small step farther by my upholding or rather by Gods enlightening of it and Gods upholding of it For not I 1 Cor. 15.10 but the grace of God it is by which I am what I am and have done what I have doen to the God of which Grace I do here give up the Glory in the words of that heavenly Host praising God and saying Glory be to God in the highest and on earth peace good will towards men Luke 2.14 And now return unto thy rest O my soul for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee c. Psal 116.17 But I must not thus make an end you Sir will not let me return to my rest or give me a Writ of ease until I have considered some certain Texts of Scriptures which you have written out to the full of the words and left with me for the conclufion of your Letter There is not reason the Reader should be deprived of them they are so excellent for the purpose and so pertinent to the cause they come like after-drops when a storm of rain is over The first is Job 6.24 25. Teach me and I will hold my tongue cause me to understand wherein I have erred how orceable forcible are right words but what doth your arguinges arguing or Arguments reprove do ye imagie imagine to reprove words Why do you leave out that which followeth with your leave I will add it as belonging to the former and the speeches of one that is desperate which are as winde This is kindly spoken of you to me as of Job to Eliphaz his friend if as truly meant and I think I may say in justification of the truth more than my self for wisdom is justified of her children that the thing is really done you are taught the truth here and caused to understand wherein you have erred and may hold if willing to learn therefore hold your peace as a friend answered and therein satisfied without reply as another friend only questioned and thereby convinced was speechless without answer Luke 22.12 But I suspect you have not told me all your heart and do but mock as Delilah told Sampson I fear I shall never teach you who have learned as much as you desire to know I may perhaps cause some other an indifferent Reader or so to understand wherein you have erred but your self the principal party I shall not I foresee according to that Text Prov. 27.22 the words whereof for want of time I have not written out Nor will you hold your peace for all your saying so you must or may as to any material or substantial replication you can make against the truth herein asserted and proved but you neither will nor can hold your peace as to frivilous multiplication of words impertinent citations and misinterpretations and mis-applications of Texts slanderous calumniations of Ministers and the Answerer especially no more than the dog in the dark night can or will leave barking and bawling at the bright Moon But how feeble and impotent are crooked and impertinent words appears by Job saying How forcible are right words the other words What doth your arguings or arguments reprove as unfitting and unseasonable for you to use unto me before you had heard or read any word or syllable of any arguing or argument from me You might rather have left them out for me to have said them to you as now I shall after that I have read over and heard your arguings and arguments or rather Quaeres Gonsiderations Interpretations without any arguings or arguments in them What do they reprove Indeed they reprove something every thing those things that deserve no reproof but they prove nothing no not those things that most needed proof and which you undertook to prove which indeed moved and occasioned me to be thus large in setting down the things in controversie betwixt us by proving and disproving and reproving sometimes lest all the time should be as lost and mis-spent betwixt us and no body nor our selves the better by this discourse The last words are right words for us both and very forcible to inform me and reform my imagination which hath been to reprove words and speeches of one that is desperate you were very loth to write out these words and good cause why which are as wind so are both the words and speeches of one that is desperate and so are the reprooss of such words and speeches of one that is desperate you out of hope of learning I out of hope of teaching according to that Text Jer. 17.9 Jerem. 13.23 The words whereof I have not written out for want of time The other Texts that you have heaped up together and at large transcribed are nothing but very Quakerisms in the end of your Letter to which Anabaptisms will come in the end you have here begun though you are not the first For as it is the fashion of Quakers to get up into their memories and mouths all the Texts of old and new Testament where any false and vicious Prophets are spoken of and against or any covetous and superstitious Pharisee is taxed and reproved and to flap them in the face of every Minister they meet withall though never so impertinently and inconsiderately insomuch that one of them very lately being at Church after the Minister had ended his Sermon as who preacheth constantly every Sunday twice Yea said he this is just as the Prophet saith Isa 56.10 They are all dumb dogs that cannot bark sleeping lying down c. And just even so do you Sir first you tell me of Jerem. 5.4 and have now time enough to write out the words at length and not in figures Surely these are poor they are foolish for they know not the way of the Lord nor the judgement of there their God The which is spoken of the ignorant and perverse people amongst the Jews the Prophet complains of like as we Ministers may of many such amongst us your self not excepted and I commend you for your fit and pertinent and even Quaker-like application of it to us the Ministers of England whom you know to know the way of the Lord c. and therefore apply it against your own science and conscience to Ministers which is spoken onely to the People by the Prophet The next is Micah 3.5 11 12. Neither here is there to you any want of time to write out all the words Thus saith the Lord concerning the prophets that make my people to erre that byte bite with their teeth and cry Peace and he that putteth not into there their mouth they even prepare war against them The Heads thereof judge for reward and the Priest thereof teach for byre hire and the Prophets thereof devine divine for money yet will they lean upon the Lord and say Is not the Lord amongst us none evil can come unto us Therefore shall Zyon Zion for your sakes be plowed as a field c. What if there were in the State
OF BAPTISME Your Quaeres about Baptism are three and these 1. What warrant you have from the words of Christ for your baptising of Infants before they do actually believe 2. 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 3. Whether the baptising of Beleevers is not the Command of Christ practised by the Apostles yea or no and left upon Record for us to follow and Imitate till his second comming I Will begin with this your Last Quaere For I perceive that the baptising of Beleevers doth keep such a buzzing in your ears that till it be granted you nothing will be heard Sir for quietnesse and brevity sake I grant it and this is all my answer to this your Quaere Yea I granted as much to you in the beginning if you remember and so thus also briefly and quietly I have answered almost a side of your second sheet wherein are four Considerations brought to prove the lawfulnesse the usefulnesse the necessity of this practise of Baptising Beleevers with these solemn words at the end of every consideration four times repeated Judge ye and Judge Righteous Judgement for God will Section I. Of Baptisme of Infants I hope you will think me to judge Righteous Judgement if I Judge according to your Judgement That the Word of God doth allow and authorize baptising of Beleevers but then I must differ from your judgement in another That the Baptising of Beleevers doth not disallow or exauthorate the Baptising the Infants of Beleevers and that the one leadeth in the other as it were by the Hand if you had no more to say and dispute against the Baptising of Infants of beleeving Parents than against the baptising of beleevers the difference betwixt us had never begun If I speak Parables unto you it is because you know not the Scriptures not the very Scriptures your self doth here quote Matth 28.19 Acts 238. Acts 8.38 Acts 10 47. Acts 22.16 c. What do they all import but that Those Jewes or Heathens who were grown persons aliens from the Covenant had embraced the Gospel and became beleevers were presently baptised or became baptiseable And now that this is no barr or contradiction to the Baptising of Infants appears for that the Infants of those beleevers baptised and entred into Covenant if they had any had likewise a right unto baptisme being in the same Covenant with their beleeving Parents and either were in present baptised or were of right baptiseable So that the baptisme of beleevers makes way and gives ground for the baptisme of their Infants whence in other texts such and such beleevers were baptised they and all their House which is according to the Tenor of the Cov nane in which God is the God of the beleever and his seed so that the one hath as good right to the Seal thereof as the other by vertue of the Covenant God having Covenanted with both together I have formerly suggested unto you the only word that must help you here to make the baptisme of beleevers strong against the baptisme of Infants and it is the Word only for if there were such a precept or practice to be found in Scripture of Baptising Beleevers only then you would write something near the matter but yet should not so carry it away to the overthrowing of the baptising of the Infants of beleevers the Scripture no where calling them unbeleevers But none of the Scriptures you cite none of your considerations you mention do so much as mention much lesse infer the baptising of Beleevers onely Therefore now Judge you but Judge Righteous Judgement even as Good doth you see in your own Texts Or do you mean another matter as I ghesse it That Infants of beleevers born within the Church and Covenant and baptised in their minority when afterwards they attain to some ripenesse of knowledge and profession of faith of Christ should then as beleevers themselves be baptised again Then I must tell you that which you call the first and great Ordinance of the New Testament is neither great nor first nor Ordinance namely such Baptising of Beleevers Nay then I must tell you such baptising of beleevers is not only to be neglected and omitted but slighted and rejected yea preached against and confuted as now in present it shal be For what is this your baptising of beleevers but a rebaptising of them who were baptised before rightly and for any thing you know beleevers also For first God having given the Infants of beleeving Parents Right unto the Sacrament of Baptisme by speciall priviledge of their Birth within the bosome of the holy Church and the Minister having administred the Sacrament of Baptisme unto such in the true Element of Water with the Evangelical words In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost according to Christs institution Containing in them the matter form and so the very essence of outward baptism such baptism is good sufficient effectual and avayleable to Gods Children and they ought not to be rebaptised especially there being the devout invocation made to God for his blessing also a serious application of both the Element and Word unto the party who receiveth both and that secret reference which this action hath to life and remision of sins by vertue of Christs own compact made solemnly with his Church there is not any thing more required to the mysticall perfection of baptisme outwardly within the Church of God constituted and planted Now that such Baptisme is not to be reiterated that Infants thus baptised are not to be rebaptised I shall prove unto you both by the Word of God and some reasons thence deduced Eph. 4.5 There is one Lord one Faith one Baptisme one Baptisme not onely 1. Because it hath every where one and the same substance consisting in one and the same matter one and the same form for we are not to use any other Elemental matter but Water if it may be had nor any other verbal form but this I baptise thee in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost not onely 2. Because it offreth unto all men one and the same grace even one saith of one Lord into which we are baptised but One also for that it ought not to be received of any one man above once even as we serve that Lord which is but one because no other can be joyned with him imbrace that faithwhich is but one because it admiteth no inovation so we receive haptism which is but one because it cannot and must not be received often Thus all the Pious Learned and Primitive Professors have interpreted this Text and conceived of this matter the Iteration of Baptisme once given to be a manifest contempt and violation of this Apostolical axiom and Aphorisme insomuch that though the baptising minister were a Scismatick or Heretick or a
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
him as the Pharisees did upon our Saviour and have said thou bearest witness of thy self for thy self thy witness is not true they would have given a check or denyal to such a Custom accused it of Novelty or but of Yesterday and so have turned off easily that Argument which of all other lay most heavily upon them the Ancient Churches Custom and Practice in Baptizing Infants But they never did that as who could not deny this And so that other exception against Augustine as if he should utter and urge this in Heat and Passion against Pelagius his Adversary in point of Baptizing of Infants and speak more of the Custom and Practice of the Church than was true falleth of it self For they differed not in that point of Infant-Baptism no nor in the matter of the Custom of the Church herein For so Augustine affirmeth both in his first Book of the Merit and Remission of Sin The Peloagians themselves do grant that little Children are to be Baptized as who cannot come in or stand up against the Authority of the Vniversal Church delivered without doubt or Traditioned by our Lord and his Apostles And again in the eleventh Book against Caelestius and Pelagius He affirms and cites that Caelestius in a Book of his written at Rome acknowledged that Infants in a Book of his wirtten at of sin according to the Rule of the universul Church and according to the sense and meaning of the Gospel and Therefore Pelagius not daring to deny though otherwise impudent enough the General Practice of the Ancient Church in Baptizing Infants as who then and that way might have slipt his neck out of the Collaror Yoke Augustine held him to was feign to shist off that Fathers Argument as well as he could but very poorly and pittifully That the Church Baptized indeed Infants but not for the washing away of original fin which he denyed in Infants but for the better bringing them to the Kingdome of Heaven which Christ said was of such as theirs And truly this makes a great Addition to the Truth of this The Custom and Practice of the Universal Ancient Church in Baptizing lnsants that Pelagius so great a Schollar and Travellour who had seen the Customas and Practices the manners and fasthions of the Affricane and Asiatiqne yea and Europaean Churches being also himself a Brittish born should not as indeed he could not make any denyal or take any exception thereto as who by his own eyes and experience saw found it to be most true and uniform and so I may say our Baptism of Infants is a true Baptism and the Ancient Churches Practice hereof is a true Practice even our enemies themselves being Judges as Deut. 32.31 〈◊〉 why then was not Augustine himself Baptized in his In … y who was such as strong Advocate for the Baptism of Infants the Reason is plain and makes nothing against our Infant Baptism or the General Practice of the Church for neither his Father nor Mother were Christians or Believers when himself was born and they continued so untill a little before their death Augustine himself was not converted from his Manichean Haeresies and other vices untill the 31. year of his age who two years continuing a Catechumen and in the mean time writing somethings to give proof and testimony of the truth of his conversion or of his conversion to the Truth was Baptized himself and his Son Adeodate together like as Ahraham was circumcised with Ismeal his Son on the self-same day These things may be seen in His Confessions I shall need to adde no more for the shewing Infant-Baptism to have been the Custom and Practice of all the former Ancient Churches Augustines Testimony of the same is to me instead of all and as Goliahs Sword to David there is none like that Give it me 1 Sam 21.9 I have taken it and I give it thee not as a single Testimony of one Father for it but as a Quadruple witness of the Universal Church and its Custom and Practice for the point of Paedobaptism being four times expresly deliveced though by one and the same Father Saint Austin Yet I may for more perspicuity sake follow up this General Testimony by one Father unto its Particulars I mean the Covattestations of other particular Fathers in their several ages You have heard what Augustine hath said and written as for that Century For the year 390. 384. and those years wherein he lived Hierom In his Epistle ad Laetam having told her that the good and the evill of little once are imtured much to their Parents he addeth in the middle of that Epistle unless perhaps you think the Sons of Christians is they receive not Baptism They onely are guilty of sin and that the wickedness also thereof is not to be referred or to redound to the Parents who would not give it especially at or in such a time wherein they could not contradict who were to receive it In his Book against the Pelagians towards the end he is for Infant-Baptism and confirms it by allerdging the Authority of Cyprian and his Colleagues In the same third Book against Pelag it is thus Crito i.e. Pelagian saith grant me thus much at lest that they are without sin who cannot sin speaking of Infants To whom Atticus i.e. Hieronimus Answereth I will Grant it if they have been Baptized in Christ and again They are without any Sin through the Grace of God which they have received in Baptism Chrysostom Arch-Bishop of Constantinople For the year 382. in his Homil. to the Neophytes is for the Baptism of Children and in his 40. Homil upon Genes calls Baptism our Circumcision His being not Baptized untill he was 21. years of age doth not prejudice here as whose Father and Mother were not Christians at his birth and who himself was brought up under Libanius an enemy to and a scoffer at Religion but after he was instructed in the Divinity knowledge by Miletus a Bishop and Baptized of him In his Homil ad Neoph having spoken of the Honours and Benefits of Baptism he saith a little from the beginning For this cause we Baptize the little Infants that they may not be defiled with sin that to them may be added Sanctity Righteousness Adoption Inheritance Fraternity of Christ That they may be all his Members and the Habitation of the Spirit In his 40. Homil upon Genes having spoken of Circumcision appointed to the Children of the Jewes and the pain of the Incision he addeth but our Circumcision or the grace of our Baptism brings the medicine without without such dolour and Innumerable benefits with it It hath indeed no definite time set down for it as that hath but it is lawful to receive both in the first and in the middle and in the last age this not made with hands Circumcision in which there is susteined no great pain but the weight of sins are put off and Remission of them is
in your first Leaf with the good and old way of the Baptism of believers stand now therefore in the way and see ask for the old pathes where is the good way and walk therein such a one I have shewed you without your asking even this the Baptism also of Infants walk therein and ye shall find rest for your Soul as there it followeth but if ye say still as there it followeth also we will not walk therein then I shall look upon you as Saint Austins myracle and wonder that I may end with him with whom I began this who believed not when the world believed Practice not when the world Practiseth Seeing then you care not for looking behind you to Antiquity look before you and see the Reformed Churches in France Dutchland Scotland why not England if Infant-Baptism be not now in present the practice and Custom and so hath been of old of these and other Reformed Churches what then is your Church if you have any but a deformed one but a New upstart one who oppose this so General Custom both Ancient and Modern and have quite cast it out of your doors introducing instead thereof and setting up the Man-Baptism and Infant Rebaptism crying out daily for these your Great little Nothings Diana's of the Ephesian first love and first Baptism forsaking Anabaptists Let the advise you to lay your hand upon your mouth and cease declaiming and clamouring against this infant-Baptism for therein you reproach God and his Church God for appointing Infant-Circumcision and his Church for using Infant-Baptism yea to lay your hand upon your heart and in love to the Truth to return unto your First Love and Truth to enter again into Communion and fellowship with your Mother-Church of England and those other her Sister-Churches of the Protestants giving unto us the Right of Fellowship who are ready to reach forth the same to you and also to embrace you And if this be any Blook you stumble at in the way to our Churches that there are Rents and Divisions still amongst us whom may we thank for them even about this infant-Baptism I answer you in a word that our differences are not about Baptizing Infants but about Infants to be Baptized and so in the Point of Paedobaptism or Infant-Baptism we are all agreed and agrieved only at your Schism and Division which you have made in our Churches which are all against you therefore our care must be if we cannot hold fellowship with you to keep our Communion notwiststanding with all Christian Churches and if you will separate and depart from us and them we must let you depart a Brother or a Sister is not under Boadage in such Cases But God hath called us to peace peace as Christs Legacy left to his Church we are willing to have with all man so we may withall retain Truth And seeing whil'st we speak of peace you are still for dissention whil'st we propound truth you will still hold errors our care must be and shall be I hope in our particulars to maintain and preserve our peace and Truth and our Communion in both withall the Reformed Churches abroad in this point of Infant-Baptism which Churches as ours at home God hath blessed in this way with great increase of heavenly gifts and infinite numbers of renouned professours and Saints of those that have bin baptized in their Infancy And that knowing the time that now it is high time for you to awake out of sleep Ro. 13.11 to repent of those sinful Scismes and Rents and Separations you have made between your selves and us and other true Churches to give over your charging us and them with iniquity wherein we shew piety and your putting a divine restraint upon Infant Baptism wherein God hath given them and us liberty and in excluding Christian poor Infants those privileges and helps to heaven which Christ hath indulged them And thus I have answered your last Quaere shewing unto you what warrants we have out of the word for our Baptizing of Infants namely the six warrants reasoned out of the word which are six Reasons warranted out of the word Now joyn all these reasons together with the Scripture out of which they are deduced and will they not make that Analogy or proiportion of Faith as to this point of Infant Baptism according to which we are to proceed nay may they not all arise to a Tantamount Command or a virtual or implicite Command or a consequential Command of the same yea I have made two or three of them to be such in their particulars I have been so used to give you Commands out of the word for our former practices being called ever upon by you for such Commands which so ring still in my ears that though the word warrant do not put me upon such a hot service as a Command which I believe notwithstanding you meant your Tongue either out-running or short-running your wit I shall interpret your challenge or Quaere to aim at what Command out of the word have you for Baptizing Infants And first what Command have you out of the word against Baptizing Infants of Baptized Parents if none Then you deny Baptism to those to whom Christ denyed it not and so in a manner you deny Christ to be your Master and if you deny him you deny also him that sent him if none then you have no authority to infring or Counter-command the liberty of the Church herein ye take too much upon you Sone of Muncer Secondly What Command would you have out of the word for our Baptising Infants of Baptised Parents do you mean an express and praticular Command in calling for this you grant an explicite Command for it and a general one I am glad of this and will make much of it as to my purposes for as general propositions are enough to infer their particular all Children of the Church and in Covenant are to be baptised and therefore the Infants of Baptised Parents are to be baptised So implicite Commands which are but folded up and wrapped in good reasons or good consequences are sufficient for all true Subjects and Disciples of Christ to do a work and this of Baptising the infants of baptised Parents as if it had been more expressed The words intimation or a deduction from the Word is to me and ought to be to you the Words Expression and an injunction from the Word For if you be so streit girdled and queasie-stomacht or narrow throated that nothing will down with you or can be digested but onely expresse Commands in so many Words Letters and Syllables as Infant-baptism doth consist of Then I pray produce such an expresse Command out of the Word for Children of Beleevers when they are grown to be instructed and baptised upon the Confession of Faith or for Baptism of Believers onely in Christian Churches to use your own words or for Woemens eating the Passeover and receiving the Lords Supper or for the first
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
matters thereabout do the same here look often back to thy Baptism wherein the will of thy heavenly Father which is this I will be thy God is delivered and sealed and thou wilt be well resolved comforted and cleered in all Estates and Conditions Onely look back also to and remember as often the obligation of Homage and stipulation of obedience wherewith thou hast bound thy self to God by thy suerties or prelenters of thee to Baptism now thou knowest and understandest it thou must stand to it nd make it good thy part of the Indentures perform the Order of Baptism on thy side which is to turn to God and believe in Christ and be continually renewing of thy Faith and repentance and then there shall be no need of any second Baptism or washing in water having the benefit and efficacy of and from the same Baptism at first For this also I will tell thee for thy farther comfort that the benefit and efficacy of Baptism extendeth it self to all actual sins like as originall to the whole course of the life of man whensovever he shall believe and repent and is not to be restrained to the time of the Birth and Infancy so after the administration of it Baptism hath the same force it hath before or in the time of its administring for Baptism is of force so long as the Covenant is of force and that is everlasting Esay 54.10 Hos 2.19 The Papists indeed will tell you as I have mentioned already that your Baptism will serve you only for Remission of sins done before it meaning your originall sin and so call your Baptism the first Table for Refuge as from it and for sins done after Baptism you must have their Sacrament of Pennance or Repentance which they call a second Table for Refuge like as the Anabaptists tell you you must have their Sacrament of Confession as I may call their second Baptism which they Minister upon Confession of Faith But I tell you both are needless and superfluous for your one first single Baptism supplyeth all you need no New Sacraments for the matter as whose force and efficacy though the rite and Ceremony were gone in an instant doth extend it self to your whole life time and to all sins to be a seal unto you of the Remission of all original and actual past and to come so you will still have recourse unto it and make application of the grace thereof offered and sealed to you on Gods part For I do not mean nor must you think that the bare and empty Review or Remembrance of your Baptism that such an outward Act was done will be unto you at all times a Remission of your sins but it must be an effectual application of the blood of Christ which is the virtue and power of it that will do it and this may be and is done in the confession of your sins and the profession so your faith I may rather speak more properly than they do and say that your Baptism is not so only the first Table for Refuge after Shipwrack and Repentance the second but that Baptism is the first and one long drawing Table that may and must be drawn out at length into the Two Leaves of it namely into and unto Repentance of sin and confession of Faith at or upon which rightly used and applyed you and all true believers and penitent sinners may sit down and find plenty and provision of grace and mercy or which not so much as a Table or Plank but as the Ark and Ship it self will save you as Saint Peter saith So then let the effects and fruits of your first Baptism be acted and exercised by you aad let the force and efficacy thereof be seen in the reformation of your whole life for Baptism is a seal of a dying to sin and a rising unto Newness of Life Rom. 6.4 as well as a Seal of the Remission of sin Mark 1.4 and then you shall need no second Baptism and if not your first will be frustrated and yet you can have no second and I may say unto you Christians ye stiffnecked and unbaptized in heart and eares as Stephen doth the Jewes ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart ears when as you do not express the force and vertue of your first Baptism as they did not of their first Circumcision in the renovation and reformation of your hearts and eares i.e. life and actions Therefore when the Jews fell away from God at any time and were called to Confession of sin or profession of Faith the Prophets did not propound unto them a new or second Circumcision as if the former were voyded or vacated but onely mind them of their first and onely Circumcision and their Obligation in their Infancy bidding them to Circumcise the fore-skin of their hearts and to practice the inward Circumcision in conversion to God the spiritual and inward part of that Sacrament And so the Apostles used to call them that had sinned after Baptism as the Galathians by name who had fallen from the Grace of the Gospel to confession of sin and repentance to believe in Christ telling them of their Baptism into Christ so bringing and reducing them to that foretaken by them and the order set down there which is already mentioned nor do we read either in Prophet or Apostle of any other new order required afterwards of the Baptizing them again but only a renewing of their Faith and Repentance the Order and Obligation of their first and once Baptism by the Ministry of the word and that other Sacrament the Supper of the Lord. In a word learn now to practice thy Baptism the inward part of it to which appertains Repentance and Faith and so look not only back to it but into it an find out there thy ingagement and restipulation and perform that now that thou art come to knowledge thereof and walk before God in true obedience and in good resistance and abrenuntiation of the Devill and all his works For I would not such a looking back to thy Baptism as may put a vain confidence in the cutward element received by thee such a Respect or Contemplation of Baptism as to trust in the Elements is a misapplication of it through corruption and may well indeed occasion sin and encourage thee to a certain libertinisin licentiousnest in life there are some who being reproved for their swearing drunkenness and whordom take Sanctuary at their Baptism as if it assured men wilfully trading in sin of the remission of it without Repentance and Faith but rest not thou in the outward Letter or Element of the water but study the Spirit and walk in the Holiness of the same Repent of every breach of Covenant and this Repentance will be as a second plank or board after such Shipwrack to carry thee to the Haven of Happiness like as thy Baptism was a first step and stair of thy entrance into the visible Church and set
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
Truth proved by Scriptures and yet but propounded in Quaeres and what will they be at the last your Quaeres will appea you say a Truth also at the last and great day you will be deceived then as now for your Quaeres are not Resolutions Decrees Axioms but Quaeres it doth not yet appear what is Truth in them to your self or any others put them out of Question into Propositions come out of your Quaeres into your Resolves and then I will tell you whether now in the later little daies they do or in that last great day they will appear a Truth or Truths In particular to passe by your Questions and Quaeres your Sacrilegious Usurpation to Preach Baptize and distribute the Sacramental Bread and Wine your injurious Detension of Christian Infants from Baptism the Seal of the Covenant God made with them also your ridiculous dopping and plunging of grown persons over head and ears back ward in a Pond who were before Baptized in their infancy in the face of the Congregation your Scrismatical separation from your Parochial and National fellow members professing truth and holiness your Scurrilous railing upon the true visible Church of England and the Ministers thereof as Baalitish Devillish and Antichristian professing and worshiping Christ Jesus and God in spirit and truth with a world more of fraudulent misinterpreting and misapplyings of sacred writ virulent Caluminations of holy Truth violent oppositions of lawful order uncharitable imaginations and contempts of higher Powers and all persons who are not of your S ct and Set can I think or any man else whose brains and heads have not been intoxicated by a superfluous re-baptization that these will appear a Truth or truths at that great and last day which in all the former daies the Word of God hath judged and condemned for errors and untruths it hath been the fashion of some Heretiques and Scismatiques when they have been confuted and confounded with the evidence and light of Truth which hath been flashed in their faces here from the Word and Scriptures to make their appeals to the great and last day for trial and to Jesus for the Judge of truth or untruth but we have it already as a ruled Case from himself in the 12. of John 48. ver The word that I have spoken the same shall judge him and you and all at the last day and the Apostle Paul speaketh of the same day When God shall judge the secrets of men according to his Gospel Rom. 2.16 Flap not me off therefore with this put off of your Tenets if you have done with Quaeres as its high time that they will appear Truths at that great and last day for if you cannot now in this your little present day make them to appear Truths according to Christs word and Pauls Gospel better than you or others have done as yet and yet I think you and they have done your best they will never appear Truths in the great and last day but the Word and Gospel will then as now they do appear against them for errors and untruths and by that Word and Gospel Christ and his Apostles and all the Saints shall judge and condemn them for such so that you and they who held up your heads in these waters of strife and contention here on Earth with the pust and blown bladders of your self-conceipted fansies will be fain to hang them down in shame and confusion of face Revel 3. â—â— Calling upon the Hills to fall upon you and to the Mountains to cover you from the face of him that siteth upon the Throne and from that shine and lustre of Truth that then will appear at that great and last day I will therefore give you the good counsel of the Apostle Let every man for the counsel is good for all of us take heed how he buildeth upon the Foundation Jesus Christ every mans work shall be made manifest for the day shall declare it Especially the great and last day you speak off Because it shall be revealed by fire and the fire shall try every mans work of what sort it is whether Gold Silver precious Stones or whether Wood Hay Stubble if any mans work abide which he hath built thereupon he shall receive a reward if any mans work shall be burnt he shall suffer losse 1 Cor. 3.10 and 12. And whereas in your next close you bid me lye down before it and stoop to it it is spoken like an imperious School Master or imperial Master of the Field which as yet you are neither as for all the Truths of Christ set forth in his Word and Gospel I do here stoop to them and ly down before them prostrating and casting down all my imaginations and every thing of my Reason that exalteth it self against the knowledge of God bringing into captivity every thought or affection of mine to the obedience of Christ and his Truth and pleasure laying my hand upon my mouth and putting my mouth in the dust and laying dust upon my head I do here bow down my head incline my heart throw down all within me and without me and wholly and totally yield my self unto Truths of the Word of God as to the Victorious and Conquering the powerful and Triumphant Rod and Scepter of Christ Speak Lord for thy servant heareth 1 Sam. 3.10 1 Kings 18.39 Numb 23.18 Deut. 32.4 The Lord he is the God The Lord he is the God God is not as man that he should lye a God of Truth and without iniquity just and right is he yea God is truth it self and Christ is the Way and the Truth and the Spirit is truth 1 John 5 6. And thy Law is truth and all thy Commandements are truth John 14.6 Psalm 119.142 and 151. Thy Word is true from the beginning Psal 119.160 and so to the end thy Word endureth Heaven and Earth shall passe away but one jot and tittle of the Word shall not passe away till all be fulfilled Matth. 5.18 But Sir to lye down before or stoop to your Quaeres and Considerations and Interpretations so void and empty of the Divine Truth of God and his Word so full and even swoln with the Humane sanfie of man and his will though you masterly expect it I shall Scholarly defeat you I am now too strong and well truss'd and truth'd to untrusse or untruth to such a dip-dop pedant or rather Anti-pedant as you are such a one as you are I could have disciplined that way and discipled any other way fifty years ago and I have too much of Mordecai the Benjamite in me and of his zeal to the Church of God than to bow or stoop to such a Haman a man the Agagite the separate that speaks so ill and vilely of the people of God and seeks to destroy it and them utterly Nay rather let your Dagon fall upon his face to the earth before the Ark of the Lord and your Quaerulous errors lie down
before the Truth and stoop to it now that that I have brought it unto your house and set it before your face and eyes and if you would but rise up betimes in the morning and admit in of the light of Christ that true morning Star you might see your Dagon fallen down before the Ark and the truth standing up over your errors I doubt not but there will be those for Sir if you will be reled by your friend never meddle more with any controversie of Divinity I had almost said Text of Scripture that will take up Dagon again and set him in his place again but I may foretell them it will be labour lost for when they rise up the next morning they will behold Dâ—gon fallen again upon his face to the ground before the Ark of the Lord and in worse case than before with his head and both the palmes of his hands cut off upon the threshold and onely the stump of Dagon to be left him But why should I lie down before and stoop to your Quaeres Considerations and Interpretations and the Truth of them that will appear at that great day and now appeareth proved by Scriptures For that now I am enformed informed and so cannot plead ignorance before the Lord at his appearing when he will reward every own according to his work I am now informed you write and must mean by your self your Letter and I am glad to finde you here in form though now you are out of matter for when you had matter to Quaere and Propound then I am sure you had no form to proceed or order it in I was then fain to inform you that is to put your matters in form which are so deformed and disordered that so I might inform you in the matters which were material and of moment for if otherwise you mean of the matter I pray let me know wherein I am now informed by you not by your Quaeres these rather put doubts than bring any matters of Informations from you or themselves nor by your Considerations for they were so inconsiderable in themselves and so inconsiderately delivered by you that I never considered them farther than to refutation of them they never got within me and took any place in me to form or inform or conform or transform into or unto any thing in them nor by your interpretations of any Texts of Scripture for you never had the spirit you have so talked of to give a right interpretation of the Text but still as you broached it for my information it seemeth the Text of the Spirit informed me to the contrary that it was not the meaning of the Text nor minde of the Spirit I acknowledge I am not too old to learn nor so much a Scholar but I may be informed but I think I am too old a Bird to be caught with such your chaff and too long a Scholar and a Minister to be taught by such your stuff What is the chaff to the wheat saith the Lord by Jeremiah Jer. 23.28 If Sir you spread out any more shrapnets and send out any more Letten of Information to me let them be more literate and better baited with wheat else I shall not come down to them as who care not for pecking amongst such light and chaffy Quaeres and Considerations though I like well of sound solid and wheaty Reasons and Argumentations Again what are the resuse fish to Soles and Salmons now that you have toiled all this night for I see you fished in the dark night and have caught nothing of worth if you launch out into the deep again of controversies and let down your Net again of another Letter for a draught of Objections or Answers I pray be carefull to enclose a multitude of good fish Salmous and Soles of solid Objections and Reasons salving Answers and Distinctions or else I shall not be beckoned to to come in as who cannot though I love Fish well such as are sound and whole as a fish should be as I have mentioned feed upon poor John and fresh Herrings Minna-Quaeres and Sprat-Considerations and such other refuse fish you will never fatten me or inform or immatter me with such but I shall still be lank lean and ignorant and may plead ignorance before the Lord at his appearing for any thing of knowledge I have found in you and when he will reward every one according to his work you are not like to be rewarded for your informing me or for your interpreting Scripture or for your denying Baptism to Infants or for your dipping again the baptized or for your reviling the Church of Christ and his Ministers or for presuming to preach in Pulpits without Ordination and Authority for there shall be no reward to the evil man Prov. 24.20 Therefore take heed of having an evill eye or evil tongue against little Infants and their baptising or against the great God and his Church and Ministers and bringing and evil report or interpretation upon the good Word of God and the Scriptures lest God reward you according to your work and your evil work be rewarded with an evil wages of punishment for David's prayer is still with God Psal 94.2 Lift up thy self thou judge of the earth render a reward to the proud But now again Sir why do you follow And if you can answer these Quaeres and Considerations by plain Scripture I pray do or else hold your peace and leave your unwarrantable practices Did you not tell me but even now that I was informed now by your Quaeres and Considerations so that I could not plead ignorance and what will you have me answer them when as I am fully informed by them and have gotten full knowledge by them shall I answer against my information and dispute against my knowledge of your truths you even here contradict your self and your own spirit and speech as it often falls out to them that have such speeches and such a spirit of contradiction of others But if I can answer them and that by Scripture it is possible it seems or otherwise why do you pray me to do it then sure you have not rightly informed but rather mis-informed me and mis-interpreted the Scriptures and therefore I may more justly set upon the answoring them to inform you better in the knowledge of the truth and to infirm in you the grounds of your errours which I have done by plain Scriptures and by Arguments also proved by direct and plain Scriptures rightly interpreted And now that it is done I will command my self to hold my peace and enjoyn my self silence You boldly enough prayed me to do it or else hold my peace and I kindly enough have done it and do hold my peace Isa 62.1 It was for Zions sake that I held not my peave and for Hierusalems sake that I did not rest until the reighteousness thereof went forth as brightness or rather some little glympse brighter by my enlightning some
of Israel both Civil and Ecclesiastical such corruptions as are mentioned in those Texts at that time what reason or Religion prudence or conscience is there in this to make use and your application of them to our State both of Magistracy or Ministry until you had cleared the Doctrine and proof of the same sins to reign amongst both What Prophet do you know makes the People to erre bite with the teeth and cry peace to teach for hire and if their mouths be not filled to prepare for war do you not remember who it was that said And how like unto him you are herein doth Job serve God for nought and who said Ye are of your father the devil he is the accuser of the Brethren and a false accuser we Ministers teach not for hire and yet we labourers are worthy of our hire and if it be detained and taken out of our mouths the Law is open they may implead one another as I have largely shewed before we may flie into the arms of the Law which is no Law of Arms or War But farther the word of Micah was that which he said concerning Samaria and Hierusalem and for any thing appears the word in the Text might be concerning Samaria and not Hierusalem and then it concerns you more than us you more and your Prophets for Samaria was the head City of the separate Jeroboam and his company the ten Tribes who divided from the House of David and departed away from Hierusalem and the Temple and set up their Calves in some private stalls and houses and so ever after continued separates so that the Samaritans had no dealing with the Jews ordinarily when Christ came and lived with them but kept aloof and apart from the publick Services of the Temple 1 Kings 12. John 4. The third is Isa 3.12 15. O my people they which lead the thee cause the thee to erre and desroy destroy the way of thy paths What mean you to beat my people to pieces pieces and grind the face of the poor saith the Lord Neither here wanted you any time to write out all the words Besides here 's excellent good order in your proceedings from Esay to Micah from Micah to Esay by a new retrograde method or rather your old crab-order backward and forward forward and backward But these words are wholly and solely directed by the Prophet to the secular Powers and Civil Rulers of the People of Israel the which if you by-your bold and prophetical spirit shall as you do here or else you are quite out of your Texts revile the Temporal Rulers of our Nation with beating Gods people to pieces and grinding the face of the poor I must refer you over to their Temporal Authority and Justice to chastise your insolency and rebellion according to those Texts Exod. 22.28 Rom. 13.4 the which for want of time I have not writ out in all the words The next is Jer. 5.30 31. A wonderfull and horrible thing is committed in the land the prophets proplesie falsely talsly and the priest priests bare bear rule by there their means and my people love to have it so and what will ye do in the end thereof Falsly written and falsly applied is all this Text. In what and which of our Prophets for so and such you make us and must grant us or all your Applications of the Prophets to us out of prophets is vain impertinent and inconsistent I say which of our Prophets and wherein do they prophesie falsly we neither foretell or reveal hidden particular things to come some of your Prophets do as Christs coming to reign temporally and gloriously upon earth for a thousand years together with the very year of the beginning of his Reign and have herein prophesied falsly for the year is passed of late wherein some of them said it should begin Or if you mean by prophecying expounding and interpreting of Scripture I will go no farther than your self for a false prophet at the next door because I am weary with travelling thus far than whom if there be a more false Expounder and Interpreter of Scripture as I have abundantly declared throughout this whole Tractate I will forfeit all my Commentaries upon the Bible into his hands if he will reade them and take them so into his head thereby by such help to make himself a true Expounder and Interpreter of the Scriptures afterwards As for our Priests bearing rule by their means your own eyes looking about you may serve to give your tongue I will not say the lie an answer to the contrary And for our People love to have it so I thought you had been better acquainted with the People than so or to say so of them for the People love to have it otherwise than so that Priests should bear rule by any means And if you love the People no better than so to say they love to have it so they may likely begin not to love you so as they have done to make you a Father or Son of the People and Vox Populi I think you understand that word a Preacher of the Peoples making and a voice of a Crier in the Wilderness against John the Baptist though your name-sake and their Childrens Baptism And for the last Clause And what will ye do in the end Here 's a Quaere indeed I who have answered so many of your Quaeres before will not stand out for this one at last but will tell you what I will do in the end let others tell you what they will do in the end I will now in the end pray to God and I do so that he would give unto you a better understanding of his Word into your head and a greater love of his Ministers into your heart For to end with that you began the Text with a wonderfull and horrible thing is committed in the Land and by you for one and a chief one some prophets but they are onely so called by some expound the Word of God falsly and revile the Ministers of God falsly and the Priests and Jesuites bear rule by their means and some people love to have it so and what will you do in the end I hope you will have doen in the end and hold your peace at last as you promised even now by your Sarety Job in your first Text which you have cause to do lest Job minde you of it and say as he doth Job 18.2 How long will it be ere you make an end of words words indeed and little else besides I hope you will do so anon for I perceive the next Text is your last you end with Matth. 23.4 Foor for they bind heavie burdens and grievous to be bourne born and lay them on mens shoulders but they themselves will not move them with one of there their fingers in vain do they worship me teaching for doctrines the commandements of men Matth. 15.19 And if ye love me keep my commandements John
them and seriously to weigh them excusing the matter that for want of time you had not written out all the words of all the Scriptures you might have added scarce of any at all when in the end and last clauses your Letter when time must needs therefore be more wanting to you by reason your Letter comming was noised abroad and long expected to take so much time as to stand and stay the writing out all the words to the full a thing different from your fashion when you had more time of six or seven Texts without the least intimation of want of time let the next honest Clerk or Scribe judge whether there were not some Legerdemain and Handicrast if not heart deceipt in such hand-writing and a piece of hypocritical Scribism as also Anabaptism or of scribbling and Anabaptizing hypocrisie in it And there was another piece of the same stuff in it besides for the former part of your Letter being of matters and points of Divinity in Question betwixt us it was your policy and hypocrisie to set down to your Tene's and Assertions Texts of Scripture named and figured by Chapter and Verse so to put a fair gloss and Iustre of Truth for the amusing of the vulgar people and deluding them with such shews and paints of proof you knowing they neither have skill nor will nor leasure nor pleasure to turn to the words themselves and weigh them of which you might have saved them the labour and me also but that you meant not but rather to put me to the pains wherein you lost your labour and purposes for that it is a pleasure to me to search the Scriptures if you had written out the words into your sheets and folded up them with your Arguments or Expositions together into the same But then there was another fear or Quakery in it for Hypocrites are ever a fraid of discovery and Quake for fear of it as the Devils believe but tremble for the same fear of being discovered in their false faith For you feared and might well enough that if you had written out the words of your Texts and set them down together or by your Opinions and Expositions people must needs see and reade both together and so comparing the one with the other the words of the Texts cited with the words of your Tenees asserted they might espy and discern as an ordinary understanding may do the impertinency of the one to the other yea the contrariety of the matters in them And truly this was and it a notable piece of Popery and Jesuitism to keep the people as much as may be from the words of the Scripture for the words of the Scripture are pure enlightning the eyes but peoples darkness best for their devotion they know and say Therefore indeed was I the willinger to look into every Text cited by you that so I might present unto the Reader whomsoever the Texts of Scriptures in words at length and not in figures as I said before if I remember well and so giving him a plain outsight of the words He may come to a clearer infight of the sense and better discern what it proveth or proveth not A good way to disfigure an onely Text scribe and to reverse and decapitate a verse and Chapter Hypocrite But there is more of the same cloath your Linsie Woolsie hypocrisie here at the end of your Letter for usually he that plaies the Hypocrite in the beginning works the Hypocrite in the end and turns to be of a merry a very one when you were engaged to prove and fortifie your Tenets as hitherto you onely set down Chapter and verse but not the words why so you could not stand about writing them down for want of time no no that was not the cause for being but newly begun it was free to you to have taken as much time as you would was it not rather for want of truch and out of abundance of subtlety and policy lest the Reader finding Gods words and your words in the same place together might the easier at one view see the distance and diffonancy of the one from the other and so perceive the weakness of proof in your allegation But now that you are resolved in the end for a friendly farewel to reprove yea to revile and reproach the true Church of England and the true Ministers thereof and now in the foot of your Letter without any foot or ground unless the foot of Pride like as you did the same in the front of your Letter without any front or brow but that of Brasse to trample under your unclean and stinking feet the sweet and precious Sons of Sion like as you dossed them before with your brasen and impudent forehead it seems now at the latter end of your Letter you can finde time enough though it be high time you should have done two hours and two sheets ago to write out fully the words of six or seven Texts spoken of some false and erroneous Prophets yea and of some corrupt Judges and Magistrates yea and some ignorant and sottish people some thousands of years fithence and to apply them to the learned pious and laborious Ministers of England very foolishly impertinently inconfiderately yea very wickedly maliciously devillishly Oh here you are very exact and diligent to write out all and the very words that your proselites reading here may learn the Scripture phrases and words and get them by heart and have them ready in their mouths as Shimei had the stones in his hand to cast them at David a man after Gods own heart and to asperse slander and bequaker the Ministers of God who are such according to Gods will as they passe by them or meet with them Remember Lord the reproach of thy servants how we do bear in our besoms the reproaches of the mighty people Wherewith thine enemies have reproached O Lord wherewith they have reproached the footsteps of thine Anointed Psal 89.56 Why did you not write out a thousand Texts more word for word even all in the Bible that mention any sin or vice of any Nation any erroneous or prophane person of any place there recorded and make application of them all to the Church of England and the Ministers there of This would have made the heap of your stones the bigger and so would have heaped up more wrath for you against the day of wrath for your speaking evil of Dignities and reviling Orders and especially for your teaching vulgar people errors confusions as to renounce their first Baptism and reproach their Preaching and Baptizing Ministers and that in Scripture Language and Phrases which they learn of you and such as you who writ out the Texts and the words too when you wrest Scripture to the vilifying of Ministers and you want no time nor malice for the doing of it to put such words into your peoples eyes and ears and mouth but when you are to wrest Scriptures for the justifying of
your last line lovely and amiable though the first leaf was hatefull and detestable I embrace you in your last line so also in your Subscription speak it again and write or subscribe again your self that in the hand of two witnesses or the double witness of your hand this word may stand and be more confirmed To be the Lord Jesus's devoted Servant as also mine and the rest the meanest of Christs Servants and Ministers Servants for Jesus sake which I take onely according to the Apostles limitation Galath 5.13 in or by love for which also I thank you being ready also to serve you in and by love for Jesus sake but with another of the same Apostles limitations 2 Thess 2.10 by an in love of the truth the which because some have not received God hath sent them strong delusions that they should believe a lye as it followeth in the Apostle ver 10 11. But we are bound to give God thanks for you Brethren and Nâ—ighbours and Parishioners and your selves are boundmuch more to do the same to God for that he hath called you unto the belief of the truth by our Gospel and something also by this my Answer to you 2 Thessalonians 2. verse 14. Therefore Brethren and Neighbours stand fast and hold the Traditions which ye have been taught whether by word or our Epistle verse 15. Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God even our Father which hath loved us and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace comfort and â—stablish you in every good word and work verses 16 17 And now also Brethren I commend you to God and to the word of his grace which is able to build you up Acts 20.32 Consider what I say and have said and the Lord give you understanding in all things 2 Tim. 2.7 Let every soul that is understanding be subject to the higher powers of the word and captivate every thought to the obedience of the truth Let every Saul who is ignorant admit of the light of the Word and Truth to shine round about him that the scales by the Ministry of Ananias may fall away from their eyes that in seeing they may see and understand the truth of all the matters and mysteries of Salvation Acts 9.15 But if any man be ignorant and will be ignorant let him be ignorant and still be ignorant 1 Cor. 14.38 Or Let them hear and say reade and see It is truth Isa 43. verse 9. And so Sir because I will be answerable to you in all things I do now subscribe my self as in relation to my Master and Lord Jesus Christ His the least of his Servants and Ministers not worthy to be called a Servant and Minister of Christ so in reference unto you my Antagonist and Opponent Your the greatest of your friends worthy to be called a friend of yours for am I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth Gal. 4.16 When you have tried all your Brethren and Friends Truth will be your best Friend and your best Brother will be Jeffry Watts From Muchleigh's Parsonage July the 1. 1656. Now I proceed from a Scribe and his Letter answered and a Pharisce or Separate churched to a hypocrite or Dipper sprinkled but first of all to be questioned and catechised and so to the Narration of a dipping to be censured according to my Promise in the Title and Frontispiece of this Treatise Onely first Courteous Reader I Must desire of thee that in the reading over if so thou art intended this Narration of a Dippping with a Censure thereupon which followeth now Thou wouldst not mind a Passage or Paragraph of the Former Epistle to thee which goeth before the Answer and Instruction of a Scribe and his Letter as wherein I apologized for my omitting to cite and call into the several Points I handled the venerable Testimonies of the ancient Doctors and Fathers of the Church in their own learned Languages This I excused unto thee partly because I was confined and tyed up by the Scribe and his queres onely to Scripture Commands and Examples for my Answer and partly for that I intended my Answer should go no farther then in a reciprocal and interchangeable Letter returned unto him who first occasioned and provoked it Though afterwards by reason of the larger extent of my Answer then I expected The Desk refusing a transcription of it to which I had offered it I was even compelled to make my refuge unto the Presse for an Impression of the same otherwise all the labour must be lost on both sides the Queres and Letter unanswered the Scribe uninstructed the Pharisee uncharged and Truth unvindicated as to and by my self This beingdone the Answer finished dismissed and sent away for the aforesaid prupose There fell out and was practised in my Parish and it may be for the more affront to me at a house of mine there This Dipping of two new Sisters in a Pond of the Yard The which being in publick upon the Lords-day and betwixt the Morning and Evening Worships drew away much people thither and was discoursed of by many mouthes and so famed about in these parts that I resolved and could do no less to get a full Narration of the business and to pass my censure upon the same And so having first preach it down in my Pulpit to my own Parish as a New business of ill consequence I next have written it down in my Study to thee the Reader and have sent up also this my censure after the former my Answer to be Impressed or Imprinted together into the same Tractate as handling both of them matters very agreeable and consonant So then here intending the Presse and having now no confinements or restraints upon me I have taken my full Liberty to produce and bring in much of the Learned Antiquity and to write out and transcribe their weighty Words and Speeches in their own Languages as many of them as I had by me for the fuller Confirmation and firmer Attestation of this my censure upon that Dipping that it was and is as I have said a New business and a very Novelty Yea this I have done as for the convincing the Anabaptists their Dipping and Immerging Baptism so called to be of Novelty so for the Confirming the Orthodox their Sprinkling and Aspersing Baptism as it is to be of Antiquity by the evidences of the ancient Fathers and Doctors brought forth and shewed on both sides and farther I have ascended up to the Highest Antiquity of all even to the Ancient of dayes and the Primogenit of every Creature and have probably at least shewed that Christ Jesus himself manifested in the flesh was but Aspersed or Superfused with water and not Dipped and Immerged under the water certainly not in their way and manner at his Baptism by S. John the Prime baptist nor other Christians after him by S. Peter and the other Primitive Baptizers And as to raâ—fi
these things so learned Reader I have done thus much to gratifie thee and to refresh thee with the rare deticaies of these Ancients after that I have well nigh wearted thee if not cloyed thee with the course Ordinary of my Moderness Onely I wonder at the Iron-brow and Brazen-face of novel Impudency and New light that whereas it is every Seventh day at least in its Chimney-house Conventicles prating against the Old Laudable and Ancient Practices of this our and other reformed Churches it dares pretend to Antiquity so contradicting it self and glory of it in this point of their Immerging and Dipping calling it the Good old way who scorn it and scoff at the same and all Old Light in their other Tenets and Opinions I say no more to thee then what Job saith 32.7 Dayes should speak and multidude of years should teach wisdom And so 12.12 With the Ancient is wisdom and in length of days understanding And lastly what Solomon saith Remove not the Ancient Land-Mark which thy Fathers have set Prov. 22.28 So fare-well and Fear ill The Narration of their Dipping in a Pond of Much-leighes AFter Supplication within a House near the Pond for Gods Presence and Blessing the two VVomen or Sisters gave an account of their Faith and others a testimony of their Life and after suplicating again the two VVomen or Sisters did privately strip themselves in a Chamber and put on other cloathes that so they might have their own dry to put on again And so they came to the Pond wherein the Brother who is set apart by Fasting and Prayer of the Church to administer the Ordinances stood in the water the VVomen or Sisters going into the water also so above the knees but the one afore the other about a minute He took them one after another fast by the cloathes about the shoulders and spake the words acccording to the Institution severally to each of them at the instant time immediately before the Dipping and so dipped them severally all over head and ears body and cloathes having first tyed their cloaths together with a string about and above their knees He dipped either of them but once and then raised them up again and so they went again to the House and shifted themselves in a Chamber by themselves with the help of some women and they supplicated again That God would encourage their Souls and increase their Faith and the rest of the day was spent in prayer preaching and participating the Lords Supper The Narrator hereof to whom being an Actor and Abbettor in the business I wrote for a true and full information because I would not take it upon report from Spectators and Lookers on onely added these words to me I am sorry to hear you call it a New business for it is older then your Sprinkling of Infants though indeed that hath been so long practised generally that this Old Good Way seems now a new Thing And no wonder for we read that the Song the Saints sing for their deliverance out of Antichristianism is termed to be as it were a new song Rev. 14.3 And no wonder though the old Practices of the Saints be as it were a new Thing to the World and unto their Leaders I am glad to hear you acknowledge that Baptizing is Dipping then Sprinkling is not Baptizing we confess that every Dipping is not Baptizing for I may Dip my Dog but not Baptize or Dip him in the Name of the Father Son and holy Ghost Reader Thou hast heard the Narration and the Addition now read on and hear the Censure and its Reasons but having to deal with Crabbed Fellowes especially here in this Point for they go backward here which they do not elsewhere to antiquity and the Good Old Way I must and therefore will begin at the last and lower Words and so go backward also though upwards that so I may follow them and overtake them which else I cannot do THE DIPPER SPRINKLED All Baptizing is not Dipping SIR YOu have no cause the be glad at my acknowledging that Baptizing is Dipping unless with Democritus you can laugh at any thing you hear for then I must have said All Baptizing is Dipping which I did not as who know that but some Baptizing is Dipping and some Baptizing is a sprinkling Baptism being both in the true nature of the thing and native signification of the word but an ablution and washing with water which may be done either way by dipping the party in the water or by sprinkling water upon the party And you have as little cause to be sorry at my calling your Dipping a new Business unless with Heraclitus you can weep at every thing you hear I called it so indeed and shall here now make the Calling true as in word so in deed so far is it from being older then our sprinkling of Infants that your self helpeth it forward saying that this hath been so long practised generally that your good old way of Dipping seems now a new thing It seems so to you it is so to me You make me in the mean time no whit sorry but glad to see you moved somewhat upon the charge of a new thing or business Are not all your things now new and your whole Business is it not new a new nothing This will do well indeed if real and will be a credit to you if creditable to come out of your new Lights into our old Light to forsake the Novelties of your Scribe and embrace the Antiquity of the Scripture so you would be thought to do by alledging of that Scripture Rev. 14.3 Though very impertinently and improperly For the song the Saints sing there for their deliverance out of Antichristianism be it so is not termed there to be as it were a new song by the werld and their leaders by way of reproach or scandalizing imputation but by the Church and its Saints the victory of the Lamb and its followers and the song which they sung for it is termed a new song by way of Renown or magnifying Reputation as elswhere the Scripture speaketh and meaneth by the same phrase of a new song Psalm 33.3 and Psalm 44.4 You apply it as if the Lamb and his company or their victory and deliverance were wronged and mistermed by some as it were a new song to me for vilifying or miscalling your Dipping a new Business Thus instead of a Leader of the world as you write and would make me against your emaning and will you make me a follower of the Lamb who though I bear a part in the singing of that glorious new song yet still may and shall sing my old song and saying of your inglorious new Thing and Business namely your late Dipping amongst us See how soon you have profitted much in the school of one Tyrannus Acts. 19.9 so but the other day you said and thought you were under the spirit of Bondage and what is the vertue and efficacy of this your new Dipping
Bishop to be confirmed as Gregory the Great acknowledgeth in his Sacramentary in which is set down the order of baptizing Infants To which I shall adde the Testimony of another one Alcuine or Albine by name who lived in the Year 780. and so 220. years after the aforesaid Gregory and the rather I do because he was an English man born in Yorkshire and it may be thereupon called the other name Albine of Albion he was the scholar of our venerable Bede and the school-master also as friend and familiar to Charles the Great by whose advice Charles the Great founded the University of Paris and appointed four principall Heads and Presidents thereof Rabanus Alcuinus Claudius Johannes Scotus all the Scholars of our Beda so much is France beholding to England for their Learning and learned men but to the purpose the words of Alcuine are Postquam vestiti fuerint Infantes he is speaking of Infants after they had been baptized naked deportantur ante Pontificem ad confirmandâ—m who sate in a seat fixed somewhere in the Church or in Sacrario the Chancel or Vâ—stry for the same purpose whereby I conceive it was at the solemn times of Baptism twice in the year Easter and Whitsontide an evideut Testimony both for Infant-baptism and also for Infants baptized naked And it is true also that the old and late Liturgy of our Church of England mentioneth the Ministers taking the child to be baptized into his arms naming it shall as the Rubrick hath it dip it in the water so it be discreetly and warily done but whether in the cloaths or out of the cloaths it is not expressed In present I think and so shall until I be better informed that our Church meant a dipping of the Infant out of the cloaths and therein owned the Antiquity of the practise but yet shewed her authority in things of such nature for that she addeth if the child be weak it shall suffice to pour water upon it so indulging the health and welfare thereof and what child is not weak in these our Northern cold Clymates though not contradicting Antiquity which did so dip children naked in those Eastern warmer Countreys where they might more safely do it I am sure she meant not your new way of dipping in the cloaths over head and ears and the whole body What if she meant the dipping of the naked face onely or the naked forehead and head also in the water by such as hold still to the dipping there mentioned so doing as it crosseth not the Antiquity for the reason I gave but now so it favoureth not your novelty for the reasons I have given against the same all this while By this time you may see and hear how your dipping and baptizing bodies in their cloaths in a new busines and none of the old way I remember Justin Martyr in dial ad Tryph. gives the Pharisees that peculiar term and epithite of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because of their washing so many things as cups pots vessels and tables us are mentioned Mark 7.4 But these are civil or superstitious washings or ceremonial Your Scribes surpasse these Pharisees in dipping of cloaths and all in their baptizing and washings which are Eclesiastical religious and even moral with them and therefore may more justly be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dippers or washers and in this sense Johns the Baptists I do look when you shall fall from this novelty in this Sacrament of Baptism to such another novelty in the other Sacrament and when you break bread give it into your proselytes hands with their gloves on I omit to open unto the Reader the packet of these other frivolous if not scurrilous Rites and Ceremonies which were used at this your dipping some whereof you relate and others for modesty I suppose you silence but are talked of by the spectators as ridiculous and infamous I question them not at all for they were all such questionless onely this I question How men of such sincerity onely should be thus full of ceremony also and wonder also how you who hate in others innocent and significant ceremonies in ministerial celebrations and abominate them as the abomination of desolation throwing them away as the rags and patches of Popery and rending them off as the fringes and laces of the whore should now be so far in love of them as to clothe and adorn your Dippal administrations in such offensive and sensless Rites and Ritual dresses so that your brother may be better called a master of Ceremonies then a Minister of Ordinances This one thing I shall question here why your brother was so quick of his words and so slow at his work for so it seems by the narration which is your relation that he spake the words according to the institution I baptize thee in the Name of the Father the Son and the holy Ghost before he dipped them in the water though but immediatly before The which I take to be another novelty if not more some vanity be not in it For our English Liturgy consonant to the ancient Liturgies of the Churches doth otherwise and better practise direct where as the Rubrick hath it the Minister naming the child shall dip it in the water saying I baptize thee c. And I conceive there is good reason for it that the dipping into or sprinkling with water and the pronouncing the words of administration I baptize c. should be done in one and the same instant of time as two conjunct Acts and not one before the other because the sign and the thing signified are two correlate parts and go together not one before the other If either may go immediately instantly before the other It is the dipping before the words as our Liturgy hath it Dip it in the water saying and not the words before the dipping as your Tympany doth it he spake the words before he dipped nay there is not verity or truth in it to say the words I baptize c. before the party be in the water or the water upon the party But your Dippers tongue dipt and tipt it may be aforehand for the better keeping out of the cold of water did run so fast in the pronouncing the words of institutution too fast indeed as which did run before it was sent and spake before the Lord opened the mouth of the man Numb 22.28 that his hands having taken such fast hold of the sisters by their clothes about the shoulders and loath to let it go or put them out of his sight till needs must he forgat the work action of dipping them putting them under the water at the same time or before the speaking of the words of Institution And so I may say as the Comaedian doth in a like dipping and tripping Neque lingua neque manus suum faciebant officium I may put in neque pedes as the Comaedian doth for his feet ran too fast to the Pond
aswel as his tongue ran too fast in the Pond The Fourth Catechistical Quaere is about the place where the Dipping was done Q. 4. What warrant have you of precept or example of sacred Scripture or succeeding primitive Antiquity for your dipping of your Sisters other your Proselytes in Ponds at your Baptizing This to be done I understand from all present there It was your modesty and humility not to make any Relation or mention of it for that it was your own Pond of your yard and so not to glory of it that the Dipper should make choice of your Pond your common ordinary pond where your Ducks and Geese do wash themselves dayly to honour it with a solemn dipping of two special Sisters therein at their Baptism I speak not this as if I took exception to common and ordinary water used in Baptism yea I acknowledge that God therefore also made choice of the vulgar and common Elementary water to set forth as the purifying and cleansing of souls from sin by the blood of Christ which water that washeth doth well represent so the general offer and benefit of the grace of Christ thereby to all rich and poor even the meanest and vulgars which the commonness and copiousness of water every where to be had doth also intimate And therefore that question about the necessity of water unto baptism so that in decay and defect thereof there can be no Baptism in wine or milk or other liquor needed not either to have been first raised or after so hotly pursued by Hunnius and his party for that water is so common a liquor as every where to be had and at all times as there will be no need nor hath been that ever I read of running out for wine or other liquor to minister the same in Baptism Yea and so long as water may be had wine or other liquor is not to be used out of a luxury of pride or pride of luxury lest they be called Vinarii or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of us winy and windy men too like as some who used water instead of wine in the Lords Supper when this might also be had under a pretence of abstinence but not abstinence of pretence were called by the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Aquarii watry and washy Hereticks as Augustine witnesseth Haeres 64. But yet this I add that if there be such an invincible want and unavoidable scarcity and privation of water for Baptism and wine for the Lords Supper so as to water can be procured but onely wine may be had where baptism cannot with edification and ought not in duty to be delayed so also no wine can be gotten but onely water where the Lords Supper cannot with edification and ought not in duty to be delayed there the one may be supplied by the other in each Sacrament the water by wine in baptism and the wine by water in the Lords Supper And if there be no affectation of novelty in either no contempt of either of the elements no neglect of inquisition or acquisition of the proper element to either I suppose there can be no charge of Heresie or breach of institution in such administrations where the peculiar and proper common elements as I may so call them of wine and water proper to the Lords Supper and commonly in use proper to Baptism and commonly in use cannot be had and procured where such administrations ought to be done and performed If any shall here ask what need all this seeing water is every where to be had for baptism and also wine for the Lords Supper I answer either is not so every where to be had and therefore it is not a needless discourse for there is no use of wine in America where there where brethren that wrote to Calvin hereabouts as Beza in his 25 epistle relateth and there are besides a sort who were are so called Abstemious who cannot endure the very smell or least tast of wine but they will swoon away as we speak and fall down for dead what shall these be done to They must either not receive the Lords Supper at all which they cannot well answer if they ask not for it nor we if we deny it them or else we must give it and they receive it but in one kinde for neither can they away with it if diluted and mixed with water and then we shall do as the Papists would have us and Bellarmine propoundeth as the wise way of the Roman Church to heal up this inconvenience namely the withholding of the Cup from such people lib. 4. de Sacr. cap. 24. And how and if the Priest also should be so Abstemious its readily replied none of these are ever taken with such a disease What remains then but that they must and may take this Sacrament in water or other drink usuall and familiar unto them like as Philip Malancthon tells the Ruthins that they may do well to take the same in their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or ordinary Mede for the scarcity of wine amongst them lib. de usu integri sacramenti And if there had been no water in that Desart where the Eunuch was converted and earnestly desired Baptism as in many desarts there is none and he had said See here is wine in my chariot in stead of See here is water what doth hinder me to be baptized I doubt not but Philip would have baptized him therein and the absence of water would not have hindered it but the providence of God disposed it otherwise and better too there Lastly I should not have touched upon this discourse but that I finde Hunnius and Bellarmine and another Jesuit Jacobus Gualterius coursly handling Calvin Beza Melancthon hereabouts whom I ought to defend in the way of truth as being three great Lights of the Protestant Religion To let the first of these alone Hunnius the third I named Gualterius calleth this a Diabolicall mutation of the Eucharisticall matter lib. 1. Tabulae Chronol The second Bellarmine roundly asketh Quis dedit Philippo authoritatem mutandi sacramentorum materiam somewhat like my Scribe and Pharisee By what authority doest thou these things and who gave thee this authority he speaketh of Philip Melancthon I answer Christ gave it unto him and the other two in the cases mentioned and that upon good reason For a good reason hereof may be given that this being the mind and meaning of our Saviour Christ by setting forth the signes of those things by which our bodies are washed and cherished as the water and wine thereby to present our spiritual ablution and augmentation by his blood we do no way swerve or go from that his mind and meaning if without any wantonness of innovating in the want of the one we substitute another as wine for water in baptism or water for wine in the Lords Supper or any other common and ordinary liquor that may have though not an equal yet alike analogy
of washing and nourishing spiritually By which may be put back what the aforesaid Hunnius objecteth as that we have no word of institution none for substitution and whatsoever is not of faith is sin all which are blunted by our keeping still to the minde and meaning purpose and intention of Christ as to the end and use of the elements in general though the particular elements themselves cannot be procured And whereas he puts a man so baptized under some perplexity of conscience and under the temptation of Satan for I will instance but in that see you are not baptized with water but with some other liquor which was neither sanctified by any Word of God to this use of washing away sin neither hath it any such promise in Scripture adjoined therto he may be taken out of the same tentation by this answer of a good conscience That water was sought out for and none could be gotten and he was in danger and extremity of life and in distresse and want of Christ and his blood to wash his sins away There being some wine in a vessel in the house a Minister affecting no innovation but his good and salvation and the sacramental application of Christs washing blood for his further confirmation and consignation which he so earnestly desired took wine when he could have no water and poured of it upon him using the words I baptize thee in the Name of the Father the Son and the holy Ghost and so he may hope ye doubt not but God hath accepted of him as rightly baptized and interressed in Christ If it be said what analogy in the Lords Supper is there of water to wine seeing this is made up of many bunches of grapes or in baptism of wine to water seeing this hath a vertue to wash and cleanse I reply such particular analogies though they may be profitably thought of where the proper Elements to each Sacrament may be possibly gotten which are not negligently to be omitted yet are they not so precisely to be urged and strictly pressed the one against the other in the times of the scarcity of each Though if so I can say That the water also is made up of many drops of Rain and the wine hath also a washing and cleansing vertue It is sufficient that there is here a general analogy for the testifying of our mutual Communion and spiritual ablution as here is in that we use the same kind of symbols as drink and meat also and washing which are common and usual amongst us in defect of the proper and special and specially in that we hold one and the same faith in conjunction with and sanctification by one Christ and Saviour If indeed though in a case of exigency and scarcity of water any should substitute or use such a matter as hath no power at all in it self to wash or cleanse off the filth of the body so not to signifie the blood of Christ which cleanseth from the guilt of sin it were to be disallowed as that Baptismus Arenarius spoken of by Nicephorus lib. 3. cap. ult how that a young man of the Hebrews being desperately sick and calling for baptism in want of water was superfused with sand and miraculously recovered immediately whom notwithstanding the Bishop of Ascalonia being consulted with thereabouts sent away unto Jordan to be truly baptized the former baptism being indeed as the house in the Gospel built upon the sand and could not stand I know no History of a sandy Supper of the Lord as I may so speak to parallel with that sandy baptism as it was called unless it be that sucacoena that dry Communion and Supper the Popish Priests do give to their people for they also as to the one material part of this sacrament give them not that which doth and should represent the blood of Christ and satisfie their thirst as who give them no wine nothing at all instead of it and is it not all one to give them nothing and to give them that which doth not nor can signifie the blood and satisfie the thirst I am sure nothing doth neither But why do I thus enlarge I return to you and your Pond water And here again I must tell you it was a new business for the ancient manner of the Church in the purest times was to baptize as out of the Church so in Wels and Rivers Floods and Fountains so Walafridus Strabo saith in the 26 Chapter of Ecclesiastical things For thus Christ and all the other multitudes of people were baptized of John in the river Jordan as is expresly said by the Evangelists two of them Matth. 3.13 and 6. Mark 1.5 9. and where it is said John baptized in water 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Beza noteth that Jordan is meant in that Story wheresoever it s mentioned in the singular number as there Matth. 3.11 And whereas John 3.32 John was also baptizing in Aenon neer to Salim because there was much water there either Jordan overflowed hither also and these were other rivers about Aroer and and by the river Arnon mentioned in the Books of Moses oft and meant here by the many waters like as Acts 8.36 they came to a certain water and the Eunuch said See here is water thereby is meant the river Eleutheras lying without the borders of Aegypt where Philip overtook or found the Eunuch and baptized him saith our learned Beza Yea and that Text Acts 16.13 and 15. that Lydia and her houshold were baptized by a Rivers side of the Apostle St. Paul Now tell me who of old as old the Gospel as the Acts of the Apostles was ever baptized or as you speak dipped in a Pond True in the 5 of John there is mention made of a Pond or Pool Stagnum a standing or pent up water whereinto whosoever after the moving or troubling the water by an Angel descending stepped in first was made whole of whatsoever disease he had but this being a special Pond of water extraordinarily assisted of God and miraculously for medicinal cures of bodily diseases maketh nothing for Ponds generally and ordinarily appointed and mysteriously used for baptismal washing of spiritual sins of the soul Where is now your zeal for Scripture examples and patterns that you so much pretend to make shew of How are you still taken tardy in those defaults as you make them in us of humane inventions is this your conformity to the Word is it not rather your difformity from it and its presidents and so indeed this people have committed two evils you have forsaken the clear Fontains and Rivers and Well-springs and have sought out muddy Ponds Pools and Well-springs and have sought out muddy Ponds Pools and standing waters to dip your proselytes in and so leaving the Scripture examples embrace your own inventions we our selves do not therefore baptize no not in Rivers or Fountains nor do we press the same For such examples are not we know left upon the record of
some used the one in their Dioceses some the other manner of baptizing in their Divisions and both sorts with an opinion of indifferences of the thing in it self and with liberty of practise left each unto other as the affairs and the occasions of the Church required of changing and altering Who can justly challenge or rebuke our Church of England and the guides thereof for holding and retaining either the one or the other or both as she doth in some way and case but betaking her chiefly and most usually to aspersion and pouring on-water and that but once so leaving both the Ancient Fathers of old some of them and the younger Fathers of Rome all of them in the number of the Trin or thrice for that the Trinity is sufficiently enough set out in the very form of our baptizing In the name of the Father the Son and the holy Ghost why should any impose upon us or require of us either the Trine immersion at all or immersion at all constantly and continually considering we are not of the Eastern Churches where the Clymate being hot parties to be baptized might the better undergo the waters and be dipt but we are of the Church Western and our Church of the more Northerly side were the air waters clymate being cold the tenderer bodies of our infants cannot be immerged or dipt without evident danger to their healths and lives Have we not power to lay down and old custom as well as Gregory and Augustine and Cyprian or I onely and Barnabas the Ministers of the Church of England have we not power to forbear dipping and immerging especially where it may be sodangerous prejudicial What though some ancient Churches had such a custom of old we have no such custom neither the Churches of God now a dayes 1 Cor. 11.16 and when they had it it was but for a time Temporary it was but for an use upon an occasion Arbitrary it was not under a necessity for but with a liberty to other Churches It is a part of the former Gregory his words in the same Epistle worthy notice taking In eadem fide nihil officit sanctae Ecclesiae consuetudo diversa where there is the same faith and an unity in it a different custom in things indifferent nothing burteth or prejudiceth the Church of God as which hath power and authority to enact and to abrogate such things to be observed or omitted to all her Church children and members And therefore Sir I have not nor do censure and condemn you absolutely for the one and simple immersion nor for immersion simply and onely but for your immersion your simple one an immersion that hath almost nothing of Antiquity being such as is every way distant and different from the ancient immersion in all things but in this that your dipping was but once and simple and also for that it was a rash and presumptuous undertaking of a few private Plebeians and vulgar people without any Law or Licence or order of Church or State so far is it from any precept or prescript or President of the Word and Scripture I will be briefer in the next Corrollary for it is time to have done about this matter Coroll 3. §. 3 The nature of baptism is but this the cleansing and washing away the guilt and filth of sin by the application of waters according to the appointment of Christ signifying and exhibiting the blood of Christ that purgeth and purifieth that way and all the outward Sacramental actions thereof are but onely to represent and set out more lively the inward grace of baptism which is still but the ablution of sin This indeed ablution and washing of sin is necessary as being of the nature as I said and Essence of Baptism for this is called therefore the very washing of regeneration by which we are saved through the mercy of God Tit. 3.5 and so the washing of water by the Word with which Christ doth sanctifie and cleanse his Church Ephes 5.26 and so St. Paul tells the Corinthians 1 Cor. 6.11 Such were some of you soul sinners but ye are washed but ye are sanctified c. in the Name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God But the manner and way of washing and ablution of sin either that way by dipping and immerging the whole body into and under the water or by aspersion or perfusion or rather superfusion of water upon some part of the body this is not necessary but as I said Indifferent and Adiaphorous and Arbitrary and so not of the essence and form but of the accidence and formality rather or solemnity of Baptism so then if the ablution of sin washing off the guilt and filth thereof may be as well if not better represented by aspersion and sprinkling and pouring on of water upon some part of the body and gently rubbing on the same by the moving of the hand thereupon as by the dipping immerging and plunging of the whole body into and under the waters and holding it some while thereunder as it must be I add also if it the aforesaid aspersion or perfusion be as effectual to the good spiritual ends and purposes of baptism as the aforesaid immersion I see no reason to the contrary but that both the ancient and modern or present aspersion and perfusion or superfusion of water is as warrantable and allowable in baptism if not still more as the somewhat ancienter immersion dipping and diving in and under water for as for any such modern or present immersion dipping or diving under water as yours is I acknowledge it not we have no such custom nor the Churches of God as I said but now It is true the body must be washed and wetted with water in baptism either one way or another and that 's enough for the truth and nature of baptism now this may be and is done when we baptize with sprinkling and pouring water upon it or part of it and gently rubbing the flesh therewith as well as by dipping and immerging And therefore we do not speak falsly when but sprinkling and pouring on water we say we do baptize and do not dip that 's your false speech for though we dip not into the water we lay on water and wash and therefore do baptize Oh but were it not far better more agreable to Antiquity and the benefit from baptism more ample and large if the whole body were dipt and immerged then onely some part thereof the face forehead or head aspersed and washed This is answered already that our way of superfusion or aspersion with water is as significant as effectual as the other and as ancient within a sew years if any as the other way yea was in force and life amongst the Ancients when the other was dead and gone and besides we are freed from it where we will plead our freedom because we live out of the Hot Countreys where it was bred and born and was to be
cloud was a Pillar of fire and light to let you see if you be not wilfully blind that education of men at Schools and Universities in the knowledge of the Arts and Sciences as also Tongues and Languages is so far from being a way shut up by Christ as an Impertinency or Impediment to his Ministery that it hath been and is still a way laid open by him even in the times of his best and purest Ministery as a great furtherance and promotion thereof and that his Humane learning which you so vilifie is instrumental and subservient so it ought to be as Hagar to Sarah to the better propagation and profection of the Divine truth But Sir what is the reason you and yours are so much out of charity with Scholars and University Learning Sure it is because you are too much in love with your selves and the Countrey ignorance and like not those who are not like you in ignorance or whom you cannot be like unto in knowledge Like as it is said that Hierom wrote somewhat against Bishops and the Episcopal order because he could not be made a Bishop himself And yet I have heard and partly know it that you had natural wit enough to have been a Scholar though God never gave you the gracious will thereto and I have heard you discourse a great deal more rationally then now you do which makes me think you were dipt in some shallow Pond and not over head and ears otherwise you would not after such declaiming writing against the learning of Latine have within a line or two spoken and written Latine your self as you sililly do in those words of my taking a Living from them to the value of 100 l. per annum yea and have spoken false English too like a bad English Scholar also for I never took a Living from them the people neither from them as the owners nor from them as the Doners and so no way from them I hope that hereafter you will love Latine the better now your self begin to speak it But I have done with that which concerneth my self solely in your Letter for as to those other Queries or Interrogatories Did ever Jesus lay down my sprinkling of water in Baptism upon the childs face it is answered as being the subject of this my last piece written to you my being Master and Lord over Gods Heritage my taking a Parish Church my giving the Lords Supper to no better then dogs These have been answered as being a part of the Subject of that my former piece written to your brother Thus When the Jews had married wives of Ashdod their children spake half in the speech of Ashdod and could not speak in the Jews Language Neh. 13.23 24. so you having made a separation and divorce from your Mother Church of Jerusalem and entred into a Communion and match with Ashdod or Samaria this your Letter as your childe and off-spring speaks wholly I may say and not half the speech of the Separation or Ashdod for in all these particulars which you have mentioned you plowed with your Samsons Heifer and there is no more difference betwixt that he first vented and you now have added then betwixt Ephraim his Shibboleth and Gilead his Shibboleth You tell me of some no better then dogs that I give the Sacrament to and of your self having been not so good as a dog yet I see you are good at gathering up the scraps and eating the crumbs which fall from your Masters Table your Master Brothers Table to whom you have committed your soul and in whom you have put your trust for your soul as I have heard you should say to him and so like a Parrat or Pie as I said you speak no other but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Language of your Master and Teacher brother In answering therefore him first I have answered you also who are but his second nay but the very first again now also I will answer my own question before of Quis expedivit Psittaco suum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 namely Magister artis ingeniique largitor venter When he began to be in want he went and joined himself to one of the Citizens or Farmers in that Countrey 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as now so then Citizens had their Farms in the Country and were Farmers also as well as Citizens and so he filled his belly with the very same Husks the Swains or Swines do eat Luke 15.15 And so I come to that in your Letter which you speak first Of my Parishioners to be no better then dogs and secondly of your self to have been one not so good as a dog till the grace of God appeared plucking you out of your wicked wayes to the knowledge of the Truth which you say I fear you have not owned but the day will discover and God will judge betwixt you and us Sir it is true I wrote so that I feared it and do still fear as I wrote that you owned not the Truth for you own not the Scriptures in the right sense which are the Word of Truth but wrest the Letter to prove your own Errors nor do you own the Church but have forsaken it which is the Pillar of Truth and betaken your self to a Synagogue of your own and not onely this National Church of England but the Universal Church in the world as who have withdrawn your self from the publick Ministery of the Truth in the Word and Sacraments Yea and have renounced one of its true Sacraments your Infant-baptism these things have been clearly and largely set forth already in my answer to your Brother and I must not tyre my Reader or trifle away paper with needless repetitions And therefore though I yeeld you that the grace of God hath appeared plucking you out of your wicked wayes which I am glad to see as it appeareth yet I cannot say as you follow on that it hath pluckt you to or into the knowledge of the Truth for I find you not there but rather which both your Letter and life make to appear in the ignorance and that wilful ignorance of the Truth which makes me doubt somewhat of the truth also of the grace of God you so boast of for where true grace appeareth it not onely sanctifieth and plucketh out of wicked wayes but it illuminateth and setteth in the knowledge and path of Truth Yea and usually the grace of God doth first enlighten the soul and teacheth it the knowledge of the Truth before it pluck him from his wicked wayes as in the Prodigal and Saul more apparently There shined round about him a light from heaven and a voice thereout taught him the knowledge of the Truth even Jesus whom he persecuted in ignorance and so there fell from his eyes immediately as it had been scales and he received forthwith his sight and so after arose and was baptized Acts 9.3 18. and became a new creature and was plucked out of his evil and
wicked way of persecuting Christ in his members and became a member of Christ himself but whether it be the sanctifying grace of God or but the restraining grace of God the Evangelical tidings or legal terrors and faith Saint James speaks of James 3.17 22. or the fear Jamaica put you in I rejoyce to see you pluckt out of your wicked wayes and shall much more exceedingly be gladded when I shall see you also brought to the knowledge of the Truth 2 Tim. 2.25 and because I cannot in meekness instruct you opposing your self for withal you absent your self yet I will pray that God would give you repentance to the acknowledging of the Truth Yea 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 the right way 1 Sam. 12.23 Yea I have done it and if you refuse to hear it and walk therein but reject it it being the Word of the Lord. Take heed lest he reject you as he did Saul for refusing to do after the Word of God by Samuel and so Samuel went to Ramah and Saul went up to his house to Gibeah And Samuel came no more to see Saul until the day of his death like as Saul came no more to see Samuel unto the day of his death nevertheless Samuel mourned for Saul 1 Sam. 15.34 § 1. I had done but my zeal to you and your knowledge of the Truth wherein I may be or desire to be helpful unto you doth carry me on a little further as first to let you know that though David called his Persecutors Dogs Ps 22.17 21. and Peter called Apostates Dogs 2 Pet. 2.22 and Paul called Impostors Dogs Phil. 3.6 yet will it not become you neither is it consonant to the knowledge of the Truth or the Truth of your knowledge to call a whole Parish a company many of them if not the most of them no better then Dogs Like enough then they will be barking and bawling at you if not biting and tearing of you but I will keep them off as much as I can and bid them peace and be still saying to them as Peter If ye be reproached for the name of Christ happy are ye for the Spirit of Glory and God resteth on you 1 Pet. 4.14 whilst I shall say to you Sir you know not another part of your ignorance of the Truth what manner spirit they are of who for any thing you know may be true sheep of Christ nay you know not what manner spirit your self is of sure the spirit of Grace which is given to the meek and humble resteth not upon you for the Grace of God you said even now appeared plucking you out of your wicked wayes and works had it been the sanctifying Grace it would also have appeared plucking you out of your wicked words and uncharitable and untrue calumniations Sir till you be endued with such manner of spirit as David Peter and Paul were so Prophetical and Apostelical so discerning so authorized forbear I pray such rash speech and judge not that you be not judged with the same judgement for with what measure you meet it shall be measured to you again Mat. 7.1 2. They will be as too likely dogged and dogging also of you and your company and then what coupling and kenneling of Christians will there be you will so make the whole Island the Isle of Dogs otherwise famous for sheep If this will not do take knowledge of another Truth seeing the Grace of God hath appeared plucking you to the knowledge of the Truth that whosoever shall say unto his Brother Racha shall be in danger of the Counsel but whosoever shall say Thou fool shall be in danger of Hell fire and what shall he be in danger of that saith Thou Dog nay all of you are no better then Dogs I pray tell you me that out of the knowledge of the Truth that the Grace of God appearing hath pluckt you unto § 2. To let you know that though David stiled himself a dead dog and a fleat 1 Sam. 24.14 and Mephibosheth also called himself a dead Dog 2 Sam. 9.8 and both out of a true humbled spirit in and under Glory yet there may be a vain glory in your humility and if so then will it not become you neither is it consonant to the knowledge of the Truth or to the Truth of your knowledge to speak of your self as one not so good as a dog so Co◠2.18 The Apostle discovers a guile or a beguiling in the voluntary humility of some who were voluntaries in humility and so Col. 2.23 c. St. Paul espies a vain shew of wisdome even in the humility of the Impostors of his time and in their not sparing but neglecting their bodies for they would scourge their bodies macerate their flesh with fastings and drinking onely water to make a shew of wisdom and to get a repute of Religious humility and savouring heavenly things This was but Frier-like with the Flagellants and is but Quaker-like with Parnellites and may be Dipper like with your self to make a shew of wisdome in this your will worship and humilty to the beguiling of silly souls that you are ready to go through fire and water neglecting the body so also that you mind not worldly repute nelecting your name or not sparing your self in it but calling your self not so good as a Dog in your former condition you might advance your new business and your self therein to be as good as a Lion or a Lamb. I think it was said either of Diogenes by another or by Diogenes of another going but barely and thinly in cloathes that a man might see Pride as well in a Philosophers thread-bare cloak as an Emperors rich furr'd Pall so that Ecebolius who laid himself flat on the ground in the Temple Porch bidding people to go over him and tread upon him as unsavoury salt Calcate me insipidum salem made therein but a shew of wisdom or policy rather and savoured even of pride in that his effected and therefore ju ly suspected humility and I think Abigail did but Complement in those words of her being sent for to be wife to David Let thine hand-maid be a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my Lord 1 Sam. 25.42 But enough of this and take it I pray not as my supposition in you that it is so but rather my admonition to you that it be not so For I must now tell you my opinion is it was not so with you then nor so with those others either then or now of whom you speak the same § 3. You may be bold with your self you will say and I say so too bolder with your self in calling or miscalling what you please then you may be with others upon that ground that no man knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of a man which is in him 1 Cor 2.11 and a
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
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
by the Beard and mouth and slew him for all his roaring quirks and howling quaeries and so have delivered you if you will be delivered from the spirit of bondage and love not your chain and fetters of their Errors more then the Freedom and Liberty of Truth for if the Truth or the Son of God who is the Truth have made or shall make you free then you are free indeed Now then and lastly Sir shew your self a true Israelite come and hear the Truth and know your friends the soul-truth which is the sole-truth and your soul-friends which are your sole-friends and come away from those Task-masters that lay heavy burthens upon your bodies and dip them under water over head and ears for their own gain more then yours and for their advantage to an evil cause Forego your bondage and darkness of Aegypt which goeth under the name of New-light and Liberty forget your garlick Onions and Flesh-pots which they call The Spirit and the fruits of the Spirit run from their hot furnaces and rash fires which they tearm Zeal keep away from their Ponds cold waters which they call Dipping Baptizing depart from the Tents of those that practice Rebellion under pretence of Religion Holines shake off your fellowship with their unfruitful works and words and as you have heard unprofitable Preachings and Teachings presumed upon under the Title of a gifted Brother-hood and Fraternity leave the Citizens or Farmers field and the Husks there and arise and go to your Fathers house the Church of God where is bread enough and to spare for the servants and much more for the Sons Get loose from those Bushes and Brambles where you are are entangled before you lose all the wool off your back and be fleeced by them Come now then and let us reason together saith the Lord though your sins be as scarlet they shall be white as snow though they be red like crimsom they shall be as wool If you be willing and obedient you shall eat the good of the Land but if you refuse and rebel you shall be devoured with the sword for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it Esay 1.18 19 20. Yea come and return as to the Lord so to your Pastor Here 's the right hand of fellowship and true Brotherhood I offer unto you to set you free and to help you out and to defend you against them yea and now that I have been long going after you as a lost sheep and one of my hundred fold and have found your at last I will lay you on my shoulders to bring you home again and wil undergo any labour and pains for your Reversion Reduction bearing also with your former defects or defaults with patience and meekness as the Apostle bids we should bear one anothers burthens Gal. 6.2 yea and I shall call together our friends and neighbours to a publick rejoycing and thanksgiving bearing also the Burthen of the Song or Psalm my self and saying Rejoyce with me for I have found my sheep which was lost yea and the blessed Angels above will be of the Quire and there will be joy in Heaven over one sinner that repenteth as your self yea and Christ Jesus the Great shepheard of all the sheep and of all souls will embrace your returning delight in you Who his own self bare your sins in his own body on the Tree 1 Pet. 2.24 For you was as a sheep going astray but if you shall return unto this Shepherd and Bishop of your soul When the chief Shepherd shall appear you shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away whereby you will be glorified in heaven and in the mean time he will put a Crown of Righteousness upon your head that falleth not off whereby you shall be both justified and sanctified also Nay your self will thus become a Crown of rejoycing to us all my self especially For what is our hope or joy or crown of rejoycing Are not even you in the presence of our Lord Jesus at his coming Yea you are our glory and joy 1 Thes 2.19 Therefore my brother dearly beloved and longed for my joy and crown Phil. 4.1 return unto the Lord the Lords Church and Flock the Lords Ministery and Pasturage the Lords Covenant with Parents and their Children the Lords Baptism and Sheep-mark and so stand fast in the Lord my dearly beloved Now the God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus that great Shepherd of the sheep through the Blood of the everlasting Covenant make you perfect in every good work of righteousness and word of truth working in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ to whom be glory for ever and ever Amen Heb. 13.20 21. If yet notwithstanding all this friendly invitation and fair warning you will not hear and hearken to come in but will go still astray My soul shall weep in secret places for your pride and mine eyes shall run down with tears because the Lords flock and your self for one amongst them is carried away captive Jer. 13.17 Wherefore I take you to record this day in which you have read over what I have written to you that I am pure from the blood of you all you and all for what I say unto you I say unto all for I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God Acts 20.26 27. in these particulars that he hath out of his Word revealed unto me And so I have delivered my soul as to you and them by foretelling and forewarning you of the truth as a Watchman set over you Ezek. 33.9 if you will not deliver your soul by obeying the truth and submit thereunto when it is held out to you by him who hath the rule or guide and oversight of you and watcheth for your soul and must give account and would do it with joy and not with grief for that is unprofitable for you Heb. 13.17 Then you will die in your iniquity and obstinacy your blood will be required at your own hands and will lie upon your own head who can help it unless God forbid it the which also God forbid I pray God Yea once more also I call heaven and earth to record this day against you Deut. 30.19 or for you that I have set before you life and death Blessing and Cursing therefore chuse life that both thou and thy seed may live and that thou mayest love the Lord thy God and that his Covenant that he made to be thy God and the God of thy seed and that thou mayest obey his voyce and that command for the baptizing of the Parent and his Seed That thou mayest cleave unto him and not forsake your God in Covenant with you sealed in your Infancy by renouncing your Baptism then and now running after other unprofitable Dippings for he is thy life and the length of thy dayes that thou mayest dwell here on earth a while and also be in Heaven for ever And now to him that is of power to establish you according to the Gospel and preaching of Jesus Christ and the Revelation of the mystery which was kept secret since the world began but now is made manifest and by the Scriptures of the Prophets according to the Commandement of the Everlasting God made known to all Nations for the obedience of Faith To God onely wise be glory through Jesus Christ for ever Amen Rom. 16 25 26 27. To which onely wise God and his Providence committing my self and what I have written here as likewise to the same onely good God and his blessing commending you and what you shall read here even to the Word of his Grace which is able to build you up who are fallen from that of Baptism and to establish all that stand therein I take my leave and give you farewel resting your affectionate and inseparate Pastor and Friend Jeffry Watts FINIS ERRATA EPistle to the Reader page 2. l. 8. read Printer p. 11. l. 22. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p 19. l. 16. r. word p. 24. l. 27. r. even p. 25. l 13. r. Hypocriticab p. 27. l. 18. r own p 32. Margin blot out too p. 43. l. 6. r. of p. 44 l. 13. blot out that p. 45 l. 4. r. châ— p. 56. l. 17. r. then p. 63 l. 18. r rusticity p 65. l. 14. r. intentional p. 79. l. 7. blot out save p. 82. l. 12. bâ—ot out and not observe the 13. year seeing Christ was baptized at 30. years old p 94. l. last r. your p. 99. l. 16. r. account p. 101. l. 26. for our r. the p. 102 l. 2. r. off-spring p. 104. l. 12. r. useful p. 105. l. 37. r. ordinary p. 122. l. 38. r. Presbyter p 123. l. 8 blot out to l. 13. r. Profession p. 128. l. 33. r. must not p. 155 l. 30. blot out And do hope that by reason c. l. 39. r. we bless p. 169. l. 8. r moderate p. 171. l. 12. r. injuring p. 185 l. 13. add gather l. 34 add it p. 198. l. 2. r. that p. 226. l. 18. blot out to our most agreeable p 240. l 38 for as râ—a p. 250. l. 3. blot out so p. 252. Running title for honour r. beware p. 256. l. 31. r. devising p. 273. l. 28. r. brethren p. 274 l. 31. r. comb p. 276. l. 37. r. so p. 278. l. 2. r. have made p. 290. l. 1. add you Of Baptism Page 24 line 31 read with p 56 running Title r not practical p 61 l 3 r or p 72 l 33 r your p 73 l 24 for Chap r Verse p 74 l 3 blot out and p 87 l 30 add iâ— p 100 l 28 blot out in p 103 l 21 r they p 117 l 19 r alwayes p 131 l 16 r she l 17 blot out of p 140 l 16 r Apostle p 142 l 38 r the p. 145 l 35 r procreating p 151 l 37 r these p. 157 l 11 r friend p 163 l 35 for can r you p 164 l 7 add was p 198 l 32 r Apostles l 34 for yet are r were l 35 for to r doe The Dipper Sprinkled Page 13 line 6 read fruit p 19 l 39 r naughtiness p 27 l 26 r sicca p 28 l 18 add as p 30 l 2 r 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p 37 l 8 blot out die p 48 l 14 r. four p 81 l 18 r potissimum