Rich. BAXTER'S REVIEW OF THE STATE OF Christian's Infants Whether they should be entered in COVENANT With God by BAPTISM and be Visible Members of His CHVRCH and have any Covenant-Right to Pardon and Salvation Or whether CHRIST the Saviour of the World hath shut all Mankind out of his Visible Kingdom and Covenant-Rights and Hopes 'till they come to Age And whether he did so from the beginning of the world or after his Incarnation Occasioned by the Importunity of Mr. E. Hutchinson and of Mr. Danvers and Mr. Tombes who called him to this REVIEW in order to his RETRACTATION An Impartial Reading is humbly requested of those Dissenters who would not be found Despisers of holy Truth nor such as judge before they hear London Printed for Nevil Simons at the Princes Arms in Pauls Churchyard 1676. READER I Once more stew the World that is is in the power of other men if God permit them to hinder us from greater service to the Church by making things far less in themselves to become accidentally at that time more necessary By which kind of Impediments in Contentious times Satan frustrateth the better desires and designs of many of the Servants of Christ who would fain be better employed yea and useth herein the service of such men as in other respects are none of his Servants And thus though Scriptures be our General Rule the Providence of God and the great Ends of all our life are the Determiners of the Circumstances of our Duties The Cause of this REVIEW is a Letter of one Mr. E. Hutchinson sent me very large in considerable Oratory to let me know his Contempt of my last and former Book of Baptism and to humble me for the great sin of abusing the world with such frivolous writings which seem to do something but prove nothing and leave Mr. Danvers c. unanswered so that it is an Answer that he would have And he vehemently urgeth me to Repentance and Retraction of what I have written for Infants Church-membership Covenant and Baptism as did Mr. Tombes more than once before him Should I Print his Letter without his consent perhaps he might take it for an injury and if he would have it done it 's like he will do it himself But because it refereth to a Printed Paper of Mr. Danvers against me called his Third Reply which I never saw till his Letter informed me of it I thought that it was more than himself whom he importuned me to satisfie I have told him here truly how little the meer difference about the outward Baptism of Infants doth abate my esteem and love of any Godly Peaceable men Two sorts of Persons called Anabaptists I can live in as friendly concord with as with most I hold Communion with First those that deny not the Covenant-Rights and Church-Relation of the Infants of Believers confessing them to be Holy but only think that their Baptism being but the solemnization of their foregoing Covenant and the publick Investiture of them in their Relation may as the Coronation of an Infant King be deferred till they come to some understanding of which minde were Tertullian and Nazianzene Secondly those that being in doubt only of the Sufficiency or Lawfulness of Infant-Baptism do receive a second or a third Administration as some Marryed by Justices lately were marryed again by Ministers and as Mr. Humphrey pleads for a second Ordination especially if Hypothetically done to satisfie their doubting Consciences and then live in peace and orderly Communion afterwards with other Christians as knowing that in Christ Jesus neither Circumcision availeth nor Uncircumsion but a new Creature I say none of these shall be more willing of loving Communion with others than I shall be with them But 1. If men will deny and scorn our Infant-Right in the Covenant of Grace and in Christ Pardon and Salvation and Visible Church-Relation and will so far deny the Kingdom and Grace of Christ as to maintain that he excludeth all mankind from any Visible Right or Hope of Salvation till Adult and hath given such Right no more to Christian 's Children than to Heathens And if they will make this Opinion the measure of their Communion and will divide the Church and Unchristen or Unchurch all that are not as unthankful and injurious to Christ and to the Holy Seed as themselves it is not I that separate from these men but they from me and all sober Christians And I will here add but these two or three Notes to the Reader 1. If he will peruse two short Disputations which I have lately published of ORIGINAL SIN the Primary and Secondary he will see it fully proved that both Naturally and by Supernatural Revelation God hath declared such an Interest of Parents and Children in each other as is much of the Reason of all that I here plead for And he that will accurately observe the whole current of the Scripture herein shall find this Conjunct-Interest asserted from end to end 2. I am past doubt that it is a principal design of Satan to mortifie our Christendom it self by keeping Parents from that intelligent and serious Covenanting with God in their solemn dedication of their Children to him which the greatness of the work and case requireth and to turn our very Christening into a Ceremony or lifeless Formality And it is not the least part of my Non-conformity that I dare not deliberately profess my Assent and Consent that no Parent shall be suffered in the Church to enter his own Child into the Covenant of God nor to speak one Covenanting Promising Undertaking nor Dedicating word nor must be urged to be so much as present But that Godfathers and Godmothers who never give us any cause to believe that one of many thousands of them take the Child for their own nor ever purpose to Educate him or do what there they Vow and Covenant to do must be the only Covenanting Undertakers and so that so much notorious false Vowing to God or Perfidiousness must defile our Baptism And now come these Anabaptists and instead of calling the Parents to Seriousness and Holy Fidelity in so great a work they tell them that it is none of their Duty at all 3. And how light soever some make of Unity I know that it 's even Essential to the Church As the Union of the Stones and Timber is to the House and of King and Subjects to the Kingdom and of the several parts to a Clock or Watch For the Form is Relative And do you think then that they befriend Christ or his Church who turn the Sacrament of our Union into the occasion of our great Division yea and Unchristen and Unchurch all the Christian World in Infancy yea and a thousand parts to one of the Christian Church of the Adult because they are not Re-baptised at Age. Passion and Prejudice and Partiality when men have espoused the Interest of a Cause as the best and holyest in their eyes may make men
swallow such things as these and think that they serve God in reviling all that are against them Were we agreed against Infants Covenant-Right when should we ever be agreed at what Age it is that they are to be received and when a Childs Profession were Valid But he that thinketh that 1. All the Christian World will ever Unite in the Renouncing of all Infants Covenant-Rights and Hopes 2. Or that without Unity in the Essentials or without Love and Peace the Church of Christ is in a prosperous State doth not judge as I do upon the most serious thoughts that I am able to exercise and as I doubt not but I shall judge to the last breath which is not like to be far off TO Mr. E. HVTCHINSON SIR WHen I read you general Accusation of my Firey discouraging of Reprovers c. I began to bethink me who they were in all my life time that had to my face reproved me and been discouraged by any unthankful passionate returns of mine and not remembring any one in my life unless you will call my Contradicting men in disputation and Altercation in case of differences of Judgment by that name I did read on in expectation of fuller information and I perceived that it was not any verbal rejecting any reproof of my present Monitors that you meant but my published Writings against those called Anabaptists I have long had far lowder calls than yours to Review my Life and Writings and to judge of them as impartially as I can Upon the Review I am Conscious 1. That I never meddled at first with Mr. Tombes till he unavoidably constrained me by sending those whom he had prevailed with to me to tell me that if I would not answer him they must lay their change so far on my refusal to satisfie them We lived to gether till then without any meddling with the difference by me 2. I find that when he had without my consent published these Papers which I privately sent him with his Answer I gave not a word of Reply to them till Mr. Danvers made it seem necessary to me though it be above 20 years since they were written Surely my silence was no furious Contradiction 3. I find that when Mr. Tombes published them so long ago and they have been in your own hands in Mr. Tombes his Book neither you nor others till now that I know of shewed me any such fury in them And those that I have spoke with say that there is no such thing but that his Reply is passionate which I leave to others judgment that yet may read them in his Book together 4. I find that in 1659. when I endeavoured to perswade Mr. Lambe and Mr. Allen to Christian Concord that I did not strive against their Anabaptistry but only to satisfie them that holding that difference they yet ought to satisfie themselves in that which they took to be their Duty and to hold loving Communion with the Churches and Christians of the other mind And when they had renounced their Separation it was not I but their own Light Experience and Consideration by what other helps I know not that made them Renounce their Anabaptistry 5. When before that there was a Treaty in London for the Reconciling of the Presbyterians Iudependents I did first at home to the Ministers of Worcestershire mantain by a set Disputation that it was our Duty to seek Peace and Communion with the Anabaptists and after sent up the Terms of that desired Concord to London to Mr. Allen who at some Meetings for that purpose told me the business went hopefully on till the Confusions in 1659. disturbed and overthrew all 6. I have above 20 years in Print and Pulpit frequently told the Churches that they are greatly beholden to Gods Providence in permitting the Anabaptists to call us so lowd to the serious confideration of of our Baptism and that if those that were Baptized in Infancy be not brought to as serious understanding and resolved a renewing of that Covenant as if they had never been Baptised before yea and pass not out of the state of Infant Church-membership into that of the Adult by a solemn transltion in owning of their Covenant these Church Corruptions will be continued which are the Scandal and Temptation of the Anabaptists And to that end I wrote a Treatise of Confirmation 7. I have Printed in this last Book recited by Mr. Barret in the end of his Queres such an Offer of Brotherly Concord with the Anabaptists supposing our continued difference in that point even the very words of such a Profession on which both parties may with mutual forbearance live in brotherly Love and Communion as never any man did to me accuse either of Rigor Unlawfulness or Insufficiency to that end And if you resolve that you will have no Communion with any in the world but those that are of your Opinion against Infant-Baptism your Communion will be narrower than mine and such talk as this of yours is never like to draw me to your mind 8. I have many years insisted more upon the terms and improvement of our Baptismal Covenant as containing that very Touch-stone or state of Evidence by which both our sincere Grace and our right to Church-Communion must be tryed than any man that I know of of which my Family Book is a full proof 9. To the Reconciling of men herein I have oft shewed that If our Childrens part in the Covenant of Grace upon their Parents dedication of them to God â—nd so their Church-membership were but yielded the rest whether they should actually be Baptized with Water would be much less cause of our distance and alienation than on both sides it is usually judged Yea if the Anabaptists would but say I Dedicate this Child to God as far as he hath given me power and heartily desire that God may be his Father Christ his Saviour and the Holy Ghost his Sanctifier And did ever any of you prove this to be a sin And we are ready on our part to profess that Infant-Baptism will save none at age that consent not to the same holy Covenant 10. I have oft told the world that though the Ancient Churches denyed not their Childrens part in the Covenant of Grace nor their right to Pardon and Salvation and Infaut Church membership by that Covenant yet the Time when Children themselves should be solemnly Baptized was left in the Churches for above 200 years to every ones free choice some and the most Christians usually Baptizing them quickly and others thinking as Tertullian that it would bind them faster if they stayed somewhat longer or as Nazianzene thought till they were three or four years old even as one that hath right to a Crown in his Infancy may have his Coronation performed either then or afterward 11. I have oft told the world that I would have this liberty and moderation again revived and that I would have no Anabaptist persecuted or
now they are holy Nor in that one text to expound Sanctifying for Lawful Marriage and Holyness for Legitimation when the words are never so taken else in the Bible and ma-many hundred times in another sense nor to say that all Pagans Children are holy if they be not Bastards I am satisfied that man must not teach God how to speak but carefully enquire what he hath spoken And if but one Text of Scripture acquaint us directly or consequentially of his mind we must be faithful in observing it I believe that these are your thoughts as well as mine and that you verily think that you hold close to the Scripture and that I depart from it But as I am as willing to understand it as you are and at as hard a rate of cost or labour so I well know that one mistake once deeply received doth let in abundance more and fights against all the light that would detect and shame it And he that once accounteth Falshood to be Truth will account the Defenders of Truth to be its Enemies Otherwise how could you and such others bring your Consciences to wrest and wrangle against such abundance of plain Scripture Texts Were it but this one what could be plainer What is wresting Scripture if this be not to force a sense of Holyness and Sanctification upon one Text which is never found else in any Text and the contary or different sense neer six hundred times is this impartial dealing with Gods word And do you think that Paul mentioneth that as a great and comfortable priviledge of Believers which belongs to Heathens equally with them Why do you not your selves still use that language then and say that the Children of Infidels are holy when too many will scarce allow the title to any Adult Christians that are not of your Sect much less to the Children of Christians though dedicated by Baptism to God But being called by you to a Review I am again remembred that our Saviour himself was a Church member in his Infancy even the chiefest that is the Head Mr. Tombes confesseth it Let not your opinions interest draw you to deny it nor to call my assertion rotten dictating If you should I would ask of you at what age Christ began to be Christ and the Churches Head as we ask the Socinians At what age he began to be God And if an Infant was capable of being the Head King Priest and Prophet Relatively though yet he had never Ruled Sacrificed or Taught then there is nothing in the Infant Age which maketh it uncapable of being Members Subjects and Disciples of Christ And it is like that Irenaeus was not deceived who saith that he Sanctified the state of Infancy by being an Infant and we have reason to judge that he did thereby give us notice that the Infant Age is not unacceptable to him nor uncapable of Church Relation Truly Sir the serious thought of Christs Infant Relation is a very great confirmation of me against those that exclude all mankind in their Infancy from the Covenant and Church even as Christs ordinary Communion in the Synagogues and Temple is an insuperable argument with me against unlawful Separations And God himself calling Infants his Servants who do no actual service Levit. 25. 41 42. yea and calling them Disciples Acts 15. 10. prevaileth more with me than the words of any one that shall say They are uncapable of being Servants or Disciples If the Infant-age did not render them uncapable of being Subjects of Christs Kingdom and Members of his Church Universal and Particular before Christs Incarnation it maketh them not since uncapable of the like or same Relations And why should I suspect such incapacity are not Infants members of other Societies are they not members of Families and may not a Family be Sanctified by dedication to God are they not members of all the Kingdoms in the world and is it not the common light of Nature which teacheth all men so to esteem them are not Infants the Kings Subjects and why may they not as well be Christs Subjects as the Kings Have they not Right of Inheritance and Honour even of Crowns Lordships and Lands Do any Nations under Heaven level all Children as if the Parents communicated neither good or evil to them What reason then to suppose that Christ obliterateth even Natures Laws And if you deny not Original Sin why should you think that God is so unproportionably prone to punish and damn more than to pardon and save as that while all Infants are made sinful and miserable by their Parents yet not one in the world shall have so much as a part in Christs meritorious Righteousness and the free grace and pardon of his Covenant upon the Parents dedication of him to God and entering him by consent into his Covenant Doth sin abound so much more than Grace as that Condemnation is passed upon all Infants for and by their Parents sin and the free Covenant gift doth not pardon any sin to any one Infant in the world upon any condition which the Parent can perform nor any other You never yet by all your words for all words are not Light and Proof did convince me that it was no Benefit to Infants before Christs Incarnation to be Covenant-members of his Church particular and Universal Nor that Christ came to deprive them all of that benefit Mr. Tombes his pretenses that it is a Benefit to Christians to have all their Infants put or kept out of the Church State and Mercies is so absurd against Nature that I am asham'd to say any more against it If it be our Benefit to have no Covenant-gift of Christ Pardon and Life to our Children may you not next say It is our Benefit to have them damn'd And if it were so Nature teacheth us to be loath to receive our Benefits by such means as one would be loath that a Physitian should cure his Sickness by a draught of the heart blood of all his Children Sir I could the easilyer bear with your delay of external Baptism if you did not deny all Infants their part in the Covenant of Life But when you dare not only do that but reproach our assertion of Gods Covenant-Grace to them as Absurd and Heretical it is no Fieryness to say that I will not follow you Where there is no Covenant or Promise there is no Hope which we can call Divine and if we have no Hope of the Pardon or Salvation of our Children upon any Promise of God it is no Promise of Mans that can keep us from Despair We may not then say as David I shall go to it any farther than to the Grave Nay do you not do worse than deprive us of our hopes even lay such grounds as destroy and exclude them by a sentence of damnation For God addeth to the Church such as shall be saved And if Infants be not added to the Church are they not excluded from Salvation For
Christ washeth and sanctifieth his Church he is the Saviour of his Body only And if they are not of his Church or Body he washeth them not nor is their Saviour effectively The same Text that saith He that believeth shall be saved saith He that believeth not shall be damned And He that believeth not is condemned already If therefore you allow them no participation in their Parents Faith but require personal Belief of them as necessary to their Salvation according to the Promise you must also require the same of them to save them from Damnation by the Threatning Did you but leave Christians no more hope than you do Pagans and Turks of their Childrens Pardon and Salvation I would not be ambitious of the Joy of your opinion much less if you positively condemn them And what do you less if finding them condemned by the violated Covenant of Innocency you totally exclude them from the Remedying Pardoning and Saving Covenant and from Christs Body which he doth save If you say that they may be of his invisible Church which is the saved Body I answer 1. What they may be tells us not what they are If they be not so much as visible Members who can say that they are invisible ones 2. They are by Nature visible Members of the Kingdom of Satan and Children of wrath and visibly under the Laws Condemnation Therefore 'till we can prove them visibly by grace translated out of this state of nature their visible Condemnation cannot be denyed And what a jumble make you if you make a great part of Mankind to be at once condemned visible members of the Kingdom of the Devil and invisible saved members of Christ Men may be visibly Christians Hypocrites and yet invisibly wicked but to be visibly condemned members of the Kingdome of Darkness and yet invisible members of Christ is strange to me especially considering that Hypocrites are visibly what they are not really and invisibly because they falsely profess what they have not But a condemned Infant doth not deceive men by dissembling but we actually know that as a child of Adam he is a child of sin and death It is truly so Therefore we must conclude that as Gods Word is true he continueth so till he be delivered by Grace And the Covenant of Grace is the Conveyance of and title to our gracious priviledges as the threatning is of wrath Shall not all that are judged be judged by Gods Law the Law which they were under And what Law shall Infants then be judged by If they are under no Covenant of Promise that giveth them title to life how can they have title by it or be judged by it Are they Justified or not Justified If not Justified they are condemned certainly and shall not be glorified for it is the Justified that are glorified Rom. 8. 30. But if they are Justified either it is by some Justifying Promise and Covenant or without If without 1. Do you not give hope also to all Heathens and Wicked men that though they are condemned by the Law of Innocency and not justified by any Covenant of Grace yet they may be justified without 2. And by what means is it by any or none If by any by what If by none how know you it But if it be by any Covenant-Grant that they are justified it must be by that of Grace which I am pleading for or none For we will not now receive another Gospel To talk therefore of meer Election is nothing to any of this that I have said Election Justifieth not nor dissolveth the condemning Sentence of the Law God judgeth not men meerly on the grounds of his unreveled Election but by his Word which is the Rule And were it otherwise if unrevealed none can prove it and therefore must not affirm it And were it reveled that God will save some that he promiseth not to save nor giveth them any antecedent right to it yet 1. No man could know by this whether any one in England or Europe or in the World in his age shall so be saved nor whether it be many or few or more than a dozen in the world 2. And no one can know who any of these be and so can have no notice of comfort for any of his own 3. Nor that Christians Infants shall be saved any more than the Heathens These things Sir are not to be submitted to by all Christians for fear lest you else revile them or lest Mr. T. sayes Their blood be on their own heads Austin is called Durus Pater Infantum for too sharp a censure on the unbaptized though many mistake him But we should be harder did we leave all visibly condemned without a pardoning word or any visible remedy and hope And truly me thinks you too much honour the Kingdome of the Devil if you make it visibly contain all the Seed of the Woman even of the Faithful till they come to age It is too great I will not feign it to be greater Were all the Circumcised Israelites and all the holy seed till Christ at once both in the Church and in Satans Kingdom If not sure it is not so now Sure I am that the Scripture tells us of a larger Church and a better Covenant and Promises and greater Salvation under the Gospel and do you bring it down to this to give us all up to the Devils visible Kingdom without any visible Remedy till we come to age And he is scarce so like to prove a member of Christ at age who is trained up in the Kingdom of the Devil till then as he is that is educated in the Houshold of God There is more of Gods blessing to be expected in his own Family than in the Devils Either it is a Mercy or no Mercy to be in Christs Family or Church if none why do you value it if it be why should we think that the Saviour of the world procureth it to no Infants nay that he came to leave them out Would you not take it for a Mercy if you believed that God in Scripture gave it to all the Seed of the Faithful dedicated to him I think you would For my part I believe that the Seed of the Righteous is blessed Psal 37. 26. and that the Children of Satan and the condemned unjustified seed are not blessed That blessed are they whose sins and iniquities are forgiven and covered and to whom the Lord imputeth not sin and that this blessing cometh even on the uncircumcised But not on them who are unpardoned and condemned already I hear many sad Mothers lamenting their dead Children for fear lest they are damned And though I never was a Father I can perceive what the concerns and bowels of Parents are But what would they do if they were taught to believe that no Infant ever in the world had any justifying pardoning Promise nor visible Remedy but all till age are under condemnation by the undissolved Obligation of the Law
so far to confound the state of Christians and Pagans as to their Childrens blessing 5. What a sin so to enlarge and honour the Devils Kingdom as to give him all mankind visibly till they come to age 6. What a sin to rob Parents of so much of their due comfort 7. What a sin to deprive so many millions of Covenant-pardon Grace and Life by hindering the acceptance and consent 8. What a sin thus to change and take from the Word yea from the very Covenant of God 9. What a sin to vilifie so great Mercy as if it were none and to preach such ingratitude 10. What a sin so to dishonour Christ as if sin abounded so much more than his Grace as that all Infants being visibly condemned not one in the world is visibly pardoned or justified 11. Yea to make Christ so like Satan and contrary to himself as to come into the world to cast or keep all mankind in Infancy out of the Church and Covenant of Grace And when his Name is called Jesus because he saveth his people from their sins he will take none for his people till age nor save any Infant visibly from sin either guilt or habit and so be no Jesus to any but the Adult that we can know of when yet before his comeing it was otherwise And so to make the Gospel much harder than the Law and the yoak of Christ harder than the yoak of Circumcision 12. Yea and to make the Gospel Church more narrow and unhappy than all the Pagan Nations were before whose Children might have been Proselited with the Parents 13. What a sin is it to teach men to be thus unnatural and cruel to their Off-spring 14. What a sin to teach all that are not Re-baptized that they break no Baptismal Vow or Covenant nor sin against it because they never were Baptized 15. And is it nothing so to cross our Prayers Let thy Kingdom come and to pray and endeavour that Christs Kingdom may not extend to any of mankind till they actually at age believe But the great difficulty which it will be expected that I resolve is Whether I do not imply That all the Children of true Christians dedicated to God having saving Grace in their Infancy many after fall from it seing experience tells us that too many prove ungodly I Answer 1. So much of Scripture and so great and many Mercies must not be all denyed when a difficulty ariseth in the way which we cannot at the present answer Else what would become of most mens Christianity it self 2. This was no difficulty to the antient Fathers no not to Augustin and his followers and so to all the known Church of Christ for a thousand years after the Apostles who commonly held that even of the Adult many fall from true Grace Justification and a state of Life some appropriating perseverance to the Elect as Austin and some to the confirmed in Grace and some to both 3. It is hard that they that cannot extricate themselves out of such difficulties will but reproach those that offer them their help But this is not the first time that I have ventured upon their Ingratitude I speak of it still as a difficulty but what I have said in my More Reasons for Infants Church-membership seemeth most probable to me viz. 1. All Christians confess that Adam fell from a state of Salvation or right to Life at present 2. Adams Grace which he lost was a Power to Love God and obey him which he could use or suspend 3. Beyond a meer Power there is in the sanctified by the in-dwelling Spirit of Adoption Gracious Habits of Love and Obedience What Adam had of this I am not here to determine 4. Beyond meer weak Habits there is in some such Habits as are strong confirmed and radicated 5. And in Heaven above all these there is full Perfection Now I apply this 1. Actual and Habitual Love and Obedience is in the sanctified Adult by the indwelling Spirit For Actual Love and Obedience is their Duty which the Habit is joyned to 2. Vocation giveth Faith and Repentance in Act with some seminal disposition to the said Acts and Habits of Love and Obedience as Amesius Medull de Orat. not yet Habits and this Vocation goeth before Sanctification Faith being the Condition on which the Spirit of Adoption and Sanctification is promised 3. So much Grace may be given to Infants as was to Adam as to meer Power to do what he did not and as the Dominicans call sufficient or necessary Grace and perhaps such as is the innitial Disposition before full Sanctification And this much may qualifie them for present Pardon and Justification For Actual Love and Obedience is not their Duty and consequently not the proper habit beyond a Power and seminal Disposition as of necessity to their first state of Grace And as Adam lost this much so may they 4. The Sanctifying Spirit of Adoption is not promised to Infants to work such Acts in them as they are not yet capable of nor such Habits as in Gods usual order follow such Acts But he is Related to them as their Sanctifier because Christ will send the Spirit as they come to the use of Reason to help them in holy Acts and so to Habits if they forfeit not his help Which some do besides the perfidious neglect of Parents and so lose that Infant-Grace 5. But all Gods Elect shall certainly have more than this Grace of sufficient necessary losable Power and Disposition and shall at age have actual Faith Love and Obedience if they live 6. What ever Infant dyeth in the state of that Grace Disposition which we call sufficient in its nature was as loseable as Adams shall be perfected in his access to the perfecting Glory as all imperfect Saints are and is one of the Elect and shall by Promise be saved allowing degrees of Glory If there be no need or evidence of this solution and you have any other surer way then cast this by as rotten dictating Thus far I have given you an account of my Review But yet I here repeat again That if you would be contented your selves to satisfie your own Consciences to be Re-baptized as one that doubted whether he were well Marryed would secure it by being Marryed over again and would afterward live peaceably in communion with your Brethren and not appropriate Church-communion to your Sect. And if you would not deny our Infant part in the Covenant of Grace the promise of Pardon and life by Christ and our Infant Church-membership and only delayed the Baptismal Investiture as Tertullian desired for the more solemn inauguration and obligation Though I should not be of your mind I should live in as loving forbearance and Communion with you as with other Christians But if when we are for Peace you are for Church-Wars and cannot differ from us without Dividing Unchurching Unchristening avoiding and even Contemning or Slandering almost all the
Christians in this and former ages in such things I will have no Communion with you The Fathers likened Re-ordaining and Re-baptizing If any would satisfie his own Conscience with being ordained again for surety not Unchurching Degrading Avoiding Reproaching Persecuting those that are not of his mind I would break no peace with such a Re-ordained Person But if the Re-ordaining Sectaries will say as you Our way only is right we only are the true Ministers and Churches and turn like to Donatists I am not of their mind And I here profess that while I tell you of my dissent from your Extream it implyeth no liking of the contrary extream of those that would confound the Christians the Heathens so far as equally to Baptise all their Children if any Baptized person will but perfidiously promise that for them which they never made any intelligent man believe that ever they intended to perform Nor can I love the Hypocritical Religion of the Pharisees which turneth almost all into Ceremony as if they had to do with none but Children nor the turning of Catechising and Confirmation into a lifeless Formality to be instead of a serious Profession at age of the Christian Covenant and a solemn intelligent transition to the Church Priviledges of the Adult I know that it is Satans game first to draw Hypocrites to mortifie Gods Ordinances and turn Religion into an Image or a Carkass and thence to stir up others in several Sects instead of Reviving them to Loath and Bury them Woe to the World because of Offences and Woe to them by whom they come Before I come to my Fourth Part which is my Application to my self I must take notice of some more of your Applicatory Letter in the way And if I disorderly repeat some things in following so disordered a Leader you at least whatever others do must take it patiently it being far short of the tedious work which you seem to call for You would have Mr. Danvers his Letter Answered and you would have better Proof for Infant Baptism It is not in my power to believe the Reasons of my two Books which you generally take for none to be no sound Reasons nor to believe Mr. Danvers his Books not to be such a bundle of most gross mistakes and Vutruths as I scarce ever before met with from a professed Christian If I mistake it is not in my power to do otherwise were I to die this hour And if I have offended the Anabaptists by a faithful perswading them to Repent of the doleful work which they have made in England my Conscience more accuseth me for doing it no more than for doing so much If you take all men for as bad as you describe me that wish your Repentance for such works and also for our woful Church Divisions and differ from you about Infant-Baptism and that yet beg for mutual forbearance and peaceable Communion with you I am not of your spirit or mind and hope neither to live nor die in so narrow a Communion As for any more Answering any of you those that I converse with tell me it is needless I repent that I have been drawn by Contenders so often to interrupt more useful work If more be needful let them do it that have leisure and longer life You say that It is now a common question whether ever I will die a Martyr I am sorry that your Acquaintance are hardened and used to questions that so little concern them and that are so unmeet for their Determination If Suffering be the best State how happy hath this Kingdom been made by the OVERTURNERS Do you mean that you doubt whether ever the Anabaptists will have Power enough to effect it they attempting what they did against me too late just when they and their Co-partners were a pulling down themselves and others Or do you mean that till we are Martyred we are not capable of your good Opinion And are all the Anabaptists Graceless that are yet Unmartyred Or have more Anabaptists than Poedobaptists been Martyred in our times Or is it only your Prognostick on supposition of my Tryal I have more cause to distrust my self and beg Gods strengthning Grace than boastingly to foretel Though all men deny thee yet I will not But your talk of my flight and others suffering by proxie for me doth but shew that you have not that care of avoiding Falshoods in matter of Fact which might invite us to think that you are liker than others to be sound in Doctrine But had you not mistaken yet I might have admonished you not to have condemned every Anabaptist that hath taken a grosser flight than a sick mans going for his health into the Countrey when he had neither any Flock nor Vndertaking nor Call to hinder him At least that you mock not at Paul for being let down by the wall in a Basket nor at Christ for his flight into Aegypt or withdrawing into the Wilderness and into Gallilee c. nor for saying When they persecute you in one City flee to another or at least pass no hard sentence on your self for being yet alive no nor on Mr. Tombes for Writing against Separation and for Communion with the Parish Churches But in the end you Beseech me in the Bowels of Jesus Christ and as I will shortly answer at the great and dreadful Tribunal that among my other Errata I would repent of that absurd and Heretical position of a Baptismal Covenant of Grace running in a Fleshly Line Answ But 1. Just thus the Quakers dreadfully adjâ—re me to repent of all that 's against their way and must I therefore do it And yet Mr. Hicks Ives and other Anabaptists treat them far more sharply than cover I did the Anabaptists 2. I have so many years looked for my appearing at the Tribunal of Christ that if I should not be true to that Light which doth appear to me I were more unexcusable than yet you think me But will your word at that Tribunal pass for Law or for my Justification if I should contradict the Grace and Covenant of God and his Church Laws and state from the dayes of Adam to this day How shall I be sure that it is the Bowels of Christ and not Self-conceitedness and the Zeal of a dividing Sect in which you make this carnest sute to me 3. Especially when you so unintelligibly recite my supposed Errour and give me not a word of Answer against that abundance of Scripture proof which I have brought This is too unsatisfactory an answering of Books to Beseech us to repent of them 4. The Wisdom from above is Pure Peaceable and without Partiality Is yours so Ask any Impartial man whether you write like one that knoweth himself You here call us to Repent of a Position as Absurd and Heretical Did I ever call your Opinion Heretical Not that I remember Such writing as this of mine is fiery but your large Invectives without one word of
Scripture Presedent or fuller proof 1. I also require them to give me any one Scripture Presedent where ever any one that was the Child of a Christian and not at age when the Parents were made Christians was afterward Baptized when he came to age Prove that and you will prove something 2. I ask them whether many points in Divinity be not now taken as necessary or sure for which not the fourth part so much is produced out of Scripture as I have done for the Church-membership of Infants And seeing you have so importunately called me to a Review I will add these few things more I. What Benefits I perceive cometh by Infant-Baptism II. What hurt would come if you could prevail against it III. What sin you would draw men to by rejecting it IV. And I will tell you what thanks therefore I owe to God for preserving me from your mistakes and way I. And I cannot but think that all these following are Mercies not to be despised 1. To be Gods Children and God to be their God and Father 2. To be Christs Members and Christ to be their Head and Saviour 3. To have the Holy Ghost in Covenant with them to give them his Grace and help as shall be necessary to them upon the further terms on which it is by degrees to be communicated of which more anon 4. To have the pardon of all Original sin as to the damning punishment and so to have the Laws Condemnation disabled 5. To be members of so holy safe and honourable a Society as the Church 6. To have their Love and Prayers as Members 7. To have Parents obliged solemnly to endeavour to educate and use their Children as members of Christ fellow Citizens with the Saints and of the Houshold of God 8. To have right to Heaven so dying by Gods gift 9. For Parents and Friends to have comfortable notice of all this 10. And that they are not under the power and Kingdom of the Devil as those that are Rebels against the Covenant or that are without II. Should your perswasions prevail against Infant-Baptism these evils I think would follow And whereas you say that your Think is as good as my Think pardon my modesty and while you follow your own Think give me and others leave to judge of mine by the evidence at least of probability which I bring 1. I think that Christian Parents would want one of their Motives to live in Thankfulness to God and to magnifie the Grace of the Redeemer if they did beleve that all Infants are in the visible Kingdom of the Devil and have no Promise or Covenant-Grant of Pardon Remedy or Life 2. The want of this Demonstration of Divine Love would be a disadvantage to their Love to God For where much is forgiven there will be much Love 3. It would deprive Christian Parents of all the forementioned Comforts for their Childrens good and leave them to mourn for the dead as those that have no hopes which any Promise of God alloweth them 4. Parents would be more negligent in the pious education of their Children than they are for their solemn Vow and Promise is a great additional Obligation 5. Young Persons would be more bold in sin when they know that they are under no Covenant Vow or Promise to the contrary And they would usually delay their Repentance and Baptism as Constantine and many in those times did as thinking that all sin is done away when I Repent and am Baptized but it is more dangerous to sin after Baptism than before And so most would think it best to live out of the Church and to die in it to live as Infidels and die as Christians to live after the flesh as do the wicked and to be regenerate before death and to die the death of the Righteous 6. These delayes would do as delay of Repentance now doth to many even drive away Gods Spirit forfeit grace harden the heart so that few delayers would be converted 7. By these delayings of Repentance and liberty of sins wickedness would more abound and so Gods judgments against the land be more increased 8. Pagans and Infidels would be hardened and encouraged by the multitudes of the unbaptized and the paucity of Christians 9. For Christians would be but few in comparison of the multitude just as Mr. Tombes thinks Christ would have it here one and there one 10. And while some delayed their Baptism in scruple as many now do the Lords Supper and others to take the liberty of sinning which were like to be the common case of youth and others in senseless negligence the Baptized and Unbaptized would grow like our Non-conformists and Conformists into distinct Parties upon distinct Interest in point of Reputation and so the unbaptized become the Adversaries for the most part of the Baptized 11. And the Rich and the Multitude being usually the Unbaptized party they would be still the strongest and the Governours of the rest and the Laws and Government would be such as the Governours 12. And hereupon the Church would be as before the dayes of Constantine ordinarily under Persecution 13. This Persecution would detein the most from looking towards Christianity and so hinder multitudes from comeing in to Christ and woe to them that so offend or hinder such little ones It were better a milstone were hanged about their necks and they were cast into the depth of the Sea 14. There would then be no sanctified Families dedicated to God except those few that had no Children 15. Much less would any Nation be Discipled or any one Kingdom be the Kingdom of the Lord and of his Christ This is not the Condition that I desire and pray for If you doubt of all or any of this look to the Easterni parts of the world and be not worse than those that will learn by nothing but experience Judge whether under the Turkish Government the Greek Church be grown better and whether the Christians are more and holyer than heretofore And yet the Turks give Liberty of Religion which most Unbaptized Princes do not O dreadful Case That ever Religious persons should Study Preach Pray and fervently Dispute and Write to bring the Christian world to this as for the advancement of Religion III. To tell you of sinning I suppose will be taken for fiery fury or a Reproach of the Godly But I may tell you why I am not of your mind and what sin I think I should be guilty of if I were 1. God made it a duty for Parents solemnly to enter their Children by Dedication into the Covenant of God as is oft proved And how will men answer the non-performance hereof any more than their not Praying for them or not feeding or Cloathing them 2. What a sin is it to rob Christ of so great a part of his Church 3. What a sin so to deny the Gospel Grace and Promise and to hide so much of the Love of God 4. What a sin