speaking of the Church's Authority in this Case of Paedobaptism that it was without all question delivered by the Lord and his Apostles p l. 1. De peccat merit remiss c. 16. Proculdubio per Dominum Apostolos traditum The word Tradition the Fathers understood not in the Popish Sense for that which hath been delivered in Doctrine from Age to Age above what is written to supply the supposed defect of the Scripture but for the very written word it self by which they delivered the truth and for their examples and report thereof tending to the explication of their Doctrine and not to the adding any new Doctrine Calvin affirms the baptizing of Infants to be a holy Institution observed in Christ's Church q Instit 4. c. 16. Sect. 6. All the Reformed Churches use it as you may see by the Harmony of their Confessions r Th. à Jesu de Convers omnium Gentium l. 7. pag. 506. The Greek Church who yearly excommunicate the Pope Baptize their Infants s Pagit of Heresies pag. 17. so the Cophti or native Christians of Egypt who have no Communion with the Roman Church And the practice being so general and Primitive Erasmus wondered what evil Devil entered them who denyed the Baptism of Children used in the Catholick Church above 1400 Years and he might the rather for that it hath been the general Consent and almost universal Practice not only of all Christendom but of all the World Jews Gentiles Mahometans Christians of all Sects Protestants Papists Greeks Armenians Muscovites Mengrelians Indians of St. Thomas Abyssines c. as a modern Author observes to use some solemn initiating Ceremony to admit their Children not yet adult into the Society and Communion of their Religion These Authorities with others cited in the Margin * Constit Clementis there 't is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Baptize your Infants l. 6. c. 19. Concil Melevit can 2. apud Magdeb Cent. 5. cap. 9. col 835. Caranz fol. 123. Ambros l. de Ahrah Patriarch Hier. contra Pelag. lib. 3. Ut Christus Infantes ad se venire jussit ita nec Apostoli eos excluserunt à Baptismo quidem dum baptismus Circumcisioni aequiparat Paulus Col. 2. aperte indicat etiam Infantes per baptismum Ecclesiae dei esse inferendos c. Magdeb. Cent. l. 2. c. 4. Magdeb. Cent. 2. 't is said nec usquam legitur Infantes hoc seculo à Baptismo remotos esse We don't read they were then excluded Baptism c. 4. p. 48. de Baptismo nor as 't is said until the 6th Cent. when 't was excepted against by one Adrianus That Terull himself was for Infant Baptism appears in that in his Book De anima cap. 39. He presseth it when the Child is in danger of Death and gives his reason lib. de Bapt. cap. 12. praescribitur nemini sine Baptismo competere salutem Council of Trullo Can. 48. requires that all the Grecian little ones without delay should be baptized One of the 8 Cannons in the Council of Carthage concluding against Pelagius decreed that whosoever denyed Baptism for the remission of sins to a new Born Infant should be anathematiz'd see Craggs Arraigment and Conviction of Anabaptism against Tombs pag. 85. Photius a learned Greek produceth an Imperial Constitution wherein it was decreed that all baptized Samarit and Grecians should be punished who brought not their Children to holy Baptism apud Craggs ibid. I lay down as I might have done many more not to tye the Baptism of Children to the Testimony of Men but as a Martyr for the Protestant Religion did to shew how Mens Testimonies do agree with God's Word w In a Letter that Mr. Philpot writ whilst he was in Prison and that Antiquity is on our side and that the Anabaptists have nothing but false and new Imaginations who feign the Baptism of Children to be the Pope's Commandment or any late Invention or Innovation Nor is our manner of administring this sacred Rite by sprinkling or pouring on of Water novel as I said or unjustifiable for the word to Baptize usually signifies as much which as Dr. Featly x Dipper dipt pag. 33. See Wells also in his Answer to Danvers pag. 242. Printed Anno 74. and Walker's Discourse of dipping and sprinkling wherein is shewn the lawfulness of other ways of Baptization besides that of total Immersion Printed Anno 78. says Hesychius Stephanus Scapula and Budaeus those great Masters of the Greek Tongue makes good by many Instances and Allegations out of Classick Writers And in this sense is it used in Scripture So the Fathers were baptized in the Clould not dipt therein for they were under the Cloud * 1 Cor. 10.2 but were wet or sprinkled therewith So Nebuchadnezzar was wet or sprinkled or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Septuag hath it baptized with the Dew of Heaven Hence we read of diverse washings or Baptisms as the word is And what were those but sprinklings Sometimes Blood was sprinkled †Hebr. 9.10 sometimes Water was poured forth No Person was dipt or plunged in Blood yet those sprinklings were called Baptisms So Mark 7.4 except they wash the Original is except they be baptized and the manner of their washings before Meat was not by dipping but by pouring on of Water ‖ 2 Kings 3.11 We read also of washing or baptizing Tables * Mark 7.4 in the Margin beds vid Lightfoot vol. 2. p. 345. and other things many times a Day which if done by dipping would make the labour of the Jews intolerable besides many other inconveniences And 't is but reasonable that the outward Baptism should have allusion to and an Analogy with the inward We are said to be baptized with the Holy Ghost but not dipt into the Holy Ghost or his Graces but to be sprinkled therewith as with clean †Ezek. 36.25 Water in our Baptism and to have the Holy Spirit poured on us * Isaiah 44.3 And it had been more properly translated baptized in Water if it had been done only by dipping rather than baptized with Water Again if we take a Survey of the several Instances and Examples of Persons baptized in Scripture we shall find that 't was probably done by sprinkling or pouring on of Water rather than by dipping St. Paul was baptized by Ananias when Sick and Weak having fasted three Days and was not strengthened till he received Meat which was after he was baptized †Act. 9.18 19. and according to all Circumstances it was done in his Lodgings So when the Goaler and those that belonged unto him were baptized it was at a time and place that there could be no accommodation for Water and other Conveniences for plunging and dipping as the manner of some is for 't is not likely that the Apostle should carry the Goaler and all his in the dead of the Night to a River or Pond to Baptize them 'T is said
yet we do not continue in it but repent and turn from it But how shall we you 'l say thus mortifie our Sins Why we must fetch our Weapons against our prevailing Lusts from our Baptism As David took the smooth Stones out of the Brook of Water with which he slew Goliah 1 Sam. 17.40 So ought we to draw help and directions from the Water of Baptism to deaden the force of the most Giant-like Sin and to lay it at our Feet Yea our Baptism doth not only direct us herein holding forth the conditions on our Part what Duty is incumbent upon us and likewise impower and enable us for the Encounter as it conveys unto us the Grace of God and the assistance of his Spirit but moreover it obligeth us thereto in the highest nature by the most solemn and the strongest Bonds that may be in that we Vow to God through Christ to perform it The firmest Obligation imaginable upon the deepest penalty as ever we hope to have an interest in Christ or in the Death of Christ q. d. we disclaim all hope and interest in Christ and his Death if we be not the Death of every ruling Sin in us This surely is enough to make us bestir our selves and set upon it and even to compel us to it When the forty Jews Act. 23.12 bound themselves with an Oath that they would neither eat nor drink till they had killed Paul how did the consciousness of this Oath urge them to lie in wait for him v. 16. and how resolved were they upon his Death with all suddenness And we saith they e're he come near are ready to kill him v. 15. We are under such an Oath to God by our Vow of Baptism to mortifie and kill our prevailing Sins as these were to kill Paul theirs was unjust to murther an Innocent ours most just and necessary to Execute the greatest Traytor in the World And therefore let us remember when our hearts would fain spare our Sins and any way indulge them That this sacred Vow is upon us What was the Reason Jonathan durst venture to tast of the Hony in the Wood when the Israelites durst not touch it 1 Sam. 14.27 He considered not the Oath by which he and they were obliged not to eat of it So why do you thus follow and pursue such and such a pleasing profitable Sin You mind not the Oath the Sacrament the Vow in which you are obliged not to tast such forbidden Fruit but on the contrary to renounce the devil and all his works the pomps and vanities of this wicked world and all the sinful lusts of the flesh But to come more near and home in the way of Application Is Baptism an Ordinance that engages us to Duty and that as the Condition of the continuance of the Benefits contained in the Promises and Covenant to which it is the Seal We see what a Foundation of loose vain hope a bare Baptismal Christianity is What slight tinctured Christians those are that have only the outward washing of Baptism but abandon the practice of a Christian Life Who please themselves in a Sign without the effect and boast themselves in a Figure and Shadow without the Substance and Grace of it The Baptism of Water howsoever it may avail us in the state of Infancy in which state God requires no actual Performance of Duty Yet when we grow up to Years of Knowledge and Reason and come under the Law of Duty it availeth nothing without the Baptism of the Spirit in actual Regeneration and Sanctification I mean without an actual Repentance and Abrenunciation of Sin and Satan and the practice of a Holy Life Our Baptism will but remain as a Testimony against us of our perfidious violation of the Covenant of God and of the falseness and treachery of our evil Hearts who pretend to be and own our selves the Subjects and Servants of Jesus Christ and yet basely revolt from and disobey him This is to speak Christ fair and then to betray him Mens receiving the name of Christ's Disciples and Servants in Baptism makes the Disobedience of their sinful Lives more hateful and abominable In this respect some had an erroneous conceit of Old which made them defer their Baptism thinking they had a greater Liberty before than after their Baptism and therefore were wont to say in St. Austin's time Sine illum facere nondum baptizatus est let him alone he is not yet baptized implying the strict Obligation that lies upon Men by Baptism unto Holiness of Life What is Christian Baptism without a Christian Life 'T is not this external Badge or Cognizance 't is not a common profession that follows it that will be a Title to Heaven 'T is in vain to pretend that we have been baptized into Christ or are buried with him in Baptism and have made profession of his name if we be workers of iniquity our doom at last will be to depart from him That which is most material and considerable in our Baptism and which most contributes to our eternal Interest and Salvation is not as at first I noted from St. Peter the putting away the filth of the Flesh But the Answer of a good Conscience towards God What then doth our Conscience answer touching the performance of the Conditions on our Part We build our hopes and confidences upon the Sands unless we keep the Faith whereinto we are baptized and perform the Duty to which our Baptism obligeth How vainly do Men bear themselves up upon the Title of an outward Baptism as if thereby they were good Christians though the course of their Lives be a flat Contradiction to the holiness and purity of the Christian Religion and in effect the renouncing of it The truth is there is a sad answering of this Engagement in the generality of those that are baptized What backsliding from and violations of the baptismal Covenant From the observation of whose Lives a Heathen might conclude as Salvian complained of old Si Christus sancta docuisset if Christ had taught holiness why don't Christians practise it Either as he goes on your Christ is no God who allows such evil Lives or you are no Christians who practise such Things Are they Christians are they dedicated to the honour and service of God the Father Son and Holy Ghost who lead such impure Lives who slight the ways of Religion and set at nought the Laws and Commands of Christ and are so devoted to the ways of their own evil hearts Would Men but consider how they have performed their Covenant with God into which they were entered by Baptism and what an aggravation of the Sin of their unholy unchristan Life ariseth hence this must needs give a check to their sinful Carreer If Infidels and they that know not God do Blaspheme his holy Name and fight against Heaven by their open Impieties this is no such great Wonder but for you that have given up your names unto
Salim because there was much Water a Reason given by the Holy Ghost himself why he chose that Place for the Country to come in and be baptized because they might go many Miles in those hot Countries and not meet with a drop of Water and it was a great Priviledge to those Places that banked on Jordan that they had much Water but 't is no Argument to prove that John plunged all that he baptized or dipt them over Head and Ears Beside the Original is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 many Waters viz. Streams or Rivulets and History informs us that they were so shallow as not to reach above the Ankles and so unapt for dipping as their way is †Non interest quanto quisque abluatur quomodo in Eucharistiâ non quantum quisque comedat Chamier l. 5. de bapt c. 1. p. 1404. The Eunuch as has it hath been well observed doth not say here is a River here is a Pool here is Water enough for me to be dipt into the quantity of the Water is not insisted on which fairly intimates to us that where there is Water be it much or little nothing hinders but one may be baptized therewith I had need now to crave Pardon for being so very Prolix on this Head but I hope St. Austin's * Ad Hilar Epist 89. Apology in the like Case may pass for mine Tanto magis pro Infantibus loqui debemus quanto minus pro se loqui possunt THE REPLY To a pretended ANSWER To the foregoing Discourse IT will not be unnecessary to premise that this foregoing Discourse in opposition to the Anabaptists contained at first only eleven Pages in close writing a Copy of which was transcribed and communicated to a particular Friend who shortly after upon their confident Boasting that they would get it answered did by my Permission deliver it into their Hands from whom after almost a Years time and through frequent importunities I received an Answer in Manuscript such as it is consisting of 27 Pages I think it needful also to premise that I have somewhat inlarged my Discourse but not so as to cause the least difference in my ensuing Reply nor shall I make the least advantage upon any Improvement or Addition I have made nor is there in truth any occasion for it For I do solemnly and with all sincerity protest that I don't find I had need to have had any word Syllable or Letter added left out or altered in my Papers by reason of any thing in the pretended Answer My Argument in short is this That as Circumcision was the initiating Sign and Token of the Covenant to the Jews So is Baptism to the Christians and that the Command to keep the Covenant in the Sign of it whatever the Sign be was and is always Obligatory and that the practice from Age to Age answers it In the Prosecution whereof I obviated many Objections now made use of by the Answerer which takes up above half of the aforesaid 11 Pages whereto there is no manner of Reply save only somewhat about the Sabbath or Lord's Day but not to the purpose as will afterwards appear and at that rate too that he dares not condemn the Sabbatarians This with the Preface takes up 3 Pages of the Answer Nevertheless that he may seem to say somewhat he turns Opponent First He endeavours to prove that the Covenant whereof Circumcision was the sign was not the Covenant of Grace as having relation only to temporal Promises taking a Branch for the whole and reckoning that God made two distinct Covenants with Abraham And this takes up 2 Pages more Secondly He labours to prove that Circumcision can give no ground for Infant Baptism nor bear a suitable Parallel with it using Arguments which have been answered over and over and in a great Part obviated by me tho' he takes no notice of it This reacheth to his 10th Page Then he takes notice of my citing Act. 2.39 running out into a large Ramble which will not bear any Test and as introductory thereto he begins thus You say the Promise in the 39. v. is spoken to those in the 36. v. even the House of Israel who had crucified the Lord Jesus Christ and their Children of which I had not said a word And adds that by Children he doth not understand them as they are in a state of Infancy But how doth he illustrate it Why very profoundly and unanswearably with five or six Arguments which to give them their full force amounts to this That there were none such then present as he takes for granted neither could any of them be Children to whom St. Peter Preached and said Repent and be baptized every one of you For were this true would it follow as he would sillily infer that St. Peter neither did nor could speak of or concerning Children to them May it not then be as well argued that the Promise did not belong to those afar off that should hereafter be called Unless we understand thereby such of them as were then present and had been St. Peter's Auditors Which would be a contradiction in terminis Now this with some gross impertinence and senseless Stuff which immediately follows comes home to the 14th Page of the Reply So that there is above half of mine and within a few Lines half of his past over and hitherto it cannot be pretented there is any kind of Answer As to what follows he says himself Pag. 15. that what is written in my 8 9 10 11 Pages and I don't remember there were any more in the Transcript-Copy they had concerning the Covenant and Infants right to Baptism he supposeth to be answered in what he had written aforegoing He means he had framed Arguments which was not his Province Moreover in these Pages he omits several Things which must needs be reckoned very material whereto he answers nothing I 'll instance in some particulars First That in Christ's Dialect to belong to him and to be his Disciple Is all one Secondly That Infants are called Disciples by the Holy Ghost Thirdly That they are made so by God himself vouchsafing graciously in their believing Parents to accept them also into his Covenant and so into the state of Disciples Fourthly That the Apostle shews that interest in the Promise is alone of it self a sufficient ground for the application of Baptism Fifthly That the Suffrages and Authorities of the Primitive Fathers are on our side which he overlooks as insignificant tho' they are only produced to shew what was their judgment in the Case and the practice in their time Sixthly That sprinkling or pouring on of Water doth as well express the Mystery as dipping and better alludes to the inward Baptism of the Spirit And that 't is very improbable that the 3000 baptized in one Day and in all likelihood where they heard St. Peter's Sermon were dipped Again he neither denies nor vindicates their concurrence
And Christ's coming must have rendred the condition of Children worse than before Whatever then be the Priviledges of being within the Pale and the Promise of the visible Church they must belong to the Children of Believers now as they did to the Seed of Abraham heretofore By being such they have jus ad rem a right thereunto and by being baptized they have jus in re and are as it were put into the possession of the same So that denying them Baptism we do as much as lies in us debar them of the outward means the enjoyment of the Priviledge of being in the Church and the benefits thereunto appertaining Should a like Question be put concerning a baptized Christian a member of Christ's Church with that which the Apostle proposeth Rom. 3.1 touching a circumcised Jew What advantage the Answer may be the same with his v. 2. Much every way And in Rom. 9.4 5. are reckoned up no fewer then eight Priviledges or Prerogatives belonging to a Jew upon the score of that Relation The same advantage that there was then to the Jews as God's visible Church is now common to the Gentiles also and if Children were sharers therein with their Parents during the former Administration how are they excluded now Those Children more particularly whose Parents kept their Station * Rom. 11.5 17. and if some Children continued within because their Parents so continued what hinders but others should be admitted whose Parents are re-instated or have gained a like Priviledge with those that are The Prophet Elisha wept when he looked upon Hazael because he foresaw he would dash the Infants of Israel against the Wall and even Hazael thought himself worthy to be esteemed a Dog if ever he should do such a thing But certainly to dash all the Infant Children of Believers out of the Covenant of Grace as much as in them lies and to deprive them of the Seal of it is in a spiritual Sense far more heavy and I dare appeal to the tender Bowels of any believing Parents whether it were not easier for them to think that their Children should be dashed against the Stones and yet in the mean time to die under Christ's Wing as visible members of his Kingdom rather than to have them live and behold them to have a visible standing only in the Kingdom of the Devil We read of Herod the Tyrant that he destroyed all the Children in Bethlehem and the Coasts thereof from two Years old and under But is it not a far more cruel sentence to set these in no better state than Pagans and Infidels without Christ Aliens from the Common-wealth of Israel strangers from the Covenant of Promise having no hope and without God in the World How far Heaven extends its mercy to those that are without means and cannot use them is a Mystery hid from us and known only unto God 'T is our Happiness that he hath not left us destitute of the ordinary means of Salvation with respect to our Children as well as to our selves and therefore whatsoever means of Grace God has appointed as Instrumental to that end that they are capable of are to be afforded them unless God hath made any particular exception in the Case And Baptism being appointed by God as such a means we cannot well Administer it too early to our Children for tho' it doth not confer Grace ex opere operato yet it always doth so when God is pleased to vouchsafe the concurrence and co-operation of his Holy Spirit with it And we know not how soon the operation may be how soon God may by his Grace pre-dispose their Souls to an aptness for good through the means it may be long before they are in a capacity to Act any and therefore the Ordinance ought by no means to be withheld from them or neglected Pag. 16. He questions what a Disciple is whether he be not a Scholar or one taught and whether Infants can be said to be Disciples till they are taught To this I Answer That a Disciple in the New Testament is the same with Christian * Act. 11.26 any one that hath a Relation unto Christ and so of as large an extent as the word Israel in the Old Testament Infants therefore having a Relation unto Christ are of his Body not Heathens but Christians and so consequently Disciples infieri not for that they are actually taught of God but because they are as I may say retainers to Christ and designed for his School into which when they are admitted or initiated by Baptism they are more compleatly Disciples Disciples in facto esse having then not only a right to but are invested with the Priviledge of those that are properly and actually Scholars or Disciples not as being personally instructed but as consecrated and set apart for the service of Heaven placed so as to be reckoned Scholars of Christ being entered into his School tho' they be no Proficients And thus they are commonly reputed of the number of the Scholars or Disciples who are admitted into a School and only entered there to learn tho' they have not learnt a Lesson or a Letter As John the Baptist baptized to Repentance or in order to it Who should limit God May not he make Disciples several Ways By the Administration of the Ordinance of Baptism and so by putting on them his Livery or by teaching them by his Spirit from the greatest to the least by writing his Laws in their Hearts or by graciously accepting them into his Covenant with their Parents or bringing them under a Religious Government Page 18. He would know whether I can tell Lydia was a Maid Wife or Widow or whether there were any Infants in her House I answer 'T is plain she had a Family and that upon her Faith alone they were brought into God's ordinary way of Salvation and were forthwith baptized * Act. 16.15 unless they 'l understand by her House the Stone-Walls By Salvation coming to Zacheus's House he understands Page 19. the Messiah Answer Christ would have rather said I am the Messiah which had been true whether Zacheus was the Son of Abraham or no and so there had been no occasion of giving that Reason that the Covenant of Abraham reached him But why doth he so perversely understand by Salvation the Person only of the Messiah but purposely to avoid the Argument which yet is no other but what the whole Current of the Scripture holds forth viz. That the blessing of Abraham immediately descends to an House or Family upon the Conversion of the Head or Chief thereof But none are more blind than they that will not see In the forementioned 18 and 19 Pages he endeavours to render it probable there were no Infants in the Housholds I had instanced in but there is enough said in these instances that the blessing of Abraham viz. Salvation came to an House especially to the Children if any such there were upon the Faith
Externals of Religion are not to be regarded in comparison of its inward Life and Substance The Circumcision of the Flesh when the Commandment was most in force was nothing to that of the Heart Secondly We are given to understand that Baptism is the initiating Sacrament of the New Testament and so succeeds Circumcision which was the initiating Sacrament of the Old Thirdly We may note that our Baptism represents Christ's Burial and Resurrection in the manner of its Administration or if not in the symbolical Ceremonies yet at least it doth and must in its spiritual Concomitants and Effects And it behoves us to exemplifie Christ's bodily Actions and Passions in a spiritual way that as he died and was buried so should we die and even be buried unto Sin and as he rose so should we rise to newness of Life Mortifying all our evil and corrupt affections and daily proceeding in all vertue and godliness of living as our Church exhorts For the First That the Externals of Religion are not to be regarded in comparison of its inward Life and Substance In the former Verse the Apostle declares to his Colossians that they are circumcized in Christ that is by his Spirit as the Margin of your Bibles of the Geneva Translation hath it and therefore they need not be so scrupulously Zealous after an external Rite much less this of Circumcision which is now antiquated Since withall they want not an outward Rite in this respect they have Baptism tho' Circumcision be laid aside and abolished they have another Sacrament instituted in its room Buried with him in Baptism Now should you compare the Circumcision of our Saviour the inward Circumcision of the Heart with that of Moses the outward Circumcision of the Flesh you will without difficulty perceive that it infinitely surpasseth it in Dignity and Excellency that wounded the Body this enlivens the Soul The one pared away a little Skin and markt the Flesh the other mortifies the whole Body and quickens the Spirit And therefore they were extravagant who notwithstanding that excellent and Divine Circumcision which Christians have received are yet so sollicitously bent upon that which is but the Figure and Shadow Nevertheless to shew how rich that sanctifying Grace is which we have in Jesus Christ he adds that besides our being circumcised in heart and so divested of the Body of the Sins of the Flesh we have moreover been buried with him in Baptism in which we are also risen again with him which is a more excellent and lively Sacrament than ever Circumcision was a Sacrament resembling it and answering to it signifying and sealing up both our Mortification and Vivification But then there is both an outward and an inward Baptism or there is in Baptism the Body and the Spirit as I might have said in effect concerning Circumcision and the internal spiritual Part is the most material and ought to be more especially minded by us The thing that saveth us is by St. Peter said to be Baptism 1 Pet. 3.21 But that in Baptism which doth most contribute to our Salvation next to the vertue of Christ's Resurrection is not the putting away the filth of the Flesh but the Answer of a good Conscience towards God Which shews the outward washing is the least considerable q. d. 't is not so much the outward Administration as the Conversion of the Soul to God that is the effective disposition in which Baptism saveth us God will have mercy and not sacrifice as he said by his Prophet Hos 6.6 that is rather than Sacrifice Not that he did then renounce Sacrifice but would rather have Acts of Mercy and Charity shewn to Man than any such Sacrifices or Oblations offered or made to himself He preferred not Mercy or Charity before inward Devotion or the adoration of the Heart the Sacrifice of a contrite Spirit which he 'll in no wise despise but before any outward Acts or external Performances in his Service which is of little or no account at all with him where the inward spiritual Part is wanting which is the very Soul and Life of Religion But it cannot be supposed he would not have Sacrifice too seeing he had given so many Commands concerning it And therefore the Prophet immediately adds that he desired the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings q. d. he did not desire either Sacrifice or Burnt offerings in the same degree with other more material Duties So when St. Peter says that 't is not the outward washing with Water that saveth us but the inward Purification of the Spirit we are not to suppose his meaning to be that the outward washing is of no vertue or that the Baptism of Water is wholly excluded being an Ordinance of God but that if we would approve our selves unto God we must not rest in an outward formal Worship No not in Circumcision though the Law was never so much in being or were renewed or reinforced But we must Worship him inwardly with the Circumcision of the Heart So the sealing of the Covenant in our Baptism will be of little advantage to us unless we make good our Stipulation and can return some satisfactory Answer touching the Faith we have entertained and the Resolutions we have taken up to live according to that Religion we are initiated into Circumcision availeth not neither the outward Lavour of Baptism without the inward Sanctification and renewing of the Holy Ghost Hence ariseth our great Miscarriage and the frustration of all the hopes and advantages of those blessed Relations we are admitted to by Baptism when from time to time we mind only the external Rite and Ceremony which is low and mean without considering the substance and reality which is high and excellent The Figure the outward Element is poor and beggarly The thing signified is rich and heavenly The Seal is mean the Inheritance is great It hath differently fallen out with the carnal Jew and the carnal Christian the outward Glory of their Ordinances was a stumbling Block to them which made them rest in the Type and look no further the meanness of ours is a stumbling Block with us we look not for such Treasure in Earthen-Vessels Nor indeed can we so long as we make the Ordinance a customary Piece of formality But here I would not be thought to insinuate the Non-necessity of the Ordinance of Baptism which God hath appointed as the way in the common Order of means to bring to Grace and Glory for in this way he ordinarily brings us to Salvation And therefore makes it our Duty But he has not bound himself to outward means and instruments and consequently it cannot be said to be of that universal absolute necessity as if there were no Salvation without it The Covenant we know can convey Pardon and Salvation without the Seal Abraham was justified before he received the sign of Circumcision The seal of the Righteousness of Faith And the Thief upon the Cross was saved without
Christ that have dedicated your selves by Covenant to his Honour and Service to break those sacred Bonds and to stand it out in your Impenitency and Rebellion against God and to live like Gentiles his professed Enemies to forsake him and his ways and to wallow in the impurities of an evil Conversation is unaccountable How dreadful will the Day be when the Lord shall come to avenge him of his Adversaries You shall not perish under such easie Circumstances of Wrath and Vengeance as do the Gentiles The Aggravation of your Sin and Judgment will be the treading under Foot the Blood of the Covenant Thus far in general But to proceed to some particulars and so to make some further improvement by way of use of what hath been delivered on this Subject Doth holy Baptism admit us to a state of such high Priviledges and Advantages as I have observed Then we may see how injurious they are who deny Baptism to Infants and so as much as lies in them keep them from Christ I mean in the visible way in which we are brought unto Christ from that Grace which is the internal mystery of this sacramental Ordinance In which respect we are said to be baptized into Christ if they have any right to the grace and spiritual Benefits which are the Mystery the Spirit and Life of this Sacrament why not to the external Symbolical signification and Seal of it Shall Men hinder them from this visible application of the Grace of Baptism If we affirm they have no right to this Grace what greater uncharitableness and presumptuous straightning the favour of God and Christ For where has he debarred and excluded them from his Covenant and Promises and cast them out of that Body whereof he is the Head and the Saviour Certain it is this was one of the great Blessings of the Covenant with Abraham I will be thy God and the God of thy Children after thee Thus ran the Promises of old He sheweth mercy unto thousands of generations of them that love him and keep his commandments the seed of the righteous is blessed Children are the heritage of the Lord. They had the Seal of the Covenant Circumcision externally applying the Promises And are the favours of Christ more narrow under the Gospel who is yet the Mediator of a better Covenant Has Christ only a love for the Parents and none for the Children and yet hath told us if the root be holy so are the branches Is not Christ the Redeemer of Infants Did he purchase no Pardon no Grace or remission of Sins for them How abominably injurious would this be to Christ and the fullness of his Oblation and Merit Will Christ give them no place in his mystical Body in his Church and Kingdom And yet when he was upon Earth commanded the little Children to be brought unto him and took them into his Arms and blessed them declaring that such did belong to his Kingdom of such is the kingdom of God Mark 13.14 If the Infants of Believers under the Gospel be not capable of the Grace signed and sealed then there will follow many sad unscriptural Consequences Then they belong not to the Church and Body of Christ they are in the same Case with the Children of Infidels left without as common and unclean This Principle mingles the holy Seed with the Heathens and renders the favours of the Gospel more narrow than those of the legal Covenant and the Christian Seed in much worse Circumstances than the Jewish Yea they would not only be without the Church but without the Covenant and so without Christ or any special relation to him So far without as are the Gentiles Dogs and Strangers While they are disputed out of the Covenant all well grounded hopes of their Justification and Salvation are disputed away dying in that State 'T is vain to recur to the secret Election of God for the grounds of this Hope Faith and Hope must be grounded upon some Word of God If God have excluded them from the Covenant of Salvation how shall we conclude that they belong to the Election of God And if the Case were so well may the Parents of dying Infants mourn over them as those that have no hope All those then are rash groundless uncharitable Conclusions highly derogatory to the Love of God to the infinite riches and freeness of his Grace But on the other hand if God and Christ have not excluded them from the Grace of Baptism the Mercy and Grace which is there signified who shall forbid Water the external sealing Application If God have not denied the greater who shall deny the less if God have not excluded them from the Substance and Mystery why shall they be denied the external Rite and Symbol Either then they must be highly uncharitable in denying Infants the Grace of Baptism and so leave them in an evil Case or else be very unjust in denying them the Seal where God grants them the substance Thirdly Let this serve to humble those that walk unworthy of this Priviledge of being baptized and thereby admitted into the fellowship of Christ's Religion initiated Members of his Church Can it seem a light thing in our Eyes that when God has passed by the greatest part of the World as strangers from his Family and Kingdom and hath left them under the Kingdom of Satan and taken us no better by Nature than they are to be his peculiar ones into Covenant with himself and to train us up under such heavenly Ordinances We should notwithstanding walk as Rebels and Enemies unto him like the unbaptized World Do we know into what a Covenant he hath taken us what he hath done for and expects from us What means then our Conversation so repugnant to our Profession Is it because we renounce the Covenant as being made when we understood it not If there be any such Apostates let them take their Course serve the God they have chosen But say what iniquity what ill is there in this Covenant of your Baptism what disadvantage have you met withal Or how or where do you hope to find better things than what are here exhibited and ensured Than for instance for God to be your Father Christ your Saviour the Spirit your Comforter than to have your Sins pardoned and remitted than to be adopted justified sanctified and every way comfortably provided for here and in the end eternally saved Do the Gods you have chosen to serve provide better things than these that you renounce Christ for their sake If you say God forbid you should so do you hope to be saved by him as well as any other then tell me seriously do you expect that Christ should stand bound to perform his Part of the Covenant and you left at liberty whether you discharge your part or no That he should love you and you hate him That he should be your God and you remain the Devil's Servants That he should provide Heaven for you and you
walk in the way that leads to Hell Be not deceived he hath sworn the contrary and hath heaped up Tribulation and Wrath for every Soul that doth Evil. For that Person more especially who though baptized hath profaned and made the Blood of the Covenant as an unholy Thing Fourthly Let the consideration of this great Priviledge excite us to a Holy Life to live as Men who are dead to Sin and alive unto God To make account that it ought to be as strange to see a baptized Person walk in a sinful Course as to see a Spectrum a walking Ghost at Noon-day We are buried with Christ in Baptism And how can we who are dead to Sin live any longer therein saith the Apostle So that we are or should be at least as it were dead and buried to Sin and that this may be the rather effected and brought to pass we must be mortified as to the World To this use the Apostle seems to apply the Argument of the Text in the following Chapter to call off Mens affections from earthly Things towards the Things that are above There is acted a kind of Similitude upon the baptized to the Burial and Resurrection of Christ And we profess in a spiritual Sense to be dead to the World and to be risen again to a more Noble and Divine Life so as to be above the World And 't is the Engagement of Baptism to be as it were dead and buried with respect to the Things here below Thus some interpret that of the 1 Cor. 15.29 where the Apostle arguing against the Atheists and Sadducees who denied the Resurrection and the hopes of Glory in another Life says What shall they do that are baptized 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for dead Men or as dead Men into a mortification of this World so as to run all Losses Dangers and Hazards for the Profession of Christ such would then be of all Men most miserable if things were so as the Sadducees and Atheists suggest But certainly there is a glorious state of eternal Life hereafter and therefore let us not be befooled with the Snares of earthly Vanities to neglect things Eternal Our Baptism engages us to live above the World to be dead to it to have mortified Affections to the things thereof The World indeed affords lawful comforts for the living and convenient resting Places for the dead but their Souls are above So should Christians be in the World use it as it doth administer to their necessities and conveniences but the Soul the affections should be above We are not dead Naturally and so there is need and there must be a using of the World but we must be dead spiritually to every thing in it that is matter of allurement and temptation to draw us aside from God and must be strangers to such immoderate cares and desires as drown multitudes of Men in Perdition Lastly Let this serve to comfort those whom God Honours so far as to bring them thus near unto himself as to adopt them into his Family and to take them for his own Let this encourage them to believe in him and to rely upon him for all the good things that he hath promised in the Covenant of Grace They of the Church of Rome as in some things they give and ascribe too much to Baptism making it to take away original Sin by the mere applying of the Ordinance so in other things they rob God's People of the comfortable use of it because they say when once we commit actual Sins after the susception of Baptism we make Ship-wrack of our Baptism and then Penance must be secunda tabula post naufragium the only Pinnace or Plank which we can safely catch hold of in this extremity But this blessed Sacrament is of a more durable and comfortable use even to be an Ark whereto 't is assimulated 1 Pet. 3.21 to carry us to Heaven 'T is not a business past and finished in the very Act of its Administration There are in it Promises of such Grace as we may still have need of and by its engaging us to Mortification and Holiness the most comprehensive Duties of Christianity we may experience it to be an Instrument of Grace throughout the whole transaction of our Lives That is when 't is from time to time improved and actuated by a sober Consideration and a serious Recognizing of the Baptismal Covenant and reflecting on the Terms and Conditions upon which we stand with God with respect to Justification and Glory And when the same is prest home by the conviction of the Spirit These things being premised we may readily Conclude what an effectual Instrument and Means it may prove of converting the Souls of Men and regenerating them long after the time of its reception So that Holy Baptism continues still to be altogether as effectual to apply the Blood of Christ for washing away of Sin upon true Repentance as when we first received it Know then that when ever we find our selves at a loss sensible of our undone Condition conscious of our Guilt and Bondage through Sin and so do fly by Faith unto Christ and our Conscience bears us Witness that we would fain Walk for the time to come according to the rule of the Covenant in Uprightness and Sincerity as often I say as we do this we may have recourse to our Baptism and plead it for our Comfort as we may plead the Rain-bow in great Inundations against the World's destruction by Water Thus upon the renewing of our Repentance and Faith in Christ Holy Baptism will be as an Ark to the Soul in all Cases of Relapse Desertion and Temptation For the like figure whereunto doth baptism also now save us saith the Apostle Which that it may so prove to every one of us and particularly to the Person that hath even now received it God of his infinite mercy Grant for Jesus Christ his sake To whom c. FINIS ERRATA PAge 5. line 19. read putting p. 12. l. 12. r. token p. 17. l. 18. r. Gentiles p. 18. l. 16. r. the Case p. 19. in marg r. Rodolpho p. 28. marg l. 30. r. Canon p. 31. marg l. 15. r. eâdem p. 33. l. 30. r. Independent p. 34. l. 32. blot out has p. 76. l. 20. blot out as p. 83. l. 13. r. not to be A Catalogue of Books Printed for and sold by John Taylor at the Ship in St. Paul's Church-yard POOL's Annotations on the Holy Bible in 2 Vol. The 4th Edition Much corrected Folio Philips's New World of Words or an Universal English Dictionary containing the Proper Significations and Derivations of all Words from other Languages c. 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