Rom. 4.10 11 12 13 14. 1. It is there expresly manifest that the Covenant whereof Circumcision was to Abraham the seal was the Covenant of free justification by faith Circumcision it self being a seal of the righteousness of faith which Abraham had yet being uncircumcised that he might be the Father of believers c. 2. Yea the promise that he should be heir of the world was not made to Abraham or to his seed through the Law but through the righteousness of faith Now it is certain that this Covenant sealed by Circumcision and made to Abraham and his seed did comprehend Infants The consequence of the major then is evident that the same promise expressed more concisely is to be expounded by the same expressed more fully And it is acknowledged that the Gospel light and grace was to be manifest by certain degrees Mr. T. That the fundamental Promise of Grace Gen. 3.15 doth include Infants was never denied by me and therefore Mr. B. doth but waste paper and abuse me and his Readers by going about to prove it Reply If we be really of one mind it is pitty we should make men think we differ Mark this concession Reader The fundamental promise of Grace doth include Infants The Grace of that promise is our Vnion Relative to Christ and his Church and the benefits internal and external belonging to Christs members Do you believe that our union with the visible Church as such and participation in its priviledges is none of that Grace Mr. T. This I deny that it includes all Infants or all Infants of Believers and that any Infant is made a visible Church-member by that promise as the next cause or sole efficient Reply It will come to something anon 1. That all Infants are made Church-members by it did any of us ever affirm Though if the Parents dissent had not hindred and their consent had made them and their Infants capable Recipients it would have been all 2. The Covenant or Law of Grace giveth visible Church-membership conditionally to all that hear it Deny this and you know not what you do I first ask you Doth not the Law of Grace or Promise give both mystical and visible Church-membership to all that hear it that are at age and have the use of Reason I speak not of membership in a particular Church which some may want opportunity to enjoy but in the universal Deny this and you deny Christs Gospel Doth he not say He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved whoever believeth shall not perish whoever will let him take the water of life freely He that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out Go into the high-ways and hedges and compel them to come in c. If Gods Law Covenant Promise or Donation call it which you had rather do contain a conditional Gift of Christ pardon and life to all the adult which it beseemeth none but an Infidel to deny ask thy Conscience Reader whether this blessed Covenant give no such conditional right to any Infant in the world Are they all excluded And why Are they worse than their Parents If it give any Right to Infants conditionally as it doth to Parents it must be on a condition to be performed by the Parents or such as are so far entrusted Mr. T.'s talking of the next cause and the sole efficient seem to me the words of a man that knew not what to say but was resolved that he would not yield Sir do you grant that the promise maketh Infants visible Church-members as any cause next or remote sole or cooperating If not why cheat you your simple followers by this talk If you do we are agreed and why contend you If Logical notions are our difference say so I think as it is a Beneficial Relation the Parents consent and dedication and the childs being Theirs are the dispositio materiae called by some causae Receptivae vel dispositivae and that Gods donation is the sole efficient in which his donative word call it what you will is the Instrument This is plain Logick But you that profess that your Church-membership is it self no benefit and so owe God no thanks for it and yet make such a stir about it cannot indeed hold that Gods love or mercy or Christs merits or the Covenant or Promise are givers of it to young or old For they give nothing but benefits Be not angry to have your absurdities opened but before you die be sober and reform them He addeth I grant that the Covenant to Abraham was the Covenant of Evangelical Grace though mixt and that it did include Infants and that they were Church-members to wit of the invisible Church of the Elect And that Abrahams Infants in his house were visible Church-members but not by vertue of the Covenant barely as Evangelical but by the transeunt fact and if in any respect by virtue of the Covenant it was by it as containing houshold or civil promises rather than Evangelical Reply About 23 and 24 years of age I was my self in doubt of Infant Baptism But had I read such a Writer as this against it I think he would have easily resolved me for it 1. The Covenant to Abrahams family was a Covenant of Evangelical Grace he saith And surely so was that to Adam and Noe before And it included Infants but only as Elect in the Church invisible But the conditional Promise or Covenant is confest to include the Non-elect at age And what None of them in Infancy Reader How can this be called a Covenant for God only to say I will save all such Infants as I elect and yet offer Salvation to none of them in the world on any condition nor give a title to any person that can be known by themselves or others They confound the Decree of God with his Covenant If God had made no other Law Promise or Covenant with the adult but I will save whom I will save who would have taken this for a Law or Covenant And what right or hope doth this give to Christians for their Children more than Pagans And Reader if God have given no condition or character antecedent as a differencing reason or qualification of those that he will save from those that he will not but only told us that he will save whom he list this maketh Infants no subjects of his Kingdom under no Law and so liable to no judgement nor to stand in judgement with the rest of the world but only to be used as beasts or stones by Divine natural motion as he will And then how can you say that any Infants shall be damned or not saved Or that it shall be one of a million at least that shall not For if there be no Law that giveth Right to Pardon and Salvation to any one Infant in the world and yet many are saved it will follow 1. That God is as the prophane say better than his word and will save many to whom
would not be harmonical So that as Gods promise is but a sign of his will obliging him improperly in point of fidelity and immutability so say they the nature of man was a sign of Gods will so far engaging him So that as he could not let-sin go unpunished without some breach in the harmony of his sapiential frame of administration no more could he deny to perfect man the object of those desires which he formed in him So that although he might have made man such a creature as should not necessarily be punished for evil or rewarded for good that is he might have made him not a man yet having so made him it is necessary that he be governed as a man in regard of felicity as well as penalty 3. Our Philosophers and Divines do commonly prove the immortality of the soul from its natural inclinations to God and eternal felicity And if the immortality may be so proved from its nature then also its felicity in case of righteousness I interpose not my self as a Judge in this controversie of Divines but I have mentioned it to the end which I shall now express 1. It is most certain whether the reward or promise be natural or positive that such a state of felicity man was either in or in the way to or in part and the way to more And it is most certain that man was made holy devoted to God and fit for his service and that in this estate according to the Law of his creation he was to increase and multiply It is most certain therefore that according to the first law of nature Infants should have been Church-members 2. But if their opinion hold that make the reward grounded on the law of nature and not on a meer positive law and you see the reasons are not contemptible then the argument would be yet more advantagious 3. But however it be of the title to glory or eternity it is most certain that according to the very law of nature Infants were to have been Church-members if man had stood The first Text therefore that I cite for Infants Church-membership as expressing its original de jure is Gen. 1.26 27 28. So God created man in his own Image And God blessed them and God said unto them Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth Here you see by the law of nature Infants were to have been born in Gods Image and in innocency and so Church-members And note that the first blessing that God pronounceth on mankind is that they propagate Children in their own estate to be as the Parents were even in Gods Image Mr. T. 1. If this prove their Church-membership it proves not their visible Church-membership Reply Mark Reader that Gods Law and blessing for the propagation of Adams seed in his Image would not have made them when born to be visible Church-members though members What not so notorious a Law and Covenant and Benediction No wonder if all Christians Infants must be shut out if Innocent Adams must have been shut out He adds 2. If it prove a Law or Ordinance yet not suâ—h a Law or Ordinance as is in question which is not a Law or Ordinance de jure but de eventu that so it shall be they being to be actually visible Church-members before admission according to Mr. B's dictates Reply Alas poor Readers that must be thus wearied I know nothing that this Law or Covenant giveth but a Right to real benefits that must have answerable causes I know no Right given but it is eventually given nor received but it 's eventually received Admission is an ambiguous word My dictates as he calls them are 1. That Gods Law obligeth persons to devote themselves and their Infants to God by consenting to his Covenant for themselves and them 2. And to do this if they have opportunity in the solemn Baptismal Covenanting Ordinance 3. And in his Covenant or Law of Grace he promiseth to accept them and signifieth his consent to the mutual Covenant which is antecedently to their consent but a conditional consent or Covenant but consequently aâ—tual 4. That accordingly natural interest only is not the Reason why a Believers Child is a Church-member meerly because he is his BE God having given him power and obligation also to dispose of his own Child for the ends of his Creation and Redemption he is a Church-member initially upon heart-consent and by Investiture upon Sacramental consent which I think you mean by Admission 3. Saith Mr. T. If it did prove such a Law or Ordinance yet it proves it not such a promise and precept as Mr. B. asserteth Reply Must such dealing as this go for an answer What 's the difference Mr. T. addeth 4. If it did yet it only proveth it of the Church by nature Reply You are hard put to it I do by this first instance shew you where and when the Ordinance Law or Grant of Infant Church-membership was first made And I leave it to any impartial Christian whether I prove it not certain that God in Nature making man in his own Image with an Increase and Multiply signifie not that Infants should have been Holy to him if Adam had not sinned and so have been members of the Innocent Church or Kingdom of God Alas many go so much further as to assert as truth that had Adam stood nay but in that one temptation yea say some had he but once loved God all his posterity had not been only born Holy but confirmed as the Angels I cannot prove that but I can prove that they had been born holy had not Adam sinned and so had been visible members And if so that God did found Infant membership in Nature let awakened reason think whether Parents yet have not as much interest in children and children in Parents and then whether God have ever reverst this natural order Yea whether he hath not all along confirmed it It seemeth out of doubt to me I know that Parents and Children now are corrupt but withal upon the promise of a Redeemer an universal conditional pardon and gift of life in a Covenant of Grace took place Let them deny it that can and dare And it intimateth no change of Gods will as to Infants conjunct interest with their Parents He saith that the Church by Grace is only by Election and Calling not birth I would desire him if he can to tell me whether both Cain and Abel were not visible Church-members in Adams family And whether none but the Elect are visible members And whether God call not them that are visible members to that state He saith If this Law be in force all are born without sin Reply The Covenant of Innocency is not in force but yet I may tell you what it was while it was in force and that Infants visible Church-membership was founded in Nature and that Law at first And therefore though our Innocency be lost Parents are Parents still And if God
change not his order therein are as capable of consenting to Grace for their Children as they were of being innocent for them SECT XLVI R. B. THe next Institution of Infants Church-membership was at the first proclamation of grace to fallen man or in the first promise of redemption to sinners in Gen. 3.15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed it shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel I will prove that this fundamental Covenant of grace or promise doth declare it to be the will of God that Infants should be Church-members And to this end let us first consider what the words expresly contain and then what light may be fetcht from other Texts to illustrate them It being a known rule that an Expositor must not turn universals into singulars or particulars nor restrain and limit the Scripture generals where the word it self or the nature of the subject doth not limit them I may well conclude that these things following are comprehended in this fundamental promise 1. That the Devil having plaied the enemy to mankind and brought them into this sin and misery God would not leave them remediless nor to that total voluntary subjection to him as he might haâ—e done But in grace or undeserved mercy would engage them in a war against him in which they that conquered should bruise his head 2. That in this war the Lord Jesus Christ the principal seed is promised to be our General whose perfect nature should contain and his perfect life express a perfect enmity against Satan and who should make a perfect conquest over him 3. The Lord Jesus is promised to do this work as the womans seed and so as conceived of her and born by her and so as an Infant first before he comes to ripeness of age So that here an Infant of the woman is promised to be the General of this Army and Head of the Church This is most evident By which God doth sanctifie the humane birth and the Infant state and assure us that he doth not exclude now that age from the redeemed Church which he admitted into the Church by the laws of creation For the first promise is of an Infant born of the woman to be the Head of the Church and growing up to maturity to do the works of a Head Had God excluded the Infant state from the visible Church he would not have made the Head first an Infant Where note 1. That Christ is the great exemplar of his Church and in things which he was capable of he did that first in his own body which he would after do in theirs 2. That the Head is a Member even the principal Member one of the two parts which constitute the whole As the pars imperans and pars subdita do constitute each Common-wealth So that if an Infant must be a member eminently so called then Infants are not excluded from membership but are hereby clearly warranted to be members of a lower nature If an Infant may be Soveraign no doubt he may be a Subject If an Infant may be the chief Prophet of the Church then no doubt but Infants may be Disciples If you still harp on the old string and say They are no Disciples that learn not you may as well say He is no Prophet that teacheth not And if you will openly deny Christ in Infancy to have been the Prophet of the Church I will undertake to prove the falshood and vileness of that opinion as soon as I know you own it The promise then of an Infant Head doth declare Gods mind that he will have Infants members because the head is the principal member Mr. T. The thing to be proved is a Law or Ordinance of God unrepealed Reply The thing I am to do is to shew you when and how God instituted Infants Church state And that he never had a Church on earth that excluded them And particularly to shew you that they are included in the first edition of the Covenant of Grace made to Adam which is perfected in a second edition but not repealed This I think I have done Mr. T. addeth that It will not hold from Christs Headship in Infancy c. 1. It is not declared in Scripture and so a meer phanâ—y 2. Then an Infant in the womb should be a visible member because then Christ was Head of the Church 3. Then an old man should not be a member for Christ was not an old man Reply 1. Irenaeus thought it would hold who giveth this reason of it And I leave the Reader to consider whether the words cited prove it not Sure I am it greatly satisfieth my judgement that God hereby declared his will to include Infants in his Church visibly For the Head is a Member even the noblest Therefore one Infant is confessed by you to be a visible member of the Church And if one it will be incumbent on you to prove the rest uncapable or excluded When I read that Christ came not into the world at the statute that Adam did but chose to be an Infant and to be persecuted in Infancy and to have Infants murdered for his sake first and to invite and use them as he did it is not the rowling over of your wearisom dry denials and confident absurdities that will perswade me that Christ shutteth out all Infants And I am sure that the Instance confuteth your common exceptions against Infants As that they are not Disciples because they learn not which yet they may be in the same sense as Christ was their Master in infancy when he Taught not And that their Infancy did not incapacitate them to be in Covenant with God to be Christians to be Church-members c. Christ shewed in that in Infancy he bore all the Counter-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 Mr. T. saith Then an Infant in the womb may be a Church-member Reply Yes in the same sense as Christ in the womb was the Churches head not by the solemn Investiture of Baptism but by Consent For believing Parents do dedicate their children to God intentionally when they are in the womb But a man would think that you your self should acknowledge that this dedication and so the visibility of membership hath its gradations to perfection Are not your proselytes visible members in one degree when they openly profess Christianity as Constantine did and in a further degree when baptised The interest of your opinion puts frivolous reasons into your mind which a child might see through Mr. T. addeth Then an old man should not be a member Reply Could you think now that you did not cheat your poor Reader if partiality had not shut one of your eyes It will follow from the affirmative that such a state of
that it is the same enmity that is here said to be put in all and therefore the same persons in which it is put I answer 1. There is no proof of either A general command or promise to a community may signifie a difference of duties or gifts to that community though that difference be not expressed For the nature of the subject may prove it And 2. Experience of the fulfilling of this promise or covenant proves the difference before mentioned And it is well known 1. That Moses is so concise in the History of these matters 2. And that the mysterie of grace was to be opened by degrees and so but darkly at the first that it is no wonder if we find the whole summ of the Gospel here coucht up in so narrow a room and if each particular be not largely laid open before our eyes 7. That we may certainly know that this promise speaks not only of the enmity that Christ himself should have to Satan and doth not engage a General without an army God doth here expresly mention the woman her self saying I will put enmity between thee and the woman so that as she stood in a threefold respect she is here her self possessed with this threefold enmity 1. As she is the root of humane nature from whence all mankind 〈…〉 she is possest with the natural enmity 〈…〉 diabolical nature and this to be naturally conveyed or propagated 2. As she was the root of the great Republick of the world or that rational society which God as Rector would sapientially govern and her self with her husband who no doubt was also included in the promise were the whole then existent race of mankind so did she receive a legal enmity of obligation which she was traditionally to deliver down to all her posterity being her self hereby obliged to list her self and all her Infant progeny in the Redeemers army against the proclaimed enemy and to teach her posterity to do the like For thus obligatory precepts must be brought down 3. As she was one of the chosen favourites of God she received the habitual enmity of sanctification And this is not in her power to propagate though she may use some means that are appointed thereto and whether a promise of any such thing be made to her seed on the use of such means I will not now stand to discuss 8. It is not all that are possessed with the natural enmity against the Devil himself that are the Church of Christ For this is but a common preparative which is in all Nor is it all that are obliged to the further enmity against the works of Satan But all that on that obligation are duely listed in Christs army against Satan by the obliged person are visible members and all that are by sanctification at an hearty enmity habitual or actual with the Kingdom of Satan are members of the Church called mystical or invisible This I put as granted 9. Those that violate this fundamental obligation and to their natural pravity shall add a fighting against Christ and his Kingdom for Satan and his Kingdom are become themselves the seed of the Serpent And though they had the natural enmity with the rest of mankind in general against Satan yet have they therewithal the habitual enmity against Christ This much I suppose as out of controversie But whether also the first original corrupted nature it self before any sin against recovering grace did contain an habitual enmity against the Kingdom of the Redeemer Or whether the sins of later Parents may propagate this as an additional corruption in our nature I will not now stand to discuss Only as to our present business it is certain that the general natural enmity to Satan may consist with an habitual friendship to his ways and cause And though as men they may have the first common advantage of nature and as subjects de jure may be under the common obligation yea and as listed in Christs army may have many of its priviledges yet for the enmity of disposition to Christ they may be under a greater curse 10. As it is certain that it is not only Christ himself that is here made the object of this promise and is here called the seed of the woman as is before proved and may be more and is commonly granted so it is to be noted that those others in whom this enmity is put are called here the seed of the woman and not the seed of Christ though the chief of them are his seed And so though the promise is made to none but the womans seed and no exception put in against Infants or any age of all her seed Till you can prove that Infants are none of her seed we must take this fundamental promise to extend to Infants and that very plainly without using any violence with the Text. 11. Some learned men do use no contemptible arguments to prove further That the sanctifying enmity is here promised to the seed of the woman as her seed I mean those that go the way of Dr. Ward Mr. Bedford c. that is that as the two former sorts of enmity are put into all the seed of the woman as is explained so the spiritual holy enmity promised to her seed as she is a believer 12. And some learned men do accordingly conclude that the impiety of Parents may do much to hinder their children from that blessing more than by original sin they were hindred and therefore their faith may further them Of which though much may be said I shall say no more because I will not stand on things so much questioned M. T. This tedious discourse of Mr. B. is indeed serpentive Reply They that need a Reply to any thing here said shall have none from me SECT XLIX R.B. I Come next to prove from other parts of Scripture That the fundamental promise of Grace is thus to be interpreted as including Infants 1. If the same Covenant of grace when it is more fully and clearly opened do expresly comprehend Infants as to be Church-members then is this fundamental promise so to be understood or then doth this also comprehend them But the antecedent is certain therefore so is the consequent The antecedent I prove from the Covenant of grace made to Abraham the Father of the faithful which comprehended Infants for Church-members The Covenant made with Abraham comprehending Infants was the same with this in Gen. 3. but in some things clearlier opened Which is proved thus Both these were the Covenant of grace and free justification by faith in the Redeemer therefore they were the same For there is but one such If Abraham had some special promises additional to the main Covenant that makes not the Covenant of free justification by faith to be divers That this in Gen. 3. is the promise or Covenant of grace and free justification is not denied that I know of That the promise to Abraham was the same is evident from
miserable than Heathens And if you can first believe that the Infants of all Infidels Atheists and ungodly Christians hypocrites have a promise of salvation you will next be inclined to think better of their Parents state than God alloweth you And where is this promise § 6. Some say that the new Covenant giveth grace and life to all that do not ponere obicem But I must have Gods Covenant in his own terms that I may have it in his own sense if I will be assured of the benefits Non ponere obicem signifieth plainly no Action or positive qualification as necessary but only a negation of some contrary action And it is certain that the terms of Gods Covenant to the adult are clean contrary It is not he that neither Believeth nor opposeth faith shall be saved or he that doth neither good nor harm as a man in an apoplexy or asleep But he that believeth shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned And except ye repent ye shall all perish And without holiness none shall see God But a meer negation is no holiness § 7. And if any will feign another Covenant for Infants let him shew what and where it is for I know but one Covenant of grace which taketh in the Infants with the Authorized Parents whose members or Own God taketh them to be and requireth a positive believing consent and dedication to God as the positive condition which is more than a Negative non ponere obicem though performed by the Parent for the child And so the promises throughout the Scripture run to the faithful and their seed § 8. I know that God promiseth to bless children through many generations for their faithful Ancestors sake But that is on supposition that fidelity continue in the line and that apostasie make no intercision Else all should be blessed for the sake of Noe even Cham's posterity as well as Shem's § 9. What then is the thing made necessary and sufficient by the Covenant to their salvation but that they be the seed of the faithful devoted by them to God that is that their Parents natural or at least civil whose Own they are and have the power of disposing of them for their good do enter them by consent into the Covenant with Christ which it is supposed that Faithful Parents virtually did before and will actually do when God doth call them to it § 10. As to them that say the thing further necessary as the condition of the Infants acceptance and salvation is A promise to educate the Child as a Christian if he live I answer 1. That promise indeed is included in his dedication and consent 2. But who but the Owners of the child are capable of making such a promise unless as seconds promising that the Owners shall do their duty For only he that owneth him can educate him by himself or others or dispose of him for his education who hath power to dispose of another mans child and educate him They that undertake as sureties to do it in case the Parents apostatize or die do plainly imply 1. That till then it is the Parent that is intrusted to do it and therefore that the Parent must consent to do it and therefore that the Parent must enter his child in the Covenant of Christ 2. And that if the Parents apostatize or die they will take the child themselves as their Own or else by what power can they educate him or dispose of him § 11. They that say God did not save one for the faith or consent of another must remember 1. That we are all saved for the meritorious Righteousness of Christ by the way of a free gift whose condition is but suitable 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 2. And remember that we have guilt and misery from our Parents and therefore though life and pardon be by Christ only yet it is congruous that the meer condition of acceptance may be performed by the Parents § 12. Perhaps some will lay all the right of Infants to the pardon of sin and salvation upon secret election only as if all that we knew of Infants Salvation were that God will save some whom he hath elected but that there is no Promise of grace and salvation to any particular Infant in the world as under any condition or qualification And if this be so then 1. 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 Election gave Paul nor any wicked man no right to pardon or salvation Else elect Pagans and Infidels are justified if they have jus ad impunitatem Regnum Coelorum 2. And if this be so 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 3. And yet we cannot be sure but that they may all or almost all be saved while the number of the elect is unrevealed 4. Nor can we know 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 Commandments than of those that hate him 5. And in a word we have then no proper hope upon Covenant right that God will save any one individual Infant in the world For we can hope in this proper sense of nothing but what we do believe and we can believe nothing but what is promised or revealed And so Parents must be thus far hopeless § 13. God who made man after his Image teacheth him to govern according to those principles which are his Image And all the Kingdoms in this world take Infants for Infant-members and the Laws give them Right to Honours and Inheritances the possession and use whereof they may have in the time and degrees that nature doth capacitate them And can we then think that God who made a Conditional Gift of Pardon and Salvation to all the adult persons in the world did wholly leave out Infants and that his Covenant giveth them no rights at all no not to be members of his visible Church § 14. It seemeth to me a matter of doubtful consequence to assert that God will save more yea so great numbers as we will hope are saved in Infancie than ever he promised to save and gave any antecedent Right to Salvation to I doubt we shall open such a gap to the hopes of presumptuous Heathens and Infidels this way as will cross our common doctrine If God may save whole Kingdoms and millions of Heathens Infants to whom he never gave Right to Salvation by any gift or promise
meerly because he elected them some will say why may he not do so also by the Parents at least renewing them all in transitu § 15. If you say that He giveth them freely his sanctifying grace and giveth them right to Salvation as sanctified though he tell us not who are sanctified I answer 1. Take heed lest you teach the presumptuous to say the same of Infidels Heathens and almost all that God may in the passages when they are dying sanctifie and save them all 2. Still this giveth no positive hope of any particulars nor more to Christians for their Children than they may have of the Children of Infidels nor any promise of the spirit and sanctification as Believers have § 16. I take it therefore for the soundest Doctrine that Gods taking the Children of the Faithful into Covenant with him and becoming their God and taking them for his own doth signifie no less than a state of Grace and pardon and right to life eternal and that they are in this state upon their Parents Consent and Heart-devoting them to God in Christ before baptism but baptism is the solemnizing and investiture which openly coram Ecclesia delivereth them possession of their visible Church-state with a sealed pardon and gift of life For it is not another but the same promise and Covenant which is made to the faithful and their feed And all Gods promises to the many Generations of them in the second Commandment and many other Texts cannot mean any such little blessings as consist with a state of damnation and the possession of the Devil And all the ancient Churches in baptizing of Infants were of this mind whom I will not despise And Abrahams case perswadeth me that the Children of Natural and Civil Parents truly their Owners have this right before they are baptized But the former natural Parents have plainer evidence than the later which is a darker case But as for them that think either that all Infants are saved or all baptized Infants â—ure vel injuria though no Parent or Owner consent or dedicate them heartily or openly to God or though they are hypocrites and truly consent not for themselves or theirs let them prove it if they can but I must say it is past my power § 17. I know the grand difficulty is that then this Infant-Grace is lost in many that live to riper age I have said so much of this in my Christian Directory that I will refer the considering Reader thither only adding 1. That far greater absurdities will follow the contrary opinion and the greater are not to be chosen I am loth again to name them 2. That the universal Church as far as by any notice we can know did for many hundred years grant the conclusion and take it for no absurdity but a certain truth yea much more Austin and his followers themselves thought more at age were truly justified and sanctified than were elected and did persevere And some hold that not all that have the sanctifying spirit but only certain confirmed Christians have a certainty to persevere And others hold that as the spirit of Christ is promised to Believers though men believe not without the spirit so that measure of Grace which causeth men only to believe as antecedent to that promised spirit of Power Love and a sound mind is but such as may be lost as Adams was and that it is the spirit following it as the rooted habit which cannot be lost And others come yet lower and say that the Grace which giveth faith it self cannot be lost because such have the promise of the spirit but yet the grace which only enableth men to Repent and Believe called sufficient may be lost before it produce the Act Accordingly some think of Infant-Grace The last sort think that they have real pardon of original sin and right to life and have real Grace but being Infants that grace is but such as will enable them to believe if they come to age and not infallibly cause it and that this may be lost And so I might run over the opinions of the rest And among all these the judgement of Davenant Ward c. of the loss of an Infant-state of Grace as by them opened is not so hard as I think the contrary way will infer And it seems by Art 1. c. 17. that the Synod of Dort was of their mind § 18. Our darkness about the future state of Infants Souls hath occasioned some diversity of thoughts about their present state Indeed they will neither in Heaven or Hell have any work for Conscience in the review of any former actions good or evil And it seemeth by Nazianzene before cited Orat. 40. that some Ancients thought as most Papists do that unbaptized Infants have neither the joys of Heaven nor any punishment but the loss of these But what state then to place them in they know not To think that they shall remain in a meer potentiality of understanding and shall know no more than they did here is to equal them with bruits and to encourage the Socinians who say the like of the separated souls of the adult And if they can allow understanding to those that died baptized why not to the rest And if they understand they must have grief or pleasure But who can know more than God revealeth § 19. In sum 1. That God would have Parents devote their Children to him and enter them according to their capacity in his Covenant as I have elsewhere proved is a great truth not to be forsaken 2. And also that he accepteth into his Covenant all that are faithfully thus devoted to him and is peculiarly their God and such Children are holy 3. That they are certainly members according to an Infant capacity of the visible Church as they are of all Kingdoms under Heaven These are all clear and great truths 4. And that there is far more hope of their salvation than of those without 5. And I think the Covenant maketh their Salvation certain if they so die 6. And it seemeth to me that the investiture and solemnization of their Covenant with Christ should be made in Infancie from Matth. 28.19 20. and the exposition of the universal Church 7. But if any should think with Tertullian and Nazianzene that the time of investiture and solemnization is partly left to prudence and may be delayed in case of health yea or should think that Infants are not to be solemnly invested by baptism but only the adult so they confess Infants relation to God his Covenant and Church I would differ from such men with love and peace and mutual toleration and communion CHAP. I. The Occasion of this Writing § 1. AS I was by great and long importunity unwillingly engaged at first to meddle publickly in the Controversie of Infant Baptism with Mr. Tombes so I then resolved to meddle no more with it unless I found that necessity made it an apparent duty § 2. Accordingly when Mr.
More PROOFS OF INFANTS Church-membership AND Consequently their Right to BAPTISM Or a SECOND DEFENCE of our Infant Rights and Mercies In Three Parts The First is The plain Proof of Gods Statute or Covenant for Infants Church-membership from the Creation and the Continuance of it till the Institution of Baptism with the Defence of that Proof against the Frivolous Exceptions of Mr. Tombes And a Confutation of Mr. Tombes his Arguments against Infants Church-membership The Second is A Confutation of the Strange Forgeries of Mr. H. Danvers against the Antiquity of Infant-baptism And of his many Calumnies against my Self and Writings With a Catalogue of fifty six New Commandments and Doctrines which He and the Sectaries who joyn with Him in those Calumnies seem to own The Third Part is Animadversions on Mr. Danvers's Reply to Mr. Willes Extorted by their unquiet Importunity from an earnest Desirer of the Love and Peace of all True Christians By Richard Baxter London Printed for N. Simmons at the Princes Arms and J. Robinson at the Golden-Lyon in St. Paul's Church-yard 1675. The PREFACE Reader THe first year of my Ministry I fell into a doubt about Infant-Baptism and I was so ignorant as not to understand the nature of that solemn Covenant and Investiture and the Parents duty of entring the Child into the Covenant with God and what the Vow was which then was made when time and light had satisfied me I retained as charitable thoughts of the Anabaptists as of almost any that I differed from About 1646 1647 1648. they made more stir among us than before Mr. Tombes living near me we continued in peace not talking of our difference For I purposely avoided it in publick and private unless any asked my opinion At last his Converts came to me and told me that if I would not answer him in writing they must take it as an encouragement to them to be Baptized and confessed that he sent them or that they came by his consent To avoid long writings one dayes dispute was thought a shorter way That dispute with many additions I was necessitated to publish with some returns to some after arguings of Mr. T.'s He wrote what he thought meet on the other side I thought I had done with that work for ever But in 1655 he sent to me again and drew from me the Letters here recited These without my consent he published with an answer in the midst of a great Book I left his answer these nineteen years or thereabouts without any Reply as also the rest of his books against me I thought it not lawful for me to waste my precious time on things so little necessary A man may find words at length to say for almost any cause I partly know what can be said against this and every book that I have written And I know what I can Reply And I partly foreknow what they can say to that Reply and what I can further say in the defence of it and so talk on till we have wrangled away our Charity and our Time and must all this be printed to ensnare poor readers But at last Mr. Danvers hath laid a necessity upon me I had silently past over all his vain Reasonings and all his accusations of my writings and all his falsifications of Authors had he not called me so loud to repent of slandering some for being Baptized naked And when I found it my duty to speak to that I thought it fit to say somewhat of the rest passing by what Mr. Wills hath done more fully in an answer to his book There are two sorts of men called Anabaptists among us The one sort are sober Godly Christians who when they are rebaptized to satisfie their Consciences live among us in Christian Love and peace and I shall be ashamed if I Love not them as heartily and own them not as peaceably as any of them shall do either me or better men than I that differ from them The other sort hold it unlawful to hold Communion with such as are not of their mind and way and are schismatically troublesome and unquiet in labouring to increase their Party These are they that offend me and other lovers of peace And if God would perswade them but seriously to think of these obvious questions it might somewhat stop them Qu. 1. How inconsiderable a part of the universal Church they hold communion with And unchurch almost all the Churches on Earth Qu. 2. Whether they can possibly hope that ever the Church on Earth will Unite upon their terms of rejecting all their Infants from the visible Church and renouncing all our Infant Rights and Benefits conferred by the Baptismal Covenant of grace Qu. 3. And whether if they continue to the worlds end to separate from almost all the Churches and unchurch them their employment will not be still to serve the great enemy of Love and Concord against the Lord of Love and Peace and against the prosperity of faith and godliness and against the welfare of the Church and souls and to the scandal and hardening of the ungodly THE CONTENTS OF THE FIRST PART THE Preface pag. 1 Mr. Tombes's first Letter p. 5 B.'s Answer to it Ibid. Mr. T.'s second Letter p. 8 B.'s Answer to it p. 9 Mr. T.'s third Letter p. 10 B.'s Answer is divided by Mr. T. into Sections His Answers are confuted Sect. 1 2 3 4. The many Questions to be handled Quest 1. Infants were once Church-members p. 13 Sect. 5. Quest 2. It was not only the Infants of the Congregation of Israel that were Church-members p. 18 How far the Sichemites were of Israel and Church-members p. 21 Sect. 6 7 8 9 10. Of other Nations Ibid. Sect. 11. The Israelites Infants were members of the Church Vniversal p. 26. Sect. 12 to the 18. Infants were members of the Jews Church as well as Commonwealth p. 28. Sect. 18. Quest 4. There was a Law or Precept of God obliging Parents to enter their Children into Covenant with God by accepting his favour and engaging and devoting them to God and there was a promise of God offering them his mercy and accepting them when devoted as aforesaid c. p. 31 Sect. 19 c. Visible Church-membership what it is And that it is a benefit p. 32 Sect. 22. Legal-right to Infants Church-state given by Gods Covenant Mr. T.'s confuted and the case opened p. 35 Sect. 23 24. This Right is the effect of Gods Law or Covenant p. 44 46 Sect. 25 26. The proof of Parents obligation to enter their Children into Covenant what we mean by a Law Mr. T. maketh nothing of Church-membership p. 46 50 Sect. 27. Precepts oblige to duty and the promises give right to benefits p. 54 Sect. 28. No Transeunt fact without Gods statute or moral donation or covenant made the Israelites Infants Church-members proved to Sect. 44. p. 56 Sect. 44 45. Infants Church-membership instituted by God at mans creation and the constitution of Gods
of Keturah Ishmael and Esau into the Congregation of Israel And so to extend Infants Church-membership further than the Jews Common-wealth For let the Reader judge whether the posterity of Ishmael Esau and Keturah were of that Republick or Proselytes either and not usually enemies 3. He is forced to extend Infants Church-membership to whole Cities that would be but their Allies as the Sichemites were For when he saith They were one people by consent he could not say that they were to be their subjects and so members of their Republick And they may be one people by mixture and confederacy without subjection And there is no intimation that the Sichemites were to part with their former Governours and be subject to Jacob And then if all the Kingdâ—ms about would but have been accordingly Jacobs confederates it seems Mr. T. must yield that their Infants had been visible Church-members SECT VI. R. B. IT was then the duty of all the Nations round about if not of all the Nations on earth that could have information of the Jewish Religion to engage themselves and their children to God by Circumcision That all that would have any alliance and commerce with the Jews must do it is commonly confessed that it must extend to Infants the case of the Sichemites though deceitfully drawn to it by some of Jacobs sons doth shew and so doth the Jewish practice which they were to imitate that the same engagement to the same God is the duty of all the world is commonly acknowledged though Divines are not agreed whether the distant nations were obliged to use Circumcision the Jewish sign The best of the Jews were zealous to make Proselytes and no doubt but the very law of nature did teach them to do their best for the salvation of others To think such charitable and holy works unlawful is to think it evil to do the greatest good And if they must perswade the neighbour nations to come in to God by Covenant engagement they must perswade them to bring their children with them and to devote them to God as well as themselves For the Jews knâ—w no other covenanting or engaging to God As the Sichemites must do so other nations must do For what priviledge had the children of the Sichemites above the rest of the world Mr. T 's Answer The argument in form would be thus If it were the duty of all the nations round about to engage themselves and their children to God by circumcision then it was not only the Infants of the Congregation of Israel that were Church-members c. Reply 1. You should have said that would have been Church-members had they done that duty But you can best serve your own turn 2. One Supream Power maketh one Republick with the subjects And many Soveraigns make many Republicks as all grant Therefore if all the Nations about had engraffed themselves into the Congregation of Israel but as the Sichemites did they had not made one Republick as to humane Soveraignty I presume to tell you my thoughts of such a case and so of the Sichemites It was the glory of Israel to be a Theocracy God was their Soveragin not only as he was of all the world de jure and by overruling their humane Soveraign but by special Revelation doing the work a Soveraign himself He made them Laws and not Moses He appointed them Captains under him by Revelation He decided cases by Oracle He gave them Judges that were Prophets and acted by his extraordinary spirit Though Moses is called a King he was but an Official Magistrate Captain and Prophet A Prophet shall the Lord your God raise up to you like unto me c. saith he which had immediate respect to the form of Government and manner of succession as differing from the way of Kings which the Israelites sinfully preferred afterward casting off this special Theocracy though ultimately it intended Christ Now this being so the Sichemites or any other nations who would have taken God for their Soveraign and come under this special prophetical Theocracy which Circumcision engaged them to as respecting the Laws to which it bound them had been so far united to Israel But how far might this have extended To the rest that he saith I consent If you will not hold to this you must say that the Sichemites were to be of the same Communitie with Israel and not of the same Republick which signifieth either ungoverned Communities or various Republicks confederating SECT VII R. B. IN Hesters time many of the people became Jews Hest 8.17 who yet were not under their government And to be Jews is to be of the Jewish profession And it is well known that this was to be circumcised they and their little ones as the Proselytes were and so to keep the Law of Moses Mr. T 's Answer They were incorporated into the Jewish people c. Reply This needeth no reply but what is given to the former SECT VIII R. B. THE scattered and captivated Jews themselves were from under the Government of Abrahams successors and yet were to Circumcise their children as Church-members Mr. T 's Answer is the same and the Reply the same SECT IX R. B. WHen Jonas preached to Ninive it was all the race of man among them without exception from the greatest to the least that was to fast and join in the humiliation Ergo all even Infants as well as others were to partake of the remission If you say the beasts were to fast too I answer as they were capable in their kind of part of the curse so were they of part of the benefit but their capacity was not as mans They fasted to manifest mans humiliation And if by the humiliation of the aged the beasts sped the better in their kind no wonder if Infants sped the better in theirs and according to their capacities and that was to have a remission suitable to their sin Mr. T 's Answer Neither aged nor infants were visible Church-members c. Reply This only proveth by parity of Reason their capacity of it and that they would have been such if they had truely turned to God which yet I cannot say that many of them did not according to the terms of the Common Covenant of Grace made with Adam and Noe though they came not under the Covenant of peculiarity And if so as Repentance is to be interpreted in the best sense till the contrary be proved I leave it to the Reader whether Gods laying on the Infants their share as capable in the humiliation imply not such a share as they are capable of in the benefit And the case of the Israelites Infants sheweth what they were capable of Mr. T 's denial is no disproof SECT X. R. B. WHat I have said of Sem and many others and their posterity already I shall not here again repeat and more will be said anon to the following questions Mr. T 's Answer is none and needs no Reply SECT XI R.
right to inheritances and of being real subjects under obligations to future duties if they survive And this shews that they are also capable of being Church-members and that nature revealeth to us that the Infants case much followeth the case of the Parents especially in benefits 3. Nature hath actually taught most people on earth so far as I can learn to repute their Infants in the same Religious society with themselves as well as in the same civil society 4. Vnder the Covenant of works commonly so called or the perfect rigorous law that God made with man in his pure nature the Infants should have been in the Church and a people holy to God if the Parents had so continued themselves And consider 1. That holiness and righteousness were then the same things as now and that in the establishing of the way of propagation God was no more obliged to order it so that the children of righteous Parents should have been born with all the perfections of their Parents and enjoyed the same priviledges than he was obliged in making the Covenant of Grace to grant that Infants should be of the same society with their Parents and have the immunities of that society 2. We have no reason when the design of redemption is the magnifying of love and grace to think that love and grace are so much less under the Gospel to the members of Christ than under the Law to the members or seed of Adam as that then all the seed should have partaked with the same blessings with the righteous Parents and now they shall all be turned out of the society whereof the Parents were members 5. God gives us himself the reasons of his gracious dealing with the children of the just from his gracious nature proclaiming even pardoning mercy to slow thence Exod. 34. and in the second Commandment 6. God doth yet shew us that in many great and weighty respects he dealeth well or ill with children for their Parents sakes as many Texts of Scripture shew and I have lately proved at large in one of our private disputes that the sins of nearer parents are imputed as part of our original or natural guilt So much of that Reply Mr. T. saith nothing to all that I think the Reader needeth a reply to SECT LVIII R. B. YEt before I cite any more particular Texts I will add this one argument from the tenour of the Covenant of grace as expressed in many Texts of Scripture According to the tenour of the Covenant of grace God will not refuse to be their God and take them for his people that are in a natural or law sense willing to be his people and to take him for their God But the Infants of believing Parents are thus willing Ergo. The Major is unquestionable The Minor is proved from the very law of nature before expressed Infants cannot be actually willing themselves in natural sense Ergo the reason and will of another must be theirs in law sense and that is of the Parents who have the full dispose of them and are warranted by the law of nature to choose for them for their good till they come to use of reason themselves The Parents therefore by the light and law of nature choosing the better part for their children and offering and devoting them to God by the obligation of his own natural law he cannot in consistency with the free grace revealed in the Gospel refuse those that are so offered And those that thus come to him in the way that nature it self prescribeth he will in no wise cast out Joh. And he will be offended with those that would keep them from him that are offered by those that have the power to do it though they cannot offer themselves For legally this act is taken for their own Thus I have shewed you some of the fundamental title that Infants of Believers have to Church-membership and our obligation to dedicate them to God Reply Mr. T. saith that some acts of the Parents are legally taken for the childs is not denied But here he denieth it and I leave his denial with my copious proof in my Treatise of Infant-baptism to the Readers SECT LIX R. B. YOu must now in reason expect that infants Church-membership being thus established partly in the law of nature and partly in the fundamental promise what is after this spoken of it should not be any new establishment but confirmations and intimations of what was before done rather giving us the proof that such a law and promise there is that did so establish it than being such first establishing laws or promises themselves And from hence I may well add this further argument If there be certain proof in Scripture of Infants Church-membership but none except this before alledged that makes any mention of the beginning of it but all speaking of it as no new thing then we have great reason upon the forementioned evidence to assign this beginning which from Gen. 3. we have exprest But the former is true ergo the later You confess that Infants were Church-members once You only conceive it began when Abraham was called out of Ur. Your conceit hath not a word to support it in the Text. The right to such a blessing was then new to Abrahams seed when Abraham first believed But when it began to belong to Infants of Believers in general no Text except this before cited doth mention Nor doth that promise to Abraham intimate any inception then as to the Church-membership of Infants but only an application of a priviledge to him that in the general was no new thing Reply To this Mr. T. still affirmeth that Infants Church-membership was proper to the Hebrews only Reader though they had their peculiarities is it credible that the Infants of that one small country only should be so differently dealt with by God from all the world else even Henoch 's Noe 's Sem 's and all from Adam to the end of the world that these Infants only should be Church-members and no others what unlikely things yea against evidence can some believe SECT LX LXI LXII R. B. NOW for the Texts that further intimate such a foregoing establishment 1. There seems to be some believing intimation of this in Adams naming his wife the mother of the living For it is to be noted what Bishop Usher saith Annal. vol. 1. p. 2. Unde tum primum post semen promissum mulieri Evae nomen a marito est impositum Gen. 3.20 quod mater esset omnium viventium non naturalem tantum vitam sed illud quoque quod est per fidem in semen ipsius Messiam promissum quomodo post eam Sara fidelium mater est habita 1 Pet. 3.6 Gal. 4.31 He put this name on her after the promise because she was to be the mother of all the living not only that live the life of nature but that which is by faith in the Messiah her seed So that as she was
holy people the redeemed of the Lord and thou shalt be called sought out a city not forsaken Gospel promises then extend to people and cities whereof Infants are a part Isa 65.23 they are the seed of the blessed of the Lord and their off-spring with them This is plain and full and durable What is necessary to be said in answer to the common objections as that experience tells us all the seed of the righteous are not blessed with the like I suppose already done in my book of Baptism All the seed of the righteous are blessed though not all with that blessing which cannot be lost and cast away by themselves when they come to age Mr. T.'s Answers all contain the difficulty of discerning the fulfilling of these promises and so denying that they infer visible Church-membership and he saith That without the Church a person may be pronounced blessed is apparent from Ishmaels blessing Gen. 17.20 when he was excluded the Covenant and cast out Reply He was excluded the Covenant of peculiarity but not the common Covenant of Grace made with mankind in Adam and Noe And the Church was larger than the Israelites Nation The rest I leave to the Reader SECT XCIV XCV R. B. IF you say that the word seed doth not necessarily include Infants I answer Infants are part of the seed of the righteous yea all their seed are first Infants If therefore God have made general promises as to age and person who is he that dare limit it without just proof that indeed God hath limited it Doth God say that the seed of the righteous are not blessed till they come to age If he pronounce the seed blessed they must be blessed when they are first such a seed And if any one age might be more included than another one would think it must be that wherein they are so meerly the seed of such as that they stand not on any distinct account of their own actual faith or unbelief For the seed of the righteous as such have a promised blessing But the seed of the righteous turning themselves to unrighteousness do turn from that blessing and become accursed I suppose I have already been more tedious than you expected I will therefore add no more of these passages of Scripture having said that which satisfieth me formerly to the same purpose and having yet seen nothing that leaves me unsatisfied And also because one text either containing such a Law or Covenant as you call for or declaring to us that God did make such a Law or Covenant is as good as a thousand in point of authority Mr. T. Mr. B. not holding children in the womb unborn to be visible Church-members all this may be retorted They are part of the seed of the righteous Reply The whole seed in the womb and born are taken into this relation to God which implyeth his blessing on them as separated from the wicked according to their capacity An Infant in the womb is visibly separated to God if you denominate visibility from the notoriety or visibility of Gods promise that doth it But the person is not visible to you though sensible to the mother As Christ was the Head in the womb so far Infants are members the Parents then privately devoting them to God I told you before the visibility of our state hath several gradations To quibble thus on all Gods promises to the children of the faithful by questions and exceptions about embryo's abortives c. is vanity SECT XCVI XCVII R. B. THE next Question that I spould speak to is whether these Laws or Covenants or Promises are capable of a revocation or repeal and I shall take this for a question that needs no further debate among men that know what a Law or Promise is Gods immutability and perfection may make some Laws unrepealable while the subject remains but otherwise the thing it self is capable of it Only where a Promise or Law is but for a limited time when the time is expired it ceaseth and the cessation is as to the nulling of it equal to a revocation or abrogation I put in this question lest you should hereafter change your mind and say that indeed it is a law or promise or covenant by which the right of Church-membership is conferred and Infants dedicated to God but it is but a transeunt Law or Covenant Answ If so then it is either immediately or presently transeunt or at a certain limited time only when it will cease The former is certainly false and intolerable For 1. They are promises and laws for the future and therefore cease not immediately 2. That were to make God the most unfaithful promises and mutable Law-maker in the world if his promise and his laws cease as soon as they are made Nay it makes them to be no laws or promises 3. It was one standing law and promise that belonged to the Nation of the Jews successively And God did not make his promise anew to every Infant that was made a Church-member nor renew his law to every Parent to enter their Children into his Covenant by the sign of Circumcision Were not the uncircumcised Israelites in the Wilderness made members by the efficacy of the former Covenant of God remaining in force And did former Laws oblige to Circumcision till Christ Else there were but few members nor but few that circumcised warrantably if the promise and precept did extend but to the person that it was first delivered to and every one else must likewise have a personal promise and precept The Mother of Christ cannot then be proved to have been a Church-member in Infancy If it be said that these promises were limited in the making of them to a certain time when they were to cease I say when that is proved we shall believe it which I have not yet seen done And it falls in with the last question which is whether these promises be indeed revoked and ceased and these laws repealed or ceased And here it is that I have long expected your solid proof together with the satisfactory answer to my arguments to the contrary And so I shall leave this task in your hands Sure I am that Christ never came to cast out of the Church but to gather more in much less to cast out all the Infants even all of that age in which himself was head of that Church But to gather together in one the children of God that were scattered John 11.52 And therefore he would oft have gathered all Jerusalem and Judaea even the National Church that then was unto himself as the true head even as a Hen gathereth her Chickens under her wings and they would not It was not because he would not as intending a new frame where Infants could have no place but because they would not and so cast out themselves and their Infants Certainly it is the joy of the formerly desolate Gentiles that they shall have many more children than she that
some do yet reason is reason Can we think that when Christ was seen after his resurrection of more than 500 Brethren at once that only 120 of them were Christians And can we think that Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea and many more were not timerous faint-hearted Christians It 's like that the text meaneth that this 120 was the number of those bold confirmed Christians who so quickly after Christs death appeared in open profession and conjunction with the Apostles and had opportunity to assemble at that time and place The next is Act. 2.1 They were all with one accord in one place Answ This needeth no other answer than as before The other texts Act. 2.41 44. 4.4 23 24. 5.11 13 14. 6.1 2 7. 8.1 15.22 1 Cor. 14.23 need no other answer His exposition would sometimes exclude women and sometimes many of the men Doth he believe no man or woman was a member of the Church Act. 15.22 who did not send men of their own company Nor any man or woman a member of the Church at Jerusalem that did not being scattered go about Preaching Act. 8.1 c. 1 Cor. 14. it is said You may all prophesie and yet women are forbidden Mr. T. 4. They were no part of the Christian Church visible to whom the things ascribed to the whole Church did not agree But the things ascribed to the whole Christian Church visible did not agree to Infants Ergo Answ This is fully answered already It is most usual to ascribe that to a Church or other Society which is done only by the most considerable part As I said before when rational Consent Contract Intention are ascribed to a Kingdom which is constituted by the consent of King and Subjects and yet Infants are members who consent not save by their Parents The Church meeteth to choose a Pastor when yet the women meet not The Church admonisheth a faulty member when every woman doth not admonish him Our Churches meet all to hear when Children meet not whom we take for members These are not satisfactory allegations being contrary to common use of words and to many texts of Scripture Mr. T. The Minor is proved Matth. 16.18 On this Rock will I build my Church viz. by Preaching Answ When Preaching converted the Parents they devoted themselves to God and all that were in their trust and power and that Preaching brought in by consequence the Infants that did not hear I prove it 1. Christ commandeth the discipling of Nations and baptizing them that is as much as in the Preacher lieth But Infants are part of those Nations Therefore he commandeth the discipling and baptizing of Infants as much as in the Preacher lay which could be done but by the success of preaching on the Parents 2. The Kingdoms of the world are made the Kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ But Infants are members of all those Kingdoms But this is done at large elsewhere Mr. T. 1 Cor. 1.2 called to be Saints Act. 2.41 47. 5.14 They that were added to the Church did hear and believe c. Answ I will not weary the Reader with repeating the same answers to the like things Mr. T. 5. They who are not reckoned Christs Disciples were not visible Church-members But Infants are no where reckoned as Christs Disciples ergo Answ 1. What is said before to the other Texts answereth all these The Actions of adult Disciples only were in mention 2. Infants are called Disciples Acts 15. as I have elsewhere proved on whose neck the yoak of Circumcision was laid And in Matth. 28.19 when Nations are to be discipled 3. Mr. T. himself confesseth that Christ was habitually and by designation a Prophet in Infancy and that so may Infants be Disciples Mr. T. 6. If in the distribution of the members of the Church then Infants are not comprehended then Infants were not visible Church-members But c. Answ 1. Here he instanceth in 1. The sex Men and Women 2. Jews and Gentiles 3. Circumcision and uncircumcision mentioned but not Infants But if Infants be of neither sex male nor female nor of Jews or Gentiles nor circumcision nor uncircumcision I plead not for them 2. If those Texts cited by you mention not Infants others do as I have elsewhere proved Our children are called Holy and a blessed seed and received by Christ and of such is the Kingdom of God c. And you confess it of Christ himself in his Infancie and yet now forget it or contradict your self Mr. T. 2. I argue from the common received definitions of the visible Church Acts 19. of the Church of England A congregation of faithful men c. Answ And so Kingdoms and all Societies that Infants are members of are accordingly defined as is aforesaid You cannot deny it And was not the Church before Christs incarnation a society of faithful men when yet you confess that Infants were visible parts of is Mr. T. 3. I argue They are no visible members of the Christian Church to whom no note whereby a visible Christian Church or Church-membership is discernable doth agree But c. ergo Answ When a man thinks only what to say for his cause and never thinks what can be said against it his judgement is of little value 1. All that agreeth to Infants which was requisite to a visible Infant member before Christs coming And do you not confess that they were members then among the Jews 2. Did nothing in Christ himself in Infancy agree with visible membership Yes the open Revelations of God as to a visible person You confess before as much as I need 3. The essentiating qualification of a Church-member is Covenant-consent such as God according to the sense of his offered Covenant will accept as such But Infants have this Covenant-consent seeing they consent by their Parents who are entrusted to do it for them as if they were parts of themselves As the Jews Infants did Mutual consent of God and themselves by their Parents is it that maketh them members I have oft wondered to read in orthodox Divines that the Word purely preached Sacraments and Discipline are the marks of the true Church No doubt but Heart-consent to the Baptismal Covenant of Grace maketh a sincere member of the true Church which the Infant doth by the Parent and professed consent to the same Covenant maketh a visible member which regularly must be by Baptism for investiture But a true Church may long by persecution be hindred from publick assemblies Preaching Sacraments and Discipline And may have much corruption in all these Mr. T. maketh this mutual consent as two distinct pretended Notes denying either of them to be true marks Answ Neither the Princes consent alone nor the Subjects alone maketh a Common-wealth Neither the Husbands consent alone or the Wives maketh a marriage but both conjunct So here Mutual consent maketh a Church-member But so that Gods Consent is the Donative efficient cause and mans
consent is the receptive cause which is conditio sine qua non They that will not impartially think of plain cases cannot understand them Your unthankful denying that God hath made any such Promise Covenant or Consent is elsewhere confuted And if I shall say with Davenant and the Synod of Dort that this Covenant being the same that is made with Parents themselves giveth the Children the same Right to Pardon and Life eternal according to their capacity so that faithful Parents should not doubt of the Salvation of their Children dying in Infancy ut Synod Dort Art 1. c. 17. I could better with them bear the consequence of the loss of Gratia Infantilis in some at age than the consequents of 〈◊〉 turning them all out of the visible Church The former I know no Christian that ever opposed for many and many hundred years after Christ and the latter the universal Church as long opposed And yet I will not subscribe that It is certain by the word of God that baptized Infants dying before actual sin are certainly saved without excepting the Infants of Heathens or Infidels wrongfully baptized Mr. T. 4. I argue They who have not the form constituting and denominating a visible Church-member are not visible Church-members But. Ergo. Profession of faith is the form constituting c. Answ 1. Covenant Consent is the form constituting ex parte Recipientis and this they have reputatively in their Parents whose will is as theirs 2. The Jews Infants had the form constituting a visible member as you confess And that was not circumcision For the uncircumcised females and males too in the wilderness were visible members Nor was it to be born of Jews For apostate Jews forfeited it and Proselytes of other Nations obtained it But it was by consent to Gods Covenant 3. And Christ was a visible member by Divine Revelation His arguings would make against Christs Righteousness Imputed to believers and Adams or the Parents sins imputed to them Mr. T. 5. If Infants be visible Christian Church-members then there may be a visible Church-Christian which consists only of Infants of believers But this is â—bsurd Ergo. Answ Such quibbles seem something when the Will giveth them their force 1. Infants are members of all Kingdoms under Heaven And yet there neither is nor can be a Kingdom of Infants only 2. Members are Essential or Integral Because the exercise of the faculties of the Pars Imperans and Pars subdita is the intended means to the Common Good which is the End of Government therefore there can be no Governed Society Kingdom or other proper Policy of which men that have the use of Reason are not members that there be some such to be the Active part is Essential to the Society But yet Infants that are yet but virtually such are Integral members Mr. T. 6. I argue If Infants be visible Church-members there is some Cause of it But there is no Cause Ergo Answ The Cause efficient is Gods Revealed Donation and Covenant Consent The Cause Receptive or the Condition of Reception is That this be the Child of a Consenting believer Mr. T. To this 1. Mr. T. denyeth any such Covenant of grace to the faithful and their seed which is soon said 2. He saith the Conditional Covenant promiseth Justification Salvation on Condition of faith and not visible Church-membership and so belongs to all as Mr. B. c. Answ 1. It giveth both Justification and visible membership that is Right to both and many other Covenant benefits 2. It belongeth Conditionally to all and Conditionally gives union with Christ and his Church and Pardon and life to all But actually to none till the condition be performed which is a believing Parents consent and regularly his Baptismal dedication Mr. T. If there were a Covenant to the faithful and their seed to be their God yet this would not prove their Infants Christian visible Church-membership As he is the God of Abraham of Infants dying in the wombs of believers at the hour of death Answ It 's true if they be not the Children of visible believers because they are not visibly capable subjects But it being such that we speak of your three instances are abusive 1. Abraham is a visible Church-member of the Church Triumphant where he is I will not believe you if you deny it 2. Infants of visible Christians dying in the womb are in that degree visible Church-members as they are visible persons that is It is a known thing that they are the children of God according to their capacity 3. One visibly believing at the hour of death is a visible Church-member One not visibly believing belongeth not to our case Mr. T. If all these which Mr. B. makes the cause or condition may be in act and the effect not be then the cause which Mr. B. assigneth is not sufficient But c. For they may all be before the child is born Answ A meer quibble 1. Before he is born I tell you as far as he is visibly the child of a visible Christian so faâ— he is a visible unborn member But as to that degree of visible membership which is proper to born baptizable Infants two causes are wanting to the unborn 1. Gods consent or donation For though the Promise as a donative Instrument was existent a thousand years before it effecteth not the gift till the subject be Receptive or capable God may promise a thousand years before in diem or sub conditione which signifyeth his consent that so and then it shall be due and not otherwise or before These easie things should not be thus winked at 2. The Parents consent is wanting For though the Parent dedicate the child in the womb to God by promise yet he doth not deliver him up in the baptismal Covenant as a visible person till he is born Mr. T. reciting my answer elsewhere saith It deserveth a smile For I make Christ by his Law or Covenant-grant the only cause efficient The rest of his words are 1. To tell us that Justification c. hath a further efficient after the Covenant which causeth Justificability but not actual Justification without mans faith 2. That I err in taking visible membership to be a Right and moral effect Answ I take not that for the picture of the wisest man whom the Painter draweth laughing or smiling And I am now confirmed in that fancy 1. A Testament or Deed of Gift in diem which saith At seven years end that land shall be yours may be the only efficient Instrument long before existent and yet give you no right till the time and then give it Because it effecteth but by signification of the Donors will Must the Christendom of Kingdoms be impetuously questioned by men that know not such rudiments as these 2. That Justification which is given us at our believing which is our Right to Impunity and Life is the Immediate effect of the Covenant Donation and mans faith is
no efficient but a Recipient cause of it As even they confess that call it a Receiving Instrument And yet we have it not till we believe or consent Who would have thought that such a mâ—n as you had taken your own faith to be an efficient cause of your own Justification and so that you justifie your self And what if one give land to you and your heirs It is none of theirs till they are in being And yet their birth is no efficient cause but only the cause of the subjects receptive capacity I am ashamed that you put me thus to catechize you Mr. T. 5. If visible Church-membership be antecedent to the interest a person hath in the Covenant then the Covenant is not the cause of it But c. Ergo Answ The word Interest may signifie the Interest that fallen mankind hath in the Covenant as conditional antecedent to mans consent And thus I suppose neither you nor I here speak of it But if by my Interest you mean that I am the person to whom the Covenant giveth a present Right to its benefits I answer Some benefits follow long after but when I consent then I am the person to whom the Covenant giveth a present Right to union with Christ in the first instant and consequently with his Church or body in the second so that here is no such thing as your feigned membership before Covenant interest that is before a Right to that Relation by Gods donation And as 〈…〉 former dream that this is not a Right anâ— moral effect but a physical it was your self and not I that subjected you to the shame of such an assertion which I will no more confute Mr. T. 6. If the Covenant c. be the only 〈…〉 bought Orphans of Turks wholly at our dispose are no visible members c. Answ No friend of truth will run into the dark with a controversie and argue à minus notis Many judicious Divines think that Gods Covenant with Abrahams Infants born in his house proveth that two things go to make up the capacity of an Infant for baptism 1. That he be his own and at his dispose who offereth him to God 2. That he be offered or dedicated by a Consenting Owner Now their reason is because if they be our own we have the dispose of them for their good and our wills are theirs But the case is most clear about those that by Generation are our own and darker about those that are by Adoption or purchase our own Now here you do nothing but deny the darker which you cannot disprove and thence the plainer which we have fully proved Mr. T. 7. If the Covenant oâ— Law with the Parents actual faith without profession make not the Parent a visible Church-member neither doth it the child But Ergo. Answ I grant both major and minor He that is not known to have faith is not a visible adult member And he that is not known to be the justly reputed child of a professed believer is 〈◊〉 an Infant Church-member And what 's this 〈◊〉 our controversie Heart consent maketh a mystical or invisible Christian and member and Professed belief that is Believing Consent maketh a visible member of the parent and is necessary to the visible membership of the child If I may call that Making them which is but the Disposition of the material Receptive constitutive cause It 's pitty we should have need to talk at this rate Mr. T. 8. If persons are visible Church-members and not by the Covenant of Grace then it is not true that Christ by his Law or Covenant is the sole efficient of visible Church-membership The minor is proved in Judas and hypocrites Answ 1. They are not the sole efficient Gods Love and mercy also is efficient 2. You profess your self that the name Christian and Church-member are equivocal as to the sincere and the hypocrites If they be not the same things no wonder if they have not the same causes That Donation or Covenant may be the sole nearest Instrumental efficient of True membership and yet not of Equivocal 3. God who is our Paternal Beneficient Ruler doth give some of his benefits by his Law or Covenant absolutely and antecedently to mans conditions and some consequently as Rewards And Gods Laws having first a Preceptive part as well as a Donative or Premiant a Right may accrue in foro ecclesiae to an hypocrite from that precept As e. g. God antecedently doth by his Covenant give the world an Impunity as to the punishment of Drowning it And so by his common Law of Grace he giveth the world many common mercies by a Redeemer and perhaps many by that you call a physical act immediately And by his Law he having given a conditional pardon and life to all commandeth his Ministers to offer it and All men to Accept it and his Ministers to judge by mens profession and to use professed Accepters as real because we cannot see the heart This being so when the hypocrite professeth his consent the Law obligeth the Minister and Church to receive it by which in foro ecclesiae he hath a right to his Church station And Christ himself called Judas and sent him out to Preach and his mandates were as Laws So that the Right that an hypocrite hath he hath by the Law which obligeth the Church to use him as a true believer upon his professing to be such None of this can be denyed But Judas was called immediately by Christ himself and his follow me was a precept which gave him a Right to his Relation Mr. T. 9. If Infants are visible members by the Covenant on Condition that the Parents c. then either the next Parents or in any generation precedent c. Answ The next Parents that are Owners of the child and have the trust and power of disposing of him or covenanting for him And the Reason is because they have 1. That Propriety and 2. That trust and power Mr. T. 10. If an Infants visible Church-membership be by the Covenant on the Parents actual believing and not a bare profession then it is a thing that cannot be known c. Answ I pitty Readers that must be troubled with such kind of talk 1. The Right of the child is upon the Believing Parents dedication of that child to God by consenting that he be in the mutual Covenant 2. Heart consent known only to God giveth no Right coram ecclesia known to men but only to such mercy as God who only knoweth it giveth without the Churches judgement 3. Believing and profession qualifie for Right in the Judgement both of God and of the Church 4. Profession without consenting faith qualifieth for Right in the Churches judgement according to Gods Command who biddeth them so judge and do Wrangle not against plain truth Mr. T. 11. If other Christian priviledges be not conveyed by a Covenant upon the Parents faith without the persons own act and consent then neither