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 unless they were strangely preventedly a sudden accident a death-bed Baptism they thought would secure their condition but early some of them durst not take it much less in the beginning of their years that they might at least gain impunity for their follies and heats of their youth Baptism 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 sanctumque liquoribus almis Edit ab aeterno semine progeniem The holy Ghost descends upon the waters of Baptism and makes them prolifical 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 sacramently dead and buried by the Spirit we are made alive But because these are mysterious expressions and according to the style of Scripture 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 Soul of a man 1. It is the suppletory of original Righteousness 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 undutifulness Of this nature was the sanctification of Jeremy and John 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 until 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 Illumination that is the holy Spirit becomes unto us the Author of holy thoughts and firm perswasions and fets to his seal that the Word of God is true into the belief 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 premises and the propositions to be believed because they are belov'd and we are taught the wayes of godliness 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 perceptions 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 dayes in which ye were illuminated and the same phrase is in the 6. to the Hebrews 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 evil conscience and washed in our bodies with pure water All which also are a syllabus or collection of the several
For Baptism is a state of Repentance and pardon for ever This I suppose to be already proved to which I onely adde this Caution That the Pelagians to undervalue the necessity of supervening grace affirmed That Baptism did minister to us grace sufficient to live perfectly and without sin for ever Against this S. Jerome sharply declaims and affirms a Baptismum praeterita donare peccata non futuram servare justitiam that is non statim justum facit omni plenum justitiâ as he expounds his meaning in another place Vetera peccata conscindit novas virtutes non tribuit dimittit à carcere dimisso si laboraverit praemia pollicetur Baptism does not so forgive future sins that we may do what we please or so as we need not labour and watch and fear perpetually and make use of Gods grace to actuate our endevours but puts us into a state of pardon that is in a Covenant of Grace in which so long as we labour and repent and strive to do our duty so long our infirmities are pityed and our sins certain to be pardoned upon their certain conditions that is by virtue of it we are capable of pardon and must work for it and may hope it And therefore Infants have a most certain capacity and proper disposition to Baptism for sin creeps before it can go and little undecencies are soon learned and malice is before their years and they can do mischief and irregularities betimes and though we know not when nor how far they are imputed in every moneth of their lives yet it is an admirable art of the Spirit of grace to put them into a state of pardon that their remedy may at least be as soon as their necessity And therefore Tertullian and Gregory Nazianzen advised the Baptism of children to be at three or four years of age meaning that they then begining to have little inadvertencies hasty follies and actions so evil as did need a lavatory But if Baptism hath an influence upon sins in the succeeding portions of our life then it is certain that their being presently innocent does not hinder and ought not to retard the Sacrament and therefore Tertullian's Quid festinat innocens aetas ad remissionem peccatorum what need Innocents hasten to the remission of sins is soon answered It is true they need not in respect of any actual sins for so they are innocent but in respect of the evils of their nature derived from their original and in respect of future sins in the whole state of their life it is necessary they be put into a state of pardon before they sin because some sin early some sin later and therefore unless they be baptized so early as to prevent the first sins they may chance dye in a sin to the pardon of which they have yet derived no title from Christ 6. The next great effect of Baptism which children can have is the Spirit of Sanctification and if they can be baptized with Water and the Spirit it will be sacriledge to rob them of so holy treasures And concerning this although it be with them as S. Paul sayes of Heirs The heir so long as he is a childe differeth nothing from a servant though he be lord of all and children although they receive the Spirit of Promise and the Spirit of Grace yet in respect of actual exercise they differ not from them that have them not at all yet this hindres not but they may have them For as the reasonable soul and all its faculties are in children Will and Vnderstanding Passions and Powers of Attraction and Propulsion yet these faculties do not operate or come abroad till time and art observation and experience have drawn them forth into action so may the Spirit of Grace the principle of Christian life be infused and yet lye without action till in its own day it is drawn forth For in every Christian there are three parts concurring to his integral constitution Body and Soul and Spirit and all these have their proper activities and times but every one in his own order first that which is natural then that which is spiritual And as Aristotle said A man first lives the life of a plant then of a beast and lastly of a man is true in this sense and the more spiritual the principle is the longer it is before it operates because more things concur to spiritual actions then to natural and these are necessary and therefore first the other are perfect and therefore last And who is he that so well understands the Philosophy of this third principle of a Christians life the Spirit as to know how or when it is infused and how it operates in all its periods and what it is in its beeing and proper nature and whether it be like the soul or like the faculty or like a habit or how or to what purposes God in all varieties does dispense it These are secrets which none but bold people use to decree and build propositions upon their own dreams That which is certain is that The Spirit is the principle of a new life or a new birth That Baptism is the laver of this new birth That it is the seed of God and may lye long in the furrows before it springs up That from the faculty to the act the passage is not alwayes sudden and quick That the Spirit is the earnest of our inheritance that is of Resurrection to eternal life which inheritance because children we hope shal have they cannot be denied to have its Seal and Earnest that is if they shall have all they are not to be denyed a part That children have some effects of the Spirit and therefore do receive it and are baptized with the Spirit and therefore may with Water which thing is therefore true and evident because some children are sanctified as Jeremy and the Baptist and therefore all may And because all signification of persons is an effect of the holy Ghost there is no peradventure but they that can be sanctified by God can in that capacity receive the holy Ghost and all the ground of dissenting here is onely upon a mistake because Infants do no act of holiness they suppose them incapable of the grace of Sanctification Now Sanctification of children is their adoption to the inheritance of sons their presentation to Christ their consignation to Christs service and to Resurrection their being put into a possibility of being saved their restitution to Gods favour which naturally that is as our nature is depraved and punished they could not have And in short the case is this Original Righteousness was in Adam after the manner of nature but it was an act or effect of grace and by it men were not made but born righteous the inferior faculties obeyed the superior the minde was whole and right and conformable to the Divine Image the Reason and the Will alwayes concurring the Will
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 Go 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 Commandments 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 Vnless 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 childe 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 John 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 Commandment No Tradition is more universal no not of Scripture it self no words are plainer no not the Ten Commandments and if any suspicion can be superinduced by any jealous or less 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 Commandments 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 Sacrament 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 or 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 eternal 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 spiritualities of the Kingdome and this is the expression which our Saviour himself used to Nicodemus Vnless 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 inhetance 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 inheritance 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 it 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 should
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 Righteousness 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 less and does no more do its work at all times then the soul does at all times understand Adde to this That if there be in Infants naturally an evil 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 sin of every man does witness too much why cannot Infants have a good principle in them though it works not till its own season as well as an evil principle If there were not by nature some evil 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 do all men choose to marry neither do all choose to abstain and in this instance there is a natural inclination 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 evil principle which operates when the childe can choose but is all the while within the soul either Infants have by grace a principle put into them or else sin abounds where grace does not superabound expresly 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 unless God had expresly forbidden them which cannot be pretended and that Infants are capable of the Spirit of grace I think is made very credible Christus infantibus infans factus sanctificans infantes said Irenaeus Christ became an Infant among the Infants and does sanctifie 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 Royal 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 be 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 privilege beyond the children of Turks or Heathens unless 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 privilege 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 lest 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 Scripture very many other probabilities to
perswade the Baptism of Infants but because the places admit of divers interpretations the Arguments have so many diminutions and the certainty that is in them is too fine for easie understandings I have chosen to build the ancient doctrines upon such principles which are more easie and certain and have not been yet sullied and rifled with the contentions of an adversary This onely I shall observe That the words of our blessed Lord Vnless a man be born of Water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdome of heaven cannot be expounded to the exclusion of children but the same expositions will also make Baptism not necessary for men for if they be both necessary ingredients Water and the Spirit then let us provide water and God will provide the Spirit if we bring wood to the Sacrifice he will provide a Lamb And if they signifie distinctly one is ordinarily as necessary as the other and then Infants must be baptized or not be saved But if one be exegetical and explicative of the other and by Water and the Spirit is meant onely the purification of the Spirit then where is the necessity of Baptism for men It will be as the other Sacrament at most but highly convenient not simply necessary and all the other places will easily be answered if this be avoided But however these words being spoken in so decretory a manner are to be used with fear and reverence and we must be infallibly sure by some certain infallible arguments that Infants ought not to be baptized or we ought to fear concerning the effect of these decretory words I shall onely adde two things by way of Corollary to this Discourse That the Church of God ever since her numbers are full have for very many ages consisted almost wholly of Assemblies of them who have been baptized in their Infancy and although in the first callings of the Gentiles the chiefest and most frequent Baptisms were of converted and repenting persons and believers yet from the beginning also the Church hath baptized the Infants of Christian Parents according to the Prophecy of Isaiah Behold I will lift up my hands to the Gentiles and set up a standard to the people and they shall bring thy sons in their arms and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders Concerning which I shall not onely bring the testimonies of the matter of fact but either a report of an Apostolical Tradition or some Argument from the Fathers which will make their testimony more effectuall in all that shall relate to the Question The Author of the book of Ecclesiastical Hierarchy attributed to S. Denis the Areopagite takes notice that certain unholy persons and enemies to the Christian Religion think it a ridiculous thing that Infants who as yet cannot understand the Divine Mysteries should be partakers of the Sacraments and that professions and abrenunciations should be made by others for them and in their names He answers that Holy men Governors of Churches have so taught having received a Tradition from their Fathers and Elders in Christ by which answer of his as it appears that he himself was later then the Areopagite so it is so early by him affirmed that even then there was an ancient Tradition for the Baptism of Infants and the use of Godfathers in the ministery of the Sacrament Concerning which it having been so ancient a Constitution of the Church it were well if men would rather humbly and modestly observe then like scorners deride it in which they shew their own folly as well as immodesty For what undecency or incongruity is it that our parents natural or spiritual should stipulate for us when it is agreeable to the practise of all the laws and transactions of the world an effect of the Communion of Saints and of Christian Oeconomy For why may not Infants be stipulated for as well as we all were included in the stipulation made with Adam he made a losing bargain for himself and we smarted for his folly and if the faults of Parents and Kings and relatives do bring evil upon their children and subjects and correlatives it is but equal that our children may have benefit also by our charity and piety But concerning making an agreement for them we finde that God was confident concerning Abraham that he would teach his children and there is no doubt but Parents have great power by strict education and prudent discipline to efform the mindes of their children to vertue Joshua did expresly undertake for his houshold I and my house will serve the Lord and for children we may better do it because till they are of perfect choice no Government in the world is so great as that of Parents over their children in that which can concern the parts of this Question for they rule over their understandings and children know nothing but what they are told and they believe it infinitely and it is a rare art of the Spirit to engage Parents to bring them up well in the nurture and admonition of the Lord they are persons obliged by a superinduced band they are to give them instructions and holy principles as they give them meat and it is certain that Parents may better stipulate for their children then the Church can for men and women for they may be present Impostors and Hypocrites as the Church story tells of some and consequently are {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} not really converted and ineffectively baptized and the next day they may change their resolution and grow weary of their Vow and that is the most that children can do when they come to age and it is very much in the Parents whether the children shall do any such thing or no purus insons Vt me collaudem si vivo carus amicis Causa fuit Pater his Ipse mihi custos incorruptissimus omnes Circum Doctores aderat quid multa pudicum Qui primus virtutis bonos servavit ab omni Non solùm facto verum opprobrio quoque turpi oh hoc nunc Laus illi debetur à me gratia major Horat. For Education can introduce a habit and a second nature against which children cannot kick unless they do some violence to themselves and their inclinations And although it fails too often when ever it fails yet we pronounce prudently concerning future things when we have a less influence into the event then in the present case and therefore are more unapt persons to stipulate and less reason in the thing it self and therefore have not so much reason to be confident Is not the greatest prudence of Generals instanced in their foreseeing future events and guessing at the designs of their enemies concerning which they have less reason to be confident then Parents of their childrens belief of the Christian Creed To which I adde this consideration That Parents or Godfathers may therefore safely and prudently promise that their children shall be
on this though it seems to me hugely probable All these blessings put into one syllabus have given to Baptism many honorable appellatives in Scripture and other divine Writers calling it {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Sacramentum vitae aeternae salutis A new birth a regeneration a renovation a charet carrying us to God the great Circumcision a Circumcision made without hands the Key of the Kingdome the Paranymph of the Kingdome the earnest of our inheritance the answer of a good Conscience the robe of light the Sacrament of a new life and of eternal salvation {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} This is coelestial water springing from the sides of the Rock upon the which the Church was built when the Rock was smitten with the Rod of God It remains now that we inquire what concerns our duty and in what persons or in what dispositions Baptism produces all these glorious effects For the Sacraments of the Church work in the vertue of Christ but yet onely upon such as are servants of Christ and hinder not the work of the Spirit of grace For the water of the Font and the Spirit of the Sacrament are indeed to wash away our sins and to purifie our souls but not unless we have a minde to be purified The Sacrament works pardon for them that hate their sin and procures grace for them that love it They that are guilty of sins must repent of them and renounce them and they must make a profession of the faith of Christ and give or be given up to the obedience of Christ and then they are rightly disposed He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved saith Christ and S. Peter call'd out to the whole assembly Repent and be baptized every one of you Concerning this Justin Martyr gives the same account of the faith and practise of the Church {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} c. Whosoever are perswaded and believe those things to be true which are delivered and spoken by us and undertake to live accordingly they are commanded to fast and pray and to ask of God remission of their former sins we also praying together with them and fasting Then they are brought to us where water is and are regenerated in the same manner of regeneration by which we our selves are regenerated For in Baptism S. Peter observes there are two parts the body and the spirit that is {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} the putting away the filth of the flesh that is the material washing and this is Baptism no otherwise then a dead corps is a man the other is {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} the answer of a good conscience towards God that is the conversion of the soul to God that 's the effective disposition in which Baptism does save us And in the same sense are those sayings of the Primitive Doctors to be understood Anima non lavatione sed responsione sancitur The soul is not healed by washing viz. alone but by the answer the {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} in S. Peter the correspondent of our part of the Covenant for that 's the perfect sense of this unusual expression And the effect is attributed to this and denied to the other when they are distinguished So Justin Martyr affirms the onely Baptism that can heal us is Repentance and the knowledge of God For what need is there of that Baptism that can onely cleanse the flesh and the body Be washed in your flesh from wrath and covetousness from envy and hatred and behold the body is pure And Clemens Alexandrinus upon the Proverbial saying {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} be not pure in the laver but in the minde addes I suppose that an exact and a firm repentance is a sufficient purification to a man if judging and considering our selves for the facts we have done before we proceed to that which is before us considering that which follows and cleansing or washing our minde from sensual affections and from former sins Just as we use to deny the effect to the instrumental cause and attribute it to the principal in the manner of speaking when our purpose is to affirm this to be the principal and of chief influence So we say It is not the good Lute but the skilful hand that makes the musick It is not the body but the soul that is the man and yet he is not the man without both For Baptism is but the material part in the Sacrament it is the Spirit that giveth life whose work is faith and repentance begun by himself without the Sacrament and consigned in the Sacrament and actuated and increased in the cooperation of our whole life and therefore Baptism is called in the Jerusalem Creed {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} one Baptism of repentance for the remission of sins and by Justin Martyr {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} The Baptism of Repentance and the knowledge of God which was made for the sins of the people of God He explains himself a little after {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Baptism that can onely cleanse them that are penitent In sacramentis Trinitati occurrit Fides credentium professio quae apud acta conficitur Angelorum ubi miscentur coelestia spiritualia semina ut sancto germine nova possit renascentium indoles procreari ut dum Trinitas cum fide concordat qui natus fuerit saeculo renascatur spiritualitèr Deo Sic fit hominum Pater Deus sancta sit Mater ecclesia said Optatus The faith and profession of the Believers meets with the ever-blessed Trinity and is recorded in the Register of Angels where heavenly and spiritual seeds are mingled that from so holy a Spring may be produced a new nature of the regeneration that while the Trinity viz. that is invocated upon the baptized meets with the faith of the Catechumen he that was born to the world may be born spiritually to God So God is made a Father to the man and the holy Church a Mother Faith and Repentance strip the old man naked and make him fit for Baptism and then the holy Spirit moving upon the waters cleanses the soul and makes it to put on the new man who grows up to perfection and a spititual life to a life of glory by our verification of the undertaking in Baptism on our part and the graces of the Spirit on the other For the waters pierce no further then the skin till the person puts off his affection to the sin that he hath contracted and then he may say Aquae intraverunt usque ad animam meam The waters are entred even unto my soul to purifie and cleanse it by the washing of water and the renewing by the holy Spirit The sum is this {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} being baptized we are illuminated