his offer was accepted I should have mentioned this first and therefore will begin with the proof of this By these terms Covenant promise grant or deed of gift c. we understand that which is common to all these viz. A sign of Gods will conferring or confirming a right to or in some benefit such as we commonly call a Civil act of Collation as distinct from a mere Physical act of disposal I call it a sign of Gods will de jure because â—hat is the general nature of all his legal moral acts they are all signal determinations de debito â—f some due 2. I say conferring or confirming â—ight to some benefit to difference it from preâ—epts which only determine what shall be due from us to God and from threatnings which determine what punishment shall be due from God to us Mr. T. If we prove by another grant or deed of gift Physical or Moral which is not a promise or by any Law which is not such a precept he contradicts not my speech c. Reply Your words are I do not confess that there was any Law or Ordinance determining that it should be so that Infants should be members of the Jewish Church but only a fact of God which is a transeunt thing and I think it were a foolish undertaking to prove the repeal of a fact Peruse his words Reader SECT XIX XX XXI R. B. HAving thus explained the terms I prove the proposition If Infants Church-membership with the priviledges thereof were a benefit conferred which some had right to or in then was there some grant covenant or promise by which this right was conferred But the antecedent is most certain Ergo so is the consequent I suppose you will not deny that it was a benefit to be the covenanted people of God to have the Lord engaged to be their God and to take them for his people to be brought so near him and to be separated from the common and unclean from the world and from the strangers to the Covenant of promises that live as without God in the world and without hope If it were asked what benefit had the Circumcision I suppose you would say much every way If Infant Church-membership were no benefit then they that had it were not when they came to age or their Parents in the mean time obliged to any thankfulness for it But they were obliged to be thankful for it Ergo it was a benefit Mr. T. Denyeth not the benefit but denyeth that this is to be Visible members formally or connexively for they may have all this benefit who are not visible Church-members viz. some believing Saints that are dumb Reply Mark Reader what an issue our Controversies with these men come to Men may be the covenanted people of God and have the Lord engaged to be their God and to take them for his people and be separated from the common and unclean from the world from strangers to the Covenant c. and yet be no visible Church-members with them Doth a dumb man signifie his consent to the Covenant by any signs or not If he do that is visible covenanting If not how is he one of these covenanting and separated people And do you think that Mr. T. knew not that I talk to him of visible covenanting and separation and not only of a secret unexpressed heart-consent What will make a Church-member then with such men He next saith that To be the circumcision is not all one as to be visible Church-members Cornelius and his house were visible Church-members yet not the circumcision Reply Reader dost thou not marvail to find him so plead for me against himself or speak nothing to the case To be circumcised then or baptized now is not all one as to be visible Church-members But sure all the Circumcised were and all the Baptized are invested in visible membership Is it not so And if Cornelius and more of the uncircumcised also were members you see it was not inseparable from Circumcision And whom is this against me or him He addeth nor were the benefits Rom. 3.1 2. the oracles of God c. conferred to them as visible Church-members For then all visible Church-members had been partakers of them Reply But it was to them as members of the Jewish visible Church And if you plead for the extent of the Church to others also I thank you for it When I say Infant Church-membership was a benefit He saith Visible Church-membership simply notes only a state by which was a benefit Reply Only is an exclusive term Reader by this thou maist perceive the mystery of making Church-members by a transeunt fact without a Law or promise It is no benefit with these men but a state by which was a benefit Either they or I then know not at all what Church-membership is And are not all our Volumes wisely written to trouble the world about that Subject that we are not agreed what it is and about a term which we agree not of the sense of I take a visible Church-member to be a visible member of Christ as Head of the Church and of his Church as visible To be a Member is to be a Part It is therefore as the member of a Family School Kingdom a related part And is it no benefit in it self besides the consequents to be visibly united and related to Christ and his body to be relatively a member of the Houshold of God Sure were it but for the exclusion of the miserie of the contrary state and for the Honour of it such a Relation to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and the Church is some little benefit and great to me And whether he and Major Danvers and such others should make such a vehement stir about it as they do if it be no benefit let it be considered SECT XXII R. B. THE next thing in the antecedent to be proved is that there was a right conferred to this benefit and some had a right in it And 1. If any had the benefit then had they right to or in that benefit But some had the benefit Ergo. The consequence of the major is certain 1. Because the very nature of the benefit consisteth in a right to further benefits 2. If any had the benefit of Church-membership Covenant-interest c. without right then they had it with Gods consent and approbation or without it Not with it For he is just and consenteth not that any have that which he hath not some right to or in Not without it For no man can have a benefit from God against his will or without it 2. If no Infants had duly and rightfully received this benefit God would have somewhere reprehended the usurpation and abuse of his ordinances or benefits But that he doth not as to this case Ergo. 3. God hath expressed this right in many Texts of Scripture of which more afterward Mr. T. The Infants of the Jews were visisible Church-members not
would not be harmonical So that as Gods promise is but a sign of his will obliging him improperly in point of fidelity and immutability so say they the nature of man was a sign of Gods will so far engaging him So that as he could not let-sin go unpunished without some breach in the harmony of his sapiential frame of administration no more could he deny to perfect man the object of those desires which he formed in him So that although he might have made man such a creature as should not necessarily be punished for evil or rewarded for good that is he might have made him not a man yet having so made him it is necessary that he be governed as a man in regard of felicity as well as penalty 3. Our Philosophers and Divines do commonly prove the immortality of the soul from its natural inclinations to God and eternal felicity And if the immortality may be so proved from its nature then also its felicity in case of righteousness I interpose not my self as a Judge in this controversie of Divines but I have mentioned it to the end which I shall now express 1. It is most certain whether the reward or promise be natural or positive that such a state of felicity man was either in or in the way to or in part and the way to more And it is most certain that man was made holy devoted to God and fit for his service and that in this estate according to the Law of his creation he was to increase and multiply It is most certain therefore that according to the first law of nature Infants should have been Church-members 2. But if their opinion hold that make the reward grounded on the law of nature and not on a meer positive law and you see the reasons are not contemptible then the argument would be yet more advantagious 3. But however it be of the title to glory or eternity it is most certain that according to the very law of nature Infants were to have been Church-members if man had stood The first Text therefore that I cite for Infants Church-membership as expressing its original de jure is Gen. 1.26 27 28. So God created man in his own Image And God blessed them and God said unto them Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth Here you see by the law of nature Infants were to have been born in Gods Image and in innocency and so Church-members And note that the first blessing that God pronounceth on mankind is that they propagate Children in their own estate to be as the Parents were even in Gods Image Mr. T. 1. If this prove their Church-membership it proves not their visible Church-membership Reply Mark Reader that Gods Law and blessing for the propagation of Adams seed in his Image would not have made them when born to be visible Church-members though members What not so notorious a Law and Covenant and Benediction No wonder if all Christians Infants must be shut out if Innocent Adams must have been shut out He adds 2. If it prove a Law or Ordinance yet not suâ—h a Law or Ordinance as is in question which is not a Law or Ordinance de jure but de eventu that so it shall be they being to be actually visible Church-members before admission according to Mr. B's dictates Reply Alas poor Readers that must be thus wearied I know nothing that this Law or Covenant giveth but a Right to real benefits that must have answerable causes I know no Right given but it is eventually given nor received but it 's eventually received Admission is an ambiguous word My dictates as he calls them are 1. That Gods Law obligeth persons to devote themselves and their Infants to God by consenting to his Covenant for themselves and them 2. And to do this if they have opportunity in the solemn Baptismal Covenanting Ordinance 3. And in his Covenant or Law of Grace he promiseth to accept them and signifieth his consent to the mutual Covenant which is antecedently to their consent but a conditional consent or Covenant but consequently aâ—tual 4. That accordingly natural interest only is not the Reason why a Believers Child is a Church-member meerly because he is his BE God having given him power and obligation also to dispose of his own Child for the ends of his Creation and Redemption he is a Church-member initially upon heart-consent and by Investiture upon Sacramental consent which I think you mean by Admission 3. Saith Mr. T. If it did prove such a Law or Ordinance yet it proves it not such a promise and precept as Mr. B. asserteth Reply Must such dealing as this go for an answer What 's the difference Mr. T. addeth 4. If it did yet it only proveth it of the Church by nature Reply You are hard put to it I do by this first instance shew you where and when the Ordinance Law or Grant of Infant Church-membership was first made And I leave it to any impartial Christian whether I prove it not certain that God in Nature making man in his own Image with an Increase and Multiply signifie not that Infants should have been Holy to him if Adam had not sinned and so have been members of the Innocent Church or Kingdom of God Alas many go so much further as to assert as truth that had Adam stood nay but in that one temptation yea say some had he but once loved God all his posterity had not been only born Holy but confirmed as the Angels I cannot prove that but I can prove that they had been born holy had not Adam sinned and so had been visible members And if so that God did found Infant membership in Nature let awakened reason think whether Parents yet have not as much interest in children and children in Parents and then whether God have ever reverst this natural order Yea whether he hath not all along confirmed it It seemeth out of doubt to me I know that Parents and Children now are corrupt but withal upon the promise of a Redeemer an universal conditional pardon and gift of life in a Covenant of Grace took place Let them deny it that can and dare And it intimateth no change of Gods will as to Infants conjunct interest with their Parents He saith that the Church by Grace is only by Election and Calling not birth I would desire him if he can to tell me whether both Cain and Abel were not visible Church-members in Adams family And whether none but the Elect are visible members And whether God call not them that are visible members to that state He saith If this Law be in force all are born without sin Reply The Covenant of Innocency is not in force but yet I may tell you what it was while it was in force and that Infants visible Church-membership was founded in Nature and that Law at first And therefore though our Innocency be lost Parents are Parents still And if God
change not his order therein are as capable of consenting to Grace for their Children as they were of being innocent for them SECT XLVI R. B. THe next Institution of Infants Church-membership was at the first proclamation of grace to fallen man or in the first promise of redemption to sinners in Gen. 3.15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed it shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel I will prove that this fundamental Covenant of grace or promise doth declare it to be the will of God that Infants should be Church-members And to this end let us first consider what the words expresly contain and then what light may be fetcht from other Texts to illustrate them It being a known rule that an Expositor must not turn universals into singulars or particulars nor restrain and limit the Scripture generals where the word it self or the nature of the subject doth not limit them I may well conclude that these things following are comprehended in this fundamental promise 1. That the Devil having plaied the enemy to mankind and brought them into this sin and misery God would not leave them remediless nor to that total voluntary subjection to him as he might haâ—e done But in grace or undeserved mercy would engage them in a war against him in which they that conquered should bruise his head 2. That in this war the Lord Jesus Christ the principal seed is promised to be our General whose perfect nature should contain and his perfect life express a perfect enmity against Satan and who should make a perfect conquest over him 3. The Lord Jesus is promised to do this work as the womans seed and so as conceived of her and born by her and so as an Infant first before he comes to ripeness of age So that here an Infant of the woman is promised to be the General of this Army and Head of the Church This is most evident By which God doth sanctifie the humane birth and the Infant state and assure us that he doth not exclude now that age from the redeemed Church which he admitted into the Church by the laws of creation For the first promise is of an Infant born of the woman to be the Head of the Church and growing up to maturity to do the works of a Head Had God excluded the Infant state from the visible Church he would not have made the Head first an Infant Where note 1. That Christ is the great exemplar of his Church and in things which he was capable of he did that first in his own body which he would after do in theirs 2. That the Head is a Member even the principal Member one of the two parts which constitute the whole As the pars imperans and pars subdita do constitute each Common-wealth So that if an Infant must be a member eminently so called then Infants are not excluded from membership but are hereby clearly warranted to be members of a lower nature If an Infant may be Soveraign no doubt he may be a Subject If an Infant may be the chief Prophet of the Church then no doubt but Infants may be Disciples If you still harp on the old string and say They are no Disciples that learn not you may as well say He is no Prophet that teacheth not And if you will openly deny Christ in Infancy to have been the Prophet of the Church I will undertake to prove the falshood and vileness of that opinion as soon as I know you own it The promise then of an Infant Head doth declare Gods mind that he will have Infants members because the head is the principal member Mr. T. The thing to be proved is a Law or Ordinance of God unrepealed Reply The thing I am to do is to shew you when and how God instituted Infants Church state And that he never had a Church on earth that excluded them And particularly to shew you that they are included in the first edition of the Covenant of Grace made to Adam which is perfected in a second edition but not repealed This I think I have done Mr. T. addeth that It will not hold from Christs Headship in Infancy c. 1. It is not declared in Scripture and so a meer phanâ—y 2. Then an Infant in the womb should be a visible member because then Christ was Head of the Church 3. Then an old man should not be a member for Christ was not an old man Reply 1. Irenaeus thought it would hold who giveth this reason of it And I leave the Reader to consider whether the words cited prove it not Sure I am it greatly satisfieth my judgement that God hereby declared his will to include Infants in his Church visibly For the Head is a Member even the noblest Therefore one Infant is confessed by you to be a visible member of the Church And if one it will be incumbent on you to prove the rest uncapable or excluded When I read that Christ came not into the world at the statute that Adam did but chose to be an Infant and to be persecuted in Infancy and to have Infants murdered for his sake first and to invite and use them as he did it is not the rowling over of your wearisom dry denials and confident absurdities that will perswade me that Christ shutteth out all Infants And I am sure that the Instance confuteth your common exceptions against Infants As that they are not Disciples because they learn not which yet they may be in the same sense as Christ was their Master in infancy when he Taught not And that their Infancy did not incapacitate them to be in Covenant with God to be Christians to be Church-members c. Christ shewed in that in Infancy he bore all the Counter-relations and was in the Covenant of God as Mediator and that as far as we can judge only by a virtual and not actual consent in his Infancy and humane nature to the Covenant of mediation Mr. T. saith Then an Infant in the womb may be a Church-member Reply Yes in the same sense as Christ in the womb was the Churches head not by the solemn Investiture of Baptism but by Consent For believing Parents do dedicate their children to God intentionally when they are in the womb But a man would think that you your self should acknowledge that this dedication and so the visibility of membership hath its gradations to perfection Are not your proselytes visible members in one degree when they openly profess Christianity as Constantine did and in a further degree when baptised The interest of your opinion puts frivolous reasons into your mind which a child might see through Mr. T. addeth Then an old man should not be a member Reply Could you think now that you did not cheat your poor Reader if partiality had not shut one of your eyes It will follow from the affirmative that such a state of
life which Christ undertook is lawful such words which he spoke such deeds which he did are lawful because he did them being not proper to the Mediator But will it thence follow from the negative that no calling no thoughts no words no deeds are lawful which Christ used not A single man that hath no Wife or Children may be proved capable of Church-membership because Christ that was such was the chief Church-member that is the head But will it follow that a married man therefore may be none Christs example will prove that a child of God may seem forsaken may be crucified as a Malefactor but not that no other are Gods children Mr. T. I deny not that Christ in infancy was head of the Church nor that he was the Prophet of the Church in Infancy understanding it of his being the Prophet habitually and by designation nor that he in some respect to wit of Rule and protection was the head of the visible Church even of that part which is not elect yet I deny that in respect of that union which makes any members of his body in the Scripture acceptions which is by his spirit he is the head of that part of the visible Church which is not elect Reply 1. And will not the Reader be satisfied with these concessions Mark Reader that he granteth that Christ an Infant was the Churches head and thus far as he mentioneth of the Church visible and that he was the Prophet of the Church because he was so habitually and by designation Why even so it is that we say an Infant may be a Member a Disciple a Christian habitually and by designation though I would use a fitter word here than habitually If this much be a reason for the denomination in one why not in the other Yield Sir or be not angry with Mr. Gataker 2. And then what brought in your denial of spiritual membership to the non-elect Would you have made your Reader believe that it was any thing to the question And when will you prove that neither 1 Cor. 12. nor any other Scripture calleth those members that have but such common gifts of the spirit as tongues miracles prophecie c. rejected Matth. 7.23 And that Christ never talkt in John 15. of branches in him not bearing fruit and some cut off from him and withered I am sure it was a whole Church visible that had carnal contentious wranglers against the Apostles in it and men that were drunk at the Lords supper c. of whom Paul saith 1 Cor. 12.15 18 20 22 23 26 27. that they were the Body of Christ and members in particular and common gifts are mentioned as their Character Mr. T. That the humane birth and infant state is sanctified by Christs is not true for then it would be holy to all Reply I deny your consequence There are several causes concur to the same sanctification Christs Birth and Infancy are but a remote preparatory cause of powerful sanctification which is ever to individual persons as all things are pure to the pure and when they are capable subjects by natural existence and Parents consent then from all the causes together results the holiness of that state As Christs death and merits sanctifie us but not immediately nor alone But Divines use to take this word sanctifying in an initial preparatory sense as it signifieth the making of such a thing or state fit for holy use As Temples and Utensils are said to be sanctified when designed to be used holily before the use But must they therefore be so used by all No but by the Priests and Worshippers So they use to say that Death and the Grave are sanctified by Christ How Not to all or any of the ungodly But the curse is taken off and they are hallowed for the holy advantage of the faithful So is it as to his Birth and Infancy Mr. T. Nor do I conceive any truth but gross falshood in that speech Had God excluded the Infant state from the visible Church he would not have made the Head first an Infant For this doth suppose this the only end or chief end and more in Gods eye than the saving of sinners Reply I prove that gross falshood to be true thus That state or age which God visibly included and actually made the chief visible Church-member in he did not exclude from the visible Church But the Infant state God visibly included and actually made the chief visible Church-member in Therefore the Infant state God did not exclude from the visible Church The reason of the Major is because to include and exclude are contraries The Minor he confesseth If he say that it may be included and excluded in several persons I answer I here spoke but of the State or Age of Infancy as such to prove that qua talis an Infant is not excluded For if qua talis then it will hold ad omnes universally and then Christ had been excluded And therefore the Age is not excluded as such if included in one For it must be a total exclusion And therefore if he will prove our Infants excluded it must not be qua tales as Infants but for some other reason when he câ—n find it and so the Age or state is not excluded 2. But what man else could have gathered that then this must be the only or chief end and more in Gods eye than the saving of a sinner Is there any more included in the assertion than barely that God would not have made an Infant the chief member if he would have excluded Infants as Infants Who câ—uld hence have found out that God hath various degrees of intention And we must dispute which is chiefly in his eye and that this was only or chiefly in his eye more than saving sinners Let them dispute what is chiefly in Gods eye that can better distinguish of those volitions which are all but his simple essence but let them do it on better reasons than these Mr. T. I deny that Christ as man in infancy was the Prophet of his Church visibly and in actu exercito Let Mr. â— when he will assault there will appear in his contradiction vileness and manifold falshoods Reply That one little and was cunningly put in to bring you off by taking visibility and exercise conjunctly But are your followers so critical as to discern the knack 1. Neither do we say that Infants are learners in actu exercito and so what is this to the matter 2. But Reader I can prove to thee if thou be impartial though not to Mr. T. that it is neither vile nor false that Christ in Infancy was the Prophet of his Church visibly though not in actu exercito That which was declared by Angels from Heaven and by revelation to Mary Zacchary Anna Symeon and by Prophecie by them to others is to be called visible But that Christ was the Head and Prophet of the Church habitually and by designation as Mr. T.
the root of our nature we are her natural seed and as she was a believer and we the seed of her a believer so is she the mother of a holy seed and we that are her seed are holy as a people visibly dedicated to God 2. When Cain was born his mother called him possession because she had obtained a man of the Lord that is saith Ainsworth with his favour and of his good will and so a Son of promise and of the Church And therefore it is to be noted that when Cain had sinned by killing his brother God did curse him and cast him out of his presence Gen. 4.14 16. So that he was excommunicate and separated from the Church of God saith Ainsworth that is from the place of Gods word and worship which in likelihood was held by Adam the father who being a Prophet had taught his children how to sacrifice and serve the Lord. So on the contrary to come into Gods presence or before him 1 Chron. 16.29 is explained in Psal 96.8 to be the coming into his Courts Very many learned men give the same exposition of it Now if Cain were now excommunicate then was he before of the Church nay it is certain by his sacrificing and other proof however this Text be interpreted But no man can give the least reason from Scripture to make it so probable that he entred into the Church at any other time as we give of his entrance at his nativity When Eve bare Seth she so named him as a Son of mercy in faith as appointed her by the Lord to be in Abels room faithful as Abel and the father of our Lord after the flesh as Ainsworth on Gen. 4.25 And is there no intimation in this that Seth was an Infant member of the visible Church I confess he that shall excommunicate this appointed seed or saith that Seth was without the Church in his infancy doth speak in my ears so improbably and so unlike the Scripture that I am very confident I shall never believe him Mr. T. 's Answer to all is a denial saith he There is no intimation that Seth was an Infant member of the visible Church from which Ishmael was not excluded In which though I place not Seth I do not thereby excommunicate him or say that he was without the Church in his Infancy Reply But you say He was without the visible Church or else within and without are consistent with you And whether Ishmael was within and Seth and Henoch and Sem without I will no more dispute with you SECT LXIII to LXX R. B. NOte also that as God had thus cast out Cain and supplied Abels room by Seth and had given each of them posterity so we find him in a special manner registring the successors of the righteous and putting two titles on these two distinct generations calling some the sons of God and others the daughters of men Gen. 6.2 Supposing that you reject the old conceits that these sons of God were Angels that fell in love with women the current ordinary exposition I think will stand that these were the progeny of Seth and other members of the Church who are called the Sons of God and that it was the progeny of Cain and other wicked ones that are called the daughters of men Where note that they are not themselves denominated wicked but the children of men as being a generation separated from the Church from the birth And the other are not themselves affirmed to be truly godly ones but sons of God as being the seed of the Saints not cast out but members of the Church or the sons of those who were devoted to God and so devoted to him themselves a separated generation belonging to God as his visible Church Where note that these that are called the sons of God even the line of Seth and other godly Parents were yet so wicked that God repented that he made them and destroyed them in the flood sparing only Noah and his family So that it was not their own godliness that made them called the sons of God but their relation Church state and visible separation from open unchurched Idolaters Compare this phrase with the like Deut. 14.1 2 Cor. 6.18 In the former it is said ye are the children of the Lord your God ye shall not cut your selves c. where the whole people Infants and all are called Gods children as being a people separated to him from the Idolatrous world and so in the next vers called a holy people unto God peculiar to him c. And 2 Cor. 6.8 Come out from among them and be ye separate c. and I will be a father to you and you shall be my sons and daughters saith the Lord Almighty So that Gods sons and daughters are that society that are separated from Idolaters unto the worship of God as the visible Church is And then it appears that the generation of the righteous even from the womb were enumerated to the rest in that they are not mentioned as a people called out here and there and initiated at age there is no mention of any such thing but as a stock or generation opposed to the daughters of men or of the unchurched who were such from their infancy as all will grant For it was not the same men that were the Parents of those here called the daughters of men and the sons of God though some of the later might be excommunicate when they fell But it plainly intimates that it was another sort of men that these were the daughters of than those that were Parents to the sons of God So Ainsworth in loc The sons of God i. e. the men of the Church of God for to such Moses saith Deut. 14.1 c. 1 John 3.1 Daughters of men meaning of Cains posterity that were out of Gods Church Gen. 4.14 So our Annotations and many more An intimation of this priviledge and that they were sons of mercy and of the promise appeareth in the very names of many of the children of the righteous both before and after the flood which I will not stand on particularly And when all the world had so defiled themselves that God was resolved to cut them off he spared Noah and his family or sons Though Cham was to be cursed yet was he of the Church which worshipped the true God and spared as a son of Noah and one of that society And if God so far spared him then for his Fathers sake as to house him in the Ark the type of the Church he sure took him to be of the same society in his infancy and then bare him the same favour on the same account As soon as Noah came out of the Ark God blessed himself in his issue as he did Adam with an increase and multiply and made a Covenant with him and his seed after him Which Covenant though the expressed part of it be that the earth should be drowned no more
to collect the Printers Errata though I see divers and therefore must leave the discerning of them to your selves And I again admonish and intreat you that the detection of the extraordinary falshoods and blind temerarious audacity of Mr. D. be not imputed to the whole Rebaptizing party to whose Practice Gregor Magn. paralleleth Reordaining and that his crimes abate not your Christian Love and tenderness to others there being truly Godly wise and peaceable persons worthy of our Communion and willing of it of that party as well as of others Hearken not to them that would render the Party of Anabaptists odious or intolerable no more than to those Anabaptists who would perswade those of their opinion to renounce Communion with all others as unbaptized It is against this dividing spirit on all sides that I Write and Preach PART I. My private Letters to Mr. Tombes proving the Church-membership of Infants in all ages vindicated from his unsatisfactory exceptions The PREFACE § 1. THE occasion and time of these Letters is long ago published by Mr. Tombes himself in the third Part of his Anti-Paedobaptism page 353. and forward where he printeth the said Letters without my consent Had I found his Answers satisfactory I had changed my judgement and retracted that and other such writings long ago But I thought so much otherwise of them that I judged it not necessary nor worth my diverting from better employment to write an answer to them § 2. And whatever the singular judgement of that learned and excellent Professor of Theology mentioned in his Preface was or is concerning the arguments that I and many before and since have used for Infant Baptism and notwithstanding his opinion that it was introduced in the second Century c. yet so many wiser and better men than I think otherwise both of the cause and of Mr. T 's writings that I hope the modest will allow me the honour of having very good company if I should prove mistaken § 3. No sober Christian will deny but that Godly men of both opinions may be saved And then I think no such Christian that is acquainted with the History of the Church can choose but think that there are now in Heaven many thousands if not hundred thousands that were not against Infant Baptism for one that was against it And while we differ de jure yet without great ignorance of the state of the world we must needs agree that de facto the number in the Church of Christ in all Nations and Ages that have been against Infant Baptism hath been so small as that they make up but a very little part of the Church triumphant which though I take for no proof of the truth of our opinion yet I judge it a great reason to make me and others very fearful of turning rashly and without cogent proof to the other side I know the Churches have still had their blemishes but that they should all universally so err in the subject of Baptism and Christianity it self is not to be believed till it be proved § 4. Though Christ be not the Author of any of our errors he is the healer of them and he is the Effector as well as the Director of his Churches faith and holiness And yet to say that though thousands or hundred thousands are in Heaven that were for Infant Baptism for one that was against it yet Christ was against even such a constitutive part of his Church as accounted is not to be received without good proof § 5. For my part I must still say that after all that I have read for the Anabaptists and much more than such Catalogues as Mr. Danvers I do not at present remember that I have read of any one Christian that held the baptizing of Infants unlawful in many and many hundred years after Christ at least not any that denied not Original sin Though indeed the Pelagians themselves that did deny it much yet denied not Infant Baptism § 6. But of this enough heretofore I lay not my faith on the number of Consenters but in a doubtful case I think the way that almost all went that are in Heaven and took it as the very entrance of the door of life is safer caeteris paribus than that which few in Heaven did own And though on earth I have more approvers than Mr. T. I think mans approbation so poor a comfort as that I am sorry to read in his Preface and elsewhere how much he layeth upon it Alas were it not more for the good of others than our selves how inconsiderable a matter were it whether men value and honour or despise us and what we are thought or said of by each other when we are all on the borders of eternity where the honour of this world is of no signification § 7. In the answer which I must give to Mr. Tombes should I transcribe all his words and answer every impertinent passage I should needlesly weary the Reader and my self I will therefore suppose the Reader to have his Book at hand and to take his words as he hath given him them that I may not be blamed as concealing any of them And I shall answer to nothing but what seemeth to me to need an answer And for all the rest I am content that the impartial Reader judge of them as he findeth them For I write not for such as need an answer to every word that is written how frivolous soever against plain truth Mr. Tombes his first Letter SIR NOt finding yet that Law or Ordinance of Infants visible Church-membership which you assert in your book of Baptism to be unrepealed I do request you to set down the particular Text or Texts of Holy Scripture where you conceive that Law or Ordinance is written and to transmit it to me by this bearer that your allegations may be considered by him who is April 3. 1655. Yours as is meet John Tombes Richard Baxters Answer Sir I mean to see more said against what I have already written before I will write any more about Infant Baptism without a more pressing call than I yet discern I have discharged my Conscience and shall leave you and yours to take your course And indeed I do not understand the sense of your Letter because you so joyn two questions in one that I know not which of the two it is that you would have me answer to Whether there were any Ordinances or Law of God that Infants should be Church-members is one question Whether this be repealed is another you joyn both into one For the first that Infants were Church-members as you have not yet denied that I know of so will I not be so uncharitable as to imagine that you are now about it And much less that you should have the least doubt whether it were by Gods Ordination There are two things considerable in the matter First the benefit of Church-membership with all the consequent priviledges It is the
their own then as if they had never been baptized they cannot be saved What hurt then as to this doth their Infant interest do them 2. Yea doubtless it is a great help For 1. To be in the way of Gods Ordinance and Benediction is much 2. And knowing you deny that I add to be conscious of an early engagement may do much to awe the minds of Children yea and to cause them to love that Christ which hath received them and that Society to which they belong 3. If Children till Baptized have any thoughts of dying according to you they must have little hopes of mercy And God accounteth not the spirit of bondage best no not for Children They cannot well be educated in the Love of God who must believe that they are damned if they die and that God hath not given them any promise of life 4. Experience of many Moors servants among us and in our Plantations besides ancient history assureth us that delaying Baptism till age tendeth to make people delay repentance and think I am but as I was and if I sin longer all will be pardoned at baptism and I must after live strictlier and therefore as Constantine and many more they will be baptized Christians when there is no remedy 5. And experience assureth us that it were the way to work out Christianity and restore Infidelity in any Nation For had not Christ early possession and were not Nations discipled and baptized Christians were like to be almost as thin as Puritans now and the multitude being Infidels from a cross interest such as divisions cause would be ready on all occasions as they did in Japan and Monicongo to root them out I take this to be a very concerning consideration whether in reason Infant Baptism be like to do more good or harm The not calling men to serious Covenanting at age doth unspeakable harm To have a few good words about Confirmation in the Liturgie and such as Doct. Hammonds writings of it will not save ignorant ungodly souls nor the souls of the Pastors that betray them I have said my thoughts of this long ago in a Treatise of Confirmation But I must profess that it seemeth to me that if Christ had left it to our wills it is much liker to tend to the good of souls and the propagating Christianity and the strength of the Church for to have both the obligation and comfort of our Infant Covenant and Church state and as serious a Covenanting also at age when we pass into the Church state of the Adult than to be without the former and left to the expectation of adult baptism alone SECT LIII to LVIII R. B. THe law of nature bindeth Parents in love to their children to enter them into the most honourable and profitable society if they have but leave so to do But here Parents have leave to enter them into the Church which is the most honourable and profitable society Ergo That they have leave is proved 1. God never forbad any man in the world to do this sincerely the wicked and unbelievers cannot do it sincerely and a not forbidding is to be interpreted as leave in case of such participation of benefits As all laws of men in doubtful cases are to be interpreted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the most favourable sense So hath Christ taught us to interpret his own When they speak of duty to God they must be interpreted in the strictest sense When they speak of benefits to man they must be interpreted in the most favourable sense that they will bear 2. It is the more evident that a not forbidding in such cases is to be taken for leave because God hath put the principle of self-preservation and desiring our own welfare and the welfare of our Children so deeply in humane nature that he can no more lay it by than he can cease to be a reasonable creature And therefore he may lawfully actuate or exercise this natural necessary principle of seeking his own or childrens real happiness where-ever God doth not restrain or prohibit him We need no positive command to seek our own or childrens happiness but what is in the law of nature it self and to use this where God forbiddeth not if good be then to be found cannot be unlawful 3. It is evident from what is said before and elsewhere that it is more than a silent leave of Infants Church-membership that God hath vouchsafed us For in the forementioned fundamental promise explained more fully in after times God signified his will that so it should be It cannot be denied but there is some hope at least given to them in the first promise and that in the general promise to the seed of the woman they are not excluded there be no excluding term Vpon so much encouragement and hope then it is the duty of Parents by the law of nature to enter their Infants into the Covenant and into that society that partake of these hopes and to list them into the Army of Christ 4. It is the duty of Parents by the Law of Nature to accept of any allowed or offered benefit for their children But the relation of a member of Christs Church or Army is an allowed or offered benefit to them Ergo c. For the Major these principles in the law of nature do contain it 1. That the Infant is not sui juris but is at his Parents dispose in all things that are for his good That the Parents have power to oblige their children to any future duty or suffering that is certainly to their own good and so may enter them into Covenants accordingly And so far the will of the Father is as it were the will of the child 2. That it is unnaturally sinful for a Parent to refuse to do such a thing when it is to the great benefit of his own child As if a Prince would offer Honours and Lordships and Immunities to him and his heirs if he will not accept this for his heirs but only for himself it is unnatural Yea if he will not oblige his heirs to some small and reasonable conditions for the enjoying such benefits For the Minor that this relation is an allowed or offered benefit to Infants is manifested already and more shall be And this leads me up to the second point which I propounded to consider of whether by the light or law of nature we can prove that Infants should have the benefit of being Church-members supposing it first known by supernatural revelation that Parents are of that society and how general the promise is and how gracious God is And 1. It is certain to us by nature that Infants are capable of this benefit if God deny it not but will give it them as well as the aged 2. It is certain that they are actually members of all the Common-wealths in the world perfecte sed imperfecta membra being secured from violence by the laws and capable of honours and
had an Husband and not fewer Gal. 4.25 26 27. And we as Isaac are children of the promise even that promise which extended to the Infants with the Parents Gal. 4.28 Mr. T. I conceived a Promise not in congruous sense repealable For although a promise be a Law to the Promiser yet I know not how congruously it should be repealed 'T is true the act of promising being transeunt ceaseth but that cannot be repealed that which is done cannot be infectum not done Reply I perceive we must dispute our first principles as well as our Baptism Reader Gods promise in question is not a particular promise to some one person only but his Recorded Instrument of Donation or stablished written or continued word which is the sign of his will It is the same thing which is called the Premiant or Donative part of his Law in one respect and his Testament in another and his Donation or Gift in another and his Covenant as Conditional in another and his Promise in another As He that believeth shall be saved is the Rewarding or Giving part of a Law and it is a Testament a Covenant a Promise a Gift all these Mr. T. cannot see how this promise can be repealed what not an universal promising Law or Covenant or Instrument The question is not whether it ever was repealed but whether it be repealeable in congruous sense Why may not the King make a Law that every one that killeth such and such hurtful creatures a Fox c. or that killeth an enemy in war shall have such a reward and repeale this Law or Promise when he seeth cause I think the first Covenant ceased by mans sin without repeal But I cannot say that no promise to the Israelites was repealed upon their sin The non-performance of the condition depriveth the party of the benefit while it is unrepealed but may not God thereupon repeal the Law or Covenant and null the very offer to posterity Is it not so as to the Jews policie and peculiarity What pains is taken in the Epistle to the Hebrews to prove the change of the Covenant as faulty in comparison of that which had better promises But if you will call it a meer cessation all is one as to our question in hand SECT XCVIII R. B. BEfore I end I shall be bold to put two or three Questions to you out of your last Letter Quest 1. Whether the circumcised servants of Israel sold away to another nation and so separated from the Civil state of Israel did eo nomine cease to be Church-members though they forsook not God And so of the Infants if they were sold in Infancy If you affirm it then prove it If you deny it then Infants might be Church-members that were not of the Common-wealth Mr. T. None was of right of the Jewish Church who was not of the Common-wealth Reply But my Question was when without forsaking God they are forcibly separated from the Jewish policy and subjected to others are they not members of the Church-universal still though not of the Jews SECT XCIX R.B. Quest 2. IF as you say it was on the Jews rejection of Christ that they were broken off from being Gods people were those thousands of Jews that believed in Christ so broken off or not who continued successively a famous Church at Hierusalem which came to be a Patriarchal seat Whether then were not the children of the Disciples and all believing Jews Church-members in Infancy If no then it was somewhat else than unbelief that broke them off Mr. T. They were broken off from the Jewish Church not by unbelief but by faith in Christ Reply This is too short an answer to so great an evidence against you The Infants of the Christian Jews were the day before their Conversion members of the Jewish Church and of Gods universal Church of which the Jews were but a part For as he that is a member of the City is a member of the Kingdom and a part of a part is a part of the whole so every member of the Jews Church was a member of Gods universal Church Now 1. The very Jews policy totally ceased not till the destruction of Jerusalem at least 2. But if it had I ask was it no mercy to be a member both of the Jews Church and the universal If not the Jews lost nothing by being broken off If yea how did the Christians Children forfeit it Was it better to be of no visible Church than of the universal The Jews were broken off by unbelief you say Christians Infants were put out of that and the whole visible Church by faith or without unbelief SECT C. R. B. Quest 3. WHether it be credible that he who came not to cast out Jews but to bring in Gentiles breaking down the partition-wall and making of two one Church would have such a Linsey Woolsey Church of party colours or several forms so as that the Church at Hierusalem should have Infant members and the Church at Rome should have nonel Jews Infants should be members and not Genties Mr. T. so answereth as before and needeth no other Reply SECT CI. R. B. Quest 4. IF unbelief brake them off will not repentance graff them in And so should every repenting believing Jews Infants be Church-members Mr. T. Not their Infants Reply Then it would be but a part of the people that would be graffed in SECT CII R. B. Quest 5. WAs not Christs Church before his incarnation spiritual and gathered in a spiritual way Mr. T. The invisible was the visible Jewish Nation was not Reply Not in comparison of the times of maturity but the visible Jewish frame had the Father of spirits for Soveraign and commanded spiritual duties upon promises of spiritual blessings even life Eternal SECT CIII R. B. Quest 6. HOw prove you that it was a blemish to the old frame that Infants were members Or that Christs Church then and now are of two frames in regard of the subjects age Mr. T. It was a more imperfect state in that and other regards Reply I called for some proof that the Infant-membership was any part of the Church-imperfection If it be not a blemish why must it be done away what was the Church the worse for Infants Rights SECT CIV R. B. Quest 7. IN what regard is the new frame bettered by casting out Infants which were in the old Mr. T. The Church is more spiriâ—ual Reply What doth Infants Relation detract from its spirituality The adult have souls and bodies and so have Infants The adult come in by the same kind of consent for themselves as they make for their Infants The adult blemish the Church with more carnal sins than Infants do The Kingdom would be never the more spiritual nor excellent if all Infants were disfranchised Nature teacheth all Kingdoms on earth to take them for members though but Infant-members SECT CV R. B. Quest 8. WHether any Jew at age was a member of the
eight Copies in England which omit twenty three of the Epistles which are commonly received and it 's most credible by other Copies are Genuine And yet none of these leave out the Epistle to Fidus about Infant-baptism § 57. And whereas he saith that Cyprian urged not Tradition I answer there was no cause For the question was not whether Infants should be baptized much less whether they were to be dedicated in Covenant to God and to be Church-members but only whether they should be baptized before the eighth day For Fidus thought that at one two or three days old they were so unclean as made them unmeet for baptism and that the eighth day was the time of their purification which Cyprian and the sixty six Bishops confuted and shewed that Gods mercy accepteth them from the beginning without respect to legal days And what use was here for a plea from Tradition for Infant-baptism which was not denied § 58. And it seems to me to be a great evidence that the Tradition of the Church was then for it in that this Council of Bishops before true Popery was born so unanimously determine of the day or time and not one of them no nor Fidus himself that raised the doubt did so much as raise any scruple or question about Infant-baptism it self at all which sure they would have done on such an occasion if any or many Christians or any Churches had denied it No wonder therefore if Augustin so long after say that no Christian taketh it to be in vain § 59. Yet again I will confess that the words of Tertullian and Nazianzen shew that it was long before all were agreed of the very time or of the necessity of baptizing Infants before any use of Reason in case they were like to live to maturity For I am perswaded that the Apostles and first Ministers were so taken up with the Converting of Infidels Jews and Gentiles that the case of Infant-baptism was so postponed and taken but as an Appendix to the baptism of the adult as that it was thought less needful to give it a particular express mention in the Records and History of the Church The Churches made no question of Infants Church-membership as being undoubtedly in the promise and devoted to God by all faithful parents And they took not baptism at first for their first Covenanting or Consent but for the solemnization of it and so not for Infants first real state of relation to Christ and right to life which was before it as it was to believers before baptism but for the solemn investiture in those rights And so Greg. Nazian Or. 40. giveth this brief definition of baptism that it is nothing else but a Covenant made with God for a new and purer kind of life And hereupon many who thought Infants Church-members visible and safe upon their Parents Covenant consent thought that the time of solemnization was so far left to prudence as that as the Israelites did Circumcision in the wilderness it might be delayed a few years by such Parents as desired it till children could somewhat answer for themselves § 60. Yet after my review of this controversie upon their urgencie I find no proof brought by any of these men that ever one Church in the world was without Infant-members that had Infants nor one person in the Church against Infant Church-membership and baptism from Christs days till the Waldenses about eleven hundred or a thousand years except that Tertullian who took them for Innocent and therefore Church-members did in some case advise the delay I say I find not one Christian or Heretick against it unless you will impute it to them that were against all baptism which Infidels also are And though I verily believe that the Waldenses were not against Infant-baptism nor is there full proof that any in their time were yet because I am loth to judge the Papists utterly impudent lyars I think it most probable that in the Waldenses days and Country there was a sort of odious Hereticks that denied Infant-baptism and the Resurrection and held community of Wives and other abominations reported all together by their opposers in those times CHAP. V. Mr. Danvers's great Calumnie of my self refuted § 1. MR. D. pag. 134. Ed. 1. saith thus Yet is not Mr. Baxter ashamed to fix such an abhominable slander upon the Baptists of this our age of baptizing naked which it seems was so long the real practice of the paedobaptists and about which he spends three whole pages to aggravate the heynousness of their custom which he is pleased to father on them And though I am perswaded he cannot but be convinced that the thing is most notoriously false and brought forth by him rather out of prejudice not to say malice rather than any proof or good testimony he ever received thereof yet have I never heard that he hath done himself his injured neighbours and the abused world that right as to own his great weakness and sinful shortness therein in any of the many Editions of that piece which I humbly conceive as well deserved a recantation as some other things he has judged worthy thereof § 2. Answ To live and die impenitently in so unprofitable a sin and unpleasing to any but diabolical natures as is the belying of others is a very dreadful kind of folly I would heartily wish that Mr. Danvers and I might meet and help to bring each other to repentance by a willing impartial examination of each of our guiltinesses herein § 3. I never look to speak to them thus more nor long to any man on earth and in this station and with these thoughts I must profess not thinking it lawful to belie my self that in the year 1647. or 1648. or both when Anabaptistry began suddenly to be obtruded with more successful fervency than before I lived near Mr. Tombes in a Country where some were and within the hearing of their practice in other parts of the land And that in that beginning the common frame of Ministers and people was that in divers places some baptized naked and some did not And that I never to my best remembrance heard man or woman contradict that report till this man did it in this writing And that no Anabaptist contradicted it to me that I then or since conversed with And that thereupon in 1659. I wrote against both sorts those that baptized naked and those that did not And after all this when Mr. Tombes answered my book and those very passages he never denied the truth of the thing though he did not so baptize himself unless he have any where else since said any thing of it which I never saw or heard of And I appeal to impartial reason whether he would not then at the time have denied it had it been deniable And whether this man now twenty five or six years after be fitter to be believed in a matter of fact than common consent at the present time And
Donative Instrument of God which saith He that believeth shall be justified may effect my Justification when I believe and not before though my faith effect it not at all but dispose the recipient But I deny that the Parents faith being put all the capacity of the recipient is put even when he is born For if it be possible for the Parent to consent for himself and not for his child and to devote himself and not his child to God part of the condition of reception is wanting As far as I perceive could I but hope to be so happy a disputant as to convince Mr. T. that Church-membership visible is any benefit at all it self or was to the Israelites he would grant me all that I plead for of the conveyance of it by Covenant And if I cannot it is a hard case SECT LXXXVI R. B. THe second Commandment Exod. 20.5 6. Deut. 5.9 10. I think is a law and containeth a promise or premiant part wherein he promiseth to shew mercy to the generations or children of them that love him and keep his Commandments of which I have also spoken elsewhere to which I refer you I see no reason to doubt but here is a standing promise and discovery of Gods resolution concerning the children of all that love him whether Jews or Gentiles to whom this Commandment belongs nor to doubt whether this mercy imply Church-membership And that this is fetcht from the very gracious nature of God I find in his proclaiming his Name to Moses Exod. 34.6 7. Mr. T. If this mercy here imply Church-membership to the Infants of them that love him to a thousand Generations then it implieth it to all the Infants in the world But there is nothing to prove that this mercy must be Church-membership or that it must be to all the children of them that love God or that it must be to them in Infancy I incline to conceive this a promise of temporal mercies chiefly to the Israelites Reply 1. That it is not only of temporal mercies the words Love and Hate as the qualification of the Parents seem to prove and the joyning the children to the Parents in the retribution And all the terms seem above such a sense It is the revenge of a jealous God on Idolaters and mercy to his Lovers that is spoken of And the joyning this Command to the first which setleth our relation to God with the Laws annexed in Deut. for the cutting off whole Cities Parents and Children that turn from God to Idols sheweth that it reached to Church-Communion and Life 2. And that it was not only to the Israelites whatever you chiefly mean is proved both in that it is in the Decalogue and the proclaimed name of God Exod. 34.5 6. and exemplified throughout the Scripture and in the Gospel 2. As to the extent we can hardly expect that the world should endure a thousand Generations Therefore it can mean but that God who boundeth the punishment to the third and fourth generation will set no bounds to the succession of his mercies while our capacity continueth And whatever the mercies be the exposition of this continuance concerneth you as much as me 3. As to the conditions I doubt not but it supposeth that the child at age imitate the Parents in their Love or Hatred duty or sin And that if on Repentance the Parent be forgiven his sin may not be visited to the third and fourth And if a child of Godly Parents turn wicked the right is intercepted 4. But the Commandment with the foresaid exposition shews that God meaneth that his Retribuâ—ion to Parents that Love or Hate him shall extend to their children as such unless they interrupt it at age by their own acts And if to their children qua tales then to Infants And it speaketh such a state of mercy as cannot in reason be conceived to belong to them without and can mean no less than Gods visible favour by which the Church is differenced from the world when Lovers and Haters are distinguished sides And when God hath Recorded this decreed granted distinguished mercy to the children of the faithful as such in the Tables of stone sure it is a visible notification which will make them visible favorites and Church-members as soon as they visibly exist And the quatenus seemeth to me to prove that it extendeth to all the children of the faithful because it is to them as such But it followeth not that it must extend to them all alike as to equal mercies nor yet that the sin of Parents after may make no kind of forfeiture But of this I have said more in my Christian Directory SECT LXXXVII to XCIV R. B. IN Psal 102.28 It is a general promise the children of thy servants shall continue and their seed shall be established before thee It is usual in the Old Testament to express Gods favour by temporal blessings more than in the Gospel but yet still they secure us of his favour As I will not fail thee nor forsake thee might secure Joshua more than us of temporal successes and yet not more of Gods never failing favour There is a stable promise to all Gods people in general that have children Psal 103.17 But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him and his righteousness unto childrens children And to be secured by promise of Gods mercy and righteousness is the state of none without the Church And if they were all to be kept out of the Church I scarce think that Children would be called an heritage of the Lord and the fruit of the womb his reward Psal 127.3 nor the man happy that hath his quiver full of them Nor would the sucking children be called as part of the solemn assembly to the humiliation Joel 2.16 2 Chron. 20.13 There is a standing promise to all the just Prov. 20.7 The just man walketh in his integrity his children are blessed after him There is no sort of men without the Church that is pronounced blessed in Scripture A blessed people are Gods people and those are the Church separated from the cursed world One lower blessing will not denominate a man or society a blessed man or society If it were a good argument then Deut. 4.37 because he loved thy fathers therefore he chose their seed after them then it is good still as to favour in general So Deut. 10.15 Psal 69.36 Prov. 11.21 The seed of the righteous shall be delivered In Psal 37.26 there is a general promise to or declaration of the righteous that his seed is blessed and then they are Church-members In Isa 61.8 9. it is promised I think of Gospel times I will make an everlasting Covenant with them and their seed shall be known among the Gentiles and their off-spring among the people all that see them shall acknowledge them that they are the seed which the Lord hath blessed And cap. 62.12 They shall call them the
meerly because he elected them some will say why may he not do so also by the Parents at least renewing them all in transitu § 15. If you say that He giveth them freely his sanctifying grace and giveth them right to Salvation as sanctified though he tell us not who are sanctified I answer 1. Take heed lest you teach the presumptuous to say the same of Infidels Heathens and almost all that God may in the passages when they are dying sanctifie and save them all 2. Still this giveth no positive hope of any particulars nor more to Christians for their Children than they may have of the Children of Infidels nor any promise of the spirit and sanctification as Believers have § 16. I take it therefore for the soundest Doctrine that Gods taking the Children of the Faithful into Covenant with him and becoming their God and taking them for his own doth signifie no less than a state of Grace and pardon and right to life eternal and that they are in this state upon their Parents Consent and Heart-devoting them to God in Christ before baptism but baptism is the solemnizing and investiture which openly coram Ecclesia delivereth them possession of their visible Church-state with a sealed pardon and gift of life For it is not another but the same promise and Covenant which is made to the faithful and their feed And all Gods promises to the many Generations of them in the second Commandment and many other Texts cannot mean any such little blessings as consist with a state of damnation and the possession of the Devil And all the ancient Churches in baptizing of Infants were of this mind whom I will not despise And Abrahams case perswadeth me that the Children of Natural and Civil Parents truly their Owners have this right before they are baptized But the former natural Parents have plainer evidence than the later which is a darker case But as for them that think either that all Infants are saved or all baptized Infants â—ure vel injuria though no Parent or Owner consent or dedicate them heartily or openly to God or though they are hypocrites and truly consent not for themselves or theirs let them prove it if they can but I must say it is past my power § 17. I know the grand difficulty is that then this Infant-Grace is lost in many that live to riper age I have said so much of this in my Christian Directory that I will refer the considering Reader thither only adding 1. That far greater absurdities will follow the contrary opinion and the greater are not to be chosen I am loth again to name them 2. That the universal Church as far as by any notice we can know did for many hundred years grant the conclusion and take it for no absurdity but a certain truth yea much more Austin and his followers themselves thought more at age were truly justified and sanctified than were elected and did persevere And some hold that not all that have the sanctifying spirit but only certain confirmed Christians have a certainty to persevere And others hold that as the spirit of Christ is promised to Believers though men believe not without the spirit so that measure of Grace which causeth men only to believe as antecedent to that promised spirit of Power Love and a sound mind is but such as may be lost as Adams was and that it is the spirit following it as the rooted habit which cannot be lost And others come yet lower and say that the Grace which giveth faith it self cannot be lost because such have the promise of the spirit but yet the grace which only enableth men to Repent and Believe called sufficient may be lost before it produce the Act Accordingly some think of Infant-Grace The last sort think that they have real pardon of original sin and right to life and have real Grace but being Infants that grace is but such as will enable them to believe if they come to age and not infallibly cause it and that this may be lost And so I might run over the opinions of the rest And among all these the judgement of Davenant Ward c. of the loss of an Infant-state of Grace as by them opened is not so hard as I think the contrary way will infer And it seems by Art 1. c. 17. that the Synod of Dort was of their mind § 18. Our darkness about the future state of Infants Souls hath occasioned some diversity of thoughts about their present state Indeed they will neither in Heaven or Hell have any work for Conscience in the review of any former actions good or evil And it seemeth by Nazianzene before cited Orat. 40. that some Ancients thought as most Papists do that unbaptized Infants have neither the joys of Heaven nor any punishment but the loss of these But what state then to place them in they know not To think that they shall remain in a meer potentiality of understanding and shall know no more than they did here is to equal them with bruits and to encourage the Socinians who say the like of the separated souls of the adult And if they can allow understanding to those that died baptized why not to the rest And if they understand they must have grief or pleasure But who can know more than God revealeth § 19. In sum 1. That God would have Parents devote their Children to him and enter them according to their capacity in his Covenant as I have elsewhere proved is a great truth not to be forsaken 2. And also that he accepteth into his Covenant all that are faithfully thus devoted to him and is peculiarly their God and such Children are holy 3. That they are certainly members according to an Infant capacity of the visible Church as they are of all Kingdoms under Heaven These are all clear and great truths 4. And that there is far more hope of their salvation than of those without 5. And I think the Covenant maketh their Salvation certain if they so die 6. And it seemeth to me that the investiture and solemnization of their Covenant with Christ should be made in Infancie from Matth. 28.19 20. and the exposition of the universal Church 7. But if any should think with Tertullian and Nazianzene that the time of investiture and solemnization is partly left to prudence and may be delayed in case of health yea or should think that Infants are not to be solemnly invested by baptism but only the adult so they confess Infants relation to God his Covenant and Church I would differ from such men with love and peace and mutual toleration and communion CHAP. I. The Occasion of this Writing § 1. AS I was by great and long importunity unwillingly engaged at first to meddle publickly in the Controversie of Infant Baptism with Mr. Tombes so I then resolved to meddle no more with it unless I found that necessity made it an apparent duty § 2. Accordingly when Mr.
not receive them though we approve not of their way § 30. And were it in my power as a Pastor of the Church I would give satisfaction by such an answerable profession as this Though it be our judgement that Infants have ever been members of Gods visible Church since he had a Church and there were Infants in the world and do believe that Christ hath signified in the Gospel that it is his gracious will that they should still be so And that he that commanded Mat. 28.19 Go ye and Disciple all Nations Baptizing them would have his Ministers endeavour accordingly to do it and hath hereby made Baptism the regular orderly way of solemn entrance into a visible Church state and therefore we devote this child to God in the Baptismal Covenant Yet we do also hold that when he cometh to age it will be his duty as seriously and devoutly to make this Covenant with God understandingly himself and to dedicate himself to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as those must do that never were Baptized in Infancie And we promise to endeavour faithfully as we have opportunity to instruct and perswade him so to do hoping that this his early Baptismal dedication and obligation to God will rather much prepare him for it than hinder it § 31. Me thinks these Professions should put off the chief matter of offence and exception against each other as to the ill consequents of our opinions And if sober good men would by such a mutual approach be the more disposed to live together in love and holy peace how easily should I bear the scorns of those Formalists that will reproach me for so much as motioning a Peace with the Anabaptists even in the same Communion Who by making it a reproach will but perswade me that such as they are less worthy of Christian Communion than sober pious and peaceable Anabaptists § 32. And if with the partial sort of themselves such motions of Peace be turned into matter of contempt and they proceed in their clamours and reviling of me as an enemy of the truth for being against their way I shall account it no wonder nor matter of much provocation finding in all Sects as well as theirs that the injudicious sort are apt to be abusively censorious and the more mens Pride Ignorance and uncharitableness remain the more they will swell into self-conceit and trouble the Church with a mistaking wrangling hurtful sort of zeal § 33. And as I must needs believe as ill of some sort of Zeal as St. James hath spoken of it Jam. 3. and experience hath too long told the world of it yet I take it for truly amiable in men that they have a love and Zeal for Truth in general and a hatred to that which they think to be against it and that their bitterness against the truth and me is upon a supposition that both are against the truth and God for this beareth them witness that they have a zeal of God though it be not according to Knowledge and if they knew truth indeed they would be zealous for it § 34. I conclude with this notice to the contrary minded that the evidence for Infants Church-membership seemeth to me so clear both in nature and in Scripture that I bid them despair of ever perswading me against it But if they will have any hope of changing my judgement it must be by confessing the visible Church-membership of Infants and proving that yet they are not to be baptized and that Baptism was appointed for initiating none but adult converts and not to be the common entrance into the Church which yet I think they can never do while the plain Law of Christ Mat. 29.19 and the exposition of the universal Church doth stand on record to confute such an opinion But here they have more room for a dispute § 35. But though I expect to be censured for it I will say once because truth is truth that though Rebaptizing and Reordaining are justly both condemned by the ancient Churches and pronounced alike ridiculous by Gregory Mag. Lib. 2. Ep. Indict 11. c. 46. and many others yet were men Rebaptized but for Certainty to themselves or to the Church and to quiet their consciences and on such terms as in my Christian Directory I have shewed that a seeming Reordination might in some cases be tolerated and would not wrong Infants nor make it an occasion of division or alienation I know not by any Scripture or reason that such Rebaptizing is so heinous a sin as should warrant us to contemn our brethren No though it were as faulty as the oft commemorative baptizing used by the Abassines CHAP. III. A General View of Mr. Danvers book § 1. MR. Danvers book is entitled a Treatise of Baptism in which he giveth us the History of Infant and Adult Baptism out of Antiquity as making it appear that Infant Baptism was not practised for 300 years in his second edit it is near 300. And in his Append ed. 2. I cannot find that it was practised upon any till the fourth Century And he giveth us a Catalogue of witnesses against it By which those that hold their Religion on the belief of such mens words will conclude that all this is true and that Infant Baptism is a Novelty and those that are against it do go the old and Catholick way § 2. Having perused his testimonies on both sides I am humbled and ashamed for the dulness of my heart that doth not with floods of compassionate tears lament the pittiful condition of the seduced that must be thus deceived in the dark and of the Churches of Christ that must be thus assaulted and shaken and distracted by such inhumane horrid means The book being composed in that part of history which the stress of the cause lyeth on of such UNTRUTHS in fact and history as I profess it one of my greatest difficulties to know how to call them Should I say that they are so notorious and shameless as that I say not only a Papist but any sober Turk or Pagan should blush to have been guilty but of some page or line◠of them and much more a man of any tenderness of conscience the Readers would think that the language were harsh were it never so true and some would say Let us have soft words and hard arguments And should I not tell the Reader the truth of the case I might help to betray him into too much fearlesness of his bait and snare and I doubt I may be guilty of untruth by concealing the quality of his untruths And it is not matter of Argument but fact that I am speaking of § 3. But it pleaseth that God whose counsels are unsearchable as to permit five parts of the Earth to remain yet strangers unto Christ so to permit his Church to be so tryed and distracted between Church Tyranny and dividing separations Sects and parties as that in many ages it hath not been easie to
here to give you notice that if God will I hope in time to give the world yet fuller satisfaction on both these subjects Justification and secondary Original sin Though I thought my unanswered Disputations of Justification and other Treatises had fully done the first And the publishing of some old Papers of Original sin I think will fully do the other OBSERVATIONS ON Mr. Danvers REPLY TO Mr. WILLS CHAP. I. The frightful Aspect of his Reply § 1. MY Answer to Mr. Tombes and Mr. Danvers being written about the same time as my Epistle to Mr. Wills his book hath since then been detained in the Printers hand whose delay hath allowed me the sight of Mr. Danvers Reply to Mr. Wills and the opportunity of animadverting on it before mine is come abroad And upon my most impartial consideration it reneweth the grief of my heart to think of these evils which it sets before me § 2. 1. That the souls of poor Christians should be under the Temptations of such writings and teaching as here we find Where such untruths in matter of fact are still justified with such a face of confidence and divulged as for God and for the souls of men that most ignorant persons may be tempted to think that Modesty and Charity require them to believe that they are real truths it being a harsh unmanly thing to judge that such a person can possibly be so hardened as to stand so boldly to all these things which have such publick historical evidence if they were all downright falshoods And it is a hard task for a writer to be put to answer a Christian and a Gentleman as Mr. Danvers doth Mr. Wills Repl. pag. 120. Know that hence you have a further discovery of the great unfaithfulness and want of conscience in the Author for daring thus to abuse the world with a Cheat and that which he knoweth to be a meer forgery of his own And pag. 122. Let it be judged whether he hath not injuriously belied Osiander belied Cluniacensis belied Peter Bruis belied the truth which by this forgery he would cover and hide abused the world belied and abused me But much more fear his own conscience by this piece of folly and falshood To be thus at Thou liest and Thou liest is an unsavoury work Yea in so few lines to give the Lie five times at least But for an ignorant Reader to believe what this Author hath done till he needs must is yet far harder Though we say He that will swear will lie and therefore we hardly believe a swearer yet if a man with many hundred bloody oaths should assert many particulars of publick cognisance we are ready to think it inhumane to suspect that the man is so inhumane as thus to swear if some of them were not true Alas for the poor Church of Christ that must have such sore temptations How shall they be withstood § 3. 2. And how sad is it that a Christian man professing not only Truth and Godliness but so much of these as to be above Communion with such as we should ever degenerate into such a thing as his present writing doth discover O what need have we to lay to heart that of Paul Rom. 11. be not high-minded but fear and to learn over and over Jam. 3. and Christ's words to the Sons of Thunder ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of § 4. And alas that ever the bitter voluminous Reproaches of the zeal of the present age should have such a scandal or stumbling block laid in their way to harden them in the justification of their reproaches as if our Zeal were the Cause or Cover of such heinous sins Woe to the world because of offences and woe to them by whom they come § 5. 4. But what a tremendous warning is this against the spirit of unwarrantable separation or true Schism when the same person shall venture upon all that is here written by him who yet taketh our Infant Baptism for a meer Nullity and the Christian world that hath no other to be uncapable of the Church-Communion of such as he Me-think this is a Pillar of Salt I well remember that one of the means of keeping my ancient Flock in Concord was the terror of these horrid opinions and wayes which the two or three that deserted us fell into CHAP. II. His impenitent false allegation of witnesses against Infant Baptism Tertullian c. specially Wickliff § 1. I have before said that I have said so much out of Scripture and Antiquity for Infants Church-membership and Baptism to which I have yet seen no Answer that should satisfie an impartial man either from Mr. Tombes Mr. Danvers or any other that I will not lose time and labour in replying to their frivolous exceptions And here I meddle directly but with the matter of fact because by ostentation of history Mr. D. would seduce the ignorant into the belief of gross untruths I began with Tertullian who is his first witness in his Catalogue reprinted here in his reply § 2. And why have we no satisfactory answer to these things so oft replyed 1. That Tertullians words prove that Infant-Baptism was then in use And it is the matter of fact that we are searching after 2. And doth he think that Antichrist was before Tertullians time 3. The opinion of Tertullian seemeth not at all to be against the Lawfulness of Infant Baptism in general but against the eligibleness of it in case of no apparent danger of death For I have oft proved that the judgement of that age and some following was that none should be compelled to be Baptized or to Baptize their Infants but they should themselves be chusers of the time For the conceit of the absolute necessity of Baptism to salvation came in afterwards And when the seed of the faithful are Holy and in Gods Covenant or Promise upon the Parents Mental dedication of them to God and so in a state of salvation no wonder if they were not so hasty and peremptory for the sudden Investiture into the Christian Church state when they took it to be but the publick solemnization of a Covenant really made and valid before And as Nazianzene is for Infant-Baptism long after in case of danger but else for staying three or four years till they can speak so Tertullian seemeth to prefer delay for such conveniencies as he mentioneth 4. And if Mr. D. doubt of this let him tell me why he saith cunctatio utilior 5. And giveth the reason from the inconvenience to the Sponsors 6. And why he also perswadeth the unmarried and young Widdowes to delay their Baptism till they are married or grow corroborate to continencie lest temptation carry them to sin And maketh this case of the like reason with that of Infants Did he think that it was flatly unlawful for maids and young widdows to be Baptized or only less safe and eligible except in danger of death The case is plain 7.