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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
state_n	church_n	infant_n	visible_a	1,818	5	10.0471	5	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A89563	A defence of infant-baptism: in answer to two treatises, and an appendix to them concerning it; lately published by Mr. Jo. Tombes. Wherein that controversie is fully discussed, the ancient and generally received use of it from the apostles dayes, untill the Anabaptists sprung up in Germany, manifested. The arguments for it from the holy Scriptures maintained, and the objections against it answered. / By Steven Marshall B.D. minister of the Gospell, at Finchingfield in Essex.	Marshall, Stephen, 1594?-1655.	1646 (1646)	Wing M751; Thomason E332_5; ESTC R200739	211,040	270

to him who makes an outward profession because wee have not a Spirit of discerning to know them to bee reall beleevers then it undeniably follows That some may rightly be accounted to belong to the Church of God and Covenant of grace beside reall beleevers which is as much as I need to make my sense and meaning in this Proposition to passe for currant And truly Sir whoever will grant that a Minister in applying the seale must doe it de fide in faith being assured he applyes it according to rule must either grant such a right as I plead for that many have right to bee visible members and bee partakers of the externall administration of Ordinances though they be not inwardly sanctified or else hee must by revelation be able to see and know the inward conversion of every one hee applyes the seale unto for certainly hee hath no written Word to build his faith upon for the state of this or that man And for my own part when once you have disproved this that there is such a visible membership and right to externall administrations as I have here infisted upon I shall not onely forbeare baptizing Infants but the administration of the externall seale to any what profession soever they make untill I may bee de fide assured that they are inwardly regenerate This then was and is my meaning when I say That Infants of believers are confederates with their Parents that they have the same visible right to be reputed Church-members as their Parents have by being visible Professors and are therefore to be admitted to all such external Church-priviledges as their Infant age is capable of and that the visible Church is made up of such visible Professors and their Children that the invisible takes in neither all of the one nor the other but some of both Whereas therefore you say you are at a stand to finde out what my meaning is and know not what to deny or what to grant and again pag. 45. You are at a stand whether I meane they are to bee taken in with their Parents into Covenant in respect of saving grates or the outward priviledge of Church-ordinances I beseech you stand no longer doubtfull of my meaning I meane of them as I meane of other visible Professors they are taken into Covenant both ways respectively according as they are elect or not elect all of them are in Covenant in respect of outward priviledges the elect over and above the outward priviledges are in Covenant with respect to saving graces and the same is to bee said of visible members both Parents and Infants under the New Testament in this point of being in Covenant as was to be said of visible members in the former administration whether Jewes and their children or Proselytes and their children I endeavour in all this to speak as clearly as I can possibly not onely because you say you are oft at a stand to pick out my meaning but because this mistake runs through your whole book that none are to be reputed to have a visible right to the Covenant of grace but onely such as partake of the saving graces of it Now I proceed with you When I say That God would have beleevers children reputed to belong to his Church and family and not to the devills You answer That you feare I use that expression of not belonging to the Devills Kingdome to please the people But Sir why doe you judge my heart to intend amisse in using an expression which your self cannot mislike I have more cause to think you use all these words it cannot be denyed but God would have the Infants of beleevers in some sort to be accounted his to belong to him his Church and family and not to the Devills And againe it is true in facie visibilis Ecclesiae the Infants of beleevers are to bee accounted Gods c. onely ad faciendum populum to please the people because this is not your judgement for when you speake your full meaning and sense of this point you professe you know no more promise for them in reference to the Covenant then to the children of Turkes And even here you onely grant them a nearer possibility to belong to the Covenant of grace then the children of Infidels have therefore in your judgement they are not now actually belonging to it but onely in a possibility so that though they may be accounted to belong to the Kingdom of God potentially yet by your doctrine they belong to the Kingdom of the Devill actually and all this charitable opinion which here you expresse toward them dontaines no more then is to be allowed to the child of a Turk if born among Christians especially if a Christian will take it and bring it up in Christian Religion and by what may we ground any probable hopes they will actually receive the profession of Christ since by your rule there is no promise no externall Covenant why may I not have as good hopes of Heathens children if Gods promise helpe not here But say you To make them actually members of the visible Church is to overthrow the difinitions of the visible Church that Protestant Writers use to give because they must be all Christians by profession I reply it overthrows it not at all for they all include the Infants of such Professors as the visible Church among the Jewes did include their Infants male and female too lest you say that Circumcision made them members I adde also Baptisme now as well as Circumcision of old is a reall though imp●i●●● Profession of the Christian Faith But say you Infants are o●ly passive and doe nothing whereby they may bee denominated visible Christians I answer even as much as the Infants of Jewes could doe of old who yet in their dayes were visible members Yea say you further it will follow That there may bee a visible Church which consists onely of Infants of beleevers I answer no more now then in the time of the Jewish Church it 's possible but very improbable that all the men and Women should dye and leave onely 〈◊〉 behind● them and it 's farre more probable that a Church 〈…〉 Anabaptists why may consist onely of Hypocrit●● Againe you affirme We are not to account Infants to belong to God either in respect of election or promise of grace or presen●● 〈◊〉 of in being in Christ 〈◊〉 ●●state by any act of 〈…〉 with in a particul●● revelation because there 〈…〉 declaration of God that the Infants of pris●●● 〈…〉 all or some either are elected to life or in the Covenant of grace in Christ either in respect of present in-being or future estate To which I answer briefly though all this bee granted if meant of the spirituall part of the Covenant onely yet this makes nothing against that visible membership which I plead for Yea I re●ort the argument upon your selfe and dare boldly affirme that by this argument no visible Church or all

the visible Professors of any Church are to be accounted to belong to God either in respect of election from eternity or promise of grace or present state of in-being in Christ c. without a particular revelation because there is no declaration of God that the present visible Professors are indefinitely all or some either elected to life or are in the Covenant of grace in Christ either in respect of present in-being or future estate look by what distinction you will answer this for visible Professors who are growne men the same will serve for the Infants of beleevers In the next place you make a digression against an expression of Mr. Cottons which you thinke necessary to do because you f●●de many are apt to swallow the dictates of such men as Mr. Cotton is without examination he affirmed the Covenant of grace is given to Christ and in Christ to every godly man Gen. 17. 7. and in every godly man to his seed God will have some of the seed of every godly man to stand before him for ever against this you except many things and according to your usuall course you frame many senses of the Covenants being given to every godly man and his seed some whereof are so absurd as no charitable man can imagine ever came in Mr. Cottons thoughts That every godly man should be to his seed as Christ to every godly man which in truth as you say would be little lesse then blasphemy But I shall give you this short Reply that I take Mr. Cottons meaning to be that looke as Abraham Isaac and Jacob and other godly Jewes were to their seed in respect of the Covenant that is every godly man to his seed now except onely in such things wherein those Patriarchs were types of Christ in all other things wher●in God promised to be the God of them and their seed godly parents may plead it as much for their seed 〈◊〉 as they could then and whatever inconvenience or absurdity you seem to fasten upon Mr. Cotton will equally reach to them also as for example suppose an Israelite should plead this promise for his seed you 'll demand if ●ee plead it to his seed universally that 's false and so of the rest of your inferences look what satisfying answer an Israelite would give you the same would Mr. Cotton give and at satisfyingly As for what you say concerning Abraham that by the seed of Abraham are meant onely elect and beleevers I have sufficiently answered to it before and shall have occasion to meet with it again in its due place therefore I now say no more of it but the chief thing you grate upon against M. Cotton is that expression in the close That God will have some of every godly mans seed stand before him for ever You aggravate this to the utmost as a bold dictate imposing on Gods counsel and Covenant the absurdity and falsity wherof you indeavour to manifest at large to which I answer in two or three words that supposing his meaning to be as you set it downe That it is in reference to election and everlasting life that every godly man shall have some of his seed infallibly saved I confesse the expression is not to be justified nor doe I thinke that that sense ever came into the mind of so learned and judicious a man as Mr. Cotton is for my part I think he onely alluded to that promise made to Jonad●●s children Jer. 35. tha● God would alwayes beare a mercifull respect unto the posterity of his servants according to that promise Exod. 20. 5. I will shew mercy to thousands of them that love mee and keepe my commandements And that being his scope as I thinke it was you need not have kept such a stirre about it After your digression to meet with Mr. Cotton in stead of returning to my Sermon you wander further out of your way for after a short discourse of judging children to bee within the Covenant by opinion according to a rule of prudence or charity senses which I meddle not with and therfore need not stay the Reader in descanting upon them My rule of judging their condition being limited to the Rule of Gods revealed will in his word you then proceed in an indeavour wherein you doe but lose time and waste paper for many pages together endeavouring to confute what was never asserted by me viz. That the Covenant of saving grace is made to beleevers and their naturall seed that the Infants of beleevers are so within the Covenant of grace as to be elected and to have all the spirituall priviledges of the Covenant belonging to them this you would needs have to be my meaning and I almost suspect you would fasten this sense upon mee against your owne light for pag. 142. you doe as good as cleare mee of it where you say You suppose that I doe not hold that the Infants of beleevers indifferently have actually the thing signified by baptisme union with Christ adoption pardon of sinne regeneration c. So that in all this discourse you doe but luctari cum larvis according to your owne expression pag. 45. my plain meaning was as is before expressed nor doe any of the expressions used by mee and here brought by you as Arguments to prove this to be my meaning hold forth any such thing as they are within the Covenant of grace belonging to Christs body kingdome houshold therefore are to partake of the seale True as visible professors are quà visible Againe they are to bee accounted to belong to him as well as their parents True as well as their parents doe by a visible profession Againe they are made free according to Abrahams copy True according to the promise made to Abraham I will bee a God to thee and thy seed that looke as Abraham and his seed the Proselytes and their seed upon their visible owning of God and his Covenant had this visible priviledge for their posterity that they should be accounted to belong to Gods kingdom and houshold with their parents so it is here One Argument more you bring beside laying of my words together to prove that this must needs bee my sense because you doubt not but my meaning is agreeable to the Directory which holds forth That the promises are made to beleevers and their seed and directs Ministers to pray That God would make Baptisme to the Infant a seale of adoption regeneration and eternall life And you conclude that if there be not a promise of these saving graces to Infants in vaine are they baptized and the seale is put to a blank To which I reply my meaning is indeed according to the sense of the Directory and according to that direction I doe pray that God would make baptisme to bee a seale to the Infant of adoption and the rest of the saving graces of the Covenant yet I utterly deny you consequence that unlesse there bee absolute promises of

further Reformation is to begin with this your darling the casting out this point of Infant-Baptisme a point which you conceive to bee a mother corruption which carries in her wombe most of those abuses in discipline and manners and some of the errors in doctrine which defile the reformed Churches without which all after Cathechizing Censures separaton Church-Covenant c. are altogether insufficient to supply the want of it Secondly that Baptisme therefore hath not that influence into the comfort and obligations of Consciences as it had of old And thirdly that the Assemblies not beginning with this point is one great cause why Gods blessing doth no more accompany them whilst they waste much time about things inconsiderable in comparison of this and either hastily passe over or exclude from examination this which deserves most to bee examined Ah Sir How deare and lovely are our owne children in our eyes did ever any before you conceive so many and great evills to follow upon the baptizing the children of beleevers that such Monsters should be bred in the wombe of it or conceive that the removing of this would bee the healing of all I verily thinke should another have spoke such things of farre greater points you would have called them dictates Chimaraes bold assertions and what not Whether your Examen of my Sermon and your twelve Arguments in your exercitation will prove it to bee a corruption of Christs institution whether the reasons for Paedo-Baptisme be far fetched whether there be a cleare institution of Christ against it as here you affirme wee shall have leisure God willing to examine in their due place but for the present suppose mee to grant your postul●tum that it is an applying of an institution to a wrong subject yet I would faine learne of you how all these odious consequences will bee made good how these abuses in doctrine discipline and manners which you mention would be taken away if Paedo-Baptisme were removed nay would not the selfe same things still bee found as grounds or occasions of the same differences while some professe they would baptize any whether Turkes or Heathens who onely would make a profession of their faith in Jesus Christ and then admit them to all other Ordinances and not have them Excommunicated è sacris but onely a private consortio though their lives should prove scandalous and I am misinformed by good friends who know and love you very well if your selfe incline not this way others would take the same course before Baptisme which now they doe before admitting men to the Sacrament of the Lords Supper and would proceed to excommunication à Sacris as well as privately withdraw from such as prove scandalous and obstinate yea and take themselves bound to separate from mixt communions with them as much as they doe now notwithstanding their admission by Baptisme in your way And in this various manner of admitting men to Baptisme and dealing with men in other censures every Church or Eldership proceeding according to the largenesse or strictnesse of their owne principles I can see nothing but that the same abuses in discipline and manners which are now found among Christian people the same controversies about such as should be admitted to the Lords Supper the same divisions and separations would be sound in the Church which now alas take too much place amongst us This I say supposing your Postulatum were a truth But on the contrary supposing it not to be a truth what a Deformation instead of a Reformation should wee bring in in casting the children of Beleevers out of the visible Church reputing them no better then Turkes and Indians and especially doing it upon such grounds as are pleaded by you and others which even alter the state of the Covenant of grace As for your second I know not what influence of comfort or obligation upon conscience Baptisme had of old which is not now to bee found among them who are truely baptized who injoy not onely the putting away the filth of the flesh but the answer of a good conscience towards God by the resurrection of Jesus Christ And lastly for what you speake of the Assembly I impute it to your prejudice and extreame doting upon your owne opinion that you thinke this Point most worthy of their examination and to your misinformation to speake no worse that they waste much time about things inconsiderable in comparison or that they exclude this from Examination or seeke to stop it from any Tryall or that they hastily passe it over This is a very bold charge which you give upon the Assembly in the face of the world What evidence have you for this unlesse your Compassionate Samaritan bee Authentick with you The Apostle commands Timothy not to receive an accusation against an Elder unlesse it bee under two or three witnesses But for one man to cast thus much filth in the face of an Assembly of Ministers is very high and savours little of that modesty or meeknesse to which you did sometimes pretend How farre the blessing of God who hath not hitherto altogether left us notwithstanding our unworthines doth and will accompany the endeavours of the Assembly it is fit to leave to himselfe who gives increase to Pauls planting and Apollo's watering according to his good pleasure But as for their shutting out the due examination of this Point you are wholly mistaken though they have returned no answer to your paper It is true as I told you in the beginning that wee are shut up by Ordinance of Parliament from answering any private mens Papers or Bookes without leave from the Houses but I dare speake it in the name of the whole Assembly that they would bee glad you were admitted to dispute all your grounds among them In your next Paragraph which containes a comparison betweeve the evidences held out in the New Testament for the Religious observation of the Lords day and this of Infant-Baptisme you first make your selfe merry with my expressions that all who reject the baptizing of Infants because there is not an expresse Institution or Command in the New-Testament doe and must upon the same grounds reject the observation of the Lords-day But I am no whit ashamed of those words They doe and they must upon the same Principles if they be true to their Principles reject the one as well as the other And though I want the skill which some others have to plead for the Lord-day yet I suppose you shall find I have skill enough to make this good That there is no more expresse Institution or Command in the New-Testament for the Lords day then there is for Infant-Baptisme And whereas you alledge that some of the reformed Churches reject the Lords day and yet entertaine Infant-Baptisme and thence inferre that these two must not necessari'y stand and fall bee received and rejected together I answer Those Churches which doe so conceive that there is an institution for the

that no part of the spirituall Covenant made with Abraham did appeare to belong to Ishmael when he was circumcised or not to Esau when hee was circumcised God indeed did then declare that Isaac was he in whose family the Covenant should continue but not a word that Ishmael should have no part in it prove if you can in your next that Ishmael and Esau were not by their circumcision bound to have their hearts circumcised and to beleeve in the Messiah that was to come of Abrahams seed And whereas you say againe and againe that no benefit of the Covenant was the proper reason why these or those were circumcised but onely Gods precept I have already cleared it out of the Text Genesis 17. that though Gods command was the cause of the existence of the dutie of Circumcision yet the Covenant of grace was the motive to it and these two are well consistent together Whereas I answered to that carnall objection of the Anabaptists that nothing is plainer then that the Covenant whereof Circumcision was a signe was the Covenant of grace you reply first it was a mixt Covenant which is before taken away in answer to your exceptions against my first conclusion Sect. 2. Part 3. Secondly you say all circumcised persons were not partakers of the spirituall part it 's one thing to bee under the outward administration another thing to be under the Covenant of Grace Sir I thanke you for this answer you grant as much as I have been proving all this while viz. that men may have a visible membership though they bee not elected and that there ever was and will be some such in the Church to whom the outward administration and externall priviledges doe app●●taine though they are not inwardly sanctified and I hope you will not deny but that these are called in that sense which our Saviour meanes when hee sayes Many are called but few are chosen I added Abraham received Circumcision a signe of the righteousnesse of faith true say you Circumcision was a seale of righteousnesse but not to all or only circumcised persons but to all beleevers whether Iews or Gentiles though they never are or may be sealed in their own persons I reply first this is but a peece of odde Divinitie that Circumcision should seale righteousnesse to them who never are circumcised nor reputed so nor capable of being circumcised nor might lawfully be circumcised but let that passe 2ly Indeed none but beleevers have the spirituall part of Circumcision but visible professors had a visible right to it and were obliged to seeke the spirituall grace of it and though they who are externally called and not elected never come to attaine the spirituall part yet are they in foro visibilis Ecclesiae to be reputed Church members and they have as Austin saith veritatem sacramenti though not fructum Sacramenti they receive the truth of the Sacrament though they partake not of the best part of it And the Iewes said I received it not as a nation but as a Church as a people separated from the world and taken into Covenant with God against which you object if I take as with reduplication they received it neither as a nation nor as a Church for if as a nation then every nation must have been circumcised if as a Church then every Church must be circumcised they received it as appointed them from God under that formall notion and no other But what poore exceptions are these my plaine meaning was the Jewes were both a civill societie or Common-wealth they were also a Church or a people in Covenant with God Circumcision was given them in reference to their Church State not in reference to their civill state and was in ordine to the things of Gods kingdome and though the formall reason of their being circumcised was the command of God yet the Covenant of grace or their Church state was the motive to it and the thing it related to as is most cleare out of the 17. of Genesis and many other places where their Circumcision denotates their religious standing as hath often been shewed before But what is all this say you to the answering of the objection which was that Circumcision was not the Seale of the spirituall part of the Covenant of grace to all circumcised persons and that Circumcision was appointed to persons not under the Covenant c. I answer I thinke it very fully answers the objection for if it was commanded and observed as that which was a priviledge and dutie belonging to the Covenant and they used it as being in Covenant the objection is wholly taken off Your frequent bringing in of the manner of administration by types shadowes c. hath been abundantly answered in my vindicating my first conclusion and elsewhere Next you much trouble your selfe how I will cleare that expression of mens conformity to temporall blessings and punishments because blessings and punishments are Gods acts and not mens I desire you to require an account of it from them who assert it I said Circumcision bound them who received it to conforme to that manner of administration of the Covenant which was carried much by a way of temporall blessings and punishments they being types of spirituall things is this all one to conforme to temporall blessings and punishments I added no man can shew that any were to receive Circumcision in relation to these outward things onely or to them at all further then they were administrations of the Covenant of grace you answer they received Circumcision neither in relation to these outward things onely no nor at all either as they were temporall blessings or types of spirituall things and so administrations of the Covenant of grace but for this reason and no other because God had so commanded I reply here had beene the fit place for you to have made good what you have so confidently asserted heretofore that Ishmael Esau and others were circumcised for some temporall respects that Circumcision sealed the temporall or politicall promises c. but in stead of proving this you doe here as good as deny it for if they were not circumcised in any respect at all to their temporall blessings how I pray you did Circumcision seale their temporall blessings Nay further you by consequent deny that Circumcision sealed either temporall or spirituall blessings and consequently it was no seale at all or a seale of nothing at all for if they were circumcised with respect to nothing but onely because God commanded them to bee circumcised how was Circumcision any Seale to them If a father give a child a Ring and command him to weare it onely to shew his obedience to his fathers command what doth the wearing of this Ring seale to the child it declares indeed the childes obedience to the father but seals nothing to the child from the father Nor doth that which you adde any whit helpe this you say You deny not

once the Infants of all Covenanters had this priviledge may I not also exact of you to shew when and where this was taken away who though you goe not about to expunge them out of the book of life yet you expresly expunge them out of visible membership while you say the Jews Infants had it and ours have it not Lastly I added who ever will goe about to deprive them of it to cut off such a great part of the comfort of beleeving Parents must produce clear testimonies before they can perswade beleevers to part with either of them either right to the Covenant or to the seale of the Covenant because next to the glory of God and the salvation of their owne soules their Infants interest in the Covenant is one of the greatest benefits beleevers have from the Covenant of grace even to have their Children belong to Gods family and Kingdome and not to the Devills Children being the greatest treasure of their Parents and the salvation of their childrens soules the greatest treasure in their children and therefore to exclude them out of that society or visible standing where salvation is ordinary is so great a losse or eclipsing of their comfort a● whoever would make them yeeld to it had need produce very strong evidence and much more I said in my Sermon to this purpose You answer Here I am upon my advantage ground in a veine of Oratory and on a subject of all others aptest to move affections to wit Parents tendernesse to their children I confesse in this point I stand upon a vantage ground not in Oratory to which I pretend not but in point of truth had I only spoken words without weight you could and would have discovered their emptiness and scoffed at them sufficiently you make severall small exceptions which I shal briefly touch as First That I touch something too neare upon the Popish Opinion as if I might be guess'd to symbolize with that Opinion of the Papists who judge all unbaptized infants to perish which is not worth the answering Then you demand What comfort doe wee give Parents which the Antipaedobaptists doe not give them as well as we or what discomforts in truth doe they give them which we doe not I answer the difference is very great you leave them in the state of Infidells we in the condition the Jews children were in while they were the people of God wee account them actually belonging to the visible kingdom of Christ you actually to belong to the visible kingdom of the Devill wee leave them under the benefit of that promise I will be the God of thee and of thy feed you acknowledge no more promise for them then for the children of Turks it may be these things are of no account to you but I doubt not but they will bee with your unprejudiced Reader I next proceeded to the maine and onely Objection made against this whole Argument which is this There is no command no expresse institution or cleare example in all the New Testament of baptizing of Infants and in administration of Sacraments wee are not to be led by our owne reason or grounds of seeming probabilities but by the expresse order of Christ and no otherwise You say this is indeed the maine Objection and without answering it all that I have said is to little purpose But Sir did not you formerly grant that upon the proving of my two first Conclusions the whole cause depended if therefore those Conclusions remaine firme there is enough already said to the purpose You adde Vnlesse this Objection be removed the practice of baptizing infants will never be acquitted from Will-worship and that the Prelatists will shew vertuall commands from analogy of the Ceremoniall Law of the Jews and Traditions Ecclesiasticall as ancient as ours for Paedobaptisme for their Prelacy Holy dayes Surplice c. And therefore if I stand not to i● here I must yeeld up my weapons Sure you think you are here like to get some advantage you speake so big but by this time I have had such sufficient experience of your strength that I much feare not your great words First for the point of Will-worship I shall desire you to prove this Conclusion That all things belonging to Christian worship even in the circumstances of it even the ages and sexes of the Persons to whom the Ordinances are to bee applyed must bee expresly set down in the new Testament if you prove not this you say nothing to the purpose for this is our very case I have already shewed the falsenesse of it in the point of the Christians Sabbath for though the Ceremoniall Worship which was a type of Christ be wholly abolished yet not every thing which concerns all Worship which must have an institution is abolished And for the plea which the Bishops and others may pretend from the analogy of the Ceremoniall Law when you shew how they will raise their Arguments which possibly you have more skill and experience to doe then I have as plainly as I doe for Infant-baptisme you may possibly prevaile with the Reader in their behalf And when you shew as much Ecclesiasticall Antiquity for Prelacy Holydayes Surplice c. I shall beleeve your Reading to be greater then I can yet be perswaded of that you have seen some such Monuments of Antiquity which the Prelaticall Party could never yet light upon But I proceed with you I first granted That there is no expresse syllabicall command for baptizing of Infants no expresse example where Children were baptized Sure say you this is a shrewd signe that I am not like to make good my ground having yeelded thus much And why so I pray your very next words leave me ground enough when you say That if it bee made good by good consequence it is sufficient what need was there then of this idle scoffe I added Many other points of high concernment are not expresly laid down in the New Testament a● forbidden degrees of marriage Laws against Polygamy the Law of a weekly Sabbath c. You answer In meere positive Worship it must be so it must have either Precept or Apostolicall example equivalent to a precept found in the New Testament else it is will-worship and this say you is our case in hand I answer as before there is no absolute necessitie that every circumstance of an Ordinance or the severall Sexes or ages to whom an Ordinance ought to bee applyed must bee thus set downe in the New Testament this is sufficiently cleared Part 2. Sect. 8. and part 3. Sect. 1. As for the forbidden degrees of marriage you say there is one branch mentioned and censured in the New Testament viz. the incest●ou● Corinthians case and that is say you a finne against a morall commandement but how would you laugh at such a consequence in another a man may not marry his fathers wife a thing which by the light of nature was abborred amongst the Heathens Ergo