one foot out saying yet I may go on the other in saying yet I may go back bespeaking its patrons to be in a twitter in a temper between Hawk and Buzzard afraid to dispute too downrightly for disputation least that should ingage them another time ashamed too directly to dispute down disputation least it be thought they have no mind to it any more But to come to the thing it self I confesse you have spoken Bonum but not Bene Rectum but not Rectâ— it is a moddle of for the most part right good true and honest matter onely made use of either very simply or very subtly to a bad end viz. the provoking of the Priesthood no need to bid mad folks â—un to preach up a false and oppose the practise of the true baptism Secondly most miserably misapplied if conscientiously and not cunningly it is the better to an improper subject and perverted the wrong way viz. to the fastning of the name Hereticks and Schismaticks for non-conformity to the Clergy upon those true Churches of Christ for non-conformity to whom in opinion and practise if miscariage about baptism may properly be so stiled the Clergy are in very deed the trust Hereticks and Schismaticks in the world I shall therefore in a serious survey and examine of what Heresie and Schism is discover plainly First that the people whom you call Anabaptists upon account of meer dissent and separation from you in the point of baptism are no Hereticks nor Schismaticks but the truest visible Church that Christ hath upon the earth Secondly that you the PPPriesthood of the Nations who dissent from them in that point are as to that point at least the veriest Hereticks and Schismaticks your selves Thirdly after some pathetical expostulation with your selves addresse my self by way of Peraphrase upon your own pathetical and paraenetical passages pathetically to exhort the true Pastors and paraenetically to perswade all people as you do yours to beware of us to beware of you the spirituallity by whom the way of truth is dispited who though you disguise your selves under the name of Gods Clergy or Heritage for a while yet will appear to be but cruel crushers of his true Clergy in the end First then let us see what Heresie and Schism is and then who is a Schismatical Heretick in the doctrine of baptism Heresie as to the Gospel is held and that truly by all manner of men I think the holding or maintaining any erroneous opinion in the faith and doctrine of the Gospel contrary to that doctrine delivered by Christ and his Apostles in the primitive times obstinately and pertinacously against all meanes that can be used towards conviction of the truth Schism is division or making of a rent fraction or faction in or separation from the true Church and from walking with them in the truth by the holders or maintainers of such false doctrine or opinion and consequently Schismatical Hereticks who ere they be are such as are bewitched from the simplicity of the truth as it is in Jesus and from the doctrine that was once received by the Church from him and his immediate Apostles so as both to believe and practise contrarily thereunto against all manifestations of the truth whereby to reduce and reclaim them and do also rend from and make a head against the true Church and true head thereof Christ Jesus separating themselves so as to have no fellowship or communion i. e. nor union of action nor unity of affection with them that walk in truth Now whether it be you O PPPriests who rantize infants or we who baptize believers that are thus gone off and divided from the primitive faith and practise from the true head of that Church from the true foundation i. e. the doctrine of the Apostles Eph. 2.20 Heb. 6.1.2 and from fellowship with and conformity to the true Church in baptism and otherwise is evident to him that is not blind or blear-eyed for verily the water baptism which we dispense is abundantly shewed above to be that one baptism Eph. 4. which was used in the primitive times then which there is no other water baptism enjoined or exemplified in the word as Christs ordinance to his disciples viz. the burying of new born babes i. e believers in water and bringing them up again in token of Christs death burial and resurrection and of their dying to sin and rising to newnesse of life this I say is that one onely baptism the Churches then practised and thus and no otherwise do we at this day for which the word is our warrant yea it is that faith which was once delivered unto the Saints that we now contend for and the words which were spoken before by the Apostles of the Lord as we are specially injoined to do in these latter daies by both Peter and Iude who foretold how they would be sleighted as we see they now are by the two Spiritualties viz. the Rantizer and the Ranter the one Hereticizing in the excesse by adding a new thing the other in the defect by owning nothing both Schismatizing accordingly from the way of truth and howbeit after that way which you call Heresie Schism separation from the Church and such like so worship we God yet as sure as the coats upon your back you shall first or last to your weal or wo find that as to the point of baptism Churchfellowship and the supper also it is no other then the way of truth we walk in yea so far are we from erring and Schismatizing from the Church that we of all men do stand for a full reformation in faith practise doctrine discipline worship manners government and baptism according to the word of God and the example of the best reformed Churches i. e. those mentioned in the word according to which we are all sworn to endeavour to reform as we will not be justly charged with Perjury Perfidiousnesse and Prevarication the guilt of all which how little the Orthodox protesting covenanting Clergy are clear of in the sight of God and man is good for them to consider yea conformity in all things to the primitive practise is that we plead for presse after and persue and howbeit to the shame of his ignorance be it spoken Orthodox Mr. Baxter is pleased among other sectaries to charge the Anabaptists so he calls us that baptize aright as the Authors and approvers of the horrible wickednesse of these times and speaks of us as dispappointing and destroying their hopes in point of reformation to the grief of his heart yet with grief of heart that the way of truth should be evil spoken of by him by reason of such as do wickedly indeed yet those lascivious waves he laies to our score are lesse approvvd on in our Churches then in the purest Parish Church in all Christ'ndom Kederminster not excepted yea I tell him and God I hope will one day seal it home upon his heart to the grief of it another way that
the power and purity of Christs ordinances are a 1000 fold more strictly stickled for according to the Covenant by us then by all those Orthodox ones he talks of who the more shame for them do so zealously and constantly oppose us we therefore cannot rationally be denominated Hereticks and Schismaticks in separating from and practising contrary to you in the point of baptism so long as we keep close to the primitive truth gladly both preaching and receiving the word as t is preacht by Peter Act. 2. saying repent and be baptized every one of you repenting and being baptized accordingly and after that continuing in the rest of the Apostles doctrine and fellowship in breaking of bread and prayers and though we draw never so many disciples from you after us yet the man is out of his Christian wits that deputes and declares this to be Heresie and Schism sith so far are we herein from rending from and refusing to be reduced to the Church that we indeed earnestly endeavour to reduce them to the true Church to the true head Christ the true constitution the true Baptism and Gospel order from which they are rent and run astray wondring after a false Church a false head viz. a Lording Priesthood and Parochial posture both which derive all their being from Dioâ—rephes i. e. his prating Preheminence the Pope But now as for your selves the PPPriesthood of the Nations who mostly deny not but that the primitive baptism was of believers and dispenst in Rivers or places of much water which was needlesse if sprinkling was then the way you have a thing among you indeed which you call Baptism but t is not that one Baptism that old Baptism then urged and used but another a new Baptism and yet to say the truth neither another nor A new Baptism but A-no-Baptism Rantism Babism a toy of your own taking up by tradition from your forefathers but not the first fathers that were the founders of the Christian Church for you find it not there but fetch it further from thence by such consequence as besides the remotnesse of it is too weak and rotten to carry it downwards to these times you are they that dissent and rend from the truth in this point of baptism and draw all the world to Sectarize and erre after you by a law by your subpaena directories yea you pretendedly reforming Presbyters who peculiarize the term oâ— Orthodox to your selves even you as to the right administration of the outward right of baptism are not a whit lesse Erratical Heretical Schismatical and Heterodox then the Pope for as he hath another baptism then that which was in the primitive times viz. infant â—antism which by the mouth of his cardinal Bellarmine he confesses to be but a tradition of the Church so you have no other then the same yea you own that for good baptism which is done at Rome or else how to prove the Popish Bishops to be baptized themselves that baptized and ordained you Presbyters you plainly know not yet you falsely father it upon Christ and fain it to be an ordinance of his then which nothing is more clear then that it is not And as in point of baptism you all erre not knowing or at least not doing according to the Scriptures all means used to reduce you thereunto notwithstanding so in th supper and many more matters pertaining to that visible Church order that was in those times as namely impropriating to your selves sole power of speaking in your Churches i. e. steeple-houses so that your members may well say men mutire nefas it is not for them to open their mouthes there unlesse to answer when you catechise them whereas then all the Church were to covet to prophesie i. e. to speak mutually to the exhortation edification and comfort each of other and being gifted might all women onely excepted prophesie one by one and every one minister as of the ability God gave them great or small that God in all things might be glorified and all judge of the doctrine delivered but with you what doctrine ere ye deliver men may try it if they will but must take it whether they will or no the mouths of all must be muzzled up save such as in your sense are ministers i. e. have some Parchment Preachment orders to shew from such as can shew their orders from his Highnesse the head of the Church not Christ but his Holinesse the Pope who had his from the beast Rev. 17. who had his from the devill Rev. 13. yea verily as to the external face and fashion of the first Churches you have altogether altered it from what it was and brought in a businesse of your own heads being all gone aside and altogether become vain in your wayes as to your administrations of Gospel ordinances so that there is none of you that are in the right way of the primitive Churches no not one yea ye are separated from and make a head against the true head of the Church Christ Jesus and take upon you to head the Church your selves for this is not the fault of P the Pope onely but of PP i. e. you Prelates and Presbyters too who howbeit you seem to throw off that supremacy or headship which the Pope had once and laies claim to still in the protestant part of Christ'ndom yet in your several Christ'ndoms you have been not nominally but really as supreme in Church work as he and that not over the people onely but civil powers also to whom in all cases Ecclesiasticall and civill though you say you grant the headship or Supreame Government under Christ yet how doth that appear sith they only Corrective but you Directive till of late have done all for the Bishops and Sinods and General Convocations of the Clergy and assemblies of the Kirk seeundum te must determine what is to be done by Magistrates in Church affairs and they do it accordingly The Priests must give out the word and sentence what is the worship the way the faith the truth what Heresy and Schism who are Hereticks and Schismaticks and then the Princes in all their Dominions establish the one and root out the other as Rogues at their appointment in which cases saving the bare name of supremacy over the Churches which hath been allowed it is difficult to me to discern whether Christian Kings have not been as of old under the Popedome so more lately under the very Protestant Clergy as the Bosholder under the Constable at his discretion direction to whip the beggars and though you may say and so saies the Pope too that you claim to head and order the Church directive no otherwise then under Christ yet in very deed as he for all his saying so you have presumed to set your selves above Christ the only head Counseller Lord and Lawgiver to his Church for as the Pope hath done no more then broken his lawes changed his ordinances trampled his truth
Clergy and their colours in order thereunto also highly inhauncing the price of three following forlorn-hope highway Hacksters and Hachny Arguments as not the last nor least though not the first three among the worthies that are engaged in it Whereas that poor blind Implicit-opinion'd people and Clergy-claw'd christen'd creatures may no longer to their utter erring from the way of Christs truth and their own peace trust in the lying words of their Prophets that profit themselves more then them by their traditionary doctrine I do here in the name of the great King Jesus who gave commission Mat. 28.18 to make persons disciples and to teach them first and then to baptize them proclaim it aloud to the whole earth that all these are either clearly against you or all things considered nothing for you First the whole region of Scripture in every coast and quarter thereof is up in armes against you neither is there any one part or place throughout it wherein you ever find that way of infant baptism much lesse your way of infant-rantism so much as probably to have been practised or the war you wage for it promoted by so much as one piece of a precept that such a thing should be done or inch of instance that ere it was done at all yea in all places where ever baptism was dispensed you find it done onely and downrightly in that despised way wherein we do at this day i. e. of dipping persons immediately after but never before converted and discipled all they of Ierusalem and Iudaea and Galilee that were baptized by Iohn in Iordan and by Christs disciples in his presence and by his appointment confessed their sins 3. Mat. were first taught and instructed or made disciples Mat. 28.18 Iohn 3.22 Iohn 4.1.2.3 all they who were baptized by Peter and others after his sermon at Ierusalem to the number of 3000. did first gladly receive the word Act. 2.41 all they that were baptized by Phillip at Samaria and betwen Ierusalem and Gaza were men and women that believed the things spoken by Phillip concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Iesus Acts 8.12.36.37 all they that were commanded to be baptized by Peter in the name of the Lord at Cesarea were such as were converted at the hearing of the word Act. 10.44.48 all that were baptized at Corinth by Paul Silas Timotheus were such as believed Act. 18.8 all they that were baptized by Apollos or any other at Ephesus before Paul came thither which were about 12. were every one of them adult believers Act. 19.1.2 c. Aâ—l that ever we find Ananias baptized at Damascus though there were other disciples there besides himself with whom Paul walkt a while was Paul that was baptized calling on the name of the Lord. All they of the Church of Rome to every one of whom Paul writes his Epistle Rom 1.6 that were baptized into Jesus Christ and buried with him by baptism into his death were such as had formerly lived in sin and actually obeyed it in the lusts thereof and yielded themselves up as servants to it and had now visibly obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered unto them Rom. 6.3.4.12.16.17.19.21 which things I take him to be little better then an infant in understanding that judges they were performed by any infants All they at Galatia who were baptized into Christ were such as had received and imbraced the Gospel and had put on the Lord Iesus Christ and such who through ignorance of God had done service to such as by nature were no gods but now had attained to know God by the preaching of the Gospel to them which things that are spoken to all the Churches of Galatia cannot be said of any infants Gal. 1.9.3.27.4.8.9.13 verses among all which this is most notable in that he saith As many of you as have bin baptized into Christ have put one Christ we see all along throughout the whole body of the new testament It was not the rule of Christ nor the practise of the primitive times to baptize persons till they had had first preached the Gospel to them and according to the commission converted them or made them disciples indeed so soon as ever they were thus discipled or made disciples that no infants can be so in infancy is shewed above as simply as Mr. Bazter seems to suppose believers infants are so from the very womb I agree with Mr. Baxter that their baptism was not to be delayed and forasmuch as he abundantly proves the period of time wherein persons were ever baptized in the primitive times by the will of Christ to be immediately after they were converted and made disciples he consequenâ—ly agrees as much with me as I desire him insomuch that in confirmation of this that I say I mean to declare this truth viz. that persons are not to be baptized till they are first made disciples in the same words wherein he himself declares it to us by the space of well nigh a whole page together in order to the making of his matter to serve our turn against himself and all you that baptize infants but especially against his fellow souldier Mr. Marshal and his critical observations out of which he tells us that infants are not disciples before but are made disciples by baptizing I shall frame this argument viz. If Christs Rule be that persons should be baptized when they are first made disciples without delay or immediately after they are converted and discipled then persons are not to be baptized before they are converted and discipled But Christs Rule is that persons should be baptized when they are first made disciples or immediately after they are converted and discipled Ergo they are not to be baptized before they are converted or discipled The Major is most clear and consequent for if it be Christs will that baptizing should immediately follow our discipling persons or converting them to the faith then consequently t is his will that baptizing should not go before our discipling and converting them if baptism must be immediately subsequent to teaching or making disciples by Christs commission then teaching persons or making them disciples must be Antecedent to baptism unlesse both these be the mind of Christ in his commission whom and when to baptize viz. that they should not baptize persons till they are taught and discipled and yet to go round again that they should not teach them till they have baptized them i. e. in Mr. Marshals sense initiated them first to be disciples by baptism and thereby admitted them to be taught as for the Minor which is this viz. That it is Christs rule that persons shall be baptized without delay when they are first made disciples or immediately after they are converted as I have fully proved it already above both from the commission for baptizing and from Scripture example explaining that commission and from the end and use of baptism so I shall further prove it
of the voice of Christ and the spirit opening their ears so as to make them learn things as adult ones do that is a meer figmâ—nt of your own fancies besides if they had such an internal hearing as you dream of what were that to the matter in hand or to the answering the objection that is grounded upon the alledged Scripture which speaks not of an inward but an outward hearing the word of God preached as that by which faith is begotten and without which it cannot come out of which outward way and meanes if persons be brought to believe as usually as by it and so it must needs be if little infants believe by the understanding of ceâ—tain secret whisperings and teachings within the spirit would not have spoken of it as such an unpossible case as he doth in saying how can they believe on him of whom they have not heard and how hear without a Preacher But say you that is the usual means by which faith is begotten in adult ones but the spirit is not tyed to meanes though we are he works faith in little children without the outward hearing of the word Is it so Sirs that the spirit is not tyed to work by means in little children in the same cases wherein he works by means in men and women I wonder then that you whose opinion this is should be so forgetful as to teach quite contrary to your own tenet for verily of all the men that are I know none that limit the spirit and tie him to means in his dealings with little infants like unto your selves As for us we own this position fully and to a tittle viz. that what God acts at all for infants he acts without meanes as to their salvation but as for your selves you own and disclaim this by turnes according as it seems to serve your own turnes so far as to hold it helpes to hold up your monstrous odd opinion of infants faith which hath no footing at all in Scripture you inwardly entertain it and outwardly proclaim it for undoubted truth but when you find it makes against you then t is no other then a figment of the Anabaptists for when we tell you there is no right to baptism without faith but infants cannot believe because faith comes by hearing understandingly the word preached which infants cannot do then such of you as Rantize infants on such a sottish supposition as their having faith in themselves excuse the matter thus viz. The spirit is not tied to means nor to the outward way of hearing the word so but that though he begets men to faith that way and by that means yet he begets infants to believe without it and such of you as ashamed to assert that the infants themselves have faith do Rantize them on the fathers faith without their own excuse the matter thus viz. The spirit is not bound to admit infants to baptism in that same way wherein he admits men viz. the way of faith but admits infants to have right to it without that outward means of believing But when we tell you faith and baptism are the way wherein and the outward means by which the spirit justifies and saves men and women but without this outward way of faith and baptism he can and doth save dying infants and that the spirit is not tied to the same means of belief and baptism in the justifying and saving infants through Christ by which and which onely he saves men then you plainly disclaim what you proclaimd for truth before viz. the spirit is not tied to means in infants but works without them in infants though not in men and hold that he doth work by means among them so that there is no hope to be had by parents of the salvation of their infants out of the way of baptism and no justification of them on of the way of belief Thus you tie and unty confine and lose the spirit at your pleasure you give him leave for your own lusts sake either to approve of your baptism of children out of his own declared and onely approved way of faith or if it be needfull as some of you think it is for infants to believe in order to baptism then to beget faith without that outward means of hearing the word but though it is his own good will to justifie and save dying infants by Christ without the outward means of faith and baptism there he is limitted and cannot obtain your good will he must give way to you to baptize infants out of that ordinary way of faith wherein his will is that men shall be baptized but he may not save infants out of the ordinary way of faith and baptism wherein his will is that men by Christ shall be saved no not by any means in the world There 's but a matter of four gross false unsound and absurd assertions in this reasonless reply which I must intreat you to be ashamed of before I leave it The first is that old piece of sing song which is canted ore some three or four times before but would be rather recanted if you were not resolved on perseverance in perverseness wherein you tune it out as if faith in Christ and the faculty of understanding were both so con-naturally and con-necessarily in believers infants and them onely that we may as rationally and safely conclude neither to be in them as not both This blue vain of artificial non-sense keeps its course well nigh throughout this whole discourse of yours against reason so that every foot when reason alledges aâ—y thing that 's clearly conclusive against the being of belief in Christ in believers infants as namely their not knowing good and evil their giving no testimony of faith when at years without instruction nor upon instruction neither sometimes so much as the adult children of unbelievers their not having any faith at all for the most part witnesse your successelessenesse in your preachings to your parishes to beget it whereby it is evident that either they never yet had it when rantized or else have lost it if they had their non-inclinablenesse to believe caeteris paribus more then other peoples children their uncapablenesse to hear the word with understanding which is the only way and means whereby the word declares faith to be given and to be gotten you answer all along Cuckoo-like in one tone and that 's this viz. That by the same reason we may conclude against the faculty of understanding in them and against their having a reasonable soul as if it were full as clear and altogether as absurd to doubt that these infants have faith which yet your selves confesse you cannot presume what infants have and what have not as to doubt that they have the reasonable soul which is notoriously known to every Novice in very nature to be in all mankind by nature without exception and that so also as essentially to difference them from other creatures The second remaining and
them all together viz. it unchristens the whole Church of God c. I say thus confessing that our doctrine unchristens whole christendome which the Pope hath called the Church of God but is indeed the whole world of Gentiles that hath got into the outer court the meer outward form and name of christianity and hath trod down the holy City and true worship for 1260 years that whole world that hath for ages and generations wondered after the beast nor is this inconsistent with the truth of Christs promises of his presence and guidance among those that are his true Church and people indeed for howbeit he hath according to the word left those to their own wayes that left and liked not his wayes yet he ever hath still doth and ever will lead those into truth that love the truth and will be led by his spirit when he will lead them yea though he tied not himself to teach them that should chuse the Pope for their Tutor yet according to his promise he hath bin more or lesse with those that observed what he commanded them in his word from the beginning and so shall be even to the end Review Lastly it doth the devils work in the shape of angels of light to make men renounce their baptism and if from Nero's hating the Christian Religion the antient Apologetist of the Church did rightly gather the goodnesse of it we may the validity of infants baptism from the devils hatred of it it hath ever been said of him he will not make a bargain with any soul till it hath renounced its first bargain which was made with Christ at baptism the Anabaptists are his Proctors and do it to his hand Re-Review Of which desire of his to have us renounce our baptism being not a little aware though immediately after I renounc't that Rantism I once had unawares to my self in the innocency and ignorance of my infancy in the room thereof received real baptism I had one messenger from Satan to buffet me and beat me off from further proceeding in and owning of that practise yet through the goodness of God and that grace of his wherein I still stand I was so far from being removed that I was much more settled strengthned and stablisht in the present truth wherein I walk and I trust shall walk in unto the end unlesse I receive more evidence to the contrary then ever I have done from any writings or any discourses of any that ever I met wiâ—h of what principle or profession soever which messenger whose name was William Everard after the flesh but the name that the father had given him was Chamberlin as he said for he lived in the secret chambers of the most high though he came to my house pretending that he was immediately sent from God with a message to me in particular viz. to renounce that practice of baptizing which himself had sometimes walkt in also but now relinquisht did to my self and some others after half a dayes most serious observation of his speeches strange extasies and uncouth deportment by many prodigious passages blasphemous pratings and as by experience we then proved them flatly false pretences to what he had not and most presumptuous yet successeless undertakings and frivolous fopperies of which I am willing at any time but not capable under a hours time to give fuller account to any that shall desire it discover himself to be one of the Archangels of darknesse which the devil now sends forth a new in the shape of angels of light and is now no lesse apparently I think to all that know him and where he is And howbeit it hath bin more then once but once especially as I have hinted to the Reader in a shrewd shake of sicknesse that befel me above a twelve moneth since to the great retarding of this work reported that I was shaken sheer out of my mind and judgement concerning this way and baptism so as to have recanted and renounced it yet I call my God to witnesse to whom also I give thanks for his mercy toward me in that particular that partly by the more then ordinary advantages I then had through my sequestration from all other occasions to seek the Lord to search and try my wayes and turn again unto him partly by the more then ordinary ingagements that were then upon me so to do and that seriously and sincerely through my dayly expectation to be clapt up in clods of earth till the great day of acccounts I have bin much more sweetly satisfied since then concerning the truth of this way then ever I was in all my life before neither did I then find any cause to repent me of coming to Christ in it as neither shall any that renouncing your Rantism do rightly receive it so they continue to walk uprightly in it to the end but this I must confesse I found good cause to repent of it that I had not honoured it so much as I might have done since I ownd it nor walked so profitably serviceably blamelesly holily and worthily in it nor so suitably to so holy and worthy a way as it is in it self not withstanding the account of basensse and foolishness that it hath in the world 1 Cor. 1.30 So that ever since that forenamed sifting I had from Satan by the mouth of that his Agent by whom he solicited me to forgo my baptism I side with you in this viz. that t is the Devils worke in the shape of an Angell of light to make men renounce their baptism and though I am somewhat otherwise opinioned about the Divels affection to infants baptism then you are for I think if he hate it t is as he hates holy water or any other of his own inventions wherby he hath juggled away the truth and imitated Christs ordinances out of doors yet I am fully of your mind that he so hates the true baptism I mean the baptizing of professed believers from whence I gather the goodnesse and validity of it against him that it is most of the business about which he is at work in the shape of an Angel of light in these daies wherein his time growes short and his old kingdome begins to fail him by means of the true baptism to erect to himself a new kingdome and in order thereunto to make men renounce that baptism as knowing that he cannot strike a downright bargain with a soul to become fully his as the high Notionists and spiritual Sensualists of these times do till it hath renounced its first bargain made with Christ in baptism not what was made with Christ at infant rantism for infants are not capable per se to bargain with Christ and how they do it per alios I do not see sith such as say they do it for them were never appointed by them so to do nor by Christ neither that I know of nor do I remember any bargain to own Christ and not be ashamed of
himself speaking properly enough when he speaks so yet little otherwise then thus do you speak and think you speak properly enough too whilst you commonly call them i. e those persons baptized that never had more then a little baptism I cannot call it neither but meer Rantism on their faces from which though we are foold together with you by a custome of speech to afford persons that denomination of sprinkled at least yet to say the truth t is more then may be well challenged from us if we should stand upon it and plead for propriety to the utmost or for denomination but ex majori which reason would back us in if we should so little of that little subject i. e. the infant whose face onely you sprinkle is sprinkled by you when all is done but we let that passe Neverthelesse know this that totall baptizing is the onely true baptizing and a subject not baptized totally may not be said to be baptized properly but onely figuratively and Synechdochecally and surely the spirit speaks not all along by Senechdoche and t is as improper almost if not altogether to say that man is baptized whose fingers face hands or feet onely have toucht the water as t is to say the swan is black because his feet are so or the black-moor white because his teeth are so expresse not dentes et pedes and then Ethiops albus and Cygnus niger are two monstrous creatures indeed and baptizatus merè rantizatus is no other then rara avis in terris nigroque simillima Cygno We may not therefore without abuse to our selves and them conceive them that wrote the hystories of the new Testament that we might know the certainty of those things which were at first done Luke 1.14 and to this very end too that we might do thereafter to speak so improperly all along as to declare and denominate those to us to be baptized i. e. in true English washt plunged in water submâ—rsi dipt under water who if it were then as you say or at least as you do now were onely wetted with a few drops or if dipt whose noses foreheads or faces onely felt the water the wisdome of the spirit in them would rather have used the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as he ever doth when he would have us conceive no more then sprinkling as Heb. 9. or else some more moderate phrase suitable to such a petty padling as face dripping is had that been the onely way of those times then the word baptize or else have exprest that particular or member of the body which onely was baptized if he would not have been understood as speaking of the whole for that 's the usuall way wherein the spirit speaks when he speaks of the dipping of some members onely as Luke 16.24 when he speaks of the dipping of a member onely he expresses the member so dipt and the particuler subject so denominated he saies not send Lazarus that he may be dipt or that he may dip himself or that he may dip his body in water but that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and coole my tongue so Mat. 26.23 he that dippeth his hand with me in the dish he denominates not the man dipt from the dipping of so smal a member as the hand or face or feet or what ever member of the body it was that you imagine was then baptized for that wetting of the face onely came up surely in Cyprians daies when they had got that trick of ease to be baptized I should say to have their faces the onely member at that time extant besprinkled in their beds Rantist But Mark 7.4 Christ speaks thus of the Pharisees 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. unlesse they be baptized they eat not and yet by that baptism is meant no more but the washing of their hands and that appears plainly in the very verse above where it s said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. unlesse they wash their hands and then immediately after thus and when they come from market 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 except they be washed i. e. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in their hands suitable to what 's said before they eat not yea and surely he would have exprest so much as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 after 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but that t was exprest so just before under 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it was needlesse to repeat it and therefore he rather leaves it to be understood therefore sometimes you see Christ denominates men baptized or washed when no more then some members of them are dipped or washed Baptist. That by the baptism or washing spoken of v. 4. and exprest by the term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is meant no other then the washing of the hands of the Pharisees I freely grant and also that the 3. verse so clearly proves it that no man living I think may rationally deny it nor can I think that the Pharisees when ever they came from market were plunged ore head and ears before they sat down to dinner or were washed or baptized any further then manuum tenus onely in that part viz. their hands but I beseech you be you as ingenuous in acknowledging what you must also necessarily grant and what you have in a manner given and granted also viz. that the force and sense of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the verse before is carried to the 4 verse so that it must be understood to the verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 also as following it as well as it followes the verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though it be exprest onely under the first of them and then your recourse to the former verse for the finding out of the sense of this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 makes much for the proof of what I say viz. that Christ does not usually denominate the whole man to be dipt or baptized when yet he meanes that some part of him onely is baptized or washt without expressing some way or other that part of the body wherein he is washt and according to which onely he denominates him so to be for even here by your own plea and t is the truth we must to the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 except they be baptized subaudire 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 understand this word their hands which as you say so I say also would undoubtedly have been set down under the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to shew that to be the plain sense and meaning out viz. washing the hands but that it was so newly named before under 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that its more elegantly understood then exprest So that the place runs as smooth for us as we would have it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 subaudi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Pharisees except ever and anon they wash or be washt as to the hands at least for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the first future of the middle
Evangelist whence Philip was called Evangelista that being the very thing made him an Evangelist and not his Deaconship besides which he had no other office because he did Evangelizare no man can give a reason why the scattered disciples that did Evangelizare or preach the Gospel with him should not be denominated Evangelists as well as he and indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 differ no more then a Preacher and he that preaches and though every Pastor be both an Evangelist and a Prophet yet he that saies every Evangelist and Prophet is a Pastor or an ordained officer qua sic or that either of these are nomen officii or sounding forth more then a person thus or thus gifted viz. the Evangelist to preach the Gospel for the conversion of such as are yet without the Prophet to speak to the exhortation edification and comfort of the Church and people already converted and both these occasionally only and not as by vertue of an ordination to an office may say it ten times over before the Scripture rightly understood will furnish him to make proof of it once And as these ordinary disciples for the Apostles abode still at Ierusalem Act. 8.1 went every where as well as Philip pro suo modulo Evangelizantes preaching Christ according to their abilities so the hand of the Lord was with those occasional preachers that a great number believed and turned to the Lord by their means and were baptized also undoubtedly by their hands yea the famous Church of Antioch had its foundation from this and grew into a Church which they could not do without baptism before any actual officer came neer them for though Paul and Barnabas walked with them for a year and improved their gifts for their edification yet neither of these were yet actually any more then Evangelists and Prophets though before by God intended and not long after by the Church visibly ordained to their Apostleship i. e. men of excellent gifts and this will appear Act. 11. from verse 19. to the end with Act. 13. v. 4. and backward to the beginning you do therefore greatly err not knowing the Scriptures which tell you also plainly that though Paul converted all the Corinthians yet his own hands baptized but a few committing that dispensation as an inferiour work to his preaching to the hands of inferiour disciples as Mr. Baxter himself also confesses to your confutation asserting it from 1 Cor. 1 17. so though Peter converted the company in Cornelius house yet surely he baptized them not all if any at all with his own hands but left the administration to the hands of others some one or more of the brethren that came with him And the manner of speech implies plainly no lesse for he commanded that they should all be baptized in the name of the Lord yea so far is the word from tying up the dispensation of baptism to an office that we have much more president and proof after Christs ascension of comon disciples then you have of officers baptizing You therefore make much more a do in this then needs you strain indeed at a goat and swallow a camel and busy your self so about the truth of administrators that you have lost the truth and substance of the administration it self were your baptism true baptism indeed there is no necessity that ordained Ministers must administer it but unlesse it were truer then it is no matter if it were never administred at all Know therefore Sirs I beseech you that the verity worth weight and efficacy of baptism depends not upon the quality of the person administring but upon the truth of the subject to whom and the true form wherein t is administred the Scripture prescribes plainly who they are that shall and in what manner these shall but not at all by whom they shall be baptized t is the duty of them that believe to be baptized and his duty that baptizes to baptize indeed not rantize only and to baptize such as being taught the Gospel do believe it but who they must be that are to baptize those is neither here nor there to the baptism for ought I find in the word so they be but Masculine disciples nay though the person baptizing be not only no officer but in the case above named as yet unbaptized himself yet if the person baptized be not only a believing disciple but also baptized really and indeed his baptism is never the worse for the other Experience tells me and I believe many more that have been baptized according to truth that t was drawing neer to Christ with true hearts in his true ordinance that made us accepted in his sight not the qualifications of the baptizers whose baptism and ministerial functions were they invested with both could add never the more validity nor verity to our baptism as neither could the non-entity of either of those in them have possibly made the baptism so sincerely submitted to be in any measure void and of no effect the placing so much in persons administring as to think our selves ere the better for that was that fantastical fopery of the Corinthians for a while one saying I am of Paul another I of Apollo another I of Caephas i. e. I was baptized by such or such which made the Apostle Paul who with his own hands baptized but some of them well nigh wish he had baptized none of them at all when he saw their carnall glories in the persons administring and blesse God that he baptized no more least they should have thougt the better of themselves and of their baptism for its dispensation of it by his hands The administrators therefore being baptized or not baptizd minister or no minister maketh the baptism if elsewise warrantable neither better nor worse of it self all this I speak all this while not as granting that our baptism is by unbaptized persons and that my self am no minister of the Gospel for neither of these shall be yielded by any meanes unlesse you were more able then you are to prove them I speak it suppositively that if these were both so yet both my baptizing and being baptized may be warrantable enough notwithstanding or else if we deemed it worth while to seek out what succession our baptism hath had from the Apostles in a series without interruption t is possible there were some disciples in all ages that owned the truth though so few and despised that their generation can scarcely be declared for who can declare his generation whose life in himself and his was still cut off from the earth but we go by the word that is above all Church and Ministry in our account of our baptism and ministry and not by succession in either and as for your selves that hold so much on succession and boast of a lineal descent of your ministry and Rantism from the Apostles t will pussle you no lesse to prove that if we put you to
made void his commandments and subpaena damni Temporalis et eternae damnationis imposed mens Traditions arrogantly in their stead so you in your severall lines have done no lesse yea you also make people to erie with all your might and whatever tender consciences find Christ piping to the contrary in his word yet if they dance not after you pipe when it sounds to the tune of Tiches and put not into your moneths you cry peace but bite with your teeth and prepare war against them Mich. 3.5 possessing the world with prejudice against them as a sort of seditious Sectaries damnnble Hereticks and Schismaticks yea exceptis excipiendis saving some few scatterings here and there of more sober and moderate minded Ministers like so many graines of salt to keep the rest from stinking too much in these states where you have or would have raigned who have not been so hot spur as their fellowes by the good will of P. the Presbiter as well as of P. the Prelate and P the Pope many an honest mans native countrey for non-conformity to his Gangraenaticall domination should ere this have been made too hot to hold him so far therefore as separa from the true church and her orders may denominate a people Heretical Schismaticks and Divines themselves place the Nature of Heresie much in seperation and Schism the Denomination seems to be your due O P P Priests who are departed from the primitive church and not ours for departing from you ye are are those Schismatical Teachers that are rent all from the primitive plainesse of the Gospel and present pompousnesse of each others way and have seduced the whole world into spiritual thraldome idolatry and superstition and inticed them into a carnal liberty of calling all things according as your carnal ends and interests impose the names of Heresie or truth upon them you are S S She that having got the good liking of the Kings and Kingdomes of the earth to confide in you do close the eyes of their judgements as Dr. Featley faines we do with your birdlime of Schism from the true church and head thereof Christ Jesus and bewitcht them into an implicit submission to Papism Arch-bishopism Oecumaenical Synodism Provincial Câ—assism and so lead them as you lift into Anti-gospelism Antiscripturism c. making a prey of them and though Featly had the faculty of faining the Baptists to be such yet you are indeed devisers of new religions and Spiritual Impostors falsely pretending to Christ as the Patron and Authorizer of your new doctrines of which Paedo-baptism is one which because there is not the least dram of evidence for it in the word of Christ therefore when people begin to question it you amuse the vulgar with the names of some divine Authors or other not Peter nor Paul c. but St Austin St Gregory S Chrysostome c. at Rome his Holiness the Pope the holy Mother the Catholique Church Ghostly Fathers c. and in places where those subterfuges are not regarded Reverend Sinods of grave Orthodox Divines Ministers of Christ Suffrages of all the learned Divines in the Reformed Churches c. and this you do to secure your Tenets from the hazards of disputes and exempt your persons and actions from the rest of examination as if there were such infallibility herein that it is no lesse then blaspemy to doubt or call in question the Dictates or Directories c. of such and such thus bearing your selves up with bombasting termes of Fathers Spiritual Ius divinum c. you gain to the captivating of the reason of men so far that they resign up themselves jurare in v v vostram sententiam and will be as their Priests are and never believe but that they believe the truth when all this while there is nothing but humane authority and humanum est errare for most things you do yea you are indeed the greatest Schismaticks or Rentmakers in the seamlesse coat of Christ that the Earth bears you are they that have caused divisions and offences contrary to that doctrine which was at first received at Rome and in all Churches and by good words and fair speeches viz. decency order c. have deceived the hearts of the simple so as to make more conscience of serving those belly gods the Priests then the Lord Jesus according to his own will therefore when you talk so much to us of the Church and your Church crying out as the Pope does against the Bishops for theirs and the Bâ—shops against you Presbyters for your departure from them Hereticks Hereticks that disturb the peace of the Church forsake the Church infringe the unity of the Church yet I say what Church so long as there is no other Church constitution among you to this day then that of parishes into which the Pope put all Christ'ndome what Church so long as the doctrine of Christ and his Apostles on which every true Church is built is cut off disclaimed and exploded and neither the word purely preached nor the Sacraments duly administred which by Calvin and Featley themselves are both made such true notes of the true visible Church that wherever they are there is the true Church and where not there 's no true Church what ever there may be in pretence yea verily so far are you from due administration of the sacraments giving the Supper to such as were never at all much lesse truly baptized many of you Presbyterians not administring it at all to your flocks whom you contend were truely initiated into your Church by baptism that indeed as you have substituted infant rantism instead of it so you preach down that due administration of baptism and the Supper which according to the primitive pattern Acts 2. is at this day to be found amongst us withall the vehemency you can proclaiming us Schismatical hereticks for declining your disorderly administrations and according to our covenant pressing on to that purity of administration of Gospell ordinances which lies now in such plain English before mens eyes that all your glosses wil beguile them but little longer there is no danger therefore of being rent from the Church of Christ in departing from participation with you in your oppositions of the truth therefore never glory so much in these vain lying words the Church of God the Church of God which is indeed the Common tone of all you Romanists each to other in your rendings each from other for there is none of you all three have a true visible Church of Christ among you nor yet right any administration of the things you call Sacraments whether we speak of either baptism or the Supper My answer then to the whole PPPriesthood of Christ'ndom even ye Protestant Clergy also from all whom as well as from the Pope we who are fictitiously stiled Anabaptists and charged as Schismatical Hereticks for so doing and troublers of the unity of the Church are departed shall be the
of the civil powers have been dâ—nd by the usual addresses of the PPPriesthood unto them for help against Hereticks and Schismaticks and by their hideous outcries viz. of the Prelates against the Presbyters saying help O King and the Presbyters against the Sectaries help O Parliament all will be overspread with a Gangrene of Heresie Murder Murder c. O ye Magistrates restrain dipping in cold water as you will save the lives of your subjects and such stuff and felly as is powred out to the Magistrate by the Minister against men more true to Christ and Magistracy then himself I humbly conceive the Magistrate may lawfully and more acceptably to God then otherwise save himself so much labour as to let these matters alone yea he may do well to see that whatever Religion men be of that are under his civil power in each state whether Iewish Turkish Heathenish Popish Prelatical Presbyterian or Independent may not be injurious each to other without satisfaction in civil matters and to see that none commit any uncivil actions that are contrary to that common honesly and righteousnesse among men which men as magistrates are set to vindicate to see that none live be they of this or that Religion dishonestly without correction to see that none usurp Dominion over each others faith so as to make all men believe as some do whether they see ground to believe so yea or no by the civil sword to see that in order to their own eternal good they find out and walk in the way of truth themselves as it is in Jesus and when they are once assured that they are in the truth themselves to let that truth be verbally declared per se or per alios as much as they please but not forced upon others as their faith further then the light of preachings and discourses may prevail to fasten it on others consciences and to see that even enemies to the Gospel and true Church may have no more then the weapons of the Churches warfare which are not carnal used towards them to make them friends and as to those who walk in truth whoever they are or shall but be supposed by the successive representatives Princes or Powers to walk in the way of truth to see that they be countenanc't but not too much maintenanc't because Christs disciples nor cookt up to all the honour and preferment and places of trust and advantage above their fellow subjects to the ingendring of jealousies and emulations in others that may be happily though not so neer the truth of Christ yet as trusty to the State as themselves for that too often choaks the Church but onely that with an indifferent impartial hand as men whether in Church or out being otherwise honest and able and of publique spirits not selfish nor covetous nor cruel c. may seem fit to be intrusted with such and such places so they may be chosen and disposed of thereunto in a word to see that such as make prayers and supplications and intercessions and giving of thanks for all men for Kings and such as are in authority living in all godlinesse and honesty may as well as others and others also as well as they living soberly and honestly though not Godly in Christ Jesus nor worshipping in way of truth but falsly may live a quiet and peaceable life without persecution as to confiscation bonds or death for doing and denying according to the dictates of their own though yet blinded conscience and that men of all Religions may live without molestation one from another any more then by meer manifestations of their light one to another at seasonable times in wayes of query disputation and preaching and then to leave all men to worship God according to their several wayes even misbelievers Hereticks and Iewes themselves and others that yet believe not in Christ but deny him till the Lord lend them light by the word of truth and to stand or fall to their own master Christ Jesus to whom every conscience shall give account of it self at last who if any man hear his words and believe not nor receives but rejects them judges him not here either by himself or the civil magistrate or by his Church any further then to non-communion with them yet by the word that he hath spoken unto him will judge every man at the last day Thus it is most evident the magistrate whether Christian or Heathen is to do and not otherwise viz. to give protection to men as men living honestly soberly and justly without respect to their Religions whether true or false And as to Religions to allow Tolleration to all men to practise according to their principles the practise of whose principles is not directly destructive to the true Religion common honesty civillity morallity righteousnesse and the peace and safety of the Common-wealth as some mens principles are if put in practise yet verily I know none among Christians at least save those of the two Spiritualties vix the Rantizing PPPriest that in his precincts which is the whole world could he catch it would have no tolleratian for any way of worship but his own and the Ranting Prophet who would have toleration of all and more too not onely all Religions but all as well unciuill unnatural lewd abominable as irreligious actions which nature it self cries shame on among beasts magistracy finds it self an ordinance of God to give correction to among heathens for those men are now acting upon the stage of whom Iude speaks when he saies Iude 10. what they know naturally as bruit beasts in those things they corrupt themselves the principles of that old PPPriest and this new Prophet if practised in the hight of them are utterly inconsistent with the standing of truth in the world untrampled viz. that of the Priest and also with the standing of very manhood among men of civility in civil states of the common-health of the Common-wealth it self viz. that of the Prophet the one is so far from owning any power to be a terror to evil works and incouragement to good that despising all Government and speaking evill of dignities he holds that there is at all neither good nor evil nor better nor worse amongst works but all alike and then good Lord how fast must iniquity dishonesty unrighteousnesse and incontinency thrive and abound upon earth to the ripening of 〈◊〉 for the sickle when it shall be acted with allowance from such a principle as this viz. that there is now no iniquity at all this man would have the civil power allow all Religions and good Manners too but allowes of none at least thinks he needs use none himself and is for a Toleration of all truth in the world though all truth is the intollerablest thing in the world to him and though it hath leave from him to grow besides him and will too among some yet he hopes to loosen it by lending it so much scope
many Arrians sprung up because the Nicente faith was neglected there and had we Baptists in our Ministry of old been careful to preach for the true way of baptizing believers onely when the baptism of infants first began to come up and creep upon superstitious grounds into the Church It would certainly have hindred the propagation of that reasonlesse Rantism and freed the Churches that now return to the onely true baptism again which they let go from that simple censure of Anabaptism which now they passe under from men that take rantism to be baptism at least our flocks in those daies that followed the truth had been so well provided as that they would not so easily have departed as they did from that plain way of the word in point of baptism Felix quem faciunt aliena pericula cautum The Pastors are appointed by God for watchmen their office is to to see dangers and to give warning they are the dogs of the flock such as the wolf would have â—â—lent wâ—e be to them if they barke not Naâ—ianzen was such an one as some say his mother dreamed that she had brought forth a white whely and such they say for I knew him not he proved that the 〈◊〉 heretick durst not enter but he spied him nor staie but he hunted him out if he did thus not mistaking heresie and instead thereof hunting out truth as the Priests do but I hope he did not t was the better for the Churches he was the Pastor of but we be to the Church the CCCatholick aecumenical visible Church cal'd CCChristndome whose faithful Pastors are gone from the truth and turned wolves themselves that weary the very truth it self Saint Paul tells those of Ephesus Act. 22.29 I know that after my departure many grievous wolves shall enter into the flock and as he said so verily it it came to passe for the three sorts of National Church PPPastors Pope Prelate Presbyter are in sheeps clothing but indeed ravening wolves that have devoured the truest flock of sheep that Christ hath upon this earth they are the dogs of the flock indeed but many of them dumb dogs that cannot bark and others barking at the sheep themselves and others biting them with their teeth because they put not into their mouths and tearing them though they never teach them yea they are greedy dogs that never have enough looking each to his gain from his quarter The rest of this discourse shall be partly Paraenetical to the people partly Apologetical to the Priests and so end As to the Paâ—aenetical part It concerns the advice of the Pastors of the true Churches to their flocks and all people that they would endeavour to preserve and recover themselves from all infection of Heresie and Schism from the primitive times by which the whole world is gone astray and in order thereunto they commend unto them this serious exhortation 1. To endeavour to be thoroughly instâ—cted in the principles of Christian Religion to be houses with foundation that every wind of doctrine may not shake them Qui huc et illuc fluctuat quovis momentur impellitur He that is not settled upon the true foundation yea and that house or Church that is not built upon a right foundation even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the primitive Prophets and Apostles heard and obeyed is driven to and fro to this and to that and back again almost with every storm that rises and hath a time wherein t will fall and the fall thereof will be very great Matth. 7.21 ad 28. Ephes. 2.20.21.21 we have experience plain enough of this in the Nationall and PPParish Churches and people who because they are houses without foundation or else constituted upon nothing but the sandy foundations of mens inventions traditions doctrines and the prudentiall precepts of the PPPriesthood and not upon the primitive doctrines of the Prophets and Apostles neither were ever perfectly but at best in part onely instructed in the A B C and first principles or beginning word and doctrines of Christ as they ly plainly before us in sixt of the Heb. 1.2 because I say they never knew nor owned all these nor laid them as the foundation of their building and Church posture but are brought into that mongrel Church way they are in by principles of birth breeding abode in such a Town custome fashion lawes of men Statutes Spiritual orders Popes Bishops Synods Canons implicit faith more then by cleer knowledge of acquaintance with conversion by the light of Scripture therefore they are wavering like a wave of the Sea tossed to and fro with every wind and turn of tide and driven to any thing that chances to please the Princes or that civil power best under which they happen to be bred and born yea as t was of old in Babylon where Nebuchadnezzer reigned all the Lords People Tongues and Nations within his jurisdiction saving two or three honest souls who saw Gods will and served him according to it fell down straight at his command and threatnings of the furnace if they did not so hath it been in BBBabylon the new under the three PPPriesthoods wherever they have born sway all the people exceptis excipiendis a very few that keep their standing in every turn being built upon the rock Christ and his doctrine fall down and do as they and the Princes that have committed adultery with them have enjoined yea they have reel'd to and fro like a drunkard being drunk with the whores wine and fell forwards and backwards and forwards and backwards and forwards again in the lump and been by turns of what religion or way soever hath pleased the powers to impose under penalty Papists Protestants Papists Protestants Popish Presbyterian or as it happens 2 To love the truth and imbrace it those that yet scorn it and let their affections be ravished in the imbracings of it such as have or shall yet at any time imbrace it so shall they be stable in it and not soon moved from the truth 3. To take heed of itching ears such as love to be gently toucht but not plainly talkt to that say to the Sâ—ers see not prophecy to us smooth things that will not endure sound doctrine nor any troublesome truth that say of the words of Christ the doctrine of his baptism that calls for self-denyal the practise of which exposes to the crosse censure scorn shame suffering losse of credit custome offence of friends fathers mothers husbands wives c. which whoever loves above Christ is not worthy of him these are hard sayings who can bear them take heed I say of such ears as love to hear some truth but not all that stand open gladly to any thing but the losse of Herodias the darling lust what ever t is whether the lust of the flesh the lust of the eye or the pride of life God in his Iust Iudgement sufâ—ers such to fall Learn to be doers of the word not
according to the word it is because there is no light in them Isa. 8 19 20. Ask therefore the High Priest Christ Jesus and if you cannot be resolved so speedily as you desire to your satisfaction and content be content to stay till God shall reveal in the mean time while you doubt suspend the practise and do nothing doubtingly but exercise your selves the while in searching the Scripture and prayer to which pretious practise God hath made many pretious promises in his word as namely That they shall be undefiled in the way that seek the Lord with their whole heart Psalm 119.1 2. That if thou wilt turn at his reproof though thou hast been a simple one and hast loved simplicity a scorner that delightest in scorning and jearing at the truth and a fool that hath hated knowledge which all are high degrees of sin yet he will powre out his spirit upon thee which happily hath been thy laughing stock and make known his words unto thee Prov. 1.22.23 that if thou wilt receive his words and hide his commaddements within thee If thou incline thine ear unto wisdom and apply thy heart unto understanding yea if thou cryest after knowledge and liftest up thy voice for understanding if thou seekest her as silver and searchest for her as for hid treasure then thou shalt understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God Prov. 2.1 2 3 4 5 6 7. Yet be assured of this humble ignorance in many questions debated in these daies by Divines and also in old time before us by learned Schoolmen and Casuists and by the Popish priests that reason about the unreasonable fopperries and refusely scum that arises out of the dead sea of their divinity is more acceptable to God then contentious curiousity yet not such humble ignorance about the ordinances of Christ as our Priesthood would hold men in as if the Law and Oracles of Christ which are all plain to him that understandeth were in things necessary to salvation so difficult and obstruse that poor mechanicks must meddle no more in t then they have leave from them in facili et apecto postta est salus the way of salvation is plain to be found in the book of God he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of the Lord for remission of sins and ye shall receive the gift of the holy spirit but the PPPriesthood hath led men the next way round about to salvation and framed a new Gospel for their followers which Scripture makes no mention of at all but as those Israelites that were led up and down the wildernesse so long God had sworne should not enter into his xest so neither shall those Christians that when the truth lyes plain before them delight rather to trace to and fro in the thicket of traditions received from their after forefathers then in the way of the first fathers of the Church and love more to wander then to walk in the narrow way of truth in the vast forrest wondrous wood and wide wildernesse of the PPPriests inventions 9. Consider sadly in heresie the sin the punishment the sin St. Paul places it among the works of the flesh Murder Idolatry Witchcraft Drunkenness c. and well may for t is onely in favour of the flesh and for some base fleshly ends or other that men depart from the way of truth and not of the spirit for that leadeth those that are resolved to be led by it as it speaks in the Scriptures into all truth as it is in the mind of Christ Jesus Iohn 14. The least heresie cannot be excused the nature of it is to gather as it grows it is to run downhil and that 's the cause why so many follow it and so few the truth for its an uphill a narrow way that leads to life therefore few find it but facilis descensus averni the way to the bottomlesse pit is an easie and broad descent therefore many there be that go in thereat even whole towns Counties Kingdoms yea the whole world 1 Ioh 5.19 Rev. 13.3 a few onely excepted that obey the truth whose names therefore are written in the book of life the heretick that hath begun it cannot stop when he will but when once he ceases to receive and retain God in his knowledge and the love of the truth that he may be saved through some base love of the world and the lucre and lust thereof that he may be pleased profited preferred a 100 to one but he is hardned for ever in blindnesse God also giving him over as well as he himself to deeper and deeper delusion and at last to the love of lies more then truth Ieroboams rent turned into idolatry and the rent of such as run from the primitive doctrine of Christ is come to no less the Rantizer and the Ranter also are both sad examples to us how fearâ—ul a thing it is to run away from the plain path of the word of Christ the one whereof when he ran down once but so far as to take upon him to mend Christs ordinances and teach for doctrine his own traditions never left adding more and more of his own odd constitutions till he sunk ore head and ears in a gulf of golden legends and a lake of lies the other when he had once declined the Scripture and denied all ordinances never left advancing himself into the clouds of his own airy conceits till his waxen wings melted with his soring so neer the sun and so he fell headlong into a sink of sordid sensuality The punishment is either temporal the Donatists of old as some say the Anabaptists as they are commonly cal'd of Germany who if ever they ownd the truth abode not very long in it are examples of Gods Iudgements in that kind spiritual blindnesse of understanding hardnesse of heart seeing and not perceiving hearing and not understanding and last of all eternal the worm that never dies Christ shews all mens labour in their religion is lost by reason of it in vain do they worship me teaching for doctrine the traditions of men the Apostle shuts heaven against it 5. Gal. and twice over denounces cursing to any yea angels from heaven that preach any other then what they preached and I am sure they never preached infant sprinkling yea whoever is an heretick vel dandi vel auferendi sacu in either excesse or defect by adding or taking away from the word God will add the plagues upon him that are written in that book and take away his name out of the book of life Saint Austin saith of Arrius how true that saying is I say not but t is an argument Ad hominem a good item however for every one that is any other way Antichristianus that his paines are increased in hell as oft as any one thorough his heresie is seduced from the faith therefore vae vobis Scribae Sacerdotes
to stand outward and the worst of your Antagonists Answers yea Qui verbis opus est quum facta loquuntur if any believe not me affirming how poorly infant baptism was proved at Ashford let him believe the work it self now extant proclaiming it self weak its argument's weak for so the Thing called the True Account thereof doth in word in its preface and indeed in the residue Litera scripta manet non ita verba diu Litera sculpta manet not ita scripta diu 3. As to the privacy of that my Rescription and Recrimination to the Gentleman you wot of which you complain of not onely in this your monitory missive to my self but in your Preface also to the Reader where you say your Aversaries in Private loaded your disputation with disgraces as if you had been bob'd behind in some base way and so secretly supplanted that he who spake so diminutively of you and yours must needs be ashamed that his words should ever see the light you know Sirs that my letter was not so private but that it might have been made publique if you had pleased by your selves who as you had a quarrel against it so both had it amongst you and free leave also from me of whom if you had had a mind to it or any advantage by it I am sure you would not have askt it to have prest it out in your service with your own defence against it the presse being also as open to your excusation as my accusation 4. If you ask me why I reply not to the sole publisher of the Account but addresse my self in way of blame to you all even such as were no more then present at the disputation I answer 1. How to personate the chief publisher of your collections I knâ—w not for I know him not or if I know him well enough for my self yet I know not how to know him so well as on my knowledge to notifie him to others he hath chosen to be namelesse whether to this end that he might be the more securely shameless in setting down or no I will not say at any hand but many a one will think so for all that for my part since I saw it pleased him to hide himself I was not disposed much to enquire after him much lesse shall he be discovered for me who can tell from the time I first saw his work whose finger it is not more safely then I can yet whose it is for in such sense as some Scripture is it s doubtlesse no finger of God and though I am sure t is the finger of meer man assisted by Satan yet of what man in special I confesse I have good ground to pay it with thinking I may not speak positively in print unlesse I le speak upon bare hearsay which I heed not Secondly if it were mainly the employment of one to gather things together compose them into one bulk yet it seems plainly to be the joint issue of several mens brains and to have been rak't out of more memories then one and therefore well may you call them Collections yea that not meerly one but more then one had a hand in it I am informed sufficiently to belief by the voice of the Baby-book it self which speaking in some places plurally but not any where singularly of its Parentage little lesse then assures me of this that howbeit there might be one prime penman of the Pamphlet or whoere it was that thrust it through the presse yet the minds of more men yea more Ministers then one is sounded forth in it yea of such as were but Auditors at the Disputation whose sense both of it and of its efficacy upon the people is said in your Account to be so unanimous that they resolved together with the rest to declare their sense of it in their several congregations and oppose the growth of Anabaptism as t is cal'd in their respective flocks which since it hath been done by them too accordingly as was then agreed and whether if not all or at lest a pluralty of those Priests who before laid their heads together to betray the truth of God did not since compare their notes together to bely it whether birds of a Feather did not flock together to give their several influences toward this hotch-potch relation t is more 〈◊〉 if any of you can clear your selves of it do then I can clear any of you of at all save the Scotchman of Keningtonâ— who at Folston disclaimed his having any hand in it But should that be more then I have warrand to be sure of yet however I am certain of this that either it is the sense of you all or else some of you have the more wrong whilst the book is so curiously composed that it may seem to be the Ministers book and the Arguments that are set down in it be they never so silly and inconsequent are fathered upon you all in grosse recorded as the Ministers arguments though proceeding but from one Ministers mouth and not few follies and absurd things whilst the Penman dances in the clouds himself are related as spoken and done by the Ministers which the Ministers may very well and will once find time to be ashamed of yet you seem to take all that 's put upon you to your selves not any of you entring your dissent whilst therefore you seem so jointly to justifie him that puts you all upon the score in the Report you cannot justly condemn him who Arrests you all for it in the Reply 5. As to these present Returnes of mine to that threefold thing you have thrust forth I am experienced by your wonted Demeanor toward such as trouble you too much with truth how much more Odium then ever I must come under thereby among both your selves and your Admirers but hic murus ahaeneus esto nil conscire sibi nulla pallescere culpa This verily is no lesse then a Brazen fence to me against all your censures and exceptions that even herein as well as in in other things for which you condemn me I have exercised my self so as to keep a conscience void of offence and that toward both God and man Yea if I have not dealt clearly as you wish me to do i. e. according as the truth is indeed then in the very way of waiting upon God onely singly seriously and with many tears for the understanding of it in which way he that cannot lie hath assured me he will be found my conscience is most wonderfully clouded therefore see that you see if you see But if I have not dealt ingenuously i. e. as candidly as so crooked a generation as the CCClergy is that do alwayes erre in their hearts and have not known Christs wayes can justly claim from any but some Cowardly Clawback that cares not to be unfaithful in his carriage both toward God and them then the Lord deal so graciously with us all as to humble both you under
even therefore no true visible Church of God because it Rantizes Infants for that being undoubtedly a stragling from the truth and an undue administration of that ordinance not only as to the form of it but the subject also the name of the true visible Church of God is ipso facto destroyed from it were there no more error in it but barely that if Doctor Featly to whom you send us in your Review define the true Church of God aright for while he saies that meaning that only is a true Church where the word is truly taught and the Sacraments duly administred consequently that is no true Church where baptism is unduely administâ—ed and so it is or rather Rantism instead of it not only at Rome but in England also whilst to Infants therefore as the Church of Rome is but a false Church so the Church of England is no true one I utterly do therefore yea and did then deny that Infant-Baptism is at all practised by the Church of God and yet O full of all fallacy as if your Respondent were agreed with you in 't that the true Church of God did baptize Infants how finely have you foisted in this Epithite to the baptism of little children viz. practised by the Church of God and that in this very Account you give of our agreement about the very form and terms of the question that was yet to be disputed between us Report Thirdly That the Arguments used in the disputation should be only express Scriptures or arguments of necessary consequence from them All Authorities of Fathers and Churches laid aside though the practise of the Church was pleaded for yet would not be yielded to Reply 1. I agree with you that the Arguments should indeed have been such only by agreement but that one of those you then used or any of these few material ones for the immateriall being of no account with your selves you Account not for which you here expose to be perused is grounded upon express Scripture or any good consequence therefrom I deny as will I hope be manifested in my ensuing Re-review of them and Review of your Review it self Secondly if by Fathers whose authority you hang so much on you mean those that were some hundreds of years after Christ and were canonized more lately for such as Father Origen Father Chrysostome Father Ierom Father Cyprian Father Austin and the other objects of the Clergies Dotage and if by Churches you mean those that were in the ages when and places where these Fathers lived or any other since the primitive times which were the purest it is but a follie to stand arguing from them whose words and waies are no more the rule of truth to us then ours are to be to them that succeed us for verily they might and did speak sometimes not according to the word and then they were as Heterodox as others and our selves are in as good possibilities as they to speak according to the word and then we are as Orthodox and Authentick to the full as themselves I did therefore utterly disown all authority of these Fathers and Churches for I knew none they had to be a Standard to after ages yet though I counterpleaded your Plea from their practise it was not least your cause should be advantaged thereby for even the Testimonie of those Fathers is against you but because as they were subjected to the word so were they as subject to error as our selves but if by Fathers you mean the Primitive Prophets and Apostles to whom all your Fore-fathers are but Children viz. Father Peter Father Paul Father Iames Father Iude Father Iohn whose Doctrine was the foundation to the Churches and by Churches those that were then built upon their doctrine as that of Ephesus Corinth Philippi Rome c. before the falling off from the truth the Authority of these Fathers and practise of these Churches is pleaded for as seriously by us as the other superstitiously by your selves Report Fourthly Here you tell us t was propounded That the form of the Disputation should be Syllogisticall which I after many reasons alledged by you the Ministers to inforce the same at last yielded to Reply A very fit phrase for it for 't was inforced by you indeed yet more by strength of resolution than reason that 't was yielded to by my self is as true yet I must profess it was because the Disposition of your wills did put me 〈◊〉 as we say to Hobsons Choise for I saw you so desirous to draw your necks out of the coller and to make any thing an excuse to break off the Discourse that I must choose either that way or none and therefore rather than the work of that day should â—all as it must have done altogether else for you to the total failing of the expectation and hindering the edification of the people I could not but give way to your desires Nevertheless your many reasons which were but two and those as reasonless too as if you had said nothing were counter-mand with as many more and those also of so much weight that because you began to feel them sit heavy upon your Scholastick skirts you would have obstructed my delivery of them to the people for what great matters did you alledge whereby at that time and place to prove the expediency of such a form First that 't was given out as my desire to them is it never may be again by them of our party that I was a Scholar and durst meet with Scholars in discourse and therefore seeing I now was before Scholars it was expected that I should dispute in the way that 's most usual among them Secondly That the way of Dispute by Syllogisms for which some of you had little need to dispute considering their illogicall and un-syllogisticall doings that day wherein they were all-to-be-puzzled in their matter by fumbling so much about that form was the clearest and most compendious to the proving of things and the preventing of extrravagancies and disorder much what in such a manner did you utter your selves in order to inforcing your Proposition to which the reply was to this purpose Namely First that though I had been in the Vniversity and a Graduate there yet I pretended to no great Scholarship yea that I was a Dunce and a fool which very terms and no other I repeated again in my Position and was contented to be counted for no other as to that kind of learning of much of which I was willingly forgetful that I might know more of Christ and the plainness of his Gospel Secondly that I came not thither to dispute nor did I the Lord is my witness in that formal way you stood upon but in plainness to give an account before all to as many as should ask it according to my ability and what liberty you should allot me thereunto which yet was well nigh none at all of the way you call Heresie after which I and many others
did worship Thirdly that these Syllogisticall wayes of arguing and the foolish feigned forms of the Scribes and Disputers of this world which men might dispute in about the things of Nature and the world were utterly unsuitable to the seriousness of the things of Christ and the Gospel which were most effectually delievered for so Paul chose to hold them out in all plainness of speech and most commonly hid from people by the Logicall terms and Methods of mans invention and that the wise and prudent men after the flesh Doctors Schoolmen and Casuists had clouded the truth from the world for ages and generations togeâ—her by these their artificiall composures Fourthly that Christ and his Apostles the most of which were unlearned and ignorant men though they were scarce ever out of disputes about the Gospell did yet never dispute by the way of Syllogisms Fifthly That this way was fitter for the Schooles and very unfit for that Auditory where the people for whose sake we were chiefly come together to discourse knew not what belonged to mood and figure Sixthly that we our selves were now countrified by our long non-residence in the Vniversity and so might very well be to seek on a sudden and so I found some of you were to Syllogize so handsomely as we should do these were the heads though 't is like not the very words and order of that which with mighty much a do I had leave to return to your proposall Notwithstanding all which you standing still so stifly to have either your own way or none I said I would not decline it and so it was agreed to proceed in 't Howbeit give me leave to tell you now as then I did not sith you deem it such a wise way of Disputation to keep to the Rules of the Academies that for men of gravity in conference of matters of such eternall concernment it 's a most Pedantick toyish and boyish peece of business to stand fabling about moods and figures which are but the A. B. C. or first rudiments to a Scholar and as inferiour to judicious discourse indeed as spelling with the finger is to reading in full perfection and that which is as fit for a wise man to forget as it is for a fresh man to remember besides it 's the next way round about to the discerning the whole of any matter for all you then said for your way in Syllogisms which in substance was no more than this viz. That infants have the Spirit faith holiness many commendations in Scripture are such of whom to doubt their having the spirit is a breach of Christian charity whom to deny baptism to makes the Covenant of the Gospel worse than that under the law destroyes all the hope that parents can have of their salvation crosses the practise of the universall Church which one would think you should be ashamed to make a book of might have been expos'd to the consideration of your Respondent in much less than half the half quarter and given out plainly enough in a few positions for him to have replied to with your leave and silence but time was so spin'd out by your long productions and his Repetitions of your Syllogisms that there was but a very long-little in comparison of what else might have been delivered and Sirs I assure you of this one thing I beseech you to lay it to heart in time the generation of you Disputers is rejected by the Lord and a sort of plain English men raised up who notwithstanding the curiosity of your cudgel-play and those fine forms of your Fencing-schools whereby you shield your selves from the truth will by their upright down-right dealings with you and the word be impowered to beat your cudgels to your heads and though you seek to lap up the nakednes of your waies from the sight of the people for a time in a pair of Logick breeches yet these are wearing out a pace so that you shall see within a while what now you will not that all your Syllogisticall forms will not secure your Sylli-popicall matters Report Fifthly you tell us 't was agreed that I should be respondent which though there was little reason for in regard I invaded the practise of the Church whereof you the Ministers were Defendants and ought to have shewed upon what grounds I did it the confuting of which would havt tended more to the satisfaction of the Auditory was by you the Ministers yielded to at my importunity Reply O yes all manner of persons that were at the Disputation at Ashford give attendance here 's as pretty a prank as you shall likely see plaid by any save a Classis of Clergy-men and among them you may likely see the like again viz. a tale told transversim a thing storied out Archipodialitèr or with heels upwards and you of the Clergy that were there you specially that fingred out this Article heed what I say That I who invaded the practise of the Church for so I did not of God but of Rome England Scotland France and Ireland c. in the point of Infant-sprinkling wherein they are all Romishly devoted should come before 1000s of people before you Mis-ministers also professing my desires and the very end of my being there to be no other then because I was counted an Heretick for denying Infant-sprinkling to give account or to speak in yâ—ur own Terms to shew upon what grounds I did it moving urging earnestly claiming by the very University orders which your selves stood strictly to tye me to that I might have two hours or if not so but one or if not so but half a one wherein to lay down upon what grounds I denied Infant-spriâ—kling that you the Ministers Defendants of that way of yours might confute those grounds of mine if you could as that which would have tended more in my mind as well as yours to the satisfaction of the Auditors then any thing else for even all this I did that day at Ashford and that you the Ministers should be utterly against my giving this account and shewing my grounds which I would so fain have shewen rather then heard yours for no less then this do you confess your selves saying page 2. that before the Dispute I moved to make a position and page 10. that after the Dispute I made a motion that you would hear me preach that is give account or shâ—w the grounds of my dissent for so I spake leaving you a liberty to take your exceptions when I had done and that your selves onely concluded it un-necessary yea oppos'd it and made three or four frivilous pretences against it for even this also you confess your selves page 2. page 10. That you I say the same Ministers that did thus ponere obicem by your own confession should yet in the same paper write thus Namely that I ought to have shew'd upon what grounds I denied your practise that you might have confuted them to the satisfaction of the people
my Position which after debate of the unnecessariness of it the question being already stated and the terms known and understood by every one was yielded to so I exceeded not a quarter of an hour which was accepted by me Reply Though the question were stated and terms known never so well as I deny they are to every one in the question of Infants Baptism for such as are used only to sprinkling take that to be Baptism which is not yet the grounds were not known upon which I held the Negative and therefore 't was not unnecessary for me to make a Position Moreover I invading the practise of your Church in thaâ— point wherof you profess your selves to be Defendants I ought to have shewed upon what grounds I did it that you might have confuted them this would have tended more to the satisfaction of the Auditory than the omission of it could do if you will not believe me in this yet at least believe your selves for these are no other words then your own yet I confess you have no great reason to give heed to your selves neither considering how many offs and ons you are found in for one while you assert it needfull that I should lay down my grounds as above another while as here that I moved and had you said with importunity too you had spoken now no more than the truth to make a Position or which is all one to lay down my grounds onely you saw the unnecessariness of it O pure stuff at last through much importuning to have an hour or two wherein to do it and promising much more then you would accept of viz. That if that day were too short to dispute in I would give you the next day and the next and lastly pleading the equity of the thing from the order of the Schools where there 's no Disputation without Position to which order you had by Article oblig'd us such high condescension was acted by you Presidents of the place that I was allowed the large liberty of a quarter Report Next you go on to declare the sum of my Position and that being come into the body of the Church you the Ministers entred into the Desk and I standing a little distance off upon one of the seats leaning to a pillar and the multitude being silent I made my Position Reply For your relation of my leaning to a Pillar it being neither true nor material what doth it here I wonder in this your short and true relation as you call it of the most material things that passed yet sith 't is acknowledged by you to be a mistake in the margent of the coppy that you sent me I 'le not onlie excuse it for once though an error but lend you a little toward the making of it truth for I did lean indeed that day to a Pillar even the true Church of God which is the Pillar and ground of truth which would you all lean as much to as you do from it in these tottering times you would stand a little faster than you are like to do and secure your selves from that fall that is threatned in these words Babylon is fallen is fallen which though your Tower reach as high as heaven as that old Tower of Babell seem'd to do the Division of language that is in these daies wil e're long unavoidably bring upon you Report The heads of my Position you say are four to which sith you subject four Answers of your own I 'le reduce each of them to the severall head it relates to and so reply to both of them together First That I need not spend time about stating the question it being done before at the Communion Table to this first you saie answer was made that herein I confirmed the Ministers reasons against my making of a position Reply Though there was no need to spend time in acquainting them with the question over again because that was done before at the Table yet there was need and so I expressed my self often enough to spend time yea four or five times more than I could get of you in stating the question i. e. of making a Position for even with your selves these two are Synonima's for what you stile stating the question in the first head the very same you call making a Position in your answer yet such is your subtilty that you here represent it as if I who was so earnest before to have liberty to state the question in a Position and moved it as a matter most needfull were already so altered in my judgement as in the front of my Position to profess it needless to spend time about it Sirs what a sight of in s and outs are here do you not remember or if you will not yet some people will that my chief complaint of you to them in my Position was this That though I so much desired it though it was very requisite and the manner of the Schools to which you tied me and therefore I ought of right to have had an hours time yet you had crowded me into the corner of a quarter which shewes that though you deem'd it wast of time for me to say anie thing almost about the question yet I judg'd it very needfull to speak more to it than your patience was pleased to permit me and yet it 's not enough for you in your Account of the Position to leave well-nigh all that little out which in that little time was declared as to the falsness of your administration by the way of sprinkling and other matters of your Ministery but you also falter and feign and forge so fowlie in your sum of the Position as to set down more in 't than was ever thought on Report Secondly That I came thither to defend the unlawfullness of Childrens baptism which an evill and adulterous generation did maintain against me to which you saie it was answered that I transgressed the Propositions in giving reviling and opprobrious terms callng you a wicked and adulterous generation to which saie you I replyed that my intent was not to fasten those words upon any there present that I desired they might be so taken which by you was admitted of Reply I came not thither i. e. to Ashford so much to defend as to prove could I have been licensed thereunto by your spiritual Court the unlawfulness of Childrens Baptism yet not of Childrens Baptism so much which though it is easie yet is needless to be disproved because no where dispensed that I know of but rather of Childrens sprinkling which as it is doublie unlawful so is universallie practised of this end of my comming I gave evidence enough in debating the fourth Proposition professing that I came to give account of my dissent and denial of the truth of your waie but when you denied me to give my desired Account wherein I would have been a Plantiff and a prover I must then defend or do nothing neither did I
declare they have it or warrant your baptizing them thereupon so long as still 't is unapparent to you that they have it for first à posse ad esse non valet consequentia it follows not because it may be therefore 't is yet such Country-clearing of things is seen now and then among you Countrey Clergy-men that if from may-be to must-be may not pass for good reason there must be no more given at all witness the yery last Argument us'd by the first opponent at this Ashford Disputation whereby to prove infants to have the spirit who having urg'd the example of Iohn Baptist whose example is also hinted in your Review p. 16. of your Pamphlet just before to this effect viz. Iohn had the holy spirit from the womb therefore children have it and being answered to that thus viz. Ex puris negativis et particularibus nihil sequitur universale claps in this consequence to close up his discourse with viz. It doth not appear to you that children have not the spirit as much as to say they may for ought you know have the holy spirit therefore they have it To whom 't was repli'd that it would not follow that I was at Canterbury such a day because it did not appear to him that I was not and this as I remember though your Account doth very freely forget all this but I hope you will remember to be asham'd on 't was the very period of that mans Disputation with me saving what he added after in his recapitulatory moderation and after that in other emergent conferences with me and others to whose non-sequiturs as I have in faithfulness set down what I returned then so pace vestrâ I say thus much more now viz. that if I should go about to prove from the Possibility of things to be so or so or from their non-appearance to be not so though not yet appearing to be so that therefore they are so viz. more worlds then one or another world of men in the moon or as he from the particular case of Iohn Baptist to other infants so I should syllogize from the particular and extraordinary case of Balaams Ass to other creatures of that kind viz. Balaams Ass by a special power of God upon him did speak and reprove the madness of the Prophet therefore very Asses can speak plain enough to reprove the madness of the Priests though I have learn'd Christ better then to record him as such a one for the like deduction yet I know who have so well learn'd the Featlaean language that in their Account I should have been an Ass for my labor Secondly and this I told you then too but your Account had no mind to mention what makes against you Tum demum i. e. proprìe et quoà d nos dicuntur res fieri cum incipiunt patefieri then things as to us are when they appear and not before and to talk de non entibus et non apparentibus is one as frivolous as the other yet such lazy learning and lowzy logick is at Rome with the infatuated Pope and such of his Creatures as trouble themselves so much about Tyth that they have no time to study Truth nor understand either sense or reason that whilst wise men indeed whose wisdome is not as theirs is already turn'd into foolishnese do argue from the Appearings of things to be to their being from the evidence that they are to their existence they magisterially impose things to be received as truth because Ipse Dixit and both assert them to be and make men believe they appear plain enough so to be when their say so shews them though no inquisitive sincere self-denying Christian can in the word find either how or where of but a very little better stamp is your way of arguing here who being hous'd by custom under a cloudy confidence that infants have the holy spirit will needs have it appear whether it doth or no but for my part it appears not yet to me yea I reply Secondly to this part of your Report that I did indeed then say as you have here truly related that it could not be made appear that Infants have the holy spirit to the making of them subjects of baptism yea I testifie the same still that it cannot notwithstanding all your undertakings which of what little force they are to such a purpose I shall try more at large when I handle your Account over again not as an Account but as your Argumentation for Infants having the holy spirit and so right to baptism Nevertheless Thirdly that I acknowledged any such thing as this in the least that the Scriptures above named did seem so much as to intimate such a matter as that infants might have the holy spirit as it had been most contradictory to that which here you say I said immediately after it and is most contrary to my Judgement to this present so I deny it disclaim it and testifie again it as another of your abominable abuses of your selves my self and the world into which you have feigned forth this Account and as an opinion that neither then or ever since nor ever before since I found the way of truth hath had the least entertainment within my bosom And so I pass on to your other juggles among which Nigro Carbone notandum est this would not be let slip without a Selah in that some few lines below this you relate thus Report That my Answer was that in Scripture children were indefinitely taken but concerning this or that particular child no proof could be made Reply Which thing I confess I said yet take notice I must how you let slip your memories being willfully weak as I find them very often to be something more of my then speech which had you not declined to set down would have shewed a little more plainly and yet its prety plain as t is but hardly quite so plain as the nose on a mans face how you strike quite besides the iron stear to a wrong point and in your following undertaking upon that my Answer stickle clearly to another purpose then that proposed by me for my speech was not concernâ—ng this or that particular child only but of this or that particular child above another viz. proof could not be made of this child in its infancy suppose a believers more than of a Heathens if one of these and one of those be lookt on together whereupon also I then added but you have absented it in your Account that if two Infants viz. a believers and an unbelievers as yet unknown which is which should be presented to you whereof but one secundum te o Sacerdos may be baptized It would put you very shrewdly to it to discern of your selves which of the two is the believers Infant by any more manifestation of the spirit in it than in the other yea I now tell you over again that such a presentment would fumble and puzzle both the
sense as neither had they that Covenant or promise of a father-hood which it was a Seal of though even Ishmael himself and the lowest males in Abrahams house were all to be circumcised upon this account only if if there had been no other as he was commanded to circumcise all his males As to a fuller account of my grounds for this opinion I shall suspend it till I take my other Account of these passages in yours and take notice only here first of your sacred Sophistication in giving that out for granted which was so abundantly denied Secondly that close contradiction you here give not onely to the truth but your selves also for you give out in the next page but one before that I denied Circumcision to be a seal of the Righteousness of faith which in your own sense is as much as of the Gospel-Covenant to any of Abrahams posterity and that I multipli'd words in proof of the contrary and yet here in relation to that very Relation of your own in the weak wilfulness of your memories you give out that I had confessed Circumcision to be even to Ishmael the seal of the Gospel-Covenant that is with you still of the righteousness of faith thus for your own ends fathering your own false-tenet upon me ye have not lost all by the shift for you have fastn'd the fault of sorgery upon your selves and this puts me in mind of another of your mis-reports which because t is so suitable to this I 'le give you some little sense of it here though I find it farre off hence in your Review p. 13. l. 1.2 where looking or rather licking over all your arguments again as somewhat rude and deform'd in their first delivery and among the rest this from Circumcision of infants to their baptism you positively affirm thus that the Adversaries confess baptism to be the seal of the Gospel-Covenant whereas if by Adversaries you mean your friend my self among others besides what else shall elsewhere be produced in proof of my dissent from you in this point your selves can bear me witness or if you will not a thousand others will that on the very day of Disputation when the Clergy-man of Kenington stiled baptism an initial seal I deni'd it to be a seal at all and am sure it would have found you all more work then you are aware of to have made good that un-gospel like expression of it though I grant it to be a sign of the Gospel-Covenant Report Another as flat a falsiâ—y as ever fell from the mouths or pens of men who pretend to truth is that clause which lies in the last line of the seventh page and first line of the eighth wherein consider it with the words before you say I confessed that the spiritual seed of Abraham and their children had under the Gospel as good right to the seal thereof which is baptism as Ishmael who was that carnal seed of Abraham had right to the seal of the Gospel-Covenant Circumcision Reply Whereas besides my constant denial of Circumcision to be a seal to any but Abraham as I said immediately above and as your selves testifie of me and besides my denial of baptism to be a seal at all I either did deny the children of the spiritual seed i. e. of believers to have right to baptism or else to what purpose did you oppose me for this was the very question between uâ— which as you affirm'd so I from the beginning to the end of the Disputation all along most inalterably deny'd Indeed I confessed ore and ore again that Abrahams spiritual seed i. e. believers have right to baptism but that the natural seed of this spiritual seed of Abraham are Abrahams spiritual seed as so born or that believers children quâ— tales are semen fidei as well as their parents is a most silly saying of your own page 14. but that which all the day long I most strenuously stood against much more that they were the subject of baptism yet you say here in the Preter-plu-perfect tense that I had confessed their right to baptism as good as Ishmaels to Circumcision which me thinks if I had done so would have been exprest some where or other in the foregoing part of your true Account or else it is not so true as 't would be taken for but sith it is not to be found that I confest such a thing in all your Relation of the most materiall things that past among which this had it been confest as you here say had been the most materiall of all for it had been the full giving you the cause and saving you the labor of more Disputing we 'l take it for granted if you please rather then charge your true Relation of the most materiall things as not relating the most materiall of all that this your Testimony of my confession of this matter is most prodigiously false and abusive Sirs I wonder you are not ashamed so palpably to speak contrary to what you have here recorded I know not well what you mean by so many foul mis-reports unless as a certain great Benefactor to the Romish religion perceiving it unable to stand by the Scriptures bestowed a Legend of lyes towards its support which is call'd Legenda aurea so you supposing your Infant-baptism uncapable to be maintain'd any longer by principles of truth and reason have thereupon been so bountiful to the cause as to give in this golden-leaden-legend Another sorry tale and strange story you tell is not of me but of one of my side as you are pleased to speak and this me thinks if I be not mistaken with a kind of Emphasis of the Featlean strain as if it were some presumption for a Russet Rabby or secular Artizan to climb so high and flutter and sile so neer the pulpits and pompous Belconies of the Priests and as if he were a man Sacerdotalis ambitionis loving the uppermost Room and chief place in the Synagogue more to be taken notice of himself then that the truth should be taken notice of by the people in which things if you muse as you use yet know Sirs that we have no such custome nor the Churches of God of whom you say thus Report That having plac'd himself on the highest of the pulpit stairs to be seen of all and craved the liberty granted by the propositions to ask questions and receive satisfaction he profest himself a stranger and to come thither by accident though both afterwards appeared contrary Reply Though both will yet appear to be contrary to what you would have them appear to be if you could tell how viz. a couple of untruths for verily he was a stranger and so I then told Mr. Prigg who askt me of him that had not been long in the Countrey and was unknown both by face and name not to my self and some others yet however to most of that Auditory in which I believe not one of many could say who or whence he
are here and there upon thee and thou knowst it not Report And this opposition of Anabaptism hath been since done say you accordingly Reply And 't were enough to make a man think though I say it not that 't was done even immediately considering what a Tom-boyes trick was serv'd us so soon after whilst we were preaching besides the steeple upon a Tombstone which that it grieve you not know Christ preacht in a ship on the shore on a mountain in the Synagogues in houses even any where where people were willing to stay and hear and so may his Ministers too for ought I know for while you were scratching and clawing one another at your Inr we teaching and convincing each other in the Outer Court for there was no room for Christ in the Inner Temple we were curst most bitterly with bell though neither with book nor candle yea there a rose who knows not whence for sure 't was either from you and your party or you in your party or you without your party or at least your party without you such a hot dispute of bim-bom-bell which put us to such a non-plus that least we should perdere in contentione vocem we were fain to give over and be gone and were utterly Routed in the skirmish tell we could well Raylly together in another place So here 's the upshot of the business of that Disputation of which somewhat more might yet be written had my business been to give Account and not rather to take Account of your Account on 't but this is written that people may believe your true Account to be a true Counterfeit and believing it may know the better how to trust you another time One word more yet to the Disputers and Scribes OF THE ASHFORD DISPUTATION OR AN EPILOGETICAL POSTSCRIPT ON THEIR APOLOGETICAL PREFACE Pre. THere was never any Intent this Disputation following should have appeared in publick c. Post. Like enough so Sirs for the first appearance or deliverie of it self in publique by word of mouth was with so little credit to your cause that it might very easily be as ashamed to shew its face in print as the Scribes that penn'd it seem'd to be to shew their names And doubtless so it would have been but that it came disguis'd And yet even this false face whereby you have made it shew fairer by farr on one side I mean your own then at first it did is so black so blind so full of blurres and blemishes that it cannot chuse when it comes to review it self the second time but color red and blush at its own blindnesses if it be not Brazen Pre. But that like Jonas's Gourd it should have died as suddenly as it grew c. Post. Like Ionas's Gourd indeed for Ionas-like O that you were as like him in his best as you are too like him in the basest of his behavior you run away from God O ye Priests and refuse to preach the preaching that he bids you whereupon a mighty tempest is upon you and upon the waters whereon you ride i. e. the tongues nations multitudes and peoples so that they are troubled for your sakes and upon the Earth it self which is as it were the Ship in the bowells of which you have imbarqued your selves ever since your fall from heaven thither in the loins of your Father Abaddon Revel 9.1 So that it reels to and fro like a Drunkard is moved exceedingly like to be split in pieces clean dissolved utterly devoured with a curse for your sinns principally O yee Priests who have trangressed the Laws of Christ the only Lord and Law-giver changed his Ordinances broken the everlasting covenant neither will the sea of the whole world cease to roar about you and be outragious till the lot fall upon you as it did on Ionas to be cast forth though the Ship-Masters row never so hard to have you spared nor till the Tempestuous waves on which you seek still to swim aloft have over-whelm'd you so on every side that you be fain to cry Alas out of the belly of hell But Alas though the ship rock and is ready to suffer ship-wrack yet as if they had made a Covenant with death and with hell were at at an agreement So rockt asleep is Ionas so sluggish are our Renegado Prophets that they yet discern not the mystery of the things that are upon them but are stark sensless of the stirs that are about them and of the storms which themselves are most concern'd in And what the Gourd was to Ionas in his heat even such is this Disputation also to your cause of Infant-baptism viz. as short as sleight a shelter a shadow for there 's no substance in 't under which you have rejoyced a while and receiv'd some thin refreshment and defence against the heat of that truth with which you were a while tormented But God hath prepared a silly worm to smite the Gourd so that though it blossom like a Rose and flourisheth as a chief flower among your followers for a time yet it will die even as suddenly as it grew so that leaving you to your Evensong to the Tune of or like the Gourd that Jonas had men will begin to sing mattens ere-long saying Their Rose withers Their Blossom blasteth Their Flower fades The morning hasteth Their mourning hasteth Their Sun Sets Their shadow flies Their Gourd consumes The Darling dyes Their sprinkling dyes Pre. The truth is the disgraces that the Adversaries in private have loaded it withall have rak't it out of those ashes c. Post. For your Respondent whom you mainly mean here witness these words of yours to me viz. Sir These short Collections of the Ashford disputation had slept long enough if your own private letters had not awakned them by a too much sleighting your opponents and their Arguments not without a just occasion from a friend of yours presented in a letter called a spade a spade and represented your Doo back again in no worse wise then it deserved Asserting that your pleading of Infant-sprinkling from that non-entity of Infant-believing was shamefull and childish pedling and that the miserable rawness and rudeness of some then and there ingag'd in Syllogisticall dispute did â—avor as little of the Scholar as that of the Christian all which and what more is there related was no other then the Truth when I pen'd it and I find nothing to the contrary yet in your Account Howbeit 't was so disgracefull and loadsome that you Disputers immediately became Scribes and posted out a piece of Print on a sleeveles errand i. e. the Recovery of your Retrograde Repute being afraid not more â—hen hurt that if this man of war do not what is not to be done maintain your Infant-sprinkling which premi haud suprimi potest the more you tread the more you spread your credit may grow so crazy upon 't as to die indeed as indeed it doth and that daily for as
zealous as you are to unlade your selves in your Romish wayes of disgraces yet what grace unless you have the Grace to Repent in this juncture wherein the Lord is about to fill the earth with the knowledge of himself and that glorious truth which you have darkned and to bring shamefull spuing upon all your Ghostly glory Pre. In which it was designed to be smothered c. Epil Scarce any Infant ever past alive I think under so many murtherous and Smotherous designs as this one poor Insant-disputation that was born at Ashford It hath had two or three births or appearances in publick one at Ashford the place where it was first held before many two at the press whence its forth-held before all from every of which it should have been with-held so as never to have appear'd at all to the view of any if any of those whose own more then mine it was could handsomely have smothered and broke the neck on t The True father who first begate it by venting to a certain Gentlewoman further then he would have done as it seems to some since had he thought she would have prov'd with child by his dallying with her his pretended desire of some discourse with her seducer so he was then pleas'd to stile me by Anticipation having neither before nor since so much as said one word toward the shewing of me to be in error when he saw his offer thrive so fast in the womb of her desires that there was like to be an Issue i. e. a Disputation father'd on him to provide for would for ought ever I could discern whether to avoid the shame on 't or why else I know not have smothered the very Embryon in the womb but sith that could not be done very cleanly it being nois'd that there was a conception he was minded I suppose to have it smother of itself at the birth for want of help to bring it forth for he would have nought to do with it himself when the hour came but threw it as Iudas did his busines among the Priests with see ye to it not vouch-safing so much as to see it himselfe or to send in so much as one Rag or Ragged Argument to hide its shame withall in the day of its nativity wherein notwithstanding all the help and hand it had from such of you as were sent for far and neer to the labor who I dare say did the best for it you could it was not so well ordered but that it pittied many a ones heart to see how wretched it was and poor and miserably blind and naked Howbeit I say to give you your due you had bowels toward it far beyond him who was neerer kin to it then your selves for whereas he should have bin by right at all the pains and charges too that day as being most concern'd in the business of it yet he withdrew himself from both but you who as you say were not the men appointed for the disputaâ—ion drew neer and undertook it and were at such pains about it that how far forth you gnawd your tongues for pain I cannot say but I may safely say you blaspâ—emed the God of heaven both then and since so farre forth as to call his truth Heresie is to blaspheme him because of your pains and your sores not do I hear that you yet Repent of your deeds in a word though little to th' purpose yet your cares concerning this Infant-disputation were very great when his whose it was were none at all save how to keep far enough from it that it might be strangled before ever it came to light Thus it outliv'd one or two smothers to which it was designed by its first father viz. both in and coming out of the womb much land therefore which you love more then a little to you the kind uncles for it who so seasonably interposing your selves swadled it up as fairly as you could in such foul shifts as you had then about you in such wise at least as to save the life on 't or else it had surely miscarried and come well nigh to nothing before it was well any thing at all Now in small process of time perceiving perhaps that you had over-charged your selves unawares in Adopting this Ashford-disputation the fruit of another mans loins into your own future Tuition by taking the Patronage thereof upon you so publiquely as you had done that day before many people and possibly not more asham'd of its former poor appearance then afraid that a further appearance of it in publique might put you to more charge and shame even you the foster fathers also who had been so kind as to keep it from killing and to perform the mid-wivery und nursery thereof before had a design now to smother it your selves in order whereunto you had buried it alive it seems and rak'â— it up in the ashes of oblivion that it might live no longer in mens minds but rather return dust to dust Ashes to Ashes as it was hoping the Sepulchre of your silence was so sure that the Ghost would never walk about to the cost shame and affrightment of its guilty Guardians any more But all this avails not yet the Baby-disputation was not fully smothered for all that for people of all sorts were in a kind of Hue-and cry after it Adversaries talkt how ill you handled it friends were importunate to see a copy of its countenance so that there 's no remedy but it must be rak't out of those Ashes in which it was then designed to be smothered and appear again in publique at the Press and so by chance it came to escape a third smother by which else in your intent it should have perisht both out of mind and sight per varios casus per tot discrimâ—na rerum Hath this poor Infant-disputation had the fortune to escape those many smothers which in the fearful wrath of its own parents that begat and brought it out it was ore and ore designed to so that it rubs out still and remains in rerum naturâ in vivis characteribus to this very day Pre. And given life to it c. Post. And gâ—ven death to it you might more truly have said for verily under a colour of setting it free from the old intended smother you have subtily smother'd it ore a new as it were in another yea your very Impression is a very suppression of it rather then otherwise for you have Prest it almost to nothing in the Press and made such a Thin-gut thing of it that howbeit it stands bulk't out with an Appendix and other bumbles yet it looks no more like the disputation it once was in respect of the Respondents Answers which you have rob'd it of as well as of your own weakest Arguments then the seven lean kine like the fat you would have sneap't it all out of sight if you could but necessity urging to set forth somewhat and shame forbidding
in that truth on their side doth animate and assist them you meet them with staff and spear and humane accomplishments and they stand before you in the name of God and strength of that truth and true Israel of his whom you yet defie this makes Schoolmen like Schoolboyes under the rod when they are taken tardy in their exercise and see they are like to be whipt for it cry spare us in that their School-masters the Pope and Councels have overtaskt them and set them a Theam which Scripture whence onely they must fetch all their proofs saies just nothing of at all This makes the Disputers the Divines to come abroad a begging in print among the vulgar as you here do saying cover pass by bewayling the weakness of their Arguments their defects in disputing their presumption in entring the lists their non-preparation for the disputation because it s not the true Gospel they disputed for a very stripling may make a Gyant give back if he have hold on the hilt of his sword and the other thrust hard against the blade 't is hard for thee O Saul to kick against the pricks a learned lawyer may be at loss in a lame suit Asinus ad lyram may play his part better and make sweeter musick then the most accurate musitian that hath nothing to beat upon but a board it may well put any but the meer Sophister to his shifts to prove the moons made of green cheese and so 't will any save the meer self-seeker that is set to serve it out of a sight that he can serve himself of it and therefore is resolv'd to make any Argument serve turn even libet ergo licet rather then leave it to prove Infant-baptism much more Infant-rantism to be a good cause and yet the more 's the pitty this is the cause you have to make good and have been so bold as to stand up for which though your wishes are here that it may not suffer wrong through your defects yet mine are much rather that you may not suffer your selves to be wrong'd any more or to be wrong'd for ever through its defects for howbeit it flatters you into an opinion of its ability to be maintain'd by you by its appearing ability to maintain you yet you 'l find ith'end that by its fair flourishes it hath flusht you into more zeal then furnisht you with ability to maintain it when it shall have brought you to your choice of one of these two ex quibus minimum est eligengendum viz. either of Repentance from it and all other your Parochiall dead works tithes and other traditions that depend upon it upon a sight and acknowledgement that you have been mistaken about these as well as other Romish Remnants that you have seen cause through the Parliaments eyes to renounce since that long since Lutheran reformation which after longer standing out will be so much the harder Chapter for you Clergy men to run throw or else which is worse then nought of perseverance in your evil waies and dead works against light to prevent the other which last the Lord prevent from befalling any of you if it be his will Pre Who would not have presumed to have entered the lists c. Post. It had been no presumption in you had you been true Ministers of Christ and the cause you stood up in Christs cause indeed for grant it to be presumption in Vzziah to meddle in the publique service of the Temple and in Vzziah to put forth his hand to uphold the Ark and consequently for so you argue not we for men to meddle so as to minister to the Gospel publiquely in your Churches that are not in holy orders yet it is none vos Apello for the Priests or ordained Ministers of Christ to stand up any where in defence of Christs truth where it s traduced but rather duty which in speciall they stand bound to in that therefore you accounting your selves Christs Ministers do grant it to be presumption in you to put forth so publiquely when you saw it tottering you do no less thou give the cause you stood up in to be none of his as indeed it was not but your own and that was it only which made it presumption and very high presumption in you too in that you durst enter the lists against the Lord Iesus in in his own ordinance and that with such weak Arguments such flags as flam'd like swords but alas such as could not bear the brunt when it came to blows here how much less will they in that battel of the great day of God Almighty which is now marching apace upon you 'T is true therefore as you here confess you have been presumptuous and presumption is one of the most desperate sins that can be against Christ yet for all that in his name and as an Embassador from him though otherwise an unworthy and ever a contemptible creature in your eyes as though himself did beseech you by me I am bold to beg of you that you would not despair but come in and be reconciled to him presuming no more to stand up against him with such weak weapons as before least he tear you in pieces fall upon you and grind you to powder but sit down and humble your selves that you have stood so long in the way of Sinners so that they could not come to Christ through your Blurres lay down your arms and yield your selves prisoners to him stoop to that golden Scepter he yet holds out unto you own him as your King Priest and Prophet list no more against him but list your selves under him for he is gracious and will yet receive you and baptize you with his spirit if you turn at his reproof and repent and be baptized in water in his name for remission of sins Pro. 1.23 Act. 2.38 become little children in such a sense as you should be that you may be baptized and then be baptized in truth and in token for your memory hath lost your traditionary token sprinkling that hereafter you will not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified but manfully fight under his banner against sin the world and the devill and continue Christs faithful souldiers to your lives end How happy had it been for you if you had took quarter from Christ before this time for he would have given it and forgiven all your enmity against him in his truth but you are stiff-blades and your words have been stout against him you Clergy men are Lords you will not come neer but I beseech you become Lord beggars at the throne of grace as Brightman said truly the Bishops were for earthly honor at the thrones of Kings and Princes that you may have more of that grace and holiness to worship God with reverence according to his own will which God gives to all humble Suppliants then had you less learning and living then you have and more disgrace in this world then ever
speak plain yet cannot so much as poetically much less properly signifie Infantissimum such a one day old infant as you talk of nor such a six dayes old suckling as you sprinkle but properly it expresses at least one capable of erudition and how beit it hath not its derivation from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as setting the cart before the horse I say not ungraciously for many a gracious man is no good Grecian but ungraecianly you greek it out yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath its derivation from it for to say the truth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the primitive of the two and though 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be the diminutive of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 puer which is the primitive to them both yet this is enough to shew that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may be used and yet not infancy meant by it neither but childhood which is a distinct age from the other for there 's difference between Infantiam and pueritiam as inter adolescentiam inventutem all which have their severall and proper periods yea in truth it signifies child-ship at least capable to be taught not such meer babeship as you baptize Secondly if it did yet what 's that to your present purpose which is to prove by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the third 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the fourth verse that Christ means the very same viz. little ones literally taken in the sixth as much as if you had said nothing at all for verily as it follows not that he doth so its evident enough that he doth not mean the very same in this phrase verse six viz. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whom he means in the third by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for who doubts on 't but that by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the third verse natural little children are to be understood the intent of Christ there being to shew how his disciples must be like them if ever they enter into heaven but in verse six owning his disciples to whom he tells that they must be such as already such in some measure as they should be he speaks of them under that very same name and notion and this was no unusual term for Christ to denominate disciples nor yet for them to denominate one another by for besides that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it self is the title by which though not here yet elsewhere all believers and new converts to the truth are often stiled by yea and your word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. sucklings too which you make so much of a little below yea and the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the very diminutive of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a child which word you make such a matter of when you find it Acts 2.36 in proof of all which consult Iohn 21.35 Gal. 19. 1 Iohn 2.1.12 13.18.28.3.7.18.4 4. also 1 Pet. 2.2 even this very phrase that is here used viz. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is also used by Christ himself to his disciples Mat. 18.42 and a place wherein as no little infant as here was apparently present so compare it with the two foregoing verses in which the same who are call'd little ones and disciples ver 42. are stiled Prophets Righteous men and I 'le say you sell your selves to stark soâ—tishness if you expound it of any other then of such as are from Disco their having learn'd the truth as infants yet have not stiled Christs Scholars or Disciples But above all the most undoubted reason of all the rest which to me doth and may to any one most plainly clear it that he means not infants is even this very expression viz. which believe in me whereby he denotes and denominates his disciples distinctly enough from all little infants who are in no wise capable to do that he here ascribes to the other i. e. to believe in Christ for this infants being utterly uncapable to do it shews plainly that he means not them whereas Mr. Willcock whose argument this was and whose urging it ore again in print if this be it shall not trouble my conscience if it do not his own whereas he I say argues thus viz. These little ones which believe in me therefore infants do believe I argue quite contrary from the same Scripture thus viz. these of whom Christ speaks Mat. 18.6 did believe therefore they could not be infants who cannot possibly believe And if you ask me how I prove it that infants cannot believe I might answer out of the mouth of Paul Rom. 18.14 how can they believe on him of whom they have not heard but sith you have a reply to this p. 18 I le onely hint that here and handle it further as I have occasion given me to do by your answering it as our objection when I come to review your review and at present prove the matter out of Mr. Willcocks own mouth that infants cannot believe for to believe is to act faith and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Docere 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 legere c are speeches that point at the act and not the Habit or faculty denoting actum secundum non primum This Mr. Willcock knows as well as I yet the same Mr. Willcock page 8. asserts as plainly and truely so clearly to the contradiction of himself in this place that infants have not the exercise and fruit of faith have it not in actu secundo c. but I spare him in hope that he will consider it of himself verbum sat sapienti but suppose it were meant of infants literally yet however it could be but a Prosopopeia i. e. a figure whereby that is attributed to certain creatures as done by them which yet is neither really done nor so much as capable to be done by them at all by which figure that is sometimes attributed not only to infants but even to but sensible and bruit and sometimes to insensible things which can properly be done by none possibly but men at years as not onely David is said to be made to hope in God while he hung upon the breasts because God indeed was even then the God that did defend him yea as well in as from his mothers womb though he was never sensible of nor acquainted with it so as to hope it in the womb but the whole creation also figuratively Rom. 8.19 20 21 22. is said to groan wait hope desire expect deliverance because it stands in need of it from the bondage of corruption and God also hath determined the time wherein by Christ to redeem it though many creatures under the curse are no more sensible of it or capable to groan then the fruitless fig tree Christ cursed and the Ox Ass Horse Sheep and sensible creatures that may groan are capable to hope for and expect such a glorious day as shall once come to the creation thus figuratively indeed infants may be said to believe on Christ
are no more capable of the use of any ordinance then the other He tells us these by birth are of the houshold of God of the Citizens of the Saints t is much he said not fellow Citizens in Pauls phrase Eph. 2. sure t was because he bethought himself of their uncapableness of fellowship for all their membership He tells us that these are orderly admitted i. e. by baptism then which Scripture knows no other admission for no sooner do we read of a convert saith he but we presently hear of his baptism whereas of all the converts in Christendom that sit under the ministry of the Pope Prelate and Presbyter I never knew one in all my daies baptized after their coversion of him by preaching till being converted from them to the Truth as it is in Iesus they convert and come to us and then we immediately baptize them indeed but as for them t is impossible for them so much as to preach the Gospel in all Christendome in the way and words in which Peter Ananias Philip Paul and all the first and purest preachers did while they suppose all they preach to to have been baptized in infancy for what Priest in Christendom can say to his parish repent and be baptized for remission of sinnes arise and be baptized and wash away thy sinnes he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved as they of old said Mark 16.16 Act. 22 without gross absurdity having christn'd them all long before he ever preacht to them neither do they baptize any at all after conversion and the best baptism they dispense in token of remission of sins so long before either sins commission or the sinners conversion is at best but meer rantism neither He tells us that those have right to all the immunities of this house to all the priviledges of this City of God meaning the Church here below and have title to all Christs visible ordinances that they belong to Christ and therefore must parâ—ake of that which is of Christ and being of the houshold they must therefore have of the food of the houshold yea the stewards of the mysteries of God must be accountable in case they deny it them And yet till they are at years not any one of them may participate as themselves say of any one of those visible ordinances viz. neither praying preaching hearing not the supper nor any thing else which is the food of the houshold after baptism by which they are barely entred in infancy and onely thrown ore the threshold into the house and then ly starving for many years together without bit or crumb of any other food at all being utterly denied to be communicants at the supper the use of which their folly will once be manifest who say they are lesse capable of in infancy then of the use of baptism for as shall appear more hereafter howbeit they are truly capable of neither they are as truly capable of both as of either yet are they deni'd a share in that service of the supper by these stewards of the mysteries of God the ministry themselves and that for no less then 16 years together at least according to the rule of the old stewards the episcopacy that have almost given up all their earthly account and I know not for how long by the will of the new stewards i. e. the Presbytery for if their rule be to practise it no oftner then they practise it indeed some of them have had no supper at all in their parishes neither for young nor old for about seven or eight years together last past and when they will no body knows and how they can with a good conscience I cannot tell nor never could while I stood among them they standing all and their people all universally unbaptized to this day for which neglect of theirs to give persons their meat in due season order and manner feeding them with a break-fast in baptism before they are fit to be fed so much as with that milk and then denying them any supper at all when they come to years though they then both pay for it and are at least as fit to feed thereon as they were in infancy to feed on baptism the Lord of that supper and of all the other holy ordinances of his which they have dispenst more after their own minds and mens tradition will and Testament then his own will call them ere long to give account of their stewardship too and let them be no longer stewards And yet a little more to trace Mr. Blake to and fro as he daunceth the hay up and down in that tâ—ifling treatise he tells us that these are a holy seed of the noblest birth yea though they be the children of loose living parents of misbelieving parents p. 4.5.25.26 of apostatized parents of excommunicate parents of fornicating parents and consequently a very bastard brood which under the law that Mr. Blake himself professes to be tried by were unclean and not admitted into the congregation unto the tenth generation of papistical parents for even these are but misbelievers and Christians in name still and as himself sayes no infidels though to go round again holding such damnable errors in the faith p. 30. as shut them out from the happiness and therefore I think from the holiness too of Christians yet all this notwithstanning to go round again if the children but of believing parents that are of the Church and to go round again not true believers neither as believer is opposed to unbeliever misbeliever or Christian in name onely with all which he confesses the Church may abound but as believer is opposed onely to infidel p. 25. between which terms unbeliever and infidel which are not synonimaes it seems with him yet the Scripture makes no more difference then is between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the same greek word that expresses both and is translated into latin by infidelis and Englisht by either unbeliever or infidel notwithstanding all this I say if born in England or any where else in any nations or of any parents that are but Christian in name onely or of but one such Christian parent the other being an Indian that is with him an infidel indeed they are with him a holy seed still that God ownes and challenges for his yea frrom the womb Gods heritage a seed so nobly born as noble Nehemiah himself was not yea p. 28. the least of whom is greater then Nehemiahs better These high and Heroick Eulogies Mr. Blake bestowes upon not true believers and real Saints onely to whom yet they peculiarly belong but on meer carnall Gospellers the naturall lukewarm formalists of the Antichristian more then Christian nations upon pretensive verbal professors and that not of truth neither as t is in the word but as in the word of an erroneous Priest-hood who preach truth for tith and yet not the tith of that truth they should preach neither
are called Disciples p. 8. I shall say a little to your folly in that also and so leave you to consider it at your leasure And because Mr. Marshall is the main man I had last in hand and the man that frames the most formal argument from that Scripture whereby to prove infants to be disciples I le single out whâ—â— he saies and see what may be said in answer to it and in him you will all stand or fall in this particular the form in which he reasons Serm. p. 39. is this Babist All they upon whose necks those false teachers would have put the yoke of circumcision are called disciples But they would have put the yoke of circumcision upon infants as well as grown men Ergo infants as well as grown men are called disciples and to be called so Baptist. The Minor which is so undeniable that it needs no proof for who denies but that they who taught the brethren or disciples at Antioch would have put circumcision upon the necks of their male infants as well as of themselves for after the manner of Moses though not of Christ so it was to be he falls pell mell upon the proof of that but as for the Major which is so palpably and apparently false that it needs no disproof that saith he is undeniable and so he slides away without once offering to make any proof of it at all I shall therefore shew you how plainly he perverts the text how false his foundation or Major proposition is and consequently how rotten and weak his whole building That Scripture hints onely thus much to us viz. that they would have put the yoak of circumcision upon the necks of the disciples out of which but how inconsequently a very Idiot may understand he publisheth this proposition viz. All they upon whose necks they would have put the yoak of circumcision were called disciples but what monstrous solaecism what ignorant incongruity is to be seen in these two sentences if laid together what naked arguing is this they would have put the yoak of circumcisiin upon the necks of the disciples therefore all they were disciples upon whose necks they would have put it I appeal to Mr. Marshals own conscience to judge whether it be any better then this viz. Caesar put the yoak of Tribute upon the necks of Christs disciples Ergo all they upon whose necks Caesar put that yoke were Christs disciples I am hardly perswaded within my self that such a man as Mr. Marshall could first preach this ore Secondly print it ore Thirdly repeat is reprint it ore again with so sleight an answer to it as he gives to Mr. Tombes p. 217. of his reply and not see the nakednesse of it which if he doth see I charge him as he will answer it before the Lord Iesus at the last day that he declare it to the undeceiving of 1000s that for ought he knows may be dangerously deluded by it and that he do not dare any longer thus to darken counsel by words without knowledge as for that sorry allusion whereby he puts off Mr. Tombes who denies his Major for this reason viz. because it is not said they would have put the yoak of circumcision upon the disciples onely it s but a further delusion of himself and others I hope saith he you will receive the same law you give therefore when your self do plead meaning against infants baptism Iohns and Christs disciples required confession of faith and sins of those whom they baptized I answer saith he that its nowhere said they baptized only such But Sir though it be not said totidem verbis they baptized onely such yet it is said in terminis aequivalentibus in words that can imply possibly no lesse for when it s told us by way of true narration Mat. 3.5.6 that Ierusalem and all Iudea and all the Region round about Iordan were baptized confessing their sins it is in sense as if he had said that all they of Ierusalem Iudea and about Iordan that were baptized were baptized thus viz. confessing their sins and consequently that onely those who confessed their sins were baptized and when it s told us for truth to the end that we might know who and how many that day were baptized and added to the Church Act. 2.42 in these termes viz. Then they that gladly received his word were baptized and the same day there were added meaning to those 120. that continued in supplication Act. 1.14 about 3000 soules those termes they that gladly received the word must needs be exclusive of all others that did not gladly receive the word consequently of infants that could not or else we are clearly cousen'd by that story for if I undertake to relate truly by way of Chronicle who and how many were executed at such an Assize or slain in such a battel on such a day as Luke doth in Act. 2. to shew who and how many were baptized on that day and expresse it in such terms as do include the third part of them only for the several housholds to which those 3000 souls did belong would surely have amounted to thrice as many more had all those whole housholds been baptized with them I should be reputed as no better then an Impostor but the case is not the same in Act. 15.10 for the end and intent of Luke the historian and Peter the spokesman in that place was not to relate how many they would have yoaked with circumcision but the drift of Peter was onely to reprove the false teachers and of Luke onely to declare how Peter did reprove them for offering so to subjugate and subvert the brethren for so they are called ver 1. even the very same persons which are called disciples ver 10. which shews also that by the word disciples he means not infants for they were persons capable to be taught yet this is the strongest hold you have whereby you argue infants to be disciples and taking it by force from thence that infants are disciples you run headlong with it to Mat. 28.19 where Christ saies go teach or by teaching disciple the Nations baptizing them and from thence rest an argument for their baptism but I am ashamed that I must take occasion unlesse I le betray the truth to reprove the rudenesse of such renowned men and conclude all their conceits to the contrary notwithstanding that Mat. 28.19 is no commission nor command for infant baptism It follows not therefore from the wonted circumcising of infants from which you Ashford Disputants dispute it that therefore they are to be baptized for this reason viz. because there was a command for the circumcising of infants but as I have shewd above none at all no not from Mat. 28.29 nor Mark. 16.15 much lesse from any other piece of Christs will and Testament that they are to be baptized now But Mr. Marshal fetches it about another way yet and because Christs own Testament is somewhat barren of provision by
Abrahams spiritual seed but also to unbelivers and to the whole world and this more plainly too and without a vail holding forth salvatorem exhibitum a saviour that hath already offered himself a ransom and salvation by him in common to all Iews and Gentiles bond and free even every creature that puts it not away from him when â—endered to him Mark 16.15.16 1 Iohn 2.2 so that the Gospel is as good now to the full to all men in its administration as it was of old and in many respects far better though no infants at all be baptized and so I have done with this argument and come to the next Disputation That opinion which destroyeth the comfort that the holy ghost administreth over the losse of our children by death is a desperate and ungodly opinion But such is the opinion of the Anabaptists concerning little children Ergo it is desperate and ungodly The minor proved It destroyes the hope that parents can have of the salvation of their children for it makes them in no better condition then Turks and Pagans and so our Respondent himself professed and when the Apostle saith 1 Thess. 4.13 I would not have you sorrow as those without hope the grieved parents might reply what hope can we have of our child who is in no better condition then the children of infidels what comfort can we have from the Covenant made with and the promises to our children c therefore why should we not sorrow as those without hope Our Respondent replyed to this that for ought he knew the children of Turks and Pagans might be all saved and one replyed Perhaps he thought the devils might also which was the end of the argument there being no other answer given nor to be expected Disproof As I replied then so I reply still that for ought I know the children of Turks and Pagans dying in infancy may be all saved yet will it not follow so much as probably that therefore in reallity or in my opinion either the Devils may be saved also which rude return is recorded by your selves to be then given and stands for ever before the world as the end of this your argument and of your Disputation also there being to this assertion of mine viz. for ought I know the children or dying infants of Turks and Pagans may be all saved no other answer given by you in the Dispute nor yet since in your Account nor yet ever to be expected But Sirs as great an Extasie as you seem to be in about this position yet I assure you if I had not learn'd it before yet I have learn't it since from your very selves who so strange at it to be a thing not so strange as true viz. that the dying infants of Turks and Pagans may be all saved and that the dying infants in your Christendom are in no better condition then the dying infants of Turks and Pagans for so I said and not as you here misrelate it then Turks and Pagans themselves for if the dying infants of infidels are in no worse condition then your dying infants then surely yours are in no better condition then they and that they are in no worse condition then yours nothing need hinder you more then me for ought I know from a belief thereof unlesse you will refuse to believe your selves who preach no lesse both to me and all men no further off hence then in the next page and the next save one above for do you not say there that unlesse we will violate Christian charity whose rule is praesumere c. to presume every one to be in a good condition till he appears to be in an evil we must believe and hope all things of the little children of believers since it cannot appear in infancy that they have barred themselves c. and if so why not of the infants of Turks Pagans and infidels specially to speak in your own dialect since it cannot appear that these have any more than the other by any actual sin barred themselves or deserved to be exempted from the general state of little children declared in the Scriptures which is this viz. That of such is the Kingdome of heaven You see then how you teach us this precious piece of truth your selves p. 4.5 therefore I hope you will learn it your selves viz. that we are to hope well of such infants as have not by actual sin barred themselves from Salvation and allow us to teach it too in time though hitherto you seem to be so far from giving way to us to teach the same that when we speak well of infants that have not by actual sin deserved exemption and hope well of their salvation so dying you so wretchedly forget it to be the doctrine your selves deliver that with detestation you protest against it as abominable as if there were as little hope to be had of the salvation of such dying infants as are not born in Christendome as of the salvation of the very devils but your first doctrine shall stand of the two for truth with me from which though you often contradict it your selves I shal not be frighted by your bigg words but still hope as well of one dying infant as another Secondly Risum teneatis amici it is enough I think to set him on smiling who is never so deep in his dumps to see what a most pat and pertinent place of Scripture you have here dragged in to the proof of infant baptism viz. 1 Thes. 4.13 from whence as the wheel barrow goes rumble to rumble so it followes that infants are to be baptised you might as well have said you may find it in the fifteenth of go look it as send us to a text of so little tendency as this is of to your present purpose for what if we are not to mourn over the death of Saints and Godly friends that sleep in Jesus as those that can have no hope of such friends as they see to dy ungâ—dly which is indeed the direct drift of the place will it therefore follow that all those infants that dy without baptism are universally and unavoidably damned yet no less then this is here told by your selves to be your tenet whilst you say our denial of baptism unto them destroies all hope of their salvation But Sirs is it so in earnest in your opinion that no baptism no hope of salvation Then thirdly I have a treble charge to draw up against you 1. of unchristian cruelty 2. Of point blank popery 3. of clear contrariety both to your selves and to those very authors you refer us to to read and learn by and also to the very professed doctrine of the church of England whereof you profeâ—s to be the Ministers First I must cry out oh the Vnchristian cruelty that is hatched in your hearts and here expressed not onely to these thousands of infants even of Christians that happen to dy unbaptized at least to whom baptism
made Disciples when they first appear to be converted witness the three thousand Iewes whom Mr. Baxter himself doth instance in who though they and their parents were all relatively holy by birth and Church-members of the visible Church of old and as Mr. Baxter is pleased to say most simply p. 20. both disciples and Servants of God by very nature yet in the Gospel sense they were first made disciples or discipled so as thereby to be in right to baptism when they were by Peter converted only and not before so that if the children of Christians had now either such a Relative discipleship as he calls it and as he saies the Iews children had once by birth and such a real discipleship or invisible conversion to God in very infancy as he deeply dotes all such to have so soon as ever they they are born neither of which yet they have indeed yet nevertheless that they may be and also must be first discipled when they are at years in that sense wherein discipling was in the Commission enjoined in order to baptism it is evident by Mr. Baxters own alledged instance of the Iews Acts 2. who though they were according to Mr. Baxter himself as nigh and in truth more nigh to God by birth than the fleshly seed of believing Gentiles are yet were not for all that their old Church-membership and discipleship for indeed they were not in infancy but when grown up discipled unto Moses admitted to baptism thereupon till they were first discipled unto Christ and had both heard and gladly received the word of the Gospel neither were ever any as appears by all the Examples forecited of what parents soever descended though of Abraham himself admitted to baptism in the primitive times till discipled i. e. till visibly appearing and verbally at least professing to repent believe and imbrace the Gospel nor is it possible for men to whom Christ gives order to make disciples to him to do it any other way than by instructing persons till such time as they learn and receive the things that are taught them Moreover to let pass that round he runs p 127. where after he had shewed so abundantly that to be Christs disciples gave persons admission immediately to baptism to go round again he expresses himself thus lin 32. that baptism admitteth them to be his disciples whereas Mr. Baxter asserts that we cannot possibly baptize children of Christians at age immediatly after they are first discipled because we cannot possibly know when such children are first discipled except it be in their first infancy as I have shewed him already what a steady rule direct period of time we keep to in baptizing as they did in the primitive times viz. as soon as they are first discipled i. e. when first they appear to us truly to be converted and profess seriously and sincerely as far as we can judge to repent from their sins and believe in Christ and desire and profer to be baptized in his name for the remission of sins so I must return his own proposition upon him ' that they who baptize the children of Christians in infancy as the Anti-baptists do cannot possibly do it when they are first discipled and that because they cannot possibly know when such persons are first made disciples and except they account them to be first discipled as we do viz. when professing verbally and when first appearing visibly and for ought we can discern truly to believe and repent from their sins and desire baptism which things no infants ever do Babist But Mr. Baxter supposes infants of Christian parents to have a Relative infant-discipleship from the womb and so hath a sure way of baptizing them when they are first discipled if he baptize them in their first infancy Baptist. That Relative infant-discipleship if by that he mean the same birth-priviledge as I am sure he doth which the Jewes infants once had is a real piece of non-sense and such a phrase as the spirit never expressed the Jewes birth priviledge by as not by any other so much as tantamount thereunto in sense or signification in either the old Testament or new neither can any such denomination as that of disciple which is of disco properly be given to any person upon a meer account of such a relative holiness as the Jewes infants once had without respect to their being actually under some tuition or other any more than it might be given to the Temple it self which had then also the same relative holiness Secondly if it could I have sufficiently shewed that birth priviledge and holiness which the Jew had by nature to be abolished in Christ and not derived to the fleshly seed of believing Gentiles Thirdly if it were now both in force and of force to denominate a person to be relatively a disciple of Christ by birth what 's that to the purpose of Mat. 28.19 and the tenor of all those presidents Mr. Baxter brings out of the New Testament whereby to direct us in baptizing in all which it is both enjoined and exemplified that in order to baptism persons should be first made disciples or discipled really by us i. e. taught and brought to the faith and obedience to the Gospel and not baptized upon account of a meer Relative birth-discipleship for the 3000 Jewes but that is nonsense to call their birth-holiness by such a name as that of Infant discipleship had as much of that Infant discipleship as Mr. Baxter saies falsly Christians children now have yet till better discipled then so i. e. till visibly imbracing the Gospel could not be baptized though pleading we have Abraham to our Father besides to be born disciples if there were any such thing at all as Mr. Baxter dreames there is is one thing and to be made disciples by the teachings of either God or men availing to conversion which is that only we are according to all that precept and president Mr. Baxter himself produces above to baptize persons upon immediately is another to be disciples born and to be made disciples by men are as different as those that are born Eunuchs and those that are made Eunuchs of men now if they were as there is no such thing in Rerum natur â as disciples of Christ by nature nor ever was but by a birth from above such a way of becomming Christs disciples relatively from the womb yet every one of those that were baptized in the primitive times whom Mr. Baxter brings in for our example were discipled by mens teaching according as in the commission Matth. 28. they were enjoyned to be before they were baptized yea even those three thousand Iews themselves who secundum sacerdotem had the relative infant discipleship could not be baptized meerly thereupon till they had attained to a better discipleship by Peters Ministry Babist You see Mr. Baxter does take discipleship in Mr. Tombe's own sense and yours viz. as it fignifieth one that doth
of But First with spending so much time and searching so much into their testimonies as you have compelled me to do that me thinks I am out of my element where I desire to be i. e. the Scriptures whetâ—er I le return by and by God willing especially this last testimony of Tertullian which yet I could not help unless I would for want of help betray the truth when I saw how Mr. Marshal Dr. Holmes and others had almost stolen away corrupted and by fair words enticed our old friend Tertullian to serve on their side for we would not willingly be cousined of what is our due yeâ— least any man should think of me above that he seeth me to be and take me to be a man of much reading because I talk so much of the Fathers I testify that I am of little further acquaintance with these Fathers for my converse is mostly with Maâ—thew Mark Luke Peter Paul Iude Iames and Iohn then this controversie hath brought me to which now is so much that though I honor them as honest and good men in their times as finding many things of much worth and excellency in them yet for all that I am sick Secondly with seeing what abundance of absurdities silly reasons senselesse anti-scriptural sentences odd conceâ—ts vanities vaâ—ieties of error as well as verities uncertainties whether some of their books be their own or no mistranslations foisting of what of their own other men please into their works as Ruffinus into Origen falsities flat contradictions amongst themselves and such like are to be found among them sufficient enough to cause all men to trust no more to their testimonies then with their own eyes they see the same testifyed in the Scriptures Thirdly I am sick more yet to find the whole Clergy after whom the whole world wonders and walks in error wondring so much after these Fathers and walking after them where they walk in error and yet neglecting to give heed to them where they speak the truth and which is worst of all sleighting the short pure and plain waies of God the Father of all of Christ our Father and the first Fathers next and immediately under God and Christ Supreme Governors of the Church and givers out of the Gospel to the world I mean the Apostles who in my mind write the way of the Gospel if men were not willing to go astray from it because it is narrow self denying and thorny though more briefly yet more clearly to any common capacity then the most voluminous of all the other fathers do for we use all plaineâ—s of speech saies Paul 2 Cor. 3. Wherefore Fourthly and Lastly I am sick most of all to consider what a stirr ministers make in their quotations of the Fathers marching on and giving such a broad side as they think with two or three sentences ou of the fathers as if they would bear all men down before them that come near them no higher read then in the Scriptures no better armed then with the sword of the spirit the word of God For this only is dispised as much as Davids sling and stone before Goliah and this too though in coole bloud the Scripture is confessed by themselves to be so instar omnium that nothing is of any force but what flowes from it for though some Clergy men dote so far that they believe the Fathers no otherwise then they would have the world to believe themselves i. e. because ipse dixit yet some are so wise as to confesse that how far forth soever the Fathers may serve to prove to us things de facto to be done in their several ages yet their testimonyes de facto cannot prove any thing to us to be de jure at all whereas if it be so and ye so it is I am me thinks become a fool at this time in falling before I was aware so up to the ears in contest about a few testimonies of the fathers as well as I and others heretofote in counting so extraordinarily on them wherefore I do henceforth humbly conceive and confess my self to the people together with all my fellow father-fool'd friends viz. the Clergy of all Christendome to have been no better then childish and semi-simple so far as such high and holy heed and such heedlesse submission hath been given by us to these fathers Schoolmen and other authors as hath occasioned extreme seduction from the Scriptures hear therefore O thou most miserably be wildred Priesthood of the Nations and understand for so thou shalt if thou return from out of that thick wood of Authors Polemical Tracts Schoolmen Casuists Tomes Volumes of Fathers Councels Commentators Treatises Systemes of Theology framed forms of old and New Creeds long and short Catechismes confessions of Churches c. in which thou hast wandred and lost thy self from the truth to the unfeigned study of that little book of Scriptures which alone if thou wilt be admonished by it is able to make thee and them that hear thee wise enough unto salvation Thou speakest what thou hast seen of thy fathers we speak what we have seen of our Fathers what thine teach in their books we regard not quâ ipsi dixerint unless quâ dictum prius by our Fathers if they teach no other then what our Fathers teach in theirs it is no more then what thou having the same Scripture the same liberty to search the same promise of the same spirit to guide the same accesse to God in prayer for it mayest learn not at second hand from them but at first hand from thence as easily as themselves but when they go aside from that and thou with them and thine with thee a venture this seems no other to me then Ignis fatuus with a false flash going before and Ignoramus fatnus with his false faith and a number of ignorants following after Thou tellest us of thy novel antiquity of Counsels National Oecumenicall of Churches Greek and Latin of Fathes Austin Gregory c. and yet confessest thy self that particular Churches have erred and may erre and if all particulars then why the universal which consists of all particulars cannot thou canst not prove and that generall councels which the School-men term the representative Church are subâ—ect to error and have sometimes decreed heresie and falshood for truth thou confessest by Dr. Featley p. 17. of his figment And that none of the fathers nor yet the joint consent of many is a competent judge for faith to hang upon concerning the right of things is confest by Mr. Blake p. 58. of his to Mr. Blackwood and yet to go round again thou ventest thy self out of the mouthes of others as if their verdict were enough to warrant and canonize all that for verity that is vented by them Tell us therefore no more as Dr. Featley doth of Gregory nor yet of Gregory the great whose testimonies if they were for thee but now I think on t they are not for
as failing in that point if you do it no otherwise then it was done then and there viz. the dayes and places wherein the primitive Churches dispenst it for they were all so wholly strangers to your infant baptism that not so much as the sound of such a thing was ever heard among them and howbeit Dr. Feaâ—le tells us a tale p. 16. out of Origen on the Romans whose originall is lost and into which work of his on the Romans t is shrewdly suspected by the learned that Ruffinus and the Romans have Sophisticated such a sentence that the Church had infant-baptism from the Apostles and thence very goodly grounds A positive argument of very great moment saith he that may convince the conscience of any ingenuous Christian viz. that the Apostles in their dayes began to baptize infants and the whole Catholique Christian Church in all places and ages even from the Apostles dayes hath admitted the children of Christian parents to holy baptism therefore t is no error Yet I must tell you that Origens bare word and single say so if it were his own is no warrant whereupon all men may safely muchlesse must necessarily believe it was so but the word of the New Testament of which the Apostles mostly were the Pen-men is warrant enough to us to believe that it was not so were the word onely silent about it how much more whilest it hath so much against it that we may say t is exclusive of it Howbeit therefore you say that infant baptism hath been universall it is sufficient proof of its non universallity in that you can never prove that it hath been universall and we have proved that in the Apostles dayes it was not so that in the first Century t was not so nor in the second for ought any man living can possibly shew how ere it began to creep in about the third and howbeit it hath been never so universally and erroneously practised from the fourth or fifth Centuries till now yet neither will it follow that the universall Church hath practised it nor that the universal Church hath erred in it nor that Christs promise Mat. 28.20 Ioh. 16.13.14.16.17.29 concerning the spirits abode and guidance is not true for that 's not more made then made good to those that perform the condition and terms on which it was made viz. the observation of what he commanded in which case the spirit is ever present and ever was and shall be with those few that keep the truth as for the most when they began to dote on mens teachings and traditions and to fashion themselves more at a venture after the words of the wise and prudent then after the word of God it self and to Idolize the dictates of Synods and Ghostly fathers so as blindly to subject themselves to their sentences as their onely Oracles then Terras Astraea reliquit Christ who did ingage to lead them by his spirit who would be led by it was dis-ingaged and true enough in his promises though he left the world to lie in darknesse and to be filled with their own wayes and with the fruits of their own inventions Moreover t was not the Church in the capacity of a Church in respect of outward form and order but his disciples to whom that promise was made to whom also it was performed and made good in all ages according and in such measure as they kept close to him for in the time of the treading down of the Temple and holy City and the true worship and worshippers and of all that visible fabrick and Church posture which stood in the primitive times and even in the grossest darknesse God gave power to his two witnesses i. e. by his word and spirit in the hearts and mouths of his Saints impowered them to prophesie and testifie to the truth against the traditions of Rome and against infant baptism as well as other of her superstitions and heresies how else could Bernard have said as he doth Serm. 65. super cant of some that opposed the corruptions of his time They laugh at us because we baptize infants because we pray for the dead and require the prayers of Saints yet even to those Martyrs that did witnesse to some truth in times of Ignorance the light was though not so totally and terribly as to the rest of the world much ecclipsed ore now it is and that promised manifestative presence of Christ not a little interdicted and communion with him interrupted by the interposition of that smoak which comming out of the bottomless pit clouded the sun and thickned the aire and as Christ himself foretold also it should be Iohn 14.30 by the intervening of the Prince of the darkness of this world who was to have his time wherein to darken all things and had it too so that by his delusive wiles the whole world was won to be once an Arrian and after that an Antichristian worshipping the Dragon and the Beast wondering and erring all together into one Catholique Church-body called Christendome and by common consent bearing the whore or false Ministery called Clergy warring at her will against the Saints and though not finally for so the gates of hell cannot yet or along time prevailing against them that dwell in heaven Rev. 13.4 5 6 7. In all which time nevertheless as I said before some truths were revealed to some and so much to such as then sought to Christ and not to men as may well serve to verify Christs words and justify all the promises of his presence with his people as to the true purport of them as yea and Amen Babist But where was your Church then all this while till these latter times Baptist. Where it was to be according to the word of prophecy Rev. 11.1 viz. troden underfoot for 1260 years by the nominall Christians or Gentiles coming by the lump into the outer Court i. e. into a bare name and feigned form of Christianity after the time of Constantine at the compulsive call of the Clergy since when though there have been an number of Saints in sackcloth that have seen much light from Christ and suffered for it yet I am so far from undertaking to prove there was that I am rather of the mind there was not nor was to be if the word be true any truly collected truly constituted visible Churches at all in right outward form and order standing upon that true foundation i. e. the principles of the Doctrine of Christ and the primitive prophets and Apostles for many ages upwards even from the Clergies carrying the Church captive into Babylon unto these daies wherin the foundation Heb. 6.1.2 with Eph. 2.20.21.22 which hath been razed is laid again and the measuring line gone forth upon the Temple is in the hands of the true Zerubbabel Christ Iesus who shall also finish it not by Army nor by strength but by my spirit saith the Lord of Hosts If this answer be not satisfactory that our Churches
their heads together to find ouâ— such superstitious stuff as your selves are ashamed of wherewith to support it what made Bernard complain that t was laught at among other ridiculosities as praying to and for the dead what made Imperiall lawes and Synodical cannons enjoin it under such strict penalties what made Pope Innocent 3. who together with the 600 Bishops and all the rest of the Clergy which in the councel of Lateran determined Transubstantiation confession were called fooles and block-heads seducers of the people hereticks and blaspemers by Iohn Purvey one of Wickliffs followers p. 17. of Luth. praedec what I say made that Innocent among other things decree so strictly as he did that the baptism of believers infants should succeed circumcision if that tradition found no Traitors which sought the death on t and if the risers up against it were hardly heard of before Luther Either then the verity of doctrine in Churches reformed from Romes downright dotage doth prove as Dr. Featley sayes well it doth a perpetual duration of it so that it must needs have professors in all ages or it proves it not if not then the main argument whereby Dr. Featley defends Protestanism to have been perpetually before Luther doth not vindicate you in your Religion from the name of Novellists any more then us and so the Pope by his plea for the verity of his Church from perpetuall visibility universality c. carries the cause clean from us all but if it doth then as we deny your infant-baptism to have been perpetuall because its false doctrine and our Church and way of baptism we hold in contradistinction to you being as consonant to the word and primitive pattern as the truest of those doctrines you hold in contradistinction to the Pope is vindicated by Featleys own argument to have been as perpetually before Luther as the purest piece of Protestanism and party of Protestants whatsoever Again an ennumeration of a successive number of particular persons barely professing the truth in the times of all Christendoms erring from it but not visibly constituted into any right Church form or order either doth prove Christ and his spirit to have been with his people alwayes and in all ages according to his promise and consequently his promise in that particular to be true notwithstanding the woâ—â—ds so universal erring for a time or else it doth not prove it if such an ennumerarion of single professors successively witnessing to the truth against Romish error doth not clear Christs promise to be true then your selves are as justly charged by the Iesuites who use the same argument against you that you use against us to be guilty of that damnable blasphemy of denâ—ing Christs promise to be true as we are charged to be guilty of it by your selves for as much as all that you say towards the salving of Christs promise of his perpetual presence with your Church while he left Rome from fault of falshood is but an induction of certain persons that before Luther testified to your doctrine yea he that answers the Iesuites question sayes no more confessing that a succession of Protestant Churches cannot be shewed but if it doth prove Christ his promise to be true then I hope it serves to prove it in our case as well as yours or else it s a hard case indeed forasmuch as though a perpetual succession of such visible Churches as ours are is not to be shewed through all ages of the Clergies crushing down the truth yet we can give as full evidence of a sort of single Saints that testified against infant-baptism even in those times as you can of such as testified against any other popish tradition whatsoever By this time you may see the fore-man in your for-lorn hope that is sent before as a subtil scout in a sophistical coat to entrap us is not onely discovered in his drift but divested also of his deceitful dresse disarmed and disabled from your service and laid a bleeding neverthelesse sith he opens his mouth and prates against us still with malicious words falsely chargâ—ng us again and bespattering us what he can with his tongue because he sees he cannot hurt us with his teeth we shall be constrained to lend him one or two blowes more toward the dispatching of him out of the way and then we shall be ready to meet with the force that follows Review And indeed they do conclude the whole Church of God to have erred most fearfully in one of the most necessary points of religion as if she had been totally deserted by the spirit of God and Christ had not made good his promise Re-Review First I observe that when ever it seems best to serve your turn so to do you stile baptism so necessary a matter one of the most necessary points of Religion about the administration of which to erre is most fearfully to erre litâ—le lesse then downright damnable otherwhile again as when you would modifie mens spirits towards your proceeding in infant baptism from proceeding so eagerly against that practise in case it should prove to be the error and ours the truth then you speak as diminutively of it as may be as if it were a matter which it matters not so much whether it be done your way or ours in childhood or at years by dipping or sprinkling so it be done an error which is not worth so much ado and striving to reprove and rectifie as the Anabaptists make of such indifferency that t is not fit sith t is now the custome that the peace of the Church should be disturbed about it as if this truth of the Church though troden down must not have an hand lent it to help it up again for fear of displeasing and awaking the Church from her sweet sleep of superstitious security till she pleases not so fundamental a defection which hand soever it lies but that it may be left ad libitum dispensed ad placitum so that such as will have their infants sprinkled may and such as will not or cannot be satisfied that is the true baptism may chuse and be baptized themselves if they please or not at all if they please and yet not be disowned so far one by another but that they may notwithstanding different judgements in so fiddling a thing as that is fall together but it will be by the ears sure at last into one fellowship and I know not how much such prety prate doth passe from your partie sometimes to lull us in as it were to wink at small faults and to make no noise about such a petty matter if infants baptism should be as many Priests know it is e. g. Dr. Gouge yet know it not no more then a meer Tradition of men At Pater ut gnati sic nos debemus amici Si quod sit vittum non fastidire What a deal of Patheticall Popisticall perswasion to this purpose as to pacify peoples spirits towards your errors in small points
first after once we do repent and believe and that so necessarily first necessitate both praecepti and medii in order to outward membership and fellowship in the visible Church of Christ and in order also to the true being of the visible Church in that outward right form and order that if it be not first done and done according to his own mind and not mans and first laid as a foundation among the rest of those principles Heb. 6.1 2. of Christs doctrine which altogether are called the foundation i. e. to the visible Church of Christ which is said to be built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets i. e. their doctrine or that form of doctrine they delivered whereof baptism in water was a part and a principle though not the principal part Eph. 2.22 Rom. 6.2.3.17 I deny that there can be any visible Church of Christ at all truly constituted according to his own will and such a bearer up of that building it is thaâ— abstract it and there is no building fitly framed together nor people growing together visibly an holy Temple in the Lord and he that in these latter dayes will ever erect that holy City and Temple which was trodden under foot by the Gentiles advancing all into the name of the Church at the door of infant-sprinkling must preach and practise again that true baptism of repentance for remission of sins in the absence of which there was no true visible Church as to outward order and form at all in their opinion as well as mine who hold and so does the whole Clergy that baptism is the way by which persons enter and out of which there is no entring at all into the visible Church in which therefore to erre is in truth such an unsufferable crime and so fearfully to erre in one of the most necessary points of Religion as pertaining to visible Church order that except ye repent of your infant-sprinkling O ye Priests and be baptized truly according to Christs will in the name of the Lord Iesus for remission of that and all other your sins and superstitions your error is enough to justifie our separation from you nor find we how we can in Christs name and according to his will or without violation and palpable breach of that outward order which he gives no dispensation for to us abide in one body or Church fellowship with you in the supper Secondly Sirs though I told it you before yet to conclude this I now tell you again though we deny infant baptism yet we do not hold at all nor conclude thereby that the whole Church of God hath universally erred i. e. the Church of Christ in all ages and places and howbeit it is trâ—e as Dr. Featley saies p. 19 and we with him That particular Churches have erred and may erre as the Greek Church and the Latin Church the two legs upon which Mr. Marshal strives to make infant baptism stand still because it hath stood there so long and general councels which the Schooles term the representative Church are subâ—ect to error and have sometimes as Dr. Featley saies and so often say I that that I le never build my faith upon them decreed heresie and falshood for truth howbeit all christendom hath erred after the Clergy in this point and many more for 1260 years yet t is true as Dr. Featley saies that the formal Church as they speak i. all the assemblies in the world cannot be impeached with errour in this point of infant baptism forasmuch as the true Churches of the first times never knew it and many faithful witnesses that knew it to be a corruption testified against it in the darkest times and the best reformed Churches even no lesse then scores of Assemblies do deny it at this day to the shame of that one general Assemblie that would have settled it Review And not onely so but if Mr. Fishers doctrine which 〈◊〉 lately delivered as a judicious gentleman affirmd who heard him that â—ll that did believe and were dipt should be saved but all that did believe and were not dipt should be damned be true they as much as lies in them damn to the pit of hell all the Matyrs Professors Fathers believers for many hundreds of years together Which onely doctrine should make all men to abhor them and not let their soules intermeddle with their secret whose rage is so fierce whose wrath is so cruel Christ shuts out onely unbelievers from heaven whosoever believeth not shall be damned This doctrine shuts out believers if they be not dipt i. e. if they be not Anabaptists it cannot be the ceremony they are so hot for without the substance Re-Review But saving the over apprehensive powers of that judicious Gentleman who ere it was that heard me he most grossely abuses in it himself and me in reporting such a thing to you as also you abuse both him and me and the world too in reporting it as from him to the world yet you have done him honour so farre I confesse as to conceal his name or else you had done him a greater spite indeed himself in shewing such shallowness of capacity in hearing as scarcely calls for that worthy title of judicious Gentleman and me in not only mistaking but mistelling his mistake also to you who print out his mistake to all the world for such doctrine as this That all that did believe and were not dipt should be damned did never yet fall from my mouth nor did ere take place or was ever owned for truth in my mind yea howbeit I summon you or any else to shew me in the word not taken by snatches but in the whole intent and scope of it Gods promise of salvation by Christ without obedience to him both in repentance faith and baptism too to those of whom all these things are required I say it again least you mistake me as speaking of infants for they being capable of none of these of them to salvation none of these are required of whom all these are required since all those that obey not the Gospel in what part soever of it it is manifested to them shall be damned 2 Thes. 1.7 8 9 2.10 11 12. Howbeit I say I wish you to advise how safely you that know it to be your duty may neglect it and how groundedly you can assure your selves that you do believe at all in truth if you receive not the love of every title of Christs truth so as wherein it appears to you to imbrace and obey it yet I am well assured I never utterd the other viz. that all that did believe and were not dipt should be damned nor is it now nor ever was it my judgement to this hour of which for the worlds and your satisfaction sith I have been very often charged and that twice or thrice in publique places where I have preacht so to hold I shall here give this brief account I judge that all persons
ours therefore I shall not trouble my self with it but the first of them which you say is so directly against us t is because you are blind if you do not perceive it to be an express downright declaration of a general justification of all from Adams sin as to life i. e. a resurrection from that bodily death which that sin brought upon all mankind and from which as there is now a universal return of every individual by Christ so there had never bin any returning for any one man in the world but by Christ to all eternity world without end 1 Cor. 15.21.22 Yea as universally as that judgement or condemnation to that first death came by Adam upon all men so that it spreads its black wings upon them all and brings them all down to the dust from whence they came so universally is justification unto life i. e the benefit and resurrection from that death from which else no one man should ever have risen come by Christ upon all men really and truly and not onely so but a capacity also and possibility of eternal happinesse and well being after that resurrection and all this whether persons believe it yea or no yea and a promise and certainty of it in case of belief in this Christ otherwise indeed a losse of the Resurrections becoming a mercy and benefit to them and a lyablenesse even after that escape of the first death that came by the first Adam to a sorer even that second death that lake of fire which by the second Adam by whom comes eternal blessednesse on believers comes upon all unbelievers and that for ever So that if there be no salvation to infants without justification yet ther 's justification of infants without faith or baptism either And whereas you argue from the cart to the horse from the justification and salvation of infants to their faith I argue from their non capacity to believe to their justification and salvation without it no salvation or justification without faith say you but infants are justified and saved therefore they believe if no justification and salvation without faith say I infants who cannot believe can neither be justified nor saved but infants so farre as they need justification for they have no sins of their own are justified and saved also for the kingdome of heaven belongs to them therefore there is justification and salvation for infants without faith To conclude therefore this opinion of you adversaries to the truth which allows no salvation to infants without faith puts you miserably to your shifts viz. either to find out a new way of coming by faith which Paul saies comes onely by hearing or else to damn innumerable dying infants who whilest they lived were uncapable to hear the word preached and so to believe or else as you do p. 18. to dream out a new kind of hearing whereby infants come by their faith viz. an inward wonderful miraculous hearing of some voice of the spirit within such a sigment of your own brains as the Scripture is wholly silent in and no true Church of God nor rational man but your selves who dream dreams and divine â—alse divinations and things of nought deceits of your own heart and tell them to the deceiving of others did ever dream of and whosoever shall consider the impertinencies of your proofs in a cause of so great consequence shall have just cause to suspect all your other doctrines and to take heed how they take any thing any more upon trust as the whole world hath done now of old from these new masters the Clergy who instead of being ministers in truth or servi servorum dei have bin domini dominorum Lords over the heritage and over the faith of all civil powers and people teaching them instead of the true doctrine of the old ministers the traditions and commandements of men And so I have done both with the head of this third argument and with that long tail also that trails after there remains no more of it to be meddled with but a certain slender sting that sticks to this tail put forth against us with more length then strength in prosecution of the argument which I shall cut out into many pieces and after set upon each section severally and then I hope your great hope of help from these three unworthies will prove a forlorn hope indeed Review But to prosecute this Argument for the full satisfaction of the simple but honest Reader since there is no way to come to salvation but by justification and no justificatnon but by faith why should it be doubted by any but little infants which are ordained to salvation are also by faith made subjects of justification those soules which please God so well as they are to see him presently after their separation from the body why should they not be capable of faith without which the Apostle saith it is impossible to please God Heb. 11.6 Re-Review The Reader had need be honest for I dare say he will be simple enough that receives full satisfaction your way by your present prosecutions of it because there 's no way for salvation and justification for men that are actual sinners and capable to believe and to whom justification and remission is preached to the end that they might believe it to their comfort is there therefore no other way wherby God willing and ordaining to save little infants from eternal wrath can possibly or doth certainly save them that can neither sin or be preacht to nor believe but that very self same way of believing is he tied to that means to save infants by as we are tied to it in order to the saving of our selves viz. the way of faith if so why not to repentance and self denial also for both these are the way to us Act. 2.38.40 Mat. 16.24 and would it not shift a man out of his seven sences to hear such doctrine that infants as ever they will be saved dying infants must even in their infancy repent is it not manifold more suitable to reason and sense of Scripture that as infants so far as they are guilty become guilty unwittingly to themselves by the presentment and imputation of the first Adams sin without personal disobedience in themselves so also should be justified from that imputed sin by the presentment of the satisfaction and imputation of the righteousness of the second Adam as unwittingly to and without personal obedience in themselves and because without faith t is impossible to please God for such as have actually incurred his wrath such as come to him by prayer for these indeed must believe that is God and is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him ther fore is it impossible for infants also who yet actually disspensed him nor yet are capable to come to him by belief or prayer Is that Scripture think you intended to infants for shame scope the Scripture a little better Review Is it not the
of themselves is as seems by your selves a faith and practise against Reason why else doth reason object against it Indeed the Papists aâ—e so unreasonable in sundry articles of their faith that they hold some things not onely above but against Reason and that 's tâ—e worst that can be said of the most absurd and â—bominable tenets that are amongst them and that is so bad that even thereupon the Protestant priesthood finds occasion enough to abhor them witnesse their Tenet of transubstantiation or real presence of Christs very body in the supper of which when we say how can this be its not onely against other articles of faith viz. his bodily ascention session and local mansion in heaven but also against common sense and reason it being in reason impossible that one body should be at once in two places as well as in consubstantiation it is for two distinct bodies viz. the bread and Christs body to be at once in one place they say much what as you say here and in the lines above viz. that howbeit its difficult to understand how it should be so in Reason yet if we had learnt to believe the Scriptures which in plain terms assert the thing saying of the bread this is my body we would believe it and leave the manner of its being so to him who saies it with whom all things are possible as we do in the articles of faith e g. the resurrection of the body not asking how it can be because the Scriptures have declared it The Reformists tell them again that the resurrection of the dead is a thing not onely in respect of God who can do all things save such as imply imperfection as to lie and die c. and contradiction for its impossible utterly that pure contradictories should be both true but also in respect of the thing it self possible to be effected but the ubiquity and the actual universal eating of one and the same numerical body and so smal a body too as that of Christs and at one and the same time in so many several places are matters and fancies savouring of such contradiction and so adverse to the very nature of God that as Kekerman system log p. 42. saies Ne deus quidem producere potest et logica eas e suis excludit ordinibus such as God doth not and Reason knows not O but saith the Papists nothing but humane reason judges this impossible and repugnant to other articles of faith to whom among other things our Divines use to reply that in matters of religion and faith and things of God reason is not to be laid aside as if we were to bring bare bruit sence i. e. blind implicit faith onely to the word of God but to be used by us that we may thereby as without which we cannot distinguish truth from falshood yea to speak yet in the very words of your own author in this case I mean Vrsins Catachise to which you send us whose these words mostly are which I have already spoken see page 414.415 For even therefore was reason given us of God that we might by the light of the mind discover contradictory opinions and clearly understanding what is agreeable to the word of God and what repugnant to it may imbrace this and refuse that Hoc nisi firmum maneat nullum erit dogma tam absurdum c. Vnlesse this stand for granted no opinion though never so absurd and impious yea nothing in the sincks of all hereticks though never so impure and monstrous can be confuted out of the holy Scripture for hereticks and deceivers will reply their opinions do not contradict the word of God but onely it seems so to humane reason You see then how among your own writers the foundation of faith and true religion is laid not onely in the Scripture as the rule and fountain whence we fetch all but secondarily in sound Reason also improved in way of trial of things by it as without which no use can be made of Scripture so that though some Divines proclaim it to the whole world for so do your selves in this place that Reason it self is against them in their way and consequently that their way is against Reason and many Divines confesse their faith and religion in some articles and particles of it to be above Reason which is but a gentle-gigg too if by above Reason they mean so as that Reason cannot comprehend how they are at least conceive them possible so to be yet however farewel such a faith for ever for me as Reason fights with and far be it from me either to do or believe any thing against reason for as they that see not good ground in reason to believe what they believe can never be alwayes ready as every Christian ought to render a reasonable answer to such as ask them a Reason of the faith that is in them and are at best but implicit in believing so they who believe not only without and beyond but even against Reason it self opposing them in their faith are most unreasonable believers indeed and such as shall find that Reason as easily as they think t is answered will make good what objection it makes against the most unreasonable of them all but to leave this and to come to the discourse or ratiocination it self which followes between Reason and reasonlese for what else can I fitly stile such an Antagonist as stiffens himself against Reason and counts it nothing to refute it yea t is done here in your Review for satisfaction to the Reader as you say but t is undone again in the Re-review to the undeception of the deceived and the deceiver The objections of Reason and replies of reasonlesse and re-replies of Reasons friend are as followes Review 1 Infants have no knowledge of good or evil Ergo no faith By the same reason they should be denied to have the faculty of understanding the exercise of their faculty they have not no more have they of their faith not the act but the habit as was said before Re-Review Good Sirs consider what a reasonlesse reply to reason this is For if by faith you mean only a faculty of believing what ever in time may be told them which is the adaequate object of faith in general that is in all reasonable creatures and is de esse to them universally innate in them as a part of the rationall soul as well as the faculty of remembring what in time they may hear and of willing and chosing what in time may be propounded to them and of understanding what in time may be taught them but what is all this to your purpose who plead faiths being in some infants onely not in all when as faith in that sense is as much in all infants as in some and would if it could at all entitle such as have it to baptism entitle all mankind to baptism as well as some sith all have the faculty of
erroneous by the word you need not say peradventure nay you may be sure on t that wee l deny though not our own name yet that nick name Anabaptists which you are pleased improperly not to say impiously to impose upon us though we bear with your illiterateness in so doing for I trust we shall not more say then sufficiently shew that we do not Re-baptize but onely baptize those which never were baptized before and whose baptism which you say they had in infancy is null i. e. nothing and yet not nothing but a new thing rather another baptism another thing then baptism which is neither the baptism of Christ nor indeed any true baptism at all Let us both pawn our baptismes upon it ours which you call nothing but Anabaptism yours which we call nothing but Rantism if we do not make it good that your baptism is no baptism at least not that which Christ instituted then we shall ingage not onely to yield up that our plea but to renounce our Baptism also but if we do it and you never disprove it then we shall expect it answerably from you that you both yield up that your plea and renounce your Rantism also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ANTI-RANTISM OR CHRIST'NDOM VNCHRISTN'D IN An Appendix added about sprinkling wherein the shallownesse of that dispensation is shewed to be such that it can neither properly nor possibly without perverture be called Baptism HAving razed the rotten Basis of your Babism I come now to reckon with your Rantism and to examine whether our manner of baptizing which is by dipping or yours which is only by sprinkling is the baptism which was instituted by Christ according to that small hint you give me which is no other then a bare single simple denyal of your baptism to be null for no lesse then that is the next fault wherewith we charge it As for your selves as if you were unwilling to have it sifted as I verily believe and have sufficiently experienced that you are you slide so silently by this question which is as requisite to be discussed and duely understood as the other that howbeit you are not a little concerned for the securing of your baptism to back it in this particular also specially since you confesse that you must give it up if our plea against the form of it prove valid yet you afford not so much as one wea-bit of an argument whereby to disprove our form of baptizing nor yet to prove the truth of your own save only your homely reply to our plea viz. we should renounce our baptism too if we should yield them that plea which words of yours in a Sillogistical form run thus viz. If we yield them their plea we must renounce our baptism But we are resolved we will not renounce our baptism Ergo we will not yield them their plea. Thus you are resolved to hold the conclusion neverthelesse such shamefull tergiversation and utter loathness to put your selves upon tryal by the word I have ever found amongst you in this point that how justly Mr. Baxter complains of Mr. Tombs for refusing to dispute it publiquely p. 134. I know not but I am sure not more justly then I have occasion to cry out of your unworthy waywardnesse in this case for though at the Disputation at Ashford I did in my position some but not half the sum of which you set down in your Account positively declare my exception against two things in that which you call your baptism viz. First the false subject Secondly the false manner of administration together with my earnest desires to have satisfaction from you concerning the latter also as in respect of which I proclaimed it null as well as in respect of the former yet you drilled away all the time about the first without either giving out a warrant then or granting us your presence another day wherein to give your warrant for the second In like manner at the publike dispute which was at Folstone before many hundreds of people where there was one if not more of my opponents at Ashford the Opponents part being put upon me much more against my expectaâ—ion then desire I told that Câ—assis of Clergy men who were there that t was most proper to direct my dispute to their practise which sith it was the Rantizing and not the baptizing of infants I would prove that their sprinkling of infants was not lawful but I could at no hand be permitted to proceed in such a way or to come neer their copy hold in that point viz. their false form of dispensing though I promised to abide a whole week among them rather than they should not have discourse enough about the subject at last I obtained with much adoe a division of the question into two viz. 1. Whether infants were the true subject 2. Whether sprinkling were the true manner of baptizing And a solemn Engagement from them that if so be I would begin upon the first there should be a discourse after it upon the other But as I forewarned the people and that before these mens own faces that it would be at first viz. that they would evade all controversie about that if it were possible even so it fell out indeed at last for after some two hours or little more though it were well-nigh a winters day yet to night it was on their parts so uncessantly urged that the disputation might cease and the people for that time be dismissed that the divel is blind if he did not see that day that those who sided with him unseen against the truth did judge that there was discourse too much though but a little about the Subject of baptism and enough though none at all about the form But I let passe this and come to prove the point now in hand which is this that dipping or overwhelming in water and not sprinkling is the only true form or manner wherein baptism is to be dispensed and without which it is either properly no baptism or at least none of that baptism which is required in the word and may be owned as the ordinance of Christ. This is most plain and in a most plain way I desire to prove it and first from the signification of the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is ever used in the originall as that whereby this ordinance is expressed and whence it derives that denomination of baptism the proper plain English of which is to overwhelm or cover with water to plunge over head and ears to put under the water to dipp douze or drown in the water and it is the derivative of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is tingo quod fit immergendo to dipp in that manner as they do that dy cloth and colours which is by that total submersion of things in the liquor as all men know they do that dy and not by sprinkling here and there a drop of water on them Thus I say the word baptize
specially such superfluities as were in use about the Popish Rantism as Chrisâ— salt spittle crossing Gossips Fonts Basons Cakes and Wine and other silly solemnities there may be good baptism without these but abstract the absolutely necessaries i. e. two things or but either of them which yet are both wanting among you and as blind as the Priest-hood is now yet my life for his he shall behold it once and own it too that his businesse is not only not the baptism of Christ but truly not any baptism at all These two are first the true Subject to whom Christ appointed baptism to be dispensed which who it is and who it is not and how it is but one for there is but one baptism and not two viz. believing Abrahams spiritual seed and not a believing nor unbelieving Gentiles fleshly seed i. e. all that quoad nos believe as Abraham did and not all that ever shall to all generations for such are the seed as well as the immediate descend naturally from the loines of such as do believe with Abraham I have abundantly shewed above nor is it my businesse here Secondly the true form in which Christ appointed baptism to be dispensed to believers discipled by us which what it is you cannot be so ignorant as your practise proclaimes you to be for I dare say it is not rantism and you dare not deny but that it is baptism Both these are universally wanting as I have proved to your practise yet if but either only were wanting it were null enough For First it is most certain that a mistake in the subject to whom any thing is appointed to be done doth so nullify that thing so appointed that it can neither be said to be done as t was apponted no nor yet that the thing appointed is done at all e. g. The Parliament commanded men to take or in case of their resistance to slay those Rebells that were routed at Worcester but should he have been taken by them as obeying their command that should in persuance thereof have beaten and killed other men who were never there nor at all ingaged in the Kings cause they ordered a thousand pound to him that should bring in Charles Stewart should he have been rewarded as a doer of their will in that work that should have brought in another man in his stead Christ hath ordained and so consequently t is his ordinance that persons shal be first taught by us and then baptized is it therefore his ordinance to baptize them who were never taught the Papists have a trick to baptize as they call it for they do but rantize as you do bells as well as babes but if they did truly baptize their bells were it the ordinance of Christ you say no because bells are a wrong subject which Christ never appointed baptism to be dispensed to the very same say we of your babies a mistake therefore in the subject makes a nullity in the service i. e. denies it to be any ordinance of Christ at all Secondly t is most certain that mistake in the matter ordained so as to make another matter of it or do distinctly some other thing instead of it makes all that is done of no effect Quod fieri non debuit factum valet holds onely where the errour is in accidentals and meerly circumstantialls and not in the very substance of the thing it self if men do one thing on their own heads instead of another that God bidds they may have pardon in case they crie him mercy but very little thank from him for their paines neither is he accounred much lesse accepted as doing the ordinance of God that doth not so much rhe same things that he ordained otherwise but other things then he hath ordained when the Parliament ordained and gave commission to have Canterburies head cut off those Synodians who also themselves waited to have his kingdome would hardly have counted that ordinance performed had the Trustees cut off his little finger only and let him go Nor would the law little lesse then hang that executioner that having strict charge to hang one man lets him escape and in satisfaction falls a whipping of an other the case is yours who being commanded to teach persons and then baptize them and to keep the commands of Christ without spot till his appearing do in his absence let go the making and baptizing disciples and in place thereof only rantize and rantize only little infants too in doing which sith ye do not the thing Christ appoints ye had as good do nothing A certain man had two sonnes and he said to them both go work to day in my vineyard one said flatly he would not but afterwards repented him and went the other said he would yet did not but found himself work of his own to do the first did the will of his father so I say that the Rebellious Ranter repenting and being baptized for else indeed heu quam procul how farre is he from it as now he stands whilst he saies plainly he will have no baptism shall enter into the kingdome of God before the responding Rantizer resolving wilfully to persevere in his error under a pretence of willingnesse to obey the truth and refusing to return when he is convinced of it Rantist But the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which you so much stand upon signifies though not to sprinkle yet not onely to dip and overwhelm in water but also to wash and so t is rendred in the Lexicons where Lavo abluo are set down as at least the remote signification of it and therefore though sprinkling be not dipping yet t is a kind of washing or wetting and so may be called baptizing as well as that and in aliquo sensu in some sense t is one and the same with that for quae conveniunt in aliquo tertio sunt idem dipping and sprinkling meet both in the word washing whch is a secondary signification of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so may well enough both be stiled baptizing Baptist. No such matter Sirs no not by any means in the world For First your Rule of two things being the same that agree in a third holds first onely and properly quoad mensuram in matter of measure as two pieces of cloth that square every way both with one ell are the same i. e. in length breadth c. not necessarily any way else Secondly quoad rem it holds in the things themselves in some case and sense i. e. if the â—ight respect be had to that same third thing in which they agree which third is no other then that which stands the genus in reference to them both as Homo et Brutum agree both in the general name of Animal but this seâ—â—es not your turn here at all where you are to prove sprinkling and baptizing alias dipping to be all one not in general for so many things may meet in one that are as different
among flatternes that are minded to leave things as foul well nigh as they find them and I am sure there 's no rubbing succedaneous to your sprinkling which is any ingredient to your dispensation for what the priest drops on the midwife rubs indeed not on but off and so as that is no washing so if it were I hope you do not allow the midwife to give equal influence with the priest unto the dispensation of baptism Besides both sprinkling and powring are vertualy implied in plunging and burying in water but these are not at all supposed in the other every lesser wetting being contained and included in the greater not so the greater in the lesse Fiftly which quirk of his concerning a necessity of abiding 3. daies under water answerable to Christs 3 daies buriall if we will needs urge an necessity of resembling him in his death burial and resurrection is so fond that a fool may find enough wherewith to refel it for Mr. Cook knows that nullum simile currit quatuor no similitude answers in all things besides t is the truth and substance of the thing not the circumstance or quantity of time of abode which is to be respected here for a burial is as true a burial when a person abides but 3. minutes wholly under the element wherein he is buried as if he abode 3. daies and a burial is as truly represented by being once under water as if one continued under altogether and the resurrection a little better by being brought up again alive then if one lay till he were altogether dead Sixthly and lastly which assertion of his uttered in favour of his assertion viz. that the Scripture no where requires the washing of the whole body is so much the more savouring of either ignorance or forgetfulnesse in him or both by how much one of the very Scriptures that are quoted by himself as speaking in reference to baptism doth require it for its said Heb. 10.22 let us draw neer with a true heart c. and having our bodies washed with pure water which clause if meant of baptism as undoubtedly it is requires not a sprinkling but a washing and that 's more then your sprinkling is and this too not of the face only which is the only part you sprinkle but of our bodies which word whether we shall take properly to signifie the whole body indeed or run to figurative acceptations when we need not and take the body by a Synechdoche of the whole for a part to signifie so small a part as the face only I need not wish a wise man to determine for every unprejudiced man that hath but common sense will see cause enough to take it plainly as it lies Rantist But all this while me thinks you make it appear so plainly as you not must before I believe or receive it that it is so needful as you would make it that there should be a resemblance of the thing signified in that sign of baptism at all that 's the thing I wait to see proved for let Mr. Cook make what suppositions and grants he will of a resemblance yet I see no reason at all to urge a necessity of such a thing nor will I speak so much as ex hypothesi if there must be for none need be â—or ought I know What I hope there are an hundred signes of things which have not any analogy at all with those things they signifie Baptist. Having thus blown away the strange mist whereby Mr. Cook endeavoured to thicken the air so that men might not discern clearly the true intent of those Scriptures Rom. 6. Col. 2. nor the truth at all in this point of total dipping I come now in answer to his and your and Mr. Blakes flat denial of any word or warrant for any representation and also to his demand p. 27. to shew how we gather from reason and your own authors and those very Sciptures you oppose the diping of the whole man over the head and under the water and that a similitude of Christs death burial and rising again to be represented by dipping into the water is signified there But first I must tell you I observe you know not greatly what to say among you against our urgings of a resemblance of Christs death and burial and resurrection from these Scriptures for some of you stand it out as much as you well can that there is not to be any representation of a death and resurrection as Dr. Featley and Mr. Cook both do the Dr. keeping at such a distance from it that to fence it farr enough from him he denies any such thing to be so much as signified Mr. Cook yielding that that very thing among others is signified and that the spiritual grace or thing signified is to be represented too only you must excuse him as to that piece of the spiritual grace all the rest but that he will give way to have resembled but fearing least it can hardly be so cleerly evaded but that t wil needs be proved against them that a death burial and resurrection must be represented they fall a proving it that there may be and is a death burial and resurrection reselmbled in their way of sprinkling and infusion as much if not more then in our way of dipping but either of them shift for themselves in severall wayes the Drs way wherein he proves there is a resemblance of death and resurrection in the manner of baptism as it is administred in the Church of England is this though the child be not dipped in water himself saith he yet the minister dippeth his hand in water und plucketh it out again when he baptizeth the infant where note that the Doctor doth conceive that though sprinkling may serve to represent a death and resurrection as well as our dipping yet it is upon this absurd account viz. in that there is a certain dipping accompanies their sprinkling whereby that resemblance is made viz. the divping the hand of the Administrator but Mr. Cook though he be not so gross as to imagine with the Dr. that the burying of the ministers hand wiâ—l serve instead of burying the persons body which is if any burial be at all to be buried in baptism yet he is as grosse in his conception another way while he goes about to prove sprinkling or infusion it self to resemble a death burial and resurrection as sufficiently as dipping and this too by such a coined Chymaera such a crude and immature imagination as is ridiculous viz. of the old worlds being drowned and buried by no more then sprinkling and the fall of rain for verily neither was the rain a resemblance of a death burial and resurrection or any thing like thereto nor yet was it the rain but the overflowing of waters by reason of the rain that drowned them and though that orewhelming was a lively emblem of death and burial as baptism is to be yet there was nothing that resembled a
peace of conscience which I was once constrained to deny my self of because it was once inconsistent in me with such peace but welcome that disgraced truth of dipping disciples sith t is that truth which I am certain howbeit they have trampled it for a time the gates of hell shall never prevail against nor the ablest man on earth so as to disprove it by all that is to be said to the contrary from the word of Christ. Rantist There 's more to be said yet to the contrary and more then ever was answered yet or ever will be to any purpose by you or any one else of your gang and that not onely in way of exception against much of that you have alleadged about the childishnesse vanity and insufficiency of infants sprinkling but also against that dipping fancy you are fallen into which is some new motion or renewed notion at the best having for all you have said neither good ground nor example from the word onely the old greek word may be so construed and that 's all the ground I could ever learn for that fluid practise and I am confident that you and that party are wholly in the wrong for I have seriously studied that controversie and besought the Lord to guide me and his good spirit by principles from his word of truth sealed upon my conscience doth assure me that way of dipping is groundlesse irrational and more uncivilly foolish then infant baptism can be called childish and I desire you to tell me what commission he had that baptized you who may possibly be an unbaptized person or if he was not yet if you look but some few removes backward and inquire who baptized him and who him and who him c. you must come at least to unbaptized persons I mean even in your own account who deny sprinkling to be baptism and such I hope you do not count fit administrators of baptism and yet such must begin it for your way was not in use very long agon also what commission hath Christ given you to baptize you being no minister of the Gospel and also what commission he hath given you or any else to baptize in that manner which is without Scripture against reason and common sence and discretion yea I may say against all principles of modesty and common honesty and charity to mens lives and so against both the sixth and seventh commandement that many judicious men have judged it to be little lesse then murther and adultery and I could easily prove it to be as bad as I say of it but that its superfluous so to do sith sundry of our worthy Mr. Baxter Divines viz. Dr. Featley Mr. Blake Mr. Cook and especially have some of them in one perticular and some of them in another done it so sufficiently already that I le rather refer you unto them Baptist. I have been so much innured to such hot-shots since I owned the truth that I can well walk in the middest of them now without amazement much of this sort of matter I have under my hands in private letters to my self and others and what of it is not there is legible I confesse as it were in text letters in the printed Polemicals of your Champions whose sharp censures and heavy charges of the way of truth which we walk in how judicious they are shall God willing be anon examined sith you send us to them at present you shall have a short word to your quaeries and such other passages which may occure and intervene either from your self or their writings in way of contradiction or obstruction to any thing that hath been said before Your first is grounded upon a simple supposition that an unbaptized person may in no case baptize or make a fit administrator of baptism whereas there is nothing in the world more clear then this that when it is to be done and cannot be well done otherwise it may be done as well as by one that was by one that never was baptized at all yea why not in case of innitiation after intermission as well as at the innitiation of the Gospel it self I wonder who baptized Iohn the Baptist that was the greatest administrator that ever was for either he was baptized surely or else he was not if he was ever baptized at all who baptized him but if he was never baptized the matter amounts still to be the same i. e. to evince no lesse then we assert that at the innitiation of the dispensation whether at first or after a long unlawful cessation an unbaptized person may baptize for if Iohn the Baptist himself was not baptized himself or if he was either by one that was unbaptized or else by one that was first baptized by himself he talks in his sleep that saies an unbaptized person may not in such a pressing case baptize Your second querie is as unsolidly grounded as the other and supposes your opinion to be this that no man though baptized himself unlesse he be a Minister i. e. an ordained officer may baptize for say you what commission have you to baptize you being no Minister of the Gospel whereas if by Minister you mean one officiating as a pastor over a people there is nothing more cleer in the world or in the word either then that others besides the Ministers may baptize viz. not any she for which there 's no president but rather precept to the contrary 1 Cor. 14. 2 Tim. 2. but any prophet i. e. any he gifted disciple especially when by the improvement of his gifts he proves as not seldome such do instrumentall of the parties convertion Ananias baptized Paul himself yet was he but a certain disciple Acts the 9. if you say that he was sent by God himself to that service it serves to shew this however which we affirm that God limited not that dispâ—nsation to the Ministry for if he had he would have sent Peter or at least some other officer to that work Did not Philip baptize the Samaritans and the Eunuch yet he did it in the capacity of a disciple and howbeit t is true he was ordained to be a Deacon and Deacons were by the Bishops babishly authorized to baptize yet that was no part of his office as a Deacon for his Deaconship designed him to no more then barely to have a care of the poor and if you say he was an Evangelist also so is every one that is gifted to preach the Gospel and doth it whether he be in any office or no for Evangelist is nothing but a preacher of the Gospel and such are they that occasionally preach it as well as such as preach it constantly by way of office therefore all the disciples that were scattered together with Philip it s said went every where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Act. 8.5 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Act. 11.20 and Philip that was one of those disciples 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Acts 8.40 preached or did the work of an
bare circumstance in the ceremony we differ in but we differ in the substance i. e. in the ceremony or rite it self which you have changed having no parts at all of the rite in your wrong practise which your own party divide the rite of baptism into Ritus in baptismo est triplex saies Tilenus the rite or ceremony in baptism is threefold immersion or plunging into the water continuance for a time under the water resurrection out of the water in resemblance of Christs death burial and resurrection and ours in him Which of all these three are to be found in your aspersion unlesse you will all own Featleys fetch for good resemblance viz. the dipping burial and resurrection of the ministers hand when he sprinkles the infants face sith therefore you have broken the law of Christ the Son that Law-giver and Prophet whose voice we are to hear in all that he saith and changed the ordinances so far as to turn his baptism into rantism you will as they that despised the Law of Moses the servant be cut off from his people Acts 3. Heb. 2. Heb. 10. sith you make void his plain word under pittiful pretences viz. the coldnesse the tediousnesse the danger of dipping in these climates as if the reason for dipping were proper onely to Hot Countries no marvel if such as see from under the vail of priestly pretence that hath darkned the whole earth are hot to have a recovery to the truth specially since it is a truth not unknown to us nor yet so trivial truâ—h as these that inck is made of gum and paper made of rags nor yet such a Scripture truth as is not material to be known as that about Pauls cloak and parchments and that Abiam was the Son of Sacar as Mr. Baxter bables p. 218.219 a sign that paper is made of rags by his wasting it in such toies for these we are not so strictly held to reveal but a truth of such worth that it is to be preferred before that truthles peace he pleads for the disturbance of which he calls hell p. 2â—0 saying We are little beholding to those men that would have turned the Church into hell i. e. privation of peace rather then silence their supposed truthes To whom I say If that be hell which priests so call Then truths true friends are hell-hounds all But a word to Mr. Baxter out of Mr. Baxter p. 218. in vindication of our loathnesse to betray this truth by our silence viz. The Law commandeth us to do our duty to preserve truth from being lost so that if truth be lost while I do my duty t is no sinne of mine if it be not lost while I neglect my duty it is yet my sin God disposeth of events not we therfore what consequences may be occasioned sith they are not caused by preaching the Gospel I may not for fear of them nor shall shun to declare the whole counsel of God I know necessity and charity do dispense with circumstances in ceremonies and with ceremonies or ordinances themselves of Gods own institution sometimes But first it is with the omission onely but not with the alteration of them into other if a man converted on his death bed or on the ladder when ready to be executed as the thief was upon the crosse be willing to be baptized if it may be but cannot in charity he may and of necessity he must be dispenst with dying unbaptized in such a case but no man may dispense another thing to him i. e. Rantism in its room and stead no more then he may give other things then bread and wine in the supper to a stomach too weak to bear either of those for that is to take upon him to make another institution and Gods leave man never had so to do Secondly it must be by leave from the Lord implicit or expresse upon which onely we can ground the lawfulnesse of omission and necessity and charity but not charity mistaken are leave enough no doubt to let a lone though in no wise to alter what ever he ordaines as when it neither can be at all nor can be done conveniently nor possibly without killing men indeed whereupon we find no fault found with Israel in the wildernesse for forbearing to circumcise 40 years together it is like least it should hinder them in their warfare but sure I am they should have heard of it from the Lord if to forgo the sorenesse of that circumcision they had circumcised i. e. cut off onely the hair of their heads Let the Ranter therefore shew us Gods word for his omission and the Rantizer for his mutation of Baptism and we will fall in with either as we see it evidenced therein Rantist If you do but mind the Testimonies I cited out of Mr. Cook and Mr. Baxter and what you hinted your self as written to you in private you cannot chuse but see word enough for our use of sprinkling though dipping were used never so in the primitive times for they tell you but me thinks you do not much mind it that the Scripture requires not totall washing that Christ appoints not the measure of water nor manner of washing more then the measure of bread and wine in the Supper he hath left it ad libitum and as they say very well the whole vertue of the Sacrament lying in signification per ablutionem it matters no more Quantum quisque abluatur then quantum quisque comedat and as it is folly to think that men must eat in the Supper as long as head and stomach will hold because it signifyes the souls refreshment so that in baâ—tism we must be washed all over because it best signifies our burial with Christ a little signifies as well as much a clod of earth a pepper corn a little skin cut off in circumcision so by a little bread and wine eat and drank and by a little water sprinkled may the refreshment of the soul be represented Baptist. That which best signifyes is best to be done and forasmuch as tâ—at best signifies that both signifies and resembles the quantity of the Element that manner of action which best resembles is best and fittest to be used undoubtedly in baptism in which Christ hath undoubtedly appointed what is best whereupon if Mr. Baxter grant or if he do not he cannot deny that overwhelming best resembles and consequently best signifyes our burial with Christ he never will give good reason whilest he breathes upon this earth why washing all over as he calls it should not be used as for that reason that is given against it here by himself at second hand and by Mr. Cook at first of whom he borrowes well nigh every bit of what he saies against a totall dipping save only his fearful fairfowl flourishes upon it viz. First that the measure of water and manner of washing the whole body is not appointed Secondly That then in the Supper there must be a eating to the
full Thirdly That a little may serve as well as much there 's little weight as far as I see in any part of it The first hath so little reason that it hath no truth in it for Christ hath appointed vertually in some measure the measure of water in that his very appointment of the manner of washing in the way of a totall overwhelming as appears before in the â—ignification of the word Baptize which signifies a dipping or overwhelming of that subject that is particularly denominated to be washed by it whether it be the whole man or but a part of him if the tip of the finger only be said truly to be baptized then that tip must be totally washed if the hands be denominated without a figure to be baptized then the hands at least are totally washed if the man be the subject properly predicated to be baptized then that man also must be totally washed but in Scripture the man is required and appointed to be baptized to the performance of which such a measure of water is consequently appointed as may be at least sufficient for that end and required it is that it be neither so little that it cannot totally wash him nor yet so much as must necessarily drowne him as an ocean would but a proportion suitable to that purpose To the second I might answer that there is not altogether the same reason for such a totall filling and swilling in the Supper as there is for a totall swilling in baptism sith the main and radical matter that is to be resembled in baptism is Christs death burial and resurrection but the radical thing that is resembled in that action of our eating and drinking in the Supper is our faith whereby we feed upon Christ and accept him each to our selves as our Redeemer without which that he is a Redeemer will do us no good for faith is the appropriating of of Christ the bread of life each to our selves who is set before us in common in the whole loaf and as it will do a man no good to have bread and wine before him which are elements most refreshing unless he take them and eat and drink so neither us to see a Saviour set before us unlesse we take of his salvation to our selves This is that which is most immediately signifyed and particularly represented in the Supper which businesse of bare taking Christ Jesus to our selves by faith is represented truly in taking never so little but a burial and resurrection not in never so little water a few crumbs of bread and sips of wine taken do repâ—esent a taking of Christ in the Supper but not so a few drops of water tiffled upon the face Christs death buriall and resurrection and fith you say the refreshment of the soul by the fullnesse is represented in our eating and drinking in the Supper and yet that eating and drinking a little bread and wine not to fulness is enough in the supper to represent that and so why not a little water not deep enough to dip and bury in applyed to us in baptism the burial and resurrection of Christ I might answer that the refreshment of the soul by Christ is represented rather in the elements then in the action of either eating or drinking in the supper by the bread which is a strengthner of mans heart and wine which is for them of a sorrowful heart and therefore there might not be altogether the need of representing our refreshing by eating and drinking much at least so much as Mr. Cook and Mr. Ba. talkes of viz. to the filling and glutting of our selves to the top as long as head and stomack will hold that action would yield but a small resemblance of a refreshment and were enough to make a sound man sick but there is a reason in all things and a difference as we say between staring and stark mad thus I say I might answer and cut off your arguing for analogy and a small portion of the element in baptism as well as in the supper between which there is not fully the same reason But verily I am of your mind that a refreshment of the soul by the fulnesse of Christ is very fit to be resembled and represented by the quantity of the elements as well as by the elements in the supper also and yet am I not of your mind that so little as you ordinarily use is so very fit as you dream it is to represent it but of the mind rather that as you are in your baptism viz. not out of your element as you should be if you were baptized in truth by submersion or putting clear under water but out in your element rather i. e. in the measure of your water which is not adaequate to the true manner of washing so you are also in the supper too poor in your provision of elements for that which is the true and full purport of that sacred service you have got together many littles to prove that so little element as you use both in baptism and supper may do as well if not better then more all which are very little to the purpose a little may signifie as well as much saies Mr. Baxter a clod of earth a pepper corn but what then we are to signifie with resemblance or else a sacrament is no sacrament saith Austin but saies Mr. Cook a little may resemble the washing and the refreshing of the soul may well be resembled by a sprinkling of a little water eating and drinking a little bread and wine in circumcision a little skinne was cut off what then First it was as much as God required to be cut off Secondly it was so much as made it circumcision Thirdly as much as truly and clearly resembled the circumcision of the heart which is signified but such is not for all Mr. Cooks conceit that little water you sprinkle nor yet that little becad and wine you distribute it is neither so much as represents clearly the things signified which are not onely the clearing of the soul by Christs dainties in the supper which should be resembled by eating and drinking it but some more chearing and refreshing of the body then that which is commonly in your communions But alas the burial and resurrection of Christ in baptism should be resembled by submersion and emersion and therefore to answer Mr. Cook in the words of Mr. Cook the outward elements of water bread and wine are for spirritual use and to signifie spiritual things so that if there be the truth of things but what I wonder if there be not as I am sure in Rantism there is not the truth of baptism the quantity is not to be respected further then is sufficient for its end namely to represent the spiritual grace so far then it seemes it must be and that is enough to confute Mr. Cooks Rantism for it represents not the spiritual grace and that it be neither so little as not clearly to
to believe we baptize heaâ—hens children as soon as them Thus the man busies himself beyond measure in beating the aire and wearyes himself ad ravim usque and his reader ad nauseam in refuting non entities about the proof of such things as no body denies and per ignorationem Elenchi concludes that which is as clear to his Antagonists as to himself and leaves that utterly undemonstrated which is the onely thing denyed by them the absurdity of whose way he pretends it to be his businesse to discover For verily those against whom he fights under the name of Anabaptists are as clear in it as he can be that no Christians child qua talis is to be baptized when he comes to years saving upon the same account on which an heathens child may be at years so baptized as well as he viz. his own personal profession of faith and desire of baptism Again they hold dipping naked to be intollerable wickednesse as well as he yet these things he be labours himself not a little in making good but that which is denyed indeed viz. that it is our usual practise to dip women and maids naked this he charges us with most stoutly most desperately and tells a tale of us most absurdly to the base abusing of himself the true Church and the whole world also but he is so impertinent and impertinently imployed in proving naked dipping to be a sin that he either forgets or has no while to prove it to be practised by us at all But Sirs who but he that sees the right eye of the idol shepheard to be utteâ—ly darkned would ever think that from such a man as Mr. Ba. desires to be accounted such a piece of paultry should proceed that such a messe of balterdash as here is should ere be broached by him that such a mad report of the walkers in truth should be publisht by one that goes for a publisher of the truth among thousands of deluded people Me thinks I see Satan gone forth and become a lying spirit in the mouthes of the prime among their prophets perswading and in the just judgement of God prevailing with multitudes of meer formal Gospellers to be strongly deluded and to believe lies out of their mouthes that they may be damn'd because they receive not the truth that was troden down for 42 monthes and now rises again and shines forth in the love therof that they may be saved but have pleasure in unrighteousness and superstition and have no pleasure in the truth Me thinks I see National Ministers of singular piety in peoples eyes prove men of singular pravity singularly bewitched into an implicit belief of the base tales that vain fellowes raise of the way of truth and singularly bewitching their people into implicit belief of them that so it is as they say that neither Priest nor people may obey the truth but both stumble and fall and be broken and snared and taken and ashamed each of other in the end Good Lord how is the practise of the truth made a reproach unto thy people and a derision dayly for I have heard the defaming of many report say they and we will report it possesse the pulpit and make the Priest believe it and then all the Country shall ring out and the people soon be diabolized into the faith on 't but hear ye rude reprochers of that people that are reprovers of the wayes whereby you run a whoring from the Lord you shall not prevail by such sleights such plausible pretences you shall be greatly ashamed you shall not prosper and unlesse you repent of your belying the truth of God your everlasting confusion shall never be forgotten It is too bad to be credulous to flying reports worse so violently to vent them worst of all malevolently to invent them I dare not say nor dare I deem Mr Ba. to be guilty of the last but of the two first I cannot clear him sith I perceive that he takes it for a truth that we ordinarily dip naked and thereupon disputes against it as our usuall practise and then not confidently onely but of a certain relates to the whole world that it is no bare word nor any doubtful thing but an experience a known practise if he can clear himself he hath leave to do it for me who also summon him in the name of Christ Jesus whose true disciples he hath done such dispite to the Lord keep him from despiting the spirit of grace the people of whose love are the people of his wrath to prove it our practise ordinarily to dip naked yea to produce but one instance of any women oâ— maids that ever he saw dipt naked in all his daies and I le abate him much of that I now accuse him of in the court of my conscience but if he say as indeed he does in effect that he never saw any dipt at all whilst p. 134. he saies that all that ever he saw baptized had water powred on them how can he say Epertus loquor it is his experience he having never so much as seen such a thing unlesse it were upon the brazen fac't front of Featleyes book where he fasly feignedly and filthily describes men and women dipping in that fashion or else upon the Titlepage of Ephraim Pagit who there paltrily pictures out this people practising thus and there I believe he hath experienced it or if he only hath it from the the mouthes of such as heard it from the mouthes of others who never saw it but receive it by tradition as well as he and that originally too from the mouthes of some that made it and in such a manner very likely it was first bruted for I am perswaded there was never such a thing done of late in England unless by some Arch Knave and Arrant Whore in way of mockage to the Gospel which is rather a glory then a shame to Christ his truth then let Mr. Ba. bear the blame of his blind blaspheming the people of the everliving God Or if he know indeed that such a thing as baptizing maids and women naked hath been done in serious wise by any persons I further challenge him to make some proof of it and to print the names of such men as have done it and such maids and women that have suffered themselves to be dipped naked and the names of such credible eye witnesses as will testify it as in the sight of God which if he can though I shall not give place to him thereupon so as to be satisfyed therby for his overlashing in asserting it to be our practise to dip naked or for condemning and denominating a whole party much more their cause by the defects abuses of some persons whom the cause disclaimes for then there was 12. devils because one among the twelve and then what an Augaean stable is your Church of England by many members of which notorious roguery is committed every houre Yet I shall satisfy him
so far as to undertake that the Church or Churches where such are shall declare every such person as hath wrought such abomination incommunicable without solemn repentance for that sordid practise or be themselves incommunicable by all other Churches But I beliâ—ve he cannot do it though I cannot positively possibly prove a Negative much more am I confident that he cannot make good his charge against us viz. that it is our ordinary and usual practise for besides no lesse then between one and two hundred which in grosse I can ghesse at which with these hands I have baptized I have seen with these eyes many a one more baptized by others yet never did I see male or female baptized naked to this hour nor next to naked neither if I understand Mr. Baxs meaning in that bawbling phrase of next to naked Yea I suppose I may safely say my converse for these 5 years together and upward hath been with them that are commonly called Anabaptists and my businesse hath been for so long time at least among that people more then I perceive Mr. Baxs hath and much more then among any other people being more or lesse acquainted with a score of their Congregations yet howbeit Mr. Blake flings a little at us too and hath his fingers so far in this spatter as to say page 8. Those that have put a kind of necessity upon dipping have spoken much of being received naked â—n baptism I never heard the least speech of such a thing nor a syllable among them to such a purpose And if Mr. Ba. cannot prove it to be our ordinary known practise to dip naked then in the name of the Lord Jesus before whom he and I shall shortly both appear I intreat Mr. Ba. who as concerning zeal yet persecutes the Church of God poures out reproach upon true Christians giving his voice for them with as much modesty as Haman Est. 3.8 as for high way Murderers alias that they may all suffer execution being through blindnesse and excaecation exceedingly mad against them that of an ignorant Saul he would become a seeking a searching a seeing a preaching Paul of the faith which he hitherto destroies and though he verily thinks with himself that he ought to do what he does against the truth yet I beseech him to know that he is but as others have been bâ—fore him zealous of God but not according to knowledg sith it is but of the Traditions of his Fathers Gal. 1.14 And sith he avers from his heart page 129. that for his part he neither knowes the day nor year when he began to be sincere no nor the time when he began to professe himself a Christian in which I believe him if he mean a Christian in Scripture sense I begg of him in the bowels of Christ Jesus that he would now begin to be sine cerâ a Christian indeed not by the halves but altogether for there is yet a mixture of much wax among his honey and of much antichristianism in his Christianity and as sure as he is ignorant when he began to professe to be a Christian so sure I am that he never yet began to professe to be a Christian in truth who knowes not that ever he was otherwise but hath and holds his profession as the Turk and Jew do theirs viz. for the true one at a venture because they were born and bred in it and received it by Tradition onely from forefathers And as he will prove himself to be what he professes to be viz. a hater of ignorant violence so I advise him to be a hater also of violent ignorance of which hateful quallity in my mind he hath as much as any of the greedy gang Gangraena it self onely excepted not excepting Dr. Featley Dr. Bastwick Mr. Bayliff Mr Pagit not any among the proud pack of Prelates that most perheminently prate against the Gospel And sith Mr. Ba. saies this much more that it is very suspicious and to him unsavory that Mr. T. should say no more but that it is not necessary that they be baptized naked as if he took it to be lawfull though not necessary and thinkes he should rather have given his Testimony against it as sinful and expressed some dislike if he do indeed dislike and judge it sinful and if he do not he dare boldly say he is very far gone let me say thus much more that then it is as suspicious and to me unsavory that Mr. Ba. should say no more but that it is a breach of the seventh commandement ordinarily to baptize the naked as if he took it to be lawful to do it sometimes but not ordinarily me thinks he should giue his Testimony against it as sinful to do it at all and express some dislike if he do indeed dislike and judge it sinful and if he do not I dare boldly say he is gone farther in filth then Mr. T. or any baptized person ever went yet save such as are gone quite off from the way of truth to the dishonour of it since they owned it whose sin yet the more shame for Mr. Ba. he in his next argument laies to the truths charge and theirs who both own and honour it by abiding in it who are lesse gladly and more sadly sensible of their sins and villanies then Mr. Ba. can be by how much by reason of their lasciviuos wayes which many follow the way of truth they walk in is as was foretold it should be 2 Pet. 2.1.2.3 by Mr. Ba. and his admirers evil spoken of But if Mr. Ba. shall still say it is suspicious and unsavory for Mr. T. to say the one but not for himself to say the other and will none of the foregoing advice to repent and be baptized but rather reject the counsel of God against himself being not baptized because he hath experience by hearsay that we baptize females naked then a rod and a rod for the back of Mr. Baxter who pardons to himself the same defects wherein he holds others guilty who so slenderly takes up every tattle against the truth and proclaimes it for truth to the whole world for the simple believeth every word but the prudent man looks well to his going Prov. 14.15 a prudent man foresees evil and secures himself but the simple passe on and are punished Prov. 22.3 As for his next and last argument against us which he drawes from the judgments of God that ever follow us wherein he jumbles all kinds of sectaries into the name of Anabaptists as the Antibaptists use commonly to do witnesse Featley and others and makes them bear the burden of all the mischiefs that were ever perpetrated by all the mad braind men in all the world as Iohn of Leyden and all the rest of his ranting strain it is scarce current consequence to say Gods judgements are upon a people therefore that people are none of his for all things come alike to all none knowes love or hatred by what
is before him here Eccl. 8.14 and the 9.1.2.3 yet sith he speaks of ruinating judgements let the consequence passe as valid but then his minor is utterly false for the Anabaptists are not all ruinated yet nor will be till the Clergy are quite cashiered as evident as it is that they have every where withered and suddenly come to nought heretofore and since he speakes of spiritual judgements e. g. that practise saith he hath never helped but hindred the work of God where it comes nor hath God blest their ministry to conversion of soules as he hath other mens but rather they have been instruments of the Churches scandal and misery Secondly that hath been the inlet to most other vile opinions few stop at it but go much further God hath usually given up their societies to notorious scandalous wicked lives and conversations more then others that professe godlinesse and never prospered them so far as to have any established Churches which should credit the Gospel I grant that some of these are sad emblems of a people none of Gods onely Mr. Ba. hath here saddled the wrong asse for this way of baptism hinders onely the work of mans Tradition which would make void the commandement of God but being it self the work and way of God is hindred where ere it comes by Priestly malice preaching Gods fear after precepts of men nor hath God blessed the Nationall ministry to the true conversion of soules as he hath done theirs but to the conversion of them to a Gospel of their own making for repent and be baptized was the Gospel that Peter preached and that is it that is now practised by us and how many are converted and baptized accordingly is so evident that it needs no proof at this hour but repent and be not baptized is the Gospel the Priesthood preaches and if you call that conversion which indeed is confusion we confesse their converts are more more then ours such instruments of scandal and misery to the true Churches are the Priests in all places by their reproaches nor is baptism the inlet of any vile opinions any more then the same was in the primitive times wherein many that were baptized did turne hereticks when they had done as they do now but what wise man then imputed it to their baptism and yet some of those opinions Mr. Ba. calls vile will be proved to his conscience in due time to be the truth yet many that are baptized do run out to very vile opinions and practises no better then their principles and stop not there indeed as he saies but go much further and degenerate into wayes oâ— wickednesse more abominable then ever in former time and of these Ranters Mr. Copp is none of the least attainers whom Mr. Ba. p. 148. hath very well set forth in his colours for I believe God in Iustice hath given him up and many other besides him to more notoriousnesse of error and enormity then ever any that profest godlinesse But what then shall we impute that fault to his being baptized I trow not for howbeit Mr. Ba. so imagines yet it was because he honoured not the truth when he had owned it nor walked in Christ after he had received him in which case how often God gives over to strong delusions is evident not only by the word which declares that when men like not to retain God in their knowledge he oft gives them over unto vile affection But also by sad experience in the world in these last times wherein 2 Pet. 2.1 1 Tim. 4.1 and the 2.3.1 doctrines of divels are rife among them that once owned the faith yet the faith not a whit in fault for all that but departure from the faith before expressed And that the fall of these men is into worse then ever before it is no argument against but rather for the way they newly fall from the sensuality of such as separate themselves from the true Churches in the later times i. e. congregational after these are once separated from the false ones i. e. the nationall being prophesied of 2 Pet. 2. Iude 19. of old that it should be greater then that of all beastly men that were before them besides corruptio optimi pessima the higher the rise into reformation the more desperate the fall into deformation of those that reform and prove deformed again that greater depth of hell therefore men fall into that fall from us proves the hight of our Churches to be neerer heaven then that of yours for if after they have escaped c. 2 Pet. 2.20.21.22 when Cop was in his standing in the Church of England I remember very well for I knew him better then then ever since he had some bounds from conscience to his corruption but having been once inlightned higher then Mr. Baxter ever was yet in the will and way of God and tasted of the heavenly gift and made a partaker of the holy spirit and obeyed the truth as it is in Jesus and yet fallen away his conscience is seard with a hot iron and I have small hope of his renewing against by repentance who thus denies the Lord that bought him and crucifies the Lord afresh and is twice dead pluckt up by the Roots a raging wave of the sea foaming out his own shame But what is all this to those that yet walk in truth of baptism more then to warn them that they depart not from it as he hath done lest they come into the same condemnation with him doth it prove baptism to be the cause of that grosness that often followes when a person is baptized in no wise for his non abiding in the love of the truth and that doctrine of Christ gives God occasion to give over to the height of wickednesse I appeal therefore to the conscience of Mr. Baxter 1. Whether the Pope may not by as good consequence charge all these errors that are upon Protestanism saying Thus the Ptotestants stop not there but run out further from Episcopacy to Presbytery and to Independency and so to Anabaptism and so to all it is true Protestanism is occasio or causa sine qua non for such as sit still in the smoak of the Popes Traditions are not acquainted with the new found fancies of the Ranter But Protestanism is not the true cause 2 Whether Mr. Ba be so well aware as he should be what time of day it is when Peter and Iude point out these things so plainly and yet he wonders at them as a Mystery 3. Whether the few owning and the few abiding in the true way of baptism doth not prove it to be the streit and narrow way that leads to life which few find 4. Whether he think we lay not to heart their misery and madnesse that run off from us as well as he and strive not to warn and watch over them as much as he and if so why he blames us more then himself that do what we can so
Ba. argues from the samenesse of the Olive tree the Jew was broken off from and the Gentile was grafted into that therefore as infants stood members then so they must now I answer it is true there is some kind of indentity between the Jewish and the Gospel Church but not such as concludes an indentity of membership for infants they are the same ingenere visiblis Ecclesiae they agree in the common name of Church and visible Church elected and segregated from the world but there 's little else that I know of wherin they are the same they differ in circumstantials in their accidental forms in their officers ordinances customs constitutions subjects members that being constituted of one whole nation of people or fleshly seed of Abraham taken out from all other nations this of a spiritual seed of Abraham i. e. believers scaterred here and there taken out of any nation as they happen to be called almost every nation some the ceremony of inchurching Abrahams own much more any other mans meer fleshly seed being ceased Mr. Bax. peddles on apace and brings a company of Scripures in proof of infants Church-membership and baptism which though he stile them as indeed his whole book Plain Scripture proofs for those two yet a man that is not minded to force the Scripture into the Service of his own fancy because it does not serve it freely may look till dooms day before he see in them any plain perspicuous proof of either one of these or of the other Christ saith he Mat. 23.37 would have gathered Ierusalem oft as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings but they would not therefore sure he would not have put them or their infants out of the Church the strength of the consequence lies here saith he he would have gathered whole Ierusalem and that into the visible Gospel Church therefore infants also Now that Christ does not speak of whole Ierusalem here as he saith he does both men and infants the circumstances of the text do fully evince to us for he speaks of the same persons he speaks to and the same persons he complains of saying ye would not the same and no other are they to whom he speaks when he saies Oh Ierusalem how often would I have gathered c. but those were men and women only whom he called to believed in him and not infants Again he gathered them by preaching of the word into baptism and membership and received all that came and no more viz. sometimes the children and not the parents sometimes the parents and not the children so that a mans foes for the truths sake sometimes were they of his own family his own flesh therefore he offered not to gather infants for he preacht not to them nor called them at all nor were any more baptized and added to the Church-fellowship in the Gospel then they that gladly received the word that did not infants yea 3000 were gathered into the first Gospel Church by preaching and baptism in one day and never an infant among them all for they surely did not continue in fellowship in breaking of bread and prayers Acts 2. Therefore whereas Mr. Ba. in his Epistle to the parish of Bewdley challenges Mr. T. to name him one particular Church since Adam either of Jewes or Gentiles where infants were not Church-members if they had any infants till 200 years ago I name him the first Gospel Church that ever was Act. 2. in which there was not one infant yea there was three thousand baptized in one day and it is a hazard but that those three thousand had many perhaps no lesse than three thousand infants belonging to them all and yet as Mr. Cotton thinkes so think I that none of their infants were baptized with them much lesse were added with them to the Church or continued with them in fellowship as the whole Gospel Church did in breaking of bread and prayers yea though there was no infants in that Church which was gathered at Ierusalem it self to which Christ saies how oft would I have gathered thy children c. and therefore Mr. Baxs sense is very sinister so I challenge him again to shew me not by such dubious muddy cloudy circumlocutory inconsequential consequences as he doth but undeniable evidences any one of all the Gospel Churches of the primitive times either of Jewes or Gentiles which we are all to reâ—orm by viz. Ierusalem Rome Corinth Galatia Philippi Ephesus Thessalonica or any other to fellowship in which there was one infant baptized added and admitted and I shall cry him mercy and lay down the Cudgells at his feet and acknowledge he hath broke my pate The next Scripture he uses is more impertinent then this yet Mr. Ba. makes a certain shift to squeese an argument out of it and to compel it invita minervâ not a little against its own intent and meaning to corroborate his crooked crazie creed concerning the inchurching and cristening of infants viz. Rev. 11.15 whence he thus Syllogizes If the kingdoms of this world either are or shall be the kingdomes of the Lord and of his Christ then infants also must be members of his kingdom i. e. the visible Church the Antecedent is the words of the text indeed as he saies but the sequel is so sure and follows so firmly in his fancy that he saies nothing can be said against it that is sense or reason but indeed it self is against both sense and reason Who would ever think if the word did not declare that the things of wisdome are hid from the wise and prudent that such a disputer as Mr. Ba. holds himself to be should deduce the now membership of infants from such a premise as this viz. because the kingdomes of this world are or else shall be the kindomes of God and Christ what 's this I trow toward the eviction of the other much every way saith Mr. Ba. yea so much that for any thing he can see this text alone were sufficient to decide the whole controversie whether infants must be Church members Amen so beit say I let this Scripture decide it and let 's see what Mr. Ba. saies on t If they can say quoth he by kingdoms is meant here some part of the kingdom excluding all infants such men may make their own creed on those termes let the Scripture say what it will I know in some places the word kingdome and Ierusalem c. is taken for a part but if we must take words alwayes improperly because they are taken so sometimes saith he then we shall not know how to understand any Scripture so of necessity it must be understood properly i. e in its prime signification of the whole kingdoms and whole Ierusalem with him and not improperly for a part onely though Mr. Blake to Mr. Black saith upon occasion of our pleading for the proper signification of baptize nothing more ordinary then to have words used out of their prime signification whereby
bad for then there is manifest falsehood in many promises and threats the natural seed of righteous men often perishing and being not counted their own fathers children unlesse they be like them in righteousnesse as Iohn 8.39 Christ denies Abrahams natural children to be Abrahams children and blessed with him because they did not as Abraham did and contrary wise the natural seed of the wicked prospering when they do well contrary to Prov. 2.21.22 Is. 20.14 Ps. 37 20. if the word seed were there taken for the natural seed where it is said the seed of evill doers shall never be renowned And so the seed of the serpent and the children of the devil expresses those that do his works to say nothing I say of this which yet is enough to blunt the edge of Mr. Bas. argument grant the word seed here to be taken for the natural seed of the righteous even those in infancy may be many wayes blessed though they neither be baptized in infancy nor inchurched yea they may be blessed with eternal salvation dying in infancy without either baptism or membership in the visible Church for I hope you will not say those 1000s of Jewes and belieuers infants that have died before circumcision baptism and visible admission are damned without any more ado because they fell short of your admired membership and if these be blessed with salvation to whom you delay baptism why not those to whom we deny it doth our denying baptism to an infant before he dies send him to hell sooner then your delaying it till he be dead But however the seed of the righteous may be blessed with many temporal blessings as provision fruitfulnesse multiplication and yet not be taken into the visible Church and to say the truth if Mr. Ba. had not been resolved to wrest this Scripture besides its true sense to botch up his proofs into a multitude he might easily have seen by consultation with the verse before that it is not such a thing as membership that is here meant by the word blessed but meer matter of outward sustentation I never saw the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread he is ever merciful and lendeth and his seed is blessed i. e. provided for and preserved from beggery and considered by others in time of adversity as he considered others in the like case And lastly whereas he challenges us to shew where ever God pronounced any blessed and yet took them for none of his visible Church saying t is absurd once to imagine it that he did I assert it is most absurd in him to imagine the contrary for God himself by promise pronounced Ishmael blessed saying as for Ishmael behold I haved blessed him and I will make him fruitful and multiply him exceedingly and make him a nation because he is thy seed and this at the very same time when he denied to establish the Covenant with him which he establisht with Isaac and commanded that he should be cast out of Abrahams family from sharing with Isaac in that very covenant which Mr. Baxter contends with all his might p. 64 65. that whoever are not in it are not under the promise of the mercy which Church-membership is with him a speciall part of In proof of this consider and compare Gen. 17.18.19.20.21 with Gen. 21.10.11.12.13 as if there were no blessing but that of Church-membership or at least no blessing without this of Church-membership whereas as admired a mercy as this meer membership is with Mr. Baxter persons may be blessed without it and also witnesse the Jewish Nation which for the most part were reprobates they may have admission to the meer mercy and bare blessing of membership and yet perish and be accursed for ever The 18th plain Scripture-less proof for infant Church-membership and baptism is this If infants were Church-members before circumcision was instituted then certainly it was not proper to the Iews and consequently is not ceased but infants are therefore The Minor of which argument Mr. Baxter endeavours to prove aswell as he can and this he doth First partly by perverting the sense of the text Mal. 2.25 where it is said God made two one i. e. instituted the ordinance of marriage between man and woman that he might seek a seed of God i. e. a legitimate Issue for legitimacy onely in the issue is the result of marriage and that among what parents soever even heathens as well as others for whom as well as others that state of marriage is sanctified yet Mr. Baxter saies he made two one or ordained marriage that he might seek a seed of God in another sense that better serves his turn i. e. to seek Church-members as if Church-membership in the seed were the direct result of the state of matrimony in the parents which every simpleton knowes to be false for marriage is honourable among all and was ordained for all mankind as well as the Godly and yet the seed are not therefore Church-members besides marriage was instituted in the state of innocency to this end that mankind might be propagated in a more modest way then other creatures and not that the seed so propagated might be Church-members Secondly partly by a heap of frivolous conjectures of his own in which a man may warrantably enough chuse whether he will believe him or no but whether his Minor viz. that infants were Church-members before circumcision was instituted be true or false it makes nothing to his purpose unlesse he had made surer work in his Maior for that is so inconsequent and utterly unsound that had I happened to have heard his argument before it came in Print I should have spared him all his paines about the Minor and have put him to the proof of his Major the consequence of which hee 'l never make good by fair play while he breathes for there were many things long before circumcision was instituted which were proper if not to the Jewes till the Jewes were in being yet to the ceremoniall law that was after more clearly given to the Jewes and to that old Testament of which Moses was the Mediator and circumcision the sign and the Jewes the subject and yet were tipicall and ceremonial onely and so ceased together with circumcision as the keeping the seventh day the sacrifices the cleannesse and uncleannesse of certain creatures and if that were at all before circumcision as Mr. Ba. does not plainly prove it to be among the rest the Church-membership of infants His 19. plain Scripture-lesse proof is this If God be not more prone to severity then to mercy then he will admit of infants to be members of the visible Church but God c. therefore c. Oh the wit of this man how wonderfully doth it work and wind to and fro and wander far and neer to fetch in any manner of fewell wherewith to feed that false faith men live in concerning infant baptism for fear it should be quite extinguished and brought to nothing
state of salvation But some persons yea both men and infants may appear to us to be in a state of salvation and yet at the same time not be in so much as immediate and present right to be joined to the visible Church Therefore The first proposition is most clear the second I shall make as cleer First briefly concerning men Secondly More largely concerning infants because the question mainly is of them Concerning men I instance in all the believers in the primitive times of whom comparing Scripture with Scripture Act. 2. Act. 8. Act. 19. Heb. 6.1.2 it s most evident they had not an absolute immediate right to visible fellowship in the visible church though converted to faith and repentance by the word and so in a visible state of salvation as the thief upon the crosse so far as with him visibly repenting believing till such time as they were admitted after baptism and â—aying on of hands with prayer and of single disciples as they were before they were added and admitted in to the visible body till of single living pretious stones as they were before by their precious faith they were built up visibly into a house the whole building the whole body was fitly framed together fitly joined together as well as shaped before therefore they that were not actually added and joined were not of the body Ephe. 2.21 the 4.16 if the whole were compacted by joints and bands then all the parts were actually added and joined and those that were not joined were no part of the whole so Col. 2.19 knit together Mr. Bax. argues 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Cart before the horse they must be first supposed to be visibly members in the visible Church before to be visibly in a state of salvation but it is undeniably apparent they must have visible right to salvation and that by faith too before visible right to membership in the visible church Mr. Bax. supposes persons must be first supposed to be members of the visible Church a priori before they can be warrantably supposed to be of the invisible i. e. to be such as shall be saved for if a person be of the invisible Church he must be thought to be of the visible much more for the visible containes the invisible in it saith he p. 72. and ordinarily we may not judge any to be of the invisible Church he means in real state of salvation who are not meaning first of the visible p. 72. But now I say and suppose the clean contrary viz. that persons must be first supposed to be of the invisible Church a priori before they can be warrantably supposed to be of yea or so much as to have right to be of the visible who backs Mr. Ba. in his sinister supposition I weigh not let him chuse his second if he will I le chuse Mr. Bax. himself to back me and to be witnesse to the truth of mine whose words are altogether the same with mine p 73. viz. if we were fully certain by his own externall discourses that any man were not of the invisible Church that man should not be taken to be of the visible In order of time therefore persons were to seem to be members of the invisible church and were visibly in a state of salvation first before they could have any right at all so much as to be baptized which with Mr. Ba. himself was the first entrance into membership in the visible church but with me is not so much as an immediate entrance into it but that which is necessarily to go before it therefore persons may be seemingly in a state of salvation and not yet in present right to membership in the visible Church much lesse actually and visibly in it And now concerning infants of whom Mr. Ba. asserts that they must be members of the visible Church or else cannot be seemingly or visibly in a state of salvation upon such slender grounds as these he concludes it to be clear viz. First because it is the body that Christ is the Saviour of and his people that he redeemeth from their sins and his sheep to whom he gives eternal life and those that sleep in Iesus that God will bring with him and the dead in Christ that shall rise to salvation and those that die in the Lord that rest from their labours and the Church that Christ will present pure and unspotted all which places I appeal to Mr. Bas. conscience whether they speak not of the misticall body and invisible church of Christ to which all and onely they square and are adaequate and not to the visible Church which he was to speak to or else speaks nothing to the purpose to all which visible church and to onely which these things agree not for neither all those that are of the visible church are saved nor onely those of the visible Church saved witnesse many infants of believers whom Mr. Ba. dares not say are damned some never living to enter the visible Church so farre as to baptism and some once alive coming dead out of the womb which he is blind that ever saw to be in the visible church so that he sits here beside the saddle Secondly and Thirdly because there is no divine revelation for the salvation of any without the visible Church that yields good ground of Christian faith or hope that any such shall be saved as notwithstanding he saies there is not yet I shall shew there is by and by Fourthly because it is said Acts the 2.47 that God added to the visible church dayly such as should be saved which though he did yet t was not all nor onely such but onely such men and women not such infants as should be saved Concerning infants in proof of the proposition above viz. that some infants may be in visible State of salvation and yet not be in nor yet in present right to membership in the visible Church I argue thus downrightly First if all infants are in infancy in a visible state of salvation and no infants are members or in any right to be members in their infancy of the visible church under the Gospel then some infants may in infancy be in a visible state of salvation â—â—d yet not be in nor yet in present right to membership in the visible church But all infants c. and no infants c. Ergo some infants ut supra The first proposition is most undeniably clear the Minor hath two parts which I shall prove successively one ofter another and then I have done with this argument of Mr. Ba. I le ptove the last first and the first last and here I dare say I might easily muster up scores if not a century of solid arguments toward the fuller clearing of it that no babes now but the new born babes spoken of 1 Pet. 2.2.3.4.5 i. e. at least in appearance spiritually born babes such as those 1 Iohn 1. 1 Cor. 3.1 Heb. 5.13 are to be
whole truth and are built upon the whole foundation or beginning doctrine of the Prophets and Apostles do yet ignorantly withstand it and some even of these bitterly band against it I shall the Lord assisting in all possible meeknesse brevity and plainnesse make good unto them and that in this one single long-winded syllogism onely least the presse which now presses on apace after me and is at the very heels of me all along at my penning of this whole businesse called Anti-ranterism should overtake me and stand still for want of such supply as it expects hourly from me least also I out run too much as I have almost done already the bounds prefixed to this interposed Treatise the Minor proposition of which argument being proved and cleared from those clouds of objection wherewith some strive to darken it will both evince and evidence the continuance of that service also in its right use to this day so sufficiently that howbeit much more might be spoken yet no more shall at this time at least by me Whatsoever was in the primitive times taught practised dispensed or submitted to own'd or observed as a command of Christ as one of the oracles or holy things of God as a part of that foundation on which the true visible Church is built as one of the very principles of the doctrine of Christ as a practical part of the Law Will and Testament of Christ concerning them in order to their receiving the holy spirit of promise according to the promise at their first beginning to be disciples at or about the time of their baptism and before actual fellowship in the visible Church in all the Churches and among all baptized believers even men and women without exception of any without the least hint of any limitation of it to those times onely and without the least intimation to us in the word of Christ that t was his will it should then cease and hath also plain injunction form Christ for its continuance for its being taught to and observed by the disciples that should be successively in all the world through all nations and generations of it to the end and hath also the same ends grounds and reasons why it was to be used continuing still to this day as much as then is certinly in the same manner as then to be observed to this very day But on this wise is that service of prayer and laying on of hands not onely on officers Deacons Elders messengers in order to their receiving of the holy spirit to impower them in a fuller measure for those severall functions but also on common disciples men and women in order to their receiving the holy spirit in such manner and measure as Christ Iesus shall be pleased to impart it in to comfort them under sufferings and make them fit for fellowship in the body or visible Church Therefore that service of laying on of hands with prayer on common disciples men and women as well as that on officers in order to their offices is now to be observed as in former daies The first proposition is so undoubtedly true that if any should be so irrational as to deny it as I judge none will but the Rakesham Ranter that regards neither God nor devil and reckons on all Christs commands as not worth a rush I shall be more rationall then to believe him to be a man fit to reason with or that it can be to any purpose in never so reasonable a manner to bespeak him As for the Minor wherein t is affirmed that the businesse of prayer and laying on of hands after baptism in water upon every disciple man or woman is such as was taught practised dispensed submitted to ownd and observed as an ordinance and command of Christ c. as it followes in the Major that remains yet to be cleared which by that time I shall have done in each of those particulars that are there asserted of it either expressely or by such plain and legitimate deductions and inferences from the Scripture as may be justly satisfactory to any sincere souls that love truth and allow others to draw inferences from the word without which who can prove that he shall be saved as well as themselves and by discovering the weaknesse of such exceptions as are ordinarily made against the present use of this rite or service t wil be more then high time for me to quit this subject also whereas therfore contrary to what is asserted in the very front of the foregoing argument viz. that laying on of hands was taught in the primitive times I find it intimated to us by way of query that some who even therefore as well as for other reasons by them rendred cannot practise it are in no wise satisfied that such a thing as laying on of hands on all baptized believers was ever taught by either Christ or his Apostles in proof of this that laying on of hands was taught I send such as doubt of it first to the name of doctrine of Christ by which in common together with the other five principles of it it is denominated Heb. 6.1.2 leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith towards God and of the doctrine of baptisms and of laying on of hands which denomination of doctrine of Christ could not possibly belong to it properly but that it was somewhere or at sometime or other taught by either Christ or his Apostles or disciples in the judgement of any that are but so far learned as to know whence the word doctrine is derived which as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the greek is of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so is of doceo to teach but secondly whereas t is desired that we should if we know of any direct to some place of Scripture where ever Christ or any of his Apostles or disciples did preach this doctrine that all baptized believers ought to practise or submit unto laying on of hands for my own part I shall direct the enquirers to several Scriptures in one of which as it is expresse enough so in the rest its plain enough to such as are not more resolved to proceed in propounding questions then when they are answered to be resolved that some or other of the Apostles or disciples of Christ did teach and preach that doctrine the first of these is Heb. 5.12 where to that Church of the Hebrews or Iews the very platform to all the rest which as to its more compleat outward form and order and that denomination of the Church to which God added dayly such as should be saved had its first being and beginning under Peters teaching Act. 2. t is said thus viz. whereas for the time ye ought to be teachers ye have need to be taught again which be the first principles of the oracles of God Where note first from the words taught again that they were taught
been said all them but an indefinit expression signifying some onely not all whereby he bewrayed his too little acquaintance with one received rule among the Rationallists viz. that an indefinite proposition or expression in a necessary matter is equivalent ever to an universal howbeit my reply to him then was not so but on this wise viz. that if we must take them but indefinitely only for some and not all the persons or things before spoken of unlesse that particle all be added to it then we had consequently no clear command from Matth. 28.19 20. to baptize all that are discipled and converted to the faith for by the pronoun them that is there used also we must not mean all them but some of them onely in the nations that are discipled because it s not said all them but meerly them but I intreated him from his conscience to tell me whether he did think that when Christ saies Go teach all nations baptizing them teaching them he meant that they should baptize all them or but some of them only in the nations that were discipled his return was that if there were not other places that did more clearly prove it that Christ commanded that all should be baptized then Matth 28. he could not see it fully commanded there and being desired to assign any place wherein Christ did more universally command baptism then there he directs us to Luke 7.30 where it s said the Pharisees rejected the Counsel of God against themselves in not being baptized whence he gathered that baptism was the Councel and consequently the commandement of God to all men because they are here reproved for rejecting it which if it be a sound Argument to prove baptism to be the command of God to all men because the pharisees in particular for the Pharisees is but a particular expression indigitating one single sort of men among all the rest and not so much as an indefinit much lesse an universal because I say the Pharisees in particular are reproved for refusing to obey it how much better may we collect that both baptism and laying on of hands with prayer for the spirit are commanded by God to all men because we find all those save Simon witnesse his giving them his holy spirit recorded as most highly approved of God that at any time did reject neither but silently submit themselves both Those passages between that my beloved friend and my self I could not conscientiously neglect to set down least I should seem to love any man more then the truth for the sake of which principally and partly for his also and theirs he walks with whom I love in truth as far as they love the truth I write this that he reviewing here his own empty evasions may more evidently discern himself to be mistaken in many things then he may be capable to do in a discourse by word of mouth and that they remembring how they in proof of baptism it self to be Christs command to all believers are necessitated to use such cloudy inferences and deductions as those above may excuse us more then many if not most of that party do if in proof of laying on of hands to be the duty of all baptized believers we take the like liberty to our selves in order to their satisfaction to use more clear inferences and deductions then those out of Scripture and out of Heb. 6.2 it self as t will appear that we do to reason it self rightly acted in comparing of Scripture with Scripture which I for my part refer the enquirers unto as the surest rule to try the spirits by and to try all inferences or deductions by because the best of men are liable to mistakes and sure enough to fall into them if ceasing to exercise their reason in deducing inferring and gathering one thing out of another they will receive nothing for truth though otherwise never so plain even to common sense and reason unlesse they find it in so many words in Scripture as t is by us exprest in and this is all that I shall trouble my self to say in reference to the seventh and eighth questions of the late Enquirers with the grounds thereof which are laid down in these words And now further to prove the Minor of the forecited syllogism in some other particulars of it that remain unproved viz. that laying on of hands was not only taught and practised dispenst and submitted to ownd and observed among all baptized believers in the primitive times but all this as by command from God I argue thus viz. Either by command from God or without it But neither without nor against command from God Ergo by it the consequence of the first proposition is most clear for whatever Gospel administration was never commanded by God to be dispensed is practised if practised at all as a tradition of men and without nay against Gods command whose command it is that no man shall presume to teach for doctrines of his the traditions or commandments of men the Minor is as clear that the Apostles did not teach for doctrines of Christ any traditions of their own for as Paul who was one of them that practised laying on of hands saies of himself 1. Cor. 11.23 that he received from Christ that which he delivered unto the Church at Corinth so may we say on the behalf of all the rest as concerning what doctrines they delivered and dispensations they practised to the Churches for surely as Christ the great and immediate messenger from the father could do nothing of himself was not to do his own will but the will of his father which sent him nor to speak or do any thing but as the father gave him commandement confessing that even his doctrine was not his own but his that sent him so they that were the great and immediate messengers from Christ might speak and do nothing in things pertaining to him but as God by him gave commandements unto them neither were any doctrines they delivered among the Churches their own nor any other then the doctrines of Christ whereupon though as Christs doctrine and commandements are called his because he preacht and gave them from God and yet were not his own but the fathers so theirs are called the doctrine and commandements of the Apostles as they had them immediately from him yet are they not their own but the doctrine and comman-of Christ and had they done any thing more then they had order for from him who from him were to give order to the Churches either in the point of laying on of hands or any thing else they would surely have heard harshly from him for it been reproved by the spirit in the word but as to this service of prayer and laying on of hands on all baptized believers in many places he is recorded as approving of them in all they did Moreover that laying on of hands was taught and practised not of their own heads
Christs next appearing Thus having sufficiently proved the Minor of the forenamed argument in each particular of it in which as neerly as I could well croud them together are coucht as many if not all such particulars are needful to be proved to the evincing of the continuance of this doctrine and dispensation of laying on of hands to the end I shall hasten to an end both of this subject and of this system also but because I find some things put in by way of positive exception and objection against this truth from the mouthes of some as well as something by way of query from the pens of others who also in that way have appeared against it so newly at the the presse viz. the late Enquirers above-named a remnant of whose Questions â—emain yet unanswered here though not so unanswerable as some do deem them I shall adde a word or two more toward the removeal of these two sorts of blinding bushes whereby I fear many may be infatuated so as to turn andâ— from the way of truth in this particular and so leave both it and them unto the Lord. First then whereas by word of mouth some tell me That Laying on of hands was a way peculiar to that juncture designed of god to the time then being only wherein the Apostles say some and othersome the Lord gave the holy spirit in some visible eminent and extraordinary gifts thereof as tongues prophecy miracles healing c. simply to this end that these might be a sign to confirm it visibly to the eyes of people that the doctrine they taught and practised in the principles and other parts of it was from above and no other then the oracles of God First I grant that in the primitive times there were and that in the way of prayer and laying on of hands given not by the Apostles though for as is shewed above they were not baptizers with the spirit but by the Lord onely whose onely prerogative that is to baptize with the holy spirit sundry gifts as healing c. which may be called extraordinary and rare respectively to these times wherein they have bin seldome or never seen or heard of as I know not that that of tongues now adaies ever was though as to that of healing and that of discerning of spirits and some other manifestations of the spirit given to profit withall as a word of wisdome and a word of knowledge it is within a little of past doubt to some that such as these as the Lord pleases are some lesse some more frequently given now among them that walk in truth though what gifts some have seen and been sensible of in others or themselves t is not so fit to boast of as to be silent Secondly I grant that many of this sort and hapily many more then either are or need to be or shall be given now were given then to confirm the New Testament doctrine in the first delivery of it to the world in the room of the old one to be of God of some of which there maybe a cessation the end they had such special respect to then being sufficiently accomplished and the word being now committed unto writing Mark 16.17 18 c. Heb. 2.3 4. But thirdly that either such gifts of the spirit as these were either the onely or the chief kind of gifts of the spirit that were to be and were expected lookt after or given in that way of prayer and laying on of hands as a service destinated pro tempore only in order to the receiving of such or that these gifts were so extraordinary in respect of the eminency or excellency of them because more visible and ad extra beyond such as may be warrantably by promise expected and are in that way assuredly and ordinarily given at this day these two I see no warrant to subscribe to for as t is most sure that the promise was so far as I find in terminis nor onely nor so oft of these things though I deny not but these were at that time for ends that concern not these times promised too but of the spirit to several other purposes as above the holy spirit the spirit in the fruits and graces and comforts of it the gift of the holy spirit we find it all along almost in no lesse then scores of Scriptures whereof some few are more plain so assuredly the holy spirit in that way of prayer and laying on of hands was given to baptized believers in other gifts then these viz. the graces comforts and fruits of it love joy peace assurance c. In respect of which in case those outward gifts of the spirit should all have failed or shall fail now yet that dispensation is not therefore rendred empty useless and out of date but remaines rather more gloriously useful then as to external gifts of tongues and such like continually even unto the end yea also if we speak of gifts meerly externall and visible as some call them though for my part I judge the spirit is as visible to us and manifested to be in men by the fruits and graces as by those things that are more commonly but not more properly then those called gifts I suppose his senses as well as his reason doth not a little fail him that descerns not not only those most excellent waies of grace as love joy c. 1 Cor. 12.31 but even the best and most excellent and profitable outward gift of the spirit even that of prophecy or speaking to exhortation edification and comfort for that is the gift of prophecy and the best outward gift that we can covet or compasse given unto baptized believers whom we pray for and lay hands on at this day to whom nature and University Nursery never gave it And if any say we see such a kind of gift as you call prophecy given also to others aswel as such as submit to it That 's nothing to us what God does whose word binds us to such or such a way but not himself we are quaerying what we are required to do by him upon the account of which we may by promise expect the holy spirit not what God does God often anticipates his own promise and is better then his word as Act. 10. 47. he gave the spirit before baptism which is promised onely to baptized believers Act. 2.39 yet that does neither give us disingagement from Gods outward way nor warrant us to expect the spirit out of it but ingage us so much the more unto it ver 48. If God will give any other men his holy spirit out of that way I am glad sith it pleases himself he is so good to them but as that assures me not that I specially if inlightned about his way yea then assuredly I shall not shall have it so too so sure I am that in his way I shall obtain it and if any have been so highly favoured of god as that he
fifteen hands that subscribe to those Questions not one of them did find occasion to subscribe his dissent to this for whereas t is supposed and proposed so publiquely for truth by the Enquirers that Heb. 6.2 speaks not of any one laying on of hands onely but plurally as of the doctrine of baptisms its most palpably apparent to such as are not a sleep in their reading of that text that it speaks in the singular number of one laying on of hands alone and not of layings on of hands as it must have been expressed for so you are fain to expresse it your selves when you speak plurally of it in your fifth question had he meant more kinds of imposition of hands then one for though hands be the plurall number yet laying on which is the phrase you speak to or else you speak nihil ad Rhombum is a substantive of the singular number both in the English and in the Greek and suppose the spirit had spoken plurally of more imposions of hands then one must that that was Act. 8 17-19.6 on baptized believers be ever the more excluded or the more incuded rather in all likelyhood among the rest and because the Apostle does not speak particularly enough nor distinguish nor expresse plainly enough what he means by shewing the end purpose and event of the imposition here spoken of therefore belike he meant that no body should ever own this principle at all but the truth is he speaks of no more impositions then one Therefore to conclude with the Enquirers question propounded thus to themselves we desire to know what safety it is for any man to conclude that question to be worthy of an answer that is so falsely grounded as this of the Enquirers is and to conclude that Heb. 6.2 is meant of more layings on of hands when it expresly speaks but of one And so dear Friends whom I love too well to spare speaking plainly to you in a case wherein upon occasion of your putting on too too rashly in print little lesse then against it a precious truth of Christ lyes at stake between us since you are pleased to urge and importune us so earnestly at the close of your questions by the opportunity that you have thereby put into our hands to justify our practise viz. laying on of hands upon all baptized believers as we love the glory of God and the promoting of that which we so highly esteem and hold to be truth as we will declare our love to the truth by countenancing men who diligently make search after it as we tender the union and communion of the Churches c. that we would discharge our duty and try if we could make it appear by the word of God which I confesse with you is able to instruct us in all things and therefore though much might be said from the constant practise of the Churches in and bordering upon the primitive times to the further clearing up of the truth in this point yea men far better studied that way then I am who yet see sufficiently to my satisfaction tell us that all Antiquity teacheth laying on of hands after baptism yea and some that never practised neither it nor true baptism yet I wave all such Arguments as of no weight without the word Since also you promise us that if we so do then you shall acknowledg the truth thereof to the glory of God and your own shame in being ignorant so long and speedily imbrace it if God so assist you by his word professing you will to that purpose expect our faithfull care to be expessed with chearfullnesse without making delaies in a matter of so great importance which may unite and establish us in one mind hereupon I could not in conscience but take so much notice of your questions they meeting me also just in the mouth whilest I was musing to say some little but not a quarter so much as here is to evince the noncessation of this service as well as that of baptism as to give this transient answer as I travel along being bound also as you hint to me to give to every one that asketh it a reason of the hope that 's in me with meeknesse and fear so desiring the Lords blessing upon it towards you and upon you in your examination of it and as you have light your execution according to it that such excaecation as the Ranter who is run out of the reach of reason hath by little and little queried himself into may never overtake you I remain both yours and every ones servant for Christs sake Thus much concerning the continuation of that practise of laying on of hands now as to the present use of the ordinances of breaking of bread and church-fellowship I shal speak but briefly to that forasmuch as these are services the continuance of which to the end is denied doctrinally by none for ought I know but the Ranter that is run up above all saving that the Rigid Presbyterians though in words they own the supper yet in works do deny it for many if not most of them live in the neglect of that administration of the supper in their parishes some four some five some six seven eight years without any use of it at all as if there were no such matter as that now in being for others I mean a certain mixt sort of Independents that are rife in these dayes they own and practise it and Church fellowship too more then enough unlesse more orderly in respect of that Antecedency to these of all the principles of the doctrine of Christ which ought to be now as it was in the primitive times which times they pretend to reform by taking in Omnium generum an Omnigatherum of persons men and women whom they take to be believers into fellowship in one visible body in breaking of bread and prayers some whereof having renounced their Rantism as null are truly baptized some as yet but meerly Rantized yet supposing themselves sufficiently baptized because of that which can be of no use to them as a sign for they remember it not some hanging in the air between both not satisfied whether they were truly baptized in infancy yea or no some doubting whether any water baptism at all be needful to be used in these times some convinc't that they ought to be baptized but not yet finding any Administrator that fits their fancies some resolved to be baptized but Christ who expects it from them must wait their leasure none reproving their procrastination nor saying to them as Ananias to Paul and now why tarriest thou arise and be baptized and wash away thy sins calling on the name of the Lord or as Peter to the Iews repent and be baptized Some resolving never to be baptized but roundly renouncing all water baptism as nothing concerning them yet leaving them at liberty to act according to their light that have a mind to submit to it and who see
dispensation till the substance it self comes childish things that must be put away when once we become men things imperfect and in part onely which when that which is perfect is come must vanish and be done away and such like and all this as t is nor more nor lesse then we say our selves so t is even as much as we need desire thee to say as to the evincing of what we contend for for sith we yet see not face to face 1 Pet. 1.8 in whom though now ye see him not yet believing ye rejoice with joy unspeakable c. when he shall appear we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is 1 Iohn 3.2 i. e. then and not before and since that which is perfect i. e. the substance is not yet come for as we that remain and shall be alive at the coming of Christ shall not prevent or as to perfection be before hand with them that are asleep in Iesus 1 Thess. 4.15 16 17. so they i. e. that are long since dead both in and for the Lord without us shall not be made perfect Heb. 11.40 sith we are not all yet come to be men at age to the measure of the stature of the fulnesse of Christ therefore ad hominem till then we must look through the glasse till then the shadow and that which is in part and imperfect as being indeed most suitable to an imperfect state must stand till then the outward work of the ministry in point of offices and ordinance for the perfecting of â—he Saints for the edifying of the body must remain Eph. 4.11.12 13. Thou tellest us mistaking the sense of Paul Phil 3.13.14 Heb. 6.1.2 that higher things perfection are now to be minded and prest after and these to be forgotten that those are principles of Châ—ists doctrine which were once eyed and laid as a foundation but must be left and not laid now any more But contrary to what David saies of himself Ps. 131.12 thine eyes are so lofty thy heart so haughtily exercised in minding the things thou callest high some of which are too high and others too low and base for any Christian to be busied in that thou mindest not the words of Paul to all Saints Rom. 12.16 where he saith not minding high things for so the greek words truly translated are but together with high things minding low things t is confest that in some sense we are to forget or not to mind what is behind but to mind to presse after to reach forth to things that are before to leave the principles the foundation of Christs doctrine go on to perfection but not in thy sense o Ranter who hereby takest upon thee to buryall manner of observation of these things even by any under utter oblivion to prohibit all present practise of principles by so much as babes to rase the foundation so as to declare it not fit to be laid at first now as of old it was no not by very biginners in the School of Christ but in the spirits sense who in those places means no other then thus viz. not that the babes in Christ must not use milke in these times as well as in the primitive not that the beginner in Christs School is not now as well as then to learn his letters and to begin first in his ABC not that those that will begin to build themselves an holy temple in the Lord an habitation of God through the spirit must not now lay any foundation at all but that having laid the foundation they should not think that their building is at an end but build up higher grow up higher in Christ thereupon that they should lay the foundation so sure at first that they should not have need in respect of their non proficiency or relapses into sin to be laying these i. e. faith of remission repentance c. ore and ore again but to proceed to perfection that babes should not remain alwaies babes feeding on nothing but milk but growing in grace and in the knowledge of Christ and in ability to bear stronger meats higher doctrines that the young Scholar should not remain alwayes a novice an ABC darian no further learnt then in his horn book but according to the time he hath had learn to read perfectly that he may be able to teach others rather then need to be taught his letters again this is the spirits sense for otherwise it s ever necessary that babes have milk and absurd that a Scholar should be bid to forget his letters and how to spell that builders should leave laying any foundation when they begin nay veriâ—y the most studied Scholar must first learn and then remember his letters or else he cannot possibly read babes must be fed with milk at first or else they will not thrive to be perfect men builders must lay a foundation and have an eye to it too all along in their building upward even till they come to the very top observing how all the whole fabrick that they work after doth square and keep touch with that or else they may chance to make such a crooked fabrick as will fall to the ground at last yea perveniri ad summum nisi ex principiis non potest Thou tellest us as concerning the outward ordinances of the Gospel that bodily exercises profit little but art wretchedly ignorant of it that by bodily exercises which profit little Paul means not at all as thou dost the ordinances of Christ or any ouâ—ward parts of his worship and will revealed in his word for that is though not the greatest yet a great part of godlinesse it self which according to the true signification of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a right serving of God according to his own will in his word of truth where he requires us to serve worship and glorifie him in our bodie as well as in our spirit 1 Cor. 6.19.20 but such bodily exercises and old wives fables as abstinences from meats lent'n and good friday fasts and such ordinances as touch not tast not c. which men subject themselves to after the commandements and doctrines of men of Popish Priests whose Religion stands mostly in such matters 1 Tim. 4.3.4.7.8 Col. 2.20.21.22 Thou tellest us as one of the main grounds whereupon there must now be no more walking in ordinances and that way of outward service that was at first that it was foretold 2 Thess. 2.3 that there should come a falling away from it and a treading down of all that outward form which then was which to say nothing how probable it is that that prophecy 2 Thess. 2.3 and several more do point more at that falling away that thou oh false prophet shalt cause in the very last dayes then at that which by the proud PPPriesthood hath been made before thee I declare to be such an absurd and senslesse consequence as is more worthy of a silent sleighting then a
6.14.15.16.17 Rev. 14 18 9 10.8.4.5 and is there not a reed given and a command to rise and measure the City and Temple and worshippers in order to building again of what was ruined as the plummet was then in hand of Zorobabel Zach. 4 10. we have for ought I see as plain promises prophecies warrands and grounds as they had to build when they came from Babilon if we have eyes to see them unlesse nothing will serve to the satisfying of us as indeed it will not to the satisfying of some that our acting in the old way of Christ is his mind and will concerning us now but miracles to confirm us in the belief of it by whose leave I must rather call for miracles from them to confirm it that their leaving that old administration of ordinances and beginning to act in that new way of no ordinances is of God for as for the doctrine we practise t was at first confirmed by miracles as Gods manner ever is at the remove of any old Testament or will of his and establishing a new one in its stead but theirs though a new one nor yet committed to writing was never yet confirmed by miracles at all and suppose they had had more extraordinary Prophets then we have at the restoring of their ruins after the Babilonish wastings yet le ts know what extraordinary Prophets they had to build upon for the re-edifying of their dayly sacrifices and religion when trod down for a time times and an half also by Antiochus that most lively type of Christs Church-wasting enemies under the Gospel of whose violent ablation of all and lawful restoration of all again by the Jews according to the old pattern excepting what corruptions were afterward among them which yet did not disannul the right of the remaining of any truth may be read at large 1 Mac. 1.2 Mac. 7.2 Mac. 10. which all stood in force notwithstanding that falling away even till Christ himself who also confirmed and practised to a tittle according to Moses Testament during his life at last put an end to it by his death All thy arguings therefore O libertine from a falling away to no return from a treading down of the true way of ordinances to no erecting it again are but a sort of sorry shifts whereby thou fencest off that part of Christs Gospel which I confesse from some experience in my own crooked deceitful yet self-searching heart flesh and blood takes no delight in for if we consider things under the Gospâ—l with that relation and proportion they stand in to things under the Law which were Types and shadows of them then we must conclude there is a certain space or intertime between the last period of the 42 months or of the time of treading down of the true Gospel worship by might and Christs coming to abolish and take away their right as there was after the Babilonish captivity a space of 70 weeks in which the Saints according to the call and warning given them to worship God aright and decline the beasts worship and come out of Babilon Rev. 14. Rev. 18. are obedient and continue in the word of Christs patience under all the mallice of the beasts worshippers and in the observation of the commandements of God and the faith of Jesus and of all the works that Christ left in charge at his departure to be kept in memoriall of him in his absence viz. baptism the supper c. that so when the Lord shall come as a snare and as a thief on all that are disobedient to his voice and contentious against any tittle of his truth they may be found as Noah and Lot till whose separation the doom determined could not fall upon the wicked Gen 19.22 out of Sodom Rev. 11.8 in Zoar in the ark i. e. Christ and his true wayes Ordinances and worship which are to them as those of old to the other a little Sanctuary and being found so doing as Christ required keeping his commandementâ— may be blessed and have right to the tree of life and to enter in thorow the gates into the City Rev. 22 14.15 and be entertained with well done good and faithful servant thou hast been faithful in a very little and over a few things have thou authority over much over many things enter thou into the joy of thy Lord Mat. 25.21 Luk. 19.17 Thou tellest us that the day star arises and the day approaches and therefore now there need be no such heed given to the edifying one another in Assemblies by the use of Ordinances but whether we shall believe thee o perverter who saiest we must give attendance to these things so much the lesse or Paul who saies so much the more as we see the day approaching let any judge but thy besotted self who speakest all along by a spirit most contradictory to and yet canst not be perswaded but that in all thou speakest answerably to the word Thou tellest us that Christ is now in his Saints the hope of glory but thou tellest us no newes in this for I know not when he was otherwise while they walkt not after the flesh but after the spirit in obedience to his voice in holy conformity to his will and word and in fellowship one with another in the use of all his holy ordinances but as for thy self o spiritualist that separatest thy self sensual not having the Spirit though pretending to have it in a higher degree then any that live in bondage unto Ordinances I know not how to believe he is so much in thee as the hope of glory for every one that hath this hope in him purifieth himself as Christ is pure 1 Iohn 3.3 Thou tellest of seeing face to face of present perfection and manhood and that that which is perfect is come and that thou livest already with God in God in full and actual enjoyment of heaven and all heavenly happinesse God dwelling already in thee and thou in him in the very substance which was once shadowed out by the childish things called Ordinances in the secret chambers of the most high in the heights of God in the very bosom and inmost imbraces of the father in a high degree of godlinesse spirit and glory But to let passe how thou contradictest confutest and givest thy self the lie when thou expressest all this sometimes by no higher a term then Christ in thee the hope of glory for hope that is seen is not hope for what a man seeth why doth he yet hope for but if we hope for that we see not then do we not say we have it but with patience wait for it as not yet actually enjoyd Rom. 8.24.25 we know well enough forthy own practise and sometimes thy own speech bewrayeth thee what thy spiritualnesse perfection and godlinesse is thy spiritualnesse is to fulfil the will of the flesh with out scruple to feed and feast it without fear to swaggar and swear â—evil roar and
rant and whore and in all this to have no more conâ—cience of sin then a very bruit thy perfection is a meer defection from the truth thy fulnesse of age to discern between good and evil is a faculty to discern that there 's neither good nor evil thy Godlinesse to be as Paul paints thee out 2 Tim. 3.1 2. c. a lover of thy self coveteous proud a boaster a blasphemer disobedient to Governours c. incontinent fierce a despiser of those that are good treacherous heady high-minded a lover of pleasures more then God and to have a form or pretence of godlynesse whereby with the more advantage to creep into houses and lead captive to thy lust silly women laden with lust but to resist the truth and deny the power thereof and instead of denying all ungodlinesse in such a sense as the grace of God teaches men to do i. e. to have nothing to do with it by a principle of grace turned into wantoness to deny that there 's any ungodlinesse at all Neverthelesse know this that the Lord commeth with 10000 of his Saints to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him Iude 14.15 and though thou being willingly ignorant of any such personall comming of Christ Oh Ranter and ungodly scoffer of these last times that walkest after thy own lusts in sensual lascivious and polluted wayes since thy forgetting the words of the Apostles of our Lord and thy unlawful separation from the true Churches Iude 17.18.19 since their lawful separation from the false 2 Cor. 2.14.15.16.17.18 saiest where is the promise of his coming and because all things continue as they were 2 Pet. 3.2.3 4 5. pleasest thy self in believing he will never so come yet he will so come in like manner i. e. visibly personally bodily but far more gloriously as he went away Act. 1.11 and be revealed from heaven in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God them specially that know no other God but themselves and their belly Phil. 3 19. and on them that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ 2 Thess. 1.7.8.9 who shall be punisht with everlasting destruction yea while thou dreamest oh filthy dreamer despising government even ecclesiastical and civil defiling the flesh having eyes full of adultery that cannot cease from sin and yet cannot commiâ— sin because with thee there is now no sin promising men liberty whilst thou thy self art a servant of corruption and a slave in chains to Satan acting and ranting in every particular even to the life I should say rather to the death for t is to thy own according as thou art punctually painted out and prophesied of all along by Peter 2 Peter 2. c. 3. and Iude in both their Epistles who speak both the same things which either speaketh and no other then the self same which thou dost yet thy judgement now of along time lingreth not and thy damnation slumbreth not 2 Pet. 2.3 for thy Lord O evil servant that art not found so doing as some few will be as he left in charge when he went away but saiest in thy heart my Lord delayes his coming and thereupon beginnest to smite thy fellow servants that keep close to the masters will that they may be without spot as his appearing and to eat and drink with the drunken thy Lord I say will come to thy cost in a day when thou lookest not for him in an hour that thou art not aware of and cut thee a sunder and appoint thee a portion with the hypocrites there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth Mat. 24.46.47 48 49 50 51. yea O thou unprofitable servant thou shalt be cast into utter darknesse Mat. 25.30 yea thou fearless feaster and feeder of thy self against the day of slaughter Iam. 5.5 6 7. thou fruitlesse twice dead bruitish Creature the very mist and blackness of darknesse is against that time of Christs comming reserved for thee for ever 2 Pet 2.17 Iude 13. ANTI-SACERDOTISM Sacerdotale delirium dilineatum The dotage of the Priests discovered OR Editio nova auctior et emendatior A new Edition With no small Addition In way of Emendation Amplification and truer Application of the third part of that trebble Treatise which is extant about the Ashford Disputation ENTITLED A pathetical exhortation to the Pastors to oppose the growth of Anabaptism or a short discourse concerning the means of opposing hereticks in disputation and preaching In which new Edition as Christs true Clergy alias the Churches that are commonly but not properly called ANABAPTISTS are cleared not to be such So exceptis excipiendis the Pope and his CCClergy are cleared to be such themselves viz. self-loving and ambitious vain-gloryous and covetous illiterate and sottish impure and carnal cruel and bloody lying and blasphemous prophane and sacrilegious Heretical and Schismatical as Dr. Featly in his remarkeables and that fraternity by whom he though dead yet speaketh in their patheticals have proclaimed the said ANABAPTISTS to be MAL. 2.1 2.7 8 9. O ye priests this commandment is for you c. AND now O ye Disputers and Scribes of the Ashford Disputation I might say not a little and will say something how much I know not in discovery of your sacerdotall doings not to say dotings in the third piece of your pedorantical paper wherin the only truely baptism Church and Ministers of it are both declaimed against under the hatefull names of Heresie Schism Hereticks such as from no other principles then self conceit Ambition vain-glory and covetuousnesse design the propagation of errors by certain hypocritical pretences obstinate impudent and audacious deportments Seducers whose society is to be shuned c. for thus and much worse to the rendring of us odious among your Gentry and Vulgar and the hardning of their hearts against the truth are we whom you stile Anabaptists bespattered by you Anâ—â—baptists in that Triobulary Treatise intituled p. 20. A short discourse concerning the means of opposing Hereticks both in Disputation and preaching alias in your title page whereby it is evident both what and whom you mean by the words Heresie Heriticks viz. us and the way we walk in A pathetical Exhortation to the Pastors to oppose the growth of Anabaptism the drift of it whether it be more to decline or desire any more disputation with them one can hardly discover so doubtful is the sense of the Scribes that scraped it sometimes as it were decrying disputation as dangerous and that from which t is scarce possible to expect any good and superscribing it self thus viz. Why Hereticks are not to be disputed withall sometimes as it were disputing for disputation again as if it meant to move the Ministers â—hough worsted by no meanes to give out and to make it good that much good may be expected from it like Caesar at Rubicon with
immediately under the Popes supremacy were priviledged so far as to stand exempted from the reach of the civill law and to save themselves the trouble of being hanged when they had deserved it as much as other men by a businesse called the benefit of the Clergy i. e. the immunity of the Clergy from the civil law some relikes of which benefit the Clergy once had and still hath in some places seem to me to remain in our civil Courts wherein we see in some capital crimes the malefactour si legat ut Clericus if he can but read like a Clerk or Clergy man he escapes execution when else he should have died without remedy which favour is also called the benefit of the Clergy yet we desire that no manner of men may have exemption from the course of civil Justice yea if we whom they call Anabaptists do any thing at any time worthy of death by the civil law rightly regulated we refuse not to die but as we desire that others should so are we willing our selves in civil matters to stand at Caesars i. e. the civil Magistrates judgement seat where we ought to be judged in such cases and thus did Paul when accused by the Priests as a Pestilent fellow and a mover of sedition meerly for preaching the Gospel To the Jews saith he have I done no wrong nor yet against Caesar have I offended c. therfore no man may deliver me to them I appeal unto Caesar Act. 24.5.12.13 14.20.25 8.11 where we see that in case of civil injury charged upon him as committed by him he appeals to Cesar to judge though Cesar was a heathen and he a Christian and not of Cesars Religion which he had been a mad man in doing had the question been simply about the right Religion yea when any question a roâ—e in the Church about Religion as in the point of circumcision Act. 15. the Apostles Elders and brethren considered of it among themselves consulting the mind of the spirit in the word and had they not agreed it they would not have referred it nor had any not conformed to their determination in that point would they have complained of them to Cesar and as Paul would not stand at Cesars judgement seat in Religious as he desired to do in civil so Cesars Deputies would not meddle at all as Magistrates in Religious cases for when the Jews set Paul before the judgement seat of Gallio deputy of Aâ—haia and complained saying This fellow perswadeth men to worship God contrary to the law Gallio said if it were a matter of wrong or wicked lewdnesse O ye Iews reason would that I should bear with you but if it be a question of words and names of your law look ye to it for I will be a judâ—e of no such matters and he drave them from the judgement seat as who should say we are set to keep civil peace and right among you but not at all to determine you in your worships Oh therfore that the Magistracy would consider it that they are set not to force men to submit all to one worship nor yet forcibly to suppresse either Heresie or truth but to prevent tumultuousness about either If Demetrius and the craftsmen of like occupation who make shrines for Diana have a matter of wrong against any let the civill law be open and let them plead each other there but if the enquiry be concerning other matters as namely setting at nought their craft prophaning the Temples of their Goddesse and destroying their false worships by plain preaching of truth what 's Heredox what Orthodox in worship c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let that be determined in a lawfull Assembly i. e. as the word is in the Greek insome lawful Church congregation or select meeting for that purpose Last of all though the Lord prohibit the standing of Idolators c. in the Church 2 Cor. 6. Rev. 2. yet he himself who could presently root them out if t were his mind permits not onely true but also false worshippers Hereticks c. to have a being in the world and therefore me thinks Gods Vicegerent should not be against it It is according to the will of God himself permitting not approving them that heresies do arise but its according to his good will approving and in his woâ—d appointing that they shall stand in the world when risen further then they can be annihilated by the word And as the Scripture shewes how far he himself tolerates them so the Divines themselves as shy as they are of having them tollerated do Give these good Reasons of Gods suffering of Hereticks 1 For the discovering of the sound that Gold and Silver may be known from hay and slubvle that by the Devills sitting of us the good corn may be discerned from chaff it is the Apostles Reason 1 Cor. 11.19 that they which are approved may be known for who they are that with the weapons of the Churches warfare are valiant for the truth indurers of hardship as good Souldiers of Christ c. would not appear if there were no Hereticks False worshippers Antichristians Truth treaders c. to try them true love to Christs truth can never be seen if never tryed nor tryed if truth never opposed hated hunted and that to death too sometimes by the fierce wrath and cruel malice of its enemies 2. That truth may be discussed and fetcht out as fire from the concussions oâ— flint and steel Truth had not been fetcht half so far out of the dark nor from under that Popish Smoother of traditions at this time as it is had not the CCClergy so hotly hunted it and so fiercely clasht against all that came out to clear it If there had not been an Hereticall CCClergy crying out Heresie against all truth the world had never heard so much of it in these latter daies as now it hath and I verily perswade my self that as the day breakes and the shadowes fly away the way of truth in the hearts of the Just and in the eyes of the of the world by how much the CCClergy calls Heresie upon it shall shine more and more still to the perfect day if Luther and Calvin had not been and that so fiercely flung at by Popish Priests because they preached against indulgencies and selling pardons for money and against the Lordlines of the Popish Hirrachy they had not heard so much against them but that they might have sold more pardons then they have done since and the 2 latter litters of Spiritual lords that qua CCClergy came out of the Popes loins the two PPriesthoods of the Protestant party might have lorded it longer like their father who will never be dead as long as they are alive had they not been as iron and steel against truth and true worshippers whom God makes as hard as flint against their faces that by their concussions against it he may the more fully fetch it forth the
nominally yet not really Christians obeying the pure word of Christ would not endure sound doctrin but having itching ears that loved to be tickled not grated upon grew weary of the plaines of the Gospel saying to the Seers see not and to the Prophets prophecy not prophecy not unto us right things speak unto us smooth things prophecy deceits get ye out of the way turn aside out of the path cause the holy one of Israel to cease from before us despising his word and rufusing to hear the Law of the Lord as they of old Isa. 30. then the Lord gave them their own hearts lusts and sent leanes withall into their souls granted them heapes upon heaps of such Cater-pillars as should dwel at their own doors and devoure their soules and delude them with Heresie and false divinations and as their pay for so doing should devour also the tenth of their labours nay the sixth in all parishes through the Nations he removed the candlestick out of his place and because they walked not in the light thereof whilst they had it let darkness come upon them he gave them Priests that should teach for hire and Prophets that should divine for money and say is not the Lord among us none evil can come upon us Mic. 2.11 he gave them like people like Priest a people not willing to be taught and a Priesthood not able to teach he removed their truth-teachers into a corner so that their eyes should see no more such teachers nor their ears hear any voice behind them saying this is the way walk in it and so opened the flood gates for all manner of horrible Heresies to flow in upon them he powred upon them the spirit of deep sleep and closed their eyes the Prophets their Rulers their Seers he covered so that the vision of all became unto them as the words of a book sealed which if delivered to their learned men saying read this I pray they cannot for it is sealed if to their ignorant people saying read this they cannot for they are not learned t is for their Orthodox Divines and not for them to read and expound the Scripture forasmuch as the people drew neer to God with their mouth and with their lips did honour him with Gloria Patries c. but removed their hearts far from him and would have their fear towards him taught by the precepts of men therefore the Lord proceeded to do a marvellous work in all Christ'ndome yea a marvellous work a wonder for the wisdome of their wise men perisht and the understanding of their prudent men was hid and the Lord left them to do their works in the dark and to turn all things upside down and to put a bridle upon the jawes of the people and ride them from Ierusalem unto Babilon even to all manner of Heresie blindnesse and confusion for ages and generations together Lastly to provoke the Pastors to diligence and watchfulness to prove them whether they be hirelings or not such as will flie when the wolf comes or lay down their lives for the sheep therefore the Apostle Paul speaking specially of that very time wherein the insolency and obstinacy of Hereticks and Schismaticks should increase to such a height as not to indure sound doctrine but rather to turn from the truth and turn to fables and heap false teachers to themselves to tickle them up in their lusts preach down and act no patience but rather persecution toward those that preach up the truth in consideration thereof charges Timothy to whom he left the oversight of the Church at Ephesus in order to the making full proof of his ministry to stand to it then with so much the more diligence to preach the word and be instant in season and out of season to reprove rebuke and exhort with all long suffering and doctrine to watch in all things indure the afflictions that should befal him from the hands of wolvish spirited men 2 Tim. 4.1 ad 8. And indeed this is that which should move the Pastors of the several congregations of Christ and such whom the holy spirit hath made Overseers of that little flock of his in these daies to take good heed both to themselves and all that flock for throw the negligence of the Pastors turning Hereticks yea wolves themselves in former dayes the sheep have been most miserably misled and rul'd over with force and cruelty and this will be a proof of their love to Christ above their lives if they shall give all diligence to the feeding of the sheep and lambs of Christ not flying for fear of men from that worthy work not forbearing nor shunning to deliver unto them the whole councel of God at this day though there be so many CCClergy men to croak against them for it And here let it be well noted that whether here or wherever throughout this discourse I dilate on the duty of the Pastors and put them on to performance of it I mean the Pastors of the Churches which are commonly called Anabaptists which are among the Nations as sheep among wolves as the lilly among thornes rent and torn for their Testimony to the Truth and not YYYou the PPPriesthood YYYou the PPPastoralty of the Parishes for verily he is blind that beholds you not to be no Pastors but rather Hâ—relings yea Wolves Persecutors then Pastors of the sheep of Christ yea even you Presbyterian Pastoralty as well as others Indeed you have the boldnesse to stile your selves the Ministers of Christ but you are wrapt up in a cloud of confusion and contradiction about the proof of your Pedigree as from him yea when its closely quaeried whence you came I mean as to your ministerial function and capacity seeing you cannot derive your ordination by a lineal succession from the Apostles otherwise some of you and I judge the most do not deny but that remotely you receive your orders from the Pope who as you say not as Pope but as Presbyter ordained those Bishops which not as Bishops but as Presbyters ordained you Presbyters though t will prove but Priests when all is done if the Antients among you consult the common-prayer book and form of your ordination a pretty series for the Ministers of Christ to descend in why Sirs are you not ashamed of this to cry out against the Pope as Antichrist and Rome as an Apostate strumpet and yet to hold all you have as a Ministry from and through these and that too since they Apostatized from the truth shall we think that all Christs ministers descend lineally from the loines of Antichrist ye are witnesses then against your selves that your Grand-father is the Pope and so that you descended one and the same way with those locusts even popish Priests Iesuites Monks and Friers and that you are no better born as to your being men in holy orders then the veriest Scoundrel among them that depends together with you upon that Hierachy Mr. Rutherford saies Diotrephes
here in Eâ—gland from the depth of Popish darknesse have been the most self preserving sect as is to be seen this day in the world keeping together Catervatim in covents Counsells Classes and as trooping so trumpeting together for the most part in one tone according to the tempers of the Princes in whose times you happened to be trained up or have a being in against all that as Heresie which you saw the Higher Powers or general Assemblies of the Kirk directing and State correcting would have so and saving some few still among as well the Popish as Prelatick and Presbyterian Priests for its a hard case if there be never a consciencious Priest at Rome that would say otherwise then you all said saying and unsaying seeing and unseeing turning and returning changing and unchanging singing a new song and unsinging it again agreeing to speak with one mouth like the Prophets that Prophecyed before Ahab 1 Kin. 22.13 who all save one Micaiah said but one thing and nothing still but good good to please the King so that whereas of old it was throughout all Christendome like Priest like Prince like People the heart of all Kingly power being hammered to the will of the Whore with whom it was enamoured Ahab being not a little overwiv'd by Iezebell that stole the breeches from him while he lay in bed with her and ran a whoring after her from the Lord so now since the civil Powers in these parts are resolved to be suprem and to be no more such underlings as to crouch any further then Consultativè about religion to any of the three parts of the Tripple Crown you the Priesthood seeing all your Pomp depend upon your obedience to the Sic volo Sic jubeo of King Henry and his Successors it hath been here like Prince like Preist like People me thinks I here you say O yee time-serving Prince Pleasing Priesthood Tempora mutantur nos mutamur in illis let us have our fees the fleece and let the flock feed how they will Kings Popes or People which ere Supreme do sit May let Religion be as you think fit We cannot but be aware unlesse we will wink how the body of you the Priesthood have for livings sake like reeds in the tide leaned this way and that way even which way soever the waters have turned and stood under K. Henry Papists under K. Edward Protestants under Q. Mary Papists under Q. Elizabeth and K. Iames Protestants and though you were ever eager for that form of Government and Worship still that was in present being pleading the truth of it as if you would have lost your lives rather then left it crying out that Religion it self was taken away if that were not continued as of old for Masse and Popes supremacy and more lately for Common prayer and Episcopacy and more lately yet for a Synodian Supremacy and Scottish Directory yet like children crying for the losse of some Gaudy Hornbook or Gilded Primmer a new Book a new Psalter and Festraw a New Testament or Will of the State streight stops your mouths so that any form else if it be an indifferent Independency may serve the turn specially when you judge it may cost you a whipping if you grumble and conform not Thus whilest truly tender spirits like a few harmlesse flies are catcht in the Cobwebs of mens lawes about Religion the Spider creeps clear over all and lives it out under Papacy Prelacy Presbytery under commands of King Parliament and Army under the impositions of Masse Liturgy Directory and should a law be made as I desire of the powers there never may for conformity to the true form indeed may as well for ought I know begin again with the Baptists in the principles or A B C of Christs doctrine Heb. 6.1 2. and primitive practice You professe you Protestant Priests to be Reformers in these times and places and bringers back of Gods people from Babylon to Sion but verily you hold them back from Returning so fast and so far homeward to the truth as some do more would do were it not for you who rather rap them in then help them on that run faster then your coveteous turns can afford them to do in this work of reforming by the word yea you are the greatest hinderers and retarders that are of that perfect reformation of all things according to the plain pattern of the word which yet upon several occasions since Protestanism came up you have protested for your selves and also pressed not to say what in you lies forced all people to protest for with you How is it else that men when they passe but a little from you Watchmen find him who their souls love and being first ashamed of your and their abominations while by implicit faith they dwelt under the shadow of your Ministery see the form and fashion the commings in and goings out and even all the ordinances and the lawes of Christs house and keep and do them in some measure and not tarrying for man Mic. 5.7 nor waiting for the Sons of men are if not fully reformed yet daily reforming according to their covenant viz. the word of God and example of the best reformed Churches viz. Iudaea Rome in her first and true glory Corinth Galatia Ephesus Plilippi Colosse Thessalonica c. Yet you even you Watchmen are blind and found beating and abusing the spouse for her inquiries and sit like a company of Black Ravens or Rooks in a mist gaping after what way the whole body will take their flight before any Individuall though never so clear in discovery of the right dare once move from his standing before his fellowes you wait one upon another Sperantes omnes in singulis singuli in omnibus for light but behold obsurity for brightnesse but you walk in darknesse You groap for the way like the blind like them that have no eyes calling out help King help Houses help Councells help Neighbour Nations help Brethren of Scotland from all which because they are men and not God flesh and not spirit there comes no help at all save help to Gods people against you and such help too that he that helpeth you shall fall and you that are holpen shall fall down and you shall all fall together and none deliver You are sworn as well as we in the sight of both God and men to reform according to the word and that word is nigh enough even in your mother tongue bibles hearts and mouths viz. the word of faith which we preach Neither is it far off you unless your shutting your eyes against it and putting it away from you hath engaged the Lord to shut up your eyes and put it further so that because seeing you would not see thereupon seeing you shall not You have also promise enough from Christ to know his will in his word if you look to him onely and to it Yet you say who shall go up to heaven to bring Christ
the light that his deeds might be made manifest that they are wrought in God yet the means and courses by which truth should be tryed which are plain and not puzzling discourses upon the Scripture you smother by all the means and courses you can conveniently devise as for any entire discourses of such as are contrary minded to you though teachers of truth as t is in the word these you cannot away with at any hand nor permit to be used in publique before the people while you have any powar to shut your pulpit doors upon them you bid your people now or then prove all things that they may find out which is good and shun the evil but by your good-evil will they shall hear no more then what you tell them and chuse whether they 'l take that for truth or nothing you bid them cut where they like and yet you 'l be their carvers and force them to feed upon what you offer them or fast and welcome for no more messes must be meddled with though they have never such a mind to cut and try then what is of your dressing that oft is no more then some sugar sopt sententious Academical bespangled hide bound glasse measured spirit stinting stuff which may challenge the name of duncery baldnesse babling and prating more then that sincere milk of the word you commonly call so which hour of divinity when you have bookt down and cond with no little care is many times but Sed and someâ—imes but Red ore when all 's done neither yet oft times you crow couragiously upon your own dunghil you pay it soundly in your own pulpits with convincing and opposing the approach of heresies and argue so substantially against them that you carry the cause and win all but t is because you play there by your selves for if any chance to hear you that hath never so much wherewith to undeceive your deluded people yet they may not receive his interrupted reply to never so little when you in the first place have pleaded your cause the next thing to be done is for all them that hear and have ought against you to hold their peace they must not andere audire alteram partem least they be infected though wise men know there is no other way to be perfected in the knowledge of the truth and freed from that hobnob implicit faith which is wrongly acted when rightly objected then by hearing all that is to be said against it as well as for it yea the heathen herein may be thy Tutor O PPPriest Qui statuit aliquid c. You cry out they are not Orthodox that oppose you and so forbid all audience of them to your people whom you feed with a word and a blow a bit and a knock lest if they be not as well corrected into a refusal of all direction from others as directed by your selues they quickly discern difference between you and them yet you would fain be counted free and forward that all should have liberty according to their duty to try all but the niggard shall never be called liberall nor the churl said to be bountiful for me for he deviseth not the liberal things whereby the liberal shall stand yea the instruments of the churl are evil and he deviseth wicked devices to destry the poor with lying words when the needy spoaketh right things yea his heart works iniquity to practise hypocrisie and to utter error befor the Lord to make empty the soul of the hungry and to cause the drink of the thirsty to fail Isa. 32.5.6.7.8 As for pro and con discourse or disputation you smother that likewise with all your might for as you desire no more of it then needs must so you decline it what you can and disclaim it too as far as you dare for shame be seen in such a service as disputing against disputing is declaiming against it as a dismal thing of some dangerous consequence poison means of infection contentionem scabiem and such like being sensible of your sores you come not to the stake to be questioned in your waies before your blind admirers but when you cannot with credit considering your over shooting your selves sometimes in hasty challenges make a cleanly come off without it though it be to meet with those that are inferiour to your selves save that the Lord is with them for surely you see somewhat further then a mole into a milstone that things are no better with you then they should be why else should there be such loathnesse like that of the Elephant that 's loath to drink in fair waters for fear of seeing a foul face to come to the light as we find there is in the most of you as well as in Dr. Gouge who would at no hand vouchsafe any publique discussion of inâ—ant-sprinkling whether it were of God or man nec per se ne per synodum in his parish with Dr. Chamberlain yet sometimes Euphoniae gratia for reports sake you make some pretty put offs in publike and put on tooth and nail for disputation but alas you curtail it into so narrow a compasse as namely half a day two hours or some odd end of an after-noon when two dayes is too little two weeks scarce enough two years not too much to discusse the truth in witnesse not onely Iude who bids the Saints of the last times saving Tertullian and Sir Henry Wottons dislike out contend for the faith once delivered to the Saints and Paul who for 2 years space disputed dayly in the School of one Tyrannus not such a Tyrant to the truth as you are it seems for if he had he would have admitted not a word out you confine it I say into such a corner of time that as Pilate askt what 's truth and when he had so said went his way without an answer so you hast to have an end not hearing half the half quarter that is to be said in opposition to your own opinions about that question And during that little while the busines lasts you carry all as much as you can above the reach and beyond the capacity of plain minded men and women that come together for resolution in Scholastick terms and conclave it from their cognizance under the lock and key of your Linsey wolsey Logick which is neither fine enough for the University from which you have a while discontinued nor home-spun enough for the Country which muddy way of mood and figure is neither suitable to the simplicity and plainess of speech in which the Gospel ought to be declared and discussed nor reasonable to reason in with Russet Rabbies that are otherwise reasonable enough to give you such reasons of their faith and practise as you can never rationally resist nor is it much more profitable to our honest hearted people then if you spake wilde Irish. And when you have done then you smother and cloud over all that was more plainly and punctually
matters of the law and Tithes offerings and things that came by Moses and now are not at all but who hath robbed him in matters of grace and truth and ordinances and things that came by Christ one tittle of whose Testament shall not be contradicted by man nor angel under pain of cursing you talk of golden cups and vessels in which the whore fills out her abominations and filthinesse of her fornication to the whole earth but who hath taken away the key of the Kingdom of heaven i. e. from the people and Church in whom the power lies fundamentally and primarily for t is but derivatively from the church under God secondarily executively and ministerially in the Officers not onely Papa but PP too see Rutherfords Presbytery wherein he wrests the power of the Keyes from the people who hath taken away the key of knowledge and shut up the Kingdom of heaven against men as neither willing to go in themselves by the right way and baptism nor to suffer them that would who but ye O Priests have been in these things more sacrilegi church-robbers then sacerdotes or givers of holy things yea what evil of this kind YYYou have wrought in the sanctuaries of God how you have laid them wast throughout the whole earth how you have defiled the pure waters thereof and did so Claudere rivos shut down the floodgates that the people could have none of these to drink and caused all discourses and all places to overflow with muddy and brackish waters if I should hold my peace the stones out of the wall even those living stones out of the true Temple that are living monuments of Gods mercy at this day in that they are alive from the dead even the dead night of your errors will proclaim to the everlasting infamy of that generation that have been the neerer the church the further from God Thou makest thy boast of God O PPPriesthood and wouldst seem to approve of the things that are most excellent and art confident thou thy self art a guide of the blind and a light of them that sit in darknsse an instructer of the foolisâ— a teacher of babes but indeed thou art a blind guid a dark lantorn a foolish instructer and hast need thy self to be taught by those babes which live upon the sincere milk of the word which be the first principles of the oracles of God thou hast a form of knowledge and of truth as it was in the Law that was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 long since abolished according to which thou Enthusiasts to thy self a Iudai al Pontificall Politicall Pollitical Religion of thy own but thou art grossely ignorant of the truth of the Gospel and that form of doctrine that Rome obeyed from the heart of old before it came to be a mother of harloâ—â—y and of such a crew of corrupt children as have since then come from her to the corrupting ing of the earth thou teachest another but thou teachest not thy self thou preachest a man should not steal but thou stealest thou saiest a man should not commit adulâ—tery but all the Kings and their people in the christian earth have committed adultery with thee thou seemest to abhorre it yet thou more then any committest sacriledge yea thou o PPPriesthood art that holy harlot that holy thief that hast fingred the most holy things yea even the holy Scripture it self which is the store-house and under Christ the treasury of truth and hid it from the world under unknown tongues and a heap of unsound sences which thou hast put upon it therefore thou art inexcusable O woman when thou judgest the now churches of sacriledge for wherein thou judgest them thou condemnest thy self for thou that judgest doest the same things which thou saiest they do but they do not and therefore is he now killing thy children with death and we are sure that the judgement of God is according to truth against them that do such things Yea wo unto you O ye blind guids ye strein at a gnat and make it sacriledge and church robbing to take Fonts and railes and pipes and pictures and altars c. out of your stone Temples and keep a do about cleansing and hallowing and having these outside decencyes and orders and offerings but swallow a camel and demolish the true temple of God and the vessels of the sactuary i. e. the ordinances thereof which is holy indeed which Temple the Saints are that are built together a spiritual house unto him and your selves are full of ravening extortion and excesse you are as graves that appear not and the men that walk over you are not aware of you nor how they are rid over by you nor how very well to be rid of you wherefore the wisdome of God even Christ Iesus now sends you prophets and Apostles and wisemen and Scribes to warn you yet these you kill and crucifie and scourge and persecute as your enemies because they tell you the truth that the blood of all the Prophets that have prophesied in Sack cloth and tormented you and your forefathers and your people that dwell on earth for 42 moneths may come on this generation and so your house be left unto you desolate for ever And fourthly there needs no more to prove you to be what you say of us that we are viz. a lying and blasphemous sect then all these forenamed falsities which are asserted of the Anabaptists when of right they belong more properly to your selves Yea great need indeed and good reason that you should be the Plantiffs in this businesse of loaâ—ing with disgraces belying and blaspheming who have bin your selves nex and immediately under Satan Supreme false accusers of the brethren to the world and the powers Courts and consistories thereof civil and ecclesiastical for Hereticks Schismaticks Sectaries seditious deceivers hypocrites blasphemeâ—s enemies to Caesar trouble Townes and what not with which kind of nicknames you the false kingdome of the Priests have overwhelmed the true royall Priesthood as with a flood the burden of whose scandals blasphemies tales and disgraces wherewith you have loaded the saints per mille ducentos sexaginta annos 1260. years exceeds any id genus that the saints have loaded you with in number weight and measure per millies mille ducentas sexaginta Lias 1000000260 l. You have cloathed the pretious sons and daughters of Sion as the persecuting Emperors did of old with the skins of wild beasts and so cast them to the dogs to be devoured i. e. with the names of Monsters and so exposed them to the hatred of the world with the which kind of sport not onely Dr. Featley and Mr. Edwards while they lived made themselves merry and their friends too by bestowing Legends a piece towards the support of their severall false wayes as one great Benefactor did a Legend of lies on the Papistrey to the maintaining of that which they call the golden Legend but others also bely the nicknamed Anabaptists
be supreme and overcome so the lord let him for a time that he might manifest his own power the more in the overcomming him for ever in the end yea power was given him to make war by the beast that bears him even all nations of Christendom which he overcame first against the Saints and to overcome them also and so to be filled with his own inventions he gives out when any disputes against him that his desire is to be satisfyed by disputing and so perhaps he would but t is with riches more then rightousnesse with tith more then truth for in truth he seemes if he must meet with such as charge him with error in his doctrine of baptism tith forced maintenance forcing conscience as if he would renounce his opinions and practises in these points if any can prove them to be corrupt but seeks onely opportunities to spread his odd opinions of what schism and sacriledge and robbing of God it is if submission be not acted and tithes be not offered to him among the vulgar among whom his Ghostly pretences produce a kind of aweful affrightment and dread of doing any thing against what he saies being resolved before hand never to be convinced of the truth as t is in the word for that overturns him in all his preferment projects and plucks him up from all the profits of his present princely posture which is such a right eye to him that he hath not faith enough to believe that it can possibly be more profitable to him to part with though Christ himself till him tis then to preserve and perish with it His disciples are for the most part not such as the noble Beraeans that would take nothing upon trust from the very Apostles mouths but searched the Scripture dayly whether the things were so or no not onely men but honourable women too not a few but rather meet idle implicit forefather faitht men simple and weak women who try nothing but keep their Church and believe as their Church believes and as their good churchman saies led away with diverse lusts and pleasures leaning onely on their Priests understandings pinning all their Religion upon their sleeves adoring all that their Orthodox divines deliver at a venture ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth as t is in the word whose honest ignorant devotions he hath won to himself by his cunning artifice of pretended piety voluntary humility seeming zeal to the truth long prayers or rather multitudes of short prayers and praises Pater Nosters Miserere Mei's Magnificats Te deums Gloria Patri's per Iesum Christum Dominum nostrums and such like devoutries and being once gained are so carried on with the streme of corrupt custome present fashion foolish affection that no reason in the world can reclaim them he deterreth lay people as much as may be from reading expounding or too much prying into the Scripture alledging unto them the perils they may incur by misinterpretations he hath laid his foundations so firmly in the dark consciences of men women by perswading them of his own infallibity Ecclesiastical Authority his Ius Divinum in the Government and guidance of the Church as here in Britain and even of his Temporal jurisdiction too as at Rome over both heaven and earth hell and purgatory of his power in the agony of mens souls to forgive sin that men and women are becharmed into beleif of him he hath woven himself so far into their credulity that all his sayings are received as oracles all his doings as divine all his traditions as truth it self all his Administrations as Apostolical all his doctrines as Orthodox all his Arguments though confessed by himself to be weak as unanswerable and all others Administrations Actions Answers Arguments though never so consentaneous to the true sense of Scripture valued at that price which he sets upon them as if the holy chaire of Papall determination Episcopal Convention Synodical constitution could not possibly be mistaken yea the Scripture it self is but a nose of wax with him of what shape soever the CCClergy casts it into of no more authority then Aesops Fables with the Papists if the Pope say the word so as to disdate digrade it or put any part of it out of commission of no other sense then the Bishops and Synod seem to say is the sense on 't with their good Protestants so altogether Oraculous is the Pope among his the Bishop among his the Presbyter among his and even all the three several CCClergies among their three several sorts of CCCreatures that their different ipse dixits are ipso facto divine directory and discharge enough too for these different doters on them insanire cum ratione to dote to and fro by Authority so as to do and undo and do and undo and do by In a word he is too bold to be born down not so much from such things as make the righteous witnesses to truth as bold as Lions before God and men viz. the goodnesse of his cause for that is stark naughâ— and rotten nor the clearnes of his call either to his Clerical function or any actions he goes about by vertue and in persuance thereof for t is clear enough that his orders emission commission as to the external etymology of them are more from the Pope then Christ and the true Church nor any good answer of a good conscience for either his conscience is so cloudy that he cannot or so cowardly that he dares not or so resolved that he will not see or else so clear that he is condemned of himself when truth shines plainly upon his face but rather from either his great interest in or directive authority over the civil power that hath long back as well as bellyed him as in England or his having it all in his own hands and dispose as at Rome where ecce duo gladii both swords are in the Clergyes clutches so that he can quickly correct those that contradict him he is too clamorous to be silenced calling out with such a heavy noise and divine ditty against the truth and condemning it with such an outcry of Schism Schism Sedition blasphemy Heresie Heresie before he hath half heard it and so soon as ever its opening its mouths to speak that all the parish pulpits in a whole Countrey and now and then their steeples ring out in such combustion to the tune of Great is Diana of the Ephesians Act. 19 28.34 that truth hath no way wherby to silence him but to be silent her self for when she begins to declare he with his Heresie Heresie soon stops men ears he is too arrogant to be convinced he hath controuled whole nations cut of the spirit of Princes bin terrible to the kings of the Earth and devinced invincible Emperors in his time therefore may well scorn to be convinced abominate detest disdain to be directed by Russet Rabbies Apron Levites Ministerian Mechanicks illiterate Artizans
illuminated Tradesmen Christ the Carpenter Peter the Fisherman Paul the Tentmaker Aquilla and his wife Priscilla from which kind of poor folks and babes to whom it seems good in gods fight to preach the plain Gospel and reveal by his word and spirit what he hides from wise men when they will not see this prudent PPPriesthood if he were not proud might learn more truth and Gospel purity then ever was taught him by his Grand-father the Pope or any of those Clerical Councells or Ghostly fathers which he consults more with then with Christ and Scriptures The Reason of all his obstinacy against tradesmens teachings is this he knows that his trade of teaching for hire and divining for money Must fall if tradesmen begin once to turn divines and to teach truth for nothing ye know that by this craft quoth he Act. 19.25 c. we have our wealth moreover ye see and hear c. he is well aware and so are we that if he lose the lives of persecution for conscience and sprinkling of infants Iachin Boaz the two main pillars grand Supporters of his kingdom his Temple will quickly rend in to more pieces then 3 PPPs from the top to the very bottom and all his matchlesse magnitude and numberlesse priestly Prerogatives drop directly to the ground viz. his Lieutenantship to the prince of this World his Lordship over the heritage his headship over the Church his dominion over the faith his title to the tenth of every mans estate his merchandize of slaves bodies and souls of men his leave to trample the holy city and slay at pleasure the truth tellers that torment him his rich revenues dignity glory power seat and great Authority together with all the priviledges profits liberties immunities thereunto belonging All this his royalty must fail if he give ground but a little and would have failed ere this time If he had a face could blush at his own abominable blindnesse or ingenuity to confesse himself hurt or own the plain truth while his lungs will serve him in reply or Amor sui constrain him to cry heresie against the truth therefore this Diotrêphes that loves to have the preheminence over all for ever because he hath had it for a while receiveth not truth but prates against it in the pulpit and elsewhere with malicious words and though he contradict himself ever and anon in his own Sermons and discourses yet if he say any thing at all he thinks it much when wisemen weighing it find it little to the purpose Tertullian thus describes Hermogenes Loquacitatem facundiam existimaret Impudentiam constantiam deputaret c. so he when he bumbasts the pulpit and slashes the Saint Schismaticks in their absence before his people supposes he hath spoken with no small grace when t is for want of grace that he did it and that when he is most audacious against all reformation as at Rome and even that he hath sometimes sworn himself and others to as here in England when he finds it more crosse to his credit then he thought of when he undertook for t he counts them fickle unconstant that change their minds and mend their manners and himself only stable and constant to the CCChristian Religion Hence it is that the effects of Disputation with him have been not onely fâ—ustrate but dangerous dangerous I say to him no otherwise then as it overturned his Kingdome that the truth of Christ might take place but to them that disputed with him in this respect as it hath been no lesse then their pretious lives were worth once to oppose or open their mouths against him witnes Wickliff Hus Ierome of Prague and all the executions done in Queen Maries daies upon such as durst dispute against the Pope or meddle against the mass and those done in Queen Elizabeths upon Barrow Greenwood and Penry who were hang'd by Episcopal malice for professing against them and the Common-prayer which now well nigh all England hath renounc't as a corruption and what should have been done upon such as disputed against or depraved the Presbyterian directory is well known for that Clergy hath shew'd themselves so much in their Fathers colours that ere long all England will renounce both it and them and in this respect it hath been also frustrate as to peoples conviction for truths witnesses to dispute never so clearly against him for as much as he hath still stopt their mouths with the stake prison or gallows and kept his own wide open against them in the pulpit when he hath secured them from all capacity of storming him there for The common sort are apt to think those have the victory that live to speast last and that their CClergies cause is never wrackt by the cause of Christ as long as one is left alive that can speak a word in that against the other And by how much error takes with our corrupt nature more then truth by so much there is more danger of its spreading where the Roots i. e. the self love vain glory ambition covetousnesse pride Lordlines universality and cruelty of the CCClergy who are plants that our heavenly father never planted Stocks from whom stemes out a stench from whom abomination branches it self out to the corrupting therof in al quarters of the Earth Rev. 11.18.17 5.19.2 are not plucked up and rooted out for from the Priest and the Prophet profanness heresie hath gone out into all the world and spread it self like a leprosie or some raging canker and for the most part such is the resolvednesse of the CCClergy to bind the people still to a blind obedience to their blind guidance of them beside the word that Disputations with them if not carefully I mean clearly and also coolly proceeded in with love to their persons and almost without zeal against their evils which yet we must not abate them an ace of for all their anger pacem cum hominibus cum vitiis bellum they Raise more evil spirits of wrath and divellishnesse in them then we can lay because they see them raise more good spirits of doubts and earnest enquiries after truth in the people who before were wont to take their ware on trust without trial then then they can lay again while they live by all the shifts and subtleties they can devise for when once people are resolved to believe things to be heresie by hearsay no more but to fancy them according as they find them in the word and to see into the plainness of speech that is in the Scripture with their own eyes they see so much disproportion between the national Church wayes and those of the primitive Churches of the Gospel that they commonly resolve not to see at all adventures through the unclear eyes of CCClergy men any more This makes them fret and fume and fain and fiddle hither and thither which way to fasten their Heretical opinions further if it be possible on them in whom they they
stick and into whose hearts they have eaten fowl healthless holes already and to drive them deeper even with hammer and nailes if they can tell how or else to cleave whole Countries asunder with beetle and wedges Heresie is said by the Apostle to fret like a canker so that it is not the clearness nor yet the coolness nor yet the heat of a disputation can correct it in some mens hearts the tongue may heal any poisoned wound with licking of it sooner then that which the Heretick the Pope and the Priesthood hath made so deeply hath he found his heresies in the dark cells of some mens implicit consciences Athanasius his disputation with Arrius and Austins with Manickaeus are sufficient Instances Indeed it is not possible to expect any good fruit from those former grounds as to the CCClergie themselves and such of their CCCreatures as stand bent to believe all they say and never doubt it though otherwise much good may come to others that are inquisitive by disputation with them or that he which is possessed with self love and hunts so greedily after glory or gain as the CCClergie dots should be perswaded to hearken to any reason which contradicts his principles or to disclaim that waie which must advance his design What is the result of this discourse to forbid all disputation with HHHim no by no means it is necessary to stop the clamors of the adversarie to the truth who will cry out victoria if his challenge be not answered and make our sâ—leuâ—e be a confession of the truth on his side if he be not stoutly encountred with Saint Austin who was in his time called Malleus hereticorum of whom it is said that he never went so willingly to a feast as to a conference when Pascentins the Arrian bragd that he had worsted him in his dispute and those believed it which desired it yet gave not out from disputing but was onely careful to set down his disputations in writing for the future that the truth might appear vindicated from those false reports with which commonly it is blasted either by word or else by some such true counterfeit Accounts in print as that which is at this day extant of the disputation held at Ashford A Disputation orderly carried soberly proceeded with without heats and distempered passions not suffered to go out of its due bounds nor to follow every new sent that is taken up by the way nor to degenerate into quarrellings and hasty fals chargings of the Anabaptists as this and that they know not what without proving them such or disproving their doctrines as if others do not I do know more then one place where and where more then once too it hath been so will contribute much to the clearing of truth the begetting of doubts in them that yet never doubted but blindly believed the contrary The removing of doubts in them that are already in doubts about it and putting it out of all doubt to them all in the end that all is not so well yet as it ought to be with the very reforming Clergy and that their parochial posture is popish and their constitution ordination administrations baptism and the supper is all disorderly and out of joint to the confirming of the strong that stand fast in the true faith the recovery of the laps't world that hath departed from the faith Gospel Baptism Church order which was once delivered to the Saints and been seduced from Christ by the Scholastical incroachments of the CCClergy and as it may chance in time if the civil powers that have preferred them would come once to favour the truth the convincing â—he SSSeducer it is rare so to mannage one among an unskilful multitude where the auditors take themselves no lesse engaged then their champions and will be ready on all hands too much but an 100 fold more for ought I find among the parochial party then the other disorderly to break the lists which hath made so many able Scholars not in mans onely but in Christs School also almost averse from undertaking it but unless their be sufficient caution against such exorvitatances as jangling with bells to drownd all audience of truth and counter speeches of non-sense rather then nothing to interrupt him that is about to speak the truth and noise of shouting if it were possible to shame the truth and such like geer as I have met with in my daies better be no disputation at all nor preaching of truth among such it being if not a giving of that which is holy to dogs and casting of pearles before swine which will turn again and rent you yet at least impossible any thing should come of it that good is and yet even that shall be no hurt to the Ministers of Christ that are approved in tumults yet cannot help it but blasphemy to the truth stumbling to the weak parishioners that stumble enough already poor souls the Lord help them to see their preachers violently oppose preaching and proving the truth out of the Scriptures a kind of shamefull Glory to the adversaries of the truth the PPPriesthood from some a glorious shame to the undertakers for it There is therefore a better way for the true Pastors of the true Churches and specially the Churches messengers to the world in which to oppose the approach of heresies which the parish Pastors make mickle use of to oppose the truth by under the names of Anabaptism at least in their Respective flocks and that is by preaching To argue substantially against them to convince them soundly is the best in the pulpit if they can freely get in a place wherein one might have hid ones self for a month together or more and sometimes a year from some parish Priests non-resident Parsons divinity Doctors but specially the lazy Lord Bishops not very long since but now to keep out the Anabaptists more frequented by some Priests then else it would be a place which is secured much and yet not alwayes neither when plain truth tellers are in it from those incursions to which disputations are subject It is worth observation that neither Transubstantion nor consubstantion have so much as appeared in these days wherin so many old Heresies as infant sprinkling for one which as a mad bul having its deaths blow on the forehead struggles more then ever are in a sort revived and stickled for and plyed with new and fresh assaults and unheard of arguments for t was pleaded for but as a tradition mostly in times above us as well as new ones broached And the reason is because all Ministers in these parts good and bad true false even the Priests themselves in their Sermons provided for the sacrament have every where oppugned them as having indeed no cleer colour in them of either Scripture common sense or reason as neither hath infant sprinkling if the National Ministers would once wisely consider it The learned Hooker observes that in Poland so
c. Last of all to mourn for the calamities of the true Church which hath for this 1600 yeares been spoiled and under clouds and partly by the Roman Empire Heathen partly by the Roman Empire Christian been trod under the feet of tyrranical truth trâ—aders the losse of souls the Scandal of true Religion which is and hath been every where spoken against houses and lands wives and children goods and liberties when lost consumed destroyed are lamented by us should not Châ—ists losses be more dear and how much more the losse of Christ himself who as he told of that ecclipse of that primitive entercourse which he had with his people then by the interposition and comming of the prince of this world between him and them so hath now of a long time been a great stranger in all Christendome On What comfort had it been to have had the Son of God walkisg with us may the Chrâ—stian world say in the midst of the flames that have devoured and wasted in all corners of it but specially the third part of Christian men which hath been killed by the fire and by the smoak and by the brimstone which issued out of the mouths of the four Angels that were bound before in the great River Euphrates i. e. the four cruel Territories of the Turkish Empire united all under one head viz. Ottoman the Great some 390 years ago and from thenceforth getting ground on this side Euphrates to no lesse then a third part of Christendome as being indeed prepared for an hour a day a month a year i. e. 391. years to slay the third part of nominall Christians with most inhumane mercilessenesse and cruelty Rev. 9 12. ad sinem I say what comfort would it have been to have â—ad not onely the name but the spiritual presence of Christ preserving for those that were consumed in that divellish devastation but alas the Heresies Blasphemyes and abominable idolatries of the Christian nations have made him depart and leave the men that meerly by name are Christians to utter distress and darknesse without either succour or support under such bloudy sufferings those sins where not so much suffered in civil States for that may be as set up and stablished as the onely Christianity to be allowed of as they have been by the national Antichristian Christian Churches so that true Christianity is suppressed and suffers for the sake out and for nonconformity thereunto are ever and ever will be the forerunners of the removal of his Candlestick and of the destruction of the very denomination of Church at last among that people that have a name to live and are dead However let us O ye that are the true Christian Churches Mourn for our own sins those sins which have provoked God so much to wrath against his true Churches in former times are beginning to be too rife among us therefore why may he not justly if we lay it not to heart in time deal so with us as of old with them so as to dischurch us so as to lay open our fence â—read down our hedge break down our Tower and expose his vine to every beast of the Forrest let us be zealous and repent and in secret let our souls weep for the abominations done in the midst of Sion let horror take hold on us and rivers of tears run down our eyes because men keep not Christs law le ts mend what we can and mourn for what we cannot mend and whilest as the Ranter and his Rout laughs our weak works to scorn on the one hand so the CCClergy and their Clients on the other puff at our Mechanick buildings as Sanballaâ— scoffed at the Iewes Neb. 4.1 2 3 saying in malice and mockage What do these feeble folk will they fortify themselves against our Orthodox Divines will they sacrifice without a Priest among them will they make an end in a day to reform which is many a years work for a learned Synod will they revive the stones even the dead bones of old Hereticks out of the heaps of rubbish that are burnt that which they build if a fox go up he shall even break down their stone wall le ts not be discouraged nor afraid to proceed in the way and work of the Lord let them laugh but let us weep for them as well as not spare to reprove them so far as we have any hope to reform them let them curse but let us blesse yea let us fast and pray not with Wednesday and good Fryday fasts and Lent'n Letanies nor with the Pharisees twice a week fasts who paid tith and refused to submit to Christs baptism nor yet with Jezebells fasts who set honest Naboath on high and accused him of blasphemy on that day with so much the greater advantage and finer pretence as if the Clergy did not when they obtained fasts against hereticks t will not repent them so much another time as some think it may yet of those repentances nor yet with the Jews fasts that fasted for strife and debate and to smite with the fist of wickednesse that hung down their heads for a day like a bulrush and thought God was half beholding to them for it because they spread sackcloath and ashes under them though they neither loosed the bands of wickednesse nor let the oppressed go free nor undid heavy burdens nor broak every yoak nor dealt their bread to the hungrie nor brought the poor that were cast to their houses nor coveted the naked when they saw them but rather hid themselves from their own flesh and hardned their hearts against the poor and heaped up riches for themselves and oppressed full as much and it may be much more then before shall we call these fasts and acceptable daies to the Lord Isa. 58 they are all abominable rather then acceptable Therefore let us fast as well from as for iniquity and what ever others do let us serve the Lord let us call for justice and plead for truth let us not defile our hands with blood nor our fingers wiith iniquity let our lips speak no lies nor our tongue mutter perversenesse let us not hatch cockatrice egges nor weave such spiders webs as have been woven in the Nations to entangle tender consciences in and make the poor harmlesse flies a very prey to their malevolent intentions so shall we cause our voice to be heard on high let us thus fast and pray and with fasting and prayer endeavour the casting out of every blind and deaf and dumb devil and beseech the Lord that the eyes of the Priesthood and their People may be opened to see their eares unstopped that they may hear the truth their tongues unloosed that they may be preachers of it indeed as now they are in pretence and in word onely and no more Christian Reader that ownest the truth if thou beest profited so as to discern between Christs way and the CCClergies more clearly then ever give God the glory for
dominions the same for they rule but over all and you over no more then you can subject the subject matter of your churches the same viz. whole England whole Scotland whole Common-wealths the whole world at once if it would as Catholikely submit to your directory as it did once to the Popes in point of worships and payments at least whether godly in their conversations or no your parish form the same your Ministry a Ministry by the same orders and mostly of the same men new moulded not so much in mind and manners as in manner of ministration according to the laws for alteration in a word your whole Hierarchy though new suited so far the same that you are no lesse Cozen Germane to them then they two are one unto another why may it not I say be proportionably reproved notwithstanding a number of honest and godly men among those that are not more numberlesse then so godlesse that they may well say of themselves Nos numeri sumus fruges consumere nati 5. Specially since the best men are by so much unworthy to be justifyed favored in the false form they are found in by how much in some respects they do more wrong to the truth then the very worst that are in that wrong way with them For though the wicked Ministers are the worst both to themselves and to all others otherwise whether Popes Prelates Presbyters or Popish Priests of of any kind yet herein the best are worst and even more injurious then any viz. as they are greater stumbling blocks to some and by standing still in a superstitious way stand more in the way of such as living more at a venture by their example in all things then the word would else escape it then prophane ones are capable to do thus pious Priests that are adored as Popes in their several parishes more dazzle their peoples eyes from discovering the whole mystery both of iniquity and godlynesse then dissolute rude proud paultry ones possibly can when once the Gospel comes among them yea Pope Caelestinus Pope Clemens Pope Innocentius Pope Pius Pope Formosus Pope Vrbanus do more captivate their cures to continuance in crooked customes then either Leo or Helbrandus When men in a false Ministry are any better then ordinary in their persons though never so Antichristian in their performances yet how many are hardened to the heeding of these as Christian enough for their sakes but when they are not onely traditionary in their services but impious and impenitent in their lives this renders not onely their deformation more discernable but also reformation more desirable then else it would be so as corruptio optimi est pessima the pervertures of good men are most prejuditious if not pernitious to the truth ex malis moribus bonae nascuntur leges the parish Ministers immodest manners makes modest men look out for some better lawes and Gospel There 's one thing more I know you will charge me with for you Ashford Disputants did once before thousands when there was seemingly lesse occasion then now viz. that I am too sharp and Satyrical that I rail at and revile you in stiling you an Adulterous generation Antichristian Hereticall Schismaticall To which I say first that though some of you would have muzzled me up then by an Article from that which you call reviling least happily I should have unmaskt you too much yet in your sense that Article shall not bind me at this time with your leave for you call that reviling that is not so would you set your selves soberly once to reason things out i. e. to discern them properly as they are you would find that no man is reviled that is seasonably and soberly declared and denominated to be but what he is for be the titles we note men by never so grosse yet are they but their proper names if in all things suitable to the subject hence though I can excuse your ignorance in terming me Anabaptist for that 's impropriation indeed yet I le more then pardon you print me out how you will so you print me no worse then you prove me and as for me whatever stile I put upon you as I do it in a serious and not lusory way so I make it out to be your due as also what you Presbyters put upon the Prelates and you Prelates upon the Popedome viz. the denomination of Antichristian Strumpet Babylon and such like you make plainly enough appear to be their due and therefore I cannot possibly be said properly to revile you forasmuch as upon the self same Account as you cry out upon each other and use these disgracefull and opprobious termes as you term them towards one another I as justly cry out in the same language against you all unlesse you will yield to it as I know you will not that you are Revilers your selves If what I say of you be indeed more then the truth I le not onely expect your contradiction but accept thankfully your correction of me from the word but if you cannot from thence deny but that I call you what you are then as you will not be guilty of overcharging your selves as well as me you must acquit me from the guilt of reviling for as I lend you no worse language then you lend one another in the like cases so as I plead my innocency in it must you plead your own else can you be held guiltlesse no more then I but we must all be revilers togegether When the Pope challenges the Prelatical party for stiling him the Roman Antichrist and the mystical Whore of Babylon and the Prelates likewise come upon Presbytery for making them as much Babylon as the other for so doth Mr. Rutherford the Scotchman calling the two Governments of Italy and England the Popes and Prelates lawlesse Church Monarchy saying of the Prelate that he could not find his Father and was ashamed of his native Father Diotrephes i. e. the Pope and that the Pope was his Godfather and Rome his Godmother and that Antichristian Prelacy was but spilt Popery half dyed Papistry terming them also children of Babell when also I say you of the Presbytery are challenged by the Bishops and the Prelacy by the Popes for revilers in the words wherein you challenge us and wherein Paul was questioned for his term Thou wâ—ited wall viz revilest thou Gods high Priest you can excuse your selves no otherwise then he did i. e. we wist not that you are Gods high Priests but are assured you are rather what we call you even so if you shall say to my self revilest thou the Ministers of Christ I say Sirs I wist not that you are Ministers of Christ any more then the Pope himself i. e. as much as just nothing for as quod efficit tale must be magis tale vertually at least if not formally so nil dat quod in se non habet so that the Roman Antichrist being no true one
himself and in no commission from Christ to make his Ministers could not secundum te O Presbyter make those true Ministers that made those that made them that made these that make you and so what ere you are as from him yet as from Christ you are no Ministry at all but in very deed the very same that I cal you viz. of the Beast and of the Dâ—agon as also the three fold CCChristendome of whom you say that they are Jewes i. e. Christians when they are not are no other then the Synogogue of Satan In all which so far am I from reviling that I speak the words of sobernesse and truth which whoever does may not unlikely be reviled as a reviler by you but is a faithfull reprover indeed for it is not simply vile terms spoken that make a reviler if spoken both seriously and in season but their non agreeablenesse to them they are spoken of for else undoubtedly not onely your selves who spake as vilely of the Pope as I of you but Iohn Baptist Peter Paul yea and Christ Iesus himself none of which reviled at all though upon occasion of their enmity against God they called men whom else they respected well enough too by the name of Satan evil and adulterous generation Generation of Vipers children of the devil enemies of all righteousnesse bruit beasts Foxes Doggs Swine c. must all be revilers with you too This take therefore from me and let it satisfy viz. that I le never fasten any terms upon you which by your works you first fasten not on your selves yet know that persisting as you have done under the notion of Christs Ministers in pride and perversenesse against his Gospel though I should never call you Deceivers Antichristian and the WWWhore of BBBabylon yet you l prove your selves to be so in the end Now therefore Oh HHHarlot hear and fear for I have heard from the Lord of Hosts a consumption determined upon thee throw out the whole earth thou hast being well mounted harnased and attired upon the back of thy beast made warr against the Lamb in his Saints thy Hereticks for fourty two moneths a time times and a half or 1260 years and power hath been given thee and the beast which thou spurrest to overcome them and over kindreds tongues and nations so that all that dwell upon earth have worshipped him and thee on him whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world yea thou hast opened thy mouth in blasphemies and caused thy beast under thee to blaspheme the name of God and his Tabernacle and them that dwell in heaven yea thou hast spoken great words against the most High and worn out the Saints of the most high and thought to change times and lawes and they have been given into thy hand so that who was like to thee and thy beast who was able to encounter and make war with him but now behold thy proud times are ended and the Lamb will overcome thee for he is King of Kings and Lord of Lords and they that are with him are called and chosen and faithful and thou that hast led into captivity shalt go into captivity and thou that hast killed with the sword must be killed by the sword here is the patience and faith of the Saints And the very ten hornes themselves even all the kingdomes of Christendome into whose hearts it hath been put to give thee all their power and strength as well as the tith of all their glory and riches and carnall things upon thy pretence of ministring to them in spiritual all which thou hast swom upon been born up and fortifyed by as Babylon of old by the River Euphrates and with all which thou hast as with so many hornes of a savage beast tossed bruised gored the sides of Saints under the name of Sinners even these shall now turn upon thee and unhorse thee yea they shall hate thee O Whore and make thee desolate and naked and burn thy flesh with fire so that all thy lovers great and small and thy Merchants that have been rich by trading as in other things so especially in bodies and souls of men shall bewail and lament when they see the smoak of thy burning saying Alas Alas for thee whilest Gods people that are first come out of thee yea whole heaven and all the holy Apostles and Prophets who now suffâ—r under thee for telling thee the truth and shall be avenged of thee shall rejoice over thee at thy downfall You will hardly give audience O ye Priests to this word but some of you rather cry out against me as multitudes of your Churches good children did some few dayes since in Smithfield when by one of the City Marshals meerly for preaching the Gospel to thousands there assembled to hear it I was betrayed into their hands to be abused saying away with him away with him hang him t is pitty but he should be stoned and such like hue and cryes as were heard of old others of you Seers may be ready to call to me scoffingly out of your mount Sier watchman what of the night watchman what of the night but whether you will hear or whether you will forbear I tell you Sirs the morning cometh and also your dead night therefore if you will enquire enquire quickly return and come to the truth before the fierce anger of the Lord come upon you or if it may not be said as of old it was that many of the Priests were obedient unto the faith yet Oh that many of your people would know in their day the things that make for their peace before they be hid from their eyes and partake no more of your sins least they partake of your plagues but if IIIezebel and her lovers will lie in bed together and not repent when God gives them space to repent of their fornications then me thinks I hear a noise among them as of those that are in hellish tribulation yelling out from beneath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Alas Alas whilst from above a voice of much people in heaven saying Hallelujah Hallelujah for now our Lord will raign And judge that Scarlet WWWhore who still doth fain Her self to be Christs Spouse and so maintain Her self a Qeen the world her slaves in chain Though like a Quean she doth the whole earth stain Wiâ—h Whoredomes and Saints blood whom she hath slain Three PPParts three CCCrowns three HHHeads of subtle brain A TTTripple TTTribe Rides Christndom t is plain And like Hells three mouth'd Monster stands to strain Souls that scape thence and bark them back again Yet when t is told this Minx this whore in grain Frowns Frets Hates Teares Fumes Threats Storms Fomes amain But IIIezebel wo to thy house refrain Thy pride thy lies thy wrath like that of Cain Thy filth thy self thy greediness of gain Else as thy mirth hath been shall be thy pain This
all your eyes to see those sorry shifts wherein you shroud your selves for a time from your own sight so that ye see not when ye interfeer nor feel when you hack your own shins for who so blind as those that cannot see how you act quite contrary to that you argue for and overthrow your own principles by your practise Report These Propositions say you were as followeth First that both parties should publiquely protest that they sought for verity not victory Reply I acknowledge this is very true and it was protested on both sides accordingly as was agreed nevertheless whether it be the Proud Priest-hood that seeks to tuck all men under their girdles and by force to tye high and low rich and poor Prince and people male and female bond and free to serve God in no other way than the Pope or their Arch-bishops or Arch-presbyteries appoint and to tread all under them that with never such evidence of Scripture and demonstration of the Spirit and power do gainsay them or that poor party of people who meerly in order to the promotion of truth rejoicingly subject themselves to scorn shame hatred of all revilings from friends foes neighbors old acquaintance c. whether I say it be those or these alià s you or we that pretend verity and intend onely victory will appear more at large in the examination of the 23. page of your book in the first line whereof you charge us therewith as an evil most specially incident unto us mean while I let it pass and go on Report Secondly that the question to be disputed was Paedo-baptism namely whether the baptizing of little Children born of believing parents practised by the Church of God were lawfull Reply I remember indeed that when 't was questioned what the question should be Paedo-baptism was agreed upon to be it i. e. whether children ought to be baptized but had I been as wise as a Wood-Cock or minded the matter so well as I should have done I had spoken in a language more consonant to your practice for Paedo-rantism was the question I intended i. e. whether children ought to be sprinkled for though Baptism or Dipping of Infants is that the lawfullness of which you will never be able to demonstrate an error lying still in the Subject in case you did as â—n truth you do not dispense it yet you are gone further from the truth then so no more at best than Rantizing that false Subject which to do is indeed no Baptism at all I excepâ—ed against this in my Position as well as the â—ther but your prudence was pleased to leave it out in your accurate Account thereof least it should do you more harm than good and asserted your errour to be double in your dispensation of that you call Baptism viz. first in that you plead to have Infants be baptized when they ought not Secondly in that you pretend to bapâ—ize them and yet do not of both which I demanded an account at that time and in all reason you should have given it but not caring how little your sprinkling is spoken of because you have little or nothing to speak for it you so took me at my word at the Table when I yielded to dispute Paedo-baptism that Paedo-ranâ—ism your only practise might not be medled with in discourse at all Secondly I observe when ever you come to dispute for your Childish-christenings you plead only for the Infants of Believers but is not your plea by far too narrow for your practise whilest you commonly christen the Infants of all you know your people are not all in the faith why else do you preach to them as prophane to the end you may convert them thereunto yet the wickedest wretches you so keep from the Supper that you often keep all from it for their sakes have access with their seed to be christened as freely for the most part as the other doth not that same faith that denominates men believers saints godly and gives them and as you say theirs too a true title to Baptism intitle their persons to the Supper or must a man bring you another and that a better kind of faith to the one than he had need care for toward the other this some of your Tribe do not blush to say because as the case is there is nought else to be said but know ye Sirs and they too that though you have your several sorts of Saints for your severall services viz. your grosser sort of believers to admit not in their own persons neither when at years but in their posterity only to your Rantism and a finer sort for the Supper yet Christ requires but one sort of faith and saintship to both these ordinances viz. no more than a true one to the one and no less than a true one to the other Again you had much need had you not think you to set children of believing parents as the only subjects of Baptism in the staâ—e of the question between us when throughout your whole Dispute as I shall shew when I come to consider it there is not a tittle nor grain of argument brought by you to prove the right of Believers Infants to Baptism but it serves as much every whit to prove the like for the Infants of Vnbelievers also yea Sirs take this from me you do your cause a world of wrong in stating your question so streightly for besides that you give the ly therein to your own action which is the admission of all that are brought to you and are born within the precincts of your parishes you drive your selves to such a Dilemma by your own disputes that you will not know how to open your Church-doors for Believers Infants to come in thereat but Vnbelievers Infants will with ease creep in at them too Thirdly one word more to this yet Did your Respondent assent to you in it as you seem to say that the Baptism of children is practised by the Church of God how pretily have you put these terms practised by the Church of God into the very question and that too as it stands stated beeween us Did I give and grant so much or have you not rather taken it for granted from me whether I will or no Sirs I had thought I had given you sufficient evidence of my denial that the Baptism of Infants is practised by the Church of God yea though the Church of the Pope and such as you call the Church of God as the Church of the Prelate the Church of the Presbyter and some others too do dispense Rantism to Infants under the name of Baptism yet I did then as also I do still deny it to be or have been practised by any true Church of God primitive or modern that then was or now is visibly constituted according to his will in the word As for what you call the Church of God whether you mean all Christendome or the Protestant part of it only it is
things 1 Cor. 13. strengthneth all things beautifieth all things composeth all things the contrary to which weakneth maâ—reth ruinateth consumeth Gal. 5. confoundeth all things in the Church Iam. 3â— it is not apt to see things amisse more then she must needs and if it cannot but see them she will hidâ— and rover them what she may with a safe conscience especially the nakednesse of her father and the shame of her mother unless they both prove so abominably impudent and shamelesse as like to the false National and Parochial Churches and their ghostly fathers palpably to play the harlot under pretence of holinesse to the Lord and then she may not hold her peace but cry out upon 't as she will not be held accessary to their sins and guilty of the losse of love to the Lord her self she extenuates faults in very enemies so far as they are enemies to us onely and not God for she hates them that hate him and can shew but little favour to their faults however she will not aggravate them in brethren it is not a light matter will work dislike in her of the brotherhood much lesse departure and divorce she covers a multitude of offences and will not upon such trivial ones such meer mole-hills as the sensualists of these times stumble at in the true Churches break forth into distemper and rage oh where is the charity of the true Church in these times where is the Cherub that covereth certainly if this of love had been the temper of all Christians and disciples in the true Churches as t is pretended to be theirs in the highest by such as are gone out from them mistaking lust for love the breach the rent of the Ranters from the true Church had not been so great nor the wound or separation of that Schismatick so grievous it must be a great and unsufferable crime and that evidently proved must make charity break the bonds of peace even that of perverting the primitive Gospel changing Christs laws and falsifying his ordinances in their forms and subjects depraving his Divine institutions defiling corrupting violating adulterating his holy will and testament worshipping God in vain teaching for doctrine the traditions of men and she will not then depart by separation till she despaires of Redresse which was the Protestants case with their once holy mother the Church of Rome when she prov'd a strumpet the Presbyterian with their Ghostly fathers the Prelatick Priests the Independents with the Presbyters the Baptists with the Independents and all the rest but not the Seekers case with the Baptists for they act in all things according to the primitive pattern shewed in the word as for all the rest viz. the Po-Prela-Presbyter-Independent Pastoralty and people they are altogether out of the way and more or lesse corrupt and traditional in their constitutions and dispensations to this day 8. If doubts arise about the true form and right subjects of baptism go not to Seducers or parish PPPriests for resolution for they are not very well resolved about it some saying t is of God some of men some that t is to be done to this end and purpose some to that some upon one kind of account some upon another as is discovered above in the Re-Review they pretend at least to be seekers themselves and pray for more light for both themselves and their people yet smoother it still as it rises upon them yea many of them are so taken up with minding means and money that they mean not to find truth nor follow it faster then it goes along with tith go not therefore I say to them That is dubius ad dubios caecus ad caecos saith Tertullian in another case for the blind to be lead by the blind yea these are the blind guides of their blinder people whom having themselves forgotten Christs Law they cause to erre these are the staff to which people trust and lean that declare their own falsehoods instead of Christs truth these are the stocks of which they ask councel that would have all men hang upon their mouths and take things for truth as they come out by common consent from them and tell us that Gods advice is Ask the Priest and so it was concerning the Law Hag. 2.12 for the Priests lips should keep knowledge and they should seek the Law at his mouth but verily as t was said of the Priests of old Mal. 2.1 ad 10. so may it much more truly be said now the Priests will not hear the Lords commandements and will not lay it to heart to give glory to his name therefore God sends a curse upon them and blasts their understandings and blinds their eyes and curses their blessings because they lay it not to heart Indeed they bid us Ask the Priest as if they were very forward to resolve men but alas as many of them are not much minded to be resolved themselves in that point which intrenches too much upon their interest so much lesse are they minded for the most part in order to the resolution of others to render any reason of their way of baptism at all before their people I have been more then either an eye or an ear witnesse of not onely the rigid refusals to answer but also the rough repulses that have been given by some of chiefest note in our County of Kent to such as have never so modestly propounded questions to them or demanded an account of the truth of their practise in their publick places And how no answer but no answer Dr. Chamberlain had from Dr. Gouge to this question Whether the sprinkling of Infants were of God or man is known sufficiently to all though it was pressed on him in three or four letters by all the rationall and Christian considerations that could be possible yea though he intreated him to return him an answer for his own sake to return him an answer for Dr. Gouges own sake to return him an answer for the peoples sake to return him an answer for Gods sake yet how did he put him off with delaies as if the businesse were now dubious to himself when as formerly he had acknowledged that it was a tradition of the Church and would give answer nec per se nec per se Synodum When therefore they shall say unto you ask the Priest seek unto us I say seek not unto them that say they seek but are loath to find themselves or at least are afraid that men should find and see all that which they cannot clearly deny to be the truth seek not to them that peep and that mutter and speak not out as if the matter were not momentary to be mentioned as if they were in a quandary whether it be safe or no to seek too seriously after the truth oâ—t should not a people seek unto their God for the living to the dead to the law and to the testimony your selves oh yee people if they speak not plainly