in force and vigor and by a pious recordation thereof the Penitent may confirm his Faith as Peter did and by vertue of the same once established Covenant God receiveth such to mercy and grace otherwise the infidelity and impiety of man would frustrate the goodnesse and good will of God the matter testified in baptism which it cannot because it is constant and changeth not and therefore it is a horrible prophanation of it to reiterate baptism In a word Second baptism was ever abhorred in the Orthodox Church as a kind of incestuous Birth and if you iterate it and baptise your beleevers again upon their profession of faith you must be able to make their former baptism void and no baptism which you can never do as having all things therein which God requireth unto Infant baptism Though Faith a positive and actual Faith as you call for should not be there which is not required of God and therefore is denyed of us to be a necessary condition requisite to be found manifest in every one that is to be baptised indeed in an Aethiopian Eunuch an elder Gentile it is and therefore when he said see here is water what doth hinder me to be baptised Philip answered If thou beleevest with all thine heart thou maist who answering I beleeve that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and so Philip baptised him Acts 8 36 37. The onely Argument the Anabaptists triumph in I shall here give a short answer to Infants of Gentiles are not of Abrahams seed either according to the flesh because not Iowes or according to the promise because not beleevers therefore not to be baptised whilest Infants or if they be to be baptised again when beleevere But I answer First The consequent is denyed for Simon Magus and thousands more even of them that you baptise are neither 2. Nor is it true that onely Iewes are Abrahams seed according to the flesh for that part of the Gentile Galatians who pleaded for Justification by the works of the Law and thereby lay under the bondage and curse of the Law are called the children of Hagar and said to be born of the Bond-woman Sinai and Hierusalem upon earth as it is to be seen Gal. 3. 4. The Apostle applying that part of the distinction to them like as the other part the Children of Sarah to those Gentile Galathians who were justified by faith Nor 3. Is it true that onely beleevers actually beleevers as you speak are the Children of the promise for thus they do not onely at this one blow beat down all Christian infante from all interest in Christ and title to heaven and make them like as the Heathens and Pagans who yet are not wont to strike so hard yea and which is more all Jewish Infants Isaack Iacob and Ioseph these must not be with them nor were by this reason Children of the promise in their Childhood but only according to the flesh untill they did actually believe and so became Children of the promise And more absurdity yet doth follow hence that those Patriarks whom I named Abraham is to be here excepted by their infant-circumcision had no promise of grace sealed unto them but were under a Covenant of works and until the years of discretion and actual fiath were incapable of any interest in the Covenant of grace If onely true beleevers and the Elect persons be under the covenant of grace have right to the Sacraments why is the same Covenant of grace inthe outward administration thereof both in preaching the promises and applying the Seales of the Sacraments to be propounded by Gods appointment to all the outward visible members of the Church And why was Simon Magus baptised as I said 'T is true the inward saving grace of the Covenant in both Administrations is by the Holy Ghost conferred onely upon the invisible members of Christs mysticall body which are the true beleevers and elect But we not able to discern of these give the outward baptism to all those I mean all outward members of the visible Chruch You must do so for the Text before alleged out of the Acts sheweth that all they who have any degrees of Faith may and ought to be baptised But Sir will you stand to your own Tackling The baptising of beleevers hereby you think and intend to exclude Infants of Christians What then will you make of them Infidels or Beleevers can you shew any Text of Scripture old or new where any Infant of Iew or Gentile in Covenant with God is so stiled or can you give any reason of it That which makes an Unbeliever must be a positive habit of unbeleef to justifie this in an Infant will be a task too hard for you and to say that Infants do not beleeve in act or have not the habit of faith onely negatively will not in the Language of the Scripture denominate an Unbeleever Indeed those that are made Christians of heathens they must give some positive and actual expressions of their faith before they be baptised so Philip required of the Eunuch and not till then are they to be accounted beleevers but for such as are born Christians of Christians as our infants are being entred into and under a gratuitall Covenant with God we admit them unto the Initial Seal of that Covenant which is baptism without any such Testimonial Act of Fath as you require for they are not Infidels or Unbeleevers but beleevers and within the compasse of your words though not your sense the baptism of beleevers Seeing you can produce no scripture against their Faith I will see what I can do for their Faith Matth. 18.5 6. Turn to the Chapter and Verses and read them and look to your Neck in that Verse it is a Neck verse Whose shall offend one of these little ones which beleeve on me it were better for him that a Mistone were hanged about his neck and he were drowned in the depth of the Sea Lord what shall become of those that offend all thy little ones by dobarring and excluding them from their birth-privilege and their Right-baptism But that I aim at as to you Sir is that you would take notice that our Saviour Christ who best knew knowing the very secrets of the heart pronounceth of some little ones little Children such as he took out one of them set down in the midst of the Apostles for a pattern of Humility and Harmlesseness That they did beleeve in him its apparent that howsoever sometimes and elsewhere spirituall Children are meant by little Children such as are of a meek spirit little in their own eyes here and at this time very natural Children in age and little in growth or statute are spoken of as the very context and Antithesis do shew They who do so interpret this place do make this not the same story with that which followeth in Matth. 19.13 Where little Children are said tob e brought to Christ it may be in their
to the washing the Leprofie of original sin and as the Waters of Bethesda to the healing of other diseases whatsoever even their actual sins also when afterwards committed It is true that your Children dying without Baptism may be saved by the Coverant and Promise of God and his Grace many are so all are so that are of the Number of Gods Elect Yea I confesse the hope of salvation doth no lie so much in the Seal as in the Covenant and Promise to which the Seal is annexed Indeed the Lord having made a promse to you beleeving Parents concerning your Children born in original sin That he will be your God and the God of your seed in this case you must beleeve this his Word and Promise But where he hath ordained a Seal for the confirmation of your Faith you must take heed how you neglect to apply it you must not as more than too many do in these days think it a superfluous and idle figure and some also hold it a superftitious and Idol-service That which I may and do plead with you for is this that you would so account of it as it is that there is a necessity lying upon you to baptise your Children born in original sin I mean a necessity not absolute but conditional in case your Children be prevented of Baptism by death you may well hope of the salvation of them by the Promise and Covenant onely as I said of God and his Grace and if after Baptism they be taken away from you by death you may better hope of their salvation from both Covenant and Seal also But if you be carelesse and negligent and do also it may be purposely and prophanely omit your duty to put your Children in Covenant with your selfs under the initial Seal thereof you will very hardly answer such your course either to God himself or his Church yea or to your Children and I think at laft to your own Consciences But in the mean time what blindnesse and presumption is this in you Parents to tempt God and to cast your Children onely upon the hands of his Spirit when he hath also appointed Water for their Washing and Regenerating this is as if you should throw up your Children unto the top of the Pinnacle of the Temple when as you have a Ladder standing and reaching up thither to carry them up by or upon upon this glosie God shall give his Angels charge over them so his Spirit order over them and in their hands shall they bear them up and on his finger shall he hold them lest at any time they perish and come to destruction bodily or ghostly What Prophanesse and impiety is this in you Parents to slight and refuse the outward ordinary means of your Childrens spiritual and eternal good as it may be the freeing of them from the Guilt Dominion and Condemnation of original pollution c. and to refer them over wholly to the inward ordinary means Christ Jesus and his Spirit when as these have appointed and dedicated the former to be used and applyed also What carelesnesse yea cruelty is this in you Parents to leave and let your Children lie in the pit and under the bondage of original and natural pollution into the which your selves have been accessary to their falling and not to suffer a hand of Gods ordinance to be reached out unto them which is Baptism for their raising up unto newness of Birth and Life And whereas God hath made a Covenant with you for your selves and your Children yea a joynt Covenant with you both to be your God and the God of your seed what ingratitude is this and ungodsiness to God what inhumanity or apparent imparentnesse is this to with-hold your Children from the Seal of that Covenant and so in a manner to disinherit them as much as in you lieth of their just and due Joynture and inheritance spiritual and eternal Well be it so your infants dying without Baptism may be saved and I pray God they may be saved through the Riches of his Grace but you have not delivered your own souls because you gave no warning to have them baptised as you ought to do seeing the evil come and more a coming upon them But suppose you with-holding them from their means of Baptism blow no Trumpet give no warning to have them baptised God should also with-hold his Spirit of Grace from your Children which God forbid and your Children be taken away in their infancy and minority They shall die in their iniquity or original sin But their-blood will he require at your hands for your negligence contempt you have broken his Covenant Gen. 17.14 Ezek. 33. A fifth warrant or reason is this If Baptism now under the Gospel doth succeed Circumcision under the Law Then are the Infants of covenanted beleeving Parents to be baptised like as Infants of the covenanted professing Jewes were circumcised this warrant is reasoned out or this reason warranted out of Collossians 2.11 and 12. Where the Apostle plainly sheweth that there is no need of their being circumcised who were baptised Jews or Gentiles because such baptised ones had received the Circumcision made without hands namely Baptism the better and great Circumcision as the Antients call it If you deny this you must affirm that the Churches of the Gospel and all the Gentiles converted to the faith of Christ of whom especially they consist are left without a Sacrament of Inititiaon or admission thereinto for their infants and so without one Seal of the Covenant of Grace which ought not to be nor is indeed For the Condition of Christians and their Infants is better at leastwise as good under the New Testament as the Old the Grace of God by the cōing of Christ into the world is more ample and clear as ample clear at leastwise to us living under the Gospel as to the Jewes living under the Law To deny these things were to cast foul dirt into the bright Sun and to shoot Arrows of Contumely Reproach into heaven against our Lord Jesus Christ by whom came Truth and Grace 1 John 17. as the Law was given by Moses and to grant these things is to yeeld Infant Baptism under the New Testament And whereas it is or may be replyed that in that Text above and others where Biptism is conjoyned to Circumcision as its substitute and successor there also are conjoyned with Baptism Mortification of the Flesh Newness of Life Faith and other Graces mentioned it s easily taken off though one of your most difficult Replies as thus 1. They are no more conjoyned with Baptism than Circumcision and therefore as their Infants were commanded to be circumcised So ours are commanded to be baptised notwithstanding their iuoability and incapacity of doing such acts or having such Graces which is equal and alike in both 2. In such Conjunctions if the Texts speak of Actual Faith Actual indeavoring after Mortification c. And require
these in persons baptised they must be limited to such as were Adults grown in years converts from Heathenism such as Cornelius and the Eunuch for therefore doth the Scripture name them to shew the same when it mentioneth their Baptism and the conjoyned duties as required in such which is nothing against Baptism 3. Or if Infants should be meant it sufficeth that these have them Mortification c. not in the Act exercising and manifesting themselves in any deed or word professing the same but onely in Habit included and lying in the principle of Grace the Holy Spirit and why because infants are sinners not by any proper Act of their own but onely by an Hereditary Habit. Now who amongst you can or will say that infants have not thus the Spirit of God which bloweth where it listeth and hath listed to blow in some of them we know of and thousands more where it listeth that we know not of effecting and producing in them this habitual principle of Grace Of this see more before 4. Nor is it necessary that Baptism in that very moment it is received should effect all things it figureth out and doth signifie no more was it that Circumcision should do the like but it may fall to working them afterwards wherein present there is an impediment and hindrance that letteth actual fact mortification Repentance c. as in infants the want of reason doth Those Actuals are not for the present required in infants to be baptised who yet are required to be in present actualy baptised for they are required to be partakers of the death and burial of Christ that is the merit and power thereof to the killing and burying of sin and natural corruption of which Baptism is the sign and means More briefly and syllogistically thus take it as I recollect it If Baptism do succeed and is substituted of Christ now instead of Circumcision in the Church of the Gentiles then as infants were commanded to be circumcised then in the Church of the Jewes so are Infants commanded to be baptized in the Church of the Gentiles But the Antecedent is true being the very matter and substance of the Text above Therefore also the Consequent is such and so I have reasoned Infant-Baptism into another Command before I intended this as reserved for the latter argument But I serve too large warrants upon you Sir to whom I now return I have another or two brief ones yet to serve A sixt warrant therefore is this Reason If infants of Christian Parents be capable of all the good ends effects and benefis that Baptism bringeth with it and worketh or offereth them then surely they are both capable of Baptism and their Baptism is warrantable and justificable This warrant may be reasoned out of the Word or this reason warranted out of the Word 1 Gor. 4.15 1 Cor. 9.1 The Apostle warrants and reasons his Apostleship and the Gospel he preached to be true and right from the good ends effects and benefits that came thereby to the Gorinthians and they received That he had begotten them through his Gospel they were his work in the Lord and the Seal of his Apostleship were they in the Lord. So may I hence warrant and justifie our ministery and even the Baptism which we minister to the infants of Christian Parents to be good had true from the many good ends effects and benefits thereof of which Infants are capable and receptive and which are wrought and sealed in them thereby Our Ministery of the Seal of Baptism with such effects and successe may be also the Seal of our Ministery Now the ends effects and benefits of Baptism are these for which it was appointed 1. To be a means of entrance and admission into the visible Church and a kind of engrafting the party baptised into the body of Christ and an enrolling of him amongst the houshold of God as Members and Servants of Christ Acts 2.37 2. To be instead of Circumcision an annexed Seal and assurance yea conveiance of the good and grace of Christs word and promise covenanted the sum whereof is this of being the Parents God and God of their seed Rom. 4.11 3. To be a representation and Collation of the washing and clensing of the Blood and Spirit of Christ and of the Regeneration and New Birth Titus 3.5 1 Peter 3.21 4. To be a Tye or Obligation of the baptised to stricter Obedience of God and his Truth to make the parties more diligent to serve God and careful to abandon sin Rom. 6.1 to the 9. 1 Cor. 1.13 5. To be a means of Union with Christ and of Unity amongst themselves knitting them faster and bringing them nearer unto Christ 1 Cor. 12.13 Eph. 4.5 6. To be a badge of Christianity and for distinction of Christians from Unbelieving Jewes and Gentiles as the stamp and Character whereby they are known to belong to Christ being a kind of partition-wall betwixt Christians and Jewes and Heathens Ephes 2.14 Now Sir tell me which of all these our infants are incapable of that you should thereupon deny them Baptism in the mean time I tell you they are capable to them all and therefore are not to be denyed The promises of the Covenant the washing away of sin by Christs Blood and Spirit the admittance into the body of Christ c. may be sealed unto them as wherein they are but Passive and if you say so are they capable of the Graces signed in the Lords Supper and therefore may communicate I say how know you that you have no rule for that no glimpse of light from the Word for that whereas I have given you evidence enough of light for the other if you will see there is a Scriptural light that infants are capable of the Graces signed and sealed in Baptism we may be sure of it and therefore may admit them to Baptism there is but your supposal light which is below Traditional you so much write against that they are capable of the Grace signed and sealed in the Lords Supper are you sure of it and will you thereupon admit them thereto The Lords Supper is no initial Seal and for Reception into Covenant which I onely plead for for infants yet this Seal which is Baptism it servesto confirm all the benefits of the Covenant as the baptised grow capable of them and are made partakers of them and so is a good preparative unto the Christians Passeover or the Lords Supper afterwards in due time and order The Lords Supper is a Seal of Augmentation appointed for the nourishment and growth of those Graces which the Covenant promiseth and requireth particularly and expresly of all partakers of it That they must discern the Lords Body and try and examin themselves and therefore Infants are not capable of the Graces of the Lords Supper like as they are of them of Baptism for that they must be Active in that whereas they may be but Passive in this Those that are capable
of all the good ends effects benefits of an Ordinance they are not to be forbidden to come or to be kept back from it as being a good and valid Ordiance to such But Infants and little Children are capable of all the good ends effects and benefits of the Ordinance of Baptism Therefore Infants and little Children are not to be forbidden to come or to be kept back from it it being a good and valid Baptism and beneficial to them The first proposition is clear from the 1 Cor. 4 15. 1 Cor. 9.1 already cited to which I add Matth. 19.14 which clears it as to this particular The second proposition is not questionalbe that they are capable as having reasonable souls belonging it may be to election and so having the Spirit and Grace as before and the Letter of the Text sheweth it For theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven c. Except ye become as one of these little ones ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven To shut up this reason the sum and result is this That Infants of baptised parents are in capacity to partake of the ends effects and benefits of Baptism and of the inward Graces of the same and many of them are actually and really partakers of them as well as grown persons who are visible professors and there being in us no infallible ground of certainty but of Charity that either the one or the other have those inward Graces yet they may be accordingly baptised And the visible right to the Covenant and the many promises made to the seed of the faithfu added to their Capability of the Graces of it are as good evidences to ground a baptism of Infants as the external professions of grown men can give yea and to ground a judgement of their partaking of the invisible Graces like as the others And Experience hath and doth shew it that of those that have been baptised in their infancy our Ministry of the Word afterwards following upon our Ministry of Baptism sweetly winning upon them and drawing them to grow in Grace and to bring forth other fruits and duties of the Covenant to which they were bound by Baptism as the Jewes were by their Circumcision to be obedience of the Law Gal. 5.3 there have been as humble and meek as mortified and sanctified Christians both Men and Women as any amongst you to say no more not to say more sound in the faith sorrowful for sin zealous in love fervent in prayer religious in their houses and devout in the house of God sincere in their dealings grave in their behaviour modest in their attire exemplary in their lives mourniful in Spirit and vexed in Soul for to see the unclean conversations and the erroneous courses of others as well as you nay far better than any of you in many of these are or do Now though it be so that God sometimes doth bring good out of evil as light out of darknesse at first yet usually and ordinarily God doth it not and therefore in a visible constituted Church where he proceeds ordinarily he doth not from a false Ministery and an unlawful Baptism produce such good effects and lightful converses I do not mean your new light so full of darknesse the which let it be to the stopping of the mouths of all gainsayers with whom nothing is more rife and frequent than to revile our Ministery and Baptism as false and Antichristian evil and unlawful A word more from hence to you Parents That if you regard the above-named good ends effects and benefits and now know your Children capable of them and desire indeed they should be partakers of them bring them to Baptism a means to those ends a work to that effect an office to such a benefit So whom God destinates to an end he destinates to the means whom 〈◊〉 appoints to an effect he appoints to a work whom he designes to a benefit he designes to office What moreover and above are you not willing your Children should have the privilege to be accounted as belonging to the family and houshold of God upon earth That they should have an obligation upon them to bind them to the duties of the Covenant of God as they grow of capacity to perform them that they have a good Title afterwards to that other Seal of growth and nourishment in spiritual Graces Why then do you with-hold them from Baptism are you not desirous they should as members of the visible Church have a place in the Communion of Saints and a share in those prayers that are put up to the throne of Grace for the welfare of the Church and particularly for a blessing upon the Ordinances thereof and that they should have a Seal to plead not only in the persent day of their initiation but throughout all their life time as to the Covenant for all those good things whereof it is a Seal so to the Condition for fulfilling the good duties and so gaining the answer of a good Conscience and in which case it is said to save Why then bring them forth present them unto Baptism Be not like unto the Ostrich in Job 39 16. She is bardened against her young ones as though they were not hers her labour is in vain without fear because God hath deprived her of Wisdom neither hath he imparted to her Vnderstanding which leaveth her eggs in the earth and warmeth them in dust and forgetteth that the foot may crush them and that the wild beast may break them it needs no application but this Be not so hard hearted to your Children as to leave them in the earth and dust of their natural Generation so every foot they may be crushed your seed not onely bruâ—sed of the Serpent but broken but bring them out to the water and it may be the fire of Baptismal Regeneration The Apostie tels you and you are I beleve very expert in that Lesson and experienced in that matter that if any provide not for his own and specially for those of his own house and kindred he hath denyed the faith and is worse than an infidel but if you provide not for your own Flesh and Children and their Spirits not only giving them bedily provision but not giving them also such provisions as God hath made ready for their Souls you leave them as bad as infidels in a manner unbaptised denying them a means of faith and the Seal of the Covenant I say no more but what Man is there of you whom if his Son ask Bread will be give him a Stone or if he ask a Fish will be give him a Serpent as Psalm 147.9 The young Ravens cry to God for their food to be given them So your young infants methinks cry to you and in their crying and weeping seem to call to you for their Water of Baptism as their milk of the Brests to be the one the relief unto their Souls against original guilt and misery as the other against
unto the Church For which you may see Acts 2.39 41. because you give me no Text here which I wonder at of which I have your consideration in particular to peruse anon Onely I shall add a word or two about Sureties in the Baptism of Infants because I do not remember that hitherto before now you have made any mention of them and for that I see you are here in an errour about them and you would put a slur upon us and a kinde of slander upon our Church as if Infant-Baptism stood upon account of faith in the Parents and Sureties although say you they have none for themselves I will adde somewhat although they have more than your self I may say the one as well as you say the other Know then Sir that the costom of having Sureties at the baptizing of Infants hath been very ancient in the Church when Truth was in its prime light and Primitive purity though thereupon it is the less liked because the more unlike to the new upstart and out-staring novelisms of these later Ages and last declining times and their office was as to bear witness of the birth of Infants of Christian Parents and therefore were called Attesters or Witnesses as at this day so to answer for the faith and take upon them the education of the baptized Infants and for this they were called Sponsors or Susceptors Hereupon the Infant to be baptized although he did not profess himself to be Believer with his own mouth nor could yet being asked and interrogated as the manner was Doest thou believe he answered in the mouth and tongue of his Sponsors or Sureties or the very Parents or they which is all one answered in stead and place of the Infant I believe And without such profession of faith Infants publickly were not baptized in the Church Thus in and by the judgment of charity the Ancients held and judged the Infant to believe and that if it could speak with its mouth it would answer that it believed and because it could not they appointed as before Sponsors and Sureties in the name and place of the Infant to answer I believe And in this sense also besides others I have given were Infants of Christians called of old Believers because they did in some manner profess faith in and by the mouth and words of their Sponsors Sureties and Parents True its uncertain and unknown to the Church or man whether the Infant doth believe or not but unless the Church had so judged by the judgement of charity which saith the Apostle believeth all things hopeth all things the Infant to believe she would not have appointed Sureties and Sponsors in the name and place of the Infant so to asnwer and unless the Infant it self had so answered in the words and mouth of its Sponsors and Sureties she i.e. the Church would have forbid it to be baptized Thus I have told you of the ancient manner of the Primitive Baptisms with Sureties and Sponsors you must not now here call upon me for proof hereof out of the plain and direct Scripture for I acknowledge this ancient Custom and many a one in use amongst the first Christian Churches is not expresly prescribed in Scripture for then it might be concluded absolutely necessary for all ages and persons to follow so neither is it forbidden explicitly in Scripture and therefore not utterly to be rejected as unlawfull to be used as which was for the good of the Infant and hurs of none as having neither impiety nor iniquity in it so also it was for the provision and better education of the Infant the edification of the Church and the demonstration and exercise of Charity to and charitable judging of others Insomuch that as those venerable Names and Lights of the Ancient Church Tertullian and Auguâ—tine have related and delivered that Custom of baptizing with Sureties and Sponsors so other Reverend Names and Lights of these Modern reformed Churches as Luther Zanchy Beza have allowed approved and commended the aforesaid Custom as fit to be retained still From all which it now appears that you Sir are much out when as you talk and tattle of the Churches baptizing Infants upon account of faith in the Sureties although they have none of their own for you see it was not upon the account of the faith of the Sureties which the Sureties had of their own that Infants ever were baptized but upon the account of the faith of the Infant which the Infant had of its own testified and professed in their name by the Sureties appointed by the Church which judged charitably of the Infant to beleive that the Infant was baptized But now before I proceed to the next I will call upon you to consider That your Doctrine of baptizing actual Believers onely and thereupon not baptizing the Infants of Believers until they have actual faith and can and do make confession of it doth rather overthrow as much as in you lieth the nature of the Covenant of Grace and the whole Gospel of Christ at leastwise to the Seal thereof all the while from their birth that such Infants are kept by you from the same Seal of Baptism for you cannot keep them from their Covenant though you do shamefully ingratefully ungraciously yea and unnaturally keep them from the Seal The thing is evident enough if you do but remember this is the nature of the Covenant and Gospel of Christ the Promise of God to be the God of the believing Parent and his Seed joyntly therefore also of his child as soon as it s born yea before when it is his Seed and soon after its birth Gods will is declared to have this Covenant executed and confirmed by an initial Seal of Circumcision upon Infants in the Old and of Baptism upon Infants in the New Testament now who overthroweth this Covenant we who put our Infants under the Seal of the Covenant soon after their birth it being their birth-right or you that with-hold it from your Infants until they come to be of years to make profession let God himself be judge and that his Word Genesis 17.14 He hath broken my Covenant who the child whose flesh of his fore-skin is not circumcised so also he whose flesh is not washed with the water of Baptism which latter if not done or ordered to be done by you who are Parents to the Child the breach and overthrowing the Covenant lieth upon you and not upon the child to answer for You have broken the Lords Covenant and the Lord may break in upon you as he did upon Moses for neglect of circumcising his Seed Exodus 4.24 Consider of it it s the Lords mercy you are not broken and consumed let the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long suffering lead you to repentance the Covenant Gospell Christ being the same under both Administrations God will look and justly may and must that his Covenanters or covenanted with even Instants shall be now partakers of
by the word of Command and so also the other way turn it and it s as true Sir my hand is now in and I will give you another Syllogism Whosoever are expressed in the Promise Verse 39. are contained in the Precept before Verse 38. Be baptized every one of you But believing Parents and their Children are expressed in the Promise Verse 39. The Promise is made to you and your Children Therefore believing Parents and their Children are contained in the Precept and so both are commanded to be baptized There is no difficulty but in the first Proposition and in it there is none by reason of the mutual relation and reciprocal convertibility that is betwixt a Promise and a Precept in Covenantal and Sacramental matters as hath been shewed And whereas it may be said That a Promise may be without a seal and this here doth not infer Baptism It is true but when men have once put their seal then there needs must be a correspondence and relation between that Seal and the Covenant So here though it was not absolutely necessary the word of Promise or Covenant of Grace should be set forth by outward seals appearing to the senses yet God having once anpointed them to signifie the inward grace it is now necessary there should be such a mutual relation between the word of Promise and the word of Command and the Seal also But I come now to your Consideration upon the Text of Acts 2. verse 39. Consider that such a being in the Covenant as maketh Faith void is no true being But that being in the Covenant which is concluded from the Faith of the Parents is such a being as maketh Faith void therefore no true being That this is so I prove That Title whereby any person hath once a being in the Covenant by the same he may remain in it for ever now then if any one hath such a Title as to be within the Covenant by being the seed of the faithfull he may remain in it for ever and so needs no faith of his own and so by the same reason one may all may and seeing all be the children of Abraham or Noah which were faithfull all are in the Covenant and so Faith needless in the wordl 2. Consider that such on Expositionas overthroweth the Promise that cannot be a true Exposition of the Text but such as expound a being in the Covenant from faithfull Parents overthrow the Promise Therefore this Exposition is no true Exposition for the Promise is upon account of faith in our own persons and not in our Parents as appears in Hab. 2.4 compared with John 3.36 And that it doth overthrow the Promise I farther prove because nothing answereth the Promise but faith and if faith be needless then the Promise is needless Sir I can write no farther being sorry I writ out so much of your needless stuff for to what purpose is all this are these Considerations upon Acts 2.39 they might have been upon any other Text as well which makes any mention of Promise Faith Children And what is it but such an Exposition as overthroweth the Promise Why did you not set it down the Exposition at first and then consider upon it you alwaiet love to shuffle with shadows and fight with fancies and strange Chymaera's Your purpose is to except to the children of Believers being in Covenant with their Parents for so I must still be working upon your earth which is without form and void and darkness upon the face of it like a Chaos and you say it is a false being as concluded from the faith of Parents and so maketh faith void First I must tell you that the being of children in the Covenant of Grace with their Parents was concluded by God jointly and together in that Promise I will be thy God and the God of thy Seed both were in the Promises and concluded together not one from another both in the Promise and confederate together not one from another Your expressions are uncouth unheard in the Church yet we may conclude thus That if the Parent be in Covenant with God then also his seed and children are in Covenant not so much from as for the faith of the Parents God accepting of it so as to Covenant with them and their Seed But grant your Conclusion in your own terms what then Such a being in Covenant as is concluded from the faith of the Parents maketh Faith voyd say you and say I what Faith or whose Faith do you mean Not the Faith of the Parents I suppose for the Baptizing of the Child or the being of it in Covenant from the Faith of the Parents as you speak doth rather confirm establish and bring it into effect than make it void nor can you mean the Faith of the Children for you holding them to have no Faith of their own as here you expresly say how can you say it is here made void any way which was or is no where extant at all nor is Faith required of them as to any manifestation of it for their being in Covenant or taking the Seal though these do require it of them afterwards But the Proof that you bring it being of I know not what nothing asserted before of you or denyed of me deserveth to be answered in its kind that is by a Reproof for thus you prove That Title wherby a person hath once a being in the Covenant by the same he may remain in it for ever I must cast in a grain of Salt here without which it is too fresh yea unsavoury that is so long as he lives and renounce not before whether he be one of our Infants or one of your grown Baptized ones Now then if any one hath such a Title as to be within the Covenant by being the seed of the faithful he may remain in it for ever and so needs no Faith of his own Here 's a rope of Sand for my grain of Salt I grant he may with the former limitation and he that hath such a Title as to be within the Covenant by being converted from Paganism may do so too and as one so all may And he needs no Faith of his own I hope you remember your self no Actuall Faith expressed as elsewhere you write it as to this purpose to give him Title unto the Covenant or Seal which his being the seed of the faithfull doth yet he needs Faith to give him Title to the benefits of the Covenant Justification and Salvation and he must be also a faithful seed himself And so by the same reason one may all may and seeing all be the Children of Abraham and Noah which were faithfull all are in the Govenant and so Faith needles in the world Sir you rise apace but to no preferment of a Proof before it was but He needs no Faith of his own and now it should but have been they need no Faith of their own because by the same reason one may
partakers of the Covenant that other way by obedience to the Law if it could it should have been done that way Adam though made perfectly Righteous and able did not answer it and if God had tryed Adam the second time he would not have answered in obedience to it but would have broken it again and so should we Therefore it must needs be by Faith embracing the promises and so amswering them that the Covenant of Grace must be made sure unto us which otherwise could never have been done But all this maketh nothing against the exposition of the Text above of Infants being in Covenant with their faithfull Parents and included yea they are expressed in the promise for God looked upon the Faith of Abraham when he entred into Covenant with him and his Children and made the promise to be the God of him and his seed and hereupon himself was Circumcised and his seed And where God pleaseth and when he pleaseth as he doth give sanctity the Spirit and other Graces to Infants as to the Innocents Jeremy John the Bap. so the habit of Faith infused it being the Condition on mans part yet wrought in every Elect Infant by God whereby they answer the promise as to the good and benefit of the Covenant if they dye before or soon after the Sealing thereof by Baptism besides that Infants being born of Parents in Covenant and themselves also in Covenant with God and others as sureties and sponsors in the name of the Infants answering for their Faith and promising for their education in the Faith and the Churches charitable opinion or judging them to have Faith are sufficient to answer the promise as for the outward visible seal which is Baptism to be conferred upon them But you make an answer to an objection which will make also an answer to the promise If any will say say you that the Parents may believe for their Children and so their Faith will answer the promise I answer 1. That the Text doth not say the promise is made to you in the behalf of your Children but to you and to your Children and therefore you must believe for your selves and they for themselves or else neither you nor they do answer the promise Somewhat of this before Sir whilest you are about this promise I wish you would observe the precept of using no vain repetitions as here you do so that I must either wholly omit or repeat vainly with you 1. Though the Text saith not so much in so many words yet it meaneth so much The Promise is made to you in the behalf of your Children also that word added it is the same with The Promise is made to you and your Children both together and joyntly the one being in promise as well and as soon as the other and thus the Text neither saith or denyeth your objection nor your answer For the promise may be truly made and is to believing Parents and their Children whether the Parents do believe for their Children also or the Children for themselves 2. Whereas you say Parents must believe for themselves and children for themselves or neither answer the promise it is truly meant according to the inward and spiritual part thereof so as to partake of Remission of sin Justification and Salvation But yet the Faith of Parents in Covenant may be and is so far beneficial to their born Children that thereby they are declared to be also in Covenant with themselves and to have a Right and Title unto the Seal of the Promise and the external Ordinances and outward Privileges of the Church and in respect of these may be said to answer the promise For the promise is the whole Covenant and the dispensations of it in outward Ordinances as well as saving Graces and it s your constant errour and mistake never to speak distinctly of this promise but usually and onely strictly of the saving Graces thereof belonging to the Elect whereas there is an answering of this promise also by visible profession and external Church-membership and privileges which is done both by the Parents and Children whether the inward Graces thereof be known or not Concerning Infants Faith and their inward Graces whereby you will have them also and they may be answerable to the inward promise I refer you to what I have said before 3. You Sir must own the Child above and it must be laid at your doors I mean the objection there made That Parents may believe for their Children and so answer the Promise I do not believe you can find out a Father for it nor did I ever reade the words as I remember it is true as I have related before that Parents did answer for the Faith of their Children presented to Baptism when the Child was asked dost thou believe the Parent in the Name and place of his Child answered I believe but this is far off from your Parents believing for their Children for it was onely Parents professing of their Childrens Faith or the Childrens professing their Faith by or in the mouth of their Parents as I have largely shewed And as for those Divines who though contesting for Infant-Baptism because they could not be perswaded of Infants-Faith made their refuge to Parents-Faith yet they did it not in such words as Parents believing for their Children nor to such purpose that their Faith might answer the promise but to shew that the Parents Faith gave unto their Children a proof of being born under the Christian Covenant and a Plea for the Seal of Baptism notwithstanding the supposed privation of Faith in Children Though therefore Infants as to their inward state before God of Justification and Salvation are not relieved and helped forward either by profession of Sponsors and Parents or by the acts and habits of their Faith because as I said the just shall live by his Faith and as you say the Parents must believe for themselves and as the Errors and Heresies of the Parents do not hurt the Children no more do their Faith and Truth help them as giving nothing from themselves unto their inward and eternal condition Yet are they beneficial to their Children otherwayes 1. It s from their Faith that the Children are brought out to Christ and offered and dedicated to him in Baptism Psal 206.37 whereas the Infidels offered their Sons and Daughters unto Devils 2. And as in their dedication so by their supplication the Faith of the Parent is helpful towards the obtaining of their Childrens regeneration and many graces of the Spirit God being ready to hear and do accordingly 3. If original sin did hurt Infants which without any fault of theirs they drew according to the flesh from their Parents why may not the Faith of the Parents profit the Children so as that sin be not imputed to them for Christs sake to whom they are offered and dedicated purposely and willingly by their Parents seeing grace is more abundant than Condemnation and the
margent wherewith they made Baal And so you do not or did not know that Gods first Covenant of Grace in Christ I will be thy God and the God of thy seed sealed unto you in your Infant-baptism your first Infant-baptism sealing unto you the Covenant of the Grace of God in Christ gave you your knowledge of the Truth your Conversion from your evil wayes your Repentance your Faith and increased these and other Graces in you which you and they prepare for and ascribe to their and your Anabaptism and wherewith they and you would make Anabaptism leaping upon the Altar that they have made and dousing in the Ponds that you go to crying O Baal hear us or Great is Diana of the Ephesians the dipping of the Anabaptists Why halt ye or how long O ye people halt ye between two opinions or two Baptisms 1 Kings 18.21 if your first Infant-baptism be the Seal of Gods Covenant of Grace to you follow it but if the Anabaptists second Dippism be the Seal then follow it Therefore I say farther to them the people and you not I even I onely but we even we also thousands of us remain the Ministers of the Lord and your Prophets are a great many more for every one that will with you may consecrate himself and be a Prophet we as we do will still bring our children and Infants of believing Parents unto Baptism in our Churches pouring on or sprinkling water In the name of the Father the Son and the holy Ghost with invocation or calling on the Name of the Lord and do you as you use go out with your grown but born Christians men and women whom you have with-held from their Baptism in their Infancy or with other grown persons formerly baptized whom you have seduced into your by-wayes and carry them to your dippings and diving them over head and ears body cloathes in your Ponds of the field the Baptism or washing that answereth by fire I mean the Spirit 1 Kings 18.24 and spiritual Graces bringing after to Repentance from evil wayes and unto the knowledge of the Truth let that be the right washing and Baptism indeed All the people I know will and yur selves also must needs answer The word is good and it is well spoken Now then I propose and it s my major proposition most true That washing with water or Baptism which answereth by fire cavil not at the phrase God in or by Baptism I mean and hath the Graces of Gods Spirit Faith Repentance Conversion answerable and following thereupon is that and that onely which is mentioned in the Scriptures as of Gods Institution so conjunction Mat. 3.11 Mark 1.8 Acts 2.38 John 3.6 and in a great many other places which formerly I have brought shewing the correspondence or accompanying the one of or to and after the other the Baptism and the Spirit But I assume and it is my minor proposition yet no less true That neither of your two dippings I call them two in respect of the Subjects which are of two sorts some formerly baptized and some not are to be found in any part of Scripture throughout the whole Bible either instituted of God or conjoyned with fire or the Spirit as my whole Book and this annexed Treatise or Censure hath cleared demonstrated And therefore I may conclude Negatively against your diping by Anabaptists that it answereth not by fire and so you have received from them and it nothing but water no fire no Spirit no Grace no Regeneration no Conversion no plucking out of your evil wayes into the knowledge of the Truth What you have of these Goods or Graces in present you have and received as sparks at your first Baptism in your Infancy which being according to the Scriptures and to Gods Ordinance and Institution answereth by Fire in all Gods elect children as who are inwardly also baptized of the Spirit whch is the fire I mean and speak of which answering also by fire in them afterwards sheweth their Baptism in Infancy to have been according to the Scripture Gods Ordinance and Institution To come up yet closer to you If you Sir be one of those that belong unto the Election and Covenant of Grace as I in charity judged of you as I ought to do when I baptized you and gave you Baptism as the seal of the Covenant then were you baptized with fire i. e. the Spirit as well as water the inward Grace being united to the outward Sign unto such and the Spirit as truly and really and actualy applying the merits and blood of Christ in the justifying and sanctifying vertue unto your soul as I did the water to your body or bodily part of your face or forehead and the invisible Grace of the Sacrament was conveyed to you by such visible means so that if you had dyed in your Infancy this your Baptism had been to you supposing you still an Elect Infant as a seal of the Righteousness of Christ extraordinarily applied by the holy Ghost to your Justification and Salvation God hath now suffered you to live to years of discretion I must therefore put you in remembrance that you stir up the gift or Grace of God which is in you as Paul speaketh to Timothy 2 Tim. 1.6 I cannot say by the putting on of my hands but I may by the pouring on of that water with my hands The word in the original is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to stir up that fire of the Spirit I spake of and to quicken up the grace of Baptism that hath lien under the ashes throughout your youthful and sinful dayes of ignorance that so now it may kindle and burn brighter in you You are now to bestir your self in reading the Word and hearing it preached by such Ministers as God sendeth into the Church and amongst them him especially who baptized you at first that so you may come to Faith by such means and by Faith now actually lay hold on the promises of the Covenant of Grace touching Justification Remission and Adoption and enjoy them to your use and comfort which were but made and sealed in your Baptism as to every Elect Childe of God and estated upon you on Gods part as to your Right and Title I do not say that your Baptism properly did give you or primarily the Right and Interest you have unto God and Christ Gods free Covenant and promise did it but it sealed up onely and mainly confirmeth that Right and Interest which you had already even then in Gods Govenant and Promise Gods Word is as good as his Bond and his Promise as effectual as his Seal your Baptism as the other Sacrament was not for the strengthning or effectualizing of Gods Covenant but to the confirming and supporting your faith in apprehending it I would make this very plain to you hoping it may be for some good to you Suppose an Estate made over unto you in your Infancy by a Will and Testament under Seal you
have not indeed during your minority any sensible use and benefit thereof because of your incapability but yet the Right and Title is not vain but true and real and stands firmely secured unto you to be claimed and enjoyed to your use good and benefit what time soever you come to be capable of it so that you shall not need to look after a new Will or sealed Conveyance thereof the first being in force and effectual Even so God by Will and Covenant hath made over as it were Christ with all his Merits Righteousness and all Graces accompanying Salvation to you as still supposed an Elect child born of believing Parents in those words I will be thy God and the God of thy seed and sealed the same in Baptism unto you and you have made little or nothing of it for a long while as to your comfort and benefit thereby by reason of your uncapableness of them by your ignorance and want of knowledge faith c. yet your Right and Title to Christ and all his Merits was and is good and real and stood and stands firmely secured unto you and sealed in your Baptism and whensoever you come to understand what grant God hath sealed to you in Baptism and do actually lay hold upon by Faith and resolve to come out of your sins as it seems lately and you say The Grace of God appeared bringing you to the knowledge of the Truth and plucking you from your evil wayes then you may lay claim to them all and shall have the comfortable benefit and finde and feel the effectual fruit of your Baptism so that you needed not have looked out after another new Will or Covenant or another new Seal of the same Covenant the old being still in force and in effect to the slighting of God in his own Ordinance and to the introducing of a new Business and so in a maner setting your posts to Gods post Ezek. 43.8 and setting altar against altar yea Baal before God Is it not because there is not a God in Israel that thou sendest to enquire of Baalzebub the God of Ekron 2 Kings 1.6 so was it not because there was no Baptism in our Church or your baptizing of our Church was not as you thought in force and efficacy that you ran out to the Anabaptist to be dipt and laver'd in a Pond or to be ponded and plunged at Laver This indeed was occasioned through great ignorance and profaneness in part that you had so mean and base opinion of the outward Sign and Seal of your Infant-baptism and the vertue and efficacy thereof as if it were a meer mysterial Ceremony and sacramental Complement for the present time to give the Childe a Name and there an end and no farther matter or benefit for the future Know then and I pray mark it seriously that you may know it and I may not beat onely the air and your ear but also the heart and the fire in you if you be of Gods Elect that your Infant-baptism was of vertue and effectual to the taking away of the guilt of sin and to the furtherance of your salvation not onely in that hour it was taken and received by you from me in your Infancy but it is and may be and will be if you be not the hinderance thereunto and to your self of force and powerful to the same good ends for the time future and to come yea throughout your whole life time as also in all other such as are elect children of God truly and inwardly baptized or regenerate The which truth as being of grat moment in and against this new business of yours I will prove both by Scripture and Reason and both briefly for I confess I am too tedious and long but it is that I might do you the more good and Baptism the more right St. Mark 16.16 saith He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved is baptized in present for the act and some present benefit but it extendeth its vertue farther to time future for he shall be saved Col. 2.12 They are buried with Christ in baptism and are risen with him They are so now a long time after finding the vertue and effects thereof who were long before baptized as to the act and some initial fruits thereof 1 Pet. 3.21 Even Baptism doth now also save us now in our latter dayes it saveth us though in former times received by us So in reason it must be so for Baptism is and was to you the Sacrament of your insition and ingrafting into Christ sealing up your setting into Christ the which you needed but once and never after to be done again for the force thereof goeth on and continueth for all times as a grafted Crab-stock holdeth on and continueth bearing also fruit if it be not broken off Once engrafting though often nourishing once regenerating and alwayes increasing is the Grace of Christ and the life of a Christian and if it were not so that the force of our once being baptized did continue and reach to the washing off all the sins of our whole time why then you would have upon every sin which is a separation of you from God a new ingrafting and so a new seal of it Baptism or somewhat else Secondly because as long as the Covenant it self is of force and effectual so long is Baptism of force and effectual that being the foundation and substance of this as every promise or covenant is of the seal in which God promiseth and covenanteth to and with the party baptized inwardly to be their God and the God of their seed But this covenant of the Grace of God to you and all his Elect children is eternal and so effectual at all times so Esay 54.10 The mountains shall remove and the hills shall fall down but my mercy shall not depart away from thee neither shall the covenant of my peace fall away saith the Lord who hath compassion on thee And so Jeremy 32.40 I will make saith the Lord an everlastingcovenant with them that I will never turn away from them to do them good but I will put my fear in their hearts that they shall not depart from me So hence may fairly be inferred and concluded That he Covenant of Gods grace with you being eternal the Seal of this Covenant which is Baptism is also eternal for the efficacy thereof not limited to any time much less the time it is in taking and therefore being imprinted upon you in your Infancy according to Gods Covenant with you in your Infancy the God of thy seed it is of force and vertue to you throughout all your life time yea to all eternity Now then Sir did you not very evil to obscure the Grace of God appearing to you and to plunge your self into such an evil way and shew such ignorance of the word as to renounce and lay aside an effectual and powerful Christian Baptism ready and present at all times in the fruits
vain and needless thing yet I say fear not for the Lord will not forsake his people for his great names sake because it hath pleased the Lord to make you his people nor will the Lord forget you his servant for his gracious Covenant sake which he hath also sealed to you in your Baptism because it hath pleased him to make you his servant Moreover as for me God forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you but I will teach you the good and right way Onely fear the Lord and serve him in truth with all your heart Ver. 23 24. And Let my counsel be acceptable to you break off your sins by repentance and by righteousness and your iniquities by turning unto the Lord and calling for mercy upon your poor soul and by shewing mercy unto the poor people if it may be a lengthning of your tranquility Dan. 4.27 Sir without any ifs or ands do you so seriously and uprightly and it will be a lengthning of your tranquility and a stablishing of you in peace of your conscience notwithstanding your former breach of it and of the Covenant of Grace in your despising your Birth-right your Infant-baptism For Behold Gods hand is not shortned that it cannot save neither his ear heavy that it cannot hear though your iniquities might have made a perpetual separation 'twixt you and your God Esay 59.1 2. especially those iniquities of separation from Gods Church and Baptism His Covenant of Grace is an Everlasting Covenant the seal of it your Baptism though but once administred loseth not its strength and force and is yet of vertue and benefit for you if you will make use of it yea it will be of continual use and benefit to you if you will return to it and reflect upon it by your faith and lay hold upon the precious things and promises thereof In a word Though you have departed away from your Covenant by breaking of the Seal thereof and slighting your Baptism yet God is not gone from either but what he hath Covenanted and Sealed is and will be ever ready to make good Come therefore and return unto the Lord for you have torn and he will heal you have broken and he will binde up yea and he hath torn and he will heal he hath broken and he will binde up in all your sins and transgressions which are your breaches of the Law and the tearings of Gods Covenant in all his afflictions and chastisements which are his breaches upon you and his tearings of you in your estate nay in all your fears and doubts return unto the Lord and his Covenant of Grace and Mercy look back to your Seal of it your Baptism and lay hold on it by Faith even but now renew your Faith in the Promises therof renew also your Repentance for breach of Covenant and Promise on your part you shall find the effect of that you never saw and feel actual comfort even present benefit thereof Once more Have now recourse and go with all speed to your first Infant-baptism and remember and believe that God hath therein sealed up unto you his love and favour to you in Christ and that his everlasting Covenant of Grace and Peace and Reconciliation to be your God in Christ for ever and will never fail you seeking and having recourse to him his Covenant and Seal This will fill you full of heavenly comfort in the midst of sorrow and upon Repentance give you good assurance of the pardon of all your sins whatsoever even of this none of your least sins your causless Revolt and Separation from the Church Ministery and Baptism appointed and approved of God A Communion with which if you will truly re-enter into and seriously return unto pleading as you may even yet your Right and Interest in the Covenant of Grace sealed unto you in your first Infant-baptism once for ever you doing the Condition thereof God also will then remember his Covenant entred into with you then once for ever and will have compassion on you and run out and meet you fall on your neck and kiss you Luke 15.20 21. so that you shall not onely have a clear and full Remission of this and all other your sins washed away in the blood of Christ the substance of the Covenant but also enjoy the sweet and comfortable fruits and benefits of that your Baptism the Seal of such Covenant even an assurance of God his being â—our God and the God of your seed and that for ever and of your being one of his people and a member of Christ Jesus and that also for ever So that you may say as the Spouse of Christ for so the â—oul is contracted unto Christ by the Covenant and it is espoused or the espousals are solemnized and ratified in Baptism I am my Beloveds and my Beloved is mine Cant. 6.3 And now Sir am I become your enemy because I have told you and others the Truth and shewed unto you the good even the good old Way If so then the God of Truth who set me a work be my friend as Abrahams and deliver me out of your hands and the hands of all mine enemies and if God and the Truth be on my side I care not much who be against me nor do I fear what man and error on the contrary side can do Magis amica veritas maximè amicus Christus qui est ipsa veritas vita But Sir by that time you have sadly thought upon and considered what I have said fully digested ruminated that over which I have written you and they but you especially I aim at will see me a real cordial soul-friend of yours as who have endeavored to come unto you as a Pillar of fire rather then a cloud not to darken you with obscure discourses but to enlighten you with clear evidences so to lead you out of your by-wayes of Errors into the plain Path of Truth and rather to Convert you then confound you I say your soul-friend for seeing once your soul also belonged to my Curam Animarum and you were formerly one of the sheep of my Pastor-fold one of the souls that were numbred into my Pastoral charge you see I count you so still though you have broke loose and separated your self from my flock and feed yet I have not let you so go nor have I released to you though you have remised to me nor have I discharged you though you have dismissed me yea you may see me your soul-friend yet farther in that I have not run away or lien hid in a corner as the Hireling but as a loving Pastor have followed after the Wolf and the Fox running away with you like as also David did go after the Lion and the Bear taking a Lamb out of his fold yea and when the Wolf also turned head against me and came upon me as the Lion did arise and ramp upon David I caught him
Mothers armes and so might be lesser Children than these But the word in the original for little Children is the same in both Chapters the like also in Marke 10.13 and its acknow ledged by all that both in Mathew 19. and Marke 10. Little Children in age and stature are meant and besides such little Children in age and stature were fittest to be examples of Humility and Innocency the thing intended to the Apostles than either greater Children or grown men who many times are stubborn and harmfull And though in Verse 6. where they are said To beleeve in me little ones be mentioned without little Children it is to me an exegesis or further explication of the word Children that they were little ones and small oner though such as could come to Christ upon his calling of them which maketh no difference in point of the one or the others beleeving in him Lastly when Christ saith Who so shall receives one such little Child in my name receiveth me But who so shall offend one of these little ones c. The very Antithesis or opposition sheweth that he speaketh not of divers sorts of little Children but one and the same And so forewarneth in this 18th Chapter his Disciples that they should not be as he foresaw they would be in the 19th Chapter offensive unto suchdd little Children who were so notwithstanding But if this be not a Text evident enough for their Faith as I will not be contentious but subject my Spirit to the Spirit of the Prophets let another witnesse speak Acts 18.8 Crispus beleeved on the Lord with all his house If there was any Infant there or youngling as most likely it is said to beleeve Yet our Saviour Christs singling out of Children to be examples of Humility and Innocency his accepting of savor shewed to them as done to himself his prohibiting any offence to be done to them all in this 18th of Saint Matthew together with his checking and rebuking of his Disciples for forbidding them to be brought to him or to come to him his taking them up in his Armes laying his hands upon theâ— and blessing them Do not all these shew a great deal of Complacency that Christ had and took in them and that these little Children pleased him very well and therefore sure were not unbeleevers For without faith it is impossible to please God Heb. 11.6 Besides that he pronounceth that of such also little Infants in age and stature is the Kingdom of God but the Kingdom of God is not of unbeleevers Sure some of these little Children nay more some of our little Infants dying before they are baptised are saved and received of God into his Kingdom whither no unbeleever nor unclean can come or enter Lastly I read of two Examples one in the old Testament of Jeremy 1.5 Of whom the Lord saith Before thou camest out of the VVomb I sanctified thee and I ordained thee a prophet Another in the new of John the Baptist who being but a Babe in the Womb of Elizabeth leaped for joy of the approach of Christ then also in the Womb of the Virgin which joy thereof was an act of the Spirit in him Add hereto Jacobs holding of Esau by the heel which the Prophet Hos 12.3 interpreteth to be a kind of striving with him for the Grace and Blessing We cannot think these in the Womb were in Christ and so sanctified one way and when they came to years of understanding by another way If Chidlren of Beleevers may thus have the Spirit of Grace and Faith and that before the Seal of the Covenant then they are not unbeleevers but beleevers Howsoever there are some things extraordinary in these two examples yet I have shewed that the Spirit of God is an internal ordinary Agent and means in the Church of God and as to the Infantile nature and condition which from the two former examples appears to be capable of it doth where it pleaseth infuse Faith and other Graces as before Humility Meeknesse Innocency Patience whereof little Chnildren were also set for examples by our Saviour Christ I do not say that any Infants now have the Spirit and Graces of the same in so ample and large a measure as those above named as who were sanctified and consecrated in a more speciall degree for a more speciall work nor do I say that all Infants now under Covenant have the Spirit and this Grace of Faith and other but that they who are the Elect of God and ordained to eternal life of which there are many have Faith and the Spirit so far forth as is sufficient for their Salvation Acts 13.48 But I will fall upon this poynt more closely and if as I have in part already out of the Texts all ged I can evince this of Infants-Faith I mean and so must you of Infants in speciality or in kind some of them such as he purposeth to save and not of Infants individually and in particular every one Infants Baptism must needs be also evinced As Paul saith to Agrippa about the Resurrection of the dead so may I to you Why should it be thought a thing Incredulous with you that God should give Faith unto Christian Infants They have knowledge and other Faculties of the Mind and the Soul and why may not they have supernatural Grace and so some seeds of the habit of Faith according to their modell and measure for the apprehending of Christ and so Faith it self in a kind and in a like kind unto that is in grown persons Faith wheresoever is alike and but one in kind the which how small soever sufficeth to Salvation What doth the weakness of the Organ of Body or Soul make it impossible for God to work supernaturally even in the little Children at least so much illumination of the Mind more than is ordinary for that age as may be fit to receive the Grace of Christ I shall tell you more Sir than I beleeve you know and I know you will beleeve Such Infants whom deceasing God taketh up into heaven for of such also is the Kingdom of Heaven as Christ said he filleth in a moment and at an instant with an inundation of knowledge and understanding of Christ for they come to sight and vision of him more than you and I have nay more than all the Prophets and Apostles had whilest they lived upon earth And now cannot the same God immediatly before sprinkle their Souls with one jot of the knowledge of Christ or one grain of Faith though but as Mustard-seed and make them to touch Christ though but with the Tip or Fingers and of that hand of the soul which is Faith whom they shall immediately have the full fruition of like as many as touched the Hem of his Garment were made perfectly whole But I remember me you must have plain direct Scriptures for this point one you have had and so you shall have more Scriptures out of which it may be
plainly and directly evinced Infants Faith and Salvation by it which is all one Doth not David say and testifie Psal 8.2 out of the mouths of Babes and Sucklings hast thou ordained or founded strength or perfected praise and doth he not Psal 148.12 call upon and exhort old men and children to praise the name of the Lord the which you cannot expound of spiritual children onely as sometimes it may and somewhere for Mat. 21.15 16. they are real and bodily children that cried Hosanna to the Son of David and fulfilled Davids Speech now if these had no Grace Knowledge or Faith in Christ how could they so glorifie and praise Christ and rejoyce and even Triumph in Christ I ask again are any Infants in Christ or ingrafted into Christ or the Children of God if so as you cannot deny it for we are all one in Christ Jesus whether bond or free male or semale old or young Father or Children And God the Father hath given to Christ Infants and Children as well as Parents and Fathers and to those that Christ hath received his Father he gives eternal life But now they are all the Children of God by Faith in Christ Jesus and if they be Christ then are they Abrahams seed and heirs according to the promise Galat. 3.26 28 if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his Rom. 8.9 and he that is none of his Christ Baptizeth not But Christ Baptizeth with the inward Baptism also unto Remision of Sins many Infants these are some of his as who hath taken them into Covenant to be the God of them and them to be the Children of God And surely if Christ should not impart unto some Infants Knowledge and Faith according to their measure Competent to Salvation but only to the Adule and grown persons he might seem to be an Acceptor both of Ages and personages which he is not Deut. 10.17 Rom. 2.11 See John 6.35 and 37. He that commeth to me shall not hunger and he that beleeveth in me shall not thirst immediately Christ addeth whatsoever the Father giveth me shall come unto me or beleeve in me I ask you now and Quaere you hath not the Father in his everlasting Counsel and Bounty given to Christ all his Elect Infants and appointed them to be Christs when Psal 2.8 the Lord said unto him thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee ask of me and I shall give thee the Heathen for thine Inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession if so why then they also Infants being somewhat of that whatsoever given unto Christ shall come and do come continually unto him or beleeve in him whatsoever you say or write to the Contrary that they neither shall or do believe See Galat. 3.22 The Scripture hath shut up all things under sin that the promise by Faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those that believe you hear the disease of sin in Adam is spread over all things that is all men and whatsoever is of and in man even Infants therefore the Remedy of Faith in Christ must be spread over them too that this may be as generall and large as that so Infants who are saved must and do believe in Christ See 17. John 3. This is life everlasting to know thee the onely true God and him whom thou hast sent Jesus Christ Here is a General and universal Rule given by Christ himself the Author of Salvation without any inkling or tinkling of exception for everlasting life to be atteined namely by knowing and believing for that is also included in it as is specified and more enlarged in the 1 John 5.10 11 12 He that hath the Son hath life this life is in the Son and he that believeth hath this witness in himself c. Now I Quaere you again Have any of the Elect Infants the Son of God have they eternall life you cannot deny it and therefore you cannot deny them some spark of Knowledge and Faith See 2 Cor. 5.7 We walk by Faith and not by sight and 1 Cor. 13.12 now we see through a glass darkly but then face to face whence it appeareth there is but one way of joyning us all to Christ and of our enjoying of Christ which is Sight of him in Heaven or Faith in him upon earth to which Sight our Faith now is answerable being of the same nature and quality onely differing in the measure for Faith is nothing else but a sight of him John 12.44 and 4. Now I Quaere you again do not you think but the same way which serveth for all the rest of Gods Elect doth serve for Children also to joyn them to Christ and that there is but one life begun here which is perfected in heaven according to that He that believeth in me hath eternal life John 6.47 Then also must Infants have some light of the mind to see and behold Christ now here as in a looking glase so hereafter face to face See Rom. 4 6. To all Abrahams seed the promise is firm by Faith and his Title is the Father of the Faithfull the Scripture maketh him the Father of us all and all the Children of the promise i.e. The whole number of Gods Elect for of that Primary cause of our Salvation Gods holy Election Saint Paul there disputeth Rom. 9 8. which is observable against the Anabaptists who impute the Salvation of Infants solely to Gods Election which is acknowledged of us to be the Primary cause whereas in that very place he mentioneth a secondary cause of their Salvation that they are the Children of the promise and so reckoned in Abrahams seed because of that Interest they have in that blessed Seed in whom Abraham and all his posterity are partakers of the holy inheritance Now I Quaere you again here do you or dare you exclude Infants from being Abrahams Seed you must then also bar them from having interest and part in Christ if not why do you or dare you to deny them Faith seeing that in the same manner as Abraham obtained the Blessing which was by Faith so must all Nations of the world Jews Gentiles and every particular person all and as many as lay under the curse before even Infants therefore obtain the Blessing by Faith according as it is Gal. 3.8.13 14. What should I run on thus your self will prove as much for me anon and agaiost your self for in your confutation or rather consideration following upon Acts 2.39 there you say That nothing but Faith answereth the promise and I shall tell you that Faith answereth it as the condition If then there be no other way or means for Infants to come by Righteousness or Salvation but by Faith or believing the condition of the Covenant of Grace and the Gospel as works and doing was of the Covenant of Nature and the Law you must either grant some Infants to believe and have Faith or else
than with your manly or rather unmanly pride envy uncharitableness roughness and presumption whereout it is that you so despise and offend the little ones withholding them from their due of Baprism rail and revilethe Churches of God and the Ministers of Jesus Christ These things I tell you grieve the good and mild Spirit of God and send it away sad from such hearts and at last if presevered in will quench its holy fervours And I wonder very much that any people should run after you as they do who leave their Infants and Children under no better a condition or denomination than of Infidels and unbelievers for so you tell them that their condition by nature and their seed is the same which Pagan-Gentiles and till they know God and believe in him open and professed enemies of God whereas upon their and our nature that is natural Generation or Procreation of Seed there is the Covenant of Grace established and set up which you see at large Ephes 2.3 and 4 c. That we were by Nature the Children of wrath as well as others when out of Covenant You profess much Scripture Learn to speak in that Holy Language and to call Children of Christians Christians by Nature and not sinners of the Gentiles or Pagans for so Saint Paul speaketh Gal. 2.15 We who are Jews by Nature and not sinners of the Gentiles How Jewer by Nature because they were the Children of the Prophets and of the Covenant born under it Act. 3.25 So are our Children Christians by Nature how not sinners of the Gentiles because born Jewes had not their sins imputed to them though born in original sin as the Gentiles the Covenant being a remedy appointed against it and a means to bring them into Gods favour again and so are our Children not sinners of the Gentiles You that are Parents and are carefull enough to keep sure your inheritances and joyntures of earthly things to you and your Children suffer not your Children to be wrangled out of their birth-right and joynt inheritance they have with your selves in the Covenant of Grace under the name and notion of unbelievers when as the Scriptures never calleth them so but a holy Seed and God hath made you and you Children joynt-partakers of the Covenant and the Seals thereof I have been the longer in this for that I would lay therein some ground-work for something to follow I will be very short in your next Quaere Section II. Of Baptism making Christians and how YOu ask whether Baptism maketh a man or woman a Christian without Faith and following of Christ in all his Commands and Steps left upon Record for our imitation This is a short Quaere and therefore shall be soon answered as not seeing to what purpose it is for you or against me I shall therefore briefly answer something to it out of Rom. 2.28 and 29. distinguishing of the sorts of Christians and the parts of Baprism as he doth of the sorts of Jews and parts of Circumcision As Circumcision which was outward in the flesh made though I do not here approve of this your word and therefore I will use another shewed or declared the Jew outwardly or the outward Jew so Baptism which is outward in the flesh sheweth or declareth the Christian outwardly or the outward Christian And both may be without Faith and following of Christ in all his Commands c. as in Esau and Simon Magus the one Circumcised the other Baptized Again As Circumcision which is of the heart in the Spirit not in the Letter made for here your word may go a Jew inwardly or the inward Jew So Baptism which is of the heart in the Spirit not in the water onely maketh a Christian inwardly or the inward Christian neither of these can be without Faith which parifieth the heart or the fruits of Faith in following of Christ c. Now as the Apostle saith surther He is not a Jew and that is not Circumcision so may I He is not a Christian and that is not Baptism namely approved of God and avaylable to Salvation which are outward onely and literal and therefore every true Jew or Christian must indevour after Faith and Following Christ to speak as you do and to find and get the inward and spiritual substance and nature of these Sacraments which is to worship God in Spirit to believe and rejoyce in Christ Jesus having no confidence in the flesh Phil. 3.3 to put off the sinsull body of the flesh Col. 2.11 That we may draw neer with a true heart in full affurance of Faith having our hearts sprinckled from an evill Conscience and our bodies washed in pure water Heb. 10.22 and may have the washing of Regeneration and the Sprinkling of the Blood of our Lord Jesus within us as Tit. 3.5 and 1 Pet. 1.2 Again There are Made Christians and there are Born Christians or a Proselytical or Parental Christianity As for such who are of the Pagan and Heathen world by Nature They can no otherwise be made Christians or Members of the Church but by a lawful Baptism upon their accession unto the Church and expression of their Faith so the Proselvtes of old were and did whom Baptism made Christians and outward members of the visible Church upon their Confession of Faith like as their Faith if true made them Saints and inward members of the Invisible Church But for them Infants who are in the Church and within the Covenant descended of Parents and in Covenant these are Born Christians and Church-members visible I mean not as born of Christian Parents but as born in and under the Christian Covenant so that their Baptism doth not so much make them to be Christians but only shew and declare them to be such as I said and seal them as Covenanters And howsoever a Positive expression of Faith explicitely be necessary unto a Heathen Born for his Admission unto his Christianity or Church-membership yet it is not so unto a Christian Born for their Christanity or Church-membership is their Birth-Privilege and Baptism is but their Instalment or inrolment and is but as the Inauguration or unction unto a Prince Born Faith I confess and I mean saving and justifying Faith and so must you seeing you joyn thereto the following of Christ in all his Commands and Steps left upon Record for our Imitation is absolutely requisite unto Born Christians as a Condition to their partaking and enjoyment of the Benefits and Fruits of Baptism but not absolutely required as the condition to their comming and engaging to the Covenant to the which they have a good Title and Right without present actual Faith unless you will affirm that all the Jewes who came to Circumcision had the like and all the whole Congregation of Israel man woman and child who Deut. 29. entred into Covenant with God had a saving and a justifying Faith In a word Baptism without Faith may declare a visible Christian but incompleatly
their being in Covenant must needs be the ground of Gods commanding the Seal of Circumision It is acknowledged there was a special Commandement for circumcising in the time of Infancy but do not you blame God for his such Command by the same reason you blame us for our practice Infants of Jewes were as much in the state of Nature as ignorance blindness and under the same defects that Infants of Christians are and why do ye not charge the wisdom of God with folly for Commanding the Infants of Jewes to be circumcised or excuse us who being under the same Covenant do Baptize the Infants of Christians In imitation of God Commanding Circumcision and also in obedience of God and that Command which was in part also Evangelical For That Commandement was for the Circumcising of such Infants in their Infancy whose Parents were under Gods seal but there is no such command for Infants whose Parents were not for these Profession of Faith was needful Abraham in whom the Church of the Jews began therefore had Faith before hee took the Seal but no such thing was afterward required of Abrahams Seed but the contraty Commanded namely that their Seed should be circumcised in their Infancy And so I deny not but God Commanded Circumcision but this that by vertue of Gods Commandement onely they were Circumcised I deny for it was also and chiefly because of the foregoing Covenant in the 7. and 8. verses to which the words refer saying Thou shalt keep my Covenant Therefore what Covenant vers 10. Circumcision is so named He doth not barely Command it but with an Inference or reference therefore to shew that they being in Covenant were therefore to have the Seal thereof Circumcision which did but put the Covenant under Seal in which Covenant those Children were before by Birth being born of Parents with whom God had stricken Covenant But I shall go neer to make use of it anon for the Baptizing of our Children like as they and you do now for the circumcising of the Jewes Chrildren Though the Truth is that was nothing but Gods word of Institution whose incommunicable property it is to appoint Sacramental Signs The Covenant then especially was the ground of Circumcising the Seed of the Jewes and the same is the ground of Baptizing the Infants of Christians and so Christian Parents being in Covenant their infants are in Covenant with God and therefore Baptizable for Gods Covenant written upon Children of Parents in Covenant is no Blank to seal too but a just Title or writ as I may so say for the Seal and a very Commission given out by the Holy Spirit for the Baptizing Infants of Christians in their lofarcy and so these things appearing to the Churches of God That Infants of Christians are entred in Covenant with God They ought to put the same under the Seal of Baptism as the Infants Due and the Churches Duty More briefly and Syllogistically thus take it as I recollect it All persons within and under the Covenant of Gods Grace are Commanded of God to have the Seal of Covenant put upon them which in the Gospel-administration thereof is Baptism But all Infants of Christians are within the Covenant of Gods grace Therefore all Infants of Christians are Commanded of God to have the Seal of the Covenant put upon them which in the Gospel-Administration thereof is Baptism The first Proposition is clear from Gen. 17. and God Commanding all Jews in Covenant to be Circumcised and from Matth. 28. and Christ Commanding all Gentiles or Nations in Covenant to be Baptized The second Proposition is the very Tenour of the Covenant I will be thy God and the God of thy Seed and so I have reasoned the Baptism of Infants and Terms into a Command of God before I intended it A third Warrant is this Reason If the Infants of Jewish Parents were capable of Circumcision the initial Seal of the Covenant which was Circumcision and were Circumcised though they could shew no Right they had unto it but their Birth of Parents in Covenant Then also may and must the Infants of Christian Parents be Baptized and receive Baptism the initial Seal though they can shew no other Right to it but their Birth of Parents in Covenant This Warrant is Reasoned out or this Reason is warranted out of Heb. 13.9 Jesus Christ the same yesterday to day and for ever Jesus Christ ministred is the Covenant which is as I said the same for ever in sabstance and in relation to theeternal welfare of souls Though the ministrations of him be different of him as to be exhibited and to come unto the Jewes and of him as come and exhibited unto Christians And though some Ceremonial and Circumstantial matters be changed yet the substantial and that which was purely a Covenantall or Sacramental Part abides as being an everlasting Covenant made with Abrahams Seed all true beleevers they differ not the Two Sacraments in any substantial thing or in any spiritual effect necessary to salvation or in any use to confirm the Covenant of Grace and further a man in the way to Heaven and so as an Initial Seal of the Covenant they differ not nor as a Sacrament of entrance into the Church and so Circumcision was a Seal of the same Righteousness by Faith as Baptism is to us Rom. 4.11 and Circumcision signified the mortification of the flesh and the renewing of the mind and did bind over the Jewes unto the obedience of Gods will Rom. 2.28 c. Gal. 3.21 and so doth Baptism the same to us now as Rom. 6.3 and 11. 1 Pet. 3.21 Insomuch that Baptized Christians are called circumcised Christians and Baptism is called by the name of Circumcision Col. 2 11. and 14 4. Though we Christians are not to follow the Jews in things peculiar to his own dispensation which was Legal and Ceremonial yet those actions that were done by them upon such grounds that are of moral perpetual and common concernment to one person as well as another in one Church as well as another for one age as well as another none can deny such actions to be binding and obligatory to all as a standing Rule for after Generations by which may be answered that which is usually objected by those that except to our Analogy of Baptism with Circumcision as why do ye not plead a Baptism of Males onely and that particular of the eight day and so carry on the whole Analogy together and in order why because these were but circumstantial things the two Sacraments may be one in substance for all these besides they were not of common but peculiar use to the Jews that Church those ages as for the eighth day it was both a Ceremonial and Physical reason as to life and health of the infant that thefore skin was not cut off till then and for the Females not Circumcised it is enough against you and your opinion if the proportion betwixt Circumcision and Baptism
holds but in the Males for that will infer the state of infancy capable of the Initial Seal of the Covenant of Grace under the Gospel and again under the Law because of the inconveniency and unfimess of the thing it self to be done upon them the Females were Circumcised in the Males as the Church is circumcised in Christ the Males bearing the Type of Christ upon their flesh and the Males and Females in Matrimonial conjunction representing Christ and his Church to which the Apostle alludes Eph. 5 22 and 33. but now such a typical discrimination of Sexes being removed Christ exhibited puts no difference in Baptism between Males and Females Gal. 3 27 and 28. Nor yet do we Argue for Infant-Baptism from the bare Analogy of Infantcircumcision but from the force of the reason that lyeth in the performance which holds not in the circumstances of the eighth day and the Females as it doth in this of Infancy Namely that as Infants of the Jews were circumcised though they declared no right they had unto it but their birth so may the Infants of the Christians be Baptized though they make no manifestation of their Faith c. but shew their birth as Children of Parents in Covenant with God Yea the Foundation and occasion of both Circumcision and Baptism were one the same of common concernment to all to adde somewhat left out before wherein they differ not namely Gods free eternal Love to his Elect and mans misery by his fall in the loynes of Adam and his birth in pollution from the loynes of his immediate Parents derived to them from the loynes of Adam whence also I may argue the original sin and the clensing of Nature by the Spirit of Christ are of Common concernment to Jewish and to Christian Infants Therefore Christian Infants ought to the made partakers of the Seal of Regeneration in their Infancy as the Jewish Infants were and so there lyeth as much necessity in substance yea morality in the duty for believing Christians to Baptize their Infants as for believing Jewes to circumcise theirs but of this particular I shall say more presently 5. If now for all this you shall deny and withold Baptism from the Infants of covenant-Christians in their Infancy notwithstanding that God granted yea commanded Circumcision to the Infants of covenant Jewes in their Infancy but by reason of the covenant which God made with the Parents and their Seed You must of necessity do one of these absurdities yea Impieties i.e. either you must deny Gods covenant of Grace under the Law and the Gospel to be one and the same for substance and these circumcision and Baptism to be the Initial Seales of it according to the diversities of the administeations of the same which is unreasonable and unwarrantable as is shewed 2. Or you must charge God with want of wisdom and discretion in managing his affairs for choosing such unfit and uncapabie parties as Infants to make a covenant with and to Seal too which is Irreligious and Impious to do 3. Or you must prefer the Typical Administration before the Evangelical and so advance Moses above Christ and the shadow before the Sun-light by denying the Infants of Gods covenanted people under the Gospel and since Christs comming the Initial Seal of the Covenant and so making the Grace of less extent than that which Moses allowed the Infants under the Law and before the comming of Christ which is unchristian and un-Gospel-like to do 4. Or you must put our Children born in the bright day of the Gospel and of more abundant Grace into a worse estate and Condition as to the meanes of their Salvation if they be passed by the Seal and not baptised then the Children were who were born in the Twi-light of the Law who were admitted to the Seal Circumcised which is envious and malicious to do 5. Or you must shew that a manifestation of Faith and some personal Righteousnesse is now more requisite Which was onely required of such whose Parents were not under the Faederal Seal unto the baptism of our Infants than it was unto the Circumcision of their Children or that their Children gave at their Circumcision such Testimony of their Faith and Righteousnesse more than ours Which is even foolish and childish to think This Warrant of our Infant-baptism from its Analogy with this Infant-Circumcision lyeth as such a Block in your way as neither you nor any of yours could ever get over as Christ crucified on the Crosse was unto the Jewes a stumbling Block So Christ ministred in Circumcision unto the Jewes in Covenant and their Infants is to you and all Antipaedobatists a very stumbling Block which whilest they have endeavoured to lift at and leap over they have strained and stretched and wrested Scriptures more than their Armes and have broken their shins I mean their first Faith and a good Conscience making shipwrack of both whilest they slit upon this Rock or stumble upon this Block But Sir I hope better things of you and I have better things for you as my Friend and Neighbour I will not leave you in the maze of the five-went way of the Anabaptists that they must walk in I have a single path and a plain way for you if you please to take it and it is this or none 6. You must yeeld in Modesty and Humility at it becomes you to beleeve such parties Infants of both Testaments to be inabled by God with some proportionable Grace for the Covenant and Seals in a way acceptable to himself Though you cannot see it nor have Capacity I will not say Inpenuity to acknowledge it and to clear off all Clouds of Doubts and Quaeres which you or others have raised up and gathered together about the manner and manifestation thereof and for this purpose read Esay 40.13 14. Esay 55.8 and 9. Rom. 11.34 35. Ro. 12.3 16 And of this I have largely before discoursed more briefly and Syllogistically thus take it as I recollect it If all Infants of Jewes are commanded in Scripture to be circumcised and their Parents thereupon bound to bring them to Circumcision Then also all Infants of Christians are commanded to be baptised and their Parents bound to bring them to baptism But all Infants of Jewes are commanded in Scripture to be circumcised and their Parents bound to bring then to Circumcision Therefore all Infants of christians are commanded to be baptised and their Parents bound to bring them to baptism The first Proposition is clear from the cited Texts of Hebrews 13.9 and Colossians 2.11 and from the Analogy of Circumcision and baptism and the samenesse or identity of the Covenant of both Administrations in the substantials as to the good of Souls The second Proposition is the very Letter of the Text in the seventeenth of Genesis and elsewhere as hath been shewed and so I have reasoned Infant-baptism into a command before I intended it A fourth Warrant is this
natural hunger and infirmity But if you regard not your Children do you look to your selves and your ends and benefits and amongst these your Honor first Is it not a great honour to you to have a Child counted to some great house and of the Houshould and under the Protection of some Noble-man and is it not a great deal more honour to have a Child counted to the House of God the Church and of the Family and under the safegard of Jesus Christ why then baptise your Child If you stand not so much upon your Honor or theirs yet I am sure you are willing to have comfort of your Child and good hope here is not substance and evidence enough for Faith of its well being whilest it liveth spiritually and after death eternally the way is enter him into the Church of God by Baptism So you hope your Child is preferred and made for ever as you speak when once you had gotten him into some great House and noble Family which are but Cottages to the Church and ignoble to the Family of God Whereas if you with-hold him from Baptism you do leave him to have his visible actual standing abode in the House of darknesse and continue him in an outward case and condition as an alien from the Covenant and a stranger from the Common wealth of Christians what in you lyeth which must needs be both dishonorble and uncomfortable to you the while True indeed you may have comfort from the Covenant only if by some invincible and unvoydable act of Providence intervening your child be prevented and deprived of the Seal thereof which is Baptism full against your will and purpose but if through your default and wilfull detaining of him and Contempt of this Ordinance it so fall out that your Child dye unbaptized He may be saved without the Seal of the Covenant I believe but I dare not promise you herein Salvation or Comfort without Repentance of this your fault and sin against God in his Ordinance And so this shall be my last reason to you Parents for the bringing of your Children to Baptism for that thereby you shall not onely get honour to your selves as I said but give honour to God by your submission unto the Seal also for them to God I say who took order for your Childrens honouring you yea honoured you both by entring into Covenant with both and annexing the Seal of Baptism thereto for your further Comfort and Confirmation When our Saviour offered himself to be Baptized John forbade him saying I have need to be baptised of thee and comest thou to me but Christ took him off saying suffer it to be so now for thus it becommeth us to fulfill all Righteousness Matt. 3.13 14 15. as John the Baptist thought Christ above the Ordinance of Baptism by reason of his great perfection and there be also others as say they are above ordinances in a high conceipt of themselves So some of you Anabaptists think Infants of Christians below the ordinance of Baptism by reason of their great Imperfections Me things our Saviour Christ in this place answereth and resuteth both them and you them by his example who being the Highest in perfection yet stooped down and condescended to the Ordinance of Baptism Therefore none sure not the highest and perfectest amongst men in the Church upon earth are above Ordinances and you by his Doctrine and Exhortation suffer it to be so now for thus it becommeth you to fulfill all Righteousness a part and act whereof is the Seal of the Righteousness of Faith which Baptism is now under the Gospel as Circumcision was under the Law Rom. 4.11 and therefore as the Jewish Parents were diligent to fulfill that Righteousness by putting their Children in Covenant under that Seal of Righteousness Circumcision so ought ye Christian Parents to be carefull to fulfill this Righteonsness ousness and to put your Children in Covenant also under this Seal of Righteousness Baptism Suffer it to be so now suffer little Children to come unto Christ and forbid them not for they have need to come to him and now in his absence to his Ministers to be Baptized For thus it becommeth you as them to fulfill all Righteousness Make not a Nullity of the Seal of Righteousness lest you come at length to make Righteousness it self a Nullity too and now that I am fallen upon this matter of Righteousness I shall turn to you again Sir my Quaerist and ask you if you do not deny Baptism to Infants upon this ground that you think the efficacy of Baptism is seated and founded upon the practical Righteousness of a Professour or Member of the Church manifested in words and deeds Confession and Conversation which if you do as indeed you do and all that stand out against Infant Baptism it is a groundless ground For the Text I just now cited sheweth that it is not so grounded but only upon Covenantal Righteousness and the free grace of God in Christ for so Rom. 4.11 He received the sign of Circumcision à Seal of the Righteousness of Faith which he had being yet uncircumcised that he might be the father of all them that believe c. that Righteousness might be imputed unto them also where you see it or hear it in the very Terms Righteousness of Faith not Life or Works Imputed-Righteousness not inherent or practised which both Abraham had and his Children must have Now though our Christian Infants have no inherent Righteousness or practical manifested unto us by their words or deeds as you require in those you Baptize and therefore put off your Christian Infants untill years of discretion to profess true Faith and years of action to practice good works yet we present and dedicate them in their Infancy by Baptism to Gods mercy and fatherly love in Christ their and our Ruighteousness and Atonement for that we know God hath Righteousness to be imputed unto them by vertue of his Covenant of Grace I come to my seventh and last Warrant which I foresse will bring you to no Justice yet I will serve this also upon you for though now and then in your letter you let fall such a word as Primitive Practice and the good old way yet I know you cannot in your heart abide Antiquity and the Primitive practices of the Church of old for that they are point blank against your blank point of Baptizing onely such believers as can and do make Profession of their Faith in Christ which is but a novel New Light of those Blazings Comets and Meteors that sprung out in Germany some while ago but yesterday in comparison of the Baptisin of the Infants of believers which hath brightly shined out throughout all the Churches in good and full Lustre Sun-like untill the Man in the Moon Muncer his Lunaticks or Moon-Sirs interposed and made some Eclipse thereof in the Churches This therefore is my sixth and last Reason If it hath been an ancient practice
thee as it were a Shipboard or into the Ark sealing Christ with his benefits unto thee which shall not be pulled off and made Null and therefore need not to be iterated and set to again the first being still of force and efficacy to all true believers in Christ and repenters of sin Thus I have shewed you Sir how most men yea all men who have been Baptized in their Infancy may and ought to look upon themselves as Baptized in their Infancy which you seem to condemn and that to very good purpose and benefit and whereas you adde as the other part of your condemning them for their not looking after the Command of Christ to be baptized when they believe will you have them look after that is not to be seen or found nay have you seen or found out such a Commandment I pray Si lend or sell no some of your eye-salve to annoint our eyes for by and from that eye-salve in the 3. of Rev. 18. wherewith we have anointed our eyes according to Christs Council there given we cannot see from the one end of the New Testament to the other any such Commandement for persons baptized in their Infancy to be baptized when they believe And yet as if you had revealed and brought to light some rare matter of Salvation you have a very scrious and devout epilogue that it your considerations should be considered without a selfiish prejudicial Spirit a Spirit willing to he guided by the Spirit of the Lord according to his word of truth and the Scriptures truly red and interpreted by the Spirit of the Lord which are quoted to prove the Assertions It will appear to every honest and unbyassed Spirit that Infant-Baptism is a great and dangerous errour for ever to be rejected of every Soul that expects Salvation by Christ Jesus What a Cackling is here made upon the laying of an addle egge or rather what a Crowing is here upon the Treading out of a few idle considerations you have the faculty of entitling upon the Spirit and the Scriptures that which they being the Spirit and Scriptures of Truth own not your considerations and interpretations though very seldom you give interpretations them you leave for me to make quotatious and considerations enough you bring and those to no purpose or proof as I have particularly demonstrated where you cite them I leave it to the Honest and unbyassed Spirits to judge and determine whether the Texts you have cited were pertinent to your Consideration or according to your meaning or interpreting if you have given any whether Infant-Baptism be a great and dangerous errour for evewr to be rejected because now opposed of you which ever was a good and Religions Truth ever practised amongst the Saintt because recommended of Christ and the Apostles whether youts or mine be a selfish and prejudiciall Spirit I confess my Spirit is prejudiciall to yours your opinions as your Spirit is prejudicate to mine and thoughts Lastly whether your considerations be not as inconsiderate in the writer so inconsiderable to the Reader However you think so well of them that you go on to more of them when its time to have done with such selfish things and in the next place offer to me some of your considerations upon Act. 2.39 The which if I thought they were no more considerate nor considerable than your former I would consider a while upon it whether or no I should take them into consideration at all or pass by them as inconsiderable And such indeed they seem to be and upon the General view I find them so for in them all there are nothing but answers and solutions made to objections not set down Refutations and denyals of a sense before it be any where mentioned is not this Cart before the Horse which a Carter methinks should not do a consideration without consideration which a Consideratour I am sure should not do we had before your judgment setled out of Quaeres this is as bad your answers to no objections your refuting no Exposition of ours Well as all the way hitherto I have ordered your matters for you so I see I must do so still or else we shall make no work of it at least have no orderly proceeding in it First therefore let the sense of that Text be given and the argument drawn out of it for Infant Baptism which I will do for you and then after let the refutation of that sense and the Answers to that Argument be added or subjoyned the which you shall do for me Peter having preached here unto the Jess and laid to their charge the death and crucifying of Jesus Christ and brought them to some apprehension of their horrid sins at the 38 Verse exhorteth them to repent and be baptized into the Name of the same Jesus Christ and to accept him for their Messias the which he doth upon this reason and ground mentioned in the 39 Vers and drawn from the benefit that should redound not to the mselves onely but to their Children by their believing in Christ The which he proves from the Promise made to them and their Children In plainer and larger words thus it is God hath remembred his Covenant in sending that blessed Seed in whom he promised to be the God of Abraham and his Seed know ye therefore that as God made the Promise of Grace in Christ to come and to be exhibited unto Abraham upon his believing and took also his Children and Posterity into Covenant with him not onely the natural Jews but even amongst all Nations whoever became followers of Abraham's Faith should by vertue of the same inherit Abraham's Promise That he would be their God and the God of their Seed also which should also be taken into the same Covenant so now this blessed Seed in whom the Promise was founded being now come and exhibited would make it good to you all Jews and Gentiles who would believe in him and notwithstanding your cruel practises against him and your crucifying of him if you will believe in this Lord of life and your Messias you shall thereby be in as good or better condition under this last Administration for your selves and your children as in the former therefore deprive rot your selves by your impenitency and infidelity of so great a benefit as may come to your selves and Posterity for the Promise is made to you and your Children c. what Promise or the Promise of what for so I will clear the Text of some exceptions the Promise of the extraordinary Gifts of the Holy Ghost so say some of you that you may the better turn this off from Infants of Believers baptized It is true they are promised also in the Verse before and I acknowledge they were Appendants to the Primitive Baptismes of the adult and peculiar to the first times for the more abundant confirmation of their Faith as Act 10 11. who were converted to it from Paganism and
Judaism But no doubt Peter here aimed and even pointed at that grand and fundamental Covenant of Grace made to Abraham In thy seed shall all families of the Earth be blessed Such a Promise as this of Grace and the free remission of their sins by that blood of Christ though shed by some of them sealed in the Sacrament of Baptism comes seasonably to them to pacifie their troubled consciences and cheer up their drooping spirits whereas the other Promise of receiving the Gifts of the Spirit that is the extraordinary ones of speaking divers Languages c. would nothing so properly and effectually have done it as that was the thing then in hand to be done And besides the Promise here spoken of being a Gospel Promise was to extend to all also that were afar off as many as the Lord shall call and so it did pass on in the general Tenders Privileges and Effects to the Believers of the Gentiles and their children from that time and so shall unto the end of the World But you will not say I dare say That according to this Promise the believers of the Gentiles and their Children have received and shall receive those Gifts of speaking divers and strange Languages throughout all Ages and Generations Such a Promise was never made and ought not to be challenged of God But it may be the Promise made to Abraham was but a personal and peculiar one to him and his seed to be taken Into Covenant and to become a visible Church I will be thy God and the God of thy seed i.e. Isaac Jacob and their children No it extended we see to the Proselytes of other Nations also and to all followers of Abraham's faith both Jews and Gentiles and therefore the same Promise was frequently renewed in Scripture many hundred years after those Patriarchs deceased both to Jews and Gentiles as Isa 30.6 Isa 44.2 3. and so shall continue unto the end of the World Isa 59.21 to as many as the Lord our God shall call until the very last calling in of the Jews it being as I said a Gospel-Promise Yea say you it is granted when any of the Children of Believers come to be called and do believe this Promise shall be made good to them But thus saying you make the Promise to hold forth no more comfort or benefit to the children of Believers than the children of Pagans and thus even Isaac and Jacob should have no external privilege by this Promise until they actually believed yea thus all the Jews but such as were Elect and truly faithfull were cut off as well as the Gentiles from having any visible communion in external privileges thereof The Call here is either inward or outward if inward can none partake of the outward privileges as Baptism but such as have that We know those are common to the Elect and Reprobate If of an outward Call why the Infants of Believers enjoy this Call with their Parents and so partake of the Promise And what if Peter here required repentance of such as were in Covenant before baptism are therefore Infants not to be baptized so Ahraham was in Covenant and an actual Believer and justified in Uncircumcision and received Circumcift on as a seal of righteousness of Faith and Proselytes turned to the Jews were first to make profession of faith were therefore none but such to be circumcised But if being under the Covenant besufficient to give a proper right to the seals of it and the privileges of it as I said why-doth Peter keep such a do with these Jess being already in Covenant to repent and believe before they were baptised and why were none of them being in Covenant baptized but such as gladly received the Word and believed It is no where so said that none but such were baptized amongst the three thousand souls And as for the Jews who receiving the Word gladly were baptised you must know they were not now before it in Covenant so as to acknowledge Jesus Christ the Son of Mary to be the Messias and Saviour of the World as who denied that holy One and killed the Prince of life True they were born Jews under the Covenant in the first Ministration of it and were circumcised and had the seal of their faith in Christ to come But this being now antiqunted and out of date by the coming of Christ in the flesh and these Jews having renounced Christ and deposed themselves and their children from the Title they had to Christ as Matthew 27.25 they so renounced the Covenant they had Title to by birth and were now in a condition little better than Pagans Christians to be made and therefore they were not to have the new appointed seals of entrance which was Baptism to assure them that Jesus was Lord and Christ until they embraced him by faith confessing that he was come and that Jesus was he and repented of their crucifying him And thus having cleared the interpretation of the Text I will give you a Consideration of mine upon it before I come to your Considerations without any interpretation given of you My Consideration upon it is this That here is a good warrant for me and for Infant Baptism against you and so as Solomon said of Adonijah 1 Kings 2.33 That be had spoken a word against his own life I may say you have brought in this Word and Text against your self and the life of your Cause said I a warrant yea a very Command The words Be baptized every one of you you will not deny I suppose to be a word of command from Peter in Christs stead and so from Christ by Peter But the Command is To baptiae Father and Child I prove thus Because the Promise is to the Father and Child The Promise is made to you and your Children and therefore the Command is Be baptized every one of you and your Children For if the Children of Believers have a right to be baptized by the word of Promise they must have a right to be baptized by the word of Command and so the other way also these two being convertible Terms the word of Promise and the word of Command having mutual relation each to other So it s in the general nature of Covenants there must be a convertibility betwixt the two parts that do contract as the mutual Indentures shew and so also it must be in the Sacramental Covenant betwixt God and man and betwixt the word of Promise which is Gods part and the word of Command that contains the duty of man in the Sacramental Action And so particularly it was in Circumcision in which Institution there was a mutual neer relation and convertibility between the word of Promise I will be thy God and the God of thy seed and the word of Command Every man-child among you shall be circumcised so that as many of them that had a right to be circumcised by the word of Promise had a right to be circumcised
I tell you the Evangelist John is against the the Anabaptist John even herein in that very thing for which you cited him as I have shewed you but if for Truth sake out of love to the Truth you would have compared Habakkuk with Paul in any of the three Texts the Margent directed you to yea the whole Books and Epistles to the Romans and Galathians they would have given you a cleer Elucidation if you would lay aside your own Spectacles and look with theirs that your Justification and everlasting life is there in the Prophet set upon the account of Faith in your own person applying to your self the Righteousness of Jesus Christ which contains rather the Execution of the Promise But what 's all this to the Promise it self here mentioned and of old made to the believing Parents and their Children in their Infancy Sure when you were a Child you spake as a Child you understood as a Child you thought or reasoned as a Child you reckoned and accounted as a Child I pray now give me some account because you make an instance in your self passing by the Faith in your Parents of the Faith was in your own person when you was a Child and went to Baptism by which you lived or instance now again in the Children of faithful Parents amongst the Jews what account of their Faith did any of them make in their own persons when they were Circumcised in their Child-hood or here in the 2. of Acts which you have taken upon you to expound what word or syllable or the least intimation is there of any account of faith to be made of Children in their own persons And yet the Promise and Covenant is both here said to belong to the Children and the Children before and so likewise to your self Sir all the while before you could or did give an account of Faith in your own person you would be loth to be accounted all that while to be without Christ and an alien or stranger from the Covenants of Promise having no hope and without God in the world and if you should think or say so of your self yet I will not so account of you and you would be very ungrateful unto God Covenanting and Promising and ungracious to your Parents bringing you into the world and to Baptism in so thinking or saying It is as cleer as the light at noon day that Feter to perswade those enemies and Crucifiers of Christ to Repent Believe and so to be Baptized and to come under the New administration of the Covenant of Christ exhibited in the Gospel whom they had renounced useth this as a main argument the Benefit also that should redound to their Children that they should also be accepted into Covenant and be made partakers of the external Privileges of the Church as to be Baptized and Counted Gods people like as before they were Circumcised and so reckoned which he proveth for the Promise is made to you and your Children as to them and their Children to you indeed upon account of your actual Faith in your own persons but unto them upon account as I have given before of their being taken of God into the same Covenant with you their believing Parents But for all this Though Children without account of Faith in their own persons by their Birth of believing Parents in Covenant and Promise have Right and Title to Baptism by vertue of the Promise and Covenant made to them both Thy God and thy Seed yet Children when they come to enjoy the Benefits of the Covenant in their Justification and Salvation they must have these upon the account of Faith in their own persons or some grace of the Spirit answerable applying Jesus Christ and his Righteousness unto them Your other Reason is Because nothing answereth the Promise but Faith and if Faith be needless then the Promise is needless You did well to add no Text here having abused enough already but let us look upward and see what it s you prove And that it doth overthrow the Promise what is it the Exposition of the Text Act 2.39 of Childrens being in Govenant from Faithfull Parents that it overthroweth the promise I prove farther because nothing answereth the promise but Faith thus then it must be reasoned if nothing answer the promise but Faith then Childrens being in Covenant from Faithfull Parents overthroweth this promise I am sure This is a needless consequence because the promise stands up still and is of so ce notwithwanding though there were no Faith in some to uphold it and much more though no Faith in some to answer it I will give you a Text here though you give me none Rom. 3.3 and 4. What if some did not believe shall their urbelief make the Faith of God the Faith made and given of God i.e. this promise without effect God forbid yea let God be true and every man a lyar Let Gods promise stand though some mens faith fall yea though none in the world had believed yet God would have fulfilled his promise in sending and exhibiting the Messias a Christ and therefore much less is the promise overthrown because there may want Faith in some for some while to answer it If indeed there were no Faith at all extant or to come any where to answer the Covenant and promise this might seem to endanger the overthrowing of it as to the taking effect and benefit in men and then your reason would be of some seeming consequence or your consequence carry some shew of Reason But it is not so here for here is Faith in the faithfull Parents as you acknowledge embracing and holding up the promise and here are Children in Covenant upholding also and enjoying the promise by birth of Faithfull Parents by grace and indulgence of God and for any thing you know by Faith or other influence of the Spirit Look again into the Text of Act. 2.39 See if the promise there be not standing fast and firm to the believing Parents and their Children though there is no mention made of Faith to answer the promises but only called for of those grown men that were to be and were Converted But which way do you mean Faith answereth the Promise For one thing may be said to answer another many wayes as the Antitype doth the Type the thing signified the Sign a thing regulated the Rule the consideration a bargain performance a contract or a Condition a Covenant I suppose it is this later way that Faith answereth the Promise For as the old Covenant with Adam stood all in Preceps Do this Live and so works as the Condition were to answer that Precept so the new Covenant stood all in Promiser I will be thy God if thou wilt trust to me and Faith as the Condition is to answer the promise else no proportion or agreement betwixt them For nothing but Faith it is that answers the promise it being impossible to have made the Sons of men
gift greater than the fault 4. Rom. 5. 1 Cor. 7.14 Rom. 11.16 It is from the Faith of the Parents in Covenant with God that their Children born of them are not unclean but Holy and if the Root be Holy so are the Branches So also for the obtaining of Temporal blessings upon their Children the Faith of Parents is avaylable How often is God said to bestow such and such good Temporal things for Abrahams and for Davids sake Jesus seeing their Faith Matth. 9.2 who brought him lying on a bed Healed the sick man of the Palsie So Christ said unto the Centurion Go thy way and as thou hast believed be it unto thee â—â—t 8.13 and his servant was healed the same hour that he believed will Christ do so much for a sick servant because of his Masters Faith who brought him to a sick man because of his friends Faith that brought him and will he not do the like or more for Children because of their Parents Faith who bring them and offer them to him in Baptism Matth. 15.28 John 4.50 Yes he healed the daughter that was grievously vexed with a Devill for the Mothers great Faith the woman of Canaan and healed a Son that was at the point of death for the Fathers Faith a ruler in Capernaum In a word one mans Faith may profit another as the Parents the Children towards both Temporal Spiritual and Eternal Salvation by way of intreaty and impetration but not by way of conveyance and application For this the Application of Christ and his Benefits is not another mans work of Faith but it is every mans Faith to work it and now Sir you that have thus slighted the Faith of Parents as to the good and benefit of their Children Go you and learn what this meaneth Believe in the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved and thy House Act. 16.31 And so you suppose it ware were so that the promises ware were made unto the faithful in the behalf of their Children and they concluded to be in the Covenant thereby Then either God doth perform his promise in saving all the Children of faithful Parents according to his Covenant or else he breaks his Covenant made to those Parents and doth not perform it his promise either of which particulars no man which is in his right wits will dare to affirm and therefore this Exposition that Children have any right to the Covenant by vertue of the Faith of their Parents or to any privilege of the Covenant by vertue of the same is a falce false Exposition of the Text and a wresting of it Jesus saith ye do err not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God Matth. 22.29 I am the God of Abraham and of Isaack and of Jacob God is not the God of the dead but of the living vers 32. I thought it it would come to this at last that after your Railing upon the Church of God in England for worse than naught even no Church and after your baiting the Ministers of God there and by your good-will ill-will your quaerying and tearing Gods portion of Maintenance from them your Quarrelling at their Ministrations of the Sacraments of God this especially of Infant-Baptism besides abundance more of Gods institutions and allowances that you have been Quaerulous at you would at last ascend above the height of the Clouds and fall to Questioning of God himself about the performing and breaking his promise about his saving all or not saving all the Children of faithful Parents Either of which particulars if you had been in your right wits you would not have dared yet what is it you will not dare in matter of Interpretation of Scripture or argumentation of reason to have drawn and enforced so inconsequently and inconsiderately from that though but supposed proposition For suppose it again that the promise was made to the saithful in the behalf of the Children and they concluded to be in Covenant thereby yet neither of the particulars you mention doth follow that all their Children must be saved according to that Covenant that so God may perform his promise or if not God must be a breaker of his promise and seeing you have not proved the consiquence I will prove the Inconsequence of it by the reason I have touched before the Promise and Covenant made to the faithful in the behalf of the Children and concluding these in the same I must here use your words containeth not only the inward saving graces and the spiritual benefits of the same such as are Justification Regeneration perseverance and glorification freely promised in Christ if so taken only then indeed all in Covenant must be saved or else God be a breaker of Covenant But it containeth in it also the outward administrations in visible Ordinances and Church Privileges which are many as to be Gods people and the Children of Gods invisible League to have the Oracles of God c. and thus taken God is no breaker of promise if all in Covenant with him be not saved by him for God made no such Covenant with all faithful Parents to save all their Children but to put them under the way and means of Salvation by taking them also to be the God of and owning them for children in Covenant and appointing them a Seal thereof This may be called the Covenant of Administration or rather that part of it which stands in administrations of external Ordinances and Privileges the which hath belonging to it all visible and external professors as also a visible Seal which all that are in this Covenant ought therefore to be partakers of you as it appears allow none to be under the Covenant of Grace but only such as are inwardly believers Justified Sanctified and partakers of the saving Graces of the Covenant The which error and mistake as I told you before I tell you again hath seduced you into these inconsequent consequences and mislead you into your Anabaprismal Baptismes for as many are called but few chosen so many are to be reputed to belong to the Covenant of grace and to be Covenanters though they have not inwardly and effectually the saving graces of the Covenant Besides I could prompt you that the Covenant is but conditional not absolute And now for a conclusion because you have made mention of such a thing the Salvation of Infants born in the precincts of the Church I will leave with you a few Propositions to consider off 1. That the Church of God determineth nothing positively and peremptorily about the Salvation of Infants dying either with or without Baptism for she knoweth that secret things belong to God and onely revealed things belong to her and her children 2. She judgeth that Infants in the general Baptized or unbaptized are saved that is some but not all for this she hath a judgement of certainty an charity both both the charity and certainty of such a judgement 3. That this and that particular Infant
baptized or unbaptized is saved she hath no judgement of certainty but only of charity and this may have though there should be none of those particulars saved 4. That inward saving grace doth not alwayes attend the Covenant largely and comprehensively taken of which before nor the Seal but only in such as belong to the election of grace Yet the Church may in charity think so as to particulars in Covenant and under Seal till the contrary appear though she have no certain knowledge of it 5. Elect Infants Baptized and dying in their Infancy have no outward means of Salvation but their Baptism the Seal of the Covenant but there is an inward invisible grace which the Holy Spirit before in at or by Baptism doth truly really and actually impute or impart to them applying Christ in his Justifying and Sanctifying vertue unto the souls of such Infants This the Church holdeth not only as of Charity but as of certainty 6. Such Elect Infants Baptized and so dying are capable of and do attain to such saving inward graces not by the usual and ordinary way of Believing upon hearing and conceiving for such actual Faith is not of absolute nececessity to all Gods Elect but only to those to whom God affords the means of it it is the application of Christs Righteousness that justifieth them which is done to them either by some habits of Faith infused of God into their hearts or by Gods Spirit in a secret and unknown way to us supplying all defects in them and doing all things on their parts and this he holdeth most in charity with some though not full of certainty because it is secret 7. Such Elect Infants Baptized and living to the Use of Reason and Understanding the seeds of Grace and Faith infused before or in Baptism do grow up by the ordinanry means unto an actual apprehension of Christ and his Righteousness yea areall possession and comfortable fruition of Christ and all his benefits which were in Baptism truly and effectually sealed before unto them whensoever they should be capable to make use of them and this she affirmeth both out of certainty and charity 8. Because the Church and all this while I speak of the Church of old England hath no certain knowledge of particulars who are Elect Infants and who not but only a charitable opinion of this and that and so every particular one born in the bosome of the Church for that she not only charitably holdeth but certainly knoweth that all Infants born of Christian Parents are also inexternal and professional Covenant of God together with their Christian Parents Therefore she is carefull as she ought that all such in convenient time and with the soonest may be Baptized and receive the Initial Seal of the Covenant so as none as much as may be depart out of this life without Baptism not as if she certainly thought Infants having been true partakers of Baptism must needs without doubt be saved but because she will not be wanting in her charity and duty to God and such Infants which being once baptized and dying soon after she thinks them saved in her judgement of charity in which she thinketh the inward grace may accompany the outward Ministration but for any judgement of certainty and verity herein she disclaimeth and referreth the same to the God Omniscient Now to what end you add these last words Jesus saith Ye do erre not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God Mat. 22.29 I am the God of Abraham of Isaac and Jacob God is not the God of the dead but of the living Verse 32. unless it be to shew a kinde of fatality of errour falling upon you and following you wheresoever you go not knowing but pretending ever the Scriptures which still you cite as heretofore and speak words against your own life the life of your Cause and cut your own throat with your own knife or run your self thorow with your own Sword even the Sword of the Spirit the Texts of Scripture as you cite and apply them as here For by virtue of Abraham's saith which God so well accepted of did not God enter into and make a Covenant both with Abraham and his Seed Isaac and Jacob and all other both Jews and Gentiles who should be followers of Abraham's faith and God being the God not of the dead but of the living Abraham liveth still in the children of Abraham who are of the same saith with him and so the Covenant made with Abraham lives still in all believing Parents for themselves and their children In that saidest thou truly John 4.18 And for your last words hereabouts Consider these things with a single eye aiming at Gods glory and thy Neighbours good and answer these Considerations by plain and direct Scriptures if you can or eise leave off wresting the Scriptures to your own ends if not your destruction I have done it you see considered your Considerations which I wish you had better considered of that so they might have been truly Considerations and that not onely with a single eye as you speak but with a twofold eye so I must if aiming at both Gods glory and my Neighbours good even your good also as well as Parents and their children whereas your Considerations did neither but rahter obscured Gods glory in his Covenant and diminishing your Neighbours good the good of Infants especially which God hath enlarged to them And God hath enabled me for I can do nothing of myself to answer your Considerations by plain and direct Scriptures and Reasons drawn from them yea and such Scriptures as you have wrung wrested and wronged I have vindcaged by explaining them and directing of them to their right end and construction And so I shall not need to leave off that I never began But truly it is time for you to give over that which you have practised all along your Letter to me the wresting of Scriptures and that to your own ends if not destruction yea I must tell you though you may wrest the Scriptures to your own destruction unless you see your errour and repent you do not wrest them to your own ends I am sure for they do not come up or attain either to your own end the destruction of our Infant-Baptism or to your other end for both these are your own ends the justification of your Adult Baptism of persons before baptized I will not be my own judge herein but refer it to the indifferent Reader if any shall peruse this my Answer I proceed to that which followeth of yours An Exposition according to the minde of the Holy Ghost in that Scripture 1 Cor. 7.14 For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the believing wife and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the believing husband else were your children unclean but now they are holly holy or clean which is opposite to uncleanness What a Mountebank are you alwaies thus to mount up your low bank and to elevate
you follow this better But some others whose opinion I rather think you follow than they yours they drive it on to another design as thus Because the Infants of the Jews did eat the Passeover as well as they were circumcised Therefore the Infants of Christians should eat and drink the Lords Supper as well as be baptized This structure is soon pulled down standing upon a false foundation even as the house fell built upon the slippery sand and therefore I shall but touch it and it sinks or slides Because the Infants of the Jews did not eat the Passeover but were onely circumcised Therefore the Infants of Christians are not to eat and drink the Lords Supper but onely be baptized So taking off the Argument against Infant-Baptism from its false and ruinous foundation of the Jewish children eating the Paschal Lamb you were best set it upon its own proper Basis and build Baptism upon the Lords Supper thus or rather pulâ— it down by the Lords Supper thus If Infants of Christians may be partakers of Baptism then also they may be partakers of the Lords Supper for why of one Seal of the Covenant more than another and if Infants may not be partakers of the Lords Supper why then not of Baptism no more of one Seal than the other besides they are capable of the spiritual part of the one Sacrament as well as the other So I have made the Argument as strong for you as I can if you can for t fie it yet more do it quickly for I am in haste to answer as desirous to make an end of these wearisom skirmishes as to my self and tedious discourses as to the Reader What! will you become of Antipaedobaptists now Propaedocoenists and grant Infants sometimes and sometimes deny them in Argument the Lords Supper that you may deprive the of the Lords Baptism You shall never do it by such ambidextrous inconsequences to which the Answer and Reason is very obviouâ— 1. Your own Reason and Answer will do it that from the one Seal ordered and appointed for Infants to another Seal not enjoyned or instituted for Infants the Consequence is vain and invalid the former I have largely proved and disproved the latter clearly let but the Argument rest till can can disquiet or disturbe it and I desire no more 2. From Baptism which is the Seal Initial and of Admission due to Infants to infer the Lords Supper which is the Seal Progressional and of nourishment to be also due in present and partaked of in infancy like as the other is as inconsequent an absurdity as to infer time to come from present or perfection from beginning or a man from a child and to joyn them in one moment state and age Can a man enter into his mothers womb and be born a babe again or as soon as he is born a babe can he run over the ages and become a man presently When I a child saith the Apostle I spake as a child and understood as a child I thought as a child but when I became a man I put away childish things I mean Infants may be initiated by the Seal of Baptism into the Church and are fitted to have the Graces and Benefies of the Covenant sealed unto them but that they are presently perfitted to have the nourishment and growth of the same Graces sealed and confirmed unto them by the Lords Supper passeth mine and your as much as their capacity It is true that both Baptism and the Lords Supper do seal the same and the whole Covenant and the Graces of the same but both in their place order and time so as the prime and main use of Baptism is to be the Seal of Initiation and Reception into Covenant and the Lords Supper is the Seal of Augmentation and Confirmation of the same as to the main and prime use of it so as that Baptism seals the Infants entrance and admission thereinto which the Lords Supper doth not properly and principally but onely by way of supposition and testification of a spiritual life and entrance such doth the spiritual food of the Lords Supper imply and require aforehand So also as that the Lords Supper seals the growth and nourishment of the same Graces of the Covenant which Baptism doth not properly and primarily but onely by way of infusion of a seed or laying a foundation of such growth and nourishment such doth the spiritual life of Baptism tend and proceed to afterwards Lastly Though Infanrs may and ought to be partakers of Baptism yet may they not nor ought to be partakers of the Lords Supper in their infancy because the Lords Supper belongs onely to such as can spiritually examine themselves and discern the Lords Body as the Apostle expresly and directly saith 1 Cor. 11.27 28 29. whereas Baptism belongs unto Infants of Christians by right of their being in the holy Covenant of God and birth of baptized Parents for more is required to the Lords Supper than unto Baptism of Church-members by nature and birth whereas of Aliens and Strangers more is required of them unto Baptism than of Church-members unto the Lords Supper a publick profession of faith is necessary for the admitting of a Heathen into the visible Catholick Church by Baptism and his entring into the Gospel-Covenant for himself and his Seed and he may presently after be partaker of the Lords Supper upon the examination of his faith for the confirmation of the same But Infants being in Church-Covenant by birth have a just Title and Right to all the external Privileges in the Church as being free-born to them all in due time and order as to Baptism in their infancy because born members of the Church so to the Lords Supper when by reason of full age and use they have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil and this their Covenant-right remains until it be forfeited by a renunciation of Baptism on their part or by excommunication from the other the Lords Supper by the Churches power when they are either wilfull violaters of the Conditions of the Covenant or hate to be reformed by wholsom Censures If any farther reply He must be a better replyer than you That the Infant baptized can no more discern the Lords Body and Blood in Baptism than in the Supper nor the sign it self in the act of Administration of either Sacrament and therefore Baptism is as vainly given it as the Lords Supper I re-joyn That our Infants can and do as well discern the Sacramental Sign and the thing signified in Baptism as well as the Jewish Infants did discern the same in Circumcision So that if our Baptism be in vain to ours their Circumcision was also in vain to their Children and the Replyer doth but open his mouth against Heaven and chargeth God himself with vanity and folly for appointing Circumcision of Infants and also Baptism of Infants whereas the Axiom is God and Nature doth nothing in vain or foolishly As
of their first baptism that as many of them as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ Galat. 3.27 1 Cor. 6.11 such were some of you but ye are washed but ye are sanctified c. see also Rom. 6.3 c. The Husband who hath kept the marriage contract inviloable and undefiled in his part and is willing to receive into bed and board a fornicating wife requires no new marriage or the solemnities thereof again but her humiliation onely and submission with promise of better carriage after God who keepeth Covenant for ever fast and indissoluble on his part is also ever ready to admit into his Grace and Favor all who have gone a whoring from him onely upon their repentance and sorrow with resolves of reformation for time to come and expects no new solemn Re-baptizings and Re-dippings into the Covenant but I have spoken somewhat of this in the Scribe instructed I shall add to this point but a few words of the good old Fathers of the Church and shall shew by them that this your second baptism or rebaptizing was is none of their good old way Some of them built their judgements against Rebaptization upon those Texts Rom. 6.9 Heb. 9.28 wherein it s said Christ died once for all but once offered for sin Hence Basil de Spirit usancto Cap. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I English it for your sake We know there is but one saving Baptism for that there is but one Death for the world and one Resurrection from the dead of which Baptism is the Figure Damasc lib. 4. Orthod sid Cap. 10. hath almost the same words as to the one Death Augustine also de vera falsa poen Cap. 3. if that be his Book hath the same also Semel Christus crucifixus est una morte suâ nos omnes redemit quod videns Ecclesia intellexit non iterandum esse Baptisma Let the English before serve for this also Yea Damascen calleth the Reiteration of Baptisin rightly collated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if rebaptization were a kind of Recrucifixion of Christ others of them concluded against rebaptization from John 13.10 He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet but is clean every whit Thus Augustine lib. 11. de Baptismo contra Donat. cap. 14. Quid sit perniciosius non baptizari an rebaptizari judicare difficile est Invenio de utraque Domini sententiam nam Petro dixit qui lotus est non habet necessitatem iterum lavandi Nicodemo nisi quis renatus fuerit ex aquâ Spiritu non intrabit in regnum coelorum It is hard to judge whether of the two is more pernicious not to be baptized at all or to be again baptized I finde the Lords sayings of both for he said to Peter He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet but is clean every whit And to Nicodemus unless a man be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of heaven John 3.5 It seems St. Austin could not well tell or would not which of the two are the worst an Abaptist or an Anabaptist Ambrose also lib. de iis qui initiantur myst cap. 6. and Fulgentius de Fide ad Petrum cap. 36. agree to the same interpretation of and argumentation out of that place of John against Rebaptization especially Fulgentius whose words are Ideò Baptisma et si ab Haeretieis fuerit administratum modò in nomine Patris Filii Spiritus sancti fuerit factum venerabiliter agnoscendum ab hoc nullatenus iterandum esse juxta dictum Christi semel lot us non indiget nisi ut pedes lavet I shall english this the rather to you because it confirms a passage of mine before which perhaps seemed strange if not false to you Therfore Baptism although it were administred of Hereticks as long as it was done in the name of the Father Son and holy Spirit is venerably to be acknowledged and even for this not to be repeated or reiterated according to the saying of Christ once washed hath no need save to wash his feet Others of them concluded against Rebaptizing from Ephes 4.5 One Lord one Faith one Baptism Thus Leo Papa cited by Gratian decret de censec dist 4. Canon non licet And so Thom. Aquinas in 4. Sent. Distinct 3. I shall onely cite what the learned Hugo saith Hac authoritate universi utuntur All the Ancients make use of this Text and Authority against second or double Baptism quod enim unum est geminari non potest that which is but one cannot be doubled and iterated whether a man be baptized of a Catholique or of a Heretick as he also addeth but no more of this because there is somewhat of this unity of Baptism in my Instruction or a Scribe I know there be some of our Divines do not allow of these ancient Deductions and Argumentations from those Texts cited by them which I believe they would have made good and firm if they had been questioned in their times and now others might do the same in their behalf But this in present is onely my business to shew their Judgements not to maintain all their Arguments by which they grounded them I say to shew what their judgements about this your Redipping and Rebaptizing namely that they are quite against it and would not own it as any of their good old wayes its evident this was their strong and unanimons judgement and therefore the and very probably confirmed it from the Scripture Dictates mentioned and produced above The third Catechistic I Quoere aebout the maner of this Dipping Quaere 3. What warrant or command or example have you from the sacred Scriptures or the succeeding Primitive Antiquity for your dipping of persons in their clothes and vestments at your baptizing them so your two Sisters stripping themselves in a chamber and putting on other and others clothes that so they might have their own dry against they came to the House again from the Pond went into the Pond in their clothes and there were dipped in their body and clothes as you relate to me and as you or others instructed them All this speaketh novelty and nothing else but a new business unheard in Scripture unseen in Antiquity and the Ancient Churches For do your think that thd Eunuch or Lydia were thus and in this maner baptized of Philip and Paul in the waters clothed and with their garments upon them and that to this purpose they went aside in private to shift themfelves of the suits they had on and to put on others that they might have dry clothes ready against they came out of the water with their wet ones say not so no not in your thought for the Scripture saith no such matter no nor suggesteth any such thing to thought This being then silent here succeeding Antiquity must be heard what they say and you cannot refuse to do so seeing in your
mans own heart will tell him more of himself then seven Watch-men that sit in a high Tower yet I say as though the Grace of God given to me to every man that is among you and you especially not to think or speak of himself more highly then he ought to think or speak Rom. 12.3 as to think or speak of himself as an Angel or Lion as I said giving out that himself was or is some great one or the great power of God Acts 8.9 10. so not to think or speak of himself more lowly then he ought to think or speak as to think or speak of himself as a worm or a dog as you say unless you be of the same spirit assuredly that they were who extraordinarily thought and spake so of themselves For the Apostle saith of the first they do not think or speak soberly of themselves or unto sobriety and I may of the second they do not think or speak sincerely of themselves or unto sincerity there is an excess in the one and a defect of Truth in the other and your anger and rage against another who should call you so would soon discover the truth and the sincerity yea or not There is a saying amongst the Moralists that Nemo sibi injuriam infert no man can do an injury to himself No man ever yet hated his own flesh the Divine adds Eph. 4.29 Surely either you are gone out of your self or if you be come to your self with him Luke 25.17 you have injured your self in thinking and speaking your self a dog and not so good as a dog from your birth hitherto until this year When the Grace of God appeared plucking you out from your wicked wayes unto the knowledge of the Truth For the Grace of God which pluckt you as you write to the knowledge of the Truth is the same Grace which brought St. Peter to the knowledge of the Truth in this matter and appeared to him Acts 10.15 28. God hath shewed me saith Peter that I should not call any man common or nuclean and besides the vision there was a voice spake to him also What God hath cleansed that call not thou common and so the same voice forbids you though you see not the vision hear it and call not any man hereafter call not your self dog or any other common or unclean creature or name Indeed before the Election and calling of the Gentiles was make known to the Apostles by our Saviour Christ the Apostles and others had some such thoughts and speeches of the Gentiles as dogs and as unclean as appears by Peter here at first and Apostles and Brethren that were in Judea who contended with Peter for going unto them and eating with them Acts 11.3 Yea and Christ himself told the woman of Canaan a Gentile It was not meet to take the childrens bread and to cast it to dogs when she supplicated him for to cast a Devil out of her daughter Mat. 15.26 Dogs because they were out of a visible admission and reception into the Church-visible For without are dogs Rev. 22.15 but even she as they other Gentiles when she shewed the faith she had in the mercy of God and made profession of her Master Christ in that reply Truth Lord yet the dogs do eat of the crumbs that fall from their Masters Table Mutavit vocabulum quia mutatum vidit affectum saith Augustine upon the place he changeth his word and appellation because he saw in her a change of state and condition now he saith O woman great is thy Faith no longer now a dog but a woman yea and useth her not like a dog but as one of the lost Sheep of Canaan or the Gentiles But for your self and those other of my Parish who are born Christians of Christian Parents and so within and under the Covenant of Grace and also put under the Initial seal of the Covenant of Baptism I my self baptized you thirty six years sithence and thriving under my Ministery of the Word your self have often heard me preaching answered me and well to my questions of Catechizing your Mother Eunice also bringing you up like a Timothy in the nurtriture and knowledge of the Scriptures from a very childe and growing up a Faith by my administration of the Lords Supper If I remember well I have also taken examination of you as of the young men and found you or made you fitting and capable of the same and exhibited the fame unto you And what were all my people the most of them no better then dogs and yoiur self not so good as a dog all this while and no Grace of God appearing and plucking you to the knowledge of the Truth A Christian dog is a word for a Jew or a Turk to speak to look upon Christians as dogs and to use Christians like dogs is an act for a Barbarian and Scythian to do § Nay Sir you not onely wrong your self a Christian and my Christian Parishioners but you injury Christ himself and the Grace of Christ appearing both in them and your self to the plucking of your self and them from their wicked wayes to the knowledge of the Truth I can be a better witness for them then yoiu who are but herein the accuser of the Brethren for the Seal of my Ministery are they many of them in the Lord I can truly say with the Apostle 1 Cor. 9.2 I say again you wrong Christ himself and the Grace of Christ and the Covenant of his Grace and the Seals of his Covenant Baptism and the Lords Supper and the fruits and effects of his Seals and the Spirit of God that daily wrought and brought forth such fruits and effects in their lives And lastly you wrong your own eyes and conscience that will not see and acknowledge this by your stiling your self not so good and my people no better then dogs till you and they came out of your and their wicked wayes to the knowledge of the Truth What say you then to the children of Israel and their children by your speech and reason they must go for dogs too as not yet plucked out of their evil wayes to the knowledge of the Truth but in the phrase and language of Scripture they were a holy people and their children not unclean but holy The Root holy and the Branches likewise Rom. 11.16 and that by reason of the Covenant of the holy God and the Seals upon them with the other Ordinances and even Saul in the Acts of the Apostles was no dog but a chosen vessel of Christ before the Grace of God appeared plucking him out of his wicked way to the knowledge of the Truth Yea thus you wrong all the Elect of God for Gods Elect as Saul and your self it may be may live in wicked wayes and be ignorant of the Truth a long while as Saul did and you say of your self that you did yea the Elect Ephesians are said to be children of wrath by
nature as well as others Eph. 2.3 and Eph. 1.4 and yet were not nor could be called dogs notwithstanding impure or hateful before God because they were in and under the love of God which is called Amor Benevolentiae the love of his eternal good Will and Benevolency in electing of them although before their Conversion and before they have Faith they do not stand actually reconciled unto God which is called Amosr Complacentiae the love of his special delight and complacency in accepting of them by the coming of Christ into the world and purchasing it for them so that their persons are never hateful or detestable but beloved and accepted from all eternity and therefore cannot be as bad as dogs though their state wherein they are in may be odious and detestable as was Sauls when he persecuted the Church and as was yours when you walked in wicked wayes and both of you were ignorant of the Truth but this some similar act or quality of a dog as impurity and ignorance for a while is not enough or sufficient to impute the Title and denomination of a dog to such whose persons belong to Gods Election and are under gracious favour of God in a Christ and are parties covenanted with and partakers of the Seal or Seals Doth God take care for Oxen 1 Cor. 9.9 what Dogs who are Gods what a transposition of letters is this what an Anagram which none but an Ingram and Agrammatical man who is himself transported with a zeal without knowledge can or will affirm or make The field that is intended for Wheat fallowed for Wheat and Sown with Wheat is not called or to be called a barren Wilderness and desart Land though weeds come up in it every where and before the good husbandry hath appeared plucking them up but it is called Tilth-land and a Wheat-field The ground of your error lyeth in this that you thought of no other Grace but that of sanctification when you spake those words of your self and others to be dogs until the Grace of God appearing plucking you out of your wicked wayes to the knowledge of the Truth so the words themselves do shew and therby shew also your ignorance of the Grace of God both that of Election and that of Justification which is not any inherent Righteousness and quality as Papists also hold with you which in matter of Justification or Election is but dung as the Apostle calleth it for the Grace of God is one of his Attributes out of us in God and according to the use of Scripture is either metonymically the special gift of Grace or properly the gracious favour of God in Christ by which Grace we are elected called justified sanctified and shall be glorified and in this order they go one before another as several acts and degrees of Grace sanctification being the end or effect as of our Election Eph. 1.4 and of our Justificaiton Luke 1.75 so of our Vocation 1 Thes 4.7 It s a strange error of yours to account your self and others a sheep onely in and under the Grace of sanctification so you say you were no better then a dog till the Grace of God plucked you out of your evil wayes were you then a dog and no sheep in and under the Grace of Election and Vocation and Justification I am sure others are not But what is your drift and scope I pray Sir in writing thus to me now at this time that your self hath not been so good as a dog till the Grace of God appeared plucking you out of your wicked way unto the knowledge of the Truth Is it to advance the power and efficacy of your separate and dipping Ministery above mine and the Sacerdotal function it must be so and no marvel for you committed soul and body unto but one of them my self and others could seldom get your body unto our Churches and Ministery I prepared my dinner and killed my Oxen and fatlings and had all things in a readiness Mat. 22.4 but you made light of it and went another way or would stay at home or when you came if the good seed I sowed in you did not fall into good ground Mat. 13.4 to bring forth fruit but you suffered the fowls the wicked one to devour and catch it away or the thorns of the care of this world to spring up and choak it you must blame neither Seed nor Sower neither Ministery nor Minister but even say of your self I was a High-way side Hearer a Thorny-ground Auditor like as you say you was no better then a dog that while and so I gave that which was holy to dogs But I do not say so that you were that while any such for you did neither trample the holy things under your feet though they fell upon thorns or by the way side neither did you turn again and rend me Again Let no one of you be puffed for one against another 1 Cor. 4.6 I acknowledge there is a difference of Ministery but who maketh thee to differ from another who is Paul and who is Apollos but the Ministers by whom you believed for neither is Paul that planteth nor Apollos that watereth any thing but God that giveth the increase 1 Cor. 3.5 7. you do well and wisely to say The Grace of God appearing pluckt you out and so to ascribe the glory of your plucking out of wicked wayes to the Grace of God The Grace of God is free as the Spirit of God to blow where it listeth John 3.8 and upon whom so by whom and when it listeth Yet thirdly I add that According to the Grace of God which is given to me I have laid the foundation 1 Cor. 3.10 of your coming out of your wicked way to the knowledge of the Truth for many years together and another doth but build thereon and the foundation I have laid in you was none other then Jesus Christ and him crucified The Covenant of the Grace of God in Christ I will be thy God and the God of thy seed made therefore with your believing Parents and your self with the Seals therof which have been given you and the conditions which are to be performed by you yea I have built upon this foundation Gold Silver and precious stones preach in Faith and Repentance and Obedience in your own words coming out of wicked wayes unto the knowledge and practice of the Truth and just then when the building should have been raised up unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ you fell a pulling down as fast as I had built up yea you suffered others to come in upon you by their sleights and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive to build upon my foundation Wood Hay and Stubble and such combustible things and to set in many of their weak and impotent and beggerly rudiments upon it especially those three your separation from your Church your evil affection to the ordained
and effects thereof to comfort and support you upon your faith and repentance and all this for impotent element and beggarly rudiment as the Apostle speaketh Col. 2.22 for I may add your Affirmative of Dip again to their Negatives Touch not taste not which all are to perish with using ordinances after the commandments of men having indeed a shew of wisdom in Will-worship and Humility and neglecting of the body not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh or sanctifying either flesh or spirit or which is neither seal of any Covenant by Gods institution neither leaves any benefit behinde it in the present act nor carrieth any good before it to the future life as you will see when the scales fall off from your eyes which now hang upon them In this you did but run along with the Papists if you did not out-run them they teach that Baptism of Infants taketh away all sin that goeth before it as Original sin but for sins commited after as actual ones they must be taken away by their devised Sacrament of Penance or Repentance And your masters have taught and told you that they must be taken away and that after Repentance hath taken them away by their forged Sacrament of Re-dipping and so both of you do though in several wayes destroy the true nature and use of Baptism which is the Laver for all sins past present and to come to be washed in and away as to the guilt and filth of them True that Repentance is also another good way to take off sins committed and to procure the remission of them according to Gods Promise and Covenant but it must not thrust out Baptism to bring in it self to be a Sacrament of Pennance as the Papists would have it nor lay aside your Infant-baptism to carry you out to a Man-dippism as the Anabaptists have served you For that your Infant-baptism being the Seal of the eternal Covenant is ever effectual and of force and upon the repentance of your actual sins at any time whatsoever will doth comfortably assure and seal unto both the pardon and remission of them so that there will need no new Sacrament to be set up by them of penance nor any second dipping to be practised by you as a Sacrament of profession as I may call it Nay more Repentance Faith c. Conversion Sanctification are all but as the fruits and effects of the Covenant of Grace offered and sealed to on Gods part by his Spirit of Grace and also but the parts and conditions of the same Covenant of Grace entered into and sealed to on your part to do and perform by the operation of the same Spirit in the use of the means of Grace so that therefore those and all other such like do continue and demonstrate both to Papists and Anabaptists the efficacy of the first Infant-baptism which runneth along and even liveth in them And Sir as to your self take it from me and be no longer mistaken from those who make but merchandice of your soul as they do of the Word Whatsoever things are true in you to use the words of St. Paul Phil. 4.8 Whatsoever things are honest in you whatsoever things are just in you whatsoever things are pure in you whatsoever things are lovely in you whatsoever things are of good report in you if there be any vertue in you and if there be any Grace of God appearing in you plucking you out from your wicked wayes unto the knowledge of the Truth they sprang all and are derived to you from that first Covenant of Grace with your believing Parents and your self I will be thy God and the God of thy seed and from the initial Seal of that Covenant your Baptism which was imprinted upon you in your Infancy and which still remaineth in the force and efficacy thereof if you will mind it and embrace it and practise it and none of all these Goods or Graces have been wrought in you or communicated to you by the Spirit of God in or by your late dipping as being none of the Signes or Seals of Grace appointed of God Do men gather Grapes of thorns or Figs of thistles Mat. 7.16 you are not nor will be any whit the better thereby as to the salvation of your soul and I perceive you have been somewhat worse thereby as to the health of your Body The which I somewhat wonder at seeing your two Sisters who were dipped at your House said as I am rightly informed in your chamber as they were shifting off their wet clothes and putting on dry The one of them I have been these many years in a Consumption and now by this I finde my self even cured now yea and I indeed Sister replyed the other do find and feel much comfort in this Why Sir how came this about that you went farther and fared worse had it not been better for you to have been dipped in your own Pond at home then to ride out and be dipped in a strange Pond abroad Are not Adgors and Kettring's Ponds of Much-leighes better then all the waters of either of the Lavers 2 Kings 5.12 might you not have washed in those and have been clean sure your own Pond and water would as well have cured you of a Consumption and comforted your heart as it it did your two Sisters But the reason was The vertue and operation of Kettrings waters was not then known when you were to be dipt as now they are and are famous even as the Laver waters whither you went and were dipt onely now there is this difference The Laver Pond and Waters are for the dipping of the Brothers and they do sometimes well and sometimes ill upon it witness your self but Kettring Pond and waters are for the dipping of the Sisters and they do alwayes well upon it and are cured of Consumptions and cheered up with comfort after which may redound to your credit and glory and the reputation of your waters Nay this hath fallen out very happily to your profit and advantage also and may be very helpful to the paying of your Rent more then either the returns of your Crop or the Retail of your Shop if you would know how I shall tell you First make it to be more publickly known abroad in this County and Secondly give notice hereof to Mercurius Politicus to Print it in his weekly Intelligences to be communicated to all other Counties and the whole Common-wealth that at Kettring's House in Much-leighes of Essex there is a Pond wherein upon once dipping two Sisters have been instantly the one cured of a Consumption the other much filledwith Comfort And you will have out of hand all the sorrowful souls and Consumptious bodies in the Nation at leastwise this County come flocking to your House as the blinde and the halt did to the Pool of Bethesda Joh. 5.2 3 4. and then I hope you know how to deal with them and to make your gain of your Pond
namely none to step in until the Angel go down first and move the water so make way for him or her for I believe the water is as good for a him as a her the man as the woman And to encourage you the more hereunto I shall not take any occasion or advantage to raise your Rent hereupon one penny in the year so that you will keep the Pond in good Repair and in its vertue and efficacy by scouring and fencing about so as it may continue therein unto my Heirs and Executors onely I pitty the loss and damage if not undoing that will hereby come to Tunbridge waters in Kent and Barnet water in Hartford-shire and the Bath waters of Sommerset-shire and the waters of the Spaw beyond Sea may be somewhat endamaged hereby and Ebesham waters in Surrey I but here 's comfort You and this Town may be benefited hereby But I will onely tell you at this time how much worse you are and will be in your soul salvation and the peace of your conscience but this your new business of being Re-dipped unless you repent of it timely and truly and turn again to God and his Covenant and the Seal thereof your Infant-baptism and renew them to your benefit and comfort by faith laying claim and hold of them and never let your first Right and Title to them and the grace of them go and so they will never let their hold and tenure go of you and your soul I know not whether I said it before or no for my papers are now out of my sight and so out of my mind but if I did I will say it again after the example of the Apostle Gal. 1.6 7 8 9. I marvelled you were so soon moved away from him my self who called you unto the Seal of Grace Baptism and to the hearing of the Gospel unto another Baptism and Gospel which is not another there being but one Gospel and Baptism But there be some that trouble you and would pervert the Gospel-Covenant and Gospel-Baptism of Christ But though we I think we shall not or they they do it indeed or an Angel from Heaven neither will any Angel preach any other Gospel unto you or any other Gospel-Baptism preach it or practise it then that which we have preached and practised unto you let him be accursed And now here as the Apostle addeth As I said before so say I now again If any man from Earth transforming himself into an Angel of light preach any other Gospel unto you preach or practice any other Gospel Covenant or Baptism then that ye have received let him be accursed Let him be onely of me accused he may be both of you and yours both accused and accursed Sir I have been the bolder with you and the larger in my discourse for that I fear you have not been sufficiently taught and yet even in this point of Baptism I have also formerly catechized you with the other young men of my Parish when for three years together I made it my Afternoons business on the Lords day by your Parents or those who did as Sponsors or Sureties undertake for you the meaning and Doctrine of your Infant-baptism when you came to years of understanding unfolding unto you Gods precious Promises therein made to you and your strict Engagements stipultated to God by them and if so it be then also you ought so much the more now you know their default and understand your self to be more earnest serious and laborious in learning it out and teaching your self the same For thou which teachest another as my self you assayed to do in your Letter teaches thou not thy self Rom. 2.21 But if also you are not either able or willing of your self to do either then be content another and amongst others my self who being your Minister and Pastor notwithstanding your separation have as much right and authority to do both for your good as any other yea and have shewed the more love and integrity towards you in so doing by this piece and my whole Book then any other I add but a few words and I also shall have done teaching you and I hope at leastwise learning of you if not learning you I will not say to you He that is ignorant let him be ignorant still but if you have been ignorant learn now to know and if you have been slighting of your Infant-baptism have hereafter a high esteem of it not as of humane Custom and Formality of the Church but an honorable Ordinance and appointment of God who never imposed upon his people any Service or Order in vain wherein the covenanted Blood of Christ was and is still mysterially and ministerially sealed up unto you for the purging away of that pollution you brought with you into the world by which Grace of Gods Covenant and the Seal thereof in your Baptism you have stood hitherto in your relation to God as a member of Christ under Gods protection and favor and in discrimination from the Heathen world as a Christian of the Church under the fruition and use of all its saving and sanctifying Ordinances And is this a matter to be vilified difesteemed rejected and renounced If the uncircumcised through a wilfull and voluntary refusing of that Seal was to be cut off from Gods people and was called and accounted a breaker of the Covenant surely you can be no less then the same Covenant breaker or more a Covenant dispiser and may fear some heavy visitation if not an utter rejection from Gods people which is in part already faln upon you in your separation from a visible Church by this your voluntary peremptory rash and resolute slighting and renouncing of your Infant-baptism as a Seal thereof conferred and imprinted upon you He that despised Moses law and even that of circumcision which was also Gods law dyed for it Heb. 10.28 29. Of how much sorer punishment suppose you shall he be thought worthy who hath troden underfoot the Son of God and hath counted the Blood of the Covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing and hath done despite to the Spirit and Covenant of Grace in slighting the Seal thereof your Infant-baptism Sir do not the words sound unto you as a Thunder-clap with Lightning in it and make your ears to tingle and your heart to tremble and your conscience to trouble you 1 Sam. 12.19 20 21. For you have added to all your other sins this evil to renounce your Baptism yet I say fear not you have done all this wickedness yet turn not aside from following the Lord but serve the Lord with all your heart and turn not aside for then should you go after vain things which cannot profit nor deliver for they are vain And so you have done in turning aside from your Infant-baptism and going after that vain thing of your Anabaptist Dipping which cannot profit you nor deliver you from any one sin the guilt or filth for it is a
leave them destitute of the ordinary way and means or shew from Scripture some other of their Righteousness and Salvation Yea if Infants be saved without Faith they must then be saved without Christ for as there is none other name or person under Heaven given amongst â—â—en whereby we must be saved than the Lord Jesus Act. 4.12 So there is none other means or grace under Heaven given amongst men whereby we may apprehend the Lord Jesus save Faith Matth. 3.16 and Heb. 11.6 Remember your own words nothing but Faith answereth the Promise If Infants have no Faith to answer the promise nor works to answer the precept how shall they do for the answer of a good conscience towards God or a saving Baptism 1 Pet. 3.21 Or what shall they do when God riseth up and when he visiteth what shall they answer him Job 31.14 If he will contend with them they cannot answer him one of a thousand Job 9.3 unless in Christ by Faith they be and then all is answered I could wish some others of a more vigorous body and brain would prosecute these and many other Scriptures to the proof of Faith in Infants Elect and saved the which as I take it would best stop the mouthes of the gainsayers of Infant-Baptism who now not satisfied with their being in Covenant with God also or his giving of spiritual grace to them never leave calling for Faith Faith in Infants so would it set opener and wider the way of Infants to their Baptism even in the opinion of the adversaries thereof If you question how such could believe in Christ Christ who tells you so gave them to do so and so may give to others Is thine eye evill because he is good may he not do with his own as him pleaseth Take that thine is and go thy way it may be he will give unto this least even as to thee Though Intants want the outward Means of Faith which they are not capable of as the Hearing of the Word by which Faith ordinarily is gotten yet there are other besides what you will say extraordinary and so you will fly now your self to extraordinaries who have taxed us of extraordinaries no such matter for besides the ordinary outward Menas of Faith in the Church which an Infant wanteth and is not capable of there are ordinary inward Means of the same Faith which it may find and of which it is capable namely Christ the Author of Faith and the Spirit of Faith both these are internal but ordinary Means of Faith in the Church and avaylable when the outward are wanting and the outward unavay leable where those inward are wanting But you can discern no such matter of Faith in Infants these shew no such thing as Faith what then what evidence of expression do you see or they shew of a reasonable soul in them by this reason you may conclude them unreasonable as well as unbelievers Even Childrens souls are equal and like as yours and mine are in the essentials which are as large and ample to all intents and purposes though pent up for want of room as our souls are and are capable of Grace They are Rational Creatures Seminally and in the inward Principle of human Nature which is a reasonable Nature though through defect of age they are not Rational Productively and in the fruits or external proceedings or operations of reason and so they may be Believers as to the Root and Fountain of Faith the Spirit of God in the first act though they may want the second act thereof which is the increase of it in themselves and the deriving the knowledge of it to others So then Infants in the Church may have Faith and all the Elect of them have fot it is called the Faith of Gods Elect Tit. 1.1 and you as you cannot descry it in them so you cannot decry it Therefore by your own Tenet and Rule they going for Believers and Elect may be Baptized yea all ought to go so out of a charitable perswasion and opinion that ought to be in us and you howsoever it goeth with them as to the Truth and Reality and therefore all should be Baptized for by the same reason you Baptize any of those you call Believers we Baptize all Infants of Believers and unless it were so none at all were to be Baptized Those that come to you one by one in a profession of Faith you have but a good and charitable opinion of his Faith and Election you can have no sure and certain knowledge of the same For this and that Person may be an Hypocrite and Reprobate yet you Baptize him and him Now therefore may not we do the like there comes presented to us this and that Child one and another in the evidence of Gods Covenant engraven as it were upon them by their birth of Parents in Covenant we have also a charitable perswasion of their Faith and Election and can have no more for there are also Infants born in the Church that are Reprobates and so we Baptize them But if onely the true Beleevers and Elect were to be Baptized then you and we must have a certain knowledge of every Infants and every mans Faith and Election as the ground of our and your Baptizing them the which because neither we nor you can have in any ordinary way neither of us by this Rule must Baptize any at all You hope the best of all and so do we your old Limitation may do well here so far as man can judge which in this case is just nothing and that 's all can be said on both sides but still I must prompt you that it is not knowledge of the Infants being in Election and the signs of it or being in the Faith and the prosession of it but the being in the Covenant and a relation to it that is and ought to be the ground of Baptism in the Church of God now because we find and know all Infants born of Christian Parents within this Covenant Relation know not which of them is Elect or not for if we knew who were Reprobates we neither would nor ought to Baptize them we do therefore Baptize all of them lest otherwise we should and might deny the Seal of the Covenant to some of the Elect Children of God Me thinks you who assume so much of the Spirit to your selves Take heed you do not presume too much of your selves therein there be they who separate themselves having not the Spirit Jude 19. should not be so Covetous or Envious and it may be refistous and then it is blasphemous as to deny some degrees of the Spirit and the graces thereof to Infants when as the Spirit bloweth where it listeth and thou canst not tell whither it goeth when as also the Dove-like Spirit of God hath a neer compliance with and a great complacency in Child-like meekness mildness humility patience of which graces he is pleased to stile himself the Spirit more
as without Faith Faith without Baptism may make an invisible Christian but incompleatly as without Baptism Faith and Baptism together both make a Christian compleatly and that both Visible and Invisible Are not Children of the Heathens born Heathens and why then are not Children of Christians born Christians I mean it is theiri Birthright to be so esteemed or they are to be esteemed such by their Birth-right to be reputed within the Covenant of Grace or members of the visible Church Is the condition of a Christians Child worse now under the Gospel than a Jewes Child was under the Law the Children of the Jewes were born Jewes and it was their Birth-right to be Israelites visible members of the Church of Israel whereupon the Apostle calleth them Jews by Nature Gal. 5.15 As before I have said and Rom. 11.24 He calls the whole Nation of the Jewes the Natural branches of the Olive-tree in that they were the vifible Church of God so the 1 Cor. 7. Those that are born of holy Parents are called holy yet sinners but in divers respects by Nature and as generated of their Parents so sinners for Parents do not generate by Grace but Nature but by Grace and as received by God into Covenant so Holy for God said I will be thy God and the God of thy seed and if the root be holy then are the brancher no repugnancy here like as the Circumcised generateth an Infant with a fore-skin and as wheat dressed and clean bringeth forh wheat with chaffe upon it so a Christian bringeth forth one that is not a Christian who is therefore Baptized that he may be made Christian which is when he is Ingrafted into the body of Christ And whereas the Apostle saith Eph. 2.3 That we were by Nature the Children of wrath as well as others it doth not contradict we may be such and yet born Christians too and Holy in an externall Covenant being born of believing Parents if you would but remember the ordinary distinctions that are given they would disperse this mist before your eyes and cleer them matter to you I will give them you as thus as there is a Jew so there is a Christian without and in open view of the Church and as Jew so a Christian within and in secret before the face of God as none were born Jewes so none are born Christians in this second and later senss thus we must be made Christians neither could or can we claim it by Birth-right but in the first sens which is that whereof the Assertion is we may even all that have a visible Birth and standing under the Covenant of Grace are Christians and Holy in the face of the visible Church though perhaps not so in the face of God but many for all this may be Children of wrath Your mind as your words runneth onely upon the Internal part of the Covenant which are inward saving graces which belong only to the Elect and because we know not what these Infants are born with we say not that thus they are born Christians where you should take notice of an external part of the Covenant which is a true visible membership and Birth-Holiness which known to us and appearing to all we call them born Christians as who from their Birth are to be accounted and reputed visible members and patts of the Church For the Covenant of Grace is largely to be understood and Taken for the whole dispensation of it in-outward Ordinances and under the Notion of its external Privileges as well as in inward Graces and under the notion of its internal powers You most an end and in this Quaere especially use the Covenant as Hanun did the servants of David sent to comfort Hanun and to honour his deceased Father who shaved off the one half of their Beards and cut off the half of their Garments and so sent them away 2 Sam. 10.4 So do you and yours you leave out in your writing and discourses the one half of the Covenant and still restrain it to the inward and spiritual part thereof whereas it was sent whole and entire of God with an outward and external part also for the further Honour and Comfort of the believing Parents and their Children But I come to the last your first Queare of the three about Baptism as you propound them but my last of the three as I handle your matters and this it is Sect. III. Of Baptizing of Infants WHat warrant you have from the words of Christ for your Baptizing of Infants before they do actually believe What warrant I thank you for this word a gentle and general word I looked for no less than what command or precept have you such a severe and special word as a command to be demanded of me Did you keep such a blustring in seven whole Quaeres together about the commands and precepts of Christ his Apostles and their examples which I took as your preparative and Preface unto this your particular Quaere of Infant-Baptism and doth the wind go down in this soft and still voyce What warrant have you for it After all your former Thundrings out the Commands of God against us as if we of the Church of England had broken them all and had pieced them up with our Human Inventions and additions as Infant-Baptism and the rest is this your only Thunderbolt you have to strike us down with what warrant have you for it out of the word Your friends and fellowes lowes will give you no thanks for this word if it were not they that gave it you word and work and all who as the Jewes cryed The Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord so they go up and down and cry a Precept of the word a Precept of the word for your Infant-Baptism and do you come after them and behind and so softly speak for fear they should hear you a Warrant out of the word a Warrant out of the word for the same This made me look back over your other Quaeres about our Ministery our maintenance and I find upon such Review that this word Warrant is used and prefixed before them all and not a word of a Precept or Command I see I have been much mistaken who when I might have put off you and all your Quaeres with a Warrant according to your demand have put my self to such trouble as to search the Scriptures and send you Precepts and Commands out of the same for every particular You are beholding to me for I have gratified you herein in giving you more than you required and in spending more upon you than you desired I will not say deserved I hope you will make good use of my Indulgence herein and not expect for time to come that I shall do the like still No you will now give me Leave to take and make my advantage of the word which I have lost hitherto and you have gained hereby For I take it there
and constant custom of the Primitive and the succeeding Churches throughout the several ages to Baptize the Children of believing Parents in their Infancy then it ought to be so still continued accustomed and practised This Warrant may be Reasoned out of the word or the Reason warranted out of Matth. 19.4.9 where Christ in case of a point of difference about divorce himself argueth and reasoneth from the Ancient times and the beginning of the Church of God So out of 1 Cor. 11.16 if any man seem to be Contentious we have no such Custom neither the Churches of God Where you and I may see the case there and here to be much alike The Corinthians had got up a fashion of their mens praying covered in their long Hair and their women praying uncovered in their shorn Hair you likewise have taken up a practice of baptizing onely believers when grown persons they make profession and have shut out Infants from their right to the Seal of Baptism being Covenanters with their Parents Saint Paul refuteth that their fashion by divers arguments drawn from the headship of man over the woman from the dishonouring of the head from the shamesulness and the uncomeliness of it from the Presence of the Angels from the light of nature five good and sound arguments and when he perceived for all those that they were contentious and quarrelsome with him about and for their fashion He clappeth upon them as his last argument this taken from the Churches of God that have been before us In like manner I have refelled your Practice by sundry Warrants and Reasons raysed out of the word from such Infants some of them having the spirit and faith in some degrees from their being in the same Holy Covenant of Grace with their Parents from the proportion and succession of Baptism unto Circumcision from Baptisme's being a remedy against Original sin especially from Infants capableness of the ends effects and benefits of Baptism five good and warrantable reasons out of the word and supposing for all this you will not be conquered though overcome but will still strive and contend contrary to 2 Tim. 2.24 Now I urge upon you in the last place this Reason which is the Custom of the Church both Modern we have such a Custom of Baptizing Infants of Believing Patents and we have no Custom approved or General of Baptizing onely Grown Believers As also Ancient Neither the Churches of God have had any such For so though Saint Paul argue N gatively onely the Reason is of as much force and weight affirmatively and the Custom of the Ancient and Modern Church's is good and pleadable both against the New Lights of late scismatical Innovators as also for the old Light of former and present Orthodex Professours As for the Negative the Not or No Custom Primitive and practice Apostolieal of Baptizing again at their growth upon Confession of Faith such as had been Baptized before in their Infancy I do reserve it for at other Place your Dipping Pond of which I shall speak at last onely here I shall bring in the Affirmative That the Ancient Prinritive Churchès succeeding the Apostles what the Apostles themselve did do and practied shall hereafter soon follow did hold and practice the Baptizing of Infants And though I think it will but disturb your Brain and cause you to stop your Nostrils and Mouth who small no sweet Savour or Odour of Antiquity as being one of the New Sent or unsent rather yet notwichstanding I shall and relate the Dictates of some of the Ancient Apostles succeeding Pastors and Fathers of the Church of old and I will do it for others sake who are Lovers of Antiquity but I will do it in English for your sake whom I am Instructing who are no lover of Languages more than you can speak I know you will not take this General Custom and Practice of the Church upon my bare word and present Assertion nor do I desire you should Therefore Remember the dayes of old consider the years of many Generations ask thy Father and he will shew thee thy Elders and they will tell thee ask now of the dayes that are past which were before wheâ—â—er there hath been any such thing as the Baptizing of Infants of Believers You shall readily find the same attested by the Reverend Fathers of the Church the Bishops and Doctors of the dayes of old and years of former Generations to have been so to be the Custom and Practice In a matter of Fact or Practice one Good and Creditable witness is sufficient and that I am sure I have Saint Augustine I mean not onely for the General Practice of Infant Baptism in his dayes and those present tim 's wherein he lived as might easily be shewed our of his Books of Original Sin Chap. 40. Third Book of the Merit of Sin and Remission Chap. 9. Third Book against Julian fourth Book of Baprism against the Donatists c. But also for the former and praeceding Churches up to the Primitive dayes For so Augustine who lived in the year after the Nativity of Christ 39â— and was Presbyter first and after Bishop of Hippo saith thus in his third Epistle to Volusian The Custom of the Mother Church in Baptizing little ones is in no wise to be despised not to be thought needless and were not to be believed but that it was as Apostolicall Tradition This is a very full and clear evidence of an Ecclesiastical Custom an Apostolical Tradition whether written or unwritten that infringeth it not according to that of the Apostle 2 Thest 2.15 hold the Traditons which ye have been taught whether by word or Epistle not to be despised but believed Nor did Augustine utter this suddenly but advisedly and therefore upon second thoughts saith it over again and the more Resolutely in his 15. Sermon of the words of the Apostle Let no man saith he buz or whisper into our eares any Doctrine to the Contrary This Practice of Baptizing Ghildren The Church alwayes had this it hath this it alwayes held this it hath received from the Faith or fidelity of our Ancestors and this it keeps Constantly to the end Therefore doth the same Father so often and so much press this Argument The Churches Practice of Baptizing-Infants upon Pelagius and his followers who were Contemporary with Augustine holding Infants were not taken or tainted with original Corruption and Sin by propagation but only contracted the same by Imitation as in his 150 Epistle unto Sixtus in his second Book of Marriage and Concup 18. Chap. in his first Book against Crescon the Grammarian cap 30. in his fourth Book against the Donat. c. 23. in his sixth Book against Julian one of Pelagius his Schollars or his opinions Now if this had not been truly and undeniably The Custom and Practice of the Church even up to the first and Primitive times as Augustine affitmed Pelagius and his Disciples would soon have fallen foul upon
found even of all which are done throughout the whole life Ambrose the Bishop of Millain by whom Augustine was Converted and Baptized in his Book of Abraham the Patriark lib. For the year 381. 2. Chap. 11. writing upon those words unless a man be born again of water and the Spirit See saith he Christ excepts none not the Infant not the prevented by some necessity c. Every age is obnoxious to sin therefore every age is fit for the Sacrament So also in his Epistle ad Demetriadem Virginem he mention eth the Baptism of Children Epist 84. lib. 10. speaking in that Epistle against Pride and Boasting of some especially Hearetiques and shewing the evill effects thereof to the defending false opinions extenuating of evil and sin and the evacuating of some good gives these two Instances amongst others Hence the sin of Adam is affirmed to hurt his Posterity by example not by passage or transition into them Hence is that Evacuation of the Baptism of little Children as if they should be said to have Adoption given there but not to be absolved from their guilt and again Though little ones not Baptized may or should be saved yet great is the negligence of those that hindeed their Baptizing In his Book de vocat lib. 2. cap. 8. he mentioneth Baptism of Children three or four times and once thus They speak very ill and unjurly of little Children who say Grace hath there what it may Adopt but the water hath not there what it may wash away speaking of such as deoyed sin in little Children Paulinus Bishop of Nola in Camqania For the year 379. a man famous for Poetry and Eloquence Piety and munificence a good acquaintance of Augustine and Hierom betwixt whom and Him there passed sundry Epistles a great favorite and familiar of Ambrose whose life he wrote as also of Sulpitius Severus to whom he wrote 14. Epistles As the Beginning of the twelfe Epistle to the same Sulpitius Severus hath these two verses whhich for your sake I must be fain to tranflate into English Thence from the Sacred Font the Priest did lead it The Infant white in body heart and habit Epiphanius For the year 376. In his first Book Haer. 8. The Figures were in the Law the Truth in the Gospel Circumcision which served for a time gave place to the Great Circumcision which is Baptism which Circumciseth us from sin and Sealeth us into the Name of God In His Book against the Cerinthians Circumcision had its time untill the Great Circumcision came that is the washing of the New-birth as is manifest to every one Surely he meant that which the Apostle calls so that is Baptism the washing or Laver of Regeneration and by calling Baptism the Great Circumcision he must intend Infant Baptism as Infant-Circumcision and speaks of them as of things manifest and wel-known the Carnal or fleshly Baptism as Circumcision In the end of his work calls Baptism and other mysteries observed in the Church which are brought out of the Gospel and setled by Apostolique Authority Traditions and then in his Time Baptism was ministred to Infants and observed Gregory Nazianzene For the year 375. In his 40. Oration of Holy Baptism largely speaketh of it the brief is in the Question and Answer What say ye of those who are of tender Age and perceive neither dammage or Grace shall we Baptize those Yes surely if any danger be it is better to be Sanctified without sense and feeling then to depart without the Seal and Initiation Circumcision bearing in a manner the figure of Baptism was offered to them who were void of Reason c. calleth also Baptism the Seal or Signet to such as enter into the Race of Life Basil the Great For the year 372. Bishop of Caesarea 1 Tom. Exhortation to Baptism wherein though the Baptism of Infants is not named yet I find these words There is a proper and peculiar time for this and that as for sleep for watching for warring the Time for Baptism is the whole life of man which he proves at large and again without Baptism there is no light to the Soul and then adds the Jew was compelled or forced to Circumcision because every soul which was not Circumcised the eighth day was to be cut off wilt thou defer the Circumcision not made with hands which is performed by Baptism in the putting of the flesh When wilt thou be a Christian Athanasius Q. 91. For the year 325. Of the Sayings and Interpretation of Scripture We dip or put the Infant thrice into the water and thrice bring it out insignification of the death and resurrection of Christ upon the third day I shall also here set down an answer of his Quest 2. to Antiochus because it confirmes what I have writ before of Infants having the Holy Spirit How shall we know that the Infant was truly Baptized and received the Holy Ghost in Holy Baptism when it was a Child but the answer is long and shall not need because I would be short The Question is enough to the purpose and sheweth both that Athanasius held both Infant-Baptism and therein affirmed them to receive the Holy Spirit the very question makes it unquestionable as to him Again in his Treatise of the Sabbath and Circumcision Hee calls Circumcision a type of Baptism Cyprian Bishop of Carthage and a Martyr For the year 247. The higher we go the cleerer the light shines for the Baptism of Infants for now here Cyprian with 66 Colleagues all Bishops do in a Councel at Carthage decree for it and so Certifieth his Friend Fidus in an Epistle to him third Book of Epistles Ep. 8. Yea that whole Epistle written by Cyprian and his 66 Colleagues sitting in Council with him The Title of it is of Infants to be Baptized and the subject of the whole Epistle is to justifie the Baptizing of them and answereth the objections of Fidus. As to the Cause the Baptism of Infants we all have judged that the mercy and Grace of God is not to be denyed to any Child born of man c. and that there is the same equallity of grace for the young Infant as the Elder God is no respecter of personages nor ages Yea he gives divers reasons why Infants and the rather and the sooner because Infants should be Baptized which for brevity sake I leave out here as who am onely upon the shewing having proved the Baptism of Infants before the Custom and Practice of Antiquity herein This Epistle also is owned and avouched both by Hierome Au-Augustine to be the true Epistle of Cyprian by Hierom as above is said and by Augustine Epistle 28. unto Hierome saying Cyprian did not here devise a New decree but kept and observed the true Faith or the faithful Practice and Custom of the Church Yea this Epistle of Cyprian was a very strong ground for them both to stand upon and they very much relyed
good to give unto them a full and proportionable answer what pains and time soever it should cost me But that which you propound in your second sheet to me is nothing but certain Considerations of your own against baptism of Infants and about some Texts of Scripture the very froth and barmings of your own head the which if I should let alone unreplied to as once I was resolved would of themselves sink disperse and fall to nothing But lost you should swell and be puffed up in any conceipt of these your considerations as the Bladder is with its own winde I will as briefly as I can with my short breath by reason of my old age blow away your froth and let out your winde that so the hollowness and shallowness of them may appear to the Reader The Title you set over your first Consideration is this More particularly about the Doctrine of Babtism Baptism consider these Arguments proved by clear and plain Scripture Sir this is a false Title to your Tractate for if you would have done here more particularly it should have been and you should have said about the Doctrine of Infant-Baptism for if you bring not Arguments not onely about Baptism as you say but against Infant baptism and these proved by clear and plain Scripture I shall not consider them neither have you considered well of our difference 1. You bid me Consider that the Doctrine of Infants Babtism overthrows the nature of the Covenant of grace and the whoe whole Gospel of Christ why so because the Covenant of grace and Gospel of Christ stands upon the account of faith actual in there one heir own persons as uppears in John 3.36 and John 5.24 But Infants Babtism stand upon the account of the faith in there their Parents or Surtie Sureties although they have none for themselves and so makes faith void and unnesesery unnecessary to the perticipation participation of the Covenant Rom. 4.13 Gal. 3.17 8. But what do I did I not say I would not transcribe your words of your second sheet but I see I must do it for there is so much false-written English in them that I must of necessity do it lest if inscribed to my Answer that may be thought mine But to the matter Baptism of Infants of Believers doth not overthrow but establish the Covenant and Gospel of Grace because it sealeth and executeth it Neither doth the Covenant of Grace and the Gospel stand upon the account of actual Faith in all mens own persons but onely such as being grown in years are converted from Paganism these must make profession of faith before they can come into the Covenant and be sealed But actual faith is not a Condition required as to the Covenant or Seal in Infants Your Text therefore of John 3.36 is not to the purpose as which onely sets everlasting life upon to use your phrase the account of actual faith which I grant and so doth the next Text John 5.24 as appears for that he begins with and speaks of such as do hear the Word of God and beleeve in Christ which is not appliable to Infants but grown men And as to your Inference The baptism of Infants stands upon the account of their being in Covenant together with their Parents and not upon the account of the Faith in their Parents or Sureties but only so far as the Faith of the Parents serves to shew them a seed of the faithful and the Faith of the Sureties undertakes for their education in and profession of Faith afterwards How strangely also do you pervert that Text Romans 4.13 For it is there said the promise was made to Abraham that he should be the heir of the world was not to Abraham and his seed through the Law but through the Righteousnesse of Faith Which he had yet being uncircumcised to whom God upon this account of this faith made the Promise both to himself and his Seed you would have the faith there spoken of to be the faith of the Seed or Infant as holding it necessary to the participation of the Covenant and so falsifie both Covenant and Text which both together with your last Gal. 3.17 do quite overthrow your first overthrowing Consideration for Argumentation here is none More of this you shall have hereafter Your second Consideration because it hath a Narration yea a repetition of what you set down in your first Page about the nature of the state so you speak whereas rather you should say the state of the Nature of Christs true visible Church under the Gospel to the shewing of which you here onely describe Christs true invisible Church and therefore cite the Texts you did before and add some more that speak onely of invisible Members such as you call Saints made so by the immortal Seed new Creatures by the benefit of Regeneration I shall therefore say nothing to that here but refer you and especially the Reader to what I have largely before discoursed about the state and nature for I will correct my self too of the Church both visible and invisible for though you may perhaps have no such care of me I must and will be carefull that I dead not the Reader by any tedious and vain repetitions and Tautologies Yet this I say in anser to it That Infant-Baptism in the Church is so far from overthrowing as you argue the nature and state of Christs true visible Church that it is rather much confirmed and established increased and enlarged thereby because thereby more are admitted in present members visible and are engaged to be for the future visible professors and confessors of Christ yea and the invisible Church also is not overthrown but upheld and augmented by our Baptism of Infants as whereby many Infants are not onely dedicated and consecrated unto Christ but are also by Baptism as a Seal and Means as I have shewed regenerated and so fitted and prepared the better for Heaven and happiness And whereas you add That Infants Baptism is grounded upon the Relation they have to the Church by generation onely or by the meer pro ession of faith and repentance in the Parents and Sureties I see you are corrupted in your Principles and grounds of Divinity Once more I tell you I pray learn it now for I will teach you it no more for the Readers sake that Infants Baptism is grounded and foundationed upon the Covenant of God made with the believing Parents for himself and Infants and that which you call Generation doth but raise up the ground and foundation-Covenant to bring it into some act of visibility in relation to the Church for the Seal thereof And so also Infants have not their relation unto the Church by generation rather by this they have relation to the world nor by the meer faith and repentance of the Parents and Sureties but by the Covenant and the Seal thereof in both which Infants are interessed together with their Parents have they their relation
this Doctrine of thus baptizing Infants overthrows your practice of baptizing onely Children grown though born of baptized Christian Parents when they can give a reason of their Faith I say Infant-Baptism overthrows this your Man Baptism in a setled planted Church and you have not one Text to raise or lift it up or hold up your selves But I remember you joyned with Infant-Baptism overthrowing its preventing also the Baptism expresly commanded in those Scriptures alleged by you What mean you Sir by such a conjuntion of overthrowing and preventing for if that overthroweth this then it doth more than prevent and if that doth but prevent this it doth not so much as overthrow it For my part I think the one doth not prevent the other but both were joyned together both in the Precept Baptise the discipled Nations the believing Parents and their children as also in the practice The Apostles having converted Pagan Nations and Houses I mean the grown Parents unto the Faith baptized them and their children at the same time or left them baptizeable and to be baptized of others if they were in haste of their preaching the Word like as Abraham the Believer and Ismael his Son were both circumcised upon one and the same day Sure if any one prevented the other it was the old Administration as you call it in this place the Baptism of Believers that prevented the other the Baptism of Infants and not the other back way as you affirm for the Believers both of the Jewish and Heathenish Nations were first baptized and then their Infants were afterwards baptised as Abraham was first circumcised and then the self-same day was Ismael circumcised But let me hear and reade your Reason You say likewise Insant-Baptism prevents the old ministration of this expresly commanded baptizing of Believers because most of persons look upon themselves as baptized in their infancy and so never look after the command of Christ to be baptized when they believe What a Reason is here given of Infant-Baptism preventing another Baptison expresly commanded namely the baptized persons imagination of himself or looking upon himself as baptized in his infancy and so never look after the command of Christ to be baptized when they believe To let go the irrationality of this Reason I must say again that there is no such old or new ministration of an expresly commanded Baptism of Believers grown after they have been once baptized in their Infancy Your cannot wring or wrest it out of the mouth of any one of your cited Texts so far are you from deducing and leading it fairly by the hand as I may so say out of them or any one of them This of yours savours too rankly of the old Heresie and new Schisme of Rabaptization ever condemned in the Churches of God both of old and of late as I have formerly proved from the Apostles casting up this account and bringing all Baptismes to this as the total summe that there is but one Baptism and therefore once baptized are not to be baptized any more And therefore not onely most of the persons but all of the persons baptized are to look upon themselves as baptized sufficiently and never to look after any other Baptism commanded them of Christ when they believe for there is none commanded Do you Sir express it as if it were a fault or a fancy that most of persons look upon themselves as baptized in their infamcy and never look after to be baptized when they believe Stop your ears Oye baptized men women and children at the voice of the chaarmers for they charm neither wisely nor foundly nor sweetly as to you and your good and benifit not wisely for you but subtlely for themselves and their party who having forsaxen their first love and renounced their first Baptism now compass about to make your their proselytes and so two-fold more the children of Hell than themselves if ye after so many strong Reasons and so fair a warning will also renounce your Baptism wherein ye renounced the Devil and all his works A chief one of the DXevils works is to draw people to renounce their Baptism the mark and Seal of their Covenane with God Gods with them as he useth to do with Wirches and Sorcerers before he entreth into Covtract with them and give them a mark and Seal of their Langue with him and his with them Not soundly or truly for you but hypocritically and falsly for themselves do they thus charm as who onely do pretend the Word and Commandement but can shew you none nor example for any Christian once baptized who ever was baptized again The desire to have you baptized again as the Impostors would have had the baptized Galathians circumcised That they may glory in your flesh Galat. 6.13 a most vain and shamefull glory and make you tread under foot the Son of God and to count the blood of the Covenant wherewith ye were sanctified an unholy thing and do despite unto the Spirit of grace Heb. 10.19 at least to grieve the holy Spirit of God wherewith ye were sealed unto the day of redemption if ye belong to the Election of God Such a grievous hainous and unsound thing tit is to renounce your Christian Baptisms Look therefre diligently to your selves as the Authour to the Hebrews hath it lest any man among you fall from the Grace of God even that Grace offered in the Sea crament of Baptism ot you and it may be received by you therein lest any root of bitterness springing up in you trouble you lest there be any profane person amongst you as Esau who for one morsel of meat sold his birth-right Heb. 12.15 16 thus Esau despised his birth-right Genesis 25 34. Is not Baptism your birth-right also is not your renouncing of your Infant-Baptism a despising of your Infant Birth-right and a breaking or pulling off or a trostrating or evacuaring the Seal either way a despising it and a profaning of the Covenant of Grace and will ye thus part with your Birth-right first Baptism and sell it as it were to these supplanting Jacobs and all for a mess of twice sod pottage such is second Baptism or rebaptization Will you leave your Manna that came down first from Heaven loathing it to lust after and hunt after these Quails and listen to their Quail piper who say What is this Manna nothing before ouer eys but this Manna Remember that whilest the flesh of the Quails eaten in cintempt of Manna was yet between their teeth ere the Quails were chewed the wrath of God was kindled amongst the people to the smiting of them with a great plague besides that the flesh afterwards came out at their nostrils and was loathsom unto them and so fear ye left while the water of the new Dippers or second Baptism received in contempt of your first Baptism is yee upon your heads and ears and faces the wrath of God which ever attends upon the
contemners and despisers of his Sacraments fall heavily upon you and some or other curse of God pursue you so also that such water may be loathsom and noysom to you afterwards Remember Esau again For ye know how that afterwards when he would have inherited the blessing Heb. 12.16 17 he was rejected for he found no place of repentance though he sought it with tears Are they not ritghtly called Jacob's Supplanters one of the first planters of them was called Jacob and that rightly for they that take away your Birth-right Baptism will also take away your Blessing the Blessing of God in Covenant with you as well as with your Parents Yea remember one of the Separation by name Hodsou of the City of Glecester and by an Epithite called Hodson-peevish who since he was new baptised grew as light in the head as before he was light in heart the which I finde recorded by Master Thomas Wynell in print a Minister of Cranham nigh unto that City Yea remember the sad and desatrous ends of those first Ringleaders of re-baptising Muncer Cnipperdoling c. And now thirdly Can they charm sweetly and delightfully to any of you who have the root of bitterness in them from which I dehorted you and whose mouths are full of cursing and bitterness like as they have bitter envying and sirife in their hearts against your Mother-Church and your Baptism especially wherein ye were if regenerate at all born again of water and the Spirit My Brethren these things ought not to be doth a Fountain send forth at the same place or hole of heart or mouth sweet water and bitter Hear now ye Benjamites ye left-handed Protestants will the Son of Jesse Muncer who I mentioned but now give every one of you the Field Benefits 1 Sam. 22 2 5 and Vine-eard Priviledges of Christ and his Church by their new dipping of you and make you Captains of thousands and Captains of hundreds against your sins that they shall not raign or have dominion over your mortall bodies or immortall Soules that all of you have conspired against your Mother-Church and brethren Ministers O foolish Galathians who hath bewitched you that you should not obey the truth before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth crucified amongst you even in your Baptism Gal. 3.1 as the word and other Sacrament wherein you were sprinkled with the blood of Christ unto the washing away of sin being also crucified in the old man with him and buried with him by Baptism that the body of sin might be destroyed that thenceforth ye should not serve sin I mervaile that you are so soon removed away from your Baptism and your calling into the Grace of Christ and his Covenant of Grace unto another Baptism which is not another but there be some that trouble you and would pervert the Baptism of Christ Gal. 1.6 7 But though they or an Angell from Heaven preach any other Baptism unto you then that which we have preached and reached unto you let him be accursed and as I said before so say I now again if any man preach or reach any other Baptism unto you than that ye have received of us let him be accursed or let him shew where ever the Lord Blessed for ever at any time blessed or consecrated instituted or appointed a Baptism of Baptized ones Parents or Children or any other Baptism then once of Believing Parents and their Children once They say if a man put away his wife and she go from him and become another mans shall be return again to her shall not that Land be greatly polluted But thou hast played the Harlot with many Baptisms and many Dippers yet return again to me saith the Lord I say return again to the Lord Jer. 3.1 and to the Lords Baptism if thou hast put it away from thee and renounced it if thou be gone from him and with the strange woman hast forsaken the guide of thy youth yea Child-hood and forgotten the Covenant of thy God Prov. 2.17 and the Seal thereof art become another mans and betaken thy self to another Baptism for which the Land is also defiled as thy self I say return again to the Lord and his and thy first Baptism The Lord look upon thee and remember thy first Baptism and the words of the Covenant of Christ and go out from amongst them who by their Quaeres and intricate questioning of thee caused thee to deny thy first Baptism and therein thy Lord and Master go out and weep bitterly for the same Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen and repent and do thy first works Rev. 2.5 and leave not thy first Love hold fast that which thou hast already even thy first Baptism till Christ come I say Repent and be still as you were in your Infancy baptized every one of you in the Name of Jesus Christ and you shall have the Remission of your sins even of this sin of being Baptized again if so you have committed it For the promise is made to you and to your Children with many other words I would have testified and exhorted you saying save your self from this untoward Generation But that I hasten and will tell you to the contrary Look often back to your first Baptism in your Infancy and think not upon any other Baptism afterwards as to a Store-house of comfort in all time of your need if you be tempted by the devill and assaulted about your sins in your youth or old age think not now of ny new or second Baptism but recall thy first and old Baptism oppose it against him say and know that therein God hath promised and sealed unto thee the pardon of thy sins and the purchase of everlasting life by Christ If thou beest troubled with doubtings and weakness of Faith Fetch from thy first Baptism such a strengthening consideration and meditation for the doing of which to introduce another Baptism is but a Fetch that God hath given thee there an earnest and pledge of his loving kindness to thee in the water sprinkled upon thee representing the blood of Christ applyed to thee and so as when Thomas saw the Holes in Christs-side and the print of the nailes he strengthened his Faith against doubtings be not thou faithless but faithfull when thou reflectest upon thy Baptism and remembrest the pouring out of the blood of Christ for thee and the earnest thereof the pouring out of water upon thee If thou liest under any kind of Crosse or Calamity whatsoever have recourse to thy Baptism in which God hath promised to be thy God of which promise he will not fail thee nor canst thou be miserable having this promise yea if God be with thee who shall be against thee Thou doest often look upon the wills and Testaments of thy Father and Grandfather when you are in a doubt of hour Estate or in some trouble about it or in want to be resolved in all
all may as you say but instead of such you fly high and far and say And so Faith needles in the World because all the children of Abraham and Noah which were faithful are in Covenant I never met with a man that made or called Faith a Cost needless in the world that is and may rather be called that one needfull thing in the world for though actual Faith be not needful in all to entitle them unto their external part of the Covenant and the Seal as in the Baptism of Infants of believers for whom it is sufficient that they are born in and under the Covenant of grace yet it is needful for the partaking of the inward part and benefits of the same and their being in Covenant is an obligation unto them to believe afterwards c. as a part of their Astipulation Now then if I should reckon up the Company of your And so and so and so which are the Formals of your proofs I shall not need to go out into Lanes or Streets and fetch in the Blind and the Halt and the Maimed to fill up the Room so long as your Reasons Proofs and And soes are in presence for they supply us fully as thus The Children of John and Thomas who were Loyall are joyned in the same Copy of Court-roll and so Fealty is needless in the Mannor or thus your Plough lyeth in the Field with its whipple-trees and so rain is needless in the County And a man may see you understand very well the Covenant God made with Abraham and his seed to be a Gospel Covenant of Grace for the Remission of Sins and Salvation of Soules in and through Christ promised who joyn thereto together Noab and his Covenant without any distinction or difference made whereas the Covenant God made with Noah was but a Covenant of Nature as I call it for distinction sake for the Continuation of the world and preservation of the Creatures and fruits of the Earth to which he also annexed as his sign his Bow in the Clouds That Rain bow Are you of the mind of those some of your Cut and Size who when they are put to it and pent up by our Reasons for Infant Baptism from Infant-Circumcision stick not to say that God meant no farther in his Covenant with Abraham and his seed than that he would give him and them a visible standing in the promised Land of Canaan and Circumcision should be the seal of it if Therefore you joyned Abraham and Noah together in your proof and discourse you thereby shewed that you are not of Abraham your Father nor as Noah a Preacher of Righteousness But you call of me to Consider that such an Exposition as overthroweth the promise that cannot be the True Exposition of the Text it is granted but where what is that Exposition such as expound a being in the Covenant from faithful Parents overthrows the promise it seems you are got up again and come to overthrowing again But how do you prove that Exposition overthroweth the promise First By reason taken out of a Text out of Habakkuk because the promise is upon the Account of Faith in our own persons and not in our Parents And secondly because nothing answereth the promise but Faith and if Faith be needless then the promise is needless and this I must take upon your bare word without any Text. Most of this is answered already if you will read back You bid me here compare Habakkuk with John I pray compare your Exposition and the Promise together The Text saith the Promise is made to you and your Children and to all a far off I will be thy God and the God of thy seed where you see Children are Covenanted joyntly and together with the Parents you frame an Exposition and would put it upon us Childrens being in the Covenant is from faithful Parents as if severally and a part faithful Parents were taken into Covenant and then from them their Children should because born of them and when born of them come into Covenant for Abraham believed whil'st he was in uncircumcision but that Faith of his gave no being in that speciall Covenant either to himself or children whereof Circumcision was the Seal but yet God so well accepted of Abrahams Faith that for its sake he was pleased to enter into Covenant with him and with his children at one and the same time and to assume them together into Covenant with himself So there the childrens being in Covenant is not from faithful Parents simply and absolutely as I have shewed but from faithful Parents in Covenant or rather to speak properly and fully from the Covenant God made unto both Parents and Children so that not so much their being in Covenant as their being born in Covenant is from their Faithful Parents in Covenant But neither way doth it overthrow this Promise for the childrens being in Covenant by vertue of the promise made supporteth and supposeth the promise and their being in the Covenant from faithful Parents as you speak doth not overthrow the promise seeing even their being so is from them by reason of the promise made to them for their Children also which rather establisheth and confirmeth than overthroweth and evacuateth the promise You had need add another Exposition to your Exposition and put better light to your New light and into your dark Lanthorn or else none will see to walk by it but your self and so you have done For it overthroweth the promise you say because the promise is upon account of Faith in our own Persons and not in our Parents See how you forget your self in forgetting the Children of whose being in the promise you are discoursing you let them alone and put your self and would joyn me with you but that I will not in their place saying the Promise is upon account of Faith in your own person and not in your Parents True now you are a grown man the promise will be and must be accounted to you upon the Faith in your person as to the vertue efficacy and effects of the promise Now you are become a man you must put away Childish things as the Apostle saith 1 Cor. 13.11 to which purpose onely your Texts are out of Habakkuk and John where Justification and everlasting life are set upon the account of Faith in a mans own person speaking of such onely as are grown to be tall proper men like your self able to account and give a reason of them But why did you single out John 3.36 where the words of the Prophet Habakkuk are not repeated and bauk those other Texts in the Margent Rom. 1.17 Gal. 3.11 and Heb. 10.38 in all which the very words of the Prophet The just shall live by his own Faith are repeated and applyed is it to shew in your own person that light is come into the world and men love darkness more than light you turned onely to John for Name sake out of self-love yet
this sanctification of the believing consort which I put off again from him to you now you ascribe unto him and others and that rightly a foederal holiness to be held of them as meant by the Apostle and if you can and will shew me who hold with him the same foederal holiness that it is not meant but only a legitimal holiness I will be your lawful Atturney to follow this matter in your name and moreover your confederate friends But if I can and shall shew you who with the others of your Sect hold only a Legitimal holiness that it is not here meant but only a foederal holiness then you shall be my confederate friend and moreover my lawful Atturny to prosecute this business in my name it is agreed begin you first so you have already but not to prove any thing either for your holiness of legitimation or against our holiness of federality and thus you say If it be a federal holiness you desire to know whether any of the seed of Abraham or David did enjoy any priviledge of the Church upon any such account without or before they had a commaund for it ware they Circumcised or did they eate the paschal Lambe before they had a commaund for it What! still more rattling without reasoning and prattling without pressing I would you were as desirous to know as here you pretend you would then soon know that your desire to know is not a refuting of what others know nor is your putting forth a Quaere a putting down of our Answer of the foederal holiness of children But what do you desire to know whether any of the seed of Abraham or David did enjoy any privilege of the Church upon any such account of the Covenant you must mean without or before they had a command for it yes Sir all the seed of Abraham did enjoy this holiness they were a holy seed and people unto God because of the Covenant of God made with them and so were a peculiar people and privileged Church before and without a command as for your instance which you bring for proof were they Circumcised or did they eat the paschal Lamb be fore they had a Commaund for it it is as pittiful a proof as the instance is impertinent for our discourse is about holiness from or under the Covenant and your return upon it is about Circumcission and the paschal Lamb the Seals of the Covenant from and under command so according to the proverb whilest we ask the question of Onione you make answer of Garlick other impertinent instances And the proof is as pittiful for though we should grant it that none were Cir. cumcised or did eat the Paschal without or before a Commandement yet were they holy by vertue of Gods Covenant without and before that Commandement yea before and without their being Circumcised all the seven daies before they came under the Seal they enjoyed that Church-privilege of holiness and were holy from the very Womb and birth and some also sanctified in the Womb yea why not all there saederally holy being the seed of faithful Parents and so the seed of David because you mention it the child that died the seventh day and so a day before Circumeifion enjoyed the same Church-privilege of holiness from the Covenant otherwise David could not nor would have said I shall go to it declaring his hopeful assurance of its happiness and being with God from its birth-birth-Covenant holiness knowing that no unclean or unholy thing can enter into Heaven 2 Sam. 12.23 I deny not but children of the Jews were holy also by Circumcision the Seal of the Covenant which was commanded them but they were holy too before that by the Covenant of Grace which was promised them and to argue from their signal or Sacramental holiness to the denial of their foederal or Covenantal holiness when as children have both holinesseâ— is to strain or winde up one bow-string to the snapping asunder of the other bow-string when a man hath two strings to his bow But it seems you would have a command also for childrens holiness by Covenant do you make so little account of Gods holy Covenant as it children upon that account of their entrance and being in Covenant with God could not or should not be accounted holy is Gods Commandement only able to joy them of a Church-privilege and to make them enjoy it and not Gods Covenant and Promise when as the Commandement of God for the holy Seal to be annexed is but a branch of the Promise or Covenant of God and the Covenant goeth before the command and is as a first step or forerunner precedent of holiness as I may so say unto children The first holy Church-privilege is the Promise and Covenant it self and the next is the Seals of the Covenant Holiness is more intrinsical to the Covenant and more extrinsical to the Seal as manifesting a discrimination and difference of holy people from prophane and heathenish so that children of believers may be both waies holy in their order and times but primarily and principally holy by Covenant I will be thy God and the God of thy seed are the words and tenour of the Covenant and Promise and they ar eof force and efficacy to pronounce and make holy both father and children that are taken thereinto yea more because I am willing to give you full satisfaction in all your queres and quirkes there is a Commandement also for childrens holiness in those words though they belong to a part of the Covenant interwoven with them Thou shalt be my people thou shalt be a holy Nation a holy seed whereupon the Apostle Rom. 9.4 being to prove the holy privileges of the Church and Nation of the Israelites saith that to them pertaineth the Adoption the Covenants or Testament the giving of the Law the service of God and the Promises and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came all which and especially the Covenant and Promises were sanctifying Ordinances to the Parents and their seed But I hasten to an end and will give over spending my precious time about your nifles and trifles only I cannot but observe you speaking of children and their holiness how you joyn together their being Circumcised and their eating the paschal Lamb and both by a Commandement Take heed what you say children of the Jews did they eat of the paschal Lamb by Commandement of God I shall be ready to give you a fir caution lest you give occasion to a foul notion First therefore be sure of your Commandement to have it in a readiness to shew shew it now and then it willb e in more readiness I have read over the whole institution of the Passeover and cannot finde a syllable of such a command for nor a footstep of such an example of children eating of the paschal Lamb It may be you may finde some tuch thing au-ongst the Rabbins and Doctors of the Synagogues but you I suppofe
Gentiles that are in Covenant with God and enjoy the Ordinances of his grace and mercy do also by vertue of Gods Promise I will be thy God and the God of thy seed convey to their issue and posterity a state and privilege and so rather it is the joynt Covenant made by God with both together the Parent and his issue and posterity to be reputed of a holy and clean society and Congregation before God from the other Pagan and heathenish world and so the child or children born of such Parents in Covenant to be truly holy like as the Parent because of the Covenant Not that insants have any real personal qualitative holiness in them which is and must be in all true believers whither Parents or children to make them acceptable to God as to justification and Salvation whom I confess though born within the Church and of believing Parents to be born in sin naturally and be unclean children of wrath by nature as well as others the children of Pagans without the Church But I say they have a federal and parental so it may be called by a savory mouth and relative or imputative holiness put upon them by the Covenant of God and brought forth or executed on them by or at their birth of believing Parents which is sufficient and enough to make them passe in the eyes of God and in the face of the visible Church for clean and holy or if not their professions of the faith of Christ for you will not deny them to be professors of Christ and members of the Church in part and in kinde at leastwise by the mouth of their Sureties presenting them and speaking for them this will bear them out to be holy likewise And what if I should tell you in your ear that Christian infants in Covenant with God are holy too by an inward holiness also are not all inward sanctifying graces effects of Gods Covenant and who knoweth when God as where he effects them you perhaps would stop that ear cry out Then grace which onely maketh holy cometh successively and is derived by nature and Parents shall be the authors and conveighers of grace and holiness to their children No such matter Sir For the children are primitively holy with the Parents by the Covenant as co-partners and confederates with them therein I will be thy God and the God of thy seed not derivatively holy from the Parents as solely or first partners and prefederates without these Christian Parents and children are both joynt confederates I say and do both draw and derive together their holiness as other privileges from the Covenant and Tenour of grace therein and not successively from one another children from Parents derivatively as you fondly fansie to your self and erroniously imagine The which truth may also serve much to clear off those cloudy difficulties so much pressed by the Anabaptistical party from the Jesuitical side about infants being Baptized sanctified saved by the faith of their Parents as they use to blate and bâ—â—e abroad You like enough before you will believe any holiness in them would have them shew some such thing either in words before they can speak and whilest they are infants that is nonfants or indeed before they have any idoneity of instruments and ability to act Have patience a while and you may hear them speak the words and see them do some acts of holiness What! are you so sensual all for sense and so altogether lead by sense that nothing but a sensative or sensible manifestation of holiness in children will be believed by you I had thought you had walked by faith and not by sight you believe a holiness in other things in Faith in the Word in the Sacraments in the Church of God and in all things which the holy Scriptures the oracles of holiness have pronounced holy though you have not a visible and sensible demonstration of holiness in them you walk by faith there and not by fight and why cannot you believe a holiness in children of Christian Parents in Covernant with God though they shew forth no sensible effects of such holiness seeing also the same holy Scripture doth call them holy and not unclean and so supplying their defect of speech and action giveth you what you ask even a sensible manifestation of their holiness and speaks them holy unto your ears not declares them holy to your eyes so you may now walk by sight and hear say not by faith and hope limping and halting therein for except you shall see in their hands and tongues the prints of holiness in works and words and perhaps thrust your fingers into their fides to feel the holiness of their hearts too in affections and thoughts you will not believe What and if our Saviour Christ should now as once take one of our little children in Covenant with him and set it before you and say whosoever humbleth himself as a little child the same is greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven would it not be strange for you to tell him you see no such yet you hear of such humility lowliness meakness mildness innocency in children and is it not a like to tell him you see no such holiness here when you hear of it from the mouth of Christ his and this Apostle Paul here saying They are holy But that I have said it before and already I would say that even children shew themselves more bumble lowly meek mild and innocent and so more holy than a great many of your grown Professors and grand Pretenders unto holiness and all those graces let their holiness and other graces rest but a while as seed hidden up in their hearts or wrapped up in Gods Covenant with them and see if afterwards they do not shew it and their holiness break not forth as the light at noon day that was within the cloud or as the seed in harvest that was within the clod and in the mean time shew me thy faith by thy works and thy holiness by thy words and learn to speak better of childrens holiness and to do better with children for their holiness even so well as to let them be Baptized But besides this in hand there are two eminent Texts that hold out infants of Christians their holiness by Covenant the one is Rom. 11.16 If the first fruit be holy the lump also is holy and if the root be holy so are the branches I know the stream of our Divine Advocates for Infant-Baptism run altogether and out of this Text upon a derivative holiness from the Parents or Ancestors to their children which notwithstanding they call and make a federal holiness I am not willing in my old and infirm daies to strive or swim against a stream onely I will be bold to venture and wade so far as to hint again and mention unto those akilful steersmen now especially that the waters of strife about Infant-Baptism are risen high
3. The case of necessity in state of Person I scarce understand unless it be this When as he or she earnestly desireth and imploreth for the same whether by its speech or its need and there is no Minister to give it Baptism here the Lord will have mercy and not sacrifice and men are not to stand upon this ordination but the persons salvation Let but your Brother or your self stay and expect such cases of necessity before you or he dip any more or baptize again and then though you be not nor he set a part for the administring that Ordinance but are meer Lay men you shall hear nothing from me against the same I assure you But if in a well ordered and already planted and constituted Church and that when there are no such cases or states of necessity but that lawfully ordained Ministers may easily be procured you and your Brethren will go on still to dip and baptize and that publiquely being no better ordered or set a part then you have related I shall say though again Ye take too much upon you ye sons of Gad for I shall not hold you of the Tribe of Levi Num. 16.7 or Issachar rather couching down between two burthens Genes 49.14 your Laical and Ministerial Callings And it shall come to pass as Zacharias saith Zach. 13.4 5. that such Prophets shall be ashamed every one of his vision which he hath prophesied and every one of his Division that he hath made and set a partition yea of his Dipping also that he hath ministred and Baptisin and he shall say and confess at last I am no Prophet I am an Husbandman for man taught me to keep cattel from my youth God never ordained me to dip Christians from my birth Distinctly Take this a Presbyter or Priest in respect of his Ministerial Character and Order I mean onely a sacerdotal gift power and commission is primarily and principlally the publick and ordinary minister of Baptism A Deacon may baptize also and that publikely so it be at the appointment of the Bishop or Priest but a Priest by his own right may baptize ex officio as we say by vertue of his sacerdotal office even in the presence of a Bishop But a Layman may not baptize publickely but onely privately neither privately in the presence of a Priest or Deacon but onely in their absence neither alwayes in their absence but onely in case of necessity Then it hath been permitted according to the good old way and new way also of true Churches some such times to Laymen to baptize so he intend to do that which the Catholick Church doth in that kind of administration The second Catechistical Quaere is concerning the Persons Dipped Quaere 2. What warrant of precept or example have you from the Sacred Word or Prim tive Antiquity for your Dipping and Anabapâ—izâ—ng Christians washed before or members of the visible Church baptized once in their Infancy by lawful Ministers so as the two Women and Sisters were whom your Brother Dipped Ask now of the days that are past which were before since the day that God created man and woman upon Earth and commanded circumcision in the eldest Chruch of the Jews and appointed Baptism in the younger Church of the Gentiles ask from the beginning to the end of both whether there hath been any such thing as this that a person circumcised or baptized in their infancy were ever recircumcised or rebaptized at growth or yeras after when they could render a Reason or make confession of their Faith c. Instance in one if you can and be instant upon it as you will and is not then your dipping the formerly dipped a new business As for that example of Joshua upon Gods command Circumcise again the children of Israel the second time Jos 5.2 This doth not intimate any Repetition or Reiteration of that Sacrament in or to the same particular Israelitish person circumcised as if he should be now circumcised again but onely relates the Restauration and Renovation of that Sacrament unto the people of Israel in general amongst whom Circumcision was a long while intermitted and discontinued by reason of their frequeut yea continual journals and removings up and down as the 4 5 6 Verses do evidence the same As for that Acts 19.5 of St. Pauls practise the example of the Ephesian Disciples in the Acts it is abundantly answered in my Instruction of your Scribe to which I refer you and I add this for a plainer and shorter Resolution for you 1. That it maketh nothing for your Re-dipping and Re-baptizing 1. Because St. John's Baptism being there spoken of and you or your Sect being Popish in your opinion of Re-baptizing and so holding from hence that the Baptism of John and Christ are two different Baptisms and that in the substance and not onely in the Degree of their signification and efficacy Here was no iterat on of one and the same but the ministration of a diverse Baptism and so is not to your or my purpose 2 For that there is no Baptism of water spoken of much less there laid to be reiterated that the Ephesian Disciples had long before received from some of Johns Disciples but onely the Baptism of Fire i.e. of the Spirit and the miraculous gifts of the same is there mentioned which they confess they had not so much as heard of namely that they unsually as then accompanied the other Baptism of water And so that the former was that they were baptized with and was poured upon them there in the Name of Jesus namely the gifts of the holy Spirit which were miraculous If you shall produce as somewhat you must say for your selves the example of Saul Cornelius and the Eunuch baptized in their elder years upon their conversion to and cofession of Christ and the commands of God to Ananias Peter and Philip c. to baptize them thereupon All this and as much more which you might have alledged of the same sort brings no advantage to your practice no age to your new business of Rebaptising the second time for that the mentioned above were their first and onely baptizings they being some of them Pagans born others aliens from the Covenant of Christ adverse and opposite to ignorant at leastwise of the Christian Faith were then frist of all baptized upon their embracing of it and never after baptized again No not the Black Aethiopian amongst them was ever dipped the second time And what is all this to your Redipping of two Women baptized before in their infancy as being born Christians and within the Covenant of Grace and Christ Yea more if the Pope of Rome should come over into England and turn Protestant or become one of your Sect a separate nor we would nor should you of right baptize him again having been baptized before rightly as to the Element and Words of Institution Therefore the Ancient Orthodox Church never Re-baptized Hereticks themselves upon their
return and reversion to the Faith who were before baptized nor the children of Professors though baptized by Hereticks or heretical Ministers if rightly according to the Ordinance but rather condemned it and pronounced it a Heresie to hold it or to practise so a Rebaptization For the Sacrament of the Eucharist there is a Quotiescunque it should be received as oft of the same Person as may be conveniently for that our growth and augmentation in grace ought to be daily and continually whereof the Eucharist is the Sacrament But I never read of above a semel of the Sacrament of Baptism that it should be received above once of the same person because our Spiritual Birth and incision into Christ is but once whereof Baptism is the Sacrament The thing is acted but once and therefore is signified but once I acknowledge indeed that it is no where expresly written that baptism should not be irerated and received the second time so it s no where said there are three Persons of the Deity though the word of persons is no in sacred Writ yet the will of God about the things signified by the Word is revealed and expressed in the same So the Will of God that baptism should not be iterated and once baptized should not be re-baptized or baptized the second time appears partly out of what I have alledged 1. That Circumision was never iterated none ever circumcised twice and Baptism succeeds Circumcision 2. That there is mention made of an Iteration or often Receiving the Lords Supper but not a syllable of Intimation there or elsewhere of the like of Baptism 3. That in the very Place and Scripture where Christ instituted Baptism which yet had been the very proper place for it there is no order at all for re-baptizing or iterating baptism 4. That among all the many examples of persons baptized There is not one recorded to have been re-baptized no not Simon the Sorcerer nor Demas the Revolter not one of the Cormthians nor of the Galathians relapsed but onely were called upon to Return to the Grace of the Covenant sealed in their first Baptism by Repentance and Faith I suppose the grand reason of your re-dipping and re-baptizing in elder age is this for that you hold your first dipping and baptizing to be vain Invalide frustrate which was transacted in your infancy for so one of your Sect told me the other day that when he was a Child he was Christened but he was then also but cozened As I warned him so I wish you to take heed unto your wayes that you offend not in your tongue or thought so as in either of them to reproach the Living God or blaspheme his holy and effectual Baptism by thinking and calling this a Cozenage and him a Mocker Did God cozen the whole Church and People of Israel when he appointed and commanded their children even but of eitht days old to be circumcised how then doth he cozen the Church and people of the Gentils in our Infants baptized seeing baptism is the Circumcision made without hands Col. 2.11 Nay seeing both Circumcision and Baptism are the signs and seals of that one and the same Everlasting Covenant of Grace they neither are nor can be any cozenage or frustrate things to the right Partakers of them until they be frustrated by themselves the Partakers as by Esau was his birth-right and also his circumcision and them God is rather mocked and cozened then a Mocker and Cozener but they are valide and of force to the spiritual good ends and purposes of either and therefore being rightly once imprinted are of vigour and vertue of frait and efficacy during life and so long as the Covenant lasteth which is everlasting as I said and so need not to be repeated and reiterated but are often to be revolved and revived in our mindes memories and meditation and the Tenor of the Covenant daily to be studied and practised and the Conditions thereof on our part to be observed and performed accordingly Rather your self Sir and your two Sisters were cozeded and cheated and never so much in all your lives as when you renounced that your first Christian Infant baptism and received this your second novel youthful Dippism Nor can that be any good reason of your re-dipping or rebaptizing your defect of Faith in the time of your Infancy or sithence days of age your Eccess of sins such as have vacated the gracious Covenant and vitiated a good Conscience For you must consider that the Covenant is sealed in Baptism or Baptism is added to the Covenant on Gods part as well as mans God promising there Grace and Eternal life and man stipulating for Faith and new Obedience Though therefore you might or did fly from the performance of your Promise by Hypocrisie or Apostasie and upon such default on your part lost your right and claim of eternal life God notwithstanding stood and standeth still firm to his Promise on his part as who never breaketh Covenant with any nor ever loseth his right to any party baptized by any default made on his side These things if they be true as they are most true God being not as man that be should change and alter to what purpose was it that you should or did entâ—r anew into a Covenant with God and reiterate the seal thereof Baptism and so be rebaptized and re-dipped which was but will-worship of yours fruitless and a tradit on of men needless no where commanded you of God no where exemplified to you by the men of God the Saints This rather you should have done as that one and onely necessary thing you should have repented of your evil ways and works and so have returned unto God in Covenant already and still with you sealed in your Infant-Baptism though forfeited on your part yet not released on Gods part This you should have earnestly pleaded with God confessing your sins and by Faith firmly embracing it through Christ your Advocate and Mediatour Thus you would have set your former Baptism on work and your self too in performing the conditions thereof and so you should have recovered and received all the fruits and benefits of the Covenant of Grace sealed to you by Baptism in your Infancy This every where in Scripture do the Prophets call upon Covenant-breakers on their part and his revolting and relapsed people to repent and to return to their first Covenant with God sealed in their Circumcision not to any re-circumcision as you may see Jeremy 3.1 12. Hos 2.7 and 6.1 And so the Apostle cals to the Corinthians and the Galathians who were far gone from God yea fain from Grace not to put off their old baptism and to put on a new but to put off the old man and to put on the new to Repent of sin and to return to the Grace of the Covenant to perform the condition of their baptism and to grow up in the fruits of the Spirit minding them
good old Way into a new by and bad path from the publick Ministery or Steeple-houses be it so to private mysteries or smokeries rather of their Chimney-houses from your first true Baptism at a Font. to a second vain Dippism in a Pond They have been rather instrumental to your Confusion then your Conversion Yea I say further God doth not use them the Anabaptists as Anabaptists andtheir doctrine as any ordinary means or instruments of his to the Converting fouls to the Faith and Truth I promised to give you a Particular of them and their Doctrines and this it is wherein they differ from us and have forsaken the Truth of our Church and the Word of God and which doth denominate and constitute an Anabaptist They reject all Infant-baptism renouncing their own Baptism they took in Infancy and therefore Re-baptize themselves and others and keep their children from Baptism till years of discretion and ability of profession and so in a manner deny the Seal of the Covenant of Grace to Infants with whom also God hath entred into it saying I will be thy God and the God of thy seed They hold all stinted and set forms of prayer unlawful to be used in Church or House and even so also the Lords prayer That there is no distinction betwixt Clergy and Laity That the taking of Oaths before or by the Authority of a Magistrate is unlawful That the office of a Magistrate is neither lawful nor necessary with abundance more for why should I stir the whole dunghil to infect the Air of coherent and coincident Errors and Lyes as the Prophetical Scriptures call them Are such Teachers and Tenets like to pluck you out of your wicked wayes and to bring you to the knowledge of the Truth whether private or publick who hang so fast in the Bushes and Thickets of Errors and stick so deep in the Bushes and Thickets of Erros and stick so deep in the mire of Vices dipt in both up to the chin and mouth yea over head and ears especially seeing such were never called or sent about the work of Converting souls to either For my part I am of Paul and I am of Jeremiah and so should you be of both too the Apostle and the Prophet But first I am of Paul the Apostle who saith indeed Faith cometh by hearing for how shall they believe in whom they have not heard But it is hearing of a Preacher for how shall they hear without a Preacher And it is of a Preacher sent for how shall they preach except they be sent The Apostle is clear of the opinion that onely sent Preachers who have Mission and Commission from God can bring hearers to the Faith and seems to wonder at those in his vehement and frequent Interrogatories who say or think otherwise This Text I may call Faiths Clymax or Ladder with its steps and gradations which none of your Lay-brethren could ever yet climbe up to or come down by if they begin at the lower end as they ought being the ground and foundation of the work and so offer to go and climbe up they mâ—ss of their first step and footing because they are not sent and so must climbe no farther or higher for want of Mission they cannot go up the Ladder in the Right way of preaching and begetting faith in the Hearers or your self And if they begin at the upper end and top of this Ladder as indeed presumptuously they use to do and heap to themselves at first a multitude of Hearers and so come down along to their preaching yet they fall off the Ladder at the lower staffe or step again because still they be not sent and so can do no missive or ministerial good upon their Hearers nor your self as to Faith It is Gods great mercy to them and you that they cast not themselves down head-long or that they are not cast down by him that took them up into the Pulpit and set them on that Pinnacle of the Temple to the breaking of their necks as well as making shipwrack of Faith for they tempt the Lord their God and are not in their wayes which words must not be left out by you as they are left out by the devils citing of that Text and therefore God hath given his Angels no charge over them being out of their wayes to bear them in their armes or hands that they dash not their foot against the stones Yea they do dash not onely their feer but their tongues also against the stone the Head-stone of the corner which these builders refuse in ascending Pulpits or stepping into chairs and preaching without his sending or Commissioning them according to his Prerogative given unto him of which this is a part All power is given me in Heaven and in Earth as my Father hath sent me so send I you Mat. 28.18 19. John 20.2 So also I am of Jeremiah who is so frequent and fervent in the point that I shall onely name the Texts and make the proofs out of all together Jer. 14.14 23.32 21. 27.14 28.8 9. where I observe that six or seven times the Lord by the Prophet saith that he sent them not and thereupon it 's said thrice they prophesied lyes once otherwise then the word is once deceits and dreams once their Errors and lightness false visions and divinations things of naught and the deceits of their own hearts enough one would think to keep off people from hearing of them and yet in plain terms therefore they are forbidden thrice to hearken to them or their words And if for all this they will be hearing of them as they have now very itching ears and give themselves much to hearing new men as news-men the Prophet tells and foretels them more plainly They shall do no good on it at the 32. verse of the 23. Chapter I sent them not nor commanded them Therefore they shall not profit this people at all saith the Lord. Hear you this Sir and hearken to this all ye separate people of England those of God unsent uncommanded Preachers false Teachers of the Anabaptistical separation for are they not so that teach you the Doctrines and Practices I have particularized but even now and now may assimilate unto the lyes dreams deceits vain visions of those false Prophets those false Teachers of the Anabaptisticall separation I say nay saith the Lord shall not profit you at all therefore they have not nor any Grace of God appearing in by or from them for God doth not give Converting ministerial Grace to them whom he doth not send nor Commission them plucked you or any of our people nor shall pluck them or you from your wicked wayes to the knowledge of the Truth for this is and will be a great deal of profit they have not turned and converted you or any of our people nor shall unto the Faith and unto God for this is and will be the greatest profit of all that can be You
say they have converted you and so say some others I am sure and done you much good to your souâ— which you have said you would commit to them and trust them with a very foolish almost blasphemous speech if you said it And God faith here they shall not profit you at all and therefore do you no good either in soul and body as to Conversion and Salvation whom shall I believe God or you whom do you believe God or your self Gods true prediction or your own false suggestion Come come Sir Let God be true and every man a lyer Rom. 3.4 as it is written also for so your self and every other man that saith he hath profited in soul unto Salvation or Conversion by these unsent and unordained Preachers of the separation when as God saith such shall not profit the people at all by their Anabaptistical Doctrines and Preachings Mistake me not I am not against the profit that may come even from them to you or others by mutual and fraternal conferences exhortations admonitions supplications so long as their words be seasoned with the falt of Truth and Grace and be good to the use of edifying and your selves have your senses exercised to discern both good and evil and be able to try and prove all things and hold to that which is good for so God hath allowed and approved of it and profit may come upon it Col. 3.16 1 Thes 5.11 But this from Gods Word I hold That an usurped publick taking upon them the cure of souls without Commission as teaching Anabaptists do in a manner yea upon the matter of the fraternity and sorority within their limits and also their dispensing and dividing the mysteries of the Word and Seals of the Sacraments without a lawful sending ordination and separation thereto and that in a rightly constituted and planted Church where there is a power of order and degrees and a settled or fixed Ministery will be of no profit and benefit to you or the people as to Faith and Conversion that wait and attend onely upon such a service or Ministery if I may so call it For now lift up your eyes and look on the fields are they white unto the Harvest since people left praying that God would send Husbandmen into his work and Laborers into his Vineyard and since people have left coming to and attending upon their own painful preaching Ministers and have betaken themselves to the hearing of self-intruding peakers which were none of Gods calling or sending are they not rather smutched and smitten with blasting and mildew with pride haughtiness malice variance rancour envy fraudulency covetousness lying defamation hypocrisies impuâ—ities more then ever they were and compassed about of late with such a dark cloud of Satans witnesses and his Emissaries every where transforming themselves into Angels of New light no better then darkness Besides the Schisms in the Churches of God and destractions of mens minds the contempts of Gods Ordinances the broaching of Errors and Heresies the Rapines Sacriledges and Massacres that have been committed the slighting of Laws and Civil Magistrates the uprising of bloody Wars and throwing down of Order and Proprieties Insurrection and Rebellion And now Sir I return to you again to whom I have a sixth thing to acquaint you with and then I shall take my leave and subscribe a friendly farewel to you § Sixthly What shall I say more to you of these men for that indeed a notable change and alteration hath been wrought in you is manifest to all them that dwell here abouts and we cannot deny it my self as I have said rejoyce at it yea and the Angels in Heaven rejoyce over one sinner that repenteth and converteth truly and sincerely This therefore I will say even the same still that you do That the Grace of God appeared plucking you out of your wicked wayes to the knowledge of the Truth But I ask as St. Paul doth Gal. 2.3 This onely would I hear and know of you Received you the Spirit by the works of the Law or by the hearing of the Faith so received you this Grace or your Conversion of being pluckt out of yoru evil wayes to the knowledge of the Truth from the Word preached by your Brethren of the separation or from the Word preached by my self or other ordained Ministers I have proved before that unsent Teachers and Preachers shall not and cannot profit you with their Doctrines especially being not of God and his Word and therefore they have not wrought any such thing in you by their Doctrines and that you could not cannot attain and therefore have not attained to Faith but by hearing of a sent and ordained Preacher and the Word of God by him Again received you this Grace of God or your Conversion and plucking out of your evil wayes from the Spirit of God in and by your last Dippism or your first Baptism not in and by your last dipping at Laver for this requireth Conversion and Faith and Profession of it before you can be partaker of it you must bring these with you already wrought to your dipping your dipping doth not work them at that time but presupposeth them so I cannot call your dipping a Laver of Regeneration but a Generation of I know not what at Laver or a degeneration Besides I have shewed this your dipping which is but a Re-baptizing at the best to be a humane device yea Heretical practise so esteemed and for such condemned of the Churches of God throughout all Ages and therefore it can be no means or instrument of God and his Grace to pluck you from your wicked wayes to the knowledge of the Truth Whither now Sir will you go as Hos 2.7 so is yur case She shall follow after her Lovers but she shall not overtake them and she shall seek them but shall not finde them then shall she say I will go and return to my first Husband for then was it better with me then now Follow not therefore after those your Suitors and Solicitors rather your inveiglers and beguilers that rather have tempted your spiritual chastity and attempted also somewhat upon your body but come and return to your first Husband Christ Jesus and your first Covenant of Grace sealed unto you in your first Baptism from which as from the Fountain hath issued out all other Grace of God appearing to you sithence and even that plucking you out from your wicked wayes and bringing you to the knowledge of the Truth through his dispensing his word and your hearing the same of Gods Ministers sent to that purpose and through the operation of his Spirit stirring up the Grace of God in you and the Grace of the same sanctifying your afflictions and last sickness and fears and other things that have befallen you She did not know that her first Husband gave her Corn and Wine and Oyl and multiplyed her silver and gold which they prepared for Baal Hos 2.8 or as in the
you have done fighting with the Papists that we are agreed about them two to be but one and the same baptism I could tell you that the Apostle here writing to the Hebrews alluded to their old Legal Washings Ablutions and Baptismes minding them of thens but wishing them withall to lay them by and mind the one Evangelical baptism and the sprinkling of Christs blood the which they did but typifie or look at So still but one baptism I could tell you that the baptismes here meant are those I must speak three words more of Human Latine for the words sake because of the elegancy of them Fluminis Flaminis Songuinis But I will turn them into divine English words for yoru sake of Water Fire Blood For there as I said before is an outward baptism which is the washing of the flesh with Water by the Minister and there is an inward baptism which is washing of the Soul with the blood of Christ by the Holy Ghost these are baptismes indeed and here meant but in all Gods true Children they meet in one baptism and they come from God as one baptism entirely made up of these two sorts the outward and inward for that baptism which is of blood mentioned by Christ and mentioned to his two Disciples are ye able to be baptised with the baptism I am baptised with and resolved for them ye shall indeed be baptised with such baptism Matth. 20.22 It is nothing but a constant suffering and conflicting in Christs cause even unto Blood and the suffering of Martyrdom for his sake But I will call in again for Beza whom as before I stiled an interpreter of Luke and that Text Acts 19.5 according to his heart Though he confessed he learned the interpretation of Marnixius so here also I may stile him an interpreter of Luke again and of this Text Heb. 6.2 according to his heart the which interpretation also he learned of Calvin who saith to this purpose an interpreter of those Apostles and Prophets he commented upon according to their hearts though here Beza doth not acknowlege so much There was a right and Custom in the Church Primitive of administring many baptismes upon certain set dayes which set dayes were after appoynted to be Easterday and Whitsunday especially when many Catehumens and New Converts were wont to meet together for baptism These therefore were called Dayes of Baptismes as appears out of the writings of the Antient both Greeks and Latines so still it was but one and the same baptism was conferred upon every one though called baptismes because so many received baptism together upon one day like as sometime in London six seaven and more Children partake of baptism together at one time And now Sirs are you Masters in Israel and know not these things are you Dippers and know not these Baptismes and wheras for the time ye ought not to be Teachers for that ye have need that one Teach you which be the first Principles of the doctrine of Christ learn that this doctrine of Baptismes is the third of them the principles and that it containeth nothing of two Baptismes our baptising Christians born in their infancy and your baptising Christians born in their grown age and least of all for your rebaptising our baptised Infants when you have made them your Proselytes upon a confession of Faith What though our Children be baptised in ignorance of God they are yet baptised in Covenant with God if that be a reason with you they must be dipt again and rebaptised when they come to knowledge why were not the Apostles so when better instructed who were ignorant of the Messias and his kingdom the death the resurrection of Christ will you put your self Sir or your learned Dippers themselves upon the tryall and if you be found ignorant of divers principles of the doctrine of Christ and even fundamental poynts will you be instructed and Redipped Alasse Sirs if as often as God shall shew you the errors of your Minds and the enormities of your lives you must be dipping redipping dripping redripping every Year Moneth and Day No there is another baptism to be used in these cases eyē the washing the soul with the tears of repentance dip re-dip drip re-drip in these and renew your repentance dayly With what a bold face high hand dare you Sir be either dipt your self now twice as I hear or be a dipper of others again as you intend of those whom you have inveigled seduced away into your Scism Heresie being before rightly validly baptised is not this a multiplying so a vilifying of that ōe baptism What example have you in all the Word of God of any Infant Jew re-circumcised when he came to an ability of professing Faith and will you tempt God to put a yoak upon the neck of the Disciples of Christ which neither our Fathers nor we were able to bear Telling us it is needful to baptise baptised Christistians again when they come to be believers whē it was not needful yea sinful to circumcise Jewes circumcised when they came to be the like Even when Ziphorah a Woman had circumcised her child Exod. 4. Moses himself allowed it for good and lawfull and never did he or any other iterate that circumcision in present or afterwards upon the profession of its faith and when any went over from being Samaritans who worshipped they knew not what as who knew not Jesus Christ to become Jews John 4. or came over to Christ and to the faith of him none of them were ever baptised again as Beleevers Your duplicate of baptism doth not only oppose the one and single baptism of the Apostle but brings Christans under a Tax and layeth a new yoak upon their necks as I said before Besides To be baptised is to be born anew into the Church no man naturally can be twice or often born every Nicodemus can say Can he enter the second time into his Mothers Womb and be born Iohn 3. Why then twice baptised being once baptised sufficiently and truly By baptism Children are admitted into the heavenly society of Saints and no man civilly can be adopted often into any ones stock or family Genesis 48. Ephraim and Manasses were but once adopted and assumed by Iacob into his stock for his Children and why then twice baptised When of Married Persons one forsakes another returns again into Love both are reconciled they do not enter into a new conjugal Covenant by any solemne Celebration of new espousals because the first conjunction stands firm the reconciliation made The baptism of Christians is as the celebration of the Contract betwixt them and Christ the Bridegroom when such a one through open abnegation or other hainous sins departing away from Christ returns again with and by a serious repentance there will be no need of being baptised again and so a new sealing of that Covenant which being once entred into is still