in some particular Church 3. The same covenant-act is accounted the act of parent and-childe but the parents covenanting rendred himself a member of this particular Church Therefore so it renders the childe also How can children come in with and by their parents and yet come into a Church wherein and whereof their parents are not so as that they should be of one Church and the parents of another 4. Children are in an orderly and regular state for they are in that state wherein the order of Gods Covenant and his institution therein hath placed them they being members by vertue of the Covenant of God To say their standing is disorderly would be to impute disorder to the order of Gods Covenant or irregularity to the Rule Now all will grant it to be most orderly and regular that every Christian be a member in some particular Church and in that particular Church where his regular habitation is which to children usually is where their parents are If the Rule call them to remove then their membership ought orderly to be translated to the Church whither they remove Again order requires that the childe and the power of government over the childe should go together It would bring shame and confusion for the childe to be from under government Prov. 29.15 and Parental and Ecclesiastical government concurring do mutually help and strengthen each other Hence the parent and the childe must be members of the same Church unless the childe be by some special providence so removed as that some other person hath the power over him 2. That when these children are grown up they are personally under the Watch Discipline and Government of that Church is manifest for 1. Children were under Patriarchal and Mosaical discipline of old Gen. 18 19. 21.9 10 12. Gal. 5.3 and therefore under Congregational discipline now 2. They are within the Church or members thereof as hath been and after will be further proved and therefore subject to Church-judicature 1 Cor. 5.12 3. They are disciples and therefore under discipline in Christ's school Matth. 28.19 20. 4. They are in Church-covenant therefore subject to Church-power Gen 17.7 with Chap. 18.19 5. They are subjects of the kingdome of Christ and therefore under the laws and government of his Kingdome Ezek. 37.25 26. 6. Baptism leaves the baptized of which number these children are in a state of subjection to the authoritative teaching of Christ's Ministers and to the observation of all his commandments Mat. 28.19 20. and therefore in a state of subjection unto Discipline 7. Elders are charged to take heed unto and to feed i. e. both to teach and rule compare Ezek. 34.3 4. all the flock or Church over which the holy Ghost hath made them overseers Acts 20.28 That children are a part of the flock was before proved and so Paul accounts them writing to the same flock or Church of Ephesus Eph 6.1 8. Otherwise Irreligion and Apostacy would inevitably break into Churches and no Church-way left by Christ to prevent or heal the same which would also bring many Church-members under that dreadful judgement of being let alone in their wickedness Hosea 4.16 17. Proposition 4 th These Adult persons are not therefore to be admitted to full Communion meerly because they are and continue members without such further qualifications as the Word of God requireth thereunto The truth hereof is plain 1. From 1 Cor. 11.28 29. where it is required that such as come to the Lords Supper be able to examine themselves and to discern the Lords body else they will eat and drink unworthily and eat and drink damnation or judgement to themselves when they partake of this Ordinance But meer membership is separable from such ability to examine one's self and discern the Lords body as in the children of the covenant that grow up to years is too often seen 2. In the Old Testament though men did continue members of the Church yet for ceremonial uncleanness they were to be kept from full communion in the holy things Levit. 7 20 21. Numb 9.6 7. 19.13 20. yea and the Priests and Porters in the Old Testament had special charge committed to them that men should not partake in all the holy things unless duely qualified for the same notwithstanding their membership 2 Chron. 23.19 Ezekiel 22.26 44.7 8 9 23. and therefore much more in these times where moral funess and spiritual qualifications are wanting membership alone is not sufficient for full communion More was required to adult persons eating the Passeover then meer membership therefore so there is now to the Lords Supper For they were to eat to the Lord Exodus 12.14 which is expounded in 2 Chron. 30. where keeping the Passeover to the Lord verse 5. imports and requires exercising Repentance verse 6 7. their actual giving up themselves to the Lord verse 8. heart-preparation for it verse 19. and holy rejoycing before the Lord verse 21 25. See the like in Ezra 6.21 22. 3. Though all members of the Church are subjects of Baptism they and their children yet all members may not partake of the Lords Supper as is further manifest from the different nature of Baptism and the Lords Supper Baptism firstly and properly seals covenant-holiness as circumcision did Gen. 17. Church-membership Rom 15.8 planting into Christ Rom. 6. and so members as such are the subjects of Baptism Matth. 28.19 But the Lords Supper is the Sacrament of growth in Christ and of special communion with him 1 Cor. 10.16 which supposeth a special renewing and exercise of Faith and Repentance in those that partake of that Ordinance Now if persons even when adult may be and continue members and yet be debarred from the Lords Supper until meet qualifications for the same do appear in them then may they also until like qualifications be debarred from that power of Voting in the Church which pertains to Males in full communion It seems not rational that those who are not themselves fit for all Ordinances should have such an influence referring to all Ordinances as Voting in Election of Officers Admission and Censures of Members doth import For how can they who are not able to examine and judge themselves be thought able and fit to discern and judge in the weighty affairs of the house of God 1 Cor. 11.28 31. with 1 Cor. 5. 12. Proposition 5 th Church-members who were admitted in minority understanding the Doctrine of Faith and publickly professing their assent thereto not scandalous in life and solemnly owning the Covenant before the Church wherein they give up themselves and their children to the Lord and subject themselves to the Government of Christ in the Church their children are to be Baptized This is evident from the Arguments following These children are partakers of that which is the main ground of baptizing any children whatsoever Argum 1 and neither the parents nor the children do put in any barre to hinder it 1. That they
following Testimonies from sundry Eminent and Worthy Ministers of Christ in New-England who are now with God First Touching the children of Church-members Mr. Cotton hath this saying The Covenant and Blessing of Abraham is that which we plead for which the Apostle saith is come upon us Gentiles Gal. 3.14 which admitteth the faithful and their Infant-seed not during their lives in case their lives should grow up to Apostacy or open Scandal but during their infancy and so long after as they shall continue in a visible profession of the Covenant and Faith and Religion of their fathers otherwise if the children of the faithful grow up to Apostacy or any open Scandal as Ishmael and Esau did as they were then so such like now are to be cast out of the fellowship of the Covenant and of the Seals thereof Grounds and Ends of Baptism of Children p. 106. see also p. â—â— 3â—.34 Again The seed of the Israelites though many of them were not sincerely godly yet whilest they held forth the publick profession of God's people Deut. 26 3-11 and continued under the wing of the Covenant and subjection to the Ordinances they were still accounted an holy seed Ezra 9.2 and so their children were partakers of Circumcision Yea further though themselves were sometimes kept from the Lords Supper the Passeover for some or other uncleanness yet that debarred not their children from Circumcision Against this may it not seem vain to stand upon a difference between the Church of Israel and our Churches of the New-Testament For the same Covenant which God made with the National Church of Israel and their seed it is the very same for substance and none other which the Lord makes with any Congregational Church and our seed Quaery 9th of Accommodation and Communion of Presbyt and Congregal Churches And the same for substance with those Quaeries was delivered by him in 12. Propositions as Mr. Tho Allen witnesseth in Epist to the Reader before Treat of Covenant and those Quaeries Now in the 8th of those Propositions he hath these words The children of Church-members with us though baptized in their infancy yet when they come to age they are not received to the Lords Supper nor admitted to fellowship of Voting in Admissions Elections Censures till they come to profess their Faith and Repentance and to lay hold of the Covenant of their parents before the Church and yet they being not cast out of the Church nor from the Covenant thereof their children as well as themselves being within the Covenant they may be partakers of the first Seal of the Covenant Lastly speaking to that Objection That the Baptism of Infants overthrows and destroys the Body of Christ the holy Temple of God and that in time it will come to consist of natural and carnal Members and the power of Goverment rest in the hands of the wicked He Answers That this puts a fear where no fear is or a causless fear And in prosecution of his Answer he hath these words Let the Primitive Practise be restored to its purity viz. that due care be taken of baptized members of the Church for their fitting for the Lords Table and then there will be no more fear of pestering Churches with a carnal generation of members baptized in their infancy then of admitting a carnal company of hypocrites confessing their Faith and Repentance in the face of the Congregation Either the Lord in the faithfulness of his Covenant will sanctifie the hearts of the baptized Infants to prepare them for his Table or else he will discover their hypocrisie and profaneness in the presence of his Church before men and Angels and so prevent the pollution of the Lords Table and corruption of the Discipline of the Church by their partaking in them Grounds and Ends of Baptism c. p. 161 163. See also Holiness of Church-members p. 41 51 56 57 63 87. Bloody Tenent washed p. 44 78. Mr. Hooker saith Suppose a whole Congregation should consist of such who were children to Parents now deceased who were confederate their children were true members according to the Rules of the Gospel by the profession of their fathers Covenant though they should not make any personal and vocal expression of their engagement as the fathers did Survey part 1. p. 48. Again We maintain according to truth that the believing parent covenants and confesseth for himself and his posterity and this covenanting then and now is the same for the kinde of it Part 3. p. 25. See p. 17 18. part 1. p. 69 76 77. And in the Preface fetting down sundry things wherein he consents with Mr. R. he expresseth this for one that Infants of visible Churches born of wicked parents being members of the Church ought to be baptized In these saith he and several other particulars we fally accord with Mr. R. And Part 3. p. 11. It is not then the Question whether wicked members while they are tolerated sinfully in the Church they and their children may partake of the Priviledges for this is beyond question nor do I know nor yet ever heard it denied by any of ours Mr. Philips speaking of a people made partakers of Gods Covenant and all the priviledges outwardly belonging thereto he saith Themselves and all that ever proceed from them continue in the same state parents and children successively so long as the Lord continues the course of his Dispensation nor can any alteration befall them whereby this estate is dissolved but some apparent act of God breaking them off from him Reply p. 126. Again speaking of that Holiness 1 Cor. 7.14 he saith I take it of foederal holiness whereby the children are with the believing parents taken by God to be his and by him put under his covenant and so they continue when men of years though they never have any further grace wrought in them nor have any other state upon them then what they had when they were born Ibid. p 131. Again a company become or are a Church either by conversion and initial constitution or by continuance of the same constituted Churches successively by propagation of members who all are born in the Church-state and under the covenant of God and belong unto the Church and are a Church successively so long as God shall continue his begun dispensation even as well as fully as the first Ibid. p. 145. Mr. Shepard in Defence of the Nine Positions p 143. hath the expression Concerning the Infants of Church-members they are subject to Censures whensoever they offend the Church as others are though so long as they live innocently they need them not And in the year 1649. not three moneths before his Death he wrots unto a friend a large Letter yet extant under his own Hand concerning the Membership of Children wherein he proveth by sundry Arguments that they are Members and answereth sundry Objections against it and sheweth at large what great good there is in children's Membership In which
Discourses he asserteth That as they are Members in their infancy so they continue Members when they are grown up till for their wickedness they be cast out and that they being Members their seed successively are Members also until by Dissolution or Excommunication they be unchurched That though they are Members it follows not that they must come to the Lords Supper but they must first appear able to examine themselves and discern the Lords Body That the children of godly parents though they do not manifest faith in the Gospel yet they are to be accounted of Gods Church until they positively reject the Gospel Rom. 11. That this Membership of children hath no tendency in it to pollute the Church no more then in the Old Testament but is a means rather of the contrary And that there is as much danger if not more of the degenerating and apostatizing of Churches gathered of professing Believers as of those that rise out of the seed of such Mr. Prudden in a Letter to a friend written in the year 1651. doth plainly express it to be his judgement That the children of Church-members are Members and so have right to have their children baptized though themselves be not yet admitted to the Lords Supper His words are these Touching the desire of such Members chidren as desire to have their children baptized it is a thing that I do not yet hear practised in any of our Churches But for my own part I am inclined to think that it cannot justly be denied because their next Parents however not admitted to the Lords Supper stand as compleat Members of the Church within the Church Covenant and so acknowledged that they might have right to Baptism Now they being in Covenant and standing Members their Children also are Members by virtue of their Parents Covenant and Membership as well as they themselves were by virtue of their Parents Covenant and Membership And they have not renounced that Covenant nor are justly censured for breach of that Covenant but do own it and profess it and by virtue of it claim the priviledge of it to their Children Then he puts this his Argument into form thus Those Children who are within the Covenant of the Curch and so Membeâ—s of it Baptism cannot be denied unto But the Câ—iâ—dren in question are within the Covenant of the Church and so Members of it Therefore Baptism cannot be denied unto them The Assumption is proved thus The Children of such Parents as are within the Covenant of the Church and so Members of the Church are themselves within the Covenant of the Church and so Members of it But the Children in question are Children of such Parents as are in Covenant and so Members of the Church Therefore they are so themselves The Proposition is clear because the Parents Covenant for themselves and for their Children Deut. 29.10 -16. Ezek. 16.8 13. And God accepts both Gen. 17.12 13. the whole Nation is foederally holy Ezra 9.2 they are expresly said to be in Covenant with their fathers Deut 29. not partly or partially in Covenant Rom. 9.3 4. Acts 2.39 and God styles himself their God as well as their fathers Gen. 17.7 8 9. and to have God to be our God is to be in compleat Church Covenant with him The Assumption is evident because else such their Parents had not had right to Baptism the Seal of the Covenant but that they had right unto and so received it and the same right that they had their Children have who are included in their Covenant as they were in their fathers and are not less truely or less compleatly in Covenant Lastly to adde no more Mr. Nath. Rogers in a Letter to a Friend bearing date 18.11 1652. hath these words To the Question concerning the Children of Church-members I have nothing to oppose and I wonder any â—…ould deny them to be Members They are Members in censu Ecclesiastice God so calls them the Church is so to account of them And when they are adultae aetatis though having done no personal act yet are to be in Charity judged Members still and till after due calling upon they shall refuse or neglect to acknowledge and own the Covenant of their Parents and profess their belief of and subjection to the contents thereof â—…ot Practise I confess I account it our great default that we have made no more real distinction between these and others that they have been no more attended as the lambs of the Flock of Christ and whether it be not the cause of the corruption and woeful defaction of our youth disquiri permittimus So that it was the judgement of these Worthies in their time that the children of Church-members are members of the Church as well as their parents and do not cease to be members by becoming adult but do still continue in the Church untill in some way of God they be cast out and that they are subject to Church-discipline even as other members and may have their children baptized before themselves be received to the Lords Supper and yet that in this way there is no tendency to the corrupting of the Church by unworthy members or of the Ordinances by unworthy partakers And in the Synod herd at Cambridge in the year 1648. that particular point of Baptizing the children of such as were admitted members in minority but not yet in full communion was inserted in some of the draughts that were prepared for that Assembly and was then debated and confirmed by the like Arguments as we now use and was generally consented to though because some few dissented and there was not the like urgency of occasion for present practise it was not then put into the Platform that was after Printed We need not mention the Meeting of Elders at Boston upon the Call of the Honoured Court in the year 1657. where in Answer to XXI Questions since Printed this Point is particularly asserted By all which it appeareth that these are not things lately devised or before unheard-of nor can they justly be censured as Innovations or Declensions from the received Doctrine in New-England It is true that in the beginning of these Plantations and the Infancy of these Churches there was not so much said touching these things as there hath been since and the reason is Because then there was not the like occasion as since hath been Few children of Church-members being then adult at least few that were then married and had children Accordingly when a Question was put about the priviledges of Members children when come to years these Churches then having been but of few years standing our Answer was That by reason of the Infancy of these Churches we had then had no occasion to determine what to judge or practise in that matter Answer to the 5 th and 6 th of 32. Questions which may satisfie as the Reason why in our first beginnings there was no more said touching these Questions But afterwards when there was more
partake of that which is the main ground of baptizing any is clear Because interest in the Covenant is the main ground of title to Baptism and this these children have 1. Interest in the covenant is the main ground of title to Baptism for so in the Old Testament this was the ground of title to Circumcision Gen 17.7 9 10 11. to which Baptism now answers Col. 2.11 12. and in Acts 2.38 39 they are on this ground exhorted to be baptized because the promise or covenant was to them and to their children That a member or one in covenant as such is the subject of Baptism was further cleared before in Propos 1.2 That these children have interest in the covenant appears Because if the parent be in covenant the childe is also for the covenant is to parents and their seed in their generations Gen 17.7 9. The promise is to you and to your children Acts 2.39 If the parent stand in the Church so doth the childe among the Gentiles now as well as among the jews of old Rom 11.16 20 21 22. It is unheard of in Scripture that the progress of the covenant stops at the infant childe But the parents in question are in covenant as appears 1. Because they were once in covenant and never since discovenanted If they had not once been in covenant they had not warrantably been baptized and they are so still except in some way of God they have been discovenanted cast out or cut off from their covenant-relation which these have not been neither are persons once in covenant broken off from it according to Scripture save for notórious sin and incorrigibleness therein Rom 11.20 which is not the case of these parents 2 Because the tenor of the covenant is to the faithfull and their seed after them in their generations Gen 17.7 even to a thousand generations i. e. conditionally provided that the parents successively do continue to be keepers of the covenant Exod 20.6 Deut 7 9 11 Psalm 105 8. which the parents in question are because they are not in Scripture account in this case forsakers or rejecters of the God and Covenant of their fathers see Deut 29.25 26. 2 Kings 17 15-20 2 Chron 7 22 Deut 7 10. 2. That these parents in question do not put in any barre to hinder their children from Baptism is plain from the words of the Proposition wherein they are described to be such as understand the doctrine of Faith and publikely profess their assent thereto therefore they put not in any barre of gross Ignorance Atheism Heresie or Infidelity Also they are not scandalous in life but solemnly own the covenant before the Church therefore they put not in any barre of Profaneness or Wickedness or Apostacy from the covenant whereinto they entred in minority That the infant-children in question do themselves put in any barre none will imagine The children of the parents in question are either children of the covenant Argum 2 or strangers from the covenant Eph 2 12. either holy or unclean 1 Cor 7 14. either within the Church or without 1 Cor 5 12 either such as have God for their God or without God in the world Eph 2 12. But he that considers the Proposition will not affirm the latter concerning these children and the forme being granted infers their right to Baptism To deny the Proposition Argum 3 would be 1. To straiten the grace of Christ in the Gospel-dispensation and to make the Church in New Testament-times in a worse case relating to their children successively then were the Jews of old 2. To render the children of the Jews when they shall be called in a worse condition then under the legal administration contrary to Jer 30 20. Ezekiel 37 25 26. 3. To deny the application of the initiatory Seal to such as regularly stand in the Church and Covenant to whom the Mosaical dispensation nay the first institution in the covenant of Abraham appointed it to be applied Gen 17 9 10. John 7.22 23. 4. To break Gods covenant by denying the initiatory Seal to those that are in covenant Gen 17 9 10 14. Confederate visible Believers though but in the lowest degree such Argum 4 are to have their children baptized witness the practice of John Baptist and the Aposiles who baptized persons upon the first beginning of their Christianity But the parents in question are confederate visible Believers at least in some degree For 1. Charity may observe in them sundry positive Arguments for it witness the terms of the Proposition and nothing evident against it 2. Children of the godly qualified but as the persons in the Proposition are said to be faithfull Tit 1.6 3. Children of the Covenant as the Parents in question are have frequently the beginning of grace wrought in them in younger years as Scripture and experience shews Instance Joseph Samuel David Solomon Abijah Josiah Daniel John Baptist and Timothy Hence this sort of persons shewing nothing to the contrary are in charity or to Ecclesiastical reputation visible Believers 4. They that are regularly in the Church as the Parents in question be are visible Saints in the account of Scripture which is the account of truth for the Church is in Scripture-account a company of Saints 1 Cor 14 33. 1.2 5. Being in covenant and baptized they have Faith and Repentance indefinitely given to them in the Promise and sealed up in Baptism Deut. 30 6. which continues valid and so a valid testimony for them while they do not reject it Yet it doth not necessarily follow that these persons are immediately fit for the Lords Supper because though they are in a latitude of expression to be accounted visible Believers or in numero fidelium as even infants in covenant are yet they may want that ability to examine themselves and that special exercise of Faith which is requisite to that Ordinance as was said upon Propos 4 th The denial of Baptism to the children in question Argum 5 hath a dangerous tendency to Irreligion and Apostacy because it denies them and so the children of the Church successively to have any part in the Lord which is the way to make them cease from fearing the Lord Josh 22.24 25 27. For if they have a part in the Lord i. e. a portion in Israel and so in the Lord the God of Israel then they are in the Church or members of it and so to be baptized according to Propos 1. The owning of the children of those that successively continue in covenant to be a part of the Church is so far from being destructive to the purity and prosperity of the Church and of Religion therein as some conceive that this imputation belongs to the contrary Tenet To seek to be more pure then the Rule will ever end in impurity in the issue God hath so framed his covenant and consequently the constitution of his Church thereby as to design a continuation and propagation of his Kingdome