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
benefit which belongs to the remission of sins 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. Ierome sharply declaims and affirms a Baptismum praeterita donare â—â—ccata non futuram servare justitiam that is non statim juâ—tum 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 doe 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 doe 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 capaciry and proper disposition to Baptism for sin creeps before it can go and little undecencies are soon learned and malice is before their yeers 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 yeers of age meaning that they then beginning 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 remissiionem 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 unlesse 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 hinders not but they may have them For as the reasonahle soul and all its faculties are in children Will and Understanding Passions and Powers of Attraction and Propulsion yet these faculties doe 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 naturall 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 being 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 Baptisme 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 shall 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 Ieremy 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 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
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
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
{non-Roman} {non-Roman} being baptized we are illuminated being illuminated we are adopted to the inheritance of sons being adopted we are promoted towards perfection and being perfected we are made immortal Quisquis in hos fontes vir venerit exeat inde Semideus tactis citò nobilitetur in undis This is the whole Doctrine of Baptism as it is in it selfe considered without relation to rare circumstances or accidental cases and it will also serve to the right understanding of the reasons why the Church of God hath in all ages baptized all persons that were within her power for whom the Church could stipulate that they were or might be relatives of Christ sons of God heirs of the Promises and partners of the Covenant and such as did not hinder the work of Baptism upon their souls And such were not onely persons of age and choice but the Infants of Christian Parents For the understanding and verifying of which truth I shall onely need to apply the parts of the former discourse to their particular case premising first these Propositions PART II. Of Baptizing INFANTS BAPTISM is the Key in Christs hand and therefore opens as he opens and shuts by his rule and as Christ himself did not do all his blessings and effects unto every one but gave to every one as they had need so does Baptism Christ did not cure all mens eyes but them onely that were blinde Christ came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance that is they that lived in the fear of God according to the Covenant in which they were debtors were indeed improved and promoted higher by Christ but not called to that repentance to which he called the vitious Gentiles and the adulterous persons among the Jews and the hypocritical Pharisees There are some so innocent that they need no repentance saith the Scripture meaning That though they doe need contrition for their single acts of sin yet they are within the state of grace and need not repentance as it is a conversion of the whole man and so it is in Baptism which does all its effects upon them that need them all and some upon them that need but some and therefore as it pardons sins to them that have committed them and doe repent and believe so to the others who have not committed them it does all the work which is done to the others above or besides that pardon 2. When the ordinary effect of a Sacrament is done already by some other efficiency or instrument yet the Sacrament is still as obligatory as before not for so many reasons or necessities but for the same Commandement Baptism is the first ordinary Current in which the Spirit moves and descends upon us and where Gods Spirit is they are the sons of God for Christs Spirit descends upon none but them that are his and yet Cornelius who had received the holy Spirit and was heard by God and visited by an Angel and accepted in his alms and fastings and prayers yet was tyed to the susception of Baptism To which may be added That the receiving the effects of Baptism beforehand was used as an argument the rather to minister to Baptism The effect of which consideration is this That Baptism and its effect may be separated and doe not always go in conjunction the effect may be before and therefore much rather may it be after its susception the Sacrament operating in the vertue of Christ even as the Spirit shall move according to that saying of S. Austin Sacrosancto lavacro inchoata innovatio novi hominis perficiendo perficitur in aliis citiùs in aliis tardiùs And S Bernard Lavari quidem cito possumus sed ad sanandum multâ curatione opus est The work of regeneration that is begun in the Ministery of Baptisme is perfected in some sooner and in some later we may soon be washed but to be healed is a work of a long cure 3. The dispositions which are required to the ordinary susception of Baptism are not necessary to the efficacy or required to the nature of the Sacrament but accidentally and because of the superinduced necessities of some men And therefore the conditions are not regularly to be required but in those accidents It was necessary for a Gentile Proselyte to repent of his sins and to believe in Moses Law before he could be circumcised but Abraham was not tyed to the same conditions but onely to faith in God but Isaac was not tyed to so much and Circumcision was not of Moses but of the Fathers and yet after the sanction of Moses Law men were tyed to Conditions which were then made necessary to them that entred into the Covenant but not necessary to the nature of the Covenant it selfe And so it is in the susception of Baptism if a sinner enters into the Font it is necessary he be stripp'd of those appendages which himselfe sewed upon his Nature and then Repentance is a necessary disposition If his understanding hath been a stranger to Religion polluted with evill Principles and a false Religion it is necessary he have an actual faith that he be given in his understanding up to the obedience of Christ and the reason of these is plain Because in these persons there is a disposition contrary to the state and effects of Baptism and therefore they must be taken off by their contraries Faith and Repentance that they may be reduced to the state of pure receptives And this is the sense of those words of our blessed Saviour Unlesse ye become like one of these little ones ye shall not enter into the kingdome of heaven that is ye cannot be admitted into the Gospel-Covenant unlesse all your contrarieties and impediments be taken from you and you be as apt as children to receive the new immissions from heaven And this Proposition relies upon a great Example and a certain Reason The Example is our blessed Saviour who was Nullius poenitentiae debitor he had committed no sin and needed no repentance he needed not to be saved by faith for of faith he was the Author and Finisher and the great object and its perfection and reward and yet he was baptized by the Baptism of Iohn the Baptism of Repentance And therefore it is certain that Repentance and Faith are not necessary to the susception of Baptism but necessary to some persons that are baptized For it is necessary we should much consider the difference If the Sacrament in any person may be justly received in whom such dispositions are not to be found then the dispositions are not necessary or intrinsecal to the susception of the Sacrament and yet some persons coming to this Sacrament may have such necessities of their own as will make the Sacrament ineffectual without such dispositions These I call necessary to the person but not to the Sacrament that is necessary to all such but not necessary to all absolutely And faith is necessary
prudently promise that their children shall be of the Christian faith because we not onely see millions of men and women who not onely believe the whole Creed onely upon the stock of their education but there are none that ever do renounce the faith of their Countrey and breeding unless they be violently tempted by interest or weakness antecedent or consequent He that sees all men almost to be Christians because they are bid to be so need not question the fittingness of Godfathers promising in behalf of the children for whom they answer And however the matter be for Godfathers yet the tradition of baptizing Infants passed through the hands of Irenaeus Omnem aetatem sanctificans per illam quae ad ipsam erat similitudinem Omnes n. venit per semetipsum salvare omnes inquam qui per eum renascuntur in Deum infantes parvulos pueros juvenes seniores Ideo per omnem venit aetatem infantibus infans factus sanctificās infantes in parvulis parvulus c. Christ did sanctifie every age by his own susception of it and similitude to it For he came to save all men by himself I say all who by him are born again unto God Infants and children and boyes and yong men and old men He was made an Infant to Infants sanctifying Infants a little one to the little ones c. And Origen is express Ecclesia traditionem ab Apostolis suscepit etiam parvulis dare baptismum The Church hath received a Tradition from the Apostles to give Baptism to Children And S. Cyprian in his Epistle to Fidus gives account of this Article for being questioned by some lesse skilfull persons whether it were lawfull to baptize Children before the eighth day he gives account of the whole question and a whole Councell of sixty six Bishops upon very good reason decreed that their baptism should at no hand be deferred though whether six or eight or ten dayes was no matter so there be no danger or present necessity The whole epistle is worth the reading But besides these authorities of such who writ before the starting of the Pelagian Questions it will not be useless to bring their discourses of them and others I mean the reason upon which the Church did it both before and after Irenaeus his argument was this Christ tooke upon him our nature to sanctifie and to save it and passed through the severall periods of it even unto death which is the symbole and effect of old age and therefore it is certaine he did sanctifie all the periods of it and why should he be an infant but that infants should receive the Crowne of their age the purification of their stained nature the sanctification of their persons and the saving of their soules by their Infant Lord and elder Brother Omnis enim anima eousque in Adam censetur donec in Christo recenseatur tamdiu immunda quamdiu recenseatur Every soul is accounted in Adam till it be new accounted in Christ and so long as it is accounted in Adam so long it is uncleane and we know no uncleane thing can enter into heaven and therefore our Lord hath defined it Unlesse ye be born of water and the spirit ye cannot enter into the Kingdome of Heaven that is ye cannot be holy It was the argument of Tertullian which the rather is to be received because he was one lesse favorable to the custome of the Church in his time of baptizing Infants which custome he noted and acknowledged and hath also in the preceding discourse fairely proved And indeed that S. Cyprian may superadde his Symbol God who is no accepter of persons will also be no accepter of ages For if to the greatest delinquents sinning long before against God remission of sins be given when afterwards they beleive and from Baptisme and from Grace no man is forbidden how much more ought not an Infant be forbidden who being new born hath sinned nothing save onely that being in the flesh born of Adam in his first birth he hath contracted the contagion of an old death Who therefore comes the easier to obtain remission of sins because to him are forgiven not his own but the sins of another man None ought to be driven from Baptism and the Grace of God who is mercifull and gentle and pious unto all and therefore much lesse Infants who more deserve our aid and more need the divine mercy because in the first beginning of their birth crying and weeping they can do nothing but call for mercy and reliefe For this reason it was saith Origen that they to whom the secrets of the Divine mysteries were committed did baptize their Infants because there was born with them the Impurities of sin which did need material absolution as a Sacrament of spiritual purification for that it may appear that our sins have a proper analogy to this Sacrament the body it self is called the body of sin and therefore the washing of the body is not ineffectual towards the great work of pardon and abolition Indeed after this absolution there remains concupiscence or the material part of our misery and sin For Christ by his death onely took away that which when he did dye for us he bore in his own body upon the tree Now Christ onely bore the punishment of our sin and therefore we shall not dye for it but the material part of the sin Christ bore not Sin could not come so neer him It might make him sick and dye but not disordered and stained He was pure from Original and Actual sins and therefore that remains in the body though the guilt and punishment be taken off and changed into advantages and grace and the Actual are cured by the Spirit of grace descending afterwards upon the Church and sent by our Lord to the same purpose But it is not rationally to be answered what S. Ambrose sayes quia omnis peccato obnoxia ideo omnis aetas Sacramento idonea For it were strange that sin and misery should seize upon the innocent and most unconsenting persons and that they onely should be left without a Sacrament and an instrument of expiation And although they cannot consent to the present susception yet neither do they refuse and yet they consent as much to the grace of the Sacrament as to the prevarication of Adam and because they suffer under this it were but reason they should be relieved by that And * it were better as Gregory Nazianzen affirms that they should be consigned and sanctified without their own knowledge then to dye without their being sanctified for so it happened to the circumcised babes of Israel and if the conspersion and washing the doore posts with the blood of a lamb did sacramentally preserve all the first-born of Goshen it cannot be thought impossible or unreasonable that the want of understanding in children should hinder them from
Thou shalt be a father of many Nations Thy name shall not be Abram but Abraham Nations and Kings shall be out of thee I will be a God unto thee and unto thy seed after thee and I will give all the Land of Canaan to thy seed and all the Males shall be circumcised and it shall be a token of the Covenant between me and thee and he that is not circumcised shall be cut off from his people The Covenant which was on Abrahams part was To walk before God and to be perfect on Gods part To blesse him with a numerous issue and them with the Land of Canaan and the sign was Circumcision the token of the Covenant Now in all this here was no duty to which the posterity was obliged nor any blessing which Abraham could perceive or feel because neither he nor his posterity did enjoy the Promise for many hundred yeers after the Covenant and therefore as there was a duty for the posterity which is not here expressed so there was a blessing for Abraham which was concealed under the leaves of a temporall Promise and which we shall better understand from them whom the Spirit of God hath taught the mysteriousnesse of this transaction The Argument indeed and the observation is wholly S. Pauls Abraham and the Patriarchs died in faith not having received the Promises viz. of a possession in Canaan They saw the Promises afar off they embraced them and looked through the Cloud and the temporal veil this was not it they might have returned to Canaan if that had been the object of their desires and the design of the Promise but they desired and did seek a Countrey but it was a better and that a heavenly This was the object of their desire and the end of their search and the reward of their faith and the secret of their Promise And therefore Circumcision was a seal of the righteousnesse of faith which he had before his Circumcision before the making this Covenant and therefore it must principally relate to an effect and a blessing greater then was afterwards expressed in the temporall Promise which effect was forgivenesse of sins a not imputing to us our infirmities Justification by faith accounting that for righteousnesse and these effects or graces were promised to Abraham not onely for his posterity after the flesh but his children after the spirit even to all that shall beleive and walk in the steps of our father Abraham which he walked in being yet uncircumcised This was no other but the Covenant of the Gospel though afterwards otherwise consigned for so the Apostle expresly affirms that Abraham was the father of Circumcision viz. by virtue of this Covenant not onely to them that are circumcised but to all that believe for this promise was not through the law of works or of circumcision but of faith And therefore as S. Paul observes God promised that Abraham should be a father not of that Nation onely but of many Nations and the heir of the world that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Iesus Christ that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith And if ye be Christs then ye are Abrahams seed and heirs according to the Promise Since then the Covenant of the Gospel is the Covenant of Faith and not of Works and the Promises are spiritual not secular and Abraham the father of the faithfull Gentiles as well as the circumcised Iews and the heir ef the world not by himselfe but by his seed or the Son of Man our Lord Jesus it follows that the Promises which Circumcision did seal were the same Promises which are consigned in Baptism the Covenant is the same onely that Gods people are not impal'd in Palestine and the veil is taken away and the temporal is passed into spiritual and the result will be this That to as many persons and in as many capacities and in the same dispositions as the Promises were applyed and did relate in Circumcision to the same they doe belong and may be applyed in Baptism And let it be remembred That the Covenant which Circumcision did sign was a Covenant of Grace and Faith the Promises were of the Spirit or spiritual it was made before the Law and could not be rescinded by the Legal Covenant Nothing could be added to it or taken from it and we that are partakers of this grace are therefore partakers of it being Christs servants united to Christ and so are become Abrahams seed as the Apostle at large and professedly proves in divers places but especially in the 4. of the Romans and the 3. to the Galatians and therefore if Infants were then admitted to it and consigned to it by a Sacrament which they understood not any more then ours doe there is not any reason why ours should not enter in at the ordinary gate and door of Grace as well as they Their children were circumcised the Eighth day but were instructed afterwards when they could enquire what these things meant Indeed their Proselytes were first taught then circumcised so are ours baptized but their Infants were consigned first and so must ours 3. In Baptism we are born again and this Infants need in the present circumstances and for the same great reason that men of age and reason doe For our natural birth is either of it selfe insufficient or is made so by the fall of Adam and the consequent evils that nature alone or our first birth cannot bring us to heaven which is a supernatural end that is an end above all the power of our nature as now it is So that if nature cannot bring us to heaven grace must or we can never get thither if the first birth cannot a second must but the second birth spoken of in Scripture is Baptism A man must be born of water and the spirit And therefore Baptism is {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} the laver of a new birth Either then Infants cannot go to heaven any way that we know of or they must be baptized To say they are to be left to God is an excuse and no answer for when God hath opened the door and calls that the entrance into heaven we doe not leave them to God when we will not carry them to him in the way which he hath described and at the door which himself hath opened we leave them indeed but it is but helplesse and destitute and though God is better then Man yet that is no warrant to us what it will be to the children that we cannot warrant or conjecture And if it be objected That to the new birth is required dispositions of our own which are to be wrought by and in them that have the use of reason besides that this is wholly against the Analogy of a new birth in which the person to be born is wholly a passive and hath put into him the
principle that in time will produce its proper actions It is certain that they that can receive the new birth are capable of it the effect of it is a possibility of being saved and arriving to a supernatural felicity If Infants can receive this effect then also the new birth without which they cannot receive the effect And if they can receive salvation the effect of the new birth what hinders them but they may receive that that is in order to that effect and ordained onely for it and which is nothing of it self but in its institution and relation and which may be received by the same capacity in which one may be created that is a passivity or a capacity obediential 4. Concerning pardon of sins which is one great effect of Baptism it is certain that Infants have not that benefit which men of sin and age may receive He that hath a sickly stomach drinks wine and it not onely refreshes his spirits but cures his stomach He that drinks wine and hath not that disease receives good by his wine though it does not minister to so many needs it refreshes him though it does not cure him and when oyle is poured upon a mans head it does not alwayes heal a wound but sometimes makes him a chearful countenance sometimes it consigns him to be a King or a Priest So it is in Baptism it does not heal the wounds of actual sins because they have not committed them but it takes off the evil of Original sin whatsoever is imputed to us by Adams prevarication is washed off by the death of the second Adam into which we are baptized But concerning Original sin because there are so many disputes which may intricate the Question I shall make use onely of that which is confessed on both sides and material to our purpose Death came upon all men by Adams sin and the necessity of it remains upon us as an evil consequent of the disobedience For though death is natural yet it was kept off from man by Gods favour which when he lost the banks were broken and the water reverted to its natural course and our nature became a curse and death a punishment Now that this also relates to Infants so far is certain because they are sick and dye This the Pelagians denied not But to whomsoever this evil descended upon them also a remedy is provided by thesecond Adam That as in Adam all dye even so in Christ shall all be made alive that is at the day of Judgement then death shall be destroyed In the mean time death hath a sting and a bitterness a curse it is and an express of the Divine Anger and if this sting be not taken away here we shall have no participation of the final victory over death Either therefore Infants must be for ever without remedy in this evil consequent of their Fathers sin or they must be adopted into the participation of Christs death which is the remedy Now how can they partake of Christs death but by Baptism into his death For if there be any spiritual way fancied it will by a stronger argument admit them to Baptism for if they can receive spiritual effects they can also receive the outward Sacrament this being denyed onely upon pretence they cannot have the other If there be no spiritual way extraordinary then the ordinary way is onely left for them If there be an extraordinary let it be shewn and Christians will be at rest concerning their children One thing onely I desire to be observed That Pelagius denyed Original sin but yet denyed not the necessity of Infants Baptism and being accused of it in an Epistle to Pope Innocent the first he purged himself of the suspicion and allowed the practise but denyed the inducement of it which shews that their arts are weak that think Baptism to be useless to Infants if they be not formally guilty of the prevarication of Adam By which I also gather that it was so universal so primitive a practise to baptize Infants that it was greater then all pretences to the contrary for it would much have conduced to the introducing his opinion against Grace and Original sin if he had destroyed that practise which seemed so very much to have its greatest necessity from the doctrine he denyed But against Pelagius and against all that follow the parts of his opinion it is of good use which S. Austine Prosper and Fulgentius argue If Infants are punished for Adams sin then they are also guilty of it in some sense Nimis enim impium est hoc de Dei sentire justitiâ quod à praevaricatione liberos cum reis voluerit esse damnatos So Prosper Dispendia quae flentes nascendo testantur dicito quo merito sub justissimo omnipotentissimo judice eis si nullum peccatum attrahant arrogentur said S. Austin For the guilt of sin signifies nothing but the obligation to the punishment and he that feels the evil consequent to him the sin is imputed not as to all the same dishonour or moral accounts but to the more material to the natural account and in holy Scripture the taking off the punishment is the pardon of the sin and in the same degree the punishment is abolished in the same God is appeased and then the person stands upright being reconciled to God by his grace Since therefore Infants have the punishment of sin it is certain the sin is imputed to them and therefore they need being reconciled to God by Christ and if so then when they are baptized into Christs death and into his Resurrection their sins are pardoned because the punishment is taken off the sting of natural death is taken away because Gods anger is removed and they shall partake of Christs Resurrection which because Baptism does signifie and consign they also are to be baptized To which also adde this appendant Consideration That whatsoever the Sacraments do consign that also they do convey and minister they do it that is God by them does it lest we should think the Sacraments to be meer illusions and abusing us by deceitful ineffective signs and therefore to Infants the grace of a title to a Resurrection and Reconciliation to God by the death of Christ is conveyed because it signifies and consigns this to them more to the life and analogy of resemblance then Circumcision to the Infant sons of Israel I end this Consideration with the words of Nazianzen {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Our birth by Baptism does cut off every unclean appendage of our natural birth and leads us to a celestial life and this in children is therefore more necessary because the evil came upon them without their own act of reason and choice and therefore the grace and remedy ought not to stay the leisure of dull Nature and the Formalities of the Civill Law 5. The Baptism of Infants does to them the greatest part of that
the blessing of a sacrament and from being redeemed and washed with the blood of the Holy Lamb who was slain for all from the beginning of the world After all this it is not inconsiderable that we say the Church hath great power and authority about the Sacraments which is observeable in many instances She appointed what persons she pleased and in equal power made an unequal dispensation and ministery The Apostles first dispensed all things and then they left off exteriour ministeries to attend to the word of God and prayer and S. Paul accounted it no part of his office to baptize when he had been separated by imposition of hands at Antioch to the work of preaching and greater ministeries and accounted that act of the Church the act of Christ saying Christ sent mee not to baptize but to preach the Gospel they used various forms in the ministration of Baptism sometimes baptizing in the name of Christ sometimes expressely invocating the Holy and ever Blessed Trinity one while I baptize thee as in the Latine Church but in Greek Let the servant of Christ be Baptized and in all Ecclesiastical ministeries the Church invented the forms in most things hath often charged them as in absolution excommunication and sometimes they baptized people upon their profession of repentance and then taught them as it hapned to the Jaylor and all his family in whose case there was no explicit faith afore hand in the mysteries of Religion so far as appears and yet he and not onely he but all his house were baptized at that hour of the night when the earthquake was terrible and the fear was pregnant upon them this upon their Masters account as it is likely but others were baptized in the conditions of a previous faith and a new begun repentance * They baptized in rivers or in lavatories by dipping or by sprinkling for so we finde that S. Laurence did as he went to martyrdom and so the Church did sometimes to Clinicks and so it is highly convenient to be done in Northern Countries according to the prophecy of Isaiah So shall he sprinkle many Nations according as the typical expiations among the Jews were usually by sprinkling and it is fairly relative to the mystery to the sprinkling with the blood of Christ and the watering of the furrows of our souls with the dew of heaven to make them to bring forth fruit unto the Spirit and unto holinesse The Church sometimes dipt the Catechumen three times sometimes but once some Churches use fire in their baptisms so do the Ethiopians and the custome was antient in some places And so in the other Sacrament sometimes she stood and sometimes kneeled and sometimes received it in the mouth and sometimes in the hand one while in leavened another while in unleavened bread sometimes the wine and water were mingled sometimes they were pure and they admitted some persons to it sometimes which at other times she rejected sometimes the Consecration was made by one forme sometimes by another and to conclude sometimes it was given to Infants sometimes not and she had power so to do for in all things where there was not a Commandment of Christ expressed or imployed in the nature and in the end of the institution the Church had power to alter the particulars as was most expedient or conducing to edification and although the after ages of the Church which refused to communicate Infants have found some little things against the lawfulnesse and those ages that used it found out some pretences for its necessity yet both the one and the other had liberty to follow their own necessities so in all things they followed Christ Certainly there is infinitely more reason why Infants may be communicated then why they may not be baptized And that this discourse may revert to its first intention although there is no record extant of any Church in the world that from the Apostles dayes inclusively to this very day ever refused to baptize their children yet if they had upon any present reason they might also change their practise when the reason should be changed and therefore if there were nothing els in it yet the universal practise of all Churches in all ages is abundantly sufficient to determine us and to legltimate the practise since Christ hath not forbidden it It is sufficient confutation to disagreeing people to use the words of S. Paul We have no such custome nor the Churches of God to suffer children to be strangers from the Covenant of Promise till they shall enter into it as Jewes or Turks may enter that is by choise and disputation But although this alone to modest and obedient that is to Christian Spirits be sufficient yet this is more then the question did need It can stand upon its proper foundation Quicunque parvulos recentes ab uteris matrum baptizandos negat anathema est He that refuseth to baptize his Infants shall be in danger of the Councel The PRAYER O Holy and Eternall Iesus who in thy own person wert pleased to sanctify the waters of Baptism and by thy institution and Commandment didst make them effectual to excellent purposes of grace and remedy be pleased to verify the holy effects of Baptism to me and all thy servants whose names are dedicated to thee in an early and timely presentation and enable us with thy grace to verify all our promises by which we were bound then when thou didst first make us thy own portion and relatives in the consummation of a holy Covenant O be pleased to pardon all those undecencies and unhandsome interruptions of that state of favour in which thou didst plant us by thy grace and admit us by the gates of Baptism and let that Spirit which moved upon those holy waters never be absent from us but call upon us and invite us by a perpetual argument and daily solicitations and inducements to holinesse that we may never return to the filthinesse of sin but by the answer of a good conscience may please thee and glorify thy name and doe honour to thy religion and institution in this world and may receive the blessings and the rewards of it in the world to come being presented to thee pure and spotlesse in the day of thy power when thou shalt lead thy Church to a Kingdome and endlesse glories Amen The End §. 1. §. 2. John 4. 14. §. 3. 1 Pet. 3. 21. §. 4. §. 5. Umbra in lege imago in Evangelio veritas in coelo S. Ambr. §. 6. 1 Cor. 10. 2. §. 7. §. 8. a Tertui de praescrip. c. 40. b scholiast. in Ju. Sat. 2. l. 1. c O nimium faciles qui tristia crimina caedis Tolli flumineâ posse put at is aquâ §. 9. Joh. 4. 14. §. 10. Audi quid Scripturae doceant Johannis Baptisma non tam peccata dimisit quam Baptisma poenitentiae fuit in peccatorum remissionem idque in