more was said then It is a meere Calumny that he saith I chose out the weakest arguments or urged some that were strong in a way of my own and then triumphed and answered as weakely in my Sermons To my best understanding I chose out the best arguments I found in Mr. M. Mr. G. Dr. H. M. Drew Mr. Blake Mr. Cobbet and some others and that for the most partin their own words which that I might not mistake I read in the pulpit therefore what ever my answers were I am sure it is an untruth that I chose out the weakest arguments and urged some that were strong in a way of my own When I threatned Mr. B. with the danger he went in or opposing me unlesse it were from God for opposing truth I know not and therefore take this supposed threatning of mine to be either his or his tale-tellers fiction SECT XVII The grosse absurdities to which Mr. B. vaunted I was driven in the dispute were not so as he imagined PAge 207. He makes a catalogue of my absurdities at the dispute to which being the chief thing he charged me with in the Epistle to the people of Kederminster I answer The first and second will be shewed to be no absurdities in examining the first part of his book chap. 6. The third is no absurdity understanding it of visible membership by profession of their own in which notion I said in the dispute I understood visible Church-membership as commonly Protestant Divines do Upon what occasion the fourth and many other of them were spoken by me if they were spoken by me I cannot remember nor what limitations or explications I then used but this I conceive was my meaning that infants of the Jewes were not visible church-Church-members in the wildernesse in that manner they were when they had circumcision that is by their visible particular note or mark and yet then they were visible in the lump the whole congregation being then Gods visible Church in which sense they were then visible and so the women too who were not circumcised And when I said no infant can be said to be a visible church-Church-member without some act of his own I meant it of visibility according to the note of visibility in the Christian Church Which things being rightly understood there was neither absurdity nor contradiction in my speeches nor any thing against conscience nor deserving such derision as was in Mr. B. and his collegues though perhaps through distraction of thoughts chiefely occasioned by Mr. Bs. concealing the notion in which he used the terme visible which I often in vain assayed to understand from him or forgetfulnesse or scantnesse of words I did not expresse my self clearly This is answer sufficient about the fourth fifth sixth seventh eighth nineth sixteenth pretended absurdities The tenth a candid man would have conceived rather to have been lapsum linguae a flip of speech then errorem mentis a fault of mind and that however a mistake might slip from me a thing very incident to the most learned in the heat of dispute yea sometimes in preaching conference and writing yet I meant visibility to be the adjunct and the persons visible to be the subject The eleventh twelfth thirteenth I conceive no absurdities the Church-visibility of infants then being from that imperfect Church-frame which was to continue onely till Christ came and was clogged with many burdens which by Christs coming all were mercifully freed from as to go up to Jerusalem thrice a year c. without any losse of mercy to infants though it were for a time a mercy to them which will be morefully cleared God assisting in answering Mr. Bs. argument p. 1. chap. 6. The fourteenth is no absurdity as I then to my best remembrance expressed it though Mr. Bs. juvenility thought fit to make sport with it that the elect people of the Jews were natural not as Mr. B. sets it down naturally that is according to nature in that they were descended from Abraham the roote of the Church of believers by natural generation and so natural branches yet not by nature that is natural abilities or works of their own but by grace as the efficient cause Rom 11. ver 5 6. To conceive it the olive there notes a race of men who were the Church of believers which because after Abraham the roote it was first in the Jewish Nation is called their own olive ver 24. Of which Abraham is ver 16 18. made the roote bearing two sorts of branches some ingraffed who were the Gentile believers some natural the Jewes and he is a roote under a double habitude one as a natural Father and another as Father of believers Both sorts of branches are by the Apostle made to stand in Abraham the roote as branches of the Church of believers or the invisible the one natural in that they were not proselyted or ingraffed but came of Abraham by natural generation the other proselyted or ingraffed by believing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 besides the natural way of descent from Abraham yet both united in Abraham the common roote of believers and in the olive-tree the Church of believers as particular branches thereof yet neither by nature that is by vertue of natural generation as the Apostle determines Rom. 9. 8. but by election of grace Rom. 11. 5 6. And whereas Mr. B. tells me Rom. 11. 24. sayes both he is mistaken For 1. it is not said that any was a branch of the roote Abraham by nature but that the ingraffed branches were antecedently to their ingraffing in the olive wild by nature nor is it said of the branches from the roote that are called natural that they were branches in the true olive by nature as Mr. B. would have it to prove them of the visible Church by nature but that they were branches of that olive or race of men who were not wilde by nature that is Gentiles bringing no fruit to God but of that olive which was descended from Abraham by natural generation which was the Church of God till broken off 2. Whereas the translation turnes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ver 21 24. by natural and once ver 24. by nature yet it is the same terme 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in all 3. It is not true that the Jewes in the translation of ver 24. are said to be branches by nature And for the fifteenth absurdity it is no absurdity they are called natural onely in respect of their descent as men from Abraham but not as branches in the olive-tree And this is clear For the ingraffed branches can be said to be no otherwise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 besides nature but in that they were not descended from Abraham by natural generation and therefore on the contrary the Jews are natural branches not as believers but as men descended from Abraham by natural generaration The seventeenth absurdity is a relation of a speech of mine that Mr. B. cannot finde one Author expounding 1
is holy and that this intitles to baptisme The Jewes hereafter to be called are holy Rom. 11. 16. by election Mr. Cobbet Just vindic chap. 3 sect 1. page 37. The Jewes yet to come were in Pauls time holy federally Rom. 11. 15 16. not actually but intentionally yet not then baptizable the Medeâ— sai 13. 3. are called Gods sanctified ones yet not to be admitted visible Church-members I further add that in his general sense Legitimate might also signifie a state separate to God as being that onely posterity he allowes of according to his institution of marriage Mal. 2. 15. which is very frequently called holy by Divines And therefore letting passe his jocular tale my exception or answer to his reasoning from 1 Cor. 7. 14. deserves a better refutation then he hath yet given Then he makes me say that no Scripture speakes of holinesse in his sense whereas my words as above were more wary Mr. B. I think cannot shew c. And then tells me that the Jewes infants are called the Holy seed and that by covenant or law which is his sense and then chargeth me with laying by conscience and common modesty having little tendernesse of conscience in accusing his will in charging him with a grosse falshood that he was willing to carry things in generals and not to tell distinctly how infants are holy and in a state separated to God whereas he told me he meant holy by law or Covenant Notwithstanding which I may yet conceive him willing to carry things in generals sith this very explication is in generals the law or Covenant as he calls it being not distinctly named and shewed where it is and upon what conditions that state of separation to God which infants have is ascertained whether upon their own act or parents and if upon parents whether immediate or mediate whether to the truth and reality or profession nor wherein that state of separation to God consists or what is the benefit of it all or of some which perhaps I apprehend Mr. B. rightly in now yet not till I had read over his book again and again and pickt out his meaning by comparing many passages together which because he did not then nor since in his printed writings put together as others do in their theses they maintaine I guessed he was willing to carry things in the general and if I did say so which Mr. B. and I must take on his Scribes word in my Sermon without any caution Mr. B. might have imagined that I meant it with this caution which is ordinarily allowed in constructions of such speeches where thematter leades us to conceive them intended that I conceived him unwilling which might be the more allowed to me in that speech which I had not a word written when I spake it which of all other Mr. B. is least fit to except against me for having in print offended in this way in worse manner page 185. But to the matter now we conceive his meaning I still say the same that I think he cannot shew one place where holy is taken for separated to God in his sense He alleadgeth that the Jewes infants are called the holy seed though he name not the text which had been fit yet I guesse by his words page 83. he meanes Ezra 9. 2. in which place onely and Isaiah 6. 13. I find this terme in Scripture But Ezra 9. 2. doth not speak of infants but such a holy seed as mingled themselves with the people of the land which was in marriage which will not be said of infants nor is holy seed there meant of a state separated to God in Mr. Bs. sense by Covenant promising it to believers that their infants should be visible church-Church-members For this holinesse was a state of difference or separation onely by legal descent from Israel not by the faith of next parents and it did intitle them to a peculiar priviledge of being reckoned in the genealogy of Israel or in full communion with the Common-wealth of Israel in respect of inheritance marriage c. though they fell to Idolatry as Jeroboam Ahaz Manasseh c. did But proselytes though believers were not the holy seed there meant they were not forbidden to marry the daughters of the people of the land Yea the children of the holy seed begotten upon prohibited women as the daughters of the Nations there mentioned were with their mothers to be put away as unholy according to the law Ezra 10. 3. contrary to the resolution af the Apostle 1 Cor. 7. 12 13 14. which evidently shewes that the Jewes are called the holy seed by their descent according to the law of Moses and that the term holy seed Ezra 10. 2. is all one with Legitimate and if the Apostle did allude to that place in Ezra it serves more for my sense then Mr. Bs. and the sense may be conceived this If the unbelieving husband were not as sanctified to his wife so as that they might lawfully live together then the children should be unclean that is illegitimate as those in Ezra but now that is it being determined that the law of Moses concerning prohibiting marriage with some people is voided and unequal marriage is not dissolved your children are holy that is legitimate His evasion page 188. about a judgement of charity will be found insufficient to avoid my exception against his exposition which is mistaken by him nor will it at all smite me my exception being not as he imagines that upon a judgement of charity concerning the sincerity of a persons profession he is not to be taken for a real believer But that Mr. B. determining that the unbeliever is sanctified onely to the believer who is not onely such according to the judgement of charity but also really such before God and the Apostles consequence including this Proposition according to his exposition that the children of such onely are holy that is after Mr. B. visible Church-members and baptizable of necessity all other by his exposition are prohibited to be baptized and therefore of necessity he that will follow the rule according to Mr. Bs exposition must know the reality of the parents faith which being impossible to be known without special revelation he may baptize none without it Now Mr. B. answers not at all to the main thing how by his exposition a man can go upon certainty that he doth his duty but how without respect to his exposition a man may take a person for a sincere believer and so baptize him But this serves not his turne in this case For it is the duty of the baptizer to baptize onely visible Church-members this Mr. B. will not deny now of infants who can make no profession their visible Church-membership is known onely by their parents believing but according to Mr. Bs. exposition of the Apostle those infants onely are visible Church-members whose parents are real believers before God no hypocrite if Mr. B. rightly expound the Apostle
Testament though I have not a Greek Concordance of the old Testament to number them by and therefore there is neither absurdity nor untruth in any speech any more then in that John 21. 15. though I conceive there is scarce need of an hyperbole to verifie it but am sure Mr. B. trifles in putting this into the score of my absurdities to which I was driven To the nineteenth I do not remember I said the Corinthians doubted whether their living together were fornication My resolution and exposition of the Apostles words will be made good against this exception in answering Mr. Bs. fifth argument c. 29. of the first part which I intend to fit for the presse with as much speed as I can To the twentieth I have in my Examen of Mr. Ms. Sermon Exercit. Antidote and Review shewed a ground of necessity to take the Apostles words 1 Cor. 7. 14. in my sense not in Mr. Bs. the reply to which made by Mr. B. will appear to be insufficient upon the examination of chap. 29. of the first part of his book The one twentieth absurdity which Mr. B. would fasten on my arguing as most absurd and like a right Anabaptist in his scoffing language is meerly from his mistake of my expression as if by present prayer I meant prayer coexistent and continued during the use of the thing sanctified whereas my meaning was to exclude an habit of prayer without the act and actual prayer interrupted in its course through lapse into such sin as Davids adultery in which time things are not sanctified to real believers till repentance restore their sanctifying exercise And so the two and twentieth and four and twentieth absurdities which Mr. B. makes so horrid are also answered nor was the three and twentieth an absurdity Mr. B. himself page 98. limits the speech all things are pure to the pure that is all things good and lawfull and is not this all one as to say some things are pure nor is it unusual to limit such universal termes as the matter requires as 1 Cor. 13. 7. 10. 23. c. The twentiefith and twentiesixth were no absurdities but fit answers to so trifling arguments For the terme disciple importing one that hath learned it is but trifling to argue infants of believers are disciples without proving they have learned and the reason why they have not learned is because they are untaught and if Mr. B. had further asked why they are not taugh I would have answered because ordinarily uncapable and God both not extraordinarily shewn them this mercy But because I perceived he was about to leave the plain way of proving them disciples by shewing that the notation and use of the word disciple which himself page 92. confesseth to come from the act of learning did agree to them never imagining that ridiculous sense in which he takes the word disciple page 14. as a relation without a foundation without actual learning for the present or so much as an assay intention or capacity to learn and making actual learning the end of an Infants being a disciple who hath no thoughts of it and that he sought to winde about an intangling discourse about Gods mercy to Infants which though it were but frivolous in respect of the thing to be proved to wit the appliablenesse of the word disciple to Infants yet being popular and pausible would be taking with the Auditors which I quickly perceived he affected I conceived on the sudden the answers I gave fittest and so still do think The last in number is no absurdity but if Mr. B. put in actual used by him in the dispute and understand it of circumcision as acted barely not as taught and put in the terme yoke it is Mr. Bs. absurdity to maintain the contrary as is proved above And for the latter part it is no absurdity nor seemed to Grot. annot in Mat. 11. 29. Jugum mandata singnificat It à vox ista sumitur Act. 15. 10. Johannes hunc locum explicans pro jugo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dixit 1. Epist. 5. 3. To like purpose Pareus in Mat. 11. 30. where he useth the terme jugum doctrinae the yoke of doctrine applied to the Gospel in opposition to the yoke of the law Acts 15. 10. So the N. Annot. on Mat. 11. 29. Acts 15. 10. 1 John 5. 3. Pisc. sch on Act. 15. 10. the yoke to wit the law of Moses by comparing it with verse 5. Deod on Mat. 11. 30. calls it the rigorous yoke of the law unsufferable without Christ and therefore unsufferable not so much for the labour in observing it as the imperfection to quiet the conscience and the condemnation it bound to for not keeping it on Acts 15. 10. My arguing to prove the repeale of infants Church-membership was onely lamentable in that it met with such a contemptuous respondent who judgeth that idem per idem which was rationally thus The repeale of Church-membership was proved from the altering the Church-state from Jewish national to Christian personal this proved from the different call this proved from the different way God took to gather his Church in the New Testament from the Old by preaching not authority of superiors as when he brought the family of Abraham and the Jewish Nation into Covenant What the Ministers so called which sate next Mr. B. judged I passe not They were much deceived in their judgement about my arguing and my being mated and puzzled then What ever puzzling I had was in the beginning when I was almost at a stand what to answer and therefore varied my answers by reason of my not understanding where that ordinance of infants visible Church-membership unrepealed Mr. B. speakes of is and in what sense Mr. B. called them visible church-Church-members and disciples under the Goipel which then I understood not nor did he explaine so as that I could clearly understand him nor so fully since by his book but that by much diligence I am fain to pick it out by comparing one passage and expression with another It is untrue that not knowing what to say I was resolved to say something lest if I were silent the people should think I were worsted or that I requested him to name my absurdities or that by private confessions or by my own confession I was conscious of absurdities I was driven to SECT XVIII The grosse untruths Mr. B. chargeth me with are not such PAge 209. Mr. B. chargeth me with six grosse untruths though my words were not assertions but intimations neverthelesse I conceive not any untruth in them For 1. However the motion was not sudden nor the yielding to it sudden yet the assault was sudden without any rules for orderly mannaging the dispute or notaries on both sides to take it c. which I imprudently ommitted not expecting such a solemne meeting as I found and because of the opinion I had of Mr. B. as more candid in taking my answers and
separating all infants of believers barely for their parents faith to be visible members of the Christian Church is Mr. Bs. dream as I shall shew with Gods assistance in examing his second argument SECT XI About Mr. Bs. 4. texts urged impertinently to prove infants visible Church-membership PAge 183. he saies it is a palpable untruth which I say he four texts in his Epistle Levit. 25. 41 42. Deut. 29. 11 12. Act. 15. 10. 1 Cor. 7. 14. with Rom. 11. 19. were all he concluded any thing from meaning in the dispute at Bewdley and saies the hearers know it and is to be seen before But to my best remembrance with search into the notes I took after and the notes which were communicated to me it is no untruth Mat. 28. 19. I think he alluded to but I remember not it was urged or any other text besides the forenamed as a medium from which to conclude any proposition to be proved Then he saies I have been fully answered before but yet addes concerning Levit. 25. 41 42. 1. The Jewes infants were infants and the dispute between us was of the species Answ. 1. Though Mr. B. and before him Mr. Cobbet usually call the sort or ranke of men that are infants the species yet other Logicians usually call man the lowest species or kind and say age and sex make not another kinde 2. But allowing Mr. B. and Mr. Cobbet their language I say the dispute is not about the species or kind to wit infants as infants but infants of believers who are particular persons and the question as it was rightly stated between me and Mr. M. was Whether the infants of believers were to be baptized with Christs baptisme by a lawfull Minister according to ordinary rule without extraordinary revelation or direction And if Paedobaptists will maintain their practise they should make good this proposition That all the infant-children of professed or inchurched believers are to be baptized with Christs baptisme by the law full Minister according to ordinary rule Though Mr. Baillee and Mr. B. for some advantage set down this as their proposition to be proved That some infants are to be baptized M. B. saies he had proved our priviledges greater then the Jewes and that I deny it not and that this to wit to be Gods servants was not peculiar to them Whereas I had proved the contrary from ver 55. and the whole chapter is about lawes peculiar to the Jews and ver 38 39 40. going before shew plainly that this law was peculiar to the Jewes that they and their children should return from servitude under which they were for poverty at the year of Jubilee and ver 45 46. plainly restraines it to the children of Israel allowing them to take the children of strangers so journing among them and therefore proselytes as an inheritance And therefore in whatever sense it is meant that they are Gods servants it is meant onely of Hebrews as Exod. 21. 2. is expressed I do not conceive nor any interpreters that I meete with do expound this of a proselyte but onely of an Hebrew borne If Cornelius had children they had not been Gods servants in the sense there meant which is clearly this that they were his servants in this respect only in that place in that they were to be disposed of not as men would but as he onely would who had right to them by his purchase in bringing them out of Egypt and therefore none can get soveraigne Dominion over them no not by their voluntary selling themselves to prejudice his as Deodat annot in Levit. 25. 42. Whence I infer that it is a most grosse abuse of this Scripture in Mr. B. to urge it to prove that the infants of Gentile believers now are servants to God related to him as a peculiar people separated to himself from the world which is spoken meerly in respect of the Hebrew children and their corporal servitude which was to be at Gods disposing by reason of his redemption of them out of Egypt When he tells me of my accustomednesse to mistakes it is more true of himself as I have often shewed yea though the words were written before him And in this very thing he calls my mistake that he argued thus Whosoever is called Gods servant may be baptized whereas he might have seene if he had taken any care to set down my words rightly that my words were as his own notary took them and he hath printed them If this be a good argument Infants are called servants of God therefore they are disciples and must be baptized which was his argument either in words or substance As for the conclusion and argument as he sets it down page 182. I think it was not urged in the dispute and I have proved that Levit. 25. 42. is meant onely of Hebrew children not of Gentiles nor in the sense Mr. B. would prove that they are relatively separate to God from the world in the sense as God 's servants is equipollent to a disciple of Christ. Page 184 he calls my answers to his allegation of Deut. 19. 11 12 vain senselesse reavils and then breaks out into words of pitty to people that take their opinions on my word To which is I say that my answers are not vaine senselesse cavil will appear in my reply to Mr. B. about that text And as he pitties them that take their opinion on my word so I pitty them that take their opinion on his word or any meer mans word contrary to Christs priviledge Mat. 23. 1. Page 184. in my words adoption is printed for doctrine Page 185. he repeates his frivolous charge of our accusing our children as no disciples of Christ and therefore no Christians and therefore no ground to believe or hope they are saved thus calumniating me when I have often said they may be both Disciples and Christians invisibly and so have salvation and we have great reason to hope they are in Gods election by reason of the general indefinite promises of the Scripture and Gods usual dealing with his people though there is no certainty either from Mr. Bs. grounds or mine sith Mr. B. will not say that every visible Church-member is saved All the difference between us is about their visible Church-membership whether the denying that takes away ground of hope of their salvatien Mr. B. saith it doth because there 's no hope of that persons salvation that doth not seeme to be of the invisible Church but he that is not of the visible Church doth not seeme to be of the invisible Ergo But the Minor is not true as he takes the word seem and by Gods assistance I doubt not to shew when I examine ch 27. of part 1. his mistake concerning the terme visible as if it were as much as to appear such in the judgement of probability though not descernad by sense by which defini-nition the opposite termes visible and invisible may be confounded and the terme visible
Cor. 7. 14. of infants Covenant-holinesse in his sense before Luther and Zuinglius and then askes is this irue I answer I think it is and if he can produce any one me thinks he should have done it in his book If he do he will do more then Mr. Ms. friend better versed as I conceive in Antiquity then Mr. B. hath done though attempting it page 21. of Mr. Ms. Defence of his Sermon Two places he cites one in Tertullian which I have answered in my Apology page 85. The other in Athanasius qu. 114. ad Antiochum as teaching infant-baptisme by vertue of federal holinesse from 1 Cor. 7. 14. But 1. The Author is confessedly spurious by Rivet Critic sac l. 3. c. 6. Scultetus part 2. Medul Patr. l. 1. c. 42. Perkins Preparat to the Demonstr of the probleme The works falsely imposed on Athanasius are these The book of divers questions of the Holy Scripture unto King Antiochus for therein great Athanasius is cited Yet Mr. M. or his friend hath these words ubi supra These wordes then which are safe and sound grounded upon tho same Scripture which I have much insisted on are read in the works of Athanasius where the question is about infants dying requiring a resolution that might clearely set whether they go to be punished or to the Kingdome The answer is seeing the Lord said Suffer little children to come unto-me for of such is the Kingdome of heaven And the Apostle sayes Now your children are holy observe the Gospel-ground the same that I build upon it is manifest that the infants of believers which are baptized do as unspotted and faithfull enter into the Kingdome This assertion is owned by all the reformed Churches But had Mr. M. or his friend recited the words fully then it would have appeared how impertinently the words are alleadged to prove the baptizing of infants by vertue of federal holines from 1 Cor. 7. 14. that none of the Reformed Churches would own the doctrine of that Author being built on no Gospel-ground but Popish opinion of Limbus infantum For the entire words are these Qu. 114. ad Antiochum Whither go dying infants to punishment or the Kingdome and where are the infants of believers dying unbaptized disposed with the believers or unbelievers Answ. The Lord saying Suffer little children to come for of such is the Kindome of heaven and again the Apostle saying But now are your children holy it is manifest that the infants of believers baptized go into the Kingdome as unspotted and believing but the unbaptized and Heathenish neither go into the Kingdome nor into punishment for they have done no sin Which answer plainly determines that infants of believers if baptized enter into the Kingdome but neither the unbaptized infants of believers or Heathens enter into the Kingdome or punishment for they have done no sin Not a word of federal holinesse but the plain Popish doctrine that infants dying unbaptized go to limbus infantum but the baptized into the Kingdome of heaven which is the same with the doctrine father'd on fustin Martyr qu. 56. ad orthod Now this is contrary to what the reformed Churches assert even from 1 Cor. 7. 14. that the children of believers are federally holy afore baptisme and go into the Kingdome though they die unbaptized Nor doth the alleadging 1 Cor. 7. 14. prove that the Author observed the Gospel-ground more truly Antievangelical or Jewish which Mr. M. buildeth on For the holinesse in that Author is meant either of holinesse in possibility in being likely to be baptized because believing parents would likely breed them up in Christianity and they be baptized in which sense Tertull. de anima c. 39. expoundes the Apostle as calling them holy not in act barely by descent from a believer but because designati sanctitatis or as Hierome Epist. 153. ad Paulinum alledging Tertullian de monogamia quod candidati sint fideiet nullis idololatriae sordibus polluantur which Erasmus in his glosse on Hierom renders thus quodvelut ambiunt et exspectant baptismum or else of actual holinesse in being baptized believers being wont to baptize their infants when neare danger of death not by reason of Covenant-holinesse but the giving of grace by baptisme and the necessity of it to save an infant from perishing I am still confident that neither Father nor Interpreter preceding the sixteenth century did interpret 1 Cor. 7. 14. of holinesse of separation to God as visible Church-members by Gods Covenant to them Nor doth Chamier panstras Cathol tom 4. l. 5. cap. 10. bring any though he purposedly sets down the various opinions about the holinesse there meant and sayes omnes complecti conabor examinare sententias Sure I am Augustin tom 7. l. 2. de pecc mer. remis c. 26. saith Ac per hoc illa sanctificatio cujuscunque modi sit quam in filiis fedelium esse dixit Apostolus ad istam de baptismo de peccati origine vel remissione omnino non pertinet nam conjuges infideles in conjugibus fidelibus sanctificari dicit eo ipso loâ—o c. Unto which I think good to adde that whereas Mr. M. in his Defence page 10. 58. brings in the Pelagians acknowledging that infants were baptized secundum sententiam Evangelii which he imagines to be the Gospel-ground as he calls it of federal holinesse from the Covenant to the believer and his seed in Aug. tom 7. l. 2. contra Pelag. Coelest c. 5. That he hadadded the next words quia Dominus statuit regnum Coelorum non nisi baptizatis posse conferri it would have appeared that the Gospel he meant was John 3. 5. which with Rom. 5. 12. was elleadged in those dayes as a reason of the Churches tradition of infant-baptisme and no other reason can I finde for infant-baptisme nor in any the exposition of 1 Cor. 7. 14. in Mr. Ms. or Mr. Bs. sense till Zwinglius his dayes The eighteenth absurdity is that I said the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is taken many hundred times for authority and askes is that true To which I answer This was spoken in the dispute when I had not time or means to collect the number of times wherein 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used for authority in Scripture and therefore spake at adventure and if I did Hyperbolize it might be neitheir absurdity nor untruth so to speak as is frequent in speakers writers without imputation of falshood Nevertheless I find it used above an hundred times in the New Testament in Matthew 10. and 6. of them it is traslated authority and in most places where it is translated power it might be translated authority and if it be used for liberty in any of these places yet it is no where used for a veile but one 1. Cor. 11. 10. and I doubt not but it is used for authority or power or liberty many hundreds of times in the Lxx Greek of the old