now if God who made the old Covenant promise of the earthly Canaan to Abraham and his
fleshly seed did not make the Gospel promise to him and his fleshly seed but onely that seed of his that believes with him can we think that he made that promise to the Gentile believer and his fleshly seed for his fathers sake unlesse he have faith of his own Babist No we do not say without respect to his own faith but as the believers seed shall believe so it s made to him as well as to his parents Baptist. So it s made to the unbeliever and his seed also viz. as they shall believe as well as to either of the other and by that account you may baptize all the world Again none of the Jews though the natural seed of Abraham and partakers of all the ordinances of the old testament as Abrahams children could be admitted to be baptized upon that same natural relation though they pleaded it never so stiffly Mat. 3 but only on manifestation of amendment besides that 3000 converts should not baptize their children when they were baptized themselves as Abraham by command took all his males and cirmumcised them the self same day with himself argues plainly that both the covenant and the promise as Mr. Marshal saies truly as to the manner of administration was now changed and not continued to parents and children both alike but as they both alike believed And that these were not baptized with their parents I take Mr. Cotton at his word who as I have shewed before confesses it and if he should not stand to his testimonie herein yet these words viz. as many as glady received the word were baptized which exclude infants and were an imperfect relation if he meant not onely them that received the word are so cogent that they cannot but compell him So I have escaped two of your bullets and as for the third viz. that the Gospel which is a better Covenant would be far worse if believers children be not counted in it and have not right to baptism and membership as well as the Iews children and be valued but as Turks and Pagans this is so sick of the same disease of absurdity with the rest that I fear not its doing much execution besides we have lamed it before having told you before and proved it too and now will again that the exclusion of the fleshly seed from this Covenant and administration which was taken into the first doth not lessen or straiten the grace of God under it at all nor render this covenant worse then the first contrary to Heb. 8.6 the place twice quoted by you where it s called a better for the meliority there spoken of of this covenant above that lies not so much in the extension of the grace of it to such subjects as in the meliority of its promises for this is a better covenant still then the other who ere it belongs or belongs not to forasmuch as it makes better promises then the other viz. of a heavenly Canaan and all spiritual blessings in and by Iesus through faith when that promised an earthly Canaan onely and certain temporal blessings therein on performance of those tedious services of the law T is true theirs in this sense and thus farre was a Covenant of great grace too as t was made freely to that people above other nations for he did not so to any people else concerning outward benefits and such statutes and judgements as should on their observation of them not onely continue them therein but as a shadow type and schoolmaster conduct them to this yet greater is the glory of the Gospel covenant which now is so that the other had no glory in respect of this glory that excelleth therefore the grace of God under the covenant to them that are under it is greater also Besides if you speak not onely of the intention but extension of the grace of God in this Covenant and in the administration of it too it goes beyond the other for not only is the Gospel a clearer promulgation of the eternal covenant then that typical covenant was whereby the glory of it may be seen more plainly and with open face then when it was seen onely in the type as a thing to come for we preach Christum exhibitum Christ crucified a sacrifice already offered and baptize and break bread in token hereof but they and that in much dimnesse too Christum exhibendum a Messiah to come he was veiled though seen through the veil in the old but revealed in this new dispensation but also it is of larger extent in respect of the subject to which it belongs for the revelation of it by preaching and real proferring of the grace of it in the name of God who is not willing that any should perish and fail of his grace unlesse they will is to all people in the world the old administration of circumcision and other pertinances of that covenant which was the type of this was limitted and narrowed into a little corner the land of Israel the people of the Iews yea more the very new covenant administration that we are now under as preaching baptizing c. while the old covenant did continue as it did for two or three year after the beginning of this by Iohn till Christ crucified was streitned exceedingly above what it is among us for saith Christ then go not into any way of the Gentiles but now since Christ crucified its extended freely to every nation and every person in it of capacity of years to receive it and till then dying before they shall never be damned for rejecting it without any exception as they believe for go saith he into all the world c. Mark 16 Mat. 28. then circumcision was limitted to males among the Iews but Christ and baptism is to Jew and Gentile male and female without difference as they believe so that the grace is rather lengthned in the administration of baptism by taking in the females that were not circumcised then straitned by the denial of it to infants in their infancy onely for even those also may be baptized too if they will when they come to years the grace of the new covenant therefore is even thus as well as otherwise better then the old in respect of the extent of it and its administration also to more subjects for the Jews onely were the subjects of that grace and heirs by promise of the earthly Canaan but all the world are heirs of heaven by promise according as they repent and believe the Gospel Besides if you think that ever God took the whole body of that nation Israel that belonged all to the typical salvation of the old covenant into the covenant of everlasting salvation by Christ in relation to their fathers faith without their own and thence conclude that the whole body of believers seed must be by faith of their parents admitted into that same Covenant of the Gospel this is a meer Chimaera of your own brain for no such grace of
adversaries are put to their shifts to finde out a new way for the salvation of infants dying in their minority viz. The presentment of the satisfaction of Christ without faith otherwise they conclude they could not be saved which invention of theirs destroies the Gospel covenant which is the righteousnesse of faith and either damns innumerable innocents whose right to the kingdom of heaven our Saviour hath declared or grounds their salvation upon a figment of their own brains such as the Scriptures are wholly silent in and the Churches of God never dreamed of They alleadge two texts for their proof Rom. 5.18 As by the offence of one judgement came upon all to condemnation so by the righteousnesse of one the free-gift came upon all men unto justification of life Rom. 11.7 Election hath obtained it of which two texts the latter is nothing for them for it excludes not justification for the Apoctle saith plainly Rom. 8.30 Those whom he predestinated he justified and though the elect onely shall be saved yet justification goes between The former is directly against them for it expressely mentions justification of life so that the Anabaptists must either prove that justification is not to go before salvation and so pull in pieces the golden chain by taking out the link Rom. 8.38 or else that justification is not by faith and so destroy the Covenant of the Gospel till when they justly deserve the censure of damning all infants dying contrary to evident testimony of Scriptures and the sentence of our Saviour that to them belongeth the kingdeme of heaven And whosoever shall consider the impertinences of their proofs in a cause of so great consequence shall have just cause to suspect all their other doctrines and take heed how to take any thing upon trust from these new masters Re-Review Here is an argument hath neither head nor tail in it able to hurt for both have bin bruised already we having had to do with them before the one in the front the other in the rear of the disputation therefore no need to fear it yet sith it turns about again and Reviews us hisses in ouâ— faces and makes such a flutter as if it would both bite and sting us to death I shall secure it a little further how ever The head of the argument is this syllogism viz. Such as have the holy spirit and faith are the subjects of baptism but children have so The first proposition whereof you say the Anabaptists will not deny but I tell you what the Anabaptists will do I know not because if there be such a people in the world yet I never was so privy to their principles and practises as Dr. Featley and his fellows pretend to be who paints them out and presents them to the world in his title page as dipping naked and daily But in the name of 100s of them you commonly and abusively call so I mean the truest baptists that are in England I le be so bold as to deny it to be true without more for t is not the inward unseen seeds of grace and faith nor that invisible having of these which is the uâ—most you dare or do affirm concerning infants but the visible having thereof so that we see they have them by the fruits effects acts opperations and professions that quoad nos makes a subject for baptism as for what is within it is nothing to us we are strangers to it neither can or may we intermeddle therewith till it shews it self without secret things belong to God onely and things revealed onely to us and therefore for your blind brazen faced minor wherein you positively affirm here again that children not specifying what children nor whose whether of believers or unbelievers nor both nor if of believers onely whether all or onely some of them have the spirit and faith I shall be as bold to deny it ever till they give some better specimen of it then the best infant that ever you or I saw did in that nonage wherein you sprinkle them specially so long as to the stark spoiling utter unsaying and clear contradicting of whatever your own selves would prove it by you are fain to confesse page 16. That all have them not and p. 18. Which have and which have nâ—â— the spirit being no more bound to believers infants then others and no more bar'd from working in unbelievers infants than believers cannot be certainly presumed and that whatever the spirit may work in children yet this is not known to us so that there can be no conclusion made And howbeit this Argument being by your own concession thus crushed in the head i. e. this Prosyllogism turns about with his tail and thrusts at us therewith I mean this ensuing Syllogism viz. No Iustification nor salvation to them that have not faith But justification and salvation is to infants Ergo infants have faith Yet I return thus to your Major viz. that though there is no justification nor salvation without faith of such as are capable to believe and of whom to believe it is required yet of such as neither are capable nor called on to believe in order thereunto there may be and is a justification and salvation without it and this is the case of all dying infants in the world the presentment of the satisfaction of Christ without faith and without obedience also in any thing else both which are in ordine ad vitam injoined to adult ones doth save dying infants or else innumerable of those infants are damned neither is this any new way for the salvation of infants dying in minority nor a grounding their salvation upon a sigment and invention of our own braines nor such as the Scripture is altogether silent in nor such as destroyes the Gospel Covenant which is the righteousness of faith for howbeit it is true that the Scripture runs on this wise saying The just shall live by faith he that believes shall be saved he that believes not shall be damned and to him that worketh not but believeth on him that justifyeth the ungodly his faith shall be accounted unto him for righteousnesse and twenty more such like expressions of the Gospel Covenant Rom. 1. Rom. 3. Iohn 3. c. as that which gives righteousnesse and life by faith only without the works of the Law yet I beseech you set your wits on work and see whether these Scriptures were written of infants or to them either or whether only of and to mens at years only to shew unto them on what terms the Lord will accept and save them in the Covenant and promise of the Gospel Me thinks your own reason should dictate thus much that all those places speak no more of infants then they speak to them in minority and that you will assuredly yield that they do not yea you may as well say these places viz. T is a people that have no vnderstanding therefore he that made them will not save them and he
the cause of their crucifyings of Christ who depart from it as for us we are crucifyed dead and buried with Christ by baptism Rom. 6. for we are baptized into his death and that but once because Christ dyed but once and yet once because Christ dyed once and that is more then any Rantized Priest in Christendome can say of himself for he is not so much as once baptized at all Review 3. It makes them count the blood of the Covenant an unholy thing for if it be holy what need they repeat it if unholy how do they prophane it Re-review How far forth Anabaptism properly so called i. e the repetition of baptism without such warrantable ground as it was repeated upon Act. 19.5 doth saving the nonsense that is in that expression repeat the bloud of the Covenant and so count it an unholy thing I am not so much a friend to it as to gainsay but sure I am that A-no-baptism and such yours is doth count not only the bloud of the Covenant but also that holy ordinance of baptizing believers which is the token of it an unholy thing for if it be holy why do you neglect it if unholy in so saying oh how do you prophane it Review 4. It makes the Covenant of the Gospel worse then the legal this taking in all Children into the visible Church the Anabaptists excluding them making them no better than Turks and Pagans Re-review What again Review 5. It destroyes all the comforts that afflicted parents can have â—ver their deceased children the grounds of them being destroyed their right in the covenant and promises of Christ. Re-review What again Review 6. It unchristens the whole Church of God for many hundreds of years together and calls in question the truth of Christs promises of being present with his Church to the end and guiding it by his spirit into all truth Re-review What again what ore ore and ore again are you drawn so dry that you are fain to fill up to swell up your Review into the magnitude of a sheet with old ends and pieces and patches of things that were precedent or did these three Renegadoes fearing a storm run from their old ranks hither to secure themselves by crouding in amongst the rest of this rubbish stuff for every one of them have faced us once or twice a piece before page 6.7.12.13 neverthelesse sith I meet with them here again I le have a word or two with every of them now To the first I say thus if the legal covenant did take in all children into the visible Church as you say as indeed it did i. e. as well the children of unbelieving as of believing Jewes neither had the one of these a strawes more right to circumcision then the other then sith the Covenant of the Gospel is inlarged and communicated to both Jewes and gentiles between whom the partition wall is broken down and they both made one And sith now by the Priests own confession it stands in the same way to be administred among the Jewes and Gentiles as that legal Covenant did for a time among the Jewes only the Priest himself makes the covenant of the Gospel worse then the legal that taking in at least to the visible Church all children of that people to whom it extended i. e. the Jewes without any exception without any respect to the parents being godly or ungodly bâ—lievers or unbelievers the priests contrariwise under the Gospel Covenant which extends and belongs to the whole world i. e. both Jewes and Gentiles 2 Cor. 5.19 1 Iohn 2.2 and to all nations as well as one Mat. 28.18 Mark 16.15 Luke 24.47 excluding now the Major part yea almost all children by their doctrine viz. the children of unbelieving Gentiles of heathens Turks and Pagans and unbelieving Jewes too which for all their parents wickednesse and unbelief were wont to be received into the Church under the Law and this not onely from the visible Church neither for that were more tollerable of the two and can do them no hurt if it be all but also from the Kingdome of heaven and salvation it self in their cruel Charity before they have by actuall sinne deserved to be exempted And this I speak not as believing any infants in infancy to have right to entrance into the visible Church and fellowship thereof here on Earth though yet I believe all infants as well as some dying infants and before they have deserved exemption and damnation by actual rebellion to have according to the general declaration of Scripture right of entrance into the kingdome of heaven but that I may discover the unruliness of the Priest who wherein he judges others of streightning the Gospel condemnes himself who undertakes to make laws prescribe rules impose principles upon all men and yet breaks his own lawes varies from his own rules straggles from his own principles through blindness as much as any other whom he blames for it To the second thus if it be so indeed as you told us once before it is p. 7. and here tell us over again that we may know your mind in it that to deny baptism to infants before they dy doth ipso facto destroy all the comforts all the hopes that any parents can possibly have of the salvation of their infants that dy unbaptized and all the grounds of those hopes i. e. all those childrens right in the covenant and promises of Christ and consequently this necessarily followes doth subject them unavoidably unto eternal damnation Then first as I told you once or twice before so I tell you now again that 't is your selves and not we who are the men that say no baptism no salvation for say you there is no ground for parents to hope their children can be saved no though those parents be believers though those children believe also themselves and so both by birth and by their parents faith and their own faith too have right as you say the infants of Christians have in the Covenant and promises of Christ yet they must damn for all this if baptism be denyed them and if they dye without it their parents must mourne without hope of their Salvation This is your judgement of Charity concerning unbaptized infants even of never so believing parents having also the habit of faith in themselves for though parents believe and believe their children to have faith too and right to salvation yet deny them baptism and all the other notwithstanding there 's no hope of them the parents can upon no good ground be comforâ—ed concerning them but that they are damned T is you therefore that place such high and mighty necessity in the bare outward dispensation of the ordinance that are so for the ceremony that hold that the substance doth no good without it why else do you say that be there never so many grounds otherwise on which to hope infants salvation viz. their parents faith and their own faith and
him as his but also when we do good to them that are none of his disciples upon the meer account of his command who injoines all persons as occasion is to do good to all though especially to the houshold of faith whereupon also I perswade my self verily nor is it very unworthy of observation that the spirit when it speaks of doing good to profest disciples indeed Mar. 9.41 he incourages to receive them not onely in the name i. e. for the sake of Christ so requiring but as belonging to him also as his disciples in the name of a Prophet in the name of a righteous man in the name of a disciple but when he speaks of our doing good to that child Luke 9.48 he saies no more then barely in the name of Christ i. e. for the sake of Christ owning such an action but expresses not the other notion and account of discipleship and Relation to him as that on which he would have him to be received Moreover were it otherwise it would make little to the purpose of Mr. Ba. who brings it to prove some such sucking infants as men sprinkle i. e. believers babes to be disciples sith that it was a believers child of which Christ there speaks or that he speaks of such children rather then of the children of other men is much more then Mr. Ba. can ever clear and that it was a child of such a stature as to come to Christ when he cald him and therefore no infant of a span long nor such as is the subject of your sprinkling is too clear for Mr. Ba. to gainsay without clear contradiction of the Scripture Mat. 18.2 These are far fetcht faddles whereby Mr. Ba. backs his people in the blind belief of his fond and false opinion that all believers infants are Christs disciples and thereupon to be baptized The mediums whereby he manifests their membership in the Gospel-church are many more then a good many and not more many then manifestly weak and utterly unavailable to such a purpose Rantist Many more then ever will be answered easily by you or any other that set so light by them as you do Baptist. That may possibly be too for I think no wise body will immittere pecus in pratum vbi non est sepes busie himself beyond measure in such a boundlesse prate and piece of sillogization about infant membership as it is nor be so extravagant from Mr. Bs. own advice who p. 12. tells us that we shall never be able to justifie it if we lay out but the thousandth part of our time study talk or zeal yet if he have not spent the twenteth part of his own I am must mistaken upon this question it self either for or against it as to lose a moiety of his time in replying distinctly to such a mint of impertinencies as are handled at armes end here by Mr. Ba. for my own part I am not minded to tire my self to much with tracing at large after every new hare that starts in my way nor to stand dancing the hay after Mr Ba. into every corner of that laborinth of Logick into which he leads me and yet leaves me after view and Review as little ground for infant baptism as if he had said nothing at all nor shall I bury my self up from better imployment in the bottomlesse pit of those absurdities which this part of his book also is fully fraught with partly because I find that most that he saies there is in effect answered already in the book called Anti-babism where the genuine sense of the main Scriptures he rests into his own use is given out viz. Rom. 11. 1. Cor. 7. Mar. 9.36 Rom. 4.11 Mal. 2.15 partly also because I perceive a vain of particular contest with Mr. T. to run thorow the whole which Mr. T. according to the particular interest he hath therein hath already taken notice of in Print so far as its worth an answer partly also because I am not so happy as to have the patience of many scarce of any of the churches of Christ whose servant I am suffering me hitherto without such frequent avocations of me from this to services of another nature abroad as are inconsistent with my writing of much more at home Neverthelesse besides some animadversion of as much of its absurdity as may be with conveniency I shall take the sting out so clearly that it shall not hurt and that by both a clear though general disproof of it all and as clear though generall and brief demonstration of the contrary Take notice therefore of the most cardinal argument upon which he grounds infant church-membership under the Gospel It was so once that infants were of the church and it is not repealed therefore it is so now To which I answer by granting t was so from Abrahams time and downward to Christ for before that time all the paâ—â—s he takes doth not and all the braines he hath in his head cannot produce the least sollid proof of such a thing for all that Church and the materials of it were a ceremony and a type and never the viler for that as Mr. Ba. foolishly fancies p. 59. of the church under Christ t was so in that outward typicall covenant that God made concerning an earthly Canaan with the natural seed of Abraham in the loines of Isaac and Iacob not Ismael Gen. 17.20.21 nor any of his seed by Keturah Gen. 25.1.6 upon the performance of certain carnal ordinances as circumcision and the rest of the ordinances of Divine service pertaining to that covenant which circumcision bound them to till the time of reformation Heb. 9. but that therefore t is so now in the church under the gospel-Gospel-covenant that was typified by the other I utterly deny whose heavenly inheritance and spirituall seed of Abraham i. e. believers born of God by faith in Christ answer as he Anti-type to that earthly Canaan and fleshly seed of Abraham and before which the type is fled away for all the ceremonialls of that law are vanisht among which this admitting of fleshly babes was one and what it pointed at is shewed abundantly in Anti-babism which may serve as an answer also to his fourteenth argument for their present membership where if the law of infant-Church-membership were ceremonial he bids us shew what it tipâ—fiâ—d â—he membership therefore of infants which belonged onely to that particular Church of the Jewes which was also the whole universal visible Church that God then had upon earth unlesse we shall dream with Mr. Baxter of more particular visible Churches then that of the Jewes during its standing different from it in form order and constitution which together with that made up some one universal visible of which infants were members first as he dotes and then secondarily of that particular which conceit of his concerning such a universal visible is a meer invisible chimaera for who ever saw any visible Church or people whom God visibly
Ex nihilo nihil fit in an ordinary way but such is the extraordinary eagerness of Mr. Ba. to have the game go his way by either fair play or foul that he is wise to extract something out of any thing and any thing out of just nothing to his purpose this that God is not more prone to severity then mercy may serve and that soundly to make against those that say God is willing to save but a few and did peremptorily determine to damn personally an 100 men to one before they were born and that without reference to their soreseen rejection of his grace but how it seems to make a jot against such as suppose the salvation of all dying infants denying onely infants meer membership in meer gospell fellowship I must professe my self too shallow to conceive yea I am astonisht saving that the word tells me the seers must be blinded for teaching Gods fear after mens precepts that the the ministers should buzze such a businesse abroad in print viz. that if infants be not now Church-members then God is more prone to severity then to mercy and then back it so baldly too as Mr. Ba. does it is evident thus saith he God hath cut off multitudes of wicked mens infants both from the Church and from life for the sins of their progenitors viz. Dathan and Abirams Achans Amalecks the Midianites Daniels accusers the Hittites Amorites Canaanites Perrezites and Jebusites therefore if he should not admit of some infants of faithful men so much as to the visible Church then he should be more prone to severity then to mercy I cannot but inwardly blush at Mr. Bas. blindnesse as if God had no way whereby to vindicate the honour of his mercy and clear himself from the censure of more severe then merciful but one that is by giving commission to us which yet he no where gives us in any part of his will and Testament to baptize and inchurch some infants as if he had no way to recover to his credit again to his most merciful name of the Lord mercifull gracious and slow to anger since his cutting off so many infants togeâ—her with their wicked parents by meer temporal death and to make amends as it were for all the slaughters that he made of innocent infants with their rebellious fathers in the daies of the law unlesse in liew thereof he grant some infants of faithful men to be members of his visible Churches and in visible fellowship with them in the daies and ages of the Gospel Who sees not the weaknesse the wretchednesse of this consequence yet so it is with Mr. Ba. that God is more prone to severity then mercy if he now admit no infants into the visible Church under the Gospel except saith he it be proved that God giveth them some greater mercy out of the Church To which exception of his I say thus First it need not be proved and yet his consequence will prove false for if the meer admitting of some faithful mens infants into the visible Church will so make up the matter as to salve God from censure of pronesse to severity rather then mercy and magnifie his mercy so as to make it appear to be that he delights in more then judgement notwithstanding his severity in slaying so many infants with the parents then God magnfied his mercy in that kind of way sufficiently to make amends for that severity in the very time of the law it self forasmuch as then he did admit for 2000 years together not onely some infants of faithfull men but in all that time innumerable infants of unfaithful and wicked men for such were the Jewes for the most part in their several generations and yet such infants your selves would not now have admitted to stand in the vrsible and national Church of the Jewes And so there is no need of any admittance of infants now in order to such an end as satisfaction for his severity to some infants of old into visible fellowship with Gospel Churches Secondly to satisfie him further it may easily be proved that God giveth infants if they die in their infancy unbaptized and not inchurched for if they live to years they may be baptized all and inchurched too if they believe a greater mercy then that of meer church-membership here on earth for they having never committed any actuall sins whereby to deserve exemption charity teaches us to believe and hope thus much saies the Ashford Pamphlet of all such that of such is the kindom of heaven One thing more I cannot but take notice of in this passage not in way of contradiction to Mr. Ba. but in way of discovery how contradictory unto him some of his brethren are who mannage the same cause with him that they may either close more hand somely together or else excuse us if we believe none of them till they be agreed more among themselves for whereas Mr. Baxter layes it down as the manner of old that when the parents sinned and broke Gods covenant so as to deserve to be discovenanted thereupon the children that had right to stand by the Quondam membership of their parents were wont to be discovenanted dischurched and sometimes destroyed with them I find the fornamed Dr. Channell of another mind for when in a second publique discourse with him at Petworth on Ianuary 5.1651 I asserted his practise to be contradictory to his own judgement forasmuch as his judgement was that believers infants onely were in covenant with God and in right to Church-membership and baptism and yet his practise to baptize all or most of the infants in his parish not one of many of whose parents he judged to be believers as appeaed by his refusing communion with them for many years together in the supper He gave answer to this purpose viz. that the parent i. e. believing or else the child hath no right secundum te O Presbyter may sin himself out of covenant again out of all communion in the Church and be damned and yet the child stand still in right to baptism and membership which he had by the faith of those parents which as it thwarts the wonted way of discovenanting dischurching of children with the parents so it contradicts himself more another way though he evade his first contradiction by it to say that believing parents for such onely say your selves give right to their infants to be baptized may sinne themselves out of covenant and be damned for though as I then told him he preached it in saying thus yet I am perswaded he holds no falling from grace More things I take notice that that Dr. and Mr. Bax. knock heads in but I spare to do more then advise them to accord better with each other but specially each of them with himself or else as implicitly as men have believed them heretofore they will try them ere long and scarce trust them any longer His 20 Plain Scripture-lesse proof for infant churchmembership and baptism
Adam to save them but because not they themselves for they have no more ability so to do then a new born infant hath to dresse its naked body but their fathers put it not on by faith for themselves and theirs which if the dying infants might live to years as Christ said of Sodom they happily would do therefore millions of these poor innocents must perish so then belike it is thus and this is the covenant of the Gospel the fathers faith saves him and all his dying infants and the fathers sin of unbelief damnes for ever not himself onely but all his dying infants also All infants that are damned then are damned through the fault of two unhappy fathers a remote father for sinning and and immediate father for not believing between which two the love of the heavenly father cannot come at them a wise man may spend all he hath with looking but never find such as this in all the Scripture earthly inheritances are oft stated and removed to and from posterity for fathers faith and faults as all Abrahams posterity by Isaac and Iacob did enjoy Canaan and Esaus lost it but the eternal inheritance is neither won nor lost by the children through the faith or unbelief of the parents and besides if Adams sin though a remote parent doth so damnifie all infants that the righteousnesse of Christ cannot save them without the fathers faith me thinks he being their great grand father Adams faith should recover him and all his at least from that guilt his sin brought upon them by interessing them in Christs righteousnesse as well as his single unbelief at first destroyed them if any fathers faith shall entitle his infants to salvation or else God seems not to be so prone to mercy as severity yea indeed he that saies God is not more prone to severity then to mercy and shewes it no other way as to his dealing with innocent infants then by saying he saves no more dying of infants then those few i. e. some of the dying infants of believers and from the Mothers womb damns eternally all the rest may say over that his creed in my hearing 500 times and ten before I shall learn to believe it after him once Thirdly as to threatnings of damnation I find none at all to infants in their ininfancy from one end of the book of God to the other but all that ever is spoken as concerning eternal wrath the second death everlasting damnation the Lake of fire is declared as the portion of those onely that do and do not that which was never at all much lesse in order to salvation and on pain of eternal fire enjoined by infants either to be done or forborn yea this is the condemnation and nothing else that I know of that light more or lesse comes to persons and they love darknesse more then light because their deeds are evil those that Christ speaks nothing at all to as he does to heathens themselves Rom. 1. Rom. 2. but not to infants that yet know not the right hand from the left much lesse either good or evil they have not sin for sin is the transgression of that law that is lent us to live by whether a law within onely or without also Rom. 2. but when he hath spoken and they obey not when they know God and glorify him not as God then they are without excuse and have no cloak at all for their sin and the word he hath spoken to every one being rejected that same word shall judge him at the last day I find it said no whoremonger fornicatoâ— c. no actual impenitent sinner shall â—ver enter or hath any inheritance at all but not no unbelievers dying infants in the kingdome of God or of Christ and that the Lord shall come in flaming fire taking vengeance on all them that know not God and obey not the Gospel of Christ c. and yet on no dying infants though they neither know him nor obey him for if he should then believers infants should therefore to the pot as well as others as who in infancy obey no more then their fellows that the fearful and unbelieving and dogs and socerers and murderers and all liars c. but not hars dying infants shall have their portion in the lake of fire burning with brimstone which is the second death and that the unprofitable servant that traded not with his talent and not infants that in infancy have no talent to trade with shall be cast into utter darknesse that those on whom Christ called and they would not hear and to whom he stretched out his hands and they regarded him not and would none of Christs councel nor reproof shall call on him at that day and not be heard and not infants on whom he never called that the Lord added to the Church dayly such men and women Act. 2. not at all such infants as should be saved that he that believeth not the gospel shall be damned but not infants to whom he never preached that it shall be said to the wicked go ye cursed into into everlasting fire for I was hungry and you fed me not c. among which if there were any that died infants they might justly reply indeed as no wicked men at years can do Lord when saw we thee in distresse and neglected thee and did not come and minister unto thee In a word the whole body of the new Testament or covenant in the promissory praeceptory and minatory parts of it saving some two or three such gentle touches about infants as those above named whereby we may have hopes that none of them dying such are for ever lost was written and given to and concerning men and women and not infants to declare unto them the way of everlasting salvation and in what wayes God would and would not accept of them and he that with an unprejudiced spirit observes all this will trouble himself no more about his infants to in church and baptize them for remission of sins which is the prime use of baptism to sinners and utterly lost when diâ—penst to infants that have not sins nor indeed to do more then instruct them as they grow up and pray for them while they live infants and hope well of them if they dy in their minority but it pitties my heart for them to see what moyl and toil the Priests create to themselves and the people and what much ado they make about their poor infants even much more then about themselves As for Iacobs being Lovd before he was born he means in contradistinction to Esau wch is Mr. Bs. tenth ground of hope that believers infants are from the womb in a hopeful way I suppose he takes it to be so declared but is miserably mistaken if he think the ninth of the Romans saies so for t is true the elder shall serve the younger which relates to the posterity of those two and not their persons for Esau was mostly
it were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fimbria de textu by the list and selvedg you may judge how deeply the cloth is died in blood but alas what 's all this to a sight of the cloth it self what a small shew of blood is here to that of the WWWoman which Iohn saw and he is blind that sees not now sitting upon a Scarlet coloured beast araid her self also in scarlet i. e. died red red to drunkeness with the blood of the Saints and the blood of the Martyrs of Iesus spiritually called BBBabilon and Egypt for cruelty to Gods Israel raigning in wrath and rigor in three PPParts or Tyrannical formes of governmet ore Kings people deceiving all nations to drink so deep of the wine of the wrath of the her fornications as to be drunk with wrath against the Saints and in their drunkeness at HHHer will to push and gore them with ten horns to execute cruelty on them for truths sake and try them to the tyring of themselves with cruel mockings scourgings bonds imprisonments stonings sawings burnings hangings headings and with such geer as Feat himself as if by his own pen he would prove the PPPriesthood and their people to be men of blood confesses that the Anti-baptists have inflicted upon the Anabaptists p 68.182 183. and for which they had no warrant from Christ viz. drowning racking fleaing stabbing tearing with hot pincers and to use his own phrase the severest punishments they could devise And finally in which WWWoman is found the blood not only of persecution of Martyrs and Prophets but of war also and of all them that are slain upon earth for all this verily will be seen at last to ly hid in her Scholastick skirts Rev. 18.24 As for the Pope and his Clergy fas est vel ab hoste doceri both by Featley and others t is asserted and that truly that the devil by him and his adherents hath acted such bloody persecutions against the true servants of God and maintainers of the Orthodox faith as together with such other exploits of Satan and his agents as he there names hath been the ruine of Millions of men all which is very true of them yet not onely the Italian Seminaries but our Brittish Seminaries also have been such stirrers up of strife between and within these nations about worships Governments Covenants for the same form and faith to the shedding of the blood of thousands in war and such sowers cum sanguine Martyrum semine Ecclesiae that though I know the wrath of the CCClergy hath wrought his praise and his peoples peace so far that he will restrain the remainder thereof Yet I can more bewail then either you avoid or I avert that blood which the Lord that is righteous in judging thus will give you to drink except you repent of your cruelty to consciences and to the carcasses of men for their conscience sakes and your pittilesse inexorablenesse towards others in the self same cases wherein you cryed quarter your selves for you cryed out for liberty still when you were under the Tyrannicall domination one over anothers faith the Bishops when they groaned under the Pope and the Presbyters when under the Prelates but when you crept out of the Captivating clutohes and got quit from the Clerical cruelty of each other you curb'd the poor people still and chaltered them up sub paena to your own new found postures and Impenitent purses as mercilessly almost as before and have lent them but little better liberty then the horse hath when his loadsome log is taken off his leg that he may be rid to a Jade another way for what great difference between Rome and Canterbury save that of old our Pope lived further off us and of late we were bejaded with one neerer home Includamus hunc in orbe nostro tanquam alterius Orbis Papam saies Pope Vrban the second of Anselmus Arch-bishop of Canterbury 1099. when he set him at his right foot in a generall Councell i. e. we must count upon him in our world as it were some distinct Pope of another world and so it fell out to be too at last a Pope is but a Pope at one place and so he is as well at another and what amendment of the matter to have one man that Lorded it and Pater Nosterd over the faith and conscience of Gods people removed and Classes or Assemblies of them stablished in his stead yet thus for ought I see it should have been if the Trojane Horse of the Scotch Presbytery had taken place here which men were mad being betwatled by subtle Sinons Synodicall pretences to hale in till some more wise amd quick of hearing then the rest heard a noise of Arms more then Arguments clang in the belly of it and so not believing it to be such a Donum divinum such a Ius divinum as was pretended but a thing that stood Iure Hominico Daemonico rather then Dominico could never since be charmd by any Sinonical or Sinodical solicitation whatsoever to admit it into English borders Blessed be God that curst creatures begin now to have short horns that the Trebble Terrible one the Trebble TTTribe is brought so low that those that would have made a man an offender for a word yea for THE WORD spoken against their word and laid a snare for such as reproved them in the gate and turned aside the just for a thing of nought and were barbarously bitterly bloodily bent against the poor among men that rejoice in the holy one of Israel are disappointed else we should have seen it seems by Featley and Gangraena that not onely Pope Boniface and Bâ—shop Bonner but the bonny Bishops of the two latter broods P and P are imbrued also not a little with the blood of Christ whom they crucify throw the sides of his Saints for Sectarizing after him from themselves witnesse their bloody Tenet of persecution by prisons fines confiscations banishments c. for cause of conscience witnesse their constant crying out to Pilate i. e. the Governours and Pilots of such States where Christ would but live quietly beside them in his poor disciples away with him away with him crucify him yea though the Governour strive with the chief Priests as Pilate did to rescue him as finding no fault in him but though they wash themselves with Nitre and take them much sope yet this iniquity into which Smectimnuus degenerated since groanes for liberty of conscience came out of his own mouth is marked before me saith the Lord yea had you been sprinkled with holy water it self yet except you repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of the Lord Jesus for remission of sins through his blood which so doing saves even them that shed it you are not onely by eating and drinking unworthily i. e. disorderly at the Supper which baptism must precede in Gospel reformation but also by your cruelty to his disciples whom you would have crusht if
t is clear because they have circumcision and baptism which are Gods witnesses seals or evidences to us that they have it this is not Idem per Idem the same by the same that is too effeminate a probation but t is eadem inter se or per se invicem the same things reciprocally by each other and well nigh as womanish as that for whether is it better to say they have it because they have it or to say it is apparent they have this because they have that and that being as much doubted to clear it thus viz. it is apparent they have that because they have this and if these two viz. faith and baptism faith and Circumcision did ponere se invicem so that one could not possibly be without the other they might the better probare se invicem but 't is not so for as faith may possibly be where neither Circumcision nor baptism are dispensed witness the thief on the Cross so ther 's neither of them but may be and is too too much dispensed where faith is not Secondly let me ask you is Gods witness Gods testimony true or is it false for say you God himself did witness it that the children of the Iews i. e. in infancy had faith false you dare not say it is nay you do not but rather p. 5. that his testimony as to the truth of it is to be preferred before mans yea I say let God be true and every man a liar but if it be true how then appears it to be so if your testimony be not false how then came it to pass that the most of the Iews and their children sucessively in all generations had not faith when they came to years for it 's most evident that most of them were unbelievers and therfore they could not enter into their rest but their carcasses fell in the wilderness I know but two shifts you can make and 't is much at a pass which you take for you will contradict your selves in either of them both for surely either they fell from that grace as those infants do also whom you sprinkle from that faith which as you say and seem to see once they had and this flatly contradicts your own doctrine of impossibility of falling from faith or else they never had any such faith as you say they had in infancy and then either Gods witness of such a thing must be a lye which what horrid heresie were it to think and abominable blasphemy once to utter or else God by Circumcision never witnessed such a thing and that flatly contradicts your Antecedent and so your selves will be found false witnesses of God because you have testified of him that he himself did witness by Circumcision that the children of the Iews had faith when he never witnessed it at all Fourthly the fourrh grand Interrrgatory is this Sirs what children of the Jews had faith in their infancy witnessed by Circumcision were they the children of the believing or unbelieving Jews for you are shy me thinks of expressing too often which you mean and proceeed as indefinitely that you may deceive as indiscernably as you can if of the unbelievers then is not this goodly disputing viz. Children of the unbelieving Iews had faith and circumcision Ergo children of believing Gentiles onely have faith and must have baptism Secondly Is not this goodly doing if 't were your practise as strictly as 't is your plea to baptize onely believers children now upon their own faith because unbelievers children of old were circumcised upon their own faith this straitens the grace of God under the Gospel in comparison of the largness of it under the law for then all children of unbeliving Iewes were circumcised by his appointment as well as the infants of believers Answerably to which if you go by that rule you should conclude thus uiz all the Gentiles children should be baptized now as well those of unbelievers as believers ' but you turn out unbelievers children from the priviledge that unbelievers children had before but if you say children of believing Jews onely had faith then therefore of believing parents now then first how doth your Argument and proof drawn from Gods witnessing by Circumcision that there was faith in the Infants hold any more to the proof of it in believers infants then in unbelievers for he set Circumcision to the infants of the wicked and unbelievers among the Jews as well as of the godly and believers Secondly how doth it appear at all that godly and believing parents children then had faith more usually then children of ungodly parents when good Ely had two vile sonnes Hophni and Phineas good David wicked Absolom good Solomon wicked Rehoboam good Iehosaphat wicked Ioram good Iosiah wicked Iechoniah and his brethren c. when contrariwise wicked Ahaz begat good Hezekiah wicked Abia good Asa wicked Amon good Iosia which shews that faith is not entail'd from parents to posterity as you would make it Thus I have spoken to your first way wherby you prove Infants of believers to have the spirit and thereupon right to baptism viz. their faith and to a first and second of those whereby you seem to prove them to believe there is yet a third way whereby you would make men believe that Infants of believers do believe viz. their Iustification without which there is no salvation but because that 's not inserted here at all but toward the end of the disputation and is prosecuted most vigorously in your Review I will suspend the prosecution of that head till I come thither and proceed next to a consideration of the second third fourth and fifth ways as they lie in order whereby you would prove believers infants to have the spirit above the infants of unbelievers Disputation The next thing whereby you offer proof of it that infants of believing parents onely remember these still are the subject on which you pretend to proceed and predicate that these denominants viz. the spirit faith holiness c. that these I say have the holy spirit is their holiness from whence you confess here that there was no Argument taken that is to say 't was not proved and yet a little above p. 3. in the fourth and fifth line of this sum aliâs some of your disputation you as blindly as boldly bolt it out that it was proved by their holiness the Apocaliptical beast that was and yet was not scarcely seems more Apocriphal to you then this was and was not of yours seems Apoplexical or brainsick to me This True-ly might have been rankt among the rest in your true Account but to let it pass thus this cannot but be granted for a truth that you made as if you would have proved it by their holiness that infants of believers have the spirit but did not because I wisht you but fool that I was I have been sorry since that I did at all wish you to forbear it for as I was not
of promise Secondly by that contradistinction of speech which the spirit useth when he speaks of them and those oppposite Epithets by which he diversifies them calling one the Law the other the Gospel and the law by the name of the first testament or will of Cod the Gospel the Second the law the old testament the Gospel the new the law which bound to circumcision and to the observation of which in all other things circumcision bound its subjects when they came to years not of faith though faith then was too in a few and also from the beginning as to the eternal inheritance but of flesh rather and the time before faith came Gal. 3.11.12.13 also a law of a carnall commandement a faulty and a blameable testament of weak and beggerly rudiments in respect of Christ who is the end of them standing in imperfect and onely flesh-purifying precepts and on meerly terrene inferiour and flesh-pleasing promises as Canaan and Ierusalem here below also the Letter in ink in tables of stone the ministration of death and condemnation the Covenant gendering to bondage the haired the hand writing of ordinances that was against us yet thus farre not against but subservient to the promises as t was the similitude of heavenly things the figure and shadow of the good things to come and a schoolmaster to bring to Christ Eph. 2.14 Col. 2.14 The Gospel contrariwise the time of faith Gal. 3.25 for after faith came c. the power of an endless life Heb. 7.16 a better Testament standing in lesse painful ordinances more plain and soul purifying precepts and on better and more precious and foul saving promises a Canaan a Ierusalem from above Heb. 8.6 Also the ministration of the spirit in fleshly tables of the heart of righteousnesse of life liberty love grace reconciliation the very Image and truth it self of which the law was but the shadow Thus you find the Scripture opposing one of these two to the other so farre is it from signifying them to be one and the self same Covenant as you frivolously fain them to be that you may build your infant-baptism thereupon Now whether we shall believe the holy spirit which stiles these two expressely two Covenants or your selves who will have them to be but one judge ye Moreover how two Covenants or testaments can be plurally pointed out and called two and opposed respectively ad se invicem by the names of the first and second the old and new the type and the truth a better and a worse c. yea and contradictorily predicated too as the law and the Gospel are of which it s said the one is of faith i. e. ever for so the Gospel ever was saying believe and live and the just must live by faith the other not of faith i. e. never for the law never was of faith but the man that doth them shall live in them was the terms thereof and yet all this while be but one and the same Covenant and Testament is no lesse then a mystery to me sith t is an undeniable rule among Logicians that oppositio semper subinferâ— pluralitatem also that contradictio est oppositionum perfectissima pugnacissima et Eterna d sâ—unctionis opposition specially contradiction which is the greatest of oppositions doth suppose a plurality so that t is impossible that one thing should be two contradictory things at once or that contradictories should eodem tempore cadere in idem i. e. be truely spoken both of the same thing at the same time Babist The one is called the first and the old Testament meerly because it went before and is now vanisht away and alienated the other is called the second and the' new one meerly because it comes after that and is now in being not because it is really another Testament another Covenant as you contend but two parts rather or periods of one and the same Covenant of grace which was from the beginning of the world Baptist. I confesse that the Gospel Covenant was in the world before the Law and under the law also onely in smaller measure of manifestation as well as now but deny still that the Law which is called the old and first Covenant was the Covenant of the Gospel or that it was not a Covenant clearly distinct from it for its being opposed as the new and second to the other as a first and old one preaches no lesse to the meanest capacities then a plurality And as for that reason which you give of those terms first second old and new viz. because the law was more antient and antecedent the Gospel more of late and subsequent in this sence t is true the Gospel is succedaneous to the other as to its last and clearest promulgation under Christ crucified for else in some degrees of it the Gospel was before the law and was preacht to Abraham as you alleadge out of Gal. 3.8.17 430 years before Moses yea and to Adam 2000 years before that yea indeed to say the truth the Law and the Gospel were both even from the beginning though both more lively illustrated toward the end the Gospel in dark promises being both before and under those plainer promulgations of the Law as given by Moses and the law in some parcels viz. Sacrifices and some other ceremonies of it being from Adam and Abel before the brighter breakings forth of either the one or yet the other in this sence I say t is true the Law came first by Moses before the Gospel of grace and truth came by Christ whereupon that may be properly called the first and old one and this also the second and the new neverthelesse not onely thereupon for howbeit the bare notions of first second old and new arise from the ones being once and now abolished the others being since and still abiding yet could they not possibly and properly be called so much as two Covenants much less a first and a second if they were not truly two or were only one for then we may properly call two years one or one single intire year by the name of two years and those two the first year and the second the old year and the New year because there is two parts two periods two halves in that one year whereof one is Antecedent to the other which Py-bald Bull Bipartite business odd conceited one-two or simple duple is both ridiculous improper and impossible Babist They are called two Covenants in regard of the double outward dispensation and different administration thereof though the Covenant be one and the same and so saith Mr. Marshall p. 8.9.10 of his Sermon viz. The Covenant of grace for substance hath been alwaies one and the same though not for the Manner of administration so p. 12. The externall administration of the Covenant is not the same with us saith he as it was with them but the Covenant is the same they were under the same misery by nature had the same Christ the