the prophecying and questioning of private men in the face of the Church Unto their new gathered Churches of rebaptized and dipped Saints they did ascribe very ample priviledges for first they gave to every one of them a power of questioning in publick before the whole Congregation any part of their Preachers Doctrine N Secondly to every one of their members they gave a power of publick preaching O Women preachers are from them This liberty they gave no lesse to women then men for they had among them not only preaching and prophecying women but also some who took so much upon them as to professe themselves to be the Christ and Messias to all of their own sexe P Thirdly Their Pastors must renounce all former ordination take their full call of new must come from the hands of their people to their particular Churches they gave power of electing and ordaining such of their own Prophets whom they thought fittest to be Pastors to the rest whoever was not elected and ordained whoever had not their full calling from the people alone and did not renounce what ever ordination they had from any other to them were no Pastors at all Upon this ground among others they refused to hear any of the Ministers of the reformed Churches because they did not renounce their former ordination and calling to the Ministery that they might take it again from the hands of their new gathered and separate Congregations Q They required no letters in their Preachers Fourthly in their Pastors they required no secular learning R yea to them all secular learning was abominable they did burn all books but the Bible as impediments and hurtfull instruments to the Ministery of the Gospel S Fiftly they required their illiterate Pastors to work with their own hands for their livings T Merchandize or any other Calling wherein there was no personall and handy labour to them was unlawfull V Sixtly they cried down all tythes X The crying down of tythes and all set stipends is from them yea all set stipends for any Church Officer Y But it would be considered that they did avow it was as unlawfull to pay any set rent or yearly duty to any Landlord as a stipend to a Minister Z Seventhly Independency of congregations and the peoples power in Church censures is their invention unto their single Congregations they gave a supreme and independent power to judge in all Ecclesiasticall causes not only judicially to pronounce all questions about their Pastors Doctrine but also to proceed to the highest censure of excommunication as well against their Pastors as others when they found cause AA Their excommunications of one another were so frequent and for so light causes The Seekers who deny all Churches are their disciples that sundry of them fell to the opinion and practice of those whom we call Seekers they served God single and alone without the society of any Church finding no Churches on earth with whom they could agree BB The Anabaptists usurpation upon the authority of the Church did quickly lead them to the same practice upon the State as they took upon them to deprive their Pastors and exempt themselves from all Ecclesiastick jurisdiction of Church Synods so likewise they broke in peeces the yoke of all civill subjection to Magistrates Princes Parliaments or any temporall judicatories At first they denied the power of the Magistrate in matters of Religion alone First they cried down the Magistrates power in matters of Religion asserting a liberty only for their conscience that it might be free from the controll of all superiour power they esteemed every Law of the Magistrate in matters of Religion to be unlawfull Next in all matters even civill and the smallest penalty to be a Mosaicall compulsion of the conscience and a true persecution CC But forthwith they went on to deny the Magistrates power absolutely in all things whether Ecclesiastick or civill crying down his very calling and office how well so ever regulate as an unjust tyranny Together with the Magistrate they condemne all Judicatories all wars Yet they took to themselves an absolute civill power first over all them in their own Churches all defence all oathes DD For all this they permitted not that sword which they had stricken out of the hand of others to ly long upon the ground but immediately they plucked it up themselves At first they exercised their usurped Magistracy only upon the persons within their own Congregations judging all their causes as well Civill as Ecclesiastick proceeding herein to capitall sentences and executions as they found the crimes of their members to require EE Next over all Princes and people in the whole world This exercise of justice was so agreeable to their humour that quickly they thought meet to extend it much beyond the limits of their own Congregations they did anon proclaim their right not only to deny but to take away with their sword all the Princes and Magistrates of the earth as Tyrants FF And because these few persons who were Magistrates had not blood enough to quench the thirst of that cruell spirit which led them they went one step further proclaiming a Commission they had from heaven to kill not only all the Magistrates but also all the wicked people of the whole earth GG And how many Nations and Languages came within this compasse you may judge by the narrow circle within which they inclosed all the godly no more were Saints and to be saved then joyned to their Churches and received their Anabaptisme all the rest to them were wicked and to be cut off HH The were strong millenaries To this very dangerous practice they were led by another principle Muncer among his other Enthusiasms did bring forth to his followers the dream of Christs visible and ovtward Kingdome upon earth II confirming it by the same Scriptures which our late Chiliasts bring for the same fancy albeit a little refined Upon this ground he built many of his grossest practices for he gave out that then the time of that kingdome was come KK that the Saints the members of the Anabaptistick Churches were the members thereof that it was the will of God they should take and kill all who were opposite thereto that they had a just right to enter in possession of the spoyl of Christs Enemies and to enjoy all their lands and goods as the Israelites did those of the cursed Canaanites LL They made adulteries and murders lawfull To these dreams of Muncer John Becold and his fellow Prophets at Munster made some Additions That in this visible kingdome there behoved to be a King over the Saints MM That this King was to rule according to the revelations of the Spirit That all disobedience to his voyce was to be vindicate by present death NN Among the rest of King Becolds commands this was one That the Polygamy of the old Testament should be renewed
infants I but the Independents will be wiser then their Fathers Anabaptism no there is so small a peâ—câ—diâ—â—â— that it deserves no censure at all K they are most willing to retain the Anabaptism in their bosome L but here the pâ—y no caresses can keep the most of Anabaptism in the Independent Congregations so 〈◊〉 as they begin to weigh their own principles they â—inâ—e their infant baptism a 〈◊〉 and so a 〈…〉 upon thâ—â— to be 〈◊〉 M The Independent 〈◊〉 to 〈◊〉 this Sacrament they cannot choose 〈◊〉 go 〈…〉 〈◊〉 Anabaptism 〈◊〉 by the 〈…〉 in their Churches where alone they can partake of baptismâ— for as yet I never heard that either Independent or Brownist was willing to rebaptize any who in their infancy had received that Sacrament of initiation But for the more clear and distinct demonstration of these things consider yet further They avow all their members to be holy and elect and some of them are for their perfection first that in the qualification of members the Anabaptists go as farre as either the Independents or Brownists the Confession of the seven Churches do clearly bear this much N but others go further avowing with their Fathers the Dutch perfectists that all of their society are so perfectly holy as they may not pray for the remission of any the least sinne O That those of them who are for grosse Antinomy and Familism should maintain so great a perfection on earth in their Society as can be obtained in heaven P and that M. Saltmursh after his renunciation of all baptism as well as of infants Q should be permitted by Divine Justice thus far to wander R I do not so much wonder as when I behold the Confessionists the most modest and orthodox of all in this way to stumble upon the conceit of perfection S though after deliberation they become so well advised as in the second Edition to â—est content with the true hollinesse of their fellows scraping out what before they had put in of their perfection T As for the second the naturall result of the former After they have separate from all other Churches they run next away from them their own selves a separation from all other reformed Churches an impure it is clear by their constant uniform practise which M. Kiffen one of their prime Confessionists does justifie at length against his opposite M. Ricraft V In this separation they run on so rashly that themselves know not where to stop it for first with the Separatists they divide from all other Protestants thereafter they shake off the Separatists for the most intelligent and zealous among them refuse to remain in any Congregation either of the Independents or Brownists X Lastly they break among themselves in many pieces However their way as yet lies much in the dark yet so much of it does appear to the world as dâ—monstrates their small concord amongst themselves what else was the cause that to the very second Edition of their Confession no more hands could be obtained then of seven Churches when of that way there are some hundreds of Congregations for of all the Sects they are incomparably the most numerous why does M. Spilbery complain in Print of the unstablenesse of many their dear friends who separate from these seven Churches as Antichristian Y Also my charity permits me not to beleeve that many of them can keep communion with the professors of so grosse Heresies and horrible blasphemies as divers of those who impugne the baptism of infants are guilty of They charge one another with Antichristianisme For the third their laying of Antichristianism to the charge of all other Churches we need not doubt of it though it did not appear in their writs since they impute that crime not only to all paedobaptists without exception either of Brownists or Independents but also to the best of their own number the flower of their own flock the Confessionists themselves as M. Spilbery the first of the Subscribers informs us Z They are Independents Concerning the government of the Church what ever their Fathers of old did teach the Brownists they are perfect disciples therein to the Brownists this day for they acknowledge no Nationall Church nor any Church visible but a Congregationall AA which they make absolutely Independent and uncontrollable by any superiour Synod BB Though they should break out in never so many the grossest heresies and schisms yet they have no remedy against them none on earth must pretend any Jurisdiction any power to inflict the least Ecclesiastick censure upon their Congregation or any member thereof though guilty of all imaginable blasphemies They put all Church power in the hand of the people But the worst of it is that this supreme absolute and Independent Jurisdiction of every one of their Congregations must be placed not in the officers nor any company of them but in the whole multitude CC they are for an absolute Ochlocracy and popular Government giving to every member of their Congregation a decisive voyce in all Ecclesiastick causes and a power as to elect They give the power of preaching and celebrating the Sacraments to any of their gifted members out of all office so to ordain and when they finde cause to depose exauctorate and excommunicate their Pastor and all their Officers together With the power of censure they joyn the power of preaching all their members who finde themselves gifted are permitted to prophecy in the face of the Congregation DD this priviledge of men out of office is by them so highly esteemed that they proclaim the want of it to be a just ground of separation EE but herewith they rest not content for unto their members out of office they ascribe not only the power of censure and of preaching the word but also of celebrating the Sacraments this is clear of baptism for they require in a baptizer not only no office but not so much as baptism it self all of them avowing the lawfulnesse for a person not baptized to baptize FF and as it seems to celebrate the Lords Supper for these two Sacraments ordinarily they conjoyn admitting all upon their baptism immediately to the Lords Supper GG and some of their greatest Doctors hold it no wise incongruous to admit persons to the Lords Table before they be baptized HH However all of them do place the power of all the ordinances in the whole multitude and the exercise of that power in any to whom the people thinks meet to give their commission II and somtimes they do give their commission to exercise any of the ordinances unto persons whom they think not fit afterwards to elect or ordain for Officers KK Only in this they are more distinct then the Brownists Even unto women many more of their women do venture to preach then of the other Attaway the Mistresse of all the She-preachers in Colemanstreet was a disciple in Lambs Congregation and made Antipaedobaptism
life SSSSSS M. Bourn to the Reader I shall in the Treatise following lay open to the view of all men not at the second hand but by experience having often heard them both preach and dispute what is that which commonly goes under the name of Familisme what I shall say concerning it is not out of malice to any person neither shall I speak at randome TTTTTT Gangren first Part second division p. 27. There is one Clement Wrighter in London an Arch-heretick and fearfull Apostate sometimes a professor of Religion and judged to have been godly about seven or eight years ago he fell off from the communion of our Churches to Independency and Brownism from that he fell to Anabaptism and Arminianism thence to Mortalism holding the soul mortall after that he fell to be a Seeker and is now an Antiscripturist a Questionist and Skeptick and I fear an Atheist CHAP. V. The lawfulnesse of Infants Baptisme I Have at some length in the preceding Chapters set down the way and Tenets of the Anabaptists both here and over Sea The extreame malignity of the Anabaptistick spirit both of the present the former times wherby it may appear to all who are willing to see how malign a spirit has ruled in that Sect from its first beginning to this very day a spirit carrying to the greatest errours and the grossest vices that ever any who were called Christians have stumbled upon a spirit as much opposite to the honour of God and to the salvation of men It s enmity to the salvation of men as any that ever troubled the Church since its first foundation It s favour towards the salvation of man appears in its great zeal to cast out of the Church and deprive of the means of grace almost all mankinde with the exception of a very few if of any at all When the most reformed of the Protestant Churches come before the fan of their censure at the first shake they blow away that largest and most innocent part of them their infants all children who have not attained to the acts of faith and repentance are to them in the flesh under the power within the verge of the Kingdom of Satan as well as Jews Turks Pagans and others who are not so much as entred within the hedge of Christs sheepfold and lest the spoiling of children of all the grace and gifts of God had not been a sufficient vastation they are carried on by the spirit that leads them to make as great havock and desolation among those of riper years they Unchurch the most of those whom otherwise they love as their best friends they charge all the Independents and the Brownists and the most rigid of the Separatists for their baptizing of infants with no lighter a burthen then Antichristianism and a clear deniall of Christs Incarnation Neither here does their rashnesse stand the small remnant of Christians the Anabaptistick Societies which alone they will honour with the title of true Churches seem to them too many to be saved therefore new separations are run into and those so severe that there lives not an Anabaptist upon earth who by multitudes even of Anabaptists is not condemned with all who adhere to his subdivision as a man in a false way not only without but in opposition to the true Church In its di honoring of God be setting up a liberty first for all errours This their extream cruelty against the souls of men wont to be coloured with the shew of zeal to the truth and honour of God but this varnish is now almost quite wiped off Behold whither their zeal to the truth and honour of God is now evanished They for some times were so eminently zealous against errors and vices that very small ones were wont to draw from them an ejection out of the Church a deliverance to Satan and where the Civill Sword was in their hand a putting out of this life a publick execution by the hand of the Hangman when their Princes and Prophets were not at leisure to administer Justice in their own persons Notwithstanding the loudest note that this day sounds in their song is liberty and freedom from all punishments for what ever crimes when all abominations imaginable are publickly proclaimed when many more and much viler errours walk in our streets then ever any one place in any time did hear of the great zeal of these religious men breaks out daily in all the discourses they please and actions they dare for the safeguard of the cursed instruments of these errours passionately denying all power in any on earth to restrain in the least measure the open propagation of the most abominable lies which Satan is able to utter by the tongue of any creature no matter of Religion say they can fall under the cognisance of any State the false Church has no right to censures or any Church Ordinance the truest Churches can meddle but with their own members they who never were of them or have renounced membership with them are without their Jurisdiction so neither State nor Church can put any barre of the smallest censure upon the propagation of any errour And next for all vice And lest vice the neer kinsman of errour should finde any harder measure any greater stop from the hand of superiour powers this Sect with all the speed it can is posting back to its first principles the overthrow of the civill State as much as of the Church That when ever they are found in the practise of their Doctrine of the lawfulnesse of adultery and incest robbery and murder there may be none upon earth to controll them For this end they cast down the King and Parliament Commons as well as Lords all Incorporations all Judicatories in Burgh and Land that an absolute Monarchy a full liberty for every man to do all his pleasure without any fear of punishment may be set up That the Crown and Scepter the Kingship and absolute Soveraignty may at last be restored to the onely true owners the free-born people of England the individuals as they love to speak of the whole Nation All this much more have they set under their own hands as may be seen in the former Chapters Their Brownistick and Arminian Tenets I have refuted in other Treatises I have neither time nor minde to dispute all their positions in my little Antidote against Arminianism I have in a short and popular way impugned it their Tenets against the Protestant Churches in the heads of election redemption grace free-will and perseverance In the first Part of my Disswasive I have debated at length enough the chief of those errours which they have taught their children the Separatists The reall holinesse of all Church members the necessity of separation for want of satisfaction in this point alone the power of every member of the Church to preach the word to ordain and to excommunicate when there is cause their very Pastors
threatned to the building there be few then that have courage to set under their shoulder But the most to save their own head become of the Publick what may are glad to goe out and turn their back on a ruinous and falling aedifice Men most carelesse when their dangers greatest The very same is the condition of the Church of Christ in its greatest dangers the dulnesse the stupidity the feneantise of her servants are very oft too palpable the chief of the Apostles when their Master was to be taken from off their head when the Shepheard was to be smitten and the sheep to be scattered through very grief and feare did fall into so deep a sleep that with much adoe Christ himself got them roused up though Judas the Traitor was at hand Towards the consummation of all things when the end of the world is neer when the Lord Christ shall be upon his return and even at the doors when best it beseems his servants to have their lamps burning and their loyns girded to be ready upon every call to goe out and meet their Master when the expectation of the last Trumpet when the noise of wars and rumours of more and worse wars when the sound of heresies and errours grow louder then ever before when such things as these in reason ought to keepe the watchmen on foot upon their watch Towers yet behold the unhappinesse of these very times even then the wisest Virgins the faithfullest servants slumber and sleeep till the generall cry of the Bridegrooms comming make them all awake We dare not make so bold as some with the determinations of the times and seasons which the Lord keeps secret from the very Angels in the hollow of his own hand yet it will not be presumption to conjecture the propinquity and neernesse of the last times by the evidence of some at least of their symptomes and prâ—vious signs which at the present are visible to any who have the smallest measure of spirituall understanding I shall speak but of the two in hand the present danger and yet the present negligence of the people of God The Protestant Churches have not of a long time been so to be devoured by the teeth of the Beast as at this day The present danger of the Protestant Churches Of France What keeps all the faithfull in France Geneva Sedan out of the mouth of the Romish wolf have the Supposts of Rome think we lost all their wonted stomach towards Protestant blood The Irish Massacres may free us of that fancy stay till the French King get out of his childhood or before in the intervall of some peace or truce from forain war a little leisure be given to that Court to bring home their Armies whensoever that unhappy day shal dawn there is no more expectation of quietnesse yea no more possibility of subsisting to any of those Churches but in the mercy of God who now doth divert and then can avert and bridle the rage of that powerfull State against which these weak lambs have no humane force to oppose How many thousands there are panting for a morning when once they may re-celebrate S. Bartholomews Matins and bring the old Massacres again in fashion which now may be execute with a great deal of more safety and ease then ever The condition of Holland seems not at all safe to those who know the inside of their States Of Holland it 's like the predominant motive of their reconciliation now in hand with their hereditary enemies of Spain is no other then fear if their prepotent neighbour of France can but re-invest his Crown with his ancient fees of Flanders and Brabant as he hath done with Artois and Lorrain with Catalaunia and Alsas and divers more Provinces Holland fals next to be dealt with for nothing doth then stand betwixt it and the French Arms. The Protestants of Zuitserland cannot be free of danger so long as the most of the Cantons are bigotly popish Of Zuits and very strictly allyed with the popish States that lie round about them The Churches of higher Germany have long lien in Of Germany the dust and in our days oftner then once have been very near to be devoured by the bill of the Austrian Eagle and the paw of the Bavarian Lion and though that ravenous bird and cruell beast were both disabled from preying any more upon their harmlesse neighbours whereof the appearance this day is but small yet there is a more strong and wicked beast then either of the former still ramping at their doors the Grand Signior is daily upon the German borders too ready to fal upon that poor Country when the Princes and Cities by mutuall wounds have now disabled themselves more then in any by gone age to resist so terrible a power Of Briâ—â—in by the Mâ—lâ—gnaâ—ts Britain was wont to be taken for the head and heart for the strongest Bulwark of the Protestant strength how are the present dangers thereof and in in it of the whole Protestant Churches it 's easie to judge How much of late the leaders of the Court and Clergy of both Kingdomes had advanced the design of bringing in well-near the whole body of Popery at least a full reconciliation with Rome And when their counsels were discovered and begun to be opposed how near oft of late they have been to force upon the neck of the whole Isle by violence the yoak of what ever tyranny in State or errours in Religion they pleased the world hath seen and many thousands have felt to their utter undoing whereof long agoe we gave some account in the Canterburian Self-conviction and parallel of the Service Book with the Missall By the Sectâ—ries But behold while we are wrestling to the bloud and extream hazard of all that is dear with that tyrannous superstitious and profane party There is now start up at our back another enemy little lesse dangerous then the former A swarm of heresies and sects darkens the sun of truth fils the air with noxious vapours is ready upon a little more encrease to fall down on the earth for the overwhelming of of the State as well as the Church betwixt these two milstones the Orthodoxe Churches of this whole Isle if the hand of the Lord prevent it not are in hazard to be ground to dust and ashes It is true Our dangers from the Malignants are not yet past the Malignants by the miraculous power of God are brought so low that in the eyes of the most their force seems now contemptible yet wiser men doe see too great cause to be affraid of them this day little lesse then ever Their numbers over all the Isle are yet very great their hearts are nothing changed though some bands for the time be put upon their hands The unexcusable obstinacy of the Episcopall Divines I have often marvailed and much regrated that many reverend and very learned Divines of that side have
spoiled of all power to reform Religion It was a matter of our grief to know men of parts assert that the Reformation or defence of Religion notwithstanding all the Declarations Protestations and Covenants of the Parliament might not be any part of our apology for our defensive arms It has lien heavy upon our spirits that men of most corrupt minds should be permitted to hinder year after year the setling of the Church of England in any passable condition when there appeared little difficulty of a quick plenary and satisfactory settlement except what such evill men did create who make the retardment and frustration of every thing which may advance the truth of God a matter of their most serious practises in private and in publick of their daily sport and drollery But this was to us a cause of wonder that the very other day the principall Chaplain of the Army should be brought to proclaim with all confidence in a most solemn audience of the Hoâ—se of Commons it self that all the Reformation of the Parliament was but Antichristianisme that the Reformation of the Church by any Christian Magistrate before them was no better that God requireth all Magistrates to lay aside all intentions of reforming the Church a And therefore Honourable beloved I say to you touching this work of Reformation of the spirituall Temple of the Nâ—w TestameÌ„t as God once said to David touching the building of the materiall temple you did well in that it was in your heart to reform the Kingdome of God neverthelesse you shal not reform it for you have been men of war and have shed much bloud therefore you shall not doe this work for this is not a work of men of war but of the Prince of peace Dels Sermon to the House of Commons p. 13 14. Ibid. Object May not the spiritual Church of Christ be reformed with worldly and secular power I ans by no means Ib. p. 26. All these things shew that worldly power hath no place at all in the Reformation of the Gospel Ibid p. 26. They that would govern the faithfull the members of Christs own body make themselves the head of these members and so Antichrist may as well be found in a combination of men as in one single perfom that the onely right Reformation was that of the heart which was to be left to Christ alone as he was pleased to work in the breast of every man that the new Sectarian Preachers which are run out without any call either from God or man into every Shire of the Kingdome are sent out by Christ to be instruments of this Reformation that their Ministry is that of the Spirit b Ibid. p. 29. Gods anointed ones are the faithfull that are anointed with the Spirit and these anointed ones are the Lords Prophets and the Lord hath no Prophets but such as are anointed with the Spirit all his brethren are made Prophets being fellows with him in his unction Ib. When I see the generality of the people of all sorts rise up against the ministration of the Spirit which God hath now an these dayes of ours set up even in every County for salvation to his people but for a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence to the rest it does grieve me to see how the City Countrey Countrey Towns Villages doe all rise up for the most part against the ministration of the Spirit for this is a certain sign of the undoing of them all that their followers are the Saints which shall prevail maugre all opposition c When you read what you have heard you must needs acknowledge it to be the mind of God if you received the anointing of the spirit In the Epistle ib. this truth shall carry all opposition and opposers before it and none shall be able to stand against it and of this both your selves and this generation shall bee witnesses that all the other Ministers of England who dance not after their pipe especially such as M â— Love who opposed this man immediately to his face are but lims of Antichrist whom the Parliament is obliged to suppresse without any toleration d Ib. p. 41. Truly sir when God shall make you a new creature you will be glad of new light the old light will serve the old man well enough your Sermon savours as ill to the faithfull as mine to the world In the Epistle If the Assembly which I hope they will not should condemn that doctrine of the Gospel for the substance of it delivered then by M. Dell it will be no blasphemy to say they are the enemies of the truth of Christ and I hope the last prop of Antichrist in the Kingdome Ib. The Prelates successors in the Kingdome of Antichrist still cry No Minister no Magistrate Ib. To the Reader This light was since obscured by the new darknesse of Antichrist which these men love better then that old light and will by no means exchange the one for the other and these as well as their Fathers of the same race and lineage in whose stead they are new risen up shall in due time become a reproach and a shame and their name shall be for a curse to all Gods chosen In the Epistle I shall desire this in the behalf of the faithfull Gods peculiar portion in the land that you would not suffer us to be oppressed by our adversaries neither would suffer them thus publickly and shamelesly to call as Sectaries and Hereticks P. 38. The Magistrate may deterre you and the rest of the Kingdome that are of the like minde from resisting and hindering this work which hath its authority from heaven that so the Saints my pray for the Magistrate Who now are the persecuters Hitherto are these men come already notwithstanding all their declamations against persecution though no man has molested them now for some years nor laid in their way the least impediment to think speak write act whatever they thought expedient for the propagation of any blasphemy they have been pleased to entertain nor called them to any account when by the force of arms they have beaten out of their Pulpits and Houses the faithfull Ministers of God themselves usurping their places in very many parts where the Army has gone and setting out to the people by all the skill they had whatever heresie the times hath produced Yet now their fears to be persecuted are come to this that they dare preach the House of Commons to their face Antichristian oppressors for assaying to reform the evident corruptions of the Church within their own jurisdiction And exhort them to lay aside that sinfull and impertinent work permitting every man to follow in Religion whatever his own heart dictates to be best Yet by no means to tolerate any Preacher who shall oppose that their liberty To this height of presumptuous malice are those declamers against persecution publickly proceeded and in all this are countenanced
to keep the Church in confusion Since the State will take no notice of them but lets them encrease at their pleasure and grow up above the strength of any their Auncestors they are making bold to goe visit the State and try their strength upon her if possibly they may find as great a facility to set up the Trophee of their triumph upon her ruine as of that of her weake sister the Church It is the certain and now oft printed design of some to overthrow from the very foundation the whole edifice of our Civill government No King no Lord must be heard of hereafter This House of Commons must be cast down the Imperiall and absolute Soveraignty must be put in the hands of the multitude of the basest people They are once every year to choose for their servants a new House of Commons which all this time shall draw up a new frame of laws and a new modell of government Since this is the h mour that now beats highest in the veins of that people we had so much the more need with all our strength to fortifie the house of the State for beleeve it if that by any hand should be undermined its fall cannot fail to crush the most if not all who are under the roof thereof So long as the State doth stand there is always some hope of subsistence for every honest man and of obtaining in time a great part and possibly all their just desires were their Petition never so oft laid aside But if the State be overthrown then all is desperate and gone every particular person with all his designs how gracious soever is ready to be overwhelmed in the rubbish of the Common wealth It would be remembred that members of the best state are but men and not Angels It 's not to be expected but sinfull infirmities will cleave to the back of the best reformed government the perfect and spotlesse Republick of Plato may well have some place in Vtopia or in the Region of the Moon but upon the earth it never yet did dwell nor in haste is like to doe Let prayers to God let petitions Protestations Remonstrances representations to men be used and repeated from time to time without any fainting or giving over till all be obtained that is necessary for the good of Church and State But great caution must be used that nothing be either done or said that may labefactate the just honour or power of them whom God and the Laws have entrusted with the Soveraignty what ever toucheth that cannot but touch the apple of the eye of every good and wise man especily at this time when the project of the Devill is declared to lay Monarchy and both the Houses of Parliament levell with the ground and to set on the Throne the beast with many heads the multitude which with difficulty enough could ever yet be ruled but to this day was never found to have any skill or dexterity at all in the great art of ruling But to break off prefacing The scope of the Treatise my intention in the subsequent writ is to proceed in my Disswasive and that with so great observance of the three mentioned Caveats as I am able The men whom I deal with in this part are Anabaptists albeit they bring in with themselves both Antinomians Socinians Familists and the most of all the Heretiques of the time I desire no more from them as a reward of all my labour for their weall for the least hurt to any of their persons I never minded but in the fear of God to consider the beginning progresse and issue of their way as I set it before them in a short view out of their own Authors or at least from such writs as in that subject are of unquestionable faith If I make it appear that the spirit which from the beginning to this day did reign in their leaders cannot be that of grace and truth ought they not in conscience to make a serious review of their way lest securely going on the justice of God give them over to be miscarried to such opinions and practises which their soul for the present abhors but as I demonstrate has exceeding oft been the issue of Anabaptisme in many of its followers both of old and late If this my service be a means to reclaim some of them and to deterre others from the evill of their doings I have the desired fruit of my labour If I misse this yet my testimony to the truth in so needfull a time will I hope be acceptable to God and the conscience of it will ease and refresh my spirit remembring that the houres of my leisure were not altogether mis-spent but many of them so diligently as I was able employed for the service of Him to whom I owe all and the good of his people CHAP. I. The Originall and Progresse of the ANABAPTISTS THE late patrons of Anabaptism among us would make the world beleeve that this Sect had for its Author the famous Berengarius Berengarius no Anabaptist and for its fomenters four hundred years ago the old predecessors of Protestants commonly called Albigenses but who will be pleased to consult the fountain of this alledgance shall finde Berengarius absolved from this crime by that very mouth whence alone the sclander did proceed M. Tombes examin p. 20 21. Bishop Guitmund lays on the back of Deacon Berengarius the load of so many contumelies as he is able to invent only for his boldnesse to oppose the common Doctrine of that time the corporall presence of Christs body in the bread of the Sacrament among other things he challenges him for the denying baptisme ro infants but if any should require a proof of this heavy charge Guitmund professes that none can be given avowing that Berengarius did never bring any such Doctrine in publick knowing that no Scripture could be alledged for it and that no creature would take such an absurdity from his hand A Justice therefore does require that Berengarius be freed of that crime since his very adversary confesseth that it was never made appear by any known profession for crimes that appear not are reputed by just men as not existing Concerning the Albigenses The Albigenses knew not Anabaptisme the man that lays the sclander of Anabaptism upon them is Petrus Cluniacensis but how unjustly I offer to be considered not only from this generall very true and confessed ground that the Popish Writers of that time do charge these honest and pious men of Albi with many both errours and crimes whereof all equitable men beleeve them to have been most innocent but also from three particular observations First they are not challenged by Cluniacensis as direct and expresse denyers of paedobaptisme but for their affirming the impossibility of infants beleeving and of their impossible salvation without faith he alledges upon them by way of consequence that they did also maintain the Baptism of infants
oftentimes a part of her publick exercises LL the other feminine Preachers in Kent Norfolk and the rest of the Shires had their breeding as I take it in the same or the like school The most of all the particulars which in our first Part we ascribed either to the Independents or Brownists They must not preach in a Steeple-house the Anabaptists do practise they are so averse from all that the Church in the time of Popery did use that they can keep very little of it all Churches must be demolished they are glad of so large and publick a preaching place as they can purchace but of a Steeple house they must not hear MM All tythes and all set stipends are unlawfull their preachers must work with their owne hands and may not go in black clothes All tythes to them are an abomination NN they will allow to their Pastors no set stipend at all OO they admit of an cleemosynary contribution but it must be a small one for they will have their Preachers to provide for the most of their own necessities by their handy labour PP They are so averse from all that has been that their Preachers for their satisfaction must change the very colour of their habit a blackcoat to them is no small reproach They celebrate the Lords Supper in any common Innes after another feast All the new light of the Independents and Brownists is borrowed from the Anabaptists The Lords Supper is brought by them almost to a civill Table in any Innes when they have made a publick feast in the end of their banquet they fall in a very homely way to the Lords Supper QQ In their ordinary practises we behold the fountain almost of all the singularities of the Independents and Brownists these men are no wise so good at invention as the vulgar esteems them the most of all the light which they hold out as new did shine long ago in the lamps of their fathers and brethren our Anabaptists in hand The anoynting of the sick with oyl the rejecting of the Lords Prayer of all set Psalms of Universities and humane learning are the Anabaptists inventions The half miraculous cure of their sick members by the prayer of the Elders and their anoynting with oyl is the Anabaptists practise RR the casting away of the Lords Prayer SS and of all set Psalms TT the exibilating of all songs out of the congregation VV is their invention the bitter invectives against humane learning Arts Sciences Universities are all from them XX but leaving these we will touch only one point more of their Brownism to wit their Tenets about the Magistrate and so proceed M. Brown did take from the Magistrate all power about matters of Religion these he did remit absolutely to the conscience of every particular person declaring himself while he stood in his infamous way for a full liberty of conscience uncontrollable by the Laws of any mortall man YY but in this all the disciples till of late did leave the Master The elder Brownists and Independents of New England do make it a chief duty of the Christian Magistrate to restrain and punish false Teachers and enemies to the truth of God ZZ in so much that Antipaedobaptists have no toleration among them ZZ 2 The Independent Apologists are for liberty to most of the Sects The Authors of the Apologetick narration do boast of giving to the Magistrate more then any other Protestants by their principles can do AAA yet now it seems they have changed this note and are returning to M. Browns first profession of liberty from the Magistrates sword in all matters of conscience for they tell us that no Magistrate may punish for what the Church may not censure BBB and they assume that the Church may not censure for any error which is not fundamentall and wherein the erroneous person is not obstinate and self-condemned CCC Such at least must be all Brownists all Antipaedobaptists most Antinomians and Arminians many Papists who imbrace not all the errours of the Church of Rome and in these errours which they do maintain have never had the means of self-conviction against none of all these or any the like may the Parliament make any Law but to all such they are obliged if they will not transgresse the limits of power which God and right reason have set unto them to proclaim a full liberty without the least restraint And some of their prime friends for a generall liberty to all This will conclude the power of the Magistrate in matters of Religion in a prety narrow compasse yet it leaves him some power to punish for fundamentall errours and grosse blasphemies Therefore the Independents at least some of their prime Teachers without any publick reproof from their fellows so farre as we know are gone a step further to cut off here all idle and curious debates concerning fundamentals the disputes about praeter super and contra fundamentalia are exceeding subtill and intricate yea unextricable they are more wise then to involve themselves and others therein so once for all they jump over that ditch and avow that for Magistrates to controll any man in his grossest errors for them to make or execute any Law to restrain any mans conscience and practise according to conscience is but to sight against God and to commit the monstrous practise of the old Gyants against the heavens which they call a Theomachy DDD All this Independent Doctrine is brought from the Anabaptists schools The Anabaptists deny all power to Magistrates in any thing that concerns Religion it is one of the articles of their faith offered to the present Parliament that no Laws ought to be made by any men upon earth about any things which concern the worship of God That who ever makes any rules for the service of God does charge Christ with want of wisdom or faithfulnesse or both in not making Laws anew for his own house EEE That the great Law for matters of Religion is this Let every man be fully perswaded in his own minde of the truth of what he beleeves without any controll from any upon earth FFF That it is the Magistrates duty to protect every man in his just liberty of conscience Turcisme Popery Atheisms the greatest blasphemies they would not have punished with so much as a discountenance without which all other liberties are unworthy the naming GGG Now to put us out of all doubt what kinde of consciences they desire to be protected by the Magistrate in their liberty they are content to come down to specifications At the beginning they had not the courage to require a generall liberty for all erroneous consciences as divers of the Independents to this day professe their aversenesse fom an unlimited toleration of all errours so M. Blackwood who first came out to storm the Antichristian baptizers of children does stick a little at Papists and more at blasphemers and Atheists
p. 13. I am assured if I whose eyes God hath opened to discern this Popish corruption if I should hold my peace and so justly perish with the Antichristian Synagogue that denieth Jesus is the Christ I Turners heavenly Conference p. 41. Question What if any deny children of beleevers in a Church estate baptism of water Answer They make void the promise of God made to children of beleevers by that their Tradition Q. May such as deny children baptism be permitted members of a true Church A. No they ought to be cut off from all Christs congregations K Apologeticall Narration p. 9. Excommunication should be put in execution for no other kinde of sins then may evidently be presumed to be perpetrated against the parties known light as whether it be a sin in manners and conversation such as is committed against the light of nature or the common received practises of Christianity professed in all the Churches of Christ or if in opinions then such as are likewise contrary to the received principles of Christianity and the power of godlinesse professed by the party himself and universally acknowledged in all the rest of the Churches and no other sins to be the subject of that dreadfull sentence L Gangrena part 2. p. 13. For the present the best Independent Churches are mixed assemblies consisting of persons whereof some are Anabaptists some Antinomians some Libertines others hold Arminian and Socinian Tenets M. Symonds Independent Church at Roterdam is overgrown with Anabaptisme and he hath written into England that he is so postered with Anabaptists that he know not what to do M Tombs Apology p. 66. I confesse they that hold that members are added to the Church by Baptism and not otherwise and hold a nullity of paedobaptism must needs say the Churches that have no other then infant Baptism are no true Churches nor their members Church members Cornwels Vindication p. 15. They who enter not into their Church fellowship by teaching the Gospel and dipping as Jesus and his Disciples entered are thieves and robbers N The confession of faith Artic. 29. All beleevers are a holy and sanctified people the beleever is in truth and really separate both in soul and body from all sin and dead works whereby he also presseth after a heavenly and Evangelicall perfection in obedience to all the commands Storming of Antichrist pag. 3. There hath been a mistake in the matter of the Church for many hundred years men taking mixt multitudes for the matter thereof when the Scripture makes Saints in profession the matter thereof Also p. 8. Beleeve it we are beholden for the recovery of this truth to our Brethren nick-named Independents which is as precious a truth about Church order as ever was recovered from the spoyls of Antichrist for if the matter of Churches be wrong let the wisest and holiest do what they can they shall never bring things into a comfortable order O Gangrena second Part p. 126. Being urged in point of prayer for forgivenesse of sins with the Lords Prayer the Lievtenant said that the Lords prayer when Christ gave it to his Disciples was spirituall unto them but is not so to us The same Lievtenant being urged with Davids practise of bewailing sin and craving pardon answered David was under a double Covenant of the Law and of grace we only under that of grace and though a beleever should commit as great sins as David murther and adultery there was no need for him to repent and that sin was no sin to him but a failing Also p. 120. One of the followers of M. Sympson the Antinomian said it in the hearing and presence of divers M. Sympson being then also present that if a child of God should commit murder he ought not to repent of it and M. Sympson never reproved him for it though by one present in the company he was spoken unto to do it P Benjamin Bourns description and confutation p. 53. The seventh errour is divided into two branches the first handled in this chapter by way of question whether perfection in the highest degree both of grace and glory be attainable in this life yea or no. Q Saltmarsh Smoke p. 15 16 17 18. These places commonly taken for the commission for Christs Baptism as Matth. 28.18 have no such thing in them baptizing in Mat. 28. cannot properly be understood of baptizing by water but farre more probably of the Spirits Baptism or Baptism of the holy Ghost Christs institution of water as his own Baptism in his own person cannot be made appear out of all the New Testament none ought to give Baptism now because there is none can give the gift of the holy Ghost with it Baptism by water and by the holy Ghost being joyned together both in institution doctrine and practise are not to be separated nor given in such a time wherein that of the holy Ghost is not given for what God hath joyned together let no man put asunder That the fulnesse of time is not yet come for ordinances for as there were severall seasons for the givings out of truths before so now R Saltmarsh Free grace p. 140. A beleevers glorious freedome the Spirit of Christ sets a beleever as free from hell the Law and bondage here on earth as if he were in heaven nor wants he any thing to make him so but to make him beleeve that he is so S The Confession Vide supra N. T Confession second Edition Artic. 29. The beleever presseth after a heavenly and Evangelicall obedience V Kiffins Answer to Ricraft p. 18. If your eyes were opened to peruse your own ways you would than see that we could better free our selves from the guilt of schisme from these reformed Churches then you your selves from the notorious guilt of schisming from Rome X Tombs Apology Vide supra M. Y Spilsberry in his Preface to the Saints interest I intended not the title of adversaries to all that do not fully close with us in judgement but to those that so oppose us as that they deny us to preach any Gospel to hold forth any true faith or to administer any true Baptisme who have openly called us the gates of hell their open enemy c. Z Vide supra Y. AA The Confession Artic. 47. And although the particular congregations be distinct and severall bodies every one as a compact and knit City in it self yet are they all to walk by one and the same rule and by all means convenient to have the counsell and help one of another BB Declaration concerning the publick dispute p. 12. We dare affirm that the Presbyters have nothing else whereby to perswade the people to subject their consciences unto their Synodicall and Classicall authority c. CC Confession Artic. 42 43. Christ has also given power to his whole Church to receive in and cast out by way of excommunication any member and this power is given to every particular Congregation and not one particular person
either member or officer but the whole and every particular member of each Church how excellent great or learned soever ought to be subject to this censure Also Saltmarsh Smoke in the Temple p. 14. The Anabaptists hold that the Church though but of two or three yet may enjoy the word and ordinances by way of an administrator or one deputed to administer though no Pastor that these commonly called Church Officers as Pastors c. are such as the Church or body may be without DD Confession Artic. 45. Such to whom God hath given gifts being tried in the Church may and ought by the appointment of the Congregation to Prophecy according to the proportion of faith and so teach publickly the word of God for the edification exhortation and comfort of the Church EE Kiffins answer to Ricraft Among the causes of their separation he sets down this as one The quenching of the Spirit and despising prophecy that no man may speak in our publick exercises but one FF Confession Artic. 41. The persons designed by Christ to dispense this ordinance the Scriptures hold forth to be a Preaching Disciple it being no where tied to a particular Church officer or person extraordinarily sent the commission enjoyning the administration being given to them under no other consideration but as Disciples Also the Treatise of Baptisme p. 407. It cannot reasonably be objected that he that baptizeth should necessarily be himself a baptized person though ordinarily it will be so yet it is not necessary to the Ordinance no more then it is simply necessary to a Church State that the members be baptized for not the personall baptism of him that administers but the due commission he hath for baptizing is alone considerable to make him a true Minister of Baptisme GG Gangren second Part p. 3. Oats hath dipped many in Bocking River and when that is done he hath a feast in the night and at the end thereof the Lords Supper Also Gangrena the first part p. 44. The 12. of November last there met the matter of 80 Anabaptists in a great house and had a Love-feast their Supper was dressed for them by a Cook when Supper was ended before the cloth was taken away they administred the Lords Supper HH Tombs Apology p. 54. Nor do I think the thing either such a new opinion or practise for besides that it may be doubted whether all the Apostles were baptized as suppose Matthew which is as probable for the negative as the affirmative yet were they all admitted to the Lords Supper by Christ himself When Constantine the great and others did deferre their Baptisme so long it is not likely they never received the Lords Supper afore their Baptism II Storming of Antichrist p. 6. Suppose the power of all ordinances and the keys in a time of universall defection should resolve it self radically in the Church yet there being no Church right for the matter which is part of the essence this power could not resolve it self into a Church and therefore if it be any where on earth as doubtlesse it is it must be in beleevers who joyning themselves together in Assemblies may stirre up and take again that power which was committed to the Churches and after cheated away by Antichrist The Treatise of Baptism p. 389. The power of the keys originarily and primarily is given to the Church where the power of admitting receiving and casting out is there is the power of administring and communicating all ordinances to the edification of the same body and they which have power of administring the Kingly office of Christ consisting in casting out and receiving in have also power of administring his Propheticall office of which the Sacraments are a part and therefore to the Christian Churches as to the Jews of old pertaineth the publick dispensations and services of God Rom. 9. KK Confession Article 41. The dispensation of Baptisme is no where tied to a particular officer the commission to administer it being given to them under no other consideration but considered as Disciples Treatise of Baptism p. 391. A man becomes a Prophet by vertue of a gift but no gift renders a Baptizer but a call as being a thing of publick commission teaching out of a gift hath its foundation in nature which ariseth from a personall gift and grace of the spirit but Baptism Censures Ordination and the like depend not upon a speciall gift but are acts of power conferred authoritatively upon a speciall person LL Gangren first Part p. 32. Mistresse Attaway gave an answer to the men present who brought an argument for Infants Baptisme MM Confession second Edition in the preface to the Reader Some are offended at us for meeting in houses to preach So we are blamed because we frequent not their Temples Kiffens Answer to Ricraft p. 10. You are enraged against these who worship any where save in your high places NN Ibid. You continue tithes and offerings of people as if Christ were not yet come in the flesh OO John the Baptist p. 1. The claiming tithes or any thing in stead thereof appears to be contrary to the Gospel through the whole Gospel there is not one word to countenance a forcing of the people to contribute unto the poor or unto the Minister any thing but what they please themselves PP The vanity of childish Baptism second Part p. 27. There is no more hope to see that Tribe stoop so low as to bear witnesse to this truth then there is to see them allow the doctrine and practise of blessed Saint Paul working with his own hands Acts 20.34 to be now of use and imitation in our times John the Baptist pag. 7. It were farre more Apostolick and Christian-like for Ministers to work with their own hands then to force or require a subsistence in such a manner PP 2 The power and office of the Ministery by which it is there administred is received from the Bishops who received their power from the Antichrist The vanity of childish Baptism p. 12. Ib. p. 15. The unlawfulnesse of the calling of the Ministery of the Church of England is acknowledged by many of themselves who have therfore forsaken and cast off their Ministery they received of the Bishops and departed the Land and became as Lay-men untill they were authorized anew by the election and appointment of such a Congregation as they conceived to be a true Church Ibid. p. 31. The worth or honesty of a man in a false office cannot make the office any truer or lawfuller then it is in it selfe the better the man the worse the Bishop the very same is the case of the Ministery and Priesthood here QQ Vide supra GG RR Gangren first Part p. 6. I had it from eye and ear-witnesses who were present at Kiffen and Patience Visitation of one of their Members whose name is Palmer living in Smithfield who layed hands upon her and anointed her with oyle the woman recovering came unto
their Coventicle house and there before many people said that Brother Kiffen and Patience anoynting her she suddenly recovered SS Vide supra O. TT Gangren first Part p. 27. That all singing of Psalmes as Davids or any other holy songs of Scripture is unlawfull and not to be joyned with that the singing which Christians should use is that of hymnes and spirituall songs framed by themselves composed by their own gifts and that upon speciall occasions as deliverances c. sung in the Congregation by one of the assembly all the rest being silent VV Gangren first Part p. 23. This Den preacheth much against tythes he hath put down all singing of Psalmes in his Church XX The compassionate Samaritane p. 31 33. And hereby is maintained the necessity and excellency of Learning and the Languages and so of Vniversities and a supposall that the Arts likewise are necessary to a Divine As Diana was so is learning the crafts-mens living and the peoples Goddesse the people may if they please dote upon that which hath been their destruction they ought to account better of them that having no by-ends or respects have studied the Scriptures for their own and others information and do impart the same to the people out of a desire of their good for nothing as the Anabaptists doe to their Congregations See also Bloudy Tenet p. 173. YY Vide Disswasive p. 48. Browns life and manners of all true Christians p. 8. Know ye not that they which have their full and sufficient authority and calling are not to care for a further authority Hath not every lawfull Pastor his full authority Ibid. p. 8. The Lord did not only shew them the Tabernacle but bade them make it but these men will not make it at all because they will tarry for the Magistrate Ibid. pag. 10. They could not force Religion as you would have the Magistrate to do and it was forbidden to the Apostles to preach to the unworthy or to force a planting or government in the Church the Lords kingdome is not by force neither durst Moses or any of the Kings of Judah force the people by Law or by power to receive the Church government but after they received it if then they fell away and sought not the Lord they might put them to death They do cry Discipline discipline that is for a civill forcing to imprison the people or otherwise by violence to handle and beat them if they would not obey them Ibid. p. 11. The Lords people is of the willing sort they shall come unto Sion and enquire the way unto Jerusalem not by force nor compulsion but with their faces thitherward And p. 12. Because the Church is in a Common-wealth it is of the Magistrates charge that is concerning the outward provision and outward justice they are to look but to compell Religion to plant Churches by power and to force a submission to Ecclesiasticall government by Laws and penalties belongeth not to them neither yet to the Church ZZ Disswasive p. 49. EEEEE FFFFF Also the modell of Church and civill power composed by M. Cotton in the bloudy Tenet p. 156. The Magistrate hath power to forbid all idolatrous and corrupt assemblies who offer to put themselves under their patronage and shall attempt to joyn themselves into a Church estate and if they shall not hearken to force them therefrom by the power of the sword Ib. 101. Tolerating many Religions in a State in severall Churches beside the provoking of God may in time not only corrupt leaven divide and so destroy the peace of the Churches but also dissolve the Continuity of the State especially ours whose wals are made of the stones of the Churches He hath also power to compell all men within his grant to hear the Word ZZ 2 Tombs Apology p. 13. Being acquainted with a Law made in New England and proceedings against those that denied baptizing of Infants I yeelded to the sending of my examen thither and therewith I sent this short Epistle Reverend Brethren understanding that there is some disquiet in your Churches about paedobaptism c. AAA Apologetick narration p. 19. To the Magistrates power we give as much and as we think more then the principles of the Presbyteriall government will suffer them to yeeld BBB Burrows Irenicon at length CCC Apologeticall narration p. 9. We judge that excommunication should be put in execution for no other kinde of sinnes then may evidently be presumed to be perpetrated against the parties known light as whether it be a sin in manners and conversation such as is committed against the light of nature or the common received practises of Christianity professed in all the Churches of Christ or if an opinions then such as are likewise contrary to the received principles of Christianity and the power of godlinesse professed by the party himself and universally acknowledged in all the rest of the Churches and no other sins to be the subject of that most dreadfull sentence DDD John Goodwins Theomachia p. 37. Concerning other civill means for the suppression and restraint of these spirituall evils errours heresies c. as imprisonment banishment interdictions finings c. both reason and experience concurre in this demonstration that such fetters as these put upon the feet of errours and heresies to secure and keep them under still have proved wings whereby they raise themselves the higher in the thoughts and mindes of men and gain an opportunity of farther propagation Ibid. To hold that the persons so elected the Members of the House of Commons chosen by men unworthy and strangers to the power of godliness have a power by vertue of such nomination or election to enact Laws and Statutes in matters of Religion and to order under mulcts and penalties how men shall worship and serve God as it is a means to awaken the eye of jealousie upon them and so is seven times more destructive unto the undermining not only of their power but of their honour peace and safety also then any thing that is found in the way so ill entreated so is it the setling upon the electors of such persons I mean upon the promiscuous multitude of the Land a greater power then ever Jesus Christ himself had at least then ever he exercised EEE Anabaptists Confession Edition second Article 48. in the margin Concerning the worship of God there is but one Lawgiver Jesus Christ who hath given Laws and rules sufficient in his word for his worship and for any to make more were to charge Christ for want of wisdome or faithfulnesse or both in not making Laws enough or not good enough for his house Surely it is our wisdome duty and priviledge to observe Christs Laws only FFF Ibid. It is our duty to do and we believe it is our expresse duty especially in matters of Religion to be fully perswaded in our mindes of the lawfulnesse of what we do for whatsoever is not of faith is sin and as we cannot do
that circumcision did primarily seal the temporall promise and signified sanctification but secondarily I know the Anabaptists in Germany shame not to say that the Covenant made with Abraham was a meer carnall thing and had nothing to do with eternall life as for the expression of learned Cameron if by primarily he meaned immediately that it sealed these things first in order as they were types of spirituall things it may then passe cum grano salis but if by primarily he intended principally that circumcision did chiefly seal earthly blessings the opinion is too unsavoury to be received BB M. Marshals Defence 245. For my own part I seriously professe that supposing infant Baptism a nullity I cannot understand how any in the world should this day be lawfully baptized unlesse it can be made good that a person unbaptized himself may be a lawfull Minister of baptism to others Tombs Apology p. 54. That none be admitted to the Lords Supper till he be rightly baptized I professe is to be stood upon in point of prudence for right order yet if it be stood upon in point of conscience so as in no case the contrary is to be permitted it will of necessity make many superstitious perplexities for besides that it may be doubted whether all the Apostles were baptized who yet were admitted to the Lords Supper by Christ himself when Constantine the Great and others did deferre their Baptism so long it is not likely they never received the Lords Supper before their Baptisme CC Tombs Apology p. 31. I do count the story of the Anabaptists to contain in it many things the true reasons of which and the true knowledge of the circumstances concerning them will not appear till the day of the revelation of the righteous judgement of God DD Ibid. p. 32. How farre the Anabaptists sought reformation I cannot tell it is plain that Carolostadius and Pelargus and some say Melancthon would have reformed it in Saxony had not Luthers pertinacy in that as well as Consubstantiation and Images withstood it and Baltazar Hubmer sought it at Zurick and was denied it is known I think the reformed Churches have been to blame and so may be our present reformers that they have never yeelded to reform it in a regular way EE Ibid. p. 106. M. Marshals Book it appears was contrived by divers I believe the ablest of the Assembly I wish it were declared whether the paedobaptists would stick to that work or any other FF Ibid. p. 93. And though many magnifie the vertue and benefit of their juridicall excommunication yet the best intelligence I have makes me question whether it hath not b en rather an engine of much harm as being used rather against dissenters in opinion and opposers of profit then men openly vitious managers of that censure generally shewing themselves irreconciliable to them that dissent from them but favourable enough to vitious living GG Ibid. p. 57. I was told there was a very intelligent man that said he was sorry that I had M. Marshall for my Antagonist as knowing him to be apt to mistake which he conceived would be a vexation to me and indeed I finde his words true p. 69. I must confesse I finde M. Marshall still so confused a Disputer that I know not to what purpose his manner of writing in this point should tend but to puzzle his Reader and weary his respondent HH Ibid. p. 19. M. Marshall says that I vilifie M. Thomas Goodwin as a man who by spinning out similitudes and conjectures deceives his auditors I say still that I expected from M. Goodwin arguments but counted my self deluded with his conjectures finding nothing to his purpose in any of these Texts which were the main he alledged HH 2 Ibid. p. 3. I saw few or none regarded for clearing the truth but popular Orators such as relate to great men or are usefull to uphold a party are the men esteemed And p. 95. I may rather say that by my two Treatises there is such a wound given already to infant baptisme that however men may play the Mountebanks and skin it over it will never be cured at the bottom II Vide supra BB. KK Ibid. p. 10. I durst not justifie such a practise as to gather a separated Church LL Vide supra C. MM Vide supra BB. NN Tombs Apology p. 92. I doubt much how hence may be concluded any power of suspension from the Lords Supper for every emergent scandall so judged by a congregation or congregationall Presbytery OO Ibid. p 91. I have said that I doubted whether ever excommunication a sacris or the Presbyterian or the Independent Ecclesiasticall Government would be proved to be Jure Divino by Christs appointment and I doubt whether the power of the Keyes Matth. 16. be any other then doctrinall and whether Matth. 18. contain any other direction then about particular injuries betwixt brother and brother or Let him be to thee a Heathen and Publican be any other then shunning familiar converse PP Ibid. I confesse that I take it to be but a matter of prudence whether each congregation have its compleat power within it self or that it be ordered in some things by an Assembly of select persons out of divers congregations and whether congregations and Pastors be fixed or unfixed p. 93. I suppose in the manner of doing these things we have not certain precise direction from Gods word but that we are left free by God to order such things though pertaining to Christians as Christians by alterable rules of prudence QQ Ibid. p. 93. Nor doth the Church lose by having a Christian Magistrate if that jurisdiction be wanting sith I suppose it is better provided for by the constant care of a Christian Magistrate if conscientious in executing judgement if not such censures have been seldome executed with conscience or good effect RR M. Marshals Defence p. 73. Have not multitudes of our Anabaptists swallowed down all Arminianisme SS A Defence of the lawfulnesse of infants baptism in answer to M. Spilsberry VV M. Spilsberry peculiar interest of the elect in Christ and his saving grace XX Gangren first Part division second p. 23. M. Den exercises in Lambs Church the usuall theme that he is upon is Christs dying for all for Judas as well as Peter he often preaches this Doctrine as those who have heard him do report this is the everlasting Gospel to beleeve that Jesus Christ hath dyed for all men Turks Pagans and that all the sins of men committed against the morall Law were actually forgiven and pardoned when Jesus Christ shed his blood and none of them that ever men had committed or should were imputed to them but men were onely damned for not beleeving in Christ and for nothing else YY Ibid. p. 36. Oats who is a great Dipper and Preacher amongst them delivered in Bell-Alley in Colemanstreet not long ago that the Doctrine of Gods eternall election and predestination was a damnable Doctrine and
errour ZZ Ibid. p. 1. M. Den answered the Heathen had the Gospel preached to them in the creatures and in them was revealed the knowledge of Christ crucified if they had eyes to see it AAA Ibid. He said there was a power in a man to resist grace and that the grace that would convert one man would not convert another BBB Gangren first Part p. 21. They teach that regenerate men who have true grace may fall totally and finally away from the state of grace CCC Gangren first Part division second p. 22. This M. Den was sent forth by Lambs Church into Bedfordshire Cambridgeshire and those parts to preach universall grace and to rebaptize DDD M. Wels preface to the short story of the rise raign c. This kinde of Doctrine takes so well here in London and other parts of the Kingdom and you see so many daunce after this Pipe running after such and such crowding the Churches and filling the doors and windows even such carnall and vile persons many of them as care not to hear any other godly Ministers but only their Leaders EEE M. Gatakers shadows without substance p. 25. You or these you maintain affirm that the morall Law is of no use at all to a beleever no rule for him to walk nor to examine his life by and that Christians are free from the mandatory power of it yea in Pulpits they cry out Away with the Law Gangren second Part p. 126. The Preacher observed that the hand-writing of Ordinances the ten precepts faire written by the finger of God was altogether taken away FFF Ibid. p. 133. Hereupon Oats peremptorily affirmed and stood to maintain that there was no power in any Christian Magistrate to inflict a capitall punishment upon any member of a Church unlesse first he was cast out of the Church and so delivered to the secular power what ever his offence was though murder or Treason GGG Ibid. Being pressed with the authority of that Text He that sheddeth mans blood by man shall his blood be shed he and the rest cryed out What had they to do with Moses they were Christs Disciples not Moses Disciples HHH Gangren second Part p. 120. One of the followers of M. Simpson the Antinomian said it in the hearing and presence of divers M. Simpson being then also present that if a child of God should commit murder he ought not to repent of it and M. Simpson never reproved him for it though by one present in the company he was spoken unto to doe it III Christs counsell to the Angell of Laodicea p. 41 42. cited in Gatakers shadows p. 11. Nothing at all is required in any respect of him for whom Christ died they are deceivers that teach otherwise neither faith nor repentance nor self-deniall nor hearing nor use of Ordinances nor observation of Sabbath nor doing as we would be done to and the rest They are false Teachers that make these duties and teach that we must exercise our selves in these things or we shall have no part in Christ KKK Gatakers shadows p. 2. M. Saltmarsh encourages Christians not to be troubled for any sin nor to imagine that God is displeased with them or that any afflictions do befall them for their sins or that they shall ever be called to any account for them Ibid. p. 9. You infuse such principles as these that God sees no sin in them live they never so ill nor like them any whit the lesse when they do sin nor is at all displeased with them or will ever call them to account for ought they do LLL Ibid. p. 49. What you subjoyn is scandalous Place say you salvation upon a free-bottome or else you make the Covenant but an old Covenant in new terms in stead of Do this and live Believe this and live repent and live obey and live and all this is for want of revealing the mystery more fully MMM Ibid. p. 2. M. Saltmarsh preaches that Christ hath perfectly beleeved for us and perfectly repented for us Ibid. p. 36. He expoundeth all the places he quoted wherein any duty was required not as to be done by us but as done by Christ for us and so to be beleeved of us NNN Vide supra III. also Gatakers shadows p. 11. It is the way that you your self and others of the Antinomian Party propound to wit that there is nothing required to be done by any for the obtaining of a share in the redemption and salvation procured and purchased by Christ or for the application of Christs merits unto any and they may therefore be saved by Christ without faith or repentance or new obedience though they continue in infidelity impenitency and the worst sins that are OOO Gangren first Part division second p. 33. Hobson preaching against holy duties spake thus I was once as legall as any of you can be I durst not eate a bit of bread but I gave thanks I daily prayed and wept for my sins so that I had almost wept out my eyes with sorrow for sin but I am perswaded when I used all these duties I had not one jot of God in me Gatakers shadows p. 5. Your strains of a more glorious spirit are like your vaunting elswhere of a more glorious light PPP Gangren first Part second division p. 8. A great Sectary writes from Bathe that Christ came to witnesse and declare Gods love to us not to procure it for us for if God take at any time any displeasure to us he had been changeable seeing before the world began he saw us lovely in his Son he came not to procure the love of God to us or to satisfie him as some say but he was as I may say a most glorious publisher of the Gospel Ibid. p. 34. Hobson has printed that Christ did not by his death purchase life and salvation for all no not for the elect for it was not the end of God in the comming of Christ to purchase love and life but Christ himself was purchased by love that he might make out love and purchase us to love for Christ came not to reconcile God to man but man to God QQQ Vide supra PPP SSS Saltmarsh Treatises against M. Gataker TTT The Treatise of Baptism p. 32. Therefore know the mind of God and labour not anxiously about sins and the pardon of them which is a great impediment to the comfort and holinesse of our life VVV The Confession of the seven Churches first Edition Article 28. Those which have union with Christ are justified from all their sins past present and to come XXX Ibid. Article 25. The tender of the Gospel to the conversion of sinners is absolutely free no way requiring as absolutely necessary qualifications preparations terrors of the Law or preceding Ministery of the Law but onely and alone the naked soule a sinner and ungodly to receive Christ YYY Gangren second Part p. 20. Some speaking to the Antinomian Taylor deprehended in the acts of his
writers asserting the ancient custome of dipping in baptisme A generall answer to the testimonies for dipping To which I answer first what ever authority testimonies may have with us yet with him that brings them and with his whole party they are of no value at all Will they mislike or so much as suspect any of their absurdest novelties when it is demonstrate to them that the whole current of all Christian writers ancient and modern is against them is it not then their custome with a great deal of scorn to declaim against the vanity and frivolousnesse of an argument from humane assertions Secondly the Treatiser himselfe cannot but know that every one of the Authours he brings does positively impugne his assertion the necessity of dipping and unlawfulnesse of sprinkling in Baptisme Thirdly his witnesses though they assert indefinitely the antiquity of dipping yet none of them does deny the like ancient use of sprinkling both those may well stand together and so it is the judgement of many that sometimes dipping and sometimes sprinkling as the occasion required were practised in the Primitive times Fourthly of those that speak of ancient dipping how many doe understand it of the totall immersion of a naked body over head and ears and yet this alone is our question Fifthly though even for this testimonies were brought yet they come not home unlesse such a dipping be attested to be a rite unchangeable and so necessary that the omission of it at any occasion were a sin and breach of the Lords institution When any writer either ancient or modern except some few of the latest Anabaptists is brought to bear witnesse to any such assertion I shall acknowledge my information of that whereof hitherto I have been altogether ignorant THE CONTENTS OF the Treatise The PREFACE SLothfulnesse is fatall when unseasonable Men are most carelesse when their dangers be greatest The present danger of the Protestant Churches of France Holland of Germany of Zuitserland of Britain by the Malignants by the Sectaries Our dangers from the Malignants are not yet past The unexcusable obstinacy of the Episcopall Divines It s blindnesse and dementation to misprize the danger from France Antichrist is possibly neare to swallow down the whole Reformed Churches A floud of Errors and Heresies is like to overwhelm the Church of England A liberty for all Errors is the great aim of some They spoil the Parliament of all power to reform or meddle with Religion Who now are the persecutors How great is the monster of Libertinism The Sectaries having done with the Church proceed to the overthrow of the State The Parliament must be abolished The best remedy of our dangers from the Malignants is the return of the King to his Parliament in just tearms The zealous diligence of Ministers might do much to cure the evill of our errors The sedulous activity of the Sectaries doth shame our slothfulnesse The caveats of zeal Presbyterians are far from opposing the least degree of true piety Charity and compassion are to be extended to our enemies Presbyterians were never persecutors The dignity and power of the Magistrate must be carefully preserved The scope of the Treatise CAP. I. The Originall and Progresse of the Anabaptists BErengarius no Anabaptist The Albigenses knew not Anabaptisme p. 1. Neither MelancthoÌ„ nor Carolostadius did favour Antipaedobaptism p. 2 The true originall of the Anabaptists The malignity of their spirit Their singular hypocrisie p. 3 The preposterous pity and charity of good men towards them was the cause of their strength Their wicked doctrines and practises Luther did justly stir up the Magistrate against them p. 5 Great numbers of them were slain The unhappy end of their Author Muncer ib. Zuinglius did oppose their gathering of Churches in Zuitserland The reason of their banishment thence p. 6 Their intolerable practises The tragedy of Munster p. 7 The ordinary custome of Hereticks is not to labour but to spoil the labours of others King Becold enters Munster Some of the prime Ministers are gained to Anabaptisme The slacknesse of the Magistrate though orthodoxe did ruine the City The Sectaries though fewer and weaker yet by wit and industry did master their opposites By the stirrup of Toleration the Sectaries ascended to the saddle of Soveraignty p. 8 Being once masters of the City they presently changed the government They seized on the goods of all and killed whom they would The peoples mindes being ensnared by their errors their tyranny became irremediable They proclaimed Polygamy p. 9 A faint and unsuccessefull resistance did hasten and confirm Becolds Kingdome The splendour of Becolds Court His barbarous cruelty and hypocrisie His unhappy end p. 10 Amsterdam in hazard to be a second Munster A woman Messias Division and Schismes were the Anabaptists ruine p. 11 The difference betwixt the Monasterians and the Battenburgicks The Sect of the Hophmanists p. 12 Who were the Mennonists A Synod for union did divide them amongst themselves more then ever David Georgius labours for union p. 13 Divers Sects of Anabaptists evanished David George had a great shew of zeal and piety p. 14 Yet his absurdities were horrible The extraordinary zeal of his followers His strange end p. 15 The increase of the Mennonists The errors of the Mennonists Their Schismes p. 16 For a light cause four late separations among them The state of the Anabaptists in England p. 17 Independency the cause of their increase and boldnesse p. 18 Their late Confession is neither a full nor a clear declaration of their tenets CAP. II. The tenets of the old Anabaptists THe most applauded tenets of our modern Anabaptists are the self-same with what the old Anabaptists did invent p. 29 Their first prime tenet was a necessity of gathering Churches out of Churches and of separation from the best reformed in their time because of mixt communion ib. Antipaedobaptisme became at last their greatest dâ—rling They were the authors of the prophecying and questioning of private men in the face of the Church Women preachers are from them p. 30 Their Pastors must renounce all former Ordination and their full call of new must come from the hands of their people They required no letters in their Preachers The crying down of Tithes and all set Stipends is from them Independency of Congregations and the peoples power in Church censures is their invention The Seekers who deny all Churches are their Disciples After the overthrow of the Church they fell next upon the State p. 31 First they cryed down the Magistrates power in matters of Religion Next in all matters even Civill Yet they took to themselves an absolute Civill power first over all them in their own Churches Next over all Princes and people in the whole world They were strong Millenaries p. 32 They made adulteries and murders lawfull Robberies also 33 Their hypocrisie ended in the open practise of crimes extreamely contrary to their first professions Their abominable uncleannesse They deny both Old and
New Testament p. 34 They deny angels and devils and souls They deny heaven and hell and eternall life They cast away all the Ordinances of God p. 35 David George to them was spirituall Christ much more excellent then Christ crucified Many people were ready to seal with their bloud all these abominations The monster David George did live and die in plenty and peace The best of the Anabaptists have very grosse errors The Mennonists deny originall sinne p. 36 In the points of election redemption grace free-will perseverance justification perfection they are grosser then the Arminians or Iesuites They are yet more absurd They deny the omnipresence of God They deny the Trinity And the truth of Christs humanity p. 37 They refuse all consequences from Scripture They refuse reasoning from the Old Testament The covenant with Abraham they make carnall They exclude all infants from the covenant of grace CAP. III. The modern tenets of the Anabaptists in England THe spirit of Anabaptisme clearly devillish p. 47 The fair profession of many English Anabaptists not to bee trusted What errours may be charged upon all what onely upon some of them p. 48 The confession of the seven Churches is a very imperfect and ambiguous declaration of their judgement Let no errour be charged upon any man which he truly disclaims A brief sum of all the Anabaptists errors Every Anabaptist is at least a rigid Separatist p. 49 Though the Independents offer to collude with the Anabaptists yet they separate from the Independents no lesse then from the Brownists as antichristian p. 50 They avow all their members to be holy and elect and some of them are for their perfection p. 51 After they have separate from all other Churches they run next away from their own selves They charge one another with Antichristianisme They are Independents They put all Church power in the hand of the people They give the power of preaching and celebrating the Sacraments to any of their gifted members out of all office p. 52 Even unto women They must not preach in a Steeple-house p. 53 All Tithes and all set Stipends are unlawfull their Preachers must work with theit own hands and may not goe in blacke cloathes They celebrate the Lords Supper in any common Innes after another feast All the new light of the Independents and Brownists is borrowed from the Anabaptists The anointing of the sick with oyle the rejecting of the Lords Prayer of all set Psalms of Vniversities and humane learning are the Anabaptists inventions The Independent Apologists are for liberty to most of the Sects 54 And some of their prime friends are for a generall liberty to all 55 The Anabaptists deny all power to Magistrates in any thing which concerns Religion Turkisme Popery Atheisme the greatest blasphemies they would not have punished with so much as a discountenance They presse a liberty for preaching and propagating openly all errours imaginable Yet they grant that errour is a soul-murder and a greater crime then the destruction of a King of a Parliament of a whole Nation p. 56 They hate the Covenant They are injurious to the Scots p. 57 All punishing of errour with them is persecution They presse liberty of conscience much out of policy p. 58 The granting of all this liberty will not assure the Magistrates of the Sectaries civill obedience p. 59 The tenets and practise of the Sectaries destroy Magistracy They professe their design to overturn from the ground the government of our State as now it stands Kings and Lords are no more tolerable Neither is the House of Lords any longer to be endured p. 60 The poorest begger in the land has a share of the Soveraignty above the King and Parliament All former Laws and Acts of Parliament must be abolished p. 61 The will of the multitude must stand for the Soveraign Law hereafter p. 62 The three fundamentall Laws of our new Vtopian Republick p. 63 According to reason and experience the present distemper of the Sectaries is posting on fast to a Dictatorship and absolute Tyranny in the hand of one The State in danger by the Sectaries principles p. 64 The greatest purchase which the overturners of States usually make is a late repentance p. 65 CAP. IV. Their Antipaedobaptisme Arminianisme Arrianisme Familisme and other wicked errours ALL Anabaptists are for Antipaedobaptisme They avow the nullity of our Baptisme p. 89 They presse on us a re-baptization They exclude all infants from the covenant of grace and make Circumcision a seal onely of carnall promises Many of them deny originall sin and assert all the articles of Arminius p. 90 They separate from all who renounce not Paedobaptisme Yet they admit into their Churches many much worse then these from whom they separate p. 91 Sprinkling to them nullifies Baptisme M. Tombes new way He is a rigid Antipaedobaptist yet not against sprinkling He spoils all infants of all interest in the covenant of grace p. 92 He is a friend to the worst Anabaptists and injurious to all who oppose them He makes Baptisme a rite needlesse either to young or old He admits of a frequent re-baptization He admits unbaptized persons to the Lords Table He is a grosse Erastian The most of the Anabaptists are Arminians p. 93 The second Edition of their confession is not so free of Arminianism as the first The chief Churches of the Anabaptists are grosse Arminians p. 94 Many of them are Antinomians laying aside all care of morall duties Making all grief for sin unlawfull p. 95 Denying Christs satisfaction and reconciliation of God to men The best of them are inclineable to Libertinisme The Antinomian controversies are not as the prime Independents doe make them onely about words and methods of preaching p. 96 Many of the Anabaptists are become Seekers denying all Churches all Officers all Ordinances Many of the Anabaptists are become Antitrinitarians p. 97 Richardson one of their prime leaders a blasphemer of the Trinity p. 98 Divers of them are abominable bl sphemers of Christs Person Others of them are become perfect Atheists They evert and reject the whole Scripture p. 99 Many of them are turned Familists denying the immortality of the soul Denying Heaven and Hell Angels and Devils Some of them make the world eternall others all creatures to perish p. 100 Some deny all resurrection others make the beasts rise to glory They teach abominable obscenities They follow David George in his greatest absurdities The divine light of their new Prophet The fall of Adam and the clearest Scriptures are but allegories The whole Divinity suffered in the Person of Christs humanity p. 101 The great light which this Prophet brings from heaven is that all the Devils and all the Reprobates shall be saved by his Gospel Randall his grosse Familisme p. 102 No resurrection no heaven no hell after this life The Saints in this life become as perfect as God The clearest Scriptures are false in a literall sense That God is
IIII Historia Davidis p. 139. Menno avowed that David was to be taken for Antichrist the Man of sin the Child of perdition a false Prophet a Robber and a Deceiver KKKK Clopenburg p. 63. All the Mennonists agree in their deniall that Christ is the true son of Mary and Mary the true Mother of Christ LLLL Ibid. p. 18. That grosse errours of the Anabaptists is to be considered whereby with Socinus and Vorstius they deny the immediate omnipresence of the Divine essence and so the attribute of Gods infinitenesse MMMM Ibid. p. 10. The Mennonists in the mystery of the Trinity reject the word Person Ibid. p. 12. Their nicenesse about the word Person is from this that they do not unanimously nor constantly beleeve that Christ is a divine Person different from the Fathers begotten from eternity before his birth of the Virgin Mary And p. 17 We see the orthodoxe faith of the Trinity corrupted by the Mennonists NNNN Clopenburg in his preface in that harmonious discord of the confession of all the Anabaptists I laboured to take off the deceitfull faird of their Syncretisme which doth consist only in the ambiguity of words OOOO Ibid. p. 132. A few years ago among the Flemish Anabaptists three new sects were added to the former who excommunicate one another The occasion of this division was Thomas Benks the Bishop of the Anabaptists at Franeker who at the rouping of a certain house did elude the design of a friend who first intended to buy it this merchandize many of the Anabaptists did approve as honest but others of them did not only disallow it as deceitfull but also pronounced that deceit worthy of excommunication Vpon this occasion a rent was made but while these two parties are at variance there ariseth a third party of mid men and neutrals who did disallow the bargain as fraudulent yet did not judge that fraud so hainous as to deserve the rigorous censure of excommunication in the mean time these three sects howsoever unanimous in the chief heads of their doctrine yet they bolted out fearfull excommunications one against another and refused all mutuall communion PPPP Ibid. p. 431. the Hamaxarii and Borboritae were these Anabaptists who separating themselves from the old Mennonists because of their rigidity in censuring received in their Communion any that were excommunicated by the other Sects and so did heap up together all filthinesse QQQQ Master Marshals Defence against Tombs p. 76. The London Anabaptists Confession is such a one as I beleeve thousands of our new Anabaptists will be far from owning as any man may be able to say without a spirit of divination knowing that their usuall and received doctrines doe much more agree with the Anabaptists in Germany then with that handfull who made this confession CHAP. II. The Tenets of the old ANABAPTISTS THE errours of the Anabaptists and their divisions amongst themselves are so many The most applauded Tenets of our modern Anabaptists are the self-same with what the old Anabaptists did invent that to set them down distinctly in any good order is a task which I dare not undertake much lesse can I give assurance what is common to them all and what proper to their severall sects only that I may demonstrate the same very spirit to breath this day in the Anabaptists of Britain which inspired their Fathers of former times in Germany I will remark what tenets Authors of good credit ascribe to both hoping that this discovery may be a means to bring many simple wel-meaning people who are not yet plunged in the deeps of obstinacy to a more accurate triall and greater suspicion of their ways when they shall see it made visible and palpable upon undeniable evidence that their most beloved tenets and practises which they beleeve to be full of truth and holinesse are no other but the same very singularities which the known event doth now convince all who without prejudice can but read unquestionable Histories to have been the inventions and dictates of the false and unclean spirit which acted and moved in Muncer Becold David George and such like abominable monsters of mankind Their first and prime Tenet was a necessity of gathering Churches out of Churches and of separation from the best reformed in their time because of mixt communion The first and leading tenet of the old Anabaptists was a necessity to gather new Churches out of these which Luther and Zuinglius and their followers had reformed from Popery A It is remarkable that these men had never a stomach to trouble themselves with any labour to make converts from Popery or prophanenesse only so soon as gracious persons had drawn any Cities or Countries out of the kingdom of Antichrist then they fell on and every where did much disturb the work of the new Reformation B At the beginning they dissembled the grossest of their errours and their intention to quarrell infants baptism they did only presse a greater measure of holinesse and mortification then was ordinary C in this all good men went along with them but when they began to teach that the Church behoved to consist of no other members but such as were not in profession and aim alone but also visibly and really holy and elect and therefore that new Churches behoved to be gathered and that all the old any where extant behoved to be separate from as mixed and so corrupted societies then Luther and Zuinglius did oppose themselves to this schismatick humour D When they found themselves disappointed of the assistance of Luther and Zuinglius and all the rest of the orthodox Preachers without more delay they fell upon their intended work themselves alone first by private conventicles E then by preaching in the open streets they gathered and set up Churches after their own mind F consisting meerly of Saints G who did forbear communion in religious exercises with all other Churches H whom they avowed to be for the most part but worldly carnall and prophane Gospellers I and their best Preachers especially Luther and Zuinglius to be but Scribes and Pharisees false Prophets large as evill as the Pope and his Antichristian Priests K Antipaedobaptisme became at last their greatest darling For the stricter ingagement of the Saints and godly party their adherents and for the clearer distinction of them from the prophane multitude of all other Congregations they thought meet to put upon them the mark and character of a new Baptisme making them renounce their old as null because received in their infancy and in a false Church At the beginning this rebaptization was but a secondary and lesse principall Doctrine among them for Muncer himself was never rebaptized neither in his own person did he rebaptize any L yet thereafter it became a more essentiall note of a member of their Church and the crying down of infants baptism came to be a most principall and distinctive Doctrine of all in their way M They the authors of
and Elders the Independency of every Congregation from Presbyteries and Synods the thousand years of Christs visible raign upon earth All this new light did shine first and still burns most brightly among the Anabaptists Although many of the Tenets mentioned in the former Chapter be dissembled and denied by divers of this Sect Their Antipaedobaptisme and dipping shall here bee briefly and plainly considered yet all of them will acknowledge as their own what ever almost is practised either by the Independents or Brownists and besides two Tenets more Antipaedobaptism and Dipping all who carry the name of Anabaptisme though through ignorance they know not or through better instruction they dissent from many positions of their Brethren yet will avowedly and oft with passion professe their minde against the sprinkling of infants paedorantisme to all of them I ever heard of is an abomination It will not therefore be amisse before I leave them to speak something to those two points which all of them are content to take upon themselves as a Characteristick distinction from any other Sect. Let us then consider First whether it be lawfull to baptize any infant Secondly whether sprinkling be sufficient or if it be necessary to dip over head and eares all who are baptized Concerning the state of the first Question The state of the first question we need not controvert the quality of the infants to be baptized Whether they must be the children of true beleevers or onely of professors without scandall whether of Church members only or if it be enough that their Parents be Christians in the largest signification all this belongs to another place The onely point pertinent here is Whether any infants may be baptized The champions for the Anabaptists side in their Declaration of the publick Dispute intended by them with the City Ministers for their Tenet set down their These in these expresse terms No infants ought to be baptized The formall contradiction hereof is Some infants ought to be baptized for this Position I propone some few Scripturall reasons Who have leisure to see this point debated at length may look upon the worthy and judicious Writs of M. Marshall M. Black M. Geere M. Ainsworth also in his last Writ and M. Cotton in his latest learnedly and zealously maintain this truth against the Anabaptists The first reason for the affirmative My first reason I frame thus Who ever have a good right to the first Sacrament of the New Testament ought to be baptized But some infants have a good right to the first Sacrament of the New Testament Ergo Some infants ought to be baptized The major is naturally clear it needs no more for its proof but the explication of the terms of the Proposition for Baptism and the first Sacrament of the New Testament are one thing and ought to be baptized is nothing else but to have a good right to Baptism Who have right to the chief promises have right to some of the seals which God has appointed to be a means of assurance of these promises unlesse the Lord himself have made a speciall exception All the question lies in the minor which thus I prove Who ever have right to the chief promises of the New Testament they have right to the first Sacrament of the New Testament if the Lord have not put some impediment to their participation of that Sacrament But some infants have right to the chief promises of the New Testament and the Lord has put no impediment to their participation of that Sacrament Ergo. About the major I see one and but one makes some velitation all the rest give it for granted for it is grounded likewise on the nature of the terms of the proposition the chief promises of the New Testament and the first Sacrament this is the sign and seal that the thing signified The reason proceeds not from every thing signified to every sign but from the chief thing signified to the first sign some of the blessings which Circumcision did seal belonged to Melchisedek to Lot to Job and others who were not so farre as we reade circumcised but the main promises sealed by Circumcision In thy seed all the Nations of the earth shall be blessed The Messias comming of the posterity of Abraham Isaac and Jacob the Covenant of grace as it was administred under the figures of the Ceremoniall Law did belong to the people of Israel alone and to the proselytes who joyned themselves to their body Nor do we speak but of the first sign for unlesse there be a right to this there is a right to none and where the Lord has appointed signes to seal up thereby the assurance of his promises to deny to them whom God wil have to be assured of the promise the use of all the seals which he has instituted to be the spirituall means of that assurance were on mans part a great unjustice except the Lord himself have put a barre to the participation of these seals as in the Sacrament of Circumcision of old he did to women and to male infants before the eighth day and to all born in the Wildernesse during the time of their fourty years wandering therein But it is upon the minor that our Adversaries bestir themselves to purpose they deny stoutly both its parts Infants have good right to the promises of the Covenant of grace all the Scripturall objections which they can make against infants baptism they count impediments put by God to paedobaptism and upon this ground they deny the last part of the minor this we shall consider when we come to answer their objections it were not so pertinent in this place The first part likewise of the minor they deny affirming that no infants have right to any promise of the New Testament before the time of their actuall faith which they say cannot possibly be in them before the years of their discretion This is the greatest and most dangerous knot in the whole debate for we do not so much contend for the outward Sacrament to infants as for their spirituall right in God and his promises all our adversaries deny to all infants all right in God all interesses in his promises and Covenant as much as they do to Turks and Pagans Some of both say they may be elected and saved but neither of both have any place in the Covenant of grace or any Gospel promises till they be called by the Word and by an actuall faith have embraced the Gospel If therefore we make good the right and interest of any infants in the chief promises of the New Testament we establish the main hinge of this whole controversie For this end we will endeavour to clear from Scripture these four propositions First that the infants of the Jews had reall and true interest in the Covenant of grace even before the comming of Christ Secondly that the infants of the Jews had that same right in the Covenant of