thee as it were a Shipboard or into the Ark sealing Christ with his benefits unto thee which shall not be pulled off and made Null and therefore need not to be iterated and set to again the first being still of force and efficacy to all true believers in Christ and repenters of sin Thus I have shewed you Sir how most men yea all men who have been Baptized in their Infancy may and ought to look upon themselves as Baptized in their Infancy which you seem to condemn and that to very good purpose and benefit and whereas you adde as the other part of your condemning them for their not looking after the Command of Christ to be baptized when they believe will you have them look after that is not to be seen or found nay have you seen or found out such a Commandment I pray Si lend or sell no some of your eye-salve to annoint our eyes for by and from that eye-salve in the 3. of Rev. 18. wherewith we have anointed our eyes according to Christs Council there given we cannot see from the one end of the New Testament to the other any such Commandement for persons baptized in their Infancy to be baptized when they believe And yet as if you had revealed and brought to light some rare matter of Salvation you have a very scrious and devout epilogue that it your considerations should be considered without a selfiish prejudicial Spirit a Spirit willing to he guided by the Spirit of the Lord according to his word of truth and the Scriptures truly red and interpreted by the Spirit of the Lord which are quoted to prove the Assertions It will appear to every honest and unbyassed Spirit that Infant-Baptism is a great and dangerous errour for ever to be rejected of every Soul that expects Salvation by Christ Jesus What a Cackling is here made upon the laying of an addle egge or rather what a Crowing is here upon the Treading out of a few idle considerations you have the faculty of entitling upon the Spirit and the Scriptures that which they being the Spirit and Scriptures of Truth own not your considerations and interpretations though very seldom you give interpretations them you leave for me to make quotatious and considerations enough you bring and those to no purpose or proof as I have particularly demonstrated where you cite them I leave it to the Honest and unbyassed Spirits to judge and determine whether the Texts you have cited were pertinent to your Consideration or according to your meaning or interpreting if you have given any whether Infant-Baptism be a great and dangerous errour for evewr to be rejected because now opposed of you which ever was a good and Religions Truth ever practised amongst the Saintt because recommended of Christ and the Apostles whether youts or mine be a selfish and prejudiciall Spirit I confess my Spirit is prejudiciall to yours your opinions as your Spirit is prejudicate to mine and thoughts Lastly whether your considerations be not as inconsiderate in the writer so inconsiderable to the Reader However you think so well of them that you go on to more of them when its time to have done with such selfish things and in the next place offer to me some of your considerations upon Act. 2.39 The which if I thought they were no more considerate nor considerable than your former I would consider a while upon it whether or no I should take them into consideration at all or pass by them as inconsiderable And such indeed they seem to be and upon the General view I find them so for in them all there are nothing but answers and solutions made to objections not set down Refutations and denyals of a sense before it be any where mentioned is not this Cart before the Horse which a Carter methinks should not do a consideration without consideration which a Consideratour I am sure should not do we had before your judgment setled out of Quaeres this is as bad your answers to no objections your refuting no Exposition of ours Well as all the way hitherto I have ordered your matters for you so I see I must do so still or else we shall make no work of it at least have no orderly proceeding in it First therefore let the sense of that Text be given and the argument drawn out of it for Infant Baptism which I will do for you and then after let the refutation of that sense and the Answers to that Argument be added or subjoyned the which you shall do for me Peter having preached here unto the Jess and laid to their charge the death and crucifying of Jesus Christ and brought them to some apprehension of their horrid sins at the 38 Verse exhorteth them to repent and be baptized into the Name of the same Jesus Christ and to accept him for their Messias the which he doth upon this reason and ground mentioned in the 39 Vers and drawn from the benefit that should redound not to the mselves onely but to their Children by their believing in Christ The which he proves from the Promise made to them and their Children In plainer and larger words thus it is God hath remembred his Covenant in sending that blessed Seed in whom he promised to be the God of Abraham and his Seed know ye therefore that as God made the Promise of Grace in Christ to come and to be exhibited unto Abraham upon his believing and took also his Children and Posterity into Covenant with him not onely the natural Jews but even amongst all Nations whoever became followers of Abraham's Faith should by vertue of the same inherit Abraham's Promise That he would be their God and the God of their Seed also which should also be taken into the same Covenant so now this blessed Seed in whom the Promise was founded being now come and exhibited would make it good to you all Jews and Gentiles who would believe in him and notwithstanding your cruel practises against him and your crucifying of him if you will believe in this Lord of life and your Messias you shall thereby be in as good or better condition under this last Administration for your selves and your children as in the former therefore deprive rot your selves by your impenitency and infidelity of so great a benefit as may come to your selves and Posterity for the Promise is made to you and your Children c. what Promise or the Promise of what for so I will clear the Text of some exceptions the Promise of the extraordinary Gifts of the Holy Ghost so say some of you that you may the better turn this off from Infants of Believers baptized It is true they are promised also in the Verse before and I acknowledge they were Appendants to the Primitive Baptismes of the adult and peculiar to the first times for the more abundant confirmation of their Faith as Act 10 11. who were converted to it from Paganism and
your flesh Interperate what 's that is it not Intemperate or interprate sure it is not to interpret Scripture No marvel indeed if you would have me To confider of these things you have written with an unbiassed spirit and a self-denying humble spirit such as those spirits are that are guided by the spirit of the Lord For surely then your spirit hath not been guided by the Spirit of the Lord as which is or hath been in your Letter a byassed spirit and an all other besides your self denying proud spirit and therefore without any just ground you arrogate those words of the Apostle to your own practise saying as he 2 Cor. 2.17 We are not as many which corrupt or deal deceitfully with the Word but as of seneâ—rity sincerity but as of God in the sight of God speak we in Christ What you speak when you are teaching and expounding or praying I know not this I know by the experience you have given of your self to me that in your writing and citing Scriptures in your Letter you are the most corrupter and the most deceiptful dealer and wrester also of Scripture that ever I read I do not know many scarce any that go beyond you except your Masters and Tutours you know whom I mean and your sincerity is as false spoken as written of you if as of sincerity as of God in the sight of God you shall speak in Christ it will be acceptable as to God so to man and my self if renouncing the hidden things of dishonesty not walking in craftiness not handling the Word of God deceitfully but by manifestation of the truth you commend your self to every mans conscience in the sight of God as you add of your selfe 2 Cor. 4.2 Comparing spiritual things with spiritual but so you did not when you compared the holy and legitimates together and the unclean with bastards to go no farther backward And Scripture with Scripture for Scripture is the best Interpreter of Scripture neither did you so when you could finde no Scripture to compare with 1 Cor. 7.14 that either did interpret or intimate bastards to be unclean and much less fignified by this word there or legitimates to be holy and much less meant by this word there For that in the close of your Letter which concerneth my self in particular as That you should gladly see better fruits from me If I knew what fruits you mean I should soon tell you whether or no I should ever glad you so much as to see them but if they relate to which immediately goeth before them the wresting of Scriptures by Humane learning I must tell you that the root that I am graffed into and which beareth me shall ever I hope bring forth better fruits though I question your gladness in seeing them as being opposite to your fruits who throughout your whole Letter have been gathering yea pulling and enforcing thornes of grapes and thistles of figs divers errorneous Tenets from Texts that will not nor can bear them the which I am sorry to see from you And for your intreating me to lay aside all selfe-ends and by-respects you must pardon me herein for I took up the defence of my self and my Ministery and Infant-Baptism as well as of others making both my end next unto Gods glory and the truth without any other by respects which I must not upon your request lay aside but for that which followeth I have seriously considered the things and words of God spoken by the Spirit of God in the Scriptures which were all written for our learning and imitation yea moreover have enformed you in particular how far forth all which were written for our learning were written for our imitation some of them and some of them not which you indistinctly and confusedly jumble together yea and according to your farther intreaty I have turned to and looked into all those Scriptures you have but quoted and named and not written out for want of time as you say and have writ out all the words of most of them as who never want time to search out the Truth of the Scriptures if I want not health Your self best know whether it was for want of time or for want of truth you did not transcribe the words as making most an end nothing to the purpose or Point for which you set down and multiplied Chapters and Verses by their figures onely and whether this was Not walking in craftiness nor handling the Word of God deceiptfully but by a manifestation of the Truth a commending your self to every mans Conscience whether this was of sincerity as of God as in the sight of God spoken or written judge you but judge righteous judgement for God will who trieth the heart c. For that in the close still of your Letter which concerneth your self it is your desire that wherein you have erred I would inform you by plain Scripture It is done to your hand but I fear it is not gone to your heart whose heart was and is I surmise resolved before hand as your hand laid upon your heart to that purpose of not acknowledging any error or submitting to information for what hope or likelihood is there hereof when as presently you adde You are confident heare here is nothing aserted asserted nor queared but will now appeare a truth proved by Scriptures and likewise will appeare at the great day Wherefore then do you intreat me to weigh things seriously and if you have erred in any thing to inform you when as you are confident here is nothing asserted or quaered but will now appear a truth just as the man in the Gospel professed to follow our Saviour Christ and went away presently about other matters of no such consequence you likewise say you will be informed by me wherein you have erred and in the next words you are confident of nothing asserted or quaered by you here but the very Truth I am perswaded the work will be much alike the informing you to the laying down of any error of yours and the washing of a Leopard to the putting off any of its spots But I should gladly see better fruits from you than such a non resolution and brasse-forehead which for the most part is in most of the Revolters from our Church and the Truth as not to be conformed and converted when informed confuted notwithstanding Though I have laboured in vain and spent my strength for nought and in vain yet surely my judgement is with the Lord and my work with my God Isa 49.4 But Sir are you confident that there is nothing â—sserted or quaered but will appear a Truth what that which is asserted by you may appear let passe buâ— sure that which is quaered by you here will not now appear a Truth neither now nor never will it be a Truth no not at the great day that which is quaered onely your Quaeres were your judgement as you affirmed before now you affirm they are a
Truth proved by Scriptures and yet but propounded in Quaeres and what will they be at the last your Quaeres will appea you say a Truth also at the last and great day you will be deceived then as now for your Quaeres are not Resolutions Decrees Axioms but Quaeres it doth not yet appear what is Truth in them to your self or any others put them out of Question into Propositions come out of your Quaeres into your Resolves and then I will tell you whether now in the later little daies they do or in that last great day they will appear a Truth or Truths In particular to passe by your Questions and Quaeres your Sacrilegious Usurpation to Preach Baptize and distribute the Sacramental Bread and Wine your injurious Detension of Christian Infants from Baptism the Seal of the Covenant God made with them also your ridiculous dopping and plunging of grown persons over head and ears back ward in a Pond who were before Baptized in their infancy in the face of the Congregation your Scrismatical separation from your Parochial and National fellow members professing truth and holiness your Scurrilous railing upon the true visible Church of England and the Ministers thereof as Baalitish Devillish and Antichristian professing and worshiping Christ Jesus and God in spirit and truth with a world more of fraudulent misinterpreting and misapplyings of sacred writ virulent Caluminations of holy Truth violent oppositions of lawful order uncharitable imaginations and contempts of higher Powers and all persons who are not of your S ct and Set can I think or any man else whose brains and heads have not been intoxicated by a superfluous re-baptization that these will appear a Truth or truths at that great and last day which in all the former daies the Word of God hath judged and condemned for errors and untruths it hath been the fashion of some Heretiques and Scismatiques when they have been confuted and confounded with the evidence and light of Truth which hath been flashed in their faces here from the Word and Scriptures to make their appeals to the great and last day for trial and to Jesus for the Judge of truth or untruth but we have it already as a ruled Case from himself in the 12. of John 48. ver The word that I have spoken the same shall judge him and you and all at the last day and the Apostle Paul speaketh of the same day When God shall judge the secrets of men according to his Gospel Rom. 2.16 Flap not me off therefore with this put off of your Tenets if you have done with Quaeres as its high time that they will appear Truths at that great and last day for if you cannot now in this your little present day make them to appear Truths according to Christs word and Pauls Gospel better than you or others have done as yet and yet I think you and they have done your best they will never appear Truths in the great and last day but the Word and Gospel will then as now they do appear against them for errors and untruths and by that Word and Gospel Christ and his Apostles and all the Saints shall judge and condemn them for such so that you and they who held up your heads in these waters of strife and contention here on Earth with the pust and blown bladders of your self-conceipted fansies will be fain to hang them down in shame and confusion of face Revel 3. â—â— Calling upon the Hills to fall upon you and to the Mountains to cover you from the face of him that siteth upon the Throne and from that shine and lustre of Truth that then will appear at that great and last day I will therefore give you the good counsel of the Apostle Let every man for the counsel is good for all of us take heed how he buildeth upon the Foundation Jesus Christ every mans work shall be made manifest for the day shall declare it Especially the great and last day you speak off Because it shall be revealed by fire and the fire shall try every mans work of what sort it is whether Gold Silver precious Stones or whether Wood Hay Stubble if any mans work abide which he hath built thereupon he shall receive a reward if any mans work shall be burnt he shall suffer losse 1 Cor. 3.10 and 12. And whereas in your next close you bid me lye down before it and stoop to it it is spoken like an imperious School Master or imperial Master of the Field which as yet you are neither as for all the Truths of Christ set forth in his Word and Gospel I do here stoop to them and ly down before them prostrating and casting down all my imaginations and every thing of my Reason that exalteth it self against the knowledge of God bringing into captivity every thought or affection of mine to the obedience of Christ and his Truth and pleasure laying my hand upon my mouth and putting my mouth in the dust and laying dust upon my head I do here bow down my head incline my heart throw down all within me and without me and wholly and totally yield my self unto Truths of the Word of God as to the Victorious and Conquering the powerful and Triumphant Rod and Scepter of Christ Speak Lord for thy servant heareth 1 Sam. 3.10 1 Kings 18.39 Numb 23.18 Deut. 32.4 The Lord he is the God The Lord he is the God God is not as man that he should lye a God of Truth and without iniquity just and right is he yea God is truth it self and Christ is the Way and the Truth and the Spirit is truth 1 John 5 6. And thy Law is truth and all thy Commandements are truth John 14.6 Psalm 119.142 and 151. Thy Word is true from the beginning Psal 119.160 and so to the end thy Word endureth Heaven and Earth shall passe away but one jot and tittle of the Word shall not passe away till all be fulfilled Matth. 5.18 But Sir to lye down before or stoop to your Quaeres and Considerations and Interpretations so void and empty of the Divine Truth of God and his Word so full and even swoln with the Humane sanfie of man and his will though you masterly expect it I shall Scholarly defeat you I am now too strong and well truss'd and truth'd to untrusse or untruth to such a dip-dop pedant or rather Anti-pedant as you are such a one as you are I could have disciplined that way and discipled any other way fifty years ago and I have too much of Mordecai the Benjamite in me and of his zeal to the Church of God than to bow or stoop to such a Haman a man the Agagite the separate that speaks so ill and vilely of the people of God and seeks to destroy it and them utterly Nay rather let your Dagon fall upon his face to the earth before the Ark of the Lord and your Quaerulous errors lie down
small step farther by my upholding or rather by Gods enlightening of it and Gods upholding of it For not I 1 Cor. 15.10 but the grace of God it is by which I am what I am and have done what I have doen to the God of which Grace I do here give up the Glory in the words of that heavenly Host praising God and saying Glory be to God in the highest and on earth peace good will towards men Luke 2.14 And now return unto thy rest O my soul for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee c. Psal 116.17 But I must not thus make an end you Sir will not let me return to my rest or give me a Writ of ease until I have considered some certain Texts of Scriptures which you have written out to the full of the words and left with me for the conclufion of your Letter There is not reason the Reader should be deprived of them they are so excellent for the purpose and so pertinent to the cause they come like after-drops when a storm of rain is over The first is Job 6.24 25. Teach me and I will hold my tongue cause me to understand wherein I have erred how orceable forcible are right words but what doth your arguinges arguing or Arguments reprove do ye imagie imagine to reprove words Why do you leave out that which followeth with your leave I will add it as belonging to the former and the speeches of one that is desperate which are as winde This is kindly spoken of you to me as of Job to Eliphaz his friend if as truly meant and I think I may say in justification of the truth more than my self for wisdom is justified of her children that the thing is really done you are taught the truth here and caused to understand wherein you have erred and may hold if willing to learn therefore hold your peace as a friend answered and therein satisfied without reply as another friend only questioned and thereby convinced was speechless without answer Luke 22.12 But I suspect you have not told me all your heart and do but mock as Delilah told Sampson I fear I shall never teach you who have learned as much as you desire to know I may perhaps cause some other an indifferent Reader or so to understand wherein you have erred but your self the principal party I shall not I foresee according to that Text Prov. 27.22 the words whereof for want of time I have not written out Nor will you hold your peace for all your saying so you must or may as to any material or substantial replication you can make against the truth herein asserted and proved but you neither will nor can hold your peace as to frivilous multiplication of words impertinent citations and misinterpretations and mis-applications of Texts slanderous calumniations of Ministers and the Answerer especially no more than the dog in the dark night can or will leave barking and bawling at the bright Moon But how feeble and impotent are crooked and impertinent words appears by Job saying How forcible are right words the other words What doth your arguings or arguments reprove as unfitting and unseasonable for you to use unto me before you had heard or read any word or syllable of any arguing or argument from me You might rather have left them out for me to have said them to you as now I shall after that I have read over and heard your arguings and arguments or rather Quaeres Gonsiderations Interpretations without any arguings or arguments in them What do they reprove Indeed they reprove something every thing those things that deserve no reproof but they prove nothing no not those things that most needed proof and which you undertook to prove which indeed moved and occasioned me to be thus large in setting down the things in controversie betwixt us by proving and disproving and reproving sometimes lest all the time should be as lost and mis-spent betwixt us and no body nor our selves the better by this discourse The last words are right words for us both and very forcible to inform me and reform my imagination which hath been to reprove words and speeches of one that is desperate you were very loth to write out these words and good cause why which are as wind so are both the words and speeches of one that is desperate and so are the reprooss of such words and speeches of one that is desperate you out of hope of learning I out of hope of teaching according to that Text Jer. 17.9 Jerem. 13.23 The words whereof I have not written out for want of time The other Texts that you have heaped up together and at large transcribed are nothing but very Quakerisms in the end of your Letter to which Anabaptisms will come in the end you have here begun though you are not the first For as it is the fashion of Quakers to get up into their memories and mouths all the Texts of old and new Testament where any false and vicious Prophets are spoken of and against or any covetous and superstitious Pharisee is taxed and reproved and to flap them in the face of every Minister they meet withall though never so impertinently and inconsiderately insomuch that one of them very lately being at Church after the Minister had ended his Sermon as who preacheth constantly every Sunday twice Yea said he this is just as the Prophet saith Isa 56.10 They are all dumb dogs that cannot bark sleeping lying down c. And just even so do you Sir first you tell me of Jerem. 5.4 and have now time enough to write out the words at length and not in figures Surely these are poor they are foolish for they know not the way of the Lord nor the judgement of there their God The which is spoken of the ignorant and perverse people amongst the Jews the Prophet complains of like as we Ministers may of many such amongst us your self not excepted and I commend you for your fit and pertinent and even Quaker-like application of it to us the Ministers of England whom you know to know the way of the Lord c. and therefore apply it against your own science and conscience to Ministers which is spoken onely to the People by the Prophet The next is Micah 3.5 11 12. Neither here is there to you any want of time to write out all the words Thus saith the Lord concerning the prophets that make my people to erre that byte bite with their teeth and cry Peace and he that putteth not into there their mouth they even prepare war against them The Heads thereof judge for reward and the Priest thereof teach for byre hire and the Prophets thereof devine divine for money yet will they lean upon the Lord and say Is not the Lord amongst us none evil can come unto us Therefore shall Zyon Zion for your sakes be plowed as a field c. What if there were in the State
your last line lovely and amiable though the first leaf was hatefull and detestable I embrace you in your last line so also in your Subscription speak it again and write or subscribe again your self that in the hand of two witnesses or the double witness of your hand this word may stand and be more confirmed To be the Lord Jesus's devoted Servant as also mine and the rest the meanest of Christs Servants and Ministers Servants for Jesus sake which I take onely according to the Apostles limitation Galath 5.13 in or by love for which also I thank you being ready also to serve you in and by love for Jesus sake but with another of the same Apostles limitations 2 Thess 2.10 by an in love of the truth the which because some have not received God hath sent them strong delusions that they should believe a lye as it followeth in the Apostle ver 10 11. But we are bound to give God thanks for you Brethren and Nâ—ighbours and Parishioners and your selves are boundmuch more to do the same to God for that he hath called you unto the belief of the truth by our Gospel and something also by this my Answer to you 2 Thessalonians 2. verse 14. Therefore Brethren and Neighbours stand fast and hold the Traditions which ye have been taught whether by word or our Epistle verse 15. Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God even our Father which hath loved us and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace comfort and â—stablish you in every good word and work verses 16 17 And now also Brethren I commend you to God and to the word of his grace which is able to build you up Acts 20.32 Consider what I say and have said and the Lord give you understanding in all things 2 Tim. 2.7 Let every soul that is understanding be subject to the higher powers of the word and captivate every thought to the obedience of the truth Let every Saul who is ignorant admit of the light of the Word and Truth to shine round about him that the scales by the Ministry of Ananias may fall away from their eyes that in seeing they may see and understand the truth of all the matters and mysteries of Salvation Acts 9.15 But if any man be ignorant and will be ignorant let him be ignorant and still be ignorant 1 Cor. 14.38 Or Let them hear and say reade and see It is truth Isa 43. verse 9. And so Sir because I will be answerable to you in all things I do now subscribe my self as in relation to my Master and Lord Jesus Christ His the least of his Servants and Ministers not worthy to be called a Servant and Minister of Christ so in reference unto you my Antagonist and Opponent Your the greatest of your friends worthy to be called a friend of yours for am I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth Gal. 4.16 When you have tried all your Brethren and Friends Truth will be your best Friend and your best Brother will be Jeffry Watts From Muchleigh's Parsonage July the 1. 1656. Now I proceed from a Scribe and his Letter answered and a Pharisce or Separate churched to a hypocrite or Dipper sprinkled but first of all to be questioned and catechised and so to the Narration of a dipping to be censured according to my Promise in the Title and Frontispiece of this Treatise Onely first Courteous Reader I Must desire of thee that in the reading over if so thou art intended this Narration of a Dippping with a Censure thereupon which followeth now Thou wouldst not mind a Passage or Paragraph of the Former Epistle to thee which goeth before the Answer and Instruction of a Scribe and his Letter as wherein I apologized for my omitting to cite and call into the several Points I handled the venerable Testimonies of the ancient Doctors and Fathers of the Church in their own learned Languages This I excused unto thee partly because I was confined and tyed up by the Scribe and his queres onely to Scripture Commands and Examples for my Answer and partly for that I intended my Answer should go no farther then in a reciprocal and interchangeable Letter returned unto him who first occasioned and provoked it Though afterwards by reason of the larger extent of my Answer then I expected The Desk refusing a transcription of it to which I had offered it I was even compelled to make my refuge unto the Presse for an Impression of the same otherwise all the labour must be lost on both sides the Queres and Letter unanswered the Scribe uninstructed the Pharisee uncharged and Truth unvindicated as to and by my self This beingdone the Answer finished dismissed and sent away for the aforesaid prupose There fell out and was practised in my Parish and it may be for the more affront to me at a house of mine there This Dipping of two new Sisters in a Pond of the Yard The which being in publick upon the Lords-day and betwixt the Morning and Evening Worships drew away much people thither and was discoursed of by many mouthes and so famed about in these parts that I resolved and could do no less to get a full Narration of the business and to pass my censure upon the same And so having first preach it down in my Pulpit to my own Parish as a New business of ill consequence I next have written it down in my Study to thee the Reader and have sent up also this my censure after the former my Answer to be Impressed or Imprinted together into the same Tractate as handling both of them matters very agreeable and consonant So then here intending the Presse and having now no confinements or restraints upon me I have taken my full Liberty to produce and bring in much of the Learned Antiquity and to write out and transcribe their weighty Words and Speeches in their own Languages as many of them as I had by me for the fuller Confirmation and firmer Attestation of this my censure upon that Dipping that it was and is as I have said a New business and a very Novelty Yea this I have done as for the convincing the Anabaptists their Dipping and Immerging Baptism so called to be of Novelty so for the Confirming the Orthodox their Sprinkling and Aspersing Baptism as it is to be of Antiquity by the evidences of the ancient Fathers and Doctors brought forth and shewed on both sides and farther I have ascended up to the Highest Antiquity of all even to the Ancient of dayes and the Primogenit of every Creature and have probably at least shewed that Christ Jesus himself manifested in the flesh was but Aspersed or Superfused with water and not Dipped and Immerged under the water certainly not in their way and manner at his Baptism by S. John the Prime baptist nor other Christians after him by S. Peter and the other Primitive Baptizers And as to raâ—fi
nature as well as others Eph. 2.3 and Eph. 1.4 and yet were not nor could be called dogs notwithstanding impure or hateful before God because they were in and under the love of God which is called Amor Benevolentiae the love of his eternal good Will and Benevolency in electing of them although before their Conversion and before they have Faith they do not stand actually reconciled unto God which is called Amosr Complacentiae the love of his special delight and complacency in accepting of them by the coming of Christ into the world and purchasing it for them so that their persons are never hateful or detestable but beloved and accepted from all eternity and therefore cannot be as bad as dogs though their state wherein they are in may be odious and detestable as was Sauls when he persecuted the Church and as was yours when you walked in wicked wayes and both of you were ignorant of the Truth but this some similar act or quality of a dog as impurity and ignorance for a while is not enough or sufficient to impute the Title and denomination of a dog to such whose persons belong to Gods Election and are under gracious favour of God in a Christ and are parties covenanted with and partakers of the Seal or Seals Doth God take care for Oxen 1 Cor. 9.9 what Dogs who are Gods what a transposition of letters is this what an Anagram which none but an Ingram and Agrammatical man who is himself transported with a zeal without knowledge can or will affirm or make The field that is intended for Wheat fallowed for Wheat and Sown with Wheat is not called or to be called a barren Wilderness and desart Land though weeds come up in it every where and before the good husbandry hath appeared plucking them up but it is called Tilth-land and a Wheat-field The ground of your error lyeth in this that you thought of no other Grace but that of sanctification when you spake those words of your self and others to be dogs until the Grace of God appearing plucking you out of your wicked wayes to the knowledge of the Truth so the words themselves do shew and therby shew also your ignorance of the Grace of God both that of Election and that of Justification which is not any inherent Righteousness and quality as Papists also hold with you which in matter of Justification or Election is but dung as the Apostle calleth it for the Grace of God is one of his Attributes out of us in God and according to the use of Scripture is either metonymically the special gift of Grace or properly the gracious favour of God in Christ by which Grace we are elected called justified sanctified and shall be glorified and in this order they go one before another as several acts and degrees of Grace sanctification being the end or effect as of our Election Eph. 1.4 and of our Justificaiton Luke 1.75 so of our Vocation 1 Thes 4.7 It s a strange error of yours to account your self and others a sheep onely in and under the Grace of sanctification so you say you were no better then a dog till the Grace of God plucked you out of your evil wayes were you then a dog and no sheep in and under the Grace of Election and Vocation and Justification I am sure others are not But what is your drift and scope I pray Sir in writing thus to me now at this time that your self hath not been so good as a dog till the Grace of God appeared plucking you out of your wicked way unto the knowledge of the Truth Is it to advance the power and efficacy of your separate and dipping Ministery above mine and the Sacerdotal function it must be so and no marvel for you committed soul and body unto but one of them my self and others could seldom get your body unto our Churches and Ministery I prepared my dinner and killed my Oxen and fatlings and had all things in a readiness Mat. 22.4 but you made light of it and went another way or would stay at home or when you came if the good seed I sowed in you did not fall into good ground Mat. 13.4 to bring forth fruit but you suffered the fowls the wicked one to devour and catch it away or the thorns of the care of this world to spring up and choak it you must blame neither Seed nor Sower neither Ministery nor Minister but even say of your self I was a High-way side Hearer a Thorny-ground Auditor like as you say you was no better then a dog that while and so I gave that which was holy to dogs But I do not say so that you were that while any such for you did neither trample the holy things under your feet though they fell upon thorns or by the way side neither did you turn again and rend me Again Let no one of you be puffed for one against another 1 Cor. 4.6 I acknowledge there is a difference of Ministery but who maketh thee to differ from another who is Paul and who is Apollos but the Ministers by whom you believed for neither is Paul that planteth nor Apollos that watereth any thing but God that giveth the increase 1 Cor. 3.5 7. you do well and wisely to say The Grace of God appearing pluckt you out and so to ascribe the glory of your plucking out of wicked wayes to the Grace of God The Grace of God is free as the Spirit of God to blow where it listeth John 3.8 and upon whom so by whom and when it listeth Yet thirdly I add that According to the Grace of God which is given to me I have laid the foundation 1 Cor. 3.10 of your coming out of your wicked way to the knowledge of the Truth for many years together and another doth but build thereon and the foundation I have laid in you was none other then Jesus Christ and him crucified The Covenant of the Grace of God in Christ I will be thy God and the God of thy seed made therefore with your believing Parents and your self with the Seals therof which have been given you and the conditions which are to be performed by you yea I have built upon this foundation Gold Silver and precious stones preach in Faith and Repentance and Obedience in your own words coming out of wicked wayes unto the knowledge and practice of the Truth and just then when the building should have been raised up unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ you fell a pulling down as fast as I had built up yea you suffered others to come in upon you by their sleights and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive to build upon my foundation Wood Hay and Stubble and such combustible things and to set in many of their weak and impotent and beggerly rudiments upon it especially those three your separation from your Church your evil affection to the ordained
say they have converted you and so say some others I am sure and done you much good to your souâ— which you have said you would commit to them and trust them with a very foolish almost blasphemous speech if you said it And God faith here they shall not profit you at all and therefore do you no good either in soul and body as to Conversion and Salvation whom shall I believe God or you whom do you believe God or your self Gods true prediction or your own false suggestion Come come Sir Let God be true and every man a lyer Rom. 3.4 as it is written also for so your self and every other man that saith he hath profited in soul unto Salvation or Conversion by these unsent and unordained Preachers of the separation when as God saith such shall not profit the people at all by their Anabaptistical Doctrines and Preachings Mistake me not I am not against the profit that may come even from them to you or others by mutual and fraternal conferences exhortations admonitions supplications so long as their words be seasoned with the falt of Truth and Grace and be good to the use of edifying and your selves have your senses exercised to discern both good and evil and be able to try and prove all things and hold to that which is good for so God hath allowed and approved of it and profit may come upon it Col. 3.16 1 Thes 5.11 But this from Gods Word I hold That an usurped publick taking upon them the cure of souls without Commission as teaching Anabaptists do in a manner yea upon the matter of the fraternity and sorority within their limits and also their dispensing and dividing the mysteries of the Word and Seals of the Sacraments without a lawful sending ordination and separation thereto and that in a rightly constituted and planted Church where there is a power of order and degrees and a settled or fixed Ministery will be of no profit and benefit to you or the people as to Faith and Conversion that wait and attend onely upon such a service or Ministery if I may so call it For now lift up your eyes and look on the fields are they white unto the Harvest since people left praying that God would send Husbandmen into his work and Laborers into his Vineyard and since people have left coming to and attending upon their own painful preaching Ministers and have betaken themselves to the hearing of self-intruding peakers which were none of Gods calling or sending are they not rather smutched and smitten with blasting and mildew with pride haughtiness malice variance rancour envy fraudulency covetousness lying defamation hypocrisies impuâ—ities more then ever they were and compassed about of late with such a dark cloud of Satans witnesses and his Emissaries every where transforming themselves into Angels of New light no better then darkness Besides the Schisms in the Churches of God and destractions of mens minds the contempts of Gods Ordinances the broaching of Errors and Heresies the Rapines Sacriledges and Massacres that have been committed the slighting of Laws and Civil Magistrates the uprising of bloody Wars and throwing down of Order and Proprieties Insurrection and Rebellion And now Sir I return to you again to whom I have a sixth thing to acquaint you with and then I shall take my leave and subscribe a friendly farewel to you § Sixthly What shall I say more to you of these men for that indeed a notable change and alteration hath been wrought in you is manifest to all them that dwell here abouts and we cannot deny it my self as I have said rejoyce at it yea and the Angels in Heaven rejoyce over one sinner that repenteth and converteth truly and sincerely This therefore I will say even the same still that you do That the Grace of God appeared plucking you out of your wicked wayes to the knowledge of the Truth But I ask as St. Paul doth Gal. 2.3 This onely would I hear and know of you Received you the Spirit by the works of the Law or by the hearing of the Faith so received you this Grace or your Conversion of being pluckt out of yoru evil wayes to the knowledge of the Truth from the Word preached by your Brethren of the separation or from the Word preached by my self or other ordained Ministers I have proved before that unsent Teachers and Preachers shall not and cannot profit you with their Doctrines especially being not of God and his Word and therefore they have not wrought any such thing in you by their Doctrines and that you could not cannot attain and therefore have not attained to Faith but by hearing of a sent and ordained Preacher and the Word of God by him Again received you this Grace of God or your Conversion and plucking out of your evil wayes from the Spirit of God in and by your last Dippism or your first Baptism not in and by your last dipping at Laver for this requireth Conversion and Faith and Profession of it before you can be partaker of it you must bring these with you already wrought to your dipping your dipping doth not work them at that time but presupposeth them so I cannot call your dipping a Laver of Regeneration but a Generation of I know not what at Laver or a degeneration Besides I have shewed this your dipping which is but a Re-baptizing at the best to be a humane device yea Heretical practise so esteemed and for such condemned of the Churches of God throughout all Ages and therefore it can be no means or instrument of God and his Grace to pluck you from your wicked wayes to the knowledge of the Truth Whither now Sir will you go as Hos 2.7 so is yur case She shall follow after her Lovers but she shall not overtake them and she shall seek them but shall not finde them then shall she say I will go and return to my first Husband for then was it better with me then now Follow not therefore after those your Suitors and Solicitors rather your inveiglers and beguilers that rather have tempted your spiritual chastity and attempted also somewhat upon your body but come and return to your first Husband Christ Jesus and your first Covenant of Grace sealed unto you in your first Baptism from which as from the Fountain hath issued out all other Grace of God appearing to you sithence and even that plucking you out from your wicked wayes and bringing you to the knowledge of the Truth through his dispensing his word and your hearing the same of Gods Ministers sent to that purpose and through the operation of his Spirit stirring up the Grace of God in you and the Grace of the same sanctifying your afflictions and last sickness and fears and other things that have befallen you She did not know that her first Husband gave her Corn and Wine and Oyl and multiplyed her silver and gold which they prepared for Baal Hos 2.8 or as in the
their being in Covenant must needs be the ground of Gods commanding the Seal of Circumision It is acknowledged there was a special Commandement for circumcising in the time of Infancy but do not you blame God for his such Command by the same reason you blame us for our practice Infants of Jewes were as much in the state of Nature as ignorance blindness and under the same defects that Infants of Christians are and why do ye not charge the wisdom of God with folly for Commanding the Infants of Jewes to be circumcised or excuse us who being under the same Covenant do Baptize the Infants of Christians In imitation of God Commanding Circumcision and also in obedience of God and that Command which was in part also Evangelical For That Commandement was for the Circumcising of such Infants in their Infancy whose Parents were under Gods seal but there is no such command for Infants whose Parents were not for these Profession of Faith was needful Abraham in whom the Church of the Jews began therefore had Faith before hee took the Seal but no such thing was afterward required of Abrahams Seed but the contraty Commanded namely that their Seed should be circumcised in their Infancy And so I deny not but God Commanded Circumcision but this that by vertue of Gods Commandement onely they were Circumcised I deny for it was also and chiefly because of the foregoing Covenant in the 7. and 8. verses to which the words refer saying Thou shalt keep my Covenant Therefore what Covenant vers 10. Circumcision is so named He doth not barely Command it but with an Inference or reference therefore to shew that they being in Covenant were therefore to have the Seal thereof Circumcision which did but put the Covenant under Seal in which Covenant those Children were before by Birth being born of Parents with whom God had stricken Covenant But I shall go neer to make use of it anon for the Baptizing of our Children like as they and you do now for the circumcising of the Jewes Chrildren Though the Truth is that was nothing but Gods word of Institution whose incommunicable property it is to appoint Sacramental Signs The Covenant then especially was the ground of Circumcising the Seed of the Jewes and the same is the ground of Baptizing the Infants of Christians and so Christian Parents being in Covenant their infants are in Covenant with God and therefore Baptizable for Gods Covenant written upon Children of Parents in Covenant is no Blank to seal too but a just Title or writ as I may so say for the Seal and a very Commission given out by the Holy Spirit for the Baptizing Infants of Christians in their lofarcy and so these things appearing to the Churches of God That Infants of Christians are entred in Covenant with God They ought to put the same under the Seal of Baptism as the Infants Due and the Churches Duty More briefly and Syllogistically thus take it as I recollect it All persons within and under the Covenant of Gods Grace are Commanded of God to have the Seal of Covenant put upon them which in the Gospel-administration thereof is Baptism But all Infants of Christians are within the Covenant of Gods grace Therefore all Infants of Christians are Commanded of God to have the Seal of the Covenant put upon them which in the Gospel-Administration thereof is Baptism The first Proposition is clear from Gen. 17. and God Commanding all Jews in Covenant to be Circumcised and from Matth. 28. and Christ Commanding all Gentiles or Nations in Covenant to be Baptized The second Proposition is the very Tenour of the Covenant I will be thy God and the God of thy Seed and so I have reasoned the Baptism of Infants and Terms into a Command of God before I intended it A third Warrant is this Reason If the Infants of Jewish Parents were capable of Circumcision the initial Seal of the Covenant which was Circumcision and were Circumcised though they could shew no Right they had unto it but their Birth of Parents in Covenant Then also may and must the Infants of Christian Parents be Baptized and receive Baptism the initial Seal though they can shew no other Right to it but their Birth of Parents in Covenant This Warrant is Reasoned out or this Reason is warranted out of Heb. 13.9 Jesus Christ the same yesterday to day and for ever Jesus Christ ministred is the Covenant which is as I said the same for ever in sabstance and in relation to theeternal welfare of souls Though the ministrations of him be different of him as to be exhibited and to come unto the Jewes and of him as come and exhibited unto Christians And though some Ceremonial and Circumstantial matters be changed yet the substantial and that which was purely a Covenantall or Sacramental Part abides as being an everlasting Covenant made with Abrahams Seed all true beleevers they differ not the Two Sacraments in any substantial thing or in any spiritual effect necessary to salvation or in any use to confirm the Covenant of Grace and further a man in the way to Heaven and so as an Initial Seal of the Covenant they differ not nor as a Sacrament of entrance into the Church and so Circumcision was a Seal of the same Righteousness by Faith as Baptism is to us Rom. 4.11 and Circumcision signified the mortification of the flesh and the renewing of the mind and did bind over the Jewes unto the obedience of Gods will Rom. 2.28 c. Gal. 3.21 and so doth Baptism the same to us now as Rom. 6.3 and 11. 1 Pet. 3.21 Insomuch that Baptized Christians are called circumcised Christians and Baptism is called by the name of Circumcision Col. 2 11. and 14 4. Though we Christians are not to follow the Jews in things peculiar to his own dispensation which was Legal and Ceremonial yet those actions that were done by them upon such grounds that are of moral perpetual and common concernment to one person as well as another in one Church as well as another for one age as well as another none can deny such actions to be binding and obligatory to all as a standing Rule for after Generations by which may be answered that which is usually objected by those that except to our Analogy of Baptism with Circumcision as why do ye not plead a Baptism of Males onely and that particular of the eight day and so carry on the whole Analogy together and in order why because these were but circumstantial things the two Sacraments may be one in substance for all these besides they were not of common but peculiar use to the Jews that Church those ages as for the eighth day it was both a Ceremonial and Physical reason as to life and health of the infant that thefore skin was not cut off till then and for the Females not Circumcised it is enough against you and your opinion if the proportion betwixt Circumcision and Baptism
contemners and despisers of his Sacraments fall heavily upon you and some or other curse of God pursue you so also that such water may be loathsom and noysom to you afterwards Remember Esau again For ye know how that afterwards when he would have inherited the blessing Heb. 12.16 17 he was rejected for he found no place of repentance though he sought it with tears Are they not ritghtly called Jacob's Supplanters one of the first planters of them was called Jacob and that rightly for they that take away your Birth-right Baptism will also take away your Blessing the Blessing of God in Covenant with you as well as with your Parents Yea remember one of the Separation by name Hodsou of the City of Glecester and by an Epithite called Hodson-peevish who since he was new baptised grew as light in the head as before he was light in heart the which I finde recorded by Master Thomas Wynell in print a Minister of Cranham nigh unto that City Yea remember the sad and desatrous ends of those first Ringleaders of re-baptising Muncer Cnipperdoling c. And now thirdly Can they charm sweetly and delightfully to any of you who have the root of bitterness in them from which I dehorted you and whose mouths are full of cursing and bitterness like as they have bitter envying and sirife in their hearts against your Mother-Church and your Baptism especially wherein ye were if regenerate at all born again of water and the Spirit My Brethren these things ought not to be doth a Fountain send forth at the same place or hole of heart or mouth sweet water and bitter Hear now ye Benjamites ye left-handed Protestants will the Son of Jesse Muncer who I mentioned but now give every one of you the Field Benefits 1 Sam. 22 2 5 and Vine-eard Priviledges of Christ and his Church by their new dipping of you and make you Captains of thousands and Captains of hundreds against your sins that they shall not raign or have dominion over your mortall bodies or immortall Soules that all of you have conspired against your Mother-Church and brethren Ministers O foolish Galathians who hath bewitched you that you should not obey the truth before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth crucified amongst you even in your Baptism Gal. 3.1 as the word and other Sacrament wherein you were sprinkled with the blood of Christ unto the washing away of sin being also crucified in the old man with him and buried with him by Baptism that the body of sin might be destroyed that thenceforth ye should not serve sin I mervaile that you are so soon removed away from your Baptism and your calling into the Grace of Christ and his Covenant of Grace unto another Baptism which is not another but there be some that trouble you and would pervert the Baptism of Christ Gal. 1.6 7 But though they or an Angell from Heaven preach any other Baptism unto you then that which we have preached and reached unto you let him be accursed and as I said before so say I now again if any man preach or reach any other Baptism unto you than that ye have received of us let him be accursed or let him shew where ever the Lord Blessed for ever at any time blessed or consecrated instituted or appointed a Baptism of Baptized ones Parents or Children or any other Baptism then once of Believing Parents and their Children once They say if a man put away his wife and she go from him and become another mans shall be return again to her shall not that Land be greatly polluted But thou hast played the Harlot with many Baptisms and many Dippers yet return again to me saith the Lord I say return again to the Lord Jer. 3.1 and to the Lords Baptism if thou hast put it away from thee and renounced it if thou be gone from him and with the strange woman hast forsaken the guide of thy youth yea Child-hood and forgotten the Covenant of thy God Prov. 2.17 and the Seal thereof art become another mans and betaken thy self to another Baptism for which the Land is also defiled as thy self I say return again to the Lord and his and thy first Baptism The Lord look upon thee and remember thy first Baptism and the words of the Covenant of Christ and go out from amongst them who by their Quaeres and intricate questioning of thee caused thee to deny thy first Baptism and therein thy Lord and Master go out and weep bitterly for the same Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen and repent and do thy first works Rev. 2.5 and leave not thy first Love hold fast that which thou hast already even thy first Baptism till Christ come I say Repent and be still as you were in your Infancy baptized every one of you in the Name of Jesus Christ and you shall have the Remission of your sins even of this sin of being Baptized again if so you have committed it For the promise is made to you and to your Children with many other words I would have testified and exhorted you saying save your self from this untoward Generation But that I hasten and will tell you to the contrary Look often back to your first Baptism in your Infancy and think not upon any other Baptism afterwards as to a Store-house of comfort in all time of your need if you be tempted by the devill and assaulted about your sins in your youth or old age think not now of ny new or second Baptism but recall thy first and old Baptism oppose it against him say and know that therein God hath promised and sealed unto thee the pardon of thy sins and the purchase of everlasting life by Christ If thou beest troubled with doubtings and weakness of Faith Fetch from thy first Baptism such a strengthening consideration and meditation for the doing of which to introduce another Baptism is but a Fetch that God hath given thee there an earnest and pledge of his loving kindness to thee in the water sprinkled upon thee representing the blood of Christ applyed to thee and so as when Thomas saw the Holes in Christs-side and the print of the nailes he strengthened his Faith against doubtings be not thou faithless but faithfull when thou reflectest upon thy Baptism and remembrest the pouring out of the blood of Christ for thee and the earnest thereof the pouring out of water upon thee If thou liest under any kind of Crosse or Calamity whatsoever have recourse to thy Baptism in which God hath promised to be thy God of which promise he will not fail thee nor canst thou be miserable having this promise yea if God be with thee who shall be against thee Thou doest often look upon the wills and Testaments of thy Father and Grandfather when you are in a doubt of hour Estate or in some trouble about it or in want to be resolved in all
them and seriously to weigh them excusing the matter that for want of time you had not written out all the words of all the Scriptures you might have added scarce of any at all when in the end and last clauses your Letter when time must needs therefore be more wanting to you by reason your Letter comming was noised abroad and long expected to take so much time as to stand and stay the writing out all the words to the full a thing different from your fashion when you had more time of six or seven Texts without the least intimation of want of time let the next honest Clerk or Scribe judge whether there were not some Legerdemain and Handicrast if not heart deceipt in such hand-writing and a piece of hypocritical Scribism as also Anabaptism or of scribbling and Anabaptizing hypocrisie in it And there was another piece of the same stuff in it besides for the former part of your Letter being of matters and points of Divinity in Question betwixt us it was your policy and hypocrisie to set down to your Tene's and Assertions Texts of Scripture named and figured by Chapter and Verse so to put a fair gloss and Iustre of Truth for the amusing of the vulgar people and deluding them with such shews and paints of proof you knowing they neither have skill nor will nor leasure nor pleasure to turn to the words themselves and weigh them of which you might have saved them the labour and me also but that you meant not but rather to put me to the pains wherein you lost your labour and purposes for that it is a pleasure to me to search the Scriptures if you had written out the words into your sheets and folded up them with your Arguments or Expositions together into the same But then there was another fear or Quakery in it for Hypocrites are ever a fraid of discovery and Quake for fear of it as the Devils believe but tremble for the same fear of being discovered in their false faith For you feared and might well enough that if you had written out the words of your Texts and set them down together or by your Opinions and Expositions people must needs see and reade both together and so comparing the one with the other the words of the Texts cited with the words of your Tenees asserted they might espy and discern as an ordinary understanding may do the impertinency of the one to the other yea the contrariety of the matters in them And truly this was and it a notable piece of Popery and Jesuitism to keep the people as much as may be from the words of the Scripture for the words of the Scripture are pure enlightning the eyes but peoples darkness best for their devotion they know and say Therefore indeed was I the willinger to look into every Text cited by you that so I might present unto the Reader whomsoever the Texts of Scriptures in words at length and not in figures as I said before if I remember well and so giving him a plain outsight of the words He may come to a clearer infight of the sense and better discern what it proveth or proveth not A good way to disfigure an onely Text scribe and to reverse and decapitate a verse and Chapter Hypocrite But there is more of the same cloath your Linsie Woolsie hypocrisie here at the end of your Letter for usually he that plaies the Hypocrite in the beginning works the Hypocrite in the end and turns to be of a merry a very one when you were engaged to prove and fortifie your Tenets as hitherto you onely set down Chapter and verse but not the words why so you could not stand about writing them down for want of time no no that was not the cause for being but newly begun it was free to you to have taken as much time as you would was it not rather for want of truch and out of abundance of subtlety and policy lest the Reader finding Gods words and your words in the same place together might the easier at one view see the distance and diffonancy of the one from the other and so perceive the weakness of proof in your allegation But now that you are resolved in the end for a friendly farewel to reprove yea to revile and reproach the true Church of England and the true Ministers thereof and now in the foot of your Letter without any foot or ground unless the foot of Pride like as you did the same in the front of your Letter without any front or brow but that of Brasse to trample under your unclean and stinking feet the sweet and precious Sons of Sion like as you dossed them before with your brasen and impudent forehead it seems now at the latter end of your Letter you can finde time enough though it be high time you should have done two hours and two sheets ago to write out fully the words of six or seven Texts spoken of some false and erroneous Prophets yea and of some corrupt Judges and Magistrates yea and some ignorant and sottish people some thousands of years fithence and to apply them to the learned pious and laborious Ministers of England very foolishly impertinently inconfiderately yea very wickedly maliciously devillishly Oh here you are very exact and diligent to write out all and the very words that your proselites reading here may learn the Scripture phrases and words and get them by heart and have them ready in their mouths as Shimei had the stones in his hand to cast them at David a man after Gods own heart and to asperse slander and bequaker the Ministers of God who are such according to Gods will as they passe by them or meet with them Remember Lord the reproach of thy servants how we do bear in our besoms the reproaches of the mighty people Wherewith thine enemies have reproached O Lord wherewith they have reproached the footsteps of thine Anointed Psal 89.56 Why did you not write out a thousand Texts more word for word even all in the Bible that mention any sin or vice of any Nation any erroneous or prophane person of any place there recorded and make application of them all to the Church of England and the Ministers there of This would have made the heap of your stones the bigger and so would have heaped up more wrath for you against the day of wrath for your speaking evil of Dignities and reviling Orders and especially for your teaching vulgar people errors confusions as to renounce their first Baptism and reproach their Preaching and Baptizing Ministers and that in Scripture Language and Phrases which they learn of you and such as you who writ out the Texts and the words too when you wrest Scripture to the vilifying of Ministers and you want no time nor malice for the doing of it to put such words into your peoples eyes and ears and mouth but when you are to wrest Scriptures for the justifying of
your errors then you cite the Text onely but write not the words for want of time and truth too and so feed their senses onely with figures and numbers onely sending them away to search out the words for their satisfying their understandings as the Egyptians did the Isaelites to finde out straw for their burning the Brick But I remember your last Text you cited wherewith you think you have hit us home was that off the Scribes and Pharisees laying heavy burdens upon mens or the peoples shoulders and not moving them with one of their fingers I have put by the blow as of all the other your Texts alleged against us so of this and the Scribism of the same and have made them to recoil-back fly in your own face because you overcharged and had no kill to charge aright you hold as great if not a greater correspondency with the Pharisees than the Scribes Few of you are Scribes more are Pharisees for you are like unto them in your name the word Pharisee signifying Separate as formerly I said so in your corrupting and false interpreting of Scripture this I have shewed throughout this Discourse so in your high conceipt of your own righteousness and holiness this you manifest in your scornful and supercilious looâ—s and speeches so in your compassing the Land to make you Proselites and ambitious seeking the people and their applause this all men see and you will not deny I adde lastly which makes the wonder that people run after you in your laying heavy burthens and grievous to be borne upon the shoulders of men and women This latter is the thing I will shew out off Act. 15. where ver 5. There arose up certain of the Sect of the Pharisees which believed or professed Jesus to be the Messia saying it was needful to Circumcise the newly converted Brethren c. the matter is decided in the 10. ver 28. ver Now therefore why tempt you God who put a yoke upon the neck of the Disciples which neither our Fathers nor we were able to bear And it seemed good to the Holy Ghost and us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary thing c. Out of which I gather and deduct this one General Proposition leaving out the particular of Circumcision Things laid upon Christians or Disciples more than necessary are a burden and yoke and seemeth not good to the Holy Ghost but is a tempting of God Joyn we issue now in brief Here the Pharisees of the old separation said it was needful to Circumcise the new converted Chirstians or Disciples and you of the newer separation say it is needful to re-Baptize grown and professing Christians or Disciples upon a particular confession of their Faith are not you now agreeable to the Pharisees in laying on a burden and a yoke upon the necks and shoulders off the Disciples and Christians But how do I shew this latter to be a burden or yoke why from the Proposition here because the re-Baptizing of Christians or Disciples who were Baptized formerly in their Infancy is more than needful or necessary andthat it is so my whole last part of this Discourse which now I am finishing hath amply Demonstrated yea your own Rule given to me at first doth joyntly attest the same the which is this of all things necessary to Salvation the Scripture hath either a Command or an Example or both Now shew me for that your practise any Command of God Expresse or Implicite or by Consequence for such your re-Baptizing Or any Example of any grown person or Christians formerly Baptized so re-Baptized if you cannot hold you your peace they are your own words I will speak you a Pharisee laying upon mens necks and shoulders a yoke and a burden and moreover by doing so a tempter of God and doer of that which seemed not good unto the Holy Ghost and the Apostles Again for you to require of Infants born in Covenant with God and of Parents in Covenant with God an external confession or profession of Faith before you will put them under the initial Seal of that Covenant and in the mean while to with hold this from them until they shall do that is a putting a yoke and burden upon their necks and shoulders to hinder them in their Christian progresse it is to tempt the Lord and to put him upon other means for Infants Salvation than Baptism and its a doing of that which seemeth not good to the Spirit and the Apostles assembled and determining the case in a holy Synod for that it is a requiring more of Infants than is necessary to needful for their Baptism Yet once more The leading of grown Christians Baptized before into some deep Pond and therein re-Baptizing them plunging and holding them some while there under water over-head and ears body and cloaths too is a yoke upon the neck and a burthen put and laid upon the head and shoulders heavy and grievous to be borne especially of the aged infirm and sickly and a doing of more than is necessary unto the administration of Baptisin unseemly and superfluous if not ridiculous and so more than seemeth good un to the Holy Ghost and the Apostles met in Counsel yea it is an tempting of God and some as I have heard have sickned and died soon after thereupon of which I shall discourse at large in my Narration censure of a late dipping which followeth Now see Sir by this whether we Ministers of the Church of England or you Separates from the same be like to the Pharisees And so I have retorted all your Texts and returned them to you again to apply them to your selves or to apply your selves to them I shall therefore onely give you the like friendly farewel at the end of my Letter as you gave me in yours namely a few Texts of Scripture to consider of and seriously to weigh some for your self and others that take upon you to be Preachers of the Separation to consider of and that not slightly as you use Numb 16.11 and 12. 2 Chron. 26.18 Jer. 23.21 31 32. 2 Corinh 11.13 14 15. 2 Tim. 3.5 6 7 8 9. Tit. 1.10 and 11. Heb. 5.4 and 5 2 Pet. 2.18 19. 2 Pet. 3.16 Some for your followers and others that hear you and if any of my people be amongst them for them also to consider of and that not lightly 2 Chron. 36.15 16. Jerem. 2.13 Matth. 24 23 24 25 26. Mark 12. 38 39 40. Luke 21.1 with Mat. 16.6 and 12. Rom. 16.17 18 Gal. 4.16 17 18. Gal. 5.7 8 9 10. 2 Tim. 4.3 and 4. Heb. 10.23 and 24 Heb. 13.9 2 Pet. 2.12 Jude 17 18 19. 20. And this one for all and every one of you 1 Tim. 6.3 4. 5. You see Sir I do not as you did for whereas in the matter of Proof I have written out the words of every Text to the full here in point of Reproof I onely name the Texts and no
Bishop to be confirmed as Gregory the Great acknowledgeth in his Sacramentary in which is set down the order of baptizing Infants To which I shall adde the Testimony of another one Alcuine or Albine by name who lived in the Year 780. and so 220. years after the aforesaid Gregory and the rather I do because he was an English man born in Yorkshire and it may be thereupon called the other name Albine of Albion he was the scholar of our venerable Bede and the school-master also as friend and familiar to Charles the Great by whose advice Charles the Great founded the University of Paris and appointed four principall Heads and Presidents thereof Rabanus Alcuinus Claudius Johannes Scotus all the Scholars of our Beda so much is France beholding to England for their Learning and learned men but to the purpose the words of Alcuine are Postquam vestiti fuerint Infantes he is speaking of Infants after they had been baptized naked deportantur ante Pontificem ad confirmandâ—m who sate in a seat fixed somewhere in the Church or in Sacrario the Chancel or Vâ—stry for the same purpose whereby I conceive it was at the solemn times of Baptism twice in the year Easter and Whitsontide an evideut Testimony both for Infant-baptism and also for Infants baptized naked And it is true also that the old and late Liturgy of our Church of England mentioneth the Ministers taking the child to be baptized into his arms naming it shall as the Rubrick hath it dip it in the water so it be discreetly and warily done but whether in the cloaths or out of the cloaths it is not expressed In present I think and so shall until I be better informed that our Church meant a dipping of the Infant out of the cloaths and therein owned the Antiquity of the practise but yet shewed her authority in things of such nature for that she addeth if the child be weak it shall suffice to pour water upon it so indulging the health and welfare thereof and what child is not weak in these our Northern cold Clymates though not contradicting Antiquity which did so dip children naked in those Eastern warmer Countreys where they might more safely do it I am sure she meant not your new way of dipping in the cloaths over head and ears and the whole body What if she meant the dipping of the naked face onely or the naked forehead and head also in the water by such as hold still to the dipping there mentioned so doing as it crosseth not the Antiquity for the reason I gave but now so it favoureth not your novelty for the reasons I have given against the same all this while By this time you may see and hear how your dipping and baptizing bodies in their cloaths in a new busines and none of the old way I remember Justin Martyr in dial ad Tryph. gives the Pharisees that peculiar term and epithite of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because of their washing so many things as cups pots vessels and tables us are mentioned Mark 7.4 But these are civil or superstitious washings or ceremonial Your Scribes surpasse these Pharisees in dipping of cloaths and all in their baptizing and washings which are Eclesiastical religious and even moral with them and therefore may more justly be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dippers or washers and in this sense Johns the Baptists I do look when you shall fall from this novelty in this Sacrament of Baptism to such another novelty in the other Sacrament and when you break bread give it into your proselytes hands with their gloves on I omit to open unto the Reader the packet of these other frivolous if not scurrilous Rites and Ceremonies which were used at this your dipping some whereof you relate and others for modesty I suppose you silence but are talked of by the spectators as ridiculous and infamous I question them not at all for they were all such questionless onely this I question How men of such sincerity onely should be thus full of ceremony also and wonder also how you who hate in others innocent and significant ceremonies in ministerial celebrations and abominate them as the abomination of desolation throwing them away as the rags and patches of Popery and rending them off as the fringes and laces of the whore should now be so far in love of them as to clothe and adorn your Dippal administrations in such offensive and sensless Rites and Ritual dresses so that your brother may be better called a master of Ceremonies then a Minister of Ordinances This one thing I shall question here why your brother was so quick of his words and so slow at his work for so it seems by the narration which is your relation that he spake the words according to the institution I baptize thee in the Name of the Father the Son and the holy Ghost before he dipped them in the water though but immediatly before The which I take to be another novelty if not more some vanity be not in it For our English Liturgy consonant to the ancient Liturgies of the Churches doth otherwise and better practise direct where as the Rubrick hath it the Minister naming the child shall dip it in the water saying I baptize thee c. And I conceive there is good reason for it that the dipping into or sprinkling with water and the pronouncing the words of administration I baptize c. should be done in one and the same instant of time as two conjunct Acts and not one before the other because the sign and the thing signified are two correlate parts and go together not one before the other If either may go immediately instantly before the other It is the dipping before the words as our Liturgy hath it Dip it in the water saying and not the words before the dipping as your Tympany doth it he spake the words before he dipped nay there is not verity or truth in it to say the words I baptize c. before the party be in the water or the water upon the party But your Dippers tongue dipt and tipt it may be aforehand for the better keeping out of the cold of water did run so fast in the pronouncing the words of institutution too fast indeed as which did run before it was sent and spake before the Lord opened the mouth of the man Numb 22.28 that his hands having taken such fast hold of the sisters by their clothes about the shoulders and loath to let it go or put them out of his sight till needs must he forgat the work action of dipping them putting them under the water at the same time or before the speaking of the words of Institution And so I may say as the Comaedian doth in a like dipping and tripping Neque lingua neque manus suum faciebant officium I may put in neque pedes as the Comaedian doth for his feet ran too fast to the Pond
charge nor are so sparing of their wine our Divines tell them and they should teach their people that a sup of wine as a morsel of bread may do well enough as well if not better then greater quantities of each at the Sacramental Communication according as anciently they did as Gelasius Lyzicenus in Act is Concil Nicaeni cap. 30. reporteth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For this cause we take not much but little of the Bread and Wine for that we know we take them not to or for satiety but sanctity The like whereof is that of Eucherius Serm. 5. de Pascha Eucharistiae sacrae perceptio non in quantitate sed in virtute consistit quòd corpus sacerdote dispensante tantum est in exiguo quantum esse constat in toto The participation of the holy Eucharist stands not in the quantity but efficacy for that the body of Christ when the Priest dispenseth the same holy Eucharist is as much in a little part of the Wine and Bread as in the whole together I have indeed said the more of this as being in my opinion very needful and necessary to strengthen and arm our selves and our people against the dangerous tentations of the Devil wherewith he and his instruments which are many in these dayes do mainly assault the mindes and scruple the consciences and pervert the faith of the weaker amongst us as indeed they have done to your self Sir by your leave He as he goeth about the earth roaring and they hissing as they creep into houses that their and your sprinkled baptism was no true baptism as being but a little water poured upon your face but onely one part outwardly and telling you if you will be baptized indeed and to purpose you must be dipped and immerged in your whole body and in every part outwardly that your whole spirit and soul and body may be preserved blameless against the coming of the Lord 1. Thess 5.23 Thus they together have cast a snare upon you they have snared you into their nets and caught you with some other silly Fry as the Spider hath the simple Fly and have dipped and doused you in your cloathes under water you being in their nets the devil in a corner laughing snearing and dancing the while over you even as the Spider doth winde up and truss up the Fly being come into its Cobweb and then skips leaps and runs about it and which I may mark sucks and seeds upon the poor Fly Well Sir if you be willing to come to the acknowledging of the truth as I am zealous to bring you to it and to recover your self out of the snare of the divel who are taken captive by him and others at his will and theirs 2 Tim. 2.25 26 read consider believe the Truth I have set before you but read with impartiality without prejudicateness Consider with indifferency without precipitancy and believe the Truth with submission without resistance and with many other words have I testified the Truth in the answer of your Brother before as well as in this answer to you and have exhorted and do exhort saying Save your selves especially save your self from this untoward and froward Generation Acts 2.40 And if this be not enough that I have said read on still for I have somewhat more to say unto you as willing that you should not perish but come to the knowledge of the Truth and the acknowledgement of your Errors for so also there is somewhat more that you say to me in your Letter thus you write further Sir I wonder how you dare to say that you do imbrace the Truth as it is laid out by Jesus did Jesus ever lay down that a man should learn the Latine and Greek Tongue and so to a Vniversity to read Philosophy and commence Batchelor and Master of Arts and Batchelor and Doctor of Divinity and so come to a Parish there to take a Living from them to the value of 100 l. per annum more or less they nilling willing and there stile himself the Minister of Jesus Christ Did ever Christ lay down that you should take a little water and sprinkle it on the face of an Infant and say you dip them in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost did ever Christ lay down that his Ministers should be his peoples Masters as Lords over Gods Heritage Did Christ lay down that you should take a Parish a Church and to them cast the holy things of the body and blood of Christ as unto a company many of them if not the most of them no better then dogs I my self having been one who was not so good as a god till the grace of God appeared plucking me out of my wicked wayes to the knowledge of the Truth which you fear I have not owned But the day will discover and God will judge between you and us Here is stuff indeed enough to make an onely English-man to speak Greek and Latine of purpose to declare the vanity of such words against Languages like as the Sedentary Philosopher did presently arise and walk about to shew the folly of him who before him denied motion Quis expedivit Psittaco suum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Picasque docuit nostra verba conari I wonder Sir where you learned to speak these our words to spie out our Liberties yea to Pie and Parrat out our Tongues Degrees and Learning of the University your self never living there and now conversing with the Antipodes to the same Auditum spectatum admissi risum teneatis amici Truly friends and Readers so I would join you for that I know all Readers of me will not be friends with me I had not written out this passage but that I would at the closure of my answer present you with this spectacle of ridiculous stuff to move some mirth in you for there is nothing of Oracle or solid matter in it to take up any of your serious eyes ears or thoughts These indeed having been carried now a long time even unto wearisomness and tediousness I fear through the washes deeps and dippings of Ponds and Rivers it is time to bring you now to a fire to warm and dry you and in good time be it spoken as done Here 's an ignis fatuus a smoaking fire-brand a sparkling squib a blazing Comet a crackling thorn-bush enough to smutch a whole University but fear nothing deest ignis there 's no fire under the words nothing but a little flash and fume and new light a noise vox preterea nihil if you cannot warm your hands at it yet clap your hands at it and shout and laugh at it till you have warmed and refreshed your self sufficiently whilst I go on with my answer to such words for there is nothing of matter in them and shew the vanity of vanity in them also and all to be but vanity here Sir How dare you say you embrace the truth laid out by Jesus did ever Jesus lay down
cloud was a Pillar of fire and light to let you see if you be not wilfully blind that education of men at Schools and Universities in the knowledge of the Arts and Sciences as also Tongues and Languages is so far from being a way shut up by Christ as an Impertinency or Impediment to his Ministery that it hath been and is still a way laid open by him even in the times of his best and purest Ministery as a great furtherance and promotion thereof and that his Humane learning which you so vilifie is instrumental and subservient so it ought to be as Hagar to Sarah to the better propagation and profection of the Divine truth But Sir what is the reason you and yours are so much out of charity with Scholars and University Learning Sure it is because you are too much in love with your selves and the Countrey ignorance and like not those who are not like you in ignorance or whom you cannot be like unto in knowledge Like as it is said that Hierom wrote somewhat against Bishops and the Episcopal order because he could not be made a Bishop himself And yet I have heard and partly know it that you had natural wit enough to have been a Scholar though God never gave you the gracious will thereto and I have heard you discourse a great deal more rationally then now you do which makes me think you were dipt in some shallow Pond and not over head and ears otherwise you would not after such declaiming writing against the learning of Latine have within a line or two spoken and written Latine your self as you sililly do in those words of my taking a Living from them to the value of 100 l. per annum yea and have spoken false English too like a bad English Scholar also for I never took a Living from them the people neither from them as the owners nor from them as the Doners and so no way from them I hope that hereafter you will love Latine the better now your self begin to speak it But I have done with that which concerneth my self solely in your Letter for as to those other Queries or Interrogatories Did ever Jesus lay down my sprinkling of water in Baptism upon the childs face it is answered as being the subject of this my last piece written to you my being Master and Lord over Gods Heritage my taking a Parish Church my giving the Lords Supper to no better then dogs These have been answered as being a part of the Subject of that my former piece written to your brother Thus When the Jews had married wives of Ashdod their children spake half in the speech of Ashdod and could not speak in the Jews Language Neh. 13.23 24. so you having made a separation and divorce from your Mother Church of Jerusalem and entred into a Communion and match with Ashdod or Samaria this your Letter as your childe and off-spring speaks wholly I may say and not half the speech of the Separation or Ashdod for in all these particulars which you have mentioned you plowed with your Samsons Heifer and there is no more difference betwixt that he first vented and you now have added then betwixt Ephraim his Shibboleth and Gilead his Shibboleth You tell me of some no better then dogs that I give the Sacrament to and of your self having been not so good as a dog yet I see you are good at gathering up the scraps and eating the crumbs which fall from your Masters Table your Master Brothers Table to whom you have committed your soul and in whom you have put your trust for your soul as I have heard you should say to him and so like a Parrat or Pie as I said you speak no other but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Language of your Master and Teacher brother In answering therefore him first I have answered you also who are but his second nay but the very first again now also I will answer my own question before of Quis expedivit Psittaco suum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 namely Magister artis ingeniique largitor venter When he began to be in want he went and joined himself to one of the Citizens or Farmers in that Countrey 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as now so then Citizens had their Farms in the Country and were Farmers also as well as Citizens and so he filled his belly with the very same Husks the Swains or Swines do eat Luke 15.15 And so I come to that in your Letter which you speak first Of my Parishioners to be no better then dogs and secondly of your self to have been one not so good as a dog till the grace of God appeared plucking you out of your wicked wayes to the knowledge of the Truth which you say I fear you have not owned but the day will discover and God will judge betwixt you and us Sir it is true I wrote so that I feared it and do still fear as I wrote that you owned not the Truth for you own not the Scriptures in the right sense which are the Word of Truth but wrest the Letter to prove your own Errors nor do you own the Church but have forsaken it which is the Pillar of Truth and betaken your self to a Synagogue of your own and not onely this National Church of England but the Universal Church in the world as who have withdrawn your self from the publick Ministery of the Truth in the Word and Sacraments Yea and have renounced one of its true Sacraments your Infant-baptism these things have been clearly and largely set forth already in my answer to your Brother and I must not tyre my Reader or trifle away paper with needless repetitions And therefore though I yeeld you that the grace of God hath appeared plucking you out of your wicked wayes which I am glad to see as it appeareth yet I cannot say as you follow on that it hath pluckt you to or into the knowledge of the Truth for I find you not there but rather which both your Letter and life make to appear in the ignorance and that wilful ignorance of the Truth which makes me doubt somewhat of the truth also of the grace of God you so boast of for where true grace appeareth it not onely sanctifieth and plucketh out of wicked wayes but it illuminateth and setteth in the knowledge and path of Truth Yea and usually the grace of God doth first enlighten the soul and teacheth it the knowledge of the Truth before it pluck him from his wicked wayes as in the Prodigal and Saul more apparently There shined round about him a light from heaven and a voice thereout taught him the knowledge of the Truth even Jesus whom he persecuted in ignorance and so there fell from his eyes immediately as it had been scales and he received forthwith his sight and so after arose and was baptized Acts 9.3 18. and became a new creature and was plucked out of his evil and
mans own heart will tell him more of himself then seven Watch-men that sit in a high Tower yet I say as though the Grace of God given to me to every man that is among you and you especially not to think or speak of himself more highly then he ought to think or speak Rom. 12.3 as to think or speak of himself as an Angel or Lion as I said giving out that himself was or is some great one or the great power of God Acts 8.9 10. so not to think or speak of himself more lowly then he ought to think or speak as to think or speak of himself as a worm or a dog as you say unless you be of the same spirit assuredly that they were who extraordinarily thought and spake so of themselves For the Apostle saith of the first they do not think or speak soberly of themselves or unto sobriety and I may of the second they do not think or speak sincerely of themselves or unto sincerity there is an excess in the one and a defect of Truth in the other and your anger and rage against another who should call you so would soon discover the truth and the sincerity yea or not There is a saying amongst the Moralists that Nemo sibi injuriam infert no man can do an injury to himself No man ever yet hated his own flesh the Divine adds Eph. 4.29 Surely either you are gone out of your self or if you be come to your self with him Luke 25.17 you have injured your self in thinking and speaking your self a dog and not so good as a dog from your birth hitherto until this year When the Grace of God appeared plucking you out from your wicked wayes unto the knowledge of the Truth For the Grace of God which pluckt you as you write to the knowledge of the Truth is the same Grace which brought St. Peter to the knowledge of the Truth in this matter and appeared to him Acts 10.15 28. God hath shewed me saith Peter that I should not call any man common or nuclean and besides the vision there was a voice spake to him also What God hath cleansed that call not thou common and so the same voice forbids you though you see not the vision hear it and call not any man hereafter call not your self dog or any other common or unclean creature or name Indeed before the Election and calling of the Gentiles was make known to the Apostles by our Saviour Christ the Apostles and others had some such thoughts and speeches of the Gentiles as dogs and as unclean as appears by Peter here at first and Apostles and Brethren that were in Judea who contended with Peter for going unto them and eating with them Acts 11.3 Yea and Christ himself told the woman of Canaan a Gentile It was not meet to take the childrens bread and to cast it to dogs when she supplicated him for to cast a Devil out of her daughter Mat. 15.26 Dogs because they were out of a visible admission and reception into the Church-visible For without are dogs Rev. 22.15 but even she as they other Gentiles when she shewed the faith she had in the mercy of God and made profession of her Master Christ in that reply Truth Lord yet the dogs do eat of the crumbs that fall from their Masters Table Mutavit vocabulum quia mutatum vidit affectum saith Augustine upon the place he changeth his word and appellation because he saw in her a change of state and condition now he saith O woman great is thy Faith no longer now a dog but a woman yea and useth her not like a dog but as one of the lost Sheep of Canaan or the Gentiles But for your self and those other of my Parish who are born Christians of Christian Parents and so within and under the Covenant of Grace and also put under the Initial seal of the Covenant of Baptism I my self baptized you thirty six years sithence and thriving under my Ministery of the Word your self have often heard me preaching answered me and well to my questions of Catechizing your Mother Eunice also bringing you up like a Timothy in the nurtriture and knowledge of the Scriptures from a very childe and growing up a Faith by my administration of the Lords Supper If I remember well I have also taken examination of you as of the young men and found you or made you fitting and capable of the same and exhibited the fame unto you And what were all my people the most of them no better then dogs and yoiur self not so good as a dog all this while and no Grace of God appearing and plucking you to the knowledge of the Truth A Christian dog is a word for a Jew or a Turk to speak to look upon Christians as dogs and to use Christians like dogs is an act for a Barbarian and Scythian to do § Nay Sir you not onely wrong your self a Christian and my Christian Parishioners but you injury Christ himself and the Grace of Christ appearing both in them and your self to the plucking of your self and them from their wicked wayes to the knowledge of the Truth I can be a better witness for them then yoiu who are but herein the accuser of the Brethren for the Seal of my Ministery are they many of them in the Lord I can truly say with the Apostle 1 Cor. 9.2 I say again you wrong Christ himself and the Grace of Christ and the Covenant of his Grace and the Seals of his Covenant Baptism and the Lords Supper and the fruits and effects of his Seals and the Spirit of God that daily wrought and brought forth such fruits and effects in their lives And lastly you wrong your own eyes and conscience that will not see and acknowledge this by your stiling your self not so good and my people no better then dogs till you and they came out of your and their wicked wayes to the knowledge of the Truth What say you then to the children of Israel and their children by your speech and reason they must go for dogs too as not yet plucked out of their evil wayes to the knowledge of the Truth but in the phrase and language of Scripture they were a holy people and their children not unclean but holy The Root holy and the Branches likewise Rom. 11.16 and that by reason of the Covenant of the holy God and the Seals upon them with the other Ordinances and even Saul in the Acts of the Apostles was no dog but a chosen vessel of Christ before the Grace of God appeared plucking him out of his wicked way to the knowledge of the Truth Yea thus you wrong all the Elect of God for Gods Elect as Saul and your self it may be may live in wicked wayes and be ignorant of the Truth a long while as Saul did and you say of your self that you did yea the Elect Ephesians are said to be children of wrath by
Ministery your new Dipping and Re-baptizing with arenouncing of your old If you or any of you shall question farther why the Grace of God by my Ministery did not pluck you out before and sooner divers years ago before this last fatal one out of your wicked wayes c. it is answered Because there was the Grace of God in it which is free to work as I said and as where and by whom so when it pleaseth for Paul plants onely and Apollos onely watereth but God giveth the increase some increase I have shewed you God gave but the full increase which is the Harvest doth not presently come up after sowing For so is the Kingdom of God as if a man should cast seed into the ground and the seed should spring and grow up he knoweth not how saith St. Mark For the Earth bringeth forth the fruit of her self first the blade then the ear after that the full corn in the ear Mark 4.26 27 28. Conversion in some cometh as lightning from Heaven and is done suddenly in a moment at once so to Saul and Zacheus but to others as the seed before mentioned it comes up slowly and by degrees in time as to Nicodemus and the Prodigal and this is your case Now it is not the last stroak with the Axe that must baer the name of cutting down the great Oak from the stump and root but all the blows from the first to the last nor is it the sowing of the last handful of seed must go away with the title of bringing forth the whole rop Hosea 6.5 Mat. 3.10 God hath been hewing you these many years by the Axe of my Ministery which hath been sharpened at times in reproofs and admonitions to you both in the matter fitted for you and in my thoughts fixed upon you in the publick and so laid to the Roots of the Trees to your evil wayes saying Bring forth fruits worthy or meet for Repentance else you must be hewen down and cast into the fire So for the same purpose God and his Grace by my Ministery hath been seeding you with the good and principal Wheat the pure and precious Word of God for these many years and now shall the men of yesterday your new Seeds-men and Heads-men your last Teachers and Dippers who have wrought but one hour be made equal to me Mat. 20.12 yea be preferred before me who have born the burthen and heat of the day if God will have it so let it be so It is lawful for him to do whatsoever he will with his own and mineeye shall not be evi because God is good Herein also is and will be that saying true One soweth another reapeth John 4.37 38. They in the mean time reap that they bestowed no labour upon I laboured with you and they entered into my labours and have gotten you out of my hands though to no good praise and commendation for themselves and it may so fail out they may finde no great Crop or purchase of you and neither may repay their craft more then their charge especially it you will do as you ought Return and own the first Grace of God appearing to you and plucking you out from your wicked wayes to the knowledge of the Truth But fourthly Is this all Sir that you new Teachers and Converters have done for you and is this all the Grace that hath appeared to you for to pluck you out of your wicked wayes to the knowledge of the Truth Nay they have not done all this for they have not brought you to the knowledge of the Truth but of their Errors they have pulled you from knowledge to ignorance and from the truth to falsities and lyes as the Scripture phraseth such and I will tell you presently the particulars but suppose it a while they have pluckt you to the knowledge of the Truth that 's enough to prove you a true Convert by them for Judas was pulled up so far as to the knowledge of the Truth yet proved an Apostate at last for all that and was an Hypocrite in the mean time if you be not plucked up farther yet namely to the love of the Truth God may send you as in present he doth strong delusions that you shall believe a lye and be damned 2 Thess 2.11 12. Yea and yet farther to the obedience and practice of the Truth else you may miss to be blessed in the end for If ye know these things blessed are ye if ye do them John 13.17 Many shall say unto me saith Christ in that day Lord Lord have we not prophesied in thy Name yea and in thy Name cast out devils to whom he will profess even to such Professors I never knew you depart from me ye workers of iniquities Mat. 7.22 23. Oh but you are also plucked out of your wicked wayes too Oh but Grace of God hath appeared in that also But neither is that sufficint to shew your Conversion by them for Ahab humbled himself and went softly and abstained selling himself unto sin a while at the rebukes of Elias 1 King 21.29 and Herod reformed somewhat and did many things at the preaching of John and heard him gladly Mark 6.20 and Esau mourned for his loss and sale of his birth-right and sought the blessing again and that carefully with tears Heb. 12.17 If you ask what more would I require what lacketh yet I answer to you as our Saviour Christ did to the young-man Mat. 19.20 for neither are you too old if you be not too cold to learn saying much as you do All these things do I now keep though not from my youth up the Grace of God hath now in my elder years appeared plucking me from my wicked wayes One thing is lacking and if you wilt be a perfect Convert find the way to change your minde as the Author to the Hebrews addeth and not onely to alter your course and turn to the Lord with all your heart and so order that your soul and spirit may be washed from evil lusts and not onely the body and cloathes dipt from wicked works But you add The day will discover and God will judge between us and you whether you own the Truth to which and whom therefore I leave you § I proceed to a sit thing which is this That whatsoever good thing is wrought in you seriously and unfeignedly I concongratulate it whatsoever it be and would be instrumental unto the growth and increase thereof in the way of the Word of Truth let the Grace of God that hath appeared to you have the glory of it not unto them not unto them your new Land Teachers and new Pond Dippers but unto the name and Grace of God give the glory of whatsoever Conversion is wrought in you If you do not then with David I will say Not unto us O Lord not unto us but unto thy Name give glory for thy Mercy and Truths sake Psal 115.1 They have pluckt you onely from the
good old Way into a new by and bad path from the publick Ministery or Steeple-houses be it so to private mysteries or smokeries rather of their Chimney-houses from your first true Baptism at a Font. to a second vain Dippism in a Pond They have been rather instrumental to your Confusion then your Conversion Yea I say further God doth not use them the Anabaptists as Anabaptists andtheir doctrine as any ordinary means or instruments of his to the Converting fouls to the Faith and Truth I promised to give you a Particular of them and their Doctrines and this it is wherein they differ from us and have forsaken the Truth of our Church and the Word of God and which doth denominate and constitute an Anabaptist They reject all Infant-baptism renouncing their own Baptism they took in Infancy and therefore Re-baptize themselves and others and keep their children from Baptism till years of discretion and ability of profession and so in a manner deny the Seal of the Covenant of Grace to Infants with whom also God hath entred into it saying I will be thy God and the God of thy seed They hold all stinted and set forms of prayer unlawful to be used in Church or House and even so also the Lords prayer That there is no distinction betwixt Clergy and Laity That the taking of Oaths before or by the Authority of a Magistrate is unlawful That the office of a Magistrate is neither lawful nor necessary with abundance more for why should I stir the whole dunghil to infect the Air of coherent and coincident Errors and Lyes as the Prophetical Scriptures call them Are such Teachers and Tenets like to pluck you out of your wicked wayes and to bring you to the knowledge of the Truth whether private or publick who hang so fast in the Bushes and Thickets of Errors and stick so deep in the Bushes and Thickets of Erros and stick so deep in the mire of Vices dipt in both up to the chin and mouth yea over head and ears especially seeing such were never called or sent about the work of Converting souls to either For my part I am of Paul and I am of Jeremiah and so should you be of both too the Apostle and the Prophet But first I am of Paul the Apostle who saith indeed Faith cometh by hearing for how shall they believe in whom they have not heard But it is hearing of a Preacher for how shall they hear without a Preacher And it is of a Preacher sent for how shall they preach except they be sent The Apostle is clear of the opinion that onely sent Preachers who have Mission and Commission from God can bring hearers to the Faith and seems to wonder at those in his vehement and frequent Interrogatories who say or think otherwise This Text I may call Faiths Clymax or Ladder with its steps and gradations which none of your Lay-brethren could ever yet climbe up to or come down by if they begin at the lower end as they ought being the ground and foundation of the work and so offer to go and climbe up they mâ—ss of their first step and footing because they are not sent and so must climbe no farther or higher for want of Mission they cannot go up the Ladder in the Right way of preaching and begetting faith in the Hearers or your self And if they begin at the upper end and top of this Ladder as indeed presumptuously they use to do and heap to themselves at first a multitude of Hearers and so come down along to their preaching yet they fall off the Ladder at the lower staffe or step again because still they be not sent and so can do no missive or ministerial good upon their Hearers nor your self as to Faith It is Gods great mercy to them and you that they cast not themselves down head-long or that they are not cast down by him that took them up into the Pulpit and set them on that Pinnacle of the Temple to the breaking of their necks as well as making shipwrack of Faith for they tempt the Lord their God and are not in their wayes which words must not be left out by you as they are left out by the devils citing of that Text and therefore God hath given his Angels no charge over them being out of their wayes to bear them in their armes or hands that they dash not their foot against the stones Yea they do dash not onely their feer but their tongues also against the stone the Head-stone of the corner which these builders refuse in ascending Pulpits or stepping into chairs and preaching without his sending or Commissioning them according to his Prerogative given unto him of which this is a part All power is given me in Heaven and in Earth as my Father hath sent me so send I you Mat. 28.18 19. John 20.2 So also I am of Jeremiah who is so frequent and fervent in the point that I shall onely name the Texts and make the proofs out of all together Jer. 14.14 23.32 21. 27.14 28.8 9. where I observe that six or seven times the Lord by the Prophet saith that he sent them not and thereupon it 's said thrice they prophesied lyes once otherwise then the word is once deceits and dreams once their Errors and lightness false visions and divinations things of naught and the deceits of their own hearts enough one would think to keep off people from hearing of them and yet in plain terms therefore they are forbidden thrice to hearken to them or their words And if for all this they will be hearing of them as they have now very itching ears and give themselves much to hearing new men as news-men the Prophet tells and foretels them more plainly They shall do no good on it at the 32. verse of the 23. Chapter I sent them not nor commanded them Therefore they shall not profit this people at all saith the Lord. Hear you this Sir and hearken to this all ye separate people of England those of God unsent uncommanded Preachers false Teachers of the Anabaptistical separation for are they not so that teach you the Doctrines and Practices I have particularized but even now and now may assimilate unto the lyes dreams deceits vain visions of those false Prophets those false Teachers of the Anabaptisticall separation I say nay saith the Lord shall not profit you at all therefore they have not nor any Grace of God appearing in by or from them for God doth not give Converting ministerial Grace to them whom he doth not send nor Commission them plucked you or any of our people nor shall pluck them or you from your wicked wayes to the knowledge of the Truth for this is and will be a great deal of profit they have not turned and converted you or any of our people nor shall unto the Faith and unto God for this is and will be the greatest profit of all that can be You
margent wherewith they made Baal And so you do not or did not know that Gods first Covenant of Grace in Christ I will be thy God and the God of thy seed sealed unto you in your Infant-baptism your first Infant-baptism sealing unto you the Covenant of the Grace of God in Christ gave you your knowledge of the Truth your Conversion from your evil wayes your Repentance your Faith and increased these and other Graces in you which you and they prepare for and ascribe to their and your Anabaptism and wherewith they and you would make Anabaptism leaping upon the Altar that they have made and dousing in the Ponds that you go to crying O Baal hear us or Great is Diana of the Ephesians the dipping of the Anabaptists Why halt ye or how long O ye people halt ye between two opinions or two Baptisms 1 Kings 18.21 if your first Infant-baptism be the Seal of Gods Covenant of Grace to you follow it but if the Anabaptists second Dippism be the Seal then follow it Therefore I say farther to them the people and you not I even I onely but we even we also thousands of us remain the Ministers of the Lord and your Prophets are a great many more for every one that will with you may consecrate himself and be a Prophet we as we do will still bring our children and Infants of believing Parents unto Baptism in our Churches pouring on or sprinkling water In the name of the Father the Son and the holy Ghost with invocation or calling on the Name of the Lord and do you as you use go out with your grown but born Christians men and women whom you have with-held from their Baptism in their Infancy or with other grown persons formerly baptized whom you have seduced into your by-wayes and carry them to your dippings and diving them over head and ears body cloathes in your Ponds of the field the Baptism or washing that answereth by fire I mean the Spirit 1 Kings 18.24 and spiritual Graces bringing after to Repentance from evil wayes and unto the knowledge of the Truth let that be the right washing and Baptism indeed All the people I know will and yur selves also must needs answer The word is good and it is well spoken Now then I propose and it s my major proposition most true That washing with water or Baptism which answereth by fire cavil not at the phrase God in or by Baptism I mean and hath the Graces of Gods Spirit Faith Repentance Conversion answerable and following thereupon is that and that onely which is mentioned in the Scriptures as of Gods Institution so conjunction Mat. 3.11 Mark 1.8 Acts 2.38 John 3.6 and in a great many other places which formerly I have brought shewing the correspondence or accompanying the one of or to and after the other the Baptism and the Spirit But I assume and it is my minor proposition yet no less true That neither of your two dippings I call them two in respect of the Subjects which are of two sorts some formerly baptized and some not are to be found in any part of Scripture throughout the whole Bible either instituted of God or conjoyned with fire or the Spirit as my whole Book and this annexed Treatise or Censure hath cleared demonstrated And therefore I may conclude Negatively against your diping by Anabaptists that it answereth not by fire and so you have received from them and it nothing but water no fire no Spirit no Grace no Regeneration no Conversion no plucking out of your evil wayes into the knowledge of the Truth What you have of these Goods or Graces in present you have and received as sparks at your first Baptism in your Infancy which being according to the Scriptures and to Gods Ordinance and Institution answereth by Fire in all Gods elect children as who are inwardly also baptized of the Spirit whch is the fire I mean and speak of which answering also by fire in them afterwards sheweth their Baptism in Infancy to have been according to the Scripture Gods Ordinance and Institution To come up yet closer to you If you Sir be one of those that belong unto the Election and Covenant of Grace as I in charity judged of you as I ought to do when I baptized you and gave you Baptism as the seal of the Covenant then were you baptized with fire i. e. the Spirit as well as water the inward Grace being united to the outward Sign unto such and the Spirit as truly and really and actualy applying the merits and blood of Christ in the justifying and sanctifying vertue unto your soul as I did the water to your body or bodily part of your face or forehead and the invisible Grace of the Sacrament was conveyed to you by such visible means so that if you had dyed in your Infancy this your Baptism had been to you supposing you still an Elect Infant as a seal of the Righteousness of Christ extraordinarily applied by the holy Ghost to your Justification and Salvation God hath now suffered you to live to years of discretion I must therefore put you in remembrance that you stir up the gift or Grace of God which is in you as Paul speaketh to Timothy 2 Tim. 1.6 I cannot say by the putting on of my hands but I may by the pouring on of that water with my hands The word in the original is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to stir up that fire of the Spirit I spake of and to quicken up the grace of Baptism that hath lien under the ashes throughout your youthful and sinful dayes of ignorance that so now it may kindle and burn brighter in you You are now to bestir your self in reading the Word and hearing it preached by such Ministers as God sendeth into the Church and amongst them him especially who baptized you at first that so you may come to Faith by such means and by Faith now actually lay hold on the promises of the Covenant of Grace touching Justification Remission and Adoption and enjoy them to your use and comfort which were but made and sealed in your Baptism as to every Elect Childe of God and estated upon you on Gods part as to your Right and Title I do not say that your Baptism properly did give you or primarily the Right and Interest you have unto God and Christ Gods free Covenant and promise did it but it sealed up onely and mainly confirmeth that Right and Interest which you had already even then in Gods Govenant and Promise Gods Word is as good as his Bond and his Promise as effectual as his Seal your Baptism as the other Sacrament was not for the strengthning or effectualizing of Gods Covenant but to the confirming and supporting your faith in apprehending it I would make this very plain to you hoping it may be for some good to you Suppose an Estate made over unto you in your Infancy by a Will and Testament under Seal you
ipse procedit and a little after Albicabat tota civitas de Grege candido I add also the testimony of our Countryman Rabanus Maurus one of Beda his Scholars who Lib. 1. de Instit cler Cap. 29. Pâ—st Baptismum traditur Christiano vestis Candida designans innocentiam puritatem Christianam quam pâ—st ablutas veteres maculas studio sanctae conversationis immaculatam servare debet ad presentandum ante Tribunal Christi I think I may as well heap to my self Testimonies and have herein an itching hand writing for the good of others you being indocible herein as there be some that heap to themselves Teachers having itching ears hearing too little good of themselves Lactantius de Resur Dominicae die speaking to Christ Rex sacer ecce tui radiat pars magna Trophaei Cum puras Animas Sacra lavachra beant Candidus egreditur nitidis exercitus undis Atque vetus vitium purgat in amne novo 1. This testimony I the rather add because of its antiquity for Lactantius lived in the 310 year from the Nativity of Christ and speaketh of the clear and white waters of the Rivers used in Baptism to confirm what I said before hereof like as another doth of Fountain or Fonts Paulinus by name Inde parens sacro ducit de Fonte sacerdos Infantes niveos corpore corde habitu So Paulus Diaconus who wrote in the year 790. Lib. 6. Hist Longobard Cap. 15. maketh mention for which cause I also make mention of him and his testimony of one Codratus King of the Anglosaxons who was baptized at Rome of Sergius the first Pope there in the year 690. and by him named Peter and that he died being in his white Garments and that was within the seven days or weeks after he was baptized For of old they were baptized at Easter a solemn time appointed for the Catechumens to be baptized in after their instructions and preparations certain dayes before and so arrayed in the same white garments for seven or eight dayes they appeared all upon the Sunday following Easter-day which thereupon was called with them Dominica in Albis as both Rabanus in his 2 Lib. de Instit Cleâ— Cap. 30. and Augustine in Serm. ad competentes a very white Sunday though in our English called Low-Sunday It might be a second Palm-Sunday being both Ensigns as of Innocency so victory The which Feast of Easter lasted with them until Pentecost therefore called with us Whit-sunday or White-Sunday also because they then also appeared together in their white cloaths after which namely the Lords day after their white garments were taken off for which purpose it was called Pascha clausum or the Feast of Easter finished or shut up as Alcuinus in Epistolaad Carolum Magnum in Hebdomada Pentecostes In imitation of this the Papists do even yet continue to put a white handkerchief or other white linen vestment upon or about the head of the baptized and anointed Infant by which they signifie both the glory of the Resurrection as also the splendour and whiteness or brightness of the soul the black and foul spots of sins being washed off and lastly that the baptized must so long as he liveth keep and preserve its purity and innocency and so in a manner and upon the matter I have given you in English the substance of all the Latine before lest thou should traduce me also for a Papist for writing thus to you in an unknown tongue But I leave now this digression occasioned from the third signification of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is as I have said to Dye even to dye white as wool and snow the crimson and scarlet sins of such as being born therein come to be baptized And so I conclude my first answer to your or rather others objection the which answer is briefly this That your dipping or immerging cannot be the true and onely baptism because as they say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is derived from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth to dip or immerge for that I say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth also to Wash and also to Dye and where there are three significations as three branches of a Primogenial or Radical word it followeth not but is a great non-sequitur or inconsequence that the word derived as Baptism here should be confined to and concluded in the one namely dipping when as it may be and must be enlarged and extended to the other also washing and dying Secondly in words when from them arguments are drawn you must consider to what use and purpose the words are brought and not so much or onely from what root and original they are fetcht for howsoever most an end I acknowledge the Primitive and Radical word is of a greater latitude and larger extent then that which is branched and derived from it yet it is often otherwise or sometimes at least as in some trees whose branches do exceed the root in extension and as in man who is Arbor inversa whose arms and legs do spread wider and farther then the head and hair Our Divines do instance in two Derivative words Catechising and Prophecying whereof the first namely Catechizing according to the use of the Scripture spreads now as far as to the teaching of men of riper years by any way of writing or preaching or conference as is to be seen Luk. 1.4 Acts 18.25 Acts 21.24 1 Cor. 14.19 yet is derived from a word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a sound or such a sound as an Eccho yeildeth and properly and originally is but such an instruction as is of children or Novices in the Elements and Rudiments of Religion by a lively voice of Question and Answer sounding and resounding like the Eccho So the second namely Prophecying according to the use of the Scriptures spreadeth now farther then the root or word whence it is derived for whereas this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth properly and radically but to foretell things to come and reveal matters to be hereafter fulfilled that now is extended to the declaring of things also past done and already fulfilled as in those well known places of Saint Paul 1 Cor. 11.4 and 1 Cor. 14.13 31. So thirdly to come to our business in hand Baptizing though it may be and is derived from the radicall word before mentioned which signifieth dipping and immerging into and under water yet it is of a larger signification then so and is extended in general to many kinds of washings and laverings rinsings and cleansings even where there is no dipping or immerging at all and this also according to the use and language of the Scriptures I shall give you some particular instances and inductions as I have in part already and so shall a little exercise your patience and mine own too according to the rule given me being apt to teach you patient in meekness instructing you if peradventure God will
give repentance to the acknowledging of the truth 2 Tim. 2.24 25. 1. The children of Israel are said to be all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea 1 Cor. 10.2 the Red sea being an antitype of the Waters of Baptism and the cloudy pillar an antitype of the Spirit yet were they not dipped in the cloud dashed they might be and wetted with the cloud and some showers or drops falling from it as they passed under it going before them and behinde them at times as Exod. 14.22 but dipped or immerged in or into it you will not say I suppose nor can you say I think that the Israelites were dipped in or under the waters of the Red Sea as which were a wall unto them both on the right hand and on the left so that they walked dry foot and dry shod through the same sprinkled they might be and washed a little with some droppings and aspersions from the walls but dipped and immerged they were not in them and yet baptized I the rather and at first instance in this because the Apostle doth himself call this a figure or example of our Baptism at the 6. and 10. verses for as in that passage of the Israelites through the Red Sea they were preserved and their enemies the Egyptians drowned so by our undergoing and partaking of Baptism the water whereof representeth the blood of Christ to us our fouls are saved and our enemies sin and our natural corruption are enfeebled and overthrown so as remitted unto us thereby it cannot have dominion or bring damnation 2. Our Saviour asketh the two ambitious Suitors Can ye be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with and foretelleth them With the Baptism that I am baptized with shall ye be baptized Mark 10.38 39. What did he mean that either himself or those two Apostles should be dipped all over in blood and immerged therein no rather but that they should be sprinkled with the drops thereof and besmeared with the same so himself Though blood trickled down his head by the pricking of the Thorns and blood ran down his back by the cuttings of the scourge and blood issued out with water out of his side by the piercings of the spear and blood fell out of his hands and feet by the wounding of the spikes and nailes sprinkled he might be and aspersed in body and so was with blood but dipt and immerged he was not and yet baptized with the baptism thereof and as for the two Brothers James was killed of Herod with the sword Act. 12.2 and so he was baptized in blood but not dipt in it and John was banished by Domitian into the Isle of Patmos in the 90 year of the Nativity of Christ which was as every persecution is a kind of such baptism as is here meant by our Saviour where he endured Exile nine or ten years and there wrote the Revelation to the Churches but being after released by Trajanus he returned to Ephesus and there wrote his Gospel and there dyed in the 100. year after the Nativity he onely amongst all the Aposties being the Survivor of them all siccâ morte sine sanguine as some say though Augustine Libro Soliloq Cap. 29. Tom. 9. hath these words Veneni poculum Johanues intrepidus potavit He was forced to drink a cup of poyson but he saith not that he died thereof so if he were not baptized with the baptism that Christ was he drank of the cup which Christ did and foretold he should die also in the same Text. 3. John the Baptist told the people that He who came after him meaning Christ should baptize them with the Holy Ghost and with fire Mat. 3.11 and Christ himself foretold the Apostles they should be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many dayes hence Acts 1.5 and so they were on the day of Pentecost following when there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire and sat upon each of them and they were all filled with the holy Ghost Acts 2.3 4. thus were they baptized with fire and the holy Ghost but not dipped or immerged in that fire but rather aspersed or superfused according to the phrase of Scripture I will pour out my spirit Joel 2.28 and the spirit was shed abundantly Titus 3.6 I could tell you of more baptizings for so the word is in the original of Cups Tables and Beds as they are mentioned in the Evangelist Mark 7.4 The which howsoever they may fit you well as being Pharisaical and Hypocritical and me also as wherein there was no dipping or immerging but onely washing and rubbing I passe by for brevity sake as also that which the Fathers call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 called since the Baptism of Repentance in which they were not merged or drowned in tears that 's but a metaphorical phrase to shew an abundance of their weeping but onely sprinkled and perfused with tears by which they did seek and desire the remission of their sins and also found and obtained the same 4. I will add but one more 1 Cor. 15.29 Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead whether it be taken passively according to the translation for those who were baptized with water for dead i.e. given over for dead or ready to die or whether Actively and Passively for those who did baptize and also were baptized over the dead i upon the graves of the dead 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being oft as here put for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as learned Beza observeth upon Mat. 17.27 and Mark 10.48 or whether it be meant who are washed for dead their dead bodies are washed according to the custom of the Patriarchs as yet then retained in the Church and mentioned to be done unto Dorcas Acts 9.37 who being dead they washed and laid in an upper chamber which way soever that Baptizing with water be meant it cannot imply any dipping or immerging as being unto dying persons or unto persons baptized over graves or unto dead bodies And thus I have shewed you that there may be baptizings where there are no dippings and immergings and that this derivative 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is of a larger signification then its original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as to the general and therefore that it can be no Argument to prove your dipping to be the baptizing because baptism is a derivative word from the root 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying to dip And so I come now to the very particular work in hand and shall take it not onely in the Grammatical and Theological sense but in the very Sacramental and Mystical meaning the properly baptizing with water In the Name of the Father and the Son and the holy Ghost so as John the Baptist Peter and Paul and Philip and the Deacons and the 72 Disciples gave and ministred its so as Jerusalem and all Judea round about Jordan Christ and the Apostles the 3000. the 5000. the Eunuch Lydia