he fulfilled the Law making it up in full measures of the Spirit By these steps Baptism passed on to a divine Evangelical institution which we finde to be consigned by three Evangelists Goe ye therefore and teach all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost It was one of the last Commandements the Holy Jesus gave upon the earth when he taught his Apostles the things which concerned his kingdome For he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved but Unlesse a man be born of Water and the holy Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdome of Heaven agreeable to the decretory words of God by Abraham in the Circumcision to which Baptism does succeed in the consignation of the same Covenant and the same Spiritual Promises The uncircumcised child whose flesh is not circumcised that soul shall be cut off from his people he hath broken my Covenant The Manichees Seleucus Hermias and their followers people of a dayes abode and small Interest but of malicious doctrine taught Baptism not to be necessary not to be used upon this ground because they supposed that it was proper to Iohn to baptize with water and reserved for Christ as his peculiar to baptize with the holy Ghost and with fire Indeed Christ baptized none otherwise He sent his Spirit upon the Church in Pentecost and baptized them with fire the Spirit appearing like a flame but he appointed his Apostles to baptize with water and they did so and their successors after them every where and for ever not expounding but obeying the praeceptive words of their Lord which were almost the last that he spake upon earth And I cannot think it necessary to prove this to be necessary by any more Arguments For the words are so plain that they need no exposition and yet if they had been obscure the universal practise of the Apostles and the Church for ever is a sufficient declaration of the Commandement No Tradition is more universal no not of Scripture it self no words are plainer no not the Ten Commandements and if any suspicion can be superinduced by any zealous or lesse discerning person it will need no other refutation but to turn his eyes to those lights by which himself sees Scripture to be the Word of God and the Commandements to be the declaration of his Will But that which will be of greatest concernment in this affair is to consider the great benefits are conveyed to us in this Sacramnet for this will highly conclude That the Precept was for ever which God so seconds with his grace and mighty blessings and the susception of it necessary because we cannot be without those excellent things which are the graces of the Sacrament 1. The first fruit is That in Baptism we are admitted to the Kingdome of Christ presented unto him consigned with his Sacrament enter into his Militia give up our understandings and our choice to the obedience of Christ and in all senses that we can become his Disciples witnessing a good confession and undertaking a holy life and therefore in Scripture {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} are conjoyn'd in the significations as they are in the mystery it is a giving up our names to Christ and it is part of the foundation of the first Principles of the Religion as appears in S. Pauls Catechism it is so the first thing that it is for babes and Neophytes in which they are matriculated and adopted into the house of their Father and taken into the hands of their Mother Upon this account Baptism is called in antiquity Ecclesiae janua Porta gratiae primus introitus sanctorum ad aeternam Dei Ecclesiae consuetudinem The gates of the Church the door of Grace the first entrance of the Saints to an eternall conversation with God and the Church Sacramentum initiationis intrantium Christianismum investituram S Bernard calls it The Sacrament of initiation and the investiture of them that enter into the Religion and the person so entring is called {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} one of the Religion or a Proselyte and Convert and one added to the number of the Church in imitation of that of S. Luke {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} God added to the Church those that should be saved just as the Church does to this day and for ever baptizing Infants and Catechumens {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} they are added to the Church that they may be added to the Lord and the number of the inhabitants of Heaven 2. The next step beyond this is Adoption into the Covenant which is an immediate consequent of the first presentation this being the first act of man that the first act of God And this is called by S. Paul a being baptized in one spirit into one body that is we are made capable of the Communion of Saints the blessings of the faithful the priviledges of the Church by this we are as S. Luke calls it {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} ordained or disposed put into the order of eternal life being made members of the mystical body under Christ our Head 3. And therefore Baptism is a new birth by which we enter into the new world the new creation the blessings and spiritualties of the Kingdome and this is the expression which our Saviour himselfe used to Nicodemus Unlesse a man be born of Water and the Spirit and it is by S. Paul called {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} the laver of Regeneration for now we begin to be reckoned in a new Census or account God is become our Father Christ our elder Brother the Spirit the earnest of our inheritance the Church our Mother our food is the body and blood of our Lord Faith is our learning Religion our imployment and our whole life is spiritual and Heaven the object of our Hopes and the mighty price of our high Calling And from this time forward we have a new principle put into us the Spirit of Grace which besides our soul and body is a principle of action of one nature and shall with them enter into the portion of our inherirance And therefore the Primitive Christians who consigned all their affairs and goods and writings with some marks of their Lord usually writing {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Iesus Christ the Son of God our Saviour they made an abbreviature by writing onely the Capitals thus {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} which the Heathens in mockery and derision made {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} which signifies a Fish and they used it for Christ as a name of reproach but the Christians owned the name and turned it into a pious Metaphor and were content that they
their spirituall life It is a grace which by vertue of the Covenant consign'd in Baptism does like a Centre transmit effluxes to all the periods and portion of our life our whole life all the periods of our succeeding hopes are kept alive by this This consideration is of great use besides many other things to reprove the folly of those who in the Primitive Church deferr'd their Baptism till their death-bed Because Baptism is a laver of sanctification and drowns all our sins and buries them in the grave of our Lord they thought they might sin securely upon the stock of an after-Baptism for unlesse they were strangely prevented by a sudden accident a death-bed Baptism they thought would secure their condition but early some of them durst not take it much lesse in the beginning of their years that they might at least gain impunity for their follies and heats of their youth Baptisme hath influence into the pardon of all our sins committed in all the dayes of our folly and infirmity and so long as we have not been baptized so long we are out of the state of pardon and therefore an early Baptism is not to be avoided upon this mistaken fancy and plot upon Heaven it is the greater security towards the pardon of our sins if we have taken it in the beginning of our dayes 5. The next benefit of Baptism which is also a verification of this is a sanctification of the baptized person by the Spirit of Grace Sanctus in hunc coelo descendit spiritus amnem Coelestique sacras fonte maritat aquas Concipit unda Deum sanctámque liquoribus almis Edit ab aeterno semine progeniem The holy Ghost descends upon the waters of Baptism and makes them prolificall apt to produce children unto God and therefore Saint Leo compares the Font of Baptism to the Womb of the blessed Virgin when it was replenished with the holy Spirit And this is the Baptism of our dearest Lord his ministers baptize with water our Lord at the same time verifies their Ministery with giving the holy Spirit They are joyned together by S. Paul We are by one Spirit baptized into one body that is admitted into the Church by Baptism of Water and the Spirit This is that which our blessed Lord calls a being born of Water and of the Spirit by Water we are sacramentally dead and buried by the Spirit we are made alive But because these are mysterious expressions and according to the style of Scriture high and secret in spiritual significations therefore that we may understand what these things signifie we must consider it by its real effects and what it produces upon the Soule of a man 1. It is the suppletory of originall Righteousnesse by which Adam was at first gracious with God and which he lost by his prevarication It was in him a principle of wisdome and obedience a relation between God and himself a title to the extraordinary mercies of God and a state of friendship when he fell he was discomposed in all the links of the golden chain and blessed relation were broken and it so continued in the whole life of man which was stained with the evils of this folly and the consequent mischiefs and therefore when we began the world again entring into the Articles of a new life God gave us his Spirit to be an instrument of our becoming gracious persons and of being in a condition of obtaining that supernatural end which God at first designed to us And therefore as our Baptism is a separation of us from unbelieving people so the descent of the holy Spirit upon us in our Baptism is a consigning or marking us for God as the sheep of his pasture as the souldiers of his Army as the servants of his houshold we are so separated from the world that we are appropriated to God so that God expects of us duty and obedience and all sins are acts of rebellion and undutifulnesse Of this nature was the sanctification of Jeremy and Iohn the Baptist from their mothers womb that is God took them to his own service by an early designation and his Spirit mark'd them to a holy Ministery To this also relates that of S. Paul whom God by a decree separated from his mothers womb to the Ministery of the Gospel the decree did antedate the act of the Spirit which did not descend upon him untill the day of his Baptism What these persons were in order to exterior Ministeries that all the faithful are in order to faith and obedience consigned in Baptism by the Spirit of God to a perpetual relation to God in a continual service and title to his Promises And in this sense the Spirit of God is called {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} * a seal in whom also after that ye believed ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of Promise {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} The Water washes the body and the Spirit seals the soul viz. to a participation of those Promises which he hath made and to which we receive a title to our Baptism 2. The second effect of the Spirit is Light or Illuminations that is the holy Spirit becomes unto us the Authour of holy thoughts and firm perswasions and sets to his seal that the Word of God is true into the beliefe of which we are then baptized and makes Faith to be a grace and the Understanding resigned and the Will confident and the Assent stronger then the promises and the propositions to be believed because they are belov'd and we are taught the ways of godlinesse after a new manner that is we are made to perceive the secrets of the Kingdome and to love Religion and to long for heaven and heavenly things and to despise the world and to have new resolutions and new preceptions and new delicacies in order to the establishment of Faith and its increment and perseverance {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} God sits in the soul when it is illuminated in Baptism as if he sate in his Throne that is he rules by a firm perswasion and intire principles of obedience And therefore Baptism is called in Scripture {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and the baptized {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} illuminated Call to minde the former days in which ye were illuminated and the same phrase is in the 6 to the Hebrewes where the parallel places expound each other For that which S. Paul calls {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} once illuminated he calls after {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} a receiving the knowledge of the truth and that you may perceive this to be wholly meant of Baptism the Apostle expresses it still by its Synonymas Tasting of the heavenly gift and made partakers of the holy Ghost sprinkled in our hearts from an evill conscience and washed in our bodies with pure water All which also are a syllabus or collection of the severall effects of the graces bestowed in Baptism But we are now instancing in that which relates most properly to the understanding in which respect the holy Spirit also is called anointing or unction and the mystery is explicated by S. Iohn The
anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you and ye need not that any man teach you but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things 3. The holy Spirit descends upon us in Baptism to become the principle of a new life to become a holy seed springing up to holinesse and is called by S. Iohn {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} the seed of God and the purpose of it we are taught by him Whosoever is born of God that is he that is regenerated and entred into this new birth doth not commit sin for his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God The Spirit of God is the Spirit of life and now that he by the Spirit is born anew he hath in him that principle which if it be cherished will grow up to life to life eternall And this is the Spirit of Sanctification the victory of the world the deletery of concupiscence the life of the soul and the perpetual principle of grace sown in our spirits in the day of our adoption to be the sons of God and members of Christs body But take this mystery in the words of S. Basil There are two ends proposed in Baptism to wit to abolish the body of sin that we may no more bring forth fruit unto death and to live in the Spirit and to have our fruit to Sanctification The water represents the image of death receiving the body in its bosome as in a sepulchre But the quickning Spirit sends upon us a vigorous {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} power or efficacy even from the beginning renewing our souls from the death of sin unto life For as our mortification is perfected in the water so the Spirit works life in us To this purpose is the discourse of S. Paul having largely discoursed of our being baptized into the death of Christ he addes this as the Corollary of all He that is dead is freed from sin * that is being mortified and buried in the waters of Baptism we have a new life of righteousnesse put into us we are quitted from the dominion of sin and are planted together in the likenesse of Christs Resurrection that henceforth we should not serve sin 4. But all these intermediall blessings tend to a glorious Conclusion for Baptism does also consign us to a holy Resurrection it takes the sting of death from us by burying us together with Christ and takes off sin which is the sting of death and then we shall be partakers of a blessed Resurrection This we are taught by Saul Know ye not that so many of us as are baptized into Iesus Christ were baptized into his death For if we have been planted together in the likenesse of his death we shall be also in the likenesse of his resurrection That declares the real event in its due season But because Baptism consigns it and admits us to a title to it we are said with S. Paul to be risen with Christ in Baptism buried with him in Baptism wherein also you are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God which hath raised him from the dead which expression I desire to be remembred that by it we may better understand those other sayings of the Apostle of putting on Christ in Baptism putting on the new man c. for these onely signifie {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} or the design on Gods part and the endevour and duty on mans we are then consigned to our duty and to our reward we undertake one and have a title to the other and though men of ripeness and reason enter instantly into their portion of work and have present use of the assistances and something of their reward in hand yet we cannot conclude that those that cannot do it presently are not baptized rightly because they are not in capacity to put on the new man in righteousnesse that is in an actual holy life for they may put on the new man in Baptism just as they are risen with Christ which because it may be done by faith before it is done in real event and it may be done by Sacrament and design before it be done by a proper faith so also may our putting on the new man be It is done sacramentally and that part which is wholly the work of God does onely antedate the work of man which is to succeed in its due time and is after the manner of preventing grace but this is by the by In order to the present article Baptism is by Theodoret called {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} a participation of the Lords Resurrection 5. And lastly by Baptism we are saved that is we are brought from death to life here and that is the first Resurrection and we are bought from death to life hereafter by vertue of the Covenant of the state of Grace into which in Baptism we enter and are preserved from the second death and receive a glorious and an eternal life He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved said our blessed Saviour and according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the holy Ghost After these great blessings so plainly testified in Scripture and the Doctrine of the Primitive Church which are regularly consigned add bestowed in Baptism I shall lesse need to descend to temporal blessings or rare contingencies or miraculous events or probable notices of things lesse certain of this nature are those stories recorded in the writings of the Church that Constantine was cured of a Leprosie in Baptism Theodosius recovered of his disease being baptized by the Bishop of Thessalonica and a paralytick Jew was cured as soon as he became a Christian and was baptized by Atticus of C. P. and Bishop Arnulph baptizing a Leper also cured him said Vincentius Bellovacensis It is more considerable which is generally and piously believed by very many eminent persons in the Church That at our Baptism God assigns an Angel Guardian for then the Catechumen being made a Servant and a Brother to the Lord of Angels is sure not to want the aids of them who pitch their tents round about them that fear the Lord and that this guard and mininistery is then appointed when themselves are admitted into the inheritance of the Promises and their title to Salvation is hugely agreeable to the words of S. Paul Are they not all ministring spirits sent forth to minister to them who shall be heirs of salvation where it appears that the title to the inheritance is the title to this ministery and therefore must begin
the Will alwayes concurring the Will followed Reason and Reason followed the Laws of God and so long as a man had not lost this he was pleasing to God and should have passed to a more perfect state Now because this if Adam had stood should have been born with every childe there was in Infants a principle which was the seed of holy life here and a blessed hereafter and yet the children should have gone in the road of nature then as well as now and the Spirit should have operated at natures leisure God being the giver of both would have made them instrumental to and perfective of each other but not destructive Now what was lost by Adam is restored by Christ the same Righteousnesse onely it is not born but superinduc'd not integral but interrupted but such as it is there is no difference but that the same or the like principle may be derived to us from Christ as there should have been from Adam that is a principle of obedience a regularity of faculties a beauty in the soul and a state of acceptation with God And we see also in men of understanding and reason the Spirit of God dwells in them which Tatianus describing uses these words {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} The soul is possessed with sparks or materials of the power of the spirit and yet it is sometimes ineffective and unactive sometimes more sometimes lesse and does no more doe its work at all times then the soul does at all times understand Adde to this That if there be in Infants naturally an evill principle a proclivity to sin an ignorance and pravity of minde a disorder of affections as experience teaches us there is and the perpetual doctrine of the Church and the universal mischiefs issuing from mankinde and the sinne of every man does witnesse too much why cannot Infants have a good principle in them though it works not till its own season as well as an evill principle If there were not by nature some evill principle it is not possible that all the world should choose sin In free agents it was never heard that all individuals loved and chose the same thing to which they were not naturally inclined Neither doe all men choose to marry neither doe all choose to abstain and in this instance there is a natural incclination to one part but of all the men and women in the world there is no one that hath never sinned If we say that we have no sin we deceive our selves and the truth is not in us said an Apostle If therefore nature hath in Infants an evill principle which operates when the childe can choose but is all the while within the sou either Infants have by grace a principle put into them or else sin abounds where grace does not superabound expressely against the doctrine of the Apostle The event of this discourse is that if Infants be capable of the Spirit of grace there is no reason but they may and ought to be baptized as well as men and women unlesse God had expressely forbidden them which cannot be pretended that Infants are capable of the Spirit of grace I think it made very credible Christus infantibus infans factus sanctificans infantes said Irenaeus Christ became an Infant among the Infants and does sanctify Infants and S. Cyprian affirms Esse apud omnes sive infantes sive majores natu unam divini muneris aequitatem There is the same dispensation of the divine grace to all alike to Infants as well as to men And in this Royall Priesthood as it is in the secular Kings may be anointed in their Cradles Dat Deus sui Spiritus occultissimam gratiam quam etiam latentèr infundit in parvulis God gives the most secret grace of his Spirit which he also secretly infuses into Infants And if a secret infusion be rejected because it cannot he proved at the place and at the instant many men that hope for heaven will be very much to seek for a proof of their earnest and need an earnest of the earnest For all that have the Spirit of God cannot in all instants prove it or certainly know it neither is it yet defined by how many indices the Spirits presence can be proved or signified And they limit the Spirit too much and understand it too little who take accounts of his secret workings and measure them by the material lines and methods of natural and animal effects And yet because whatsoever is holy is made so by the holy Spirit we are certain that the children of believing that is of Christian parents are holy S. Paul affirmed it and by it hath distinguished ours from the children of unbelievers and our marriages from theirs and because the children of the Heathen when they come to choice and reason may enter to Baptism and the Covenant if they will our children have no priviledge beyond the children of Turks or Heathens unlesse it be in the present capacity that is either by receiving the holy Ghost immediately and the Promises or at least having a title to the Sacrament and entring by that door If they have the Spirit nothing can hinder them from a title to the water and if they have onely a title to the water of the Sacrament then they shall receive the Promise of the holy Spirit the benefits of the Sacrament else their priviledge is none at all but a dish of cold water which every village nurse can provide for her new-born babe But it is in our case as it was with the Jews children our children are a holy seed for if it were not so with Christianity how could S. Peter move the Jews to Christianity by telling them the Promise was to them and their children For if our children be not capable of the Spirit of Promise and Holiness and yet their children were holy it had been a better Argument to have kept them in the Synagogue then to have called them to the Christian Church Either therefore 1. there is some holiness in a reasonable nature which is not from the Spirit of holiness or else 2. our children do receive the holy Spirit because they are holy or if they be not holy they are in worse condition under Christ then under Moses or if none of all this be true then our children are holy by having received the holy Spirit of Promise and consequently nothing can hinder them from being baptized And indeed if the Christian Jews whose children are circumcised and made partakers of the same Promises and Title and Inheritance and Sacraments which themselves had at their conversion to the faith of Christ had seen their children now shut out from these new Sacraments it is not to be doubted but they would have raised a storm greater then could easily have been suppressed since about their Circumcisions they had raised such Tragedies and implacable disputations and there had been great reason to look
for a storm for their children were circumcised and if not baptized then they were left under a burthen which their fathers were quit of for S. Paul said unto you Whosoever is circumcised is a debtor to keep the whole Law These children therefore that were circumcised stood obliged for want of Baptism to perform the Laws of Ceremonies to be presented into the Temple to pay their price to be redeemed with silver and gold to be bound by the Law of pollutions and carnal ordinances and therefore if they had been thus left it would be no wonder if the Jews had complained and made a tumult they used to do it for less matters To which let this be added That the first book of the New Testament was not written till eight years after Christs Ascension and S. Marks Gospel twelve years In the mean time to what Scriptures did they appeal by the analogy or proportion of what writings did they end their Questions whence did they prove their Articles They onely appealed to the Old Testament and onely added what their Lord superadded Now either it must be said that our blessed Lord commanded that Infants should not be baptized which is no where pretended and if it were cannot at all be proved or if by the proportion of Scriptures they did serve God and preach the Religion it is plain that by the Analogy of the Old Testament that is of those Scriptures by which they proved Christ to be come and to have suffered they also approved the Baptism of Infants or the admitting them to the society of the faithful Jews of which also the Church did then principally consist 7. That Baptism which consigns men and women to a blessed Resurrection doth also equally consign Infants to it hath nothing that I know of pretended against it there being the same signature and the same grace and in this thing all being alike passive and we no way cooperating to the consignation and promise of grace and Infants have an equall necessity as being lyable to sickness and groaning with as sad accents and dying sooner then men and women and less able to complain and more apt to be pityed and broken with the unhappy consequents of a short life and a speedy death infelicitate priscorum hominum with the infelicity and folly of their first Parents and therefore have as great need as any and that is capacity enough to receive a remedy for the evil which was brought upon them by the fault of another 8. And after all this if Baptism be that means which God hath appointed to save us it were well if we would do our parts towards Infants final interest which whether it depends upon the Sacrament and its proper grace we have nothing to relye upon but those Texts of Scripture which make Baptism the ordinary way of entring into the state of salvation save onely we are to adde this that because of this law Infants are not personally capable but the Church for them as for all others indefinitely we have reason to believe that their friends neglect shall by some way be supplyed but Hope hath in it nothing beyond a Probability This we may be certain of that naturally we cannot be heirs of Salvation for by nature we are children of wrath and therefore an eternal separation from God is an infallible consequent to our evil nature either therefore children must be put into the state of grace or they shall dwell for ever where Gods face does never shine Now there are but two wayes of being put into the state of grace and salvation the inward by the Spirit and the outward by Water which regularly are together If they be renewed by the Spirit what hinders them to be baptized who receive the holy Ghost as well as we If they are not capable of the Spirit they are capable of Water and if of neither where is their title to heaven which is neither internal nor external neither spiritual nor sacramental neither secret nor manifest neither natural nor gracious neither original nor derivative And well may we lament the death of poor babes that are {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} concerning whom if we neglect what is regularly prescribed to all that enter heaven without any difference expressed or case reserved we have no reason to be comforted over our dead children but may weep as they that have no hope We may hope when our neglect was not the hinderance because God hath wholly taken the matter into his own hand and then it cannot miscarry and though we know nothing of the children yet we know much of Gods goodness But when God hath permitted it to us that is offered and permitted children to our ministery whatever happens to the Innocents we may well fear left God will require the souls at our hands and we cannot be otherwise secure but that it will be said concerning our children which S. Ambrose used in a case like this Anima illa potuit salva fieri si habuisset purgationem This soul might have gone to God if it had been purified and washed We know God is good infinitely good but we know it is not at all good to tempt his goodness and he tempts him that leaves the usual way and pretends it is not made for him and yet hopes to be at his journeys end or expects to meet his childe in heaven when himself shuts the door against him which for ought he knows is the onely one that stands open S. Austin was severe in this Question against unbaptized Infants therefore he is called durus Pater Infantium though I know not why the original of that opinion should be attributed to him since S. Ambrose said the same before him as appears in his words above quoted in the margent And now that I have enumerated the blessings which are consequent to Baptism and have also made apparent That Infants can receive these blessings I suppose I need not use any other perswasions to bring children to Baptism If it be certain they may receive these good things by it it is certain they are not to be hindred of them without the greatest impiety and sacriledge and uncharitableness in the world Nay if it be onely probable that they receive these blessings or if it be but possible they may nay unless it be impossible they should and so declared by revelation or demonstratively certain it were intolerable unkindness and injustice to our pretty innocents to let their crying be unpityed and their natural misery eternally irremediable and their sorrows without remedy and their souls no more capable of relief then their bodies of Physick and their death left with the sting in and their Souls without Spirits to go to God and no Angel guardian to be assigned them in the Assemblies of the faithful and they not to be reckoned in the accounts of God and Gods Church All these are sad stories There are in