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A78189 Fifty queries, seriously propounded to those that question, or deny infants right to baptism By J.B. an hearty well-wisher to their souls, and to the Churches peace. Barret, John, 1631-1713. 1675 (1675) Wing B907A; ESTC R212079 15,280 32

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any person that can be known by themselves or others Would it not be to confound the Decree of God with his Covenant And what Right or hope doth this give to Christians for their children more than to Pagans Whether they that will lay all the Right of Infants to the pardon of sin V. p. 209 205. and salvation upon secret election only as if all that we knew of Infants salvation were that God would save some whom he hath elected but that there is no promise of Grace or Salvation to any particular Infant in the World as under any condition or qualification Whether they must not say that no Infant hath any Right to Pardon Grace and Salvation given him by the Covenant of Grace no more than any elect person at age hath before Faith and Regeneration And must they not say too that we have no assurance that God will save ten or three Infants in all the World For he hath not told us whether he hath elected so many Or that they may all or almost all be saved while the number of the Elect is unrevealed Or can they say that any more of the children of the faithful are saved than of the Heathens or Infidels of those that love God and keep his Commandment than of those that hate him Yea how can they have any proper hope upon Covenant-right that God will save any one Individual Infant in the World For how can we hope in this proper sence of any thing but what we do believe And how can we believe what is not promised or revealed And so must not Parents thus far be left hopeless And if God will save more yea V. p. 205 206. so great numbers as we hope are saved in Infancy than ever he promised to save and gave any Antecedent Right to Salvation to whether will it not open such a gap to the hopes of presumptuous Heathens and Infidels this way as will cross our common Doctrine As some will say why may he not do so also by Parents at least renewing them in transitu And further V. p. 1●2 if God hath given no condition or character Antecedent as a differencing qualification of those that he will save from those that he will not but only told us that he will save whom he listeth whether this maketh not Infants to be no Subjects of his Kingdom under no Law and so liable to no Judgment nor to stand in judgment with the rest of the World but only to be used as Beasts or Stones by Divine natural motion as he will And then if there be no Law that giveth Right to pardon and salvation to any one Infant in the World and yet many are saved will it not follow that God is as the prophane say better than his word and will save many to whom he never gave right to it by promise Q. XXXVIII Though all that are saved V. p. 203 204. are saved for the meritorious righteousness of Christ by way of free gift yet whether the condition be not a sutable acceptance And why may not a Parent accept a Donation for his child who hath no will to accept it for himself Shall he be certainly shut out unto damnation Or shall he have that gift absolutely which is conditional to all others Or is he not concerned in the Donation at all And have not Infants guilt and misery from their Parents And though life and pardon be by Christ only yet is it not congruous that the meer condition of acceptance may be performed by the Parents while they cannot accept for themselves Q. XXXIX V. p. 106 107. Whether it be no advantage for children to be under an early engagement to God and Jesus Christ Whether to dedicate them betimes to God doth not tend to secure God's right and childrens good and to prevent their sin and misery they being thus under a double Obligation which they may be minded of betimes and which may hold them more strongly to their duty and disadvantage the Tempter that would draw them off from God And may it not do much to awe the minds of children yea V. p. 107. and cause them to love that Christ which hath received them and that Society to which they belong And is Infant-covenanting any hinderance in Nature or Reason from personal serious covenanting with God at age Do we not tell our children and all the adult that their Infant-covenanting by Parents will serve them but till they have Reason and will of their own to chuse for themselves If it were deferred till ripeness of age would not one part neglect it and continue Infidels V. p. 222 223. and another part do all formally as we see they do now at the other Sacrament where the same Covenant is to be renewed Is there not a better remedy that all that are baptized in Infancy should as understandingly and as seriously and if it may be conveniently as solemnly own and make that Covenant with God when they come to age as if they had never been baptized if not more as being more obliged Is it not much liker to tend to the good of Souls V. p. 109. and the propagating Christianity and the strength of the Church for to have both the obligation and comfort of our Infant-covenant and Church-state and as serious a covenanting also at age when we pass into the Church-state of the Adult than to be without the former and left only to the expectation of the latter Whether to be seriously devoted to God by our Parents first V. p. 223. and to be brought at age as seriously to devote our selves to him as any Anabaptist can do be not a much likelier way to fill the Church with serious Christians than to leave all men without an early Infant-obligation Q. XL. V. p. 156 157. Whether it can be proved that ever there was one Age or Church particular on Earth since Adam till about 200. years ago that the Anabaptists rose wherein Infants were not de facto taken for Members of the Church Q. XLI Whether it can be proved V. p. 157 104. that ever there was any one Infant of true Church-members that was not rightfully a Church-member himself from the Creation till Christ's dayes Or from the Creation till this day except the Anabaptists who reject the benefit whose case we will not presume to determine Q. XLII V. p. 157 158. Seeing that Infants have been de facto Church-members from the Creation to this day as far as any Records can lead us Is it likely that the Lord and Head and all sufficient Governour of his Church would have permitted his Church till now to be actually made up of such Subjects as in regard of age be disallowed and suffered his Church to be wrong framed till now Or is it a reasonable modest and lawful undertaking to go about now in the end of the World to make God a new framed Church
Redeemer's Army against the proclaimed Enemy and to teach her posterity to do the like V. p. 94. And did they not continue visible Members of Christ's Army and Kingdom till such time as they violated that Fundamental Obligation and as the Seed of the Serpent fought against Christ and his Kingdom V. p. 95. for Satan and his Kingdom Q. VI. V. p. 82 83. Whether in that first Proclamation of Grace to fallen man or in the first promise of Redemption to sinners Gen. 3.15 An Infant of the Woman be not promised to be General and Head of the Church And whether the promise of an Infant Head doth not declare God's mind that he will have Infants Members because the Head is the principal Member Whether God doth not assure us hereby that he doth not exclude the Infant-state or Age from the redeemed Church which he admitted into the Church by the Laws of Creation Would he have made the Head first an Infant if he had excluded the Infant-state from the visible Church Is not the Head a Member even the principal Member And are not Infants hereby clearly warranted to he Members of a lower Nature If an Infant may be Soveraign then may not Infants be Subjects If an Infant may be the chief Prophet of the Church then may not Infants be Disciples if it be said they are no Disciples that learn not may it not as well be said he is no Prophet that teacheth not If it be granted that Christ in Infancy was the Prophet of his Church by designation V. p. 86. though not in actu exercito Why may not Infants be Disciples too by Designation or Separation though not yet actual Learners How doth their Infancy incapacitate them to be in Covenant with God V. p. 84. to be Church-members c. when Christ in Infancy bare all the Connter-relations and was in the Covenant of God as Mediator and that as far as we can judge only by a virtual and not actual consent in his Infancy and Humane Nature to the Covenant of Mediation If an Infant qua talis V. p. 88. as such be excluded from Church-membership then will it not hold ad omnes universally and then had not Christ himself been excluded Q. VII V. p. 118 119. Why are those two Titles put on those two distinct Generations scil the Posterity of Cain and the Posterity of Seth calling one the Sons of God and the others the Daughters of men Gen. 6.2 But that the one was a Generation separated from the Church from their Birth their Progenitors being cast out before them when the other was the Seed of Saints not cast out but Members of the Church or the Sons of those who were devoted to God and so devoted to him themselves a separated Generation belonging to God as his visible Church Were these called the Sons of God in regard of their godliness who were so wicked that God repented that he had made them and destroyed them in the Flood or for their Relation Church-state and visible Separation from open unchurched Idolaters like those Deut. 14.1 2. Doth it not hence appear that the Generation of the righteous then even from the Womb V. p. 119 120. were numbered among God's people in that they are not mentioned as a people called out here and there and initiated at Age there is no mention or hint of any such thing but as a Stock or Generation opposed to the Daughters of men or of the unchurched who were such from their Infancy as all will grant were they the same men that were Parents of those here called the Daughters of men and of those called the Sons of God Q. VIII V. p. 122. Whether it was not the same Church before and after Abraham's time that was called the Tents of Sem Gen. 19.27 Was not the Jewish Church denominated the Tents of Sem And does it not hence appear that the Church-priviledges of that people did not begin with or from Abraham but that they were before And how was it the same Church that was of Sem and of Abraham if it had not the same sort of Members or materials if Infants were not Members before Abraham's dayes as well as after And if Japhet's Children must dwell in Sem's Tents V. p. 123. then will it not follow that as Sem's Infants were Church-members so Japhet's or the converted Gentiles Seed are not cast or left out Q. IX V. p. 7● Whether if we could shew no written Law or promise at first constituting the Duty or granting the priviledge of Church-membership it were the least disparagement to our Cause as long as we can shew those following Laws which presuppose this If Moses at the end of that 2000 years the Church of God had been without any written Law found all the Infants of Church-members in possession of this benefit what need was there of a new Law about it Or why should God promise it as a new thing Q. X. V. p. 115. Whether there being certain proof in Scripture of Infants Church-membership but none except that before alledged from Gen. 3. that makes any mention of the beginning of it but all speaking of it as no new thing we have not great reason to assign its beginning which from Gen. 3. is before spoken of Q. XI V. p. 97 98. Is it not unquestionable that the Covenant of Grace made to Abraham the Father of the faithful comprehended Infants for Church-members And was it not the same with that Gen. 3.15 But in some things clearlier opened Were not both these the Covenant of Grace and free Justification by Faith in the Redeemer And did not the Covenant made to Abraham and his Seed comprehend Infants And should not the same promise expressed more concisely be expounded by the same expressed more fully Q. XII V. p. 115. Whether though the Hebrews had their peculiarities it be at all credible that the Infants of that one small Country only should be so differently dealt with by God from all the World else even Enoch's Noah's Sem's and all from Adam to the end of the World that these Infants only should be Church-members and no others Q. XIII What can be more absurd than to maintain a Transient Fact as Mr. T. hath done making Infants Church-members without any Law Promise or Covenant Grant of God giving them Right Whether a Gift that was never given be not a contradiction V. p. 32 35 39 44 45 151. And if there was any such Promise or Covenant-grant of Infants Church-membership when or where was it revoked Q. XIV V. p. 19. Was it only the Infants of the Hebrews or of those that were at their absolute dispose that were Church-members Were not the Infants of free Proselytes Church-members too Q. XV. V. p. 21. Was it not then the Duty of all the Nations round about that could have information of the Jewish Religion to engage themselves and their