and such pernicious effects following that people think therefore they are Christians because baptized which opinion of theirs is confirmed by Mr. Bs. words For they are visible Christians that are baptized into the name of Christ if they have not since by word or workes renounced him and rest therein and are thereby held in carnal presumption we ought rather to think those that maintain infant-baptisme play the Devils part which expressions of mine being added the vanity of Mr. Bs. arguings will appear That which he hath page 178. that it is no more thankes to me then to Satan that I keep not God from making promise to his people which intimates I would do it if it were in my power for if there be no more thanks to me then Satan it is because there 's no more hindrance in me from doing it then in Satan̄ and so the same will is a suggestion that exceedes all moderation as if Mr. B. were bent not onely to rake up all the dirt he can to cast in my face but also to put an ill construction on all I say My answer was a faire answer to a virulent charge In 2. senses I conceived it might be said that Infants are disputed out of the Covenant of Christ the one as if my dispute made Christ not Covenant to them the other as if it made them not Covenant to Christ. I said neither was true What saies Mr. B. 1. Election is not a Covenant Nor did I say it was And then addes nor are they in Covenant because elected which speech is most false contrary to Rom. 9. 8. where the children of the promise is all one with the Elect as the Analysis shewes as may be seene in the Authors cited by me in my Examen part 3. sect 4. Besides whom more may be produced I will add two now Mr. Rutherfurd in that piece of his which is the exactest of his workes Exercit Apol. 2. c. 2. num 7. Soli electi dicuntur in Scripturis foederati filii haeredes promissionis Rom. 9. 8. The elect alone are said in the Sctiptures to be in Covenant children and heires of the promise Rom. 9. 8. and Mr. Norton in resp ad Apollon c. 2. pag. 30. Objectum foederis gratiae sunt soli electi The object of the Covenant of Grace are the elect alone Next he saith that I deny that God Covenanteth with our infants to be their God in Christ and to take them to be his peculiar people which is the Covenant he formerly made with infants and which he now affirmes What he affirmes distinctly I cannot well tell he doth so confusedly expresse himself in his bookes He distinguished between an absolute and a conditional Covenant of Grace The absolute he saies belongs onely to the elect but this he will not be thought to meane when he speakes of infants of believers being in Covenant or baptism's sealing of it yea he blames me often for so conceiving of him and page 223. he disputes against that tenet as my fifth error The conditional is a Covenant of justification and salvation upon-condition of faith this he saith is sealed by baptisme not the other and this he makes belonging to all the posterity of Adam elect and reprobate And this it seemes most likely he meanes when he speaks of infants of believers being in Covenant because it is that which baptisme seales and they that are in Covenant are to be sealed thereby But according to this conditional Covenaat either all are in Covenant with God whether elect or reprobate infants of believers or unbelievers or else none till they performe the condition which is faith and so not all infants of believers Mr. B. in his additions to the Saints everlasting rest part 3. sect 3. prop. 2. A conditional promise puts nothing in being till the performance of the condition nor gives any certainty but of such performance As for any Covenant of God or Christ besides these containing onely the promise of visible Church-membership or such like imagined priviledges in the New Testament to infants of Gentile believers I take to be a phantasme and when I come to examine Mr. Bs. opinion of infants visible Church-membership which I could not do till I had his book I doubt not to make it appear to be so that not one text he hath brought proves such a promise and that he hath not proved more to belong to infants by promise then I acknowledge and yet neither visible Church-membership nor right to baptisme in infancy ordinarily will follow thereon As for that he saith in general termes that I deny that God covenanteth with infants of believers to be their God in Christ and to take them to be his peculiar people is said like a Calumniator my words being so plaine to the contrary in that very place In a word I have said that the Covenant or promise of regeneration sanctification forgivenesse of sins adoption and eternal life is not made to all the natural children of the most godly believers no not of Abraham himself or to any barely because they are their children but because elect or believers in their own persons which Mr. M. and Mr. Geree in their answers to me confesse to be true as being expresly delivered Rom. 9. 8. and by the streame of Protestant writers maintained But I deny not that many infants of believers are in the Covenant of Grace nor dare I say that no infants of unbelievers are in the Covenant of Christ in this sense I onely say I neither know which of the one or the other are thus in the Covenant of Grace As for the arguings that he that denies Infants baptisme doth deny them to be in the Covenant of Grace they are built on these fancies that to be a seale of the Covenant of Grace is of the essence of baptisme that there is a certain connexion between being in the Covenant of Grace and right to be baptized which with other hypotheses of Paedobaptists I shall examine in my Review Mr. B. addes That I flatly deny infants Covenanting with God whereas my words were farre from such flat denial being onely these for my part I know not how any person should Covenant with Christ till he promise c. which were not such a peremptory or flat denial as Mr. B. saies they are and they are true it being against all experience that infants do so Covenant but on the contrary when they are baptized cry and shew their unwillingnesse as August lib. 1. de remiss et mer. pecc c. 23. flendo et vagiendo cùm in eis mysterium celebratur ipsis mysteriis vocibus obstrepunt Then Mr. B. saies I disswade parents from so engaging their children in Covenant and promising in their names which yet they ever did in the Church before Christ and it was their duty to do as Deut. 29. and other places shew But in which words I perswade parents not to do as he saies I do he
drink of that cup and this example 1 Cor. 10. 16 17. The cup of blessing which we blesse is it not the Communion of the blood of Christ the bread which we break is it not the Communion of the body of Christ For we being many are one body and one bread for we are all partakers of that one bread But for command or example that an ordained Presbyter onely should administer the Lords Supper by breaking bread c. let them that say there is shew it Mr. B. goes on But by this time you may see whither Mr. T. would reduce the Ministerial office 1. Others may baptize 2. And administer the Lords Supper 3. And then preaching is all or almost all that is left for he gives them far lesse in government than I do And how well he defended the Ministerial privilege of publique preaching in his disputes with Captain Bray is too well known And what need the people allow so much of their meanes then to maintain Ministers is not this next to the utter extirpation of them acoording to the doctrine of their learned Martin-Marpriest Answ. Pastors and Teachers or Presbyters to teach and govern the Church of God I am assured are a Divine institution and a very merciful gift of Christ Ephe. 4. 11 12 13. 1 Cor. 12. 28. Acts 14. 23. 1 Tim. 3. 1. Tit. 2. 5. to whom people should yield obedience Heb. 13. 17. and yield maintenance liberally 1 Cor. 9. 14. Gal. 6. 6. 1 Tim. 5. 17 18. If any go about to extirpate them let him be accursed as an enemy to Christ and his Church The railing bookes of Martin-Marpriest and such like on the one side and the slanderous books of Mr. Edwards Mr. Baillee c. on the other side I abhorre Yet I fear more danger to the Ministry by the pragmaticalnesse of the Ministers especially their meddling with State matters then either by Martin-Marpriests libels or my assertions Would Ministers keep to their studies and the work of Christ in preaching in season and out of season it would better establish their maintenance and Ministry then the asserting such a juridical government and power of dispensing the seales as they are called as they do I ascribe as much to the Ministry as the Scripture gives them Though the office of preaching whether publique or private be proper to the Minister so as to be his constant imployment and he ought not to be hindred in it sith he is to be accountable to God for it yet publique or private preaching I do not annex to ordained Presbyters as a peculiar priviledge to them so as none else may be said to be sent or called of God to preach in Scripture sense but they Notwithstanding what Mr. Thomas Hall in his Pulpit guarded or my quodam scholar and worthy friend Mr. Giles Workman in his better temper'd book intitled Private men no pulpit men have said I still conceive that not onely for trial of expectants but also upon other occasions persons not ordained may be permitted yea desired to preach in the pulpits I find these words in Bilsons Difference between Christian subjection and Antichristian rebellion part 4. Strangers also if they were in place were suffered both to teach and blesse in the Church as well as others that were tied to their cures by reason that many were sent by the Apostles and by the Holy Ghost to visite the Churches and comfort the Christians as they travailed and such were according to their knowledge and gift not onely permitted but also desired to exhort the people and to give thanks to God in other mens charges Grot. annot in Mat. 4. 23. Mansit is mos aliquandiu in Ecclesia Christiana ut concessu Episcoporum Scriptur as interpretarentur non presbyteri tantum aut diaconi sed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vide Eusebium qui Origenis aliorumque exemplo probat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spectant quae leguntur 1 Cor. 24. 19. Neverthelesse I am against the courses of many Souldiers and others who against the denial of able teachers to whom the teaching of the people is committed love to get into the pulpits of the ablest men to vent their peculiar conceits and oft-times their pernicious errors not reguarding to preach to the ignorant the clear truths of faith and a holy life in places where they have no Preacher but to new converts to pervert them and withdraw them from their able Teachers and to disquiet them and their congregations by frivolous exceptions And for this reason I was unwilling Captain Bray should preach at Bewdley when I was there and when he would preach and bent himself to assert a liberty to all that had Gods sanctifying spirit and could expresse their minds to take upon them to teach publiquely what 's the meaning of the Scripture and what doctrines are true and what false without any skill in arts yea though he taught error I did oppose him Which if it were not so skilfully and happily done as Mr. B. better acquainted with such mens way might have done yet me thinks my good will might have been accepted But I see very little I do is well taken and therefore see it necessary to wait patiently on God till my words and actions though intended for the furthering of reformation and good of the Ministry in my Examen part 2. sect 7 in my Apology and elsewhere be better resented and considered The fourth and fifth error Mr. B. chargeth me with as dangerous and the root of my error about baptism will more fitly come into the body of the dispute in which I doubt not but I shall shew that both himself and Mr. Blake however he esteem his writings do recede from the Scripture and other approved authors in their making the New Covenant common to elect and reprobates in making reprobates interest in the Covenant a fruit of Christs death denying the absolute promise to be most fitly called the Covenant of Grace hold that a person may not be baptized that is not known to belong to the Covenant of Grace that God actually seals the Covenant of Grace to reprobates with sundry other mistakes about Sacraments in general as if their essence were in being seals of the Covenant of Grace and deriving thence a right to baptism for believers Infants though the Covenant be conditional and common to all The fith error of mine he confutes is about the Magistrates not being an officer of Christ as Mediator And he excepts against me for saying in pulpit at Bewdley it was of dangerous consequence which he held though he named not me at any time and he wrote to me and I would not dispute it with him To which I answer It is true preaching on Mat. 28. 18. the argument leading me to it I did oppose that doctrine that the Magistrate is an officer of Christ the Mediator and because Mr. Bs. book was in some of my Auditors hands did reade the passage in his Aphorismes
which I moved to be considered whether it were not near Mr. Bs. doctrine Aphorisme 73. of Justific and in my Antidote sect 8. page 24. said it is near to it Hereupon Mr. B. adjudgeth this dealing so grosse as he never found in any Jesuite a shamlesse charge and page 190. the vile ebullition of rancor and malice in a most evident falshood that hath left no roome for blushing And then cleares himself from the sense in which the Antinomists held it and then addes Now what doth Mr. T. but bring this as the same tenet with mine when it is even directly contrary To which I answer Mr. B. page 189. in these words Your language about the absolutenesse of the Covenant is too like many of the tenets of the Antinomists in N. E. useth the same dealing with me which he chargeth me with towards himself For he doth or might know when I say with many Divines the Covenant is absolute I meane it as they do in respect of the first promise Heb. 8. 10. I will write my lawes in their hearts which Doctor Twisse and many other prove must be absolute or else the grace of God must be given according to mans desert as the Pelagians held which thing I expresse plainly in my Examen page 164. whereas the Antinomians make it absolute in respect of justification in which I am assured that Mr. B. knew by conferences with me that I was against them and yet he chargeth me with symbolizing with them But recrimination is no purgation 2. It is not true that I bring it as the same tenet with Mr. Bs. but neare it which is so true that however their in tent and his were contrary yet their words are the same For Mr. B. Aph. 76. and in the first edition of the Saints everlasting rest page 11. saith Doubtlesse the Gospel takes faith for obedience to all Gospel-precepts of which the workes James 2. 16. of giving food or clothing to a brother are a part which if true he that is justified by faith is justified by works and so Mr. Bs. proposition is the same with the Antinominians however he used it to a contrary end it 's the same medium though Mr. B. prove one conclusion by it and the Antinomians another and I think is condemned by the censure of them of N. E. in Mr. Bs. sense as well as the Antinomians But Mr. B. goes about to clear himself from error in it and singularly and then saith How can Mr. T. have ground to think that no Minister in England is of my judgement and then challengeth me to confute the doctrine of his book or leaves to judge whether I be not a meere empty calumniator And addes that these words of mine I am sure in his letter to me he saith he was hissed at from all parts of the Kingdome are a relation like the rest from a bitter roote so most falsely when I had his letters which might have directed me to speak truth that the words from all parts of the Kingdome are my addition which is become ordinary with me Then mentions the occasion of the passage in his letters my offer of help to him for dividing ends but he thought he had no need of my help and was resolved not to engage with a renter of the Church To which I answer 1. My exceptions against his doctrine in his Aphorismes have been sent to him afore his death though not to answer his challenge yet at the motion of his Postscript I conceive he erres 1. in making justification by faith to be onely in law title 2. In making a first and after continued justification 3. In making it a continued not instantaneous act 4. In making obedience to all Gospel-precepts an essentiall part of justifying faith and not a fruite onely 2. I did no where say that I thought no Minister in England is of his judgement though I said I thought he had not made one Minister of his judgement 3. to the crimination of my speaking falsely I will set down his own-words in his letter to me That pamphlet of justification I well knew was likely to blast my reputation with most Divines and the issue hath answered my expectation I am now so hissed at by them that I feele temptation enough to schisme in my discontents I had hot his letter by me when I spake those words not out of a bitter roote but to answer the prejudice against me as conceived singular But there was no falshood in my speech by most Divines and from all parts of the Kingdome being equipollent And if this be to adde falsely our Lord Christ will be found to adde falsely Mat. 15. 8 9. c. my offer of helpe to him in what we agreed was not for dividing ends but because of his complaint of weaknesse of body and want of time for study It seemes he accounted me a renter of the Church afore my preaching at Bewdley the many Sermons on Mat. 28. 19. against Infant-baptisme for discovering of the error of it in my bookes without other practises It appeares thereby that even then when he seemed to be most friendly he had hard thoughts of me and however he protest of his love yet his misinterpreting so many of the things I have done or said to him and at last casting up his accusations in his book in charging me with frequent untruths schisme pride worse then the Devil in accusing my own children with bitter scoffes and insulting tauntes with other aggravations and expressions beyond brotherly and neighbourly respects yea I may I think say a sober minde are undeniable evidences of want of love to me and candour towards me if we may judge what is in a man by his deedes rather then by his words As for his pretence of zeale for God the peace of the Church and the duty of brotherly reproof were he never so much in the right and I never so much in the wrong for my judgement yet these could not justifie his carriage to me And if other Ministers deale with me as Mr. B. Mr. M. Mr. Baillee Mr. Geree have done without doing me right after their false criminations of me I shall have temptation to think that they have learned a principle like the Jesuites to think it no sin to say as bad as may be against a supposed Anabaptist for the Paedobaptists cause SECT X. That Mr. Bs. charge of accusing and disputing my children out of the Covenant of Christ is vaine and some inquiry is made how they are in the Covenant I Have now gone through Mr. Bs. Epistles and History vindicated my self and the truth from many objections There are many other things which are scattered in his answer to my Valedictory Oration and Corrective of my Antidote which are somewhat besides the dispute it self which I shall rather point at then insist on because many are scarce worth the taking notice of but for the esteem Mr. B. and his book have gotten
favour to be visible Churchmembers should by sweet experience be convinced of their errour and be taught better how to understand that all our children are holy Page 518. He calls the disputes about baptism perverse and fierce which did so directly touch the controversy as might irritate me to fall on it at Bewdley and make those that told me think he did gird at me which he denies pag. 166. He mentions a speech of mine to Mr. D. whom he terms a godly man that truth is not to be suspended for peace and saith When the times changed which his words page 220. interpret to be meant When the ordinance against heresies and errors ceased to be in force I spake against Infant-sprinkling prest them to be baptized again mentioned in Sermons Mr. M. Mr. Blake and himself when my doctrine prevailed not though since I have gotten above 20. rebaptized disciples whom I often visit and confirm that I charged them with hypocrisy with their blood on their heads that M. Ms. plea from circumcision for infant-baptism is heresie that by my definition of heresy Independants must be judged Hereticks that I sought his arguments in writing to put them in my Review of the dispute with Mr. M. and to ing age him in the Controversy whence he gathered I was unpeaceable set to carry on my opinion and to make my self a party To all this I reply 'T is true some conceiving Mr. B. in his speeches had a fling at me and it seeming likely to me I did speak to the purpose Mr. B. saies I did not imagining that a speech upon a conference in a shop without its limitations and cautions should have been as it is by Mr. B. published and refuted as my error but indeed willing only that Mr. B. should know that in my case I was not to suspend my asserting of truth for fear of losing of peace as I alleadge in my Apology sect 3. And I professe I wonder that such as Mr. M. Mr. B. and others that were so earnest against Bishops and ceremonies though warres did follow and had a great hand in putting them on should now the warres being so well abated be so impatient that Infant-sprinkling is questioned It is untruely surmifed that the change of times was the cause of my opening my self fully in the congregation at Bewdley My first meddling with it was when Mr. Bayly had so unjustly charged me in his Anabaptisme chap. 4. page 92. with spoiling infants of all interest in the Covenant of grace making circumcision a seale to the Jewes only of earthly priviledges denying to the Jewish infants all right to the Covenant till in their riper years they become actual believers Which with other fals accusations about twenty in that one page I intreated by letter my dear Father-in-Law Mr. Henry Scudder to advertise him of after that I might stand right in the thoughts of that worthy man Mr. William Hopkins of Bewdley now with God I shewed him how he wronged me and then cleared my self in my cursory exposition on Ger. 17. brought his book with me into the pulpit and read a passage of Mr. Ms. Defence part 3. page 98. for my vindication which was presently sent up to London But Mr. Bayly doing nothing to right me I wrote to Mr. Bayly and because Mr. Rutherford had my letter to send to him I wrote since to him to know what became of my letter but have had no answer After this I was moved to preach what I did which was but little till December 1649. when I found my tenet on the day of fast to be humbled for blasphemies and heresies which was as I remember March 10. 1649. reckoned as by others so by Mr. Obadiah Sedgewick in his Sermon before the Lords among heresies with which I found afterwards the censure of 52. Ministers about London to concurre stigmatizing me by name as holding four pernicious errors in my Examen and when the ordinance against blasphemy and heresie was published which Mr. Boraston though not required yet published at Ribsford to which Bewdley Chappel relates that he might proclaime me an Heretick Which necessitated me to speak what I did not the change of times it 's known I spake as much in the hardest times to my opinion as since nor unpeaceablenesse in me as Mr. B. surmised What I preached was in no clamourous manner as Mr. B. would intimate calling it exclaiming but in a way of proof and answer as sober Divines do in the like case My na ming any was when I recited their words for which though I was reviled once in London when refuting Doctor Crisp I named him and Mr. B. in a letter to me and since in print reckons as no small fault yet I ever did and do still think it to be necessary when the books are in mens hands and the Auditors are not likely otherwise to know we recite their opinion truly nor whose error we refute I do not believe I used those words Mr. B. sets down as mine Let them budge at it c. though it 's likely I might say it 's one of the chiefest signes of sincerity to embrace every truth and hypocrisy not to receive it for carnal respects not out of anger that men were not of my mind but to justify my self after I had fully handled the point about baptism which I think was either after or immediately before the dispute I used the Apostles words Act. 20. 26 27. nor do I deny that sith our Lord Christ doth Mark 16. 16. make baptisme some condition of Salvation I think those that are taught that Infant-sprinkling is not the duty Christ requires of being baptized and that water baptisme of men at years upon profession of faith is a necessary duty which I had sufficiently proved at Bewdley and yet neglect it do hazzard their salvation living in disobedience to a manifest duty yea the prime duety whereby they ought solemnly to engage themselves to be Christs Disciples I have gotten no Disciples to me and though more then 20 in Bewdley have bin baptized after profession of faith since my removal from them whom with the whole Town I think my self bound by many ties as often as I may to visit and confirm yet not rebaptized It is true to shew how unreasonable the accusation of my tenet as heresy is I have sundry times said that Mr. Ms. position in his Sermon page 35. That all Gods commands and institutions about the Sacraments of the Jewes bind us as much as they did them in all things which belong to the substance of the Covenant and were not accidentall unto them is one of the most manifest heresies being condemned Acts 15. For it expressely asserts that the Gentile Christians are still bound to some rule of circumcision contrary to the Apostles determination Nor did I frame a definition of heresie to make good what I said of Mr. Ms. tene though I deny not the definition I gave with some