to be eaten by the Houshold (c) Exo. 12. ◠of which the younger Infants to be sure were no way capable And it appears from a Passage in Josephus (d) Jud. Antiqu. li. 12. cap. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. that no one that was born was to taste of any Sacrifice till he came to the Temple which we learn from the instance of our Saviour (e) Luke 2.42 Grot. in loc not to have been till they were twelve Years of Age. At or after which time they might be in a capacity to enquire into the meaning of their Paschal Service and receive a due information concerning it Which instead of justifying the communicating of Infants will rather overthrow it and perswade the deferring of it till they be of understanding to consider the nature of the Sacrament and prepare themselves in some measure for the receiving of it One only Argument remains for the administring of this Sacrament to Infants even the long and general practice of the Antient Church in this particular and the like general practice at this day of the Greeks Aethiopians Bohemians and Moravians All which to condemn of Errour may seem a little hard as we must do unless we will at least allow of the lawfulness of the Practice whatsoever we do of the necessity thereof But as I must needs say that I do not see how we can acquit them for Errour considering what hath been before said against the Communion of Infants So I a little wonder how he should stick at the condemnation of the thing it self who so freely acknowledg'd the Practice to be built upon a Text which he himself confesseth to have been mistaken by them The utmost in my opinion that is to be said in behalf of the Antients and accordingly of those Churches which derive their Practice from them is that the Communicating of Infants was an Errour of their charity toward them and whom whilst they were willing to deliver from that Original Corruption wherein they were born and bring them to Christ's Kingdom and Happiness they did not only conferr upon them the Sacrament of Baptism which they had learn'd from the words of our Saviour (f) Mark 10.13 the Doctrine of St. Paul (g) 1 Cor. 7.14 and the Circumcision of the Jewish Infants to be but proper for them but mistaking what our Saviour spake in St. John concerning the necessity of eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood for the necessity of a Sacramental Manducation gave them this Sacrament also so the better to secure them of eternal Life and Heaven For as for that Salvo of the Council of Trent (h) Sess 21. cap. 4. that the Antients gave them the Sacrament of the Eucharist out of some probable and temporary Reasons and not out of a Belief of the necessity thereof unto Salvation or the like Salvo of Mr. Thorndike * Epil to the Trag. of the Ch. of Engl. li. 1. cap. 23. who agreeably to the same Opinion makes them look upon that Text in St. John as sufficiently answer'd by the Sacrament of Baptism and their partaking of Christ's Body and Blood in it It is so contrary to the Doctrine of the Antients and particularly to that of St. Cyprian (i) Cypr. Test ad Quirin li. 3. cap. 27. Pope Innocent (k) Epist 93. apud August and St. Augustine in many places of his Works that it is not a little to be wondred at that so learned a Man as Mr. Thorndike could advance so groundless an Assertion For though it be true that St. Cyprian where he makes it his Business to shew that none can enter into the Kingdom of God unless he be baptiz'd and born again doth not only alledge that Text for it (l) Joh. 3.5 which doth more immediately concern it but that unless Men eat Christ's Flesh and drink Christ's Blood they shall have no Life in them Yet that he did not intend thereby their receiving that Body and Blood in Baptism but in the Sacrament of the Eucharist and only made use of that Text as proving Baptism â fortiori because enforcing the necessity of a Sacrament which was to be administred after it is evident from his beginning his next Testimony or Christian Doctrine with these very words That it was a small matter to be baptiz'd and receive the Eucharist unless a Man profit in good Works For how comes the Eucharist to be join'd with Baptism in Testimonies that depend so upon one another but that he had spoken of it just before and consequently meant no other than that Eucharist by eating Christ's Flesh and drinking his Blood according as is but just before alledg'd In like manner though Pope Innocent to shew the foolishness of the Pelagians in affirming that little Children could have eternal Life without Baptism make use of these very words to prove it For unless they shall eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood they shall have no Life in them Yet whosoever shall consider what he saith as it is worded by himself will find that he did not at all intend their receiving the Flesh and Blood of Christ in the Sacrament of Baptism but in the Sacrament of the Eucharist and that he esteem'd that Sacrament to be as necessary as the former and intended to prove the necessity of Baptism by the necessity of that Sacrament which was to follow it For thus he in his Epistle to the Fathers of the Milevitan Council Now that which your Brotherhood affirms them to preach that little Children may have their rewards of eternal Life even without the Grace of Baptism is extreamly foolish For unless they shall eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood they shall not have Life in them For what was this but to say that they should be so far from having eternal Life without the Grace of Baptism that they could not by the Dispensation of the Gospel attain that Life without the Grace of the Eucharist also Agreeable hereto is the Doctrine of St. Augustine as appears from this following Testimony (m) De peccat merit Rem li. 4. cap. 24. Where having said that by an Antient and Apostolical Tradition as he thought the Churches of Christ were intimately perswaded that without Baptism and the participation of the Lord's Table none could come to the Kingdom of God and eternal Life and confirm'd that Opinion of theirs and his own by Scriptures peculiar to each Sacrament and particularly as to the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper by that so much celebrated saying of our Saviour Vnless ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man c. he hath these following words If therefore as so many and so great Divine Testimonies do agree neither Salvation nor Life can be hoped for by any one without Baptism and the Body and Blood of Christ in vain is it promised to little Children without them even without
of whom Nicodemus was sometime a Ruler may be listned to in this affair They not only affirming their own Proselytes to have been admitted by Baptism but that Baptism also represented as a thing which gave them a new birth yea so far as to make them put off their old relations by it For what then can be more reasonable than to think that our Saviour when he spake to a Jew spake the same Language with them and consequently that as he spake of being born of Water as well as the Spirit he meant a like Baptism by it Especially when it is observable fourthly that our Saviour ask'd Nicodemus not without some amazement (y) Joh. 3.10 Art thou a Master in Israel and knowest not these things For what was this but to intimate yet more that the new Birth whereof he spake was no stranger to themselves and consequently because he spake of being born of Water that he meant a Baptism by it Add hereunto fifthly our Saviour's affirming himself in the former Discourse to have spoken of earthly (z) Joh. 3.12 things and as one would think therefore of such a Birth which though influenced by God's Spirit yet had something of earthly as that is oppos'd to heavenly adhering to it As in fine the Evangelist's subjoyning to this Discourse of a new Birth by Water the mention of our Saviour's (*) Joh. 3.22 passing into Judaea and there baptizing There being not a fairer account either of that connexion or our Saviour's proceedings than that agreeably to what he had said concerning the necessity of Men's being so born again he went into Judaea and baptized and so made way for their entrance into God's Kingdom Such evidence there is of our Saviour's meaning a proper Baptism when he spake of the necessity of Men's being born again of water and of the Spirit And if our Saviour meant such a Baptism there is as little doubt of his having before both instituted and administred it yea even from the time of his setting up for Disciples There being not the least appearance of Christ's baptizing those first Disciples afterwards which yet he must have done considering the necessity thereof if they had not been baptiz'd before I will conclude what I have to say concerning the earliness of our Saviour's Baptism when I have added from a passage of Christ to S. Peter the farther probability there is of his and the other Apostles having receiv'd it and therefore if they did so of their having receiv'd it from the beginning of their Discipleship That I mean whereupon S. Peter's begging of Christ to wash not only his feet but his hands and his head if as our Saviour had told him he could have no part in him unless he wash'd him Christ is said to have made answer †Joh. 13.10 that he that had been wash'd even by a more general washing needed not save to wash his feet For as our Saviour intimates by that expression that he and the rest had passed under the former washing and consequently did not need such a general washing a second time so he may not improbably be thought to have meant the washing of Baptism and which though in it self an outward purification yet was attended with an inward and spiritua lone Partly because it is certain that our Saviour had before this time madeuse of the Baptism of Water to purifie Men unto himself and may therefore be well enough supposed to allude unto it And partly because that Baptism or washing will be more directly opposed to that which our Saviour now intended and which though design'd by him to signifie a more spiritual purgation even that of the affections or actions yet was performed by him by an outward washing For why then should we not think that the Apostles had that more general washing of Baptism Especially when we know that about this time Christ administred to them the Sacrament of the Eucharist and which as it is in order of nature after that of Baptism and may therefore not unreasonably be thought to have been preceded by theirs so is an evidence that Christ meant in some measure at least to conduct them by the same Rites and Ceremonies wherewith he intended to bring other Men unto himself One only thing there is which can any way prejudice the former Discourse even the silence there is in the New Testament of any Baptism by Christ before that in Judaea yea the silence there is of it in that very Evangelist who takes such particular notice of the other And surely such a silence would have been of no small force if it had been either a perfect silence or an unaccountable one But as that story cannot be look'd upon as perfectly silent which affords so many probable proofs of what it is pretended to be silent in so there may be reason enough given of its ascending no higher in its account of Christ's administration of Baptism than that which was performed by him in Judaea Partly because the Author of it had before acquainted his Readers with Christ's representing it as generally necessary * Joh. 3.5 to Salvation and from which and the following practice of our Saviour in making Disciples Men might reasonably enough collect his having so made the former ones And partly because he knew that what was defective in his account of our Saviour's Baptism might be abundantly supplied to posterity to whom he and the other Evangelists principally wrote by what those other Evangelists (a) Matt. 28.19 Mark 16.15 16. had said concerning Christ's giving command to his Apostles of baptizing all Nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost For that together with his own account of our Saviour's Baptism was enough to let them know and therefore enough for their own purpose that as Christ himself initiated Men by Baptism yea represented it as necessary to Salvation so it was his absolute will and pleasure that those to whom his Apostles and their Successors published his Gospel should be initiated by the same means if they meant to enter into the Kingdom of God PART III. Of the outward visible Sign of Baptism The Contents The outward visible Sign of the Christian Baptism shewn to be the Element of Water and enquiry thereupon made wherein it was intended as a Sign Which is shewn in the general to be as to the cleansing quality thereof more particularly as to the use it was put to toward new-born Infants and that application of it which was first in use even by an immersion or plunging the Party baptized in it Occasion taken from thence to enquire farther how it ought to be applyed more especially whether by an immersion or by that or an aspersion or effusion Evidence made of an immersion being the only legitimate Rite of Baptism save where necessity doth otherwise require And enquiry thereupon made whether necessity may justifie the Application of it by an
be us'd were dry entertainments or that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Greeks were only drinking ones But because it cannot be deny'd that the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper had other kind of names of old and such as may seem to be of a higher strain than any I have as yet assign'd And because Cardinal Baronius (t) Annal. Eccl. ad Ann. 34. n. 48. c. hath insisted much on them to justify from thence the Doctrine of his Church concerning it Therefore I will instance in three on which he seems to lay the greatest stress I mean those of the Body of Christ an Oblation or Sacrifice and the Mass That the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper had antiently the name of the Body of Christ several places are alledged out of Tertullian and two in particular out of his book de Oratione * cap. ult Similiter stationum diâ—bus non putant plerique sacrificiorum orationibus interveniendum quod statio solvenda sit accepto corpore Domini Ergo devotum deo obsequium Eucharistia resolvit an magis deo obligat Nonne solennior erit statio tua si ad aram dei steteris Accepto corpore Domini reservato utrumque salunm est participatio sacrificii executio officii which cannot be otherwise understood And God forbid that any should deny that name to the element which Christ himself hath declar'd to be his Body But as the question is not Whether the outward element either is or hath been called by the name of Christ's Body but in what sense we are to understand it either to be or to be so called so what Tertullian meant is evident from what he saith upon that argument against Marcion who made our Saviour's natural body to have been a phantastical one Therefore saith he †Adv. Marc. lib. 4. c. 40. Professus itaque se concupiscentiû concupisse edere Pascha ut suum indignum enim ut quid alienum concupisceret Deus acceptum panem distributum discipulis corpus illum suum fecit hoc est corpus meum dicendo id est figura corporis mei Figura autem non suisset nisi veritatis esset corpus Caeterum vacua res quod est phantasma figuram capere non posset professing himself with desire to have desir'd to eat that Passover as his own for it were unworthy that God should desire that which is another's he made that Bread which he took and distributed to his disciples to be his own Body saying This is my Body that is the Figure of my Body Now it could not have been a figure unless the body were of truth But an empty thing such as a phantasm is could not be capable of any figure Now can any Man think after this that Tertullian when he call'd the Eucharist the Body of Christ understood it to be such in propriety of speech Or that they do other than transubstantiate his and the Church's meaning who make such an inference from his words His I say who made the words This is my Body to signifie This is the figure of my Body and argued against Marcion from that very figure the reality of that Body of which it was one How much more proper had it been for Tertullian if he had so understood this title of the Eucharist or our Saviour's words to have prest him with the Eucharist's being in truth and in the sense of the Church his true and substantial body and therefore also because the same with that which was given for us that that was a true and substantial one or rather how much more proper had it been for that Father not at all to have argued from Christ's body there Lest Marcion seeing no true and substantial body of a Man in it he should have been more confirm'd in his opinion of Christ's having had only an imaginary one But as it appears from hence that Tertullian had not so gross a conceit of that August Title which was given to the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper So that Title had no doubt its original from the intimate relation there is between the sign and the thing signified by it It being not unusual or improper to give unto the sign the name of the thing signified but especially to such a sign as is also a conveyer of those Blessings it declares For thus Baronius himself observes out of St. Augustine * De peccat merit lib. 1. c. 24. Optimè Punici Christiani Baptismum ipsum nihil aliud quà m salutem Sacramentum corporis Christi nihil aliud quà m vitam vocant That the Carthaginian Christians called Baptism it self health or salvation and the Sacrament of the body of Christ life Which they could not be in any other sense than as the means of the conveyance of them or as St. Paul expresseth it concerning the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper the Communion or Communication of them For from whence as the same St. Augustine †Vnde nisi ex antiquâ ut existimo Apostolicâ traditione quâ Ecclesiae Christi insitum tenent praeter Baptismum participationem dominicae mensae non solum non ad regnum Dei sed nee ad salutem vitam aeternam posse quenquaem hominum pervenire goes on those titles of Salvation and Life but from an antient and Apostolical Tradition in the Church That no Man can come to salvation and eternal life without the participation of those Sacraments any more than he can do to the kingdom of God But because the foremention'd Baronius tells us that the Sacrament whereof we speak had also the name of an Oblation or Sacrifice as that too because of the offering there made for sin or an expiatory one Therefore it will be necessary for us to go on to enquire into that name and so much the rather because the same Author is so copious in his Quotations concerning it And I readily grant that this Sacrament is frequently so call'd by the Antients but that it was call'd so for the reason alledg'd is utterly deny'd neither can there be produc'd any convincing proof of it The utmost that is said by those who are the most antient is that it is an Eucharistical oblation as that too for the blessings of this World and particularly for the fruits of the earth as well as for the blessing of our Redemption And to that purpose and no other are the sayings before quoted out of Justin Martyr and Irenaeus and Origen Which how they agree with their designs who represent this Sacrament as an expiatory Oblation or Sacrifice I shall leave to all indifferent Men to judge And though it be true that some of those who followed spake in another strain and represented it also as an oblation for the benefit of the Offerers and others as well as an Eucharistical oblation for benefits receiv'd yet it is evident from Mr. Mede (u) Disc on Mal. 1.11 cap. 9. that