Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	authority_n	church_n	controversy_n	4,446	5	9.1213	5	true

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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

them best capable of the specious answers you bring unto them but I like not that an enemy should have the ordering of the Forces which hee meanes to fight against you must give us leave to choose our own weapons and Marshall our own Forces and then you may try your skill and valour against them Doctor Homes hath made his Annotations upon all the arguments which you have produced according to your owne method Mr. Geree hath chosen out onely those arguments which carry most evidence and not troubled himselfe to examine every thing for my part I humbly conceive that Infant-baptisme is not to be fetched from any one of these grounds singly but is built upon the identity of the Covenant Infants right to the Covenant and the initiall seale and consequently though one Text may be a sufficient medium or Argument to prove some one or two of them yet to make the evidence full these ground● must not be separated one from another but necessary recourse must be had to them all and if all your Arguments doe overthrow any one of them either the Covenants being the same in substance or infants right to the Covenant or the Lords appointing an initiall seale to bee administred to all who are reputed belonging to the Covenant I shall readily yeeld the cause as I have often told you All the trouble I shal put the Reader to about this your first Argument or rather your answer to Arguments shal be to point him to such places in my book where you have already prest the same things and I have given an answer to them The first Argument from Gen. 17. hath beene examined Part 3. Sect. 1 2. and elswhere The second argument taken from Baptism succeeding into the room of Circumcision and Coloss 2. 11 12 c. is examined Part 3. Sect. 9. The third argument from the priviledges of beleevers under the New Testament is examined Part 3. Sect. 11. 7. The fourth argument from Acts 2. ●8 is fully examined Part 3. Sect. 6. The fifth argument from 1 Cor. 7. 14. is examined Part 3. Sect. 8. The sixth argument from Mark 10. 14. Matth. 19. c. which also you put into severall shapes is examined Part 3. Sect. 15. The seventh argument from Acts 16. and severall other places which speake of baptizing of housholds is examined Part 3. Sect 14. And in these severall places you have pressed whatever is of any seeming weight in this your Exercitation and added many other things which the reader shall finde to bee examined in the places which I have pointed to besides in severall other places of my Booke where you have again and again repeated many of the same things The other seven arguments as you call them I looke not upon as arguments and therefore will not meddle with them some of the Scriptures mentioned in them as Exod. 20. 6. 1 Pet. 2. 9. c. so farre as they have any use in this controversie are also considered of here and there in my Book as the Reader may observe Your second Argument against Infant Baptisme is fetcht from Mat. 28. 19. That which agrees not with the Lords institution of Baptisme that is deservedly doubtfull But the rite of Infant-baptisme agrees not with the Lords institution of Baptism Ergo. This argument hath received its full examination Part 3. Sect. 13. and Part 4. Sect. 1. whither I refer the Reader as not willing to trouble him with needlesse repetition of the same things Your third Argument is taken from the practice of the Apostles and John the Baptist and runs thus That tenet and practice which being put Baptism cannot be administred as John Baptist and the Apostles did administer it agrees not with the practice of John Baptist and the Apostles But the tenet and practice of Infant-Baptisme being put Baptisme cannot bee administred as Jo. Baptist and the Apostles administred i● Ergo c. This you goe about to prove because John and the Apostles baptized none but such as confessed sinnes they required shewes of faith and repentance in all whom they baptized This Argument relates wholly to matter of fact wherein you put your selfe to prove a negative and therefore the argument can prove nothing unlesse you can produce some one place at least out of the Scripture wherein it is said no Infant was baptized by them or no other then such as you have mentioned but what you have here said about it is fully considered Part. 3. Sect. 13. especially Part 4. Sect. 1. These three Arguments which alone deserve to bee called if yet the first may be so called are fully examined in the places above-mentioned the rest of your arguments are so wholly inconsequent that I wonder you should think them worthy or fit to face an Assembly of Divines and expect that they should joyne their strength together to frame an answer to them when as I verily thinke they may all bee routed by the running pen of an ordinary Clerke in a few houres Your fourth is taken from the next age after the Apostles and stands thus in your book Because Infant-baptisme cannot be proved that it was inforce or use in the next age after the Apostles Ergo the tenet and practice of it is doubtfull The major you say is manifest of it selfe for the minor you alledge Vives and Strabo and say you it is confirmed by examining of places brought to that purpose by continuing questions to the parties baptized in ages following and other tokens from Councells and Ecclesiasticall writers I answer First to your Major which you say is manifest of its selfe I judge to bee most false and a most dangerous position is every tenet and practice doubtfull which cannot be proved by historicall evidence to have been received and practiced in that age whereof we have so few Records the procession of the holy Ghost the propagation of originall sinne and many other Tenets I beleeve you will neither find mentioned in that age nor the next How would you have laughed at such a conclusion set downe by another And secondly for your Minor I answer 1. There were no Councells at all assembled in that age next to the Apostles And 2. as for Ecclesiasticall Writers I wish you would name them I beleeve you will find very few Writers of credit in that age whose legitimate workes are transmitted to posterity Thirdly how do Vives and Strabo know what was done in the ages next the Apostles when the eldest of them lived almost 800 years after that age the authority and skill of these two men hath been sufficiently spoken to Part 1. Sect. 2. Fourthly I wonder how the questions propounded in ages following to the baptized doe prove that Infant-Baptisme was not in use in the age next after the Apostles Your fifth argument runs thus That which in succeeding ages in which it was in use was in force first as a Tradition not written Secondly out