which were and which are much-what the same And if it be so acceptable a thing to Christ for us to receive one such little Child in his name as that he takes it as well as if we received Him nay takes himself to be received in our so receiving it which could not well be if it were not a member of his body the Church can you then think it a thing displeasing to him to baptize such in his name when as that is a sacred Rite appointed by him for a solemn receiving such in his name into his Church as do belong to him as doubtless such Infants do or else they could not be received in his name And when Christ hath given Commission to disciple all Nations and baptize them can you fancy that the same Commission implies a prohibition to baptize little Children though they are Disciples If little Children are made Disciples in their Parents being made so and that in Gods account and by his appointment then to baptize them certainly cannot be a deviation from Christs Commission to baptize Disciples And lastly if our Saviour hath said it of some little Children that they believe in him then the same Commission which authorizeth the baptizing of Believers must authorize the baptizing of them The Commission is general to baptize Disciples indefinitely and therefore must needs extend to all that are so or that are Believers though but in the lowest sense These are no forced or far fetcht consequences but flow naturally from their premises And whereas the Scripture speaks of Baptism as the Sacrament of Regeneration or new Birth which you make as an argument against the administration of it to Infants by reason of their incapacity for Regeneration you should consider first that Circumcision was a Sacrament of Regeneration as well as baptism is and yet Infants were not uncapable of it upon any such account Circumcision in the Letter was a sign of spiritual Circumcision of that made without hands the Circumcision of the heart and was a Seal of the Righteousness of Faith And what thing more spiritual than this is I pray you signified by Baptism Which considered the spirituality of baptism in nature or use is no more an argument against Infants capacity for Baptism than the spiritual use of Circumcision was an argument against that And this is sufficient to take off your argument But you may consider yet farther that Infants even while such must needs be capable of Regeneration in one sense or other unless you will say they are not in a salyable state which yet you have not been wont to say or else that unregenerate persons may go to Heaven and be saved contrary to that of our Saviour Joh. 3.3 Except a man be born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God And therefore you seem to be under a necessity of granting Infants to be capable of Regeneration in a sense more or less proper And if you think Regeneration most properly and strictly taken to be incompetent to an infant state as Regeneration signifies that new state into which a person is brought by a change in the frame and temper of the mind and will and by a regulation of the motions and operations of the Soul in reference to their several objects then you must be constrained to accept of another sense of Regeneration and such as is more competent to an Infant State unless as I said you will say that persons may go to Heaven in an unregenerate State Dr. Hammonds Annot Mat. 19.28 Now therefore since the word translated Regeneration according to the assertion of learned men and the reason and nature of the thing it self doth properly signifie a new or second state it follows that if it can be proved that Infants are brought into a new or second State or capacity of being happy other than what is natural to them as deriving from Adam or their immediate Parents which is called a being born of blood John 1.13 then they may be said to be in a regenerate state And that the whole Race of Adam are put into a new state or capacity for happiness by the second Adam after they had lost it by the first until they fall into actual Rebellion against God by actual sin in their own persons of which sure they are in no danger while they are but in their infant state may I conceive be sufficiently evinced from Rom. 5.18 where the Apostle says as by the offence of one Judgment came upon all men to condemnation even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto the justification of life And the same might be backt by many other Scriptures And it may well be that it was in respect of this new state into which little Children are brought by Christ the second Adam that our Saviour said of such is the Kingdom of God Now so far as Baptism signifies our Communion in the virtue of Christs Death and Resurrection by which our state is changed as well as our conformity to it by a moral change in our nature there is in Infants or conferred upon them that spiritual grace which answers the outward sign in Baptism And that such a change of condition as to be raised out of a state of death into which we were brought for sin into a state of life by forgiveness of sin by virtue of Christs Death and Resurrection is called a being quickned together with him as well as that moral change which is made by sanctification is a thing which seems fairly to lie in those words Col. 2.13 And you being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh hath he quickened together with him having forgiven you all trespasses And let me say this further that it seems not improper neither to say that Infants are dead to sin to actual sin in their own persons in as much as we cannot say that lust hath conceived in them so as to bring forth sin by any consent of will though it 's true they are not dead to it as having mortified it they having not yet while Infants contracted any ill habits to mortifie So that as burying with Christ in Baptism signifies a death unto sin in the person baptized there is in some sort that in Infants which answers the outward sign in baptism in that respect also These things considered you may well infer that if that new state into which Infants are brought be in some respect a new birth a birth from above and such as puts them into an immediate capacity for Salvation as well as Regeneration in the common acceptation of it does the adult and you see by what reason you are perswaded to believe it is then you have as great yea greater certainty of the regenerate state of Infants in this sense than you have of the regenerate state of any adult persons in the other notion of Regeneration and consequently a more certain ground to baptize them so
Christians who contended with the believing Gentiles for not observing the Law of Moses in Circumcision meats and days never that we find quarrelled with them for not entering their Children into the Church as by the Law of Moses they were to do when they themselves were received as Proselytes nor for not baptizing them according to the custom of the Jews both in reference to their own Children and the Children of Proselytes Nor do we find that the unbelieving Jews ever contested with them for any such thing though otherwise they were forward enough to lay hold of any thing they could to object against them All which still renders it probable that there was no such thing wanting in the believing Gentiles as might give either the Judaizing Christians or unbelieving Jews any occasion for such a quarrel which otherwise we may well think would have risen among them But leaving these things suppose it were granted you which yet will not be that the Scripture were wholly silent as to matter of fact touching the baptizing of Infants in the Apostles days yet when we find in Scripture sufficient reason why they might and should have been then baptized it may well induce belief that they then were and now may We do not find as to matter of fact that any of six of the seven Churches of Asia were baptized nor of some other Churches of the Apostles planting but yet that 's no good argument that there was none so long as there is ground enough to conclude that they ought to have been baptized for that they were a part of that one universal Church that hath one baptism belonging to it for the solemn incorporation and initiation of all its members of all that are qualified for Church membership We do not read in Scripture that the Jews baptized the Proselytes both Fathers and Children when they received them into the Church and yet we are otherwise satisfied that they did So that you see it can be no good argument that Infants were not baptized in the Apostles days though it should be supposed and granted that we have no record in Scripture that they were I have told you before that if this way of arguing were good it would oppose and run down your own practice as much and more than Infant Baptism Because there is nothing at all recorded in Scripture as to matter of fact that gives the least hint that any were baptized at age whose Parents were Christian at their birth So that either the baptism of Children is recorded in the recording of the baptism of Housholds or else the baptism of none is recorded in Scripture but of such who immediately before their being baptized were converted from Judaism or Paganism I mean as to what was done after Christs Resurrection This argument from matter of fact I know hath taken much with people of weak minds who cannot see a far off as St. Peter speaks in another case and hath furnished your Congregations with Proselytes to your way but doth indeed wound your cause and gratifieth none but Socinians in their opinion that none ought to be baptized but such as are newly converted to Christianity from another Religion And it is not a thing to be slighted in reference to this matter of fact That Authors of good credit in the antient Church who lived in times not far distant from the age in which the Apostles or one of them lived did assert Infant Baptism to be an Apostolical Tradition and to have been received from them and practised in the Church from their times downwards as many Books before you have made it appear And that which yet adds the more credit to their testimony is in that they were never contradicted in this their report and testimony by any that lived in the same age with them or near to it no not by Tertullian himself though otherwise in reference to his opinion of all sin past being wash'd away by Baptism he would have had it deferred except in case of danger of death in Infants not only till persons were past Childhood but till after Marriage and the heat of youth was over if not till old age or towards the time of death Neither could ever any Advocate of your cause so far as I can learn give any account short of the Apostles times of the first rise of Infant Baptism But not example in matter of fact but the reason and ground on which they stand or do depend is our rule And therefore the reason and ground from Scripture why some Infants may be baptized I reckon is more to be attended to than the evidence of fact And these I have laid before you already and shewed That the reason of allowing the visible Church-membership of some Infants is the same now as it was in old Testament times such as is Gods chusing them to it sanctifying and setting them apart for it and calling them to it That Gods gift in granting this priviledge in the days of the Patriarchs and his calling them to it is without repentance and unrepealed That they are as much qualified for the Church initiating Ordinance now as ever heretofore and as capable of the ends thereof That our Saviour hath owned their special relation to him by appointing them to be received in his name That he hath acknowledged them to be of the number of those that believe in him And that our Saviour and his Apostle hath put them into the number of Disciples That they are in a sense in a regenerate state All which together plainly show them to be qualified for Baptism according to the very Letter of Christs Commission And if there be substance in these reasons as I doubt not but there is Then Infant Baptism is far from being a Nullity And whatever I have said heretofore in times long since contrary to the tenour of these reasons I hereby Revoke and do think I have given you sufficient reason for my so doing and for every one of you to do so likewise Considering then what lies in your way you will find it a difficult task to satisfie your selves or to give others any tolerable account that you can satisfie your selves that Infant Baptism is a Nullity And it is so much the more unreasonable for you to think that it is when yet those who have been baptized in their Infancy do agree with you in the doctrine of baptism touching the nature and necessity of it and the reasons and ends of it and hold themselves as much obliged by it as you do by yours and the sincere of them do as well and as much perform their obligation as those among you do who are sincere AND if these things be so as I have endeavoured to represent them from the Scriptures and if Infant Baptism be indeed no Nullity Then so many of you must needs be under a dangerous mistake and guilty of the odious sin of Schism who think it a sufficient ground to
when they are but placed in circumstances that will bring them to do it actually in the Issue And thus the Children of the Rohathites of a month old were numbred with their fathers as with them keeping the charge of the Sanctuary when they were but in a way of being trained up to it Numb 3.28 And in this respect perhaps it was that our Saviour spake of some little Children as believing in him of which I shall say more afterwards Mat. 18.6 And for the same reason it may be little Children were said to enter into Covenant with God when their Parents did so Deut. 29.11 12. To conclude this enquiry Most certain it is that Infants were then received into the Church and were a part of it as all acknowledge and it must be in the respects which I have mentioned that they were so unless any more likely can be named which I cannot imagine For other Infants of the Heathen which were not under these circumstances were not reputed Church Members nor were in any immediate capacity of the Church initiating Ordinance The next thing after this which would be enquired into is whether the visible Church membership of the Infants of believing Parents was discontinued or terminated by the taking place of the Gospel ministration or by any new Church state under it And I doubt not to say that there are many things which will determine this question against you in the Negative I will begin with that in Rom. 11.29 where it 's said for the gifts and calling of God are without repentance These words relating to the calling of such Jews who as concerning the Gospel were then Enemies for the sake of the believing Gentiles and yet beloved for the fathers sake that which I chiefly note from them is That the calling of God or his antient way or method of bringing the Jews to be his people is not now under the Gospel recalled no more than his donation or gift conferred on Abraham and his Seed is when he promised to be their God on the terms he did but both are still continued without any repentance in God The way into the Church is as open the terms of admission as touching the general nature of them as easie and the means of procuring it vouchsafed by God as sufficient now as ever they were God hath not repented of any favour or grace that was antiently granted to the Jews whether old or young in reference to their being of his Church and People And in that very prediction in Isa 59.20 21. which the Apostle here in Rom. 11.26 27. recites touching the calling of the Jews in Gospel times it is foretold that the same way of propagating Church-members and the true Religion which God used in old Testament times by Parents training up their seed in the true Religion and by that means transmitting it from Generation to Generation shall continue in the Church to the end of the World For it is there said As for me this is my Covenant with them saith the Lord My spirit which is upon thee and my words which I have put in thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth nor out of the mouth of thy seed nor out of the mouth of thy seeds seed saith the Lord from henceforth and for ever And accordingly we find in point of event that except in the first planting of Christian Churches in an extraordinary way by extraordinary means the ordinary way of propagating the Christian profession and professors from age to age hath been the very same with that which was used by Gods appointment by the Jews of old which was by receiving their Infant Children into the Church and so educating them in the true Religion professed by the grown members of the Church For further light in this matter let us consider what doctrine our Saviour taught and what his Apostles after him in relation to it Our Saviour saith Suffer the little Children to come to me and forbid them not for of such is the Kingdom of God Mark 10.14 Which words for of such is the Kingdom of God are the reason here given by our Saviour why little Children should be suffered and not forbidden to be brought to him Which shews that when he says of such is the Kingdom of God he meant it of such little Children properly as those were which were brought to him and not of men like little Children in humility innocency or docility as you would have it For if we should understand it in your sense then that which our Saviour gives here for a reason seems to be no reason For what consequence is there in this or how would it follow thaâ— because the Kingdom of God is of other persons like little Children in other things but altogether unlike them in what was the matter of exception against their being brought to Christ which was their minority that therefore little Children properly meant ought to be suffered and not forbidden to be brought to Christ And if it be meant of little Children properly then our Saviour in these words asserts such little Children to be of the Church whether you understand by Kingdom of God Heaven it self or the Church on Earth For none are of the Kingdom of Heaven above who are not first of the Church on Earth for it is his Body the Church only that Christ is thus the Saviour of But if this Text were to be understood in your sense yet it would prove that for which I alledg it by parity of reason For if that which makes adult persons like little Children in that for which they are propounded as a pattern will qualifie them for the Kingdom of God then it must needs qualifie the Children themselves for it If you say that this way of arguing as well proves Doves Lambs and Sheep qualified to be of the Kingdom of God as little Children because they in some respects are set for patterns unto men and good men upon account of resembling them in some respects are called by their names I answer it follows not because these Creatures have not rational natures as Children have and therefore are not capable of spiritual benefits as Children are Nor were ever constituted Church-members heretofore as little Children have been By reason of which difference it will not follow that the one are not Church-members because the other are not though both are propounded as patterns in some respect of that which will qualifie rational Creatures for Church-membership So that take it which way you will the argument from the Text for Infants Church-membership is far stranger than any thing which can be offered against it Again in Luke 9.48 Our Saviour speaking of a little Child which he had set by him saith Whosoever shall receive this Child in my name receiveth me Here you have no room to pretend it meant of men qualified like Children For it is not said whosoever shall receive such as this Child in my name but
far as Regeneration in a person is a reason or ground of baptizing him than you have to baptize the adult Considering farther that the words of our Saviour's Commission did run in general terms to disciple all Nations and baptize them how can you think that the Jews or the Apostles themselves could understand otherwise thereby than that the Children of the converted Gentiles and Jews too should with their Parents be received as Proselytes to the Christian Religion and as such baptized unless they had had caution to the contrary which if they had there would have been no place for controversie in this matter The reason of the unlikelihood of their understanding otherwise is taken from a usage among the Jews by which they did initiate Proselytes both Fathers and Children from among the Nations of the Gentiles by baptizing as well as circumcising them A thing which is acknowledged by the more learned among your selves and which you may find recited by several of our English Authors out of the writings of the ancient Jewish Doctors as by Dr. Hammond for one in his Annotations upon Mat. 3.1 John 3.5 See also Ainsworth on Gen. 17.12 The reception of the Proselytes into the Church in this way the Jews esteemed a new birth unto which our Saviour seems to refer in his discourse with Nicodemus when he said except a man be born again of water and of the spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God Jo. 3. And when Nicodemus grosly mis-understood our Saviour and demanded how can these things be our Saviour replied and said art thou a master in Israel and knowest not these things As if he should have said is this any such strange thing which is so like what is familiarly practised among your selves This considered they by Christs commanding them to Disciple or Proselyte all Nations baptizing them could not well understand but that they were now to go abroad into all the World to Proselyte the Nations to Christianity and to enter them in the Christian Church by Baptism both Parents and Children like as now and then a family of them had been formerly Proselyted to the Jews Religion and received into their Church And accordingly the recorded instances in Scripture of persons baptized that had Housholds makes it probable in conjunction with other circumstances that when the Father or chief of a Family was converted to Christianity and baptized his Houshold was baptized also as it had been before practised in the reception of Proselytes Of all those in Scripture who by name or personal description are said to have been baptized there are but nine so far as I remember besides our Saviour to wit Simon Magus the Eunuch Saul called Paul Cornelius Lydia the Jayler Crispus Gaius and Stephanus The Eunuch had no Children and was baptized-upon the road Paul had none not being Married Whether Simon had or had any Houshold is not said And whether Gaius at that time had any Houshold when he was baptized is uncertain But the other five of the nine who had Housholds their Housholds came into the Church with them by Baptism as the Housholds of the Proselytes formerly had done If then we may make a Judgment of what was usually done by so many instances in Scripture as we have of what was done in this Case we shall not want reason to incline us to think that when the Apostles did baptize any that had Housholds that it was their usual practice to baptize all those also that were of their Housholds except such as rejected the counsel of God against themselves and were not baptized which little Children could not do It was not without its signification that of old the great promise of Grace to the World by the Messias was made to Families in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed as if Gods design signified thereby was to bring the Nations of the World into the Church by Families as the event shews he hath done for the most part both before and since the Gospel dispensation The Proselytes of the Gentiles of old as well as the Jews came in by Families and we see by the instances before-mentioned that the Christians came in by Families and were baptized by Families also And the Church hath been stockt by Families and the Christian Religion transmitted down from Age to Age from Parents to Children and from Masters to Servants It will seem the less strange to you that when the Father of the Family was converted to Christianity his Houshold was brought into the Church with him if you consider upon how small appearance of becoming Christians adult persons were baptized and received into the Church in the Apostles days and by them When we read in 1 Cor. 8.7.11 that such as unto that hour continued to eat of the Idol sacrifice with conscience of the Idol are yet called brethren though weak brethren indeed you may easily guess upon how little appearance of Christianity persons were received into the Church and so you may by the baptizing of Simon Magus and many others that soon proved great scandals in the Church by whom the way of truth was evil spoken of When in the same hour of the night in which St. Paul preached the Gospel to the Jayler and his Houshold they were all baptized they did not long stand Candidates for Church-membership nor could attain to much knowledge in the Christian Religion into which they were baptized No doubt but the door into the visible Church is far wider than the gate of the Church as invisible and of the Kingdom of Heaven I do not find that any were refused that were willing presently to be baptized how bad soever they had been before or proved to be after no not Simon Magus himself than whom there could hardly be a worse But then it must be remembred that Discipline was appointed for the cure of distempers in the Church and for the purging it of the notorious scandalous members These things I have the rather mentioned to render it the more probable that little Children were baptized where whole Housholds were baptized when there were any such in those Housholds For if adult and grown persons were baptized and received into the Church upon such easie terms as I have shewed they were if they were baptized when there was but any fair probability that they would own the Christian Religion for the future though but by so little appearance of such a thing as was visible in some of them when they were baptized Then it is not unlikely but that they might baptize some little Children also concerning whom circumstances considered there was every whit as great a probability that they would own profess and assert the Christian Religion for the future as there was that their Parents would in as much as Parents still use to educate their Children in the same Religion which they themselves profess Unto all which let me add this further That the Judaizing
after that for seven days more also and yet so far as appears with good approbation from God 2 Chro. 30.23 And whether the super-addition of the Cross in Baptism with the words Concomitant were not at first made upon reasons of like nature I cannot say but may be considered And yet again it 's one thing to do a thing in the worship of God otherwise than he hath appointed when he hath appointed how it shall be done both in reference to the intrinsick substance and external circumstance and another thing to do it this way or another as to the external administration when he hath determined only the substance of worship what shall be done and after what manner as to the spiritual part but hath left it at mens liberty and undetermined in which of the ways it shall be done as to the outward circumstances of administration when there are more ways than one in which it may be done In the former case we are bound up to one way only in the other we sin not if we do the thing either in the one way or the other Only general rules in this case will direct men to chuse that which appears to them best in it self other circumstances concurring and where we are at liberty to use that we judge best without scandalizing any others and without making any Schism by crossing such publick orders as are appointed to keep peace and unity in the Church and to preserve what depends upon them Now if there be such a liberty left in the outward administration of worship as I have supposed at least in some Cases then the proposition cannot be true That nothing is to be done in the worship of God which he hath not commanded And that there is such a liberty left will best appear by trying the matter in some instances I will instance in that of Prayer which is an eminent part of Gods worship The substance of this piece of divine worship God hath expresly determined as that we pray to him and in the name of his Son Christ Jesus and for things according to his will necessary or lawful and with seriousness and devotion of Soul in Faith and with fervency But he hath no where told us that this shall be done without any sixed form or method or without being pronounced out of a Book or that it shall be done only according to the instantaneous conception of the mind both for matter and method And therefore for any man to pretend that to do it one of these ways only is necessary by Divine appointment and the other disallowed by the same authority is indeed an adding to Gods word or a saying he saith what he hath not said So that in truth many in this case and upon this account run into superstition while they cry out most against it and the Teachers of such Doctrine fright the people into superstition while they pretend to deter and draw them from it This is a plain case if plain truth would satisfie such of you as most need it Gesture in Prayer such as is kneeling lifting up hands and eyes and the like are as well signs and expressions of inward devotion and means to excite it as words are and as really circumstantial parts of the external mode of worship And yet I am confident you do not believe but that God hath left a liberty of choice in these as circumstances shall direct And if that Doctrine were true that nothing is to be done in the external mode of Gods worship but what he hath commanded I vehemently suspect that upon your utmost enquiry into what is commanded in the New Testament in reference to the external manner of Prayer that you would find your selves confined only to the use of the Lords Prayer by that Precept of our Saviour Luke 11.2 When ye pray say Our father c. For I do not find any command in the New Testament but this as to the external manner of Prayer For when our Saviour in Mat. 6.9 at a time and on occasion different from that mentioned by St. Luke saith after this manner therefore pray ye Our father c. I reckon that herein he gave direction touching the matter and order of Prayer but not at all how this matter should be uttered and exprest to God further than in the form here mentioned Though on the other hand I am far from thinking that our Saviour thereby intended to limit his Disciples to those words only And although a liberty to use other words in expressing the same matter seems to be thereby granted yet in what manner it is not said as whether in a sixed form or otherwise So that a liberty is stiâ—â—â—â—ft herein to be guided by emergeâ—â— circumstances in what way and manner to pray as to what is external The like is true concerning other parts of Gods worship as the two Sacraments Baptism and the Lords Supper and also of singing of Psalms Although there is a command for the substance of these yet there is no command for several circumstances conveniently necessary about the administration and use of these and without which the substance cannot be administred but a latitude is left therein so that respect be but had unto general rules of edification order decency and peace and that things of less moment be under controul and government of greater In all which much is and must be left to the prudence of those into whose hands the providence of God hath put the ordering of affairs of this nature So that if nothing be done to the corrupting of the substance of worship expresly determined nor to the justling out any thing relating to it which is determined and exâ—â—esly appointed nor to the defeaâ—â—â— of the ends to which an external administration of worship serves nor under pretence of divine appointment when there is no such thing it will I assure my self never be proved that uncommanded circumstances in the external administration are unlawful though some of them should in simple consideration be thought inconvenient by some who yet are under a necessity of using them or of doing that which is far more inconvenient indeed sinful by making a Schism When David had resolved to build a Temple for the same ends for which a Tabernacle by Gods appointment had been built God told him that he did well in that it was in his heart to do it 1 Kings 8.18 even then when he told him also that he had never said to any of the Tribes or Judges of his people why build ye not me an house of Cedar 2 Sam. 7.7 Myst of Iniq. unfolded p. 133 134 135. Many more instances of this nature are elsewhere taken notice of out of the Scriptures of the Old Testament in which times things relating to the external administration of Gods worship were far more minutely determined by God than they are in the New Now the case under consideration being thus those who first broached