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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	according_a	church_n	tradition_n	2,646	5	9.0706	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A89563	A defence of infant-baptism: in answer to two treatises, and an appendix to them concerning it; lately published by Mr. Jo. Tombes. Wherein that controversie is fully discussed, the ancient and generally received use of it from the apostles dayes, untill the Anabaptists sprung up in Germany, manifested. The arguments for it from the holy Scriptures maintained, and the objections against it answered. / By Steven Marshall B.D. minister of the Gospell, at Finchingfield in Essex.	Marshall, Stephen, 1594?-1655.	1646 (1646)	Wing M751; Thomason E332_5; ESTC R200739	211,040	270

whether that signified Baptisme or no which by the usuall language of the Grecians I have made good against your exception and so I passe from your examen of this Author and follow you to the next In the third place you come to sift Origens testimony Where first you question the authority of the booke secondly you say if it be Origens yet hee calls Paedo-baptisme but an Apostolicall tradition and from thence you draw forth some conclusions In all which I hope to manifest your mistakings and so to discover the weaknesse of your premises that they shall not in any indifferent man his judgement be able to draw these conclusions after them First you question the authority of these passages cited out of Origen whether they are his or no and you call the Author of them supposed Origen It had been your part before you had so branded them first to have made it manifest by some undenyable evidence or other that they were not Origens you question but prove not and I am not the first that hath produced these testimonies to prove Infant-Baptisme many learned men handling this question have done the same before me You seek also to weaken the authority of these testimonies by the Censures of two judicious men Erasmus and Perkins the former of them who was vir emunctae naris in giving judgement of the writings of the Ancients saith that when a man reads his Homilies on Leviticus and on the Epistle to Romans translated by Ruffinus hee cannot be certaine whether he reads Ruffinus or Origen Yet Erasmus saith not that these Homilies set forth under his name were Ruffinus his Homilies and not Origens If Ruffinus had wronged Origen in that point now in question why should not that have been laid in his dish by some of the Antients discoursing on this question who no doubt would have been forward enough to have taken notice of it to Ruffinus his prejudice as well as other things which they object against him To this you adde Reverend Perkins his testimony who puts his commentary on the Romans amongst his counterfeit works as being not faithfully translated by Ruffinus It may be Origen might suffer by his Translators for Translations are various some affect in their Translations to follow their Author 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to trace the very footsteps of the words they translate other Translations are metaphrasticall or by way of paraphrase they expound as they translate thus severall men have their severall fancies though they adhere to the Author which they translate even when they keep not in all things to his words Hierom gives instance in the Septuagint Translators whose testimony I need not name to you Ruffinus acknowledges in translating Origens Homilies on Leviticus that hee added some things to what Origen said and what they were hee expresses ea quae ab Origene in auditorio Ecclesiae ex tempore non tam explanationis quam aedificationis intentione perorata sunt the things which were spoken by Origen to his auditory he translated them by way of explanation or did more fully lay them forth in a popular way and therein Ruffinus dealt candidly telling us what were the things hee added in this Erasmus acknowledges his faire dealing But as for his Commentary on the Romans Ruffinus confesseth se hoc opus totum ad dimidium traxisse there was no addition of Ruffinus Erasmus here blames him for cutting off what Origen delivered more at large but neither doth Ruffinus confesse nor Erasmus challenge him here for any addition to what Origen said I shall onely desire the Reader to take notice that none of the testimonies by me cited out of Origen are denyed by Erasmus to be Origens neither can they be conceived to bee any of the additions mentioned before by Ruffinus therefore your exception is not proved by Erasmus nor Perkins testimony You adde in the passages which I cite there are plaine expressions in them against Pelagians which makes you thinke they were put in after the Pelagian heresie was confuted by Hierome and Augustine though they make against the Pelagians yet who can necessarily inferre that all these Homilies in which these passages occurre were written after the Pelagian Heresie was broached Iust Martyr maintaines the Divinitie of Jesus Christ yet we know hee lived long before Arius the ring-leader of that cursed Sect which denied it can any man conclude that Iust Martyr did not beare witnesse to the divine Nature of Christ because hee lived before Arius started up Then you tell us Origen calls Infant-baptizing an Apostolicall tradition according to the observance of the Church This cavill I prevented when I quoted the testimony which seemes to have some weight in it for you grant what I said about Traditions which is warrant enough to me to adde no more to justifie it otherwise besides the testimony of Scripture which I named in 2 Thess 2. 15. many other out of Antiquitie may be added where Tradition is taken in that sense Epiphanius calls Baptisme and other mysteries observed in the Church which are brought forth out of the Gospell and setled by Apostolique authority 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where by the way you may see that hee grounds the Baptisme then in use in the Church and even then Infants were Baptized on the Scriptures and authoritie of the Apostles as well as other mysteries of the Christian Religion But I follow you Because say you in neither of these places taken notice of by mee Origen cites any Scripture for baptizing Infants therefore it must bee understood of an unwritten Traedition had it appeared as a new notion not heard of in the Church before then had it been fit he should have confirmed what he said but it being a position which as he sayes the Church observed hee needed not to prove it Ignatius presses upon Hiero to attend to reading and exhortation and cals those things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 traditions yet addes no Scripture to confirm what he sayes because they were things well known to the Church to bee consonant to the Scripture So Origen tells us Infant-Baptisme was generally observed by the Church and had any appeared to plead against the lawfulnesse of it he would no doubt by Scripture have maintained it as well as affirmed it to come from the Apostles which he did These are your premises which now being answered your conclusions infer'd from thence of themselves must fall to the ground for if Infant-baptisme came from the Apostles and was generally observed in the Church in Origens time then you have no reason to challenge it as a thing not known before his time nor delivered over to the Church in his time albeit he exprest it under the name of an Apostolicall Tradition The last Greek Author alledged by me was Gregory Nazianzen who cals Baptism signaculum vitae cursum ineuntibus against which testimony you have nothing to object onely whereas I

Infant-Baptisme hath been perpetually observed in the Christian Church for there is no ancient Doctor that doth not acknowledge that Infant-Baptisme was constantly administred by the Apostles 4. That notwithstanding all this evidence I have brought from Antiquity yet I build as little upon Antiquitie as any other man I acknowledge what learned Rivet saith to be very true that Tradition is in most points uncertaine and therefore he that will build sure must build upon the Scripture Proinde necessario veniendum erat ad argumenta ex Scripturis quae si rem non evincant frustra traditionem advocabimus Animadv in Annot. Grotii in Cassandrum Art 9. Pag. 71. And I would have you and every Reader to remember that I doe not build my faith upon humane Traditions in this Argument nor did the ancients build upon humane traditions in this thing the very Pelagians themselves acknowledge it upon this ground Parvulos baptizandos esse concedunt saith Augustine of the Pelagians qui contra authoritatem universae Ecclesiae procul-dubio per Dominum et Apostolos traditam venire non possunt lib. 1. de peccat merit et Remiss cap. 26. Nay they were forced to their owne prejudice to acknowledge that Infants were baptized secundum regulam universalis Ecclesiae Evangelii sententiam lib. cont Caelest Pelag Now that which was pressed from the scope of the Gospell was not pressed as a Tradition and that which was acknowledged by the Pelagians to be the practise of the universall Church according to the rule of the Gospell was not built upon tradition I will therefore close up my testimonies produced out of the ancient writers with that savoury passage of learned Calvin in his Instructions against the Anabaptists Caeterum minime peto ut in eo probando nos Antiquit●s ●●llo modo juvet c. I doe not desire saith hee to borrow any helpe from Antiquity for the proofe of this point any whit farther then the judgement of the Ancients shall be found to bee grounded on the Word of God for I know full well that as the custome of men doth not give authority to the Sacraments so the use of the Sacrament cannot hee said to be right and regular because regulated by custome PART II. HAving made good the practise of Antiquity for the Baptizing of Infants I follow you in that which you are pleased to make the second part of my Sermon which you call prejudices against Antipaedo-baptists from their noveltie and miscarriages Where first you blame me for seeking by prefacing and setting downe a briefe touch of the Anabaptists carriage in Germany to create prejudice in my Auditors To which I answer that I yet never learned that a briefe setting downe the Originall History and State of a Controversie or the weight and consequence of it thereby the more to ingage the Readers attention was against any Rule or Law of Art either divine or humane but in case it were a fault Quis tulerit Gracchos You who begin your booke with telling how nine moneths since you sent thus many Arguments in Latine drawne up in a Scholastique way c. and never yet received any Answer and in the end of your booke intimated that though you allowed me but a moneth yet I have kept your booke a whole yeere unanswered and throughout your whole Treatise strive to make an ostentation of reading and put abundance of scoffes and jeeres upon them who are of a contrary mind to you and seeke to loade the opinion you write against as if it carried all kind of mischiefes in the wombe of it All which things you know well enough are apt to take the people but have no weight with them who use onely to weigh Proofe with Proofe and Argument with Argument you I say of all other should pardon such a peccadillo and might very well have passed over what either my selfe or Dr. Featlies Frontispice or Mr. Edwards his expressions might seeme to bee lyable to of exception in this kind In your second Section you blame mee for two things first that I gave you no more light out of Augustine to know who they were that questioned Paedo-Baptisme in his dayes you have searched and cannot finde any the Pelagians you acknowledge opposed it not the custome was so universall and esteemed so sacred that they durst not oppose it All the further light I shall now give in a matter of no greater consequence is that if you cannot finde any in Augustines dayes who questioned it I am contented you shall beleeve there were none Secondly you blame me for making such a leape from Augustines time to Baltazzar Pacommitanus as if be were the first who opposed it where as you alledge many who opposed it 400. yeeres before his time To which I answer I sayd not hee was the first whose judgement was against it but the first that made an head against it or a division or Schisme in the Church about it It is possible men may hold a private opinion differing from the received doctrine and yet never make a rent or divide the Church into factions about it But let us examine your instances you alledge the famous Berengarius as one 2. The Albingenses 3. Out of Bernard you mention another namelesse Sect. 4. Petrus Cluniacensis charges the same upon the Petro-Brusians To all which I answer first in generall That these instances of yours having occasioned mee to make a more dilligent search into the doctrine and practise of those middletimes between the Fathers and the beginning of Reformation in L●●bers time I dare confidently think that you will have an hard taske to prove out of any impartiall Authors that there were any company of men before the Anabaptists in Germany who rejected the baptizing of Infants out of the confession of their faith possibly some private man might doe it but I shall desire you to shew that any company or Sect if you will so call them have ever denied the lawfulnesse of baptizing of Infants produce if you can any of their confessions alledge any Acts of any Councells where this doctrine was charged upon any and condemned in that Councell you know the generalitie of the visible Christian world was in those dayes divided into the followers of the Beast and the small number of those who followed the Lambe who bare witnesse to the truth of the Gospel in the times of that Antichristian Apostasie these were called by severall names Berengarians Waldenses poore men of Lyons Albingenses Catharists Petr-Brusians and severall other names as may bee seene in Bishop Vshers book of the Succession and State of the Christian Churches Now all grant that the Church of Rome even in those dayes owned the baptizing of Infants and so did all those persecuted Companies or Churches of the Christians for any thing I can find to the contrary Severall Catalogues of their confessions and opinions I finde in severall Authors and more

the high way that as Infants are to bee reputed to belong to the Covenant as well as grown visible professors which was the drift of my first Argument so the scope of this is to shew that they are in the same capacitie to partake of the inward grace of the Covenant while they are Infants as there is of grown visible professors and that they are not onely capable of it but many of them are actually partakers of it as well as grown men and consequently that wee have the same ground to look upon and judge Infants of beleevers to bee regenerate as upon grown men by a visible profession there being to ●s no infallible ground of certaintie but of charity for the one no● for the other and that their visible right to the Covenant and the many promises of God made to the seed of the faithfull are as good evidences to ground this judgement upon as the externall signes which growne men can give and therefore whereas you say that all the Infants of beleevers or the Infants of beleevers in as much they are the Infants of beleevers are actually partakers of the inward grace of Baptisme else the Argument will not serve for my purpose I utterly deny that this is the Conclusion to be proved or that my argument is not to the purpose unlesse I undertake to prove this for I argue in the like case from grown men who are visible Professors thus All who are partakers of the inward grace of Baptism may and ought to partake of the outward signe and seale but visible Professors are partakers c. This minor is lyable to the same exceptions that the other is for who knows not that many visible Professors have not the invisible grace That many are called when but few are chosen and yet your self doe hold that we may de side out of faith assurance that we do it according to Gods will apply the outward signe to them though we have nothing but charity to make us conceive the inward graces to be in them Neither can we by the judgement of charity think that all visible Professors taken together in a lumpe have the inward grace the Scripture which is the rule of our charity having declared the contrary our charity onely warrants us to judge of every single person when possibly we may know no more against the one then against the other though we know there are some false hearted amongst them The same is to be said for Infants and this I proved out of the Scripture Mark 10. To such belongs the kingdom of God and in my Sermon I vindicated this Text from the glosses which the Anabaptists would put upon it your exceptions against it are such as these it is possible they were not very little ones possibly our Saviour meant not of them but of such as they for the word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of such not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of these possibly horum similium of th●se and the like possibly they were not the children of beleevers possibly it is meant onely of elect Infants that these were elect and should in time be called but yet say you grant all and it will not ●ence follow that all Infants of beleevers have right to invisible grace yea it here suits better for confirmation then for baptisme yea that it is rather an evidence Christ would not have Infants baptized because he ordered not th●se Infants to bee baptized But Sir how many of these things would you have called dictates in another assertions without proof and to how little purpose are all these things brought i● your self grant enough to serve my turne you grant that the kingdom of heaven did belong to these Infants and I intended from this instance not to prove that all Infanta of beleevers are made partakers of saving grace but that Infants in their infantile age are capable of inward grace and some of them actually partakers of it this is enough for me and more then this cannot be said of growne men who are visible Professors I added in my Sermon sa one branch of a reason that there is nothing belonging to the initiation and being of a Christian whereof Baptisme is a seale whereof Infants are not capable as well as grown men as receiving the holy Ghost union with Christ pardon of forme regeneration eternall life Your answer is a scoffe out of Hora●e Amphora caepit institui c. I should prove say you that all Infants of beleevers are actually partakers and in stead of this I prove they are capable of it Sir this is but one part of my reason and I undertook not to prove that all infants but onely that fome are partakers of it I added and it is further considerable that in the working that inward grace of which baptisme is the signe and seale all who partake of that grace are but meer● Patients and therefore Infants are as fit subjects to have it wrought in them as growne men and the most growne men are in no more fitnesse to receive this grace when it is given them in respect either of faith or repentance which they yet bave then a very little child c. You answer by demanding whether I bring all this as a proofe that all infants have it or that they are capable of it or whether I intend it ●s a further argument that baptisme is to be given to those who are capable of the first grace which because Infants are as well as grown men therefore they are to be baptized but then you deny the major for a person is not to be baptized because he may have grace but because he hath it Sir I brought it to prove that which was in hand viz. that Infants are capable of it as well as grown men and that some of them are partakers of it as well as grown men and therefore their Infant-age cannot be pleaded against them as if inward grace could not comp●tere to their present condition And as for that you adde That baptisme is to be administred not to them who may have grace but to them who have it Then it seemes they are all wrongly baptized who have not inward grace and so according to your owne expression baptisme to such is as a seal set to a blank yet you know even the Apostles themselves baptized many who were in no better condition and your selfe afterward grant That a Minister may defide administer this Sacrament to such as make a visible profession though he be not assured of any inward grace I have often proved that a right to bee reckoned to belong to the visible Church is a sufficient warrant to administer the seal of admission Secondly you much trouble your self to finde out what I meane by the first grace whether the free favour of God or the Covenant of grace whether if I meane the first grace in exceution I pitch upon justification or regeneration or adoption and then

inquire which is the second grace But all this is but seeking a knot in a rush I am perswaded all other Readers understood me to meane by the first grace all that grace which is requifite to the being of a Christian union with Christ forgivenesse of sin the indwelling of the holy Ghost as a principle of a new life and your selfe say more then once that baptisme is the sacrament of our Initiation and that which exhibits us members both of Christ and of his Church and therefore thus needlesly to quarrell about things wherein your self concurre with mee is too too vain Lastly you have somewhat to say to that of our being meerly passive in our first conversion and you tel your reader what the Divines of great Britaine said in the Synods of Dort of some preparations going before conversion and what Mr. Rutherford Dr. Twisse and Dr. Preston have delivered about this point And after a needlesse shewing that you have read these Authors you grant as much as I contend for That the taking away the be art of stone and insusing of a principle of new life is only Gods work and that a new heart faith c. are the effects of converting grace and that in these things wee are passive in summe you are of my judgement in this point that Infants are capable of new life and some of them partakers of it and I likewise consent with you and those above mentioned Reverend Divines that in Gods usuall way of working upon grown men there are some preparations for conversion before conversion it selfe in which preparations men are not meerely passive but in the receiving of the principle of new life all men are meerely passive I know you will owne that expression of Augustine Qnid agit liberum arbitrium san●tur I conclude this argument of baptizing Infants with a speech of Bellarmine there is saith he no impediment why Infants may not bee baptized nec ex parte prohibitionis alicujus divinae c. neither from any divine prohibition nor on the part of the Sacrament administred nor on the part of the Minister administring nor on the Infants part to whom it is to bee administred nor on the Churches part in which it is administred Paedo-baptisme therefore is rightly continued in the Christian Church PART IV. I Proceed now briefly to examine what you have said against that which you are pleased to make the fourth Part of my Sermon though I know no reason of this your Analysis Had I indeed made this an answer of all the objections which I undertooke to answer you might have called it so but you know well enough that I intended here onely to satisfie these Objections which lye most properly against this second argument as before I answered what was most properly objected against the first argument however I shall take it as I finde it and examine what strength you have added to these Objections The first Objection I undertooke to answer was to this purpose Though Infants are capable of these things and that they are wrought by Christ in many Infants yet wee may not baptize them because according to Scripture pattern both of Christs command Matth. 28. in his institution of baptisme and John the Baptist Christs Disciples and Apostles they alwayes taught and made them disciples by teaching before they baptized any And to make this argument the more plausible you adde It is a sin of prophaning that Sacrament when the institution is altered by subtraction or addition and that it was pleaded by the Non-conformists that it is Will-worship to administer the Sacraments by addition of any thing to them but circumstances which are alike requisite to civill actions now the persons to be baptized cannot be conceived a meere circumstance but belongs necessarily to the administration of worship as well as the person baptizing or the persons receiving the Lords Supper I answer I intend not needlesly to multiply words and therefore doe grant that to apply Sacraments to persons to whom they belong not by the Lords appointment is a prophanation of them Now that it is so in this case you goe about to prove out of this 28. Mat. Because the institution appoints onely disciples of all Nations to be baptized and Infants are not such This you have made good as you say Sect. 13. Part 3. You adde Christs order thus appoints it which must be kept in this point as well as in examination before the Lords Supper 1 Cor. 11. 28. c. and that by the institution they are to bee baptized into the name of the Father Son and holy Ghost that is with invocation of the name of the Lord which Infants cannot doe with devoting themselves to the service and adverence of God which Infants cannot doe that presently after baptisme the baptized are to be taught to observe whatsoever Christ command●d them which Infants are not capable of that John Baptist and the Apostles alwayes made profession of repentance and faith an antecedent to Baptism which Infants cannot make To all this I answer First this of Matth. 28. is not the institution of Baptisme it was instituted long before to be the seale of the Covenant it is onely an enlargement of their Commission whereas before they were onely to goe to the lost sheepe of the house of Israel now they were to goe into all the World You reply If it be not the first institution of Baptism yet it is an institution of Baptisme to us Gentiles and therefore the rule by which Ministers are to baptize or if not wee must shew another institution else we cannot acquit it from Will-worship I answer all this is abundantly answered before Sect. 13. Part 3. And I add this inlargement of their Commission is very unfitly called by you an institution of baptism unto us their Commission at the same time was inlarged to preach to the Gentiles will you call that an institution of Preaching and that the method of preaching to us Gentiles must bee fetch'd out of this place I know you will not For the rest of your petty reasons above alledged they resolve severall of them into one and the same Christs order is say you teaching should goe before baptizing is not that the same with this That men must be made disciples by preaching before they be baptized the answer to the one doth fully satisfie the other But your third reason is a strange one They must bee baptized into the name of the Father the Son and the holy Ghost that is say you with invocation of the Name of the Lord then it seems if the party baptized call upon the name of the Lord by prayer that 's all that is intended b● baptizing into the name of the Father Son and holy Ghost that the name of God should be invocated at the administration of Baptisme and of Circumcision and of every Sacrament is most true but that baptizing into the name of the Father Son