believers or unbelievers nor both nor if of believers onely whether all or onely some of them have the spirit and faith I shall be as bold to deny it ever till they give some better specimen of it then the best infant that ever you or I saw did in that nonage wherein you sprinkle them specially so long as to the stark spoiling utter unsaying and clear contradicting of whatever your own selves would prove it by you are fain to confesse page 16. That all have them not and p. 18. Which have and which have not the spirit being no more bound to believers infants then others and no more bar'd from working in unbelievers infants than believers cannot be certainly presumed and that whatever the spirit may work in children yet this is not known to us so that there can be no conclusion made And howbeit this Argument being by your own concession thus crushed in the head i. e. this Prosyllogism turns about with his tail and thrusts at us therewith I mean this ensuing Syllogism viz. No Iustification nor salvation to them that have not faith But justification and salvation is to infants Ergo infants have faith Yet I return thus to your Major viz. that though there is no justification nor salvation without faith of such as are capable to believe and of whom to believe it is required yet of such as neither are capable nor called on to believe in order thereunto there may be and is a justification and salvation without it and this is the case of all dying infants in the world the presentment of the satisfaction of Christ without faith and without obedience also in any thing else both which are in ordine ad vitam injoined to adult ones doth save dying infants or else innumerable of those infants are damned neither is this any new way for the salvation of infants dying in minority nor a grounding their salvaâ—…ion upon a figment and invention of our own braines nor such as the Scripture is altogether silent in nor such as destroyes the Gospel Covenant which is the righteousness of faith for howbeit it is true that the Scripture runs on this wise saying The just shall live by faith he that believes shall be saved he that believes not shall be damned and to him that worketh not but believeth on him that justifyeth the ungodly his faith shall be accounted unto him for righteousnesse and twenty more such like expressions of the Gospel Covenant Rom. 1. Rom. 3. Iohn 3. c. as that which gives righteousnesse and life by faith only without the works of the Law yet I beseech you set your wits on work and see whether these Scriptures were written of infants or to them either or whether only of and to mens at years only to shew unto them on what terms the Lord will accept and save them in the Covenant and promise of the Gospel Me thinks your own reason should dictate thus much that all those places speak no more of infants then they speak to them in minority and that you will assuredly yield that they do not yea you may as well say these places viz. T is a people that have no vnderstanding therefore he that made them will not save them and he that formed them will shew them no mercy and the lord Iesus shall come with flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God and obey not his Gospel and that because they received not the truth in the love thereof that they might be saved for this cause God shall send them strong delusions to believe lies that they all might be damned who had pleasure in unrighteousnesse c. who ere transgresseth and abideth not in the the doctrine of Christ hath not God every soul that heareth not the voice of that Prophet shall be destroyed with the mouth confession is made unto salvation and an hundred such like as speak of an necessity of good works as well as of faith viz. self-denyall taking up the cross and following Christ c. speak of and to infants in â—…on age while they know not their right hand from their left But Sirs oh that you would once understand for then all your intricacies sottish and absurd assertions and disputes about infants would be ended and save you a world of perplexity that now you are in by the ignorance of it that the word was not written as the way and will of God concerning infants in infancy but concerning men and women in order to their salvation by Christ Iohn 6. 39. 40. And this Sirs is no other answer then you use to give us when we argue against infants believing thus viz. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word preached But infants cannot hear so as to know Christ by the word preached Ergo infants cannot believe You tell us true faith in Adult is can come no other way but by preaching but in Infantibus faith is begotten otherwise so you fancy but you have no Scripture for it as we have that faith comes no way but by hearing Babist But that Scripture Rom. 10. speaks only of the way of faiths comming to adult ones Baptist So say I of welnigh the whole body of Scripture it speaks of the way wherein men at years must expect to be justifyed and saved and not of infants for they may be saved without faith so when we plead with you against the baptizing of infants I mean such of you and such there be amongst you as are ashamed as well as some that are not to say that infants have faith we tell you the Scripture speaks only of baptism of persons confessing sin professing faith that faith and baptism use still to go together as he that believeth and is baptized the Corinthians heâ—…ring believed and were baptized if thou believest with all thy heart c. therefore those that believe not may not be baptized you tell us again of these places and of all that ever we bring out of Scripture where baptism is mentioned that they speak of adult persons of whom t is confessed by you that faith and confession and profession is required in order to baptism but not of infants that cannot perform them So Pareus in Ursin Cate. p. 384. 385. and also many others and your answer is very true and grants all that we desire for indeed all the places where ever baptism is mentioned throughout the Scripture do speak of it as in relation to grown persons and not to infants therefore because the Scripture is wholly silent in such a thing we dare not meddle to baptize infants but as we grant your answer to be true so I hope you will grant it to be as true in our present case for if some of you when we call for faith to a persons baptism or else deny that person to be baptized say thus viz. true no baptism without faith of such of whom faith is required and who are capable to act it i. e. of
papists do baptize bells or as if it were more unwarrantable for us to wet the cloathes that persons are baptized in when we baptize their bodies then t is for the priests to wet the head cloaths of infants when they rantize their faces By such silly supposals I say as these that there can be no true totall dipping unless the persons be uncloathed he subtly insinuates the world into a certain supposition at least a shrewed suspition that dipping naked is the onely baptism dispensed among us for which hee 'l once be ashamed but as for Mr. Baxter he is so uningenuous impudent and uncivilly foolish in this present parcel of his you have here spread before us that I professe against it as having in it much falsenesse and more immodesty then I ever saw expressed at the totall dipping of any person that ever I saw dipped in my life for he not only makes a long supervacaneous discourse of his dislike of dipping women and maids naked in which is such a needlesse and over often nomination of those termes too as tends more to the offending of chast and corrupting of unchast consciences then to any use of edifying at all but also most rashly relates it to the whole world to be the usuall ordinary known practise of a people that are as abhorrent of such abominations as himself As for his Argument it is a fallacy called Ignoratio Elenchi for he concludes not the point in question for they who stand most for baptizing by totall dipping are all for ought that ever I heard of as much against naked dipping as himself yea so far are we all if any had been otherwise minded Mr. Baxter would surely have assigned them whose design was to vilifie us what he could so far are we all from countenancing such a practise that I dare in the name of all the Churches of the Baptists through England declare their unanimous utter detestation of it in Mr. Baxters own words viz that it is a breach of the seventh Commandment an inâ—…ollerable wickednesse an immodest action an incitement to uncleannesse likely enough to raise jealousies in Ministers wives yea and other womens husbands too and so to foment continuall dissention a means to debauch people and bereaâ—… them of all common civility modesty ingenuity and humanity to turn Gods worship into contempt and make it meerly ridiculous to bring a general reproach upon the Christian profession among all the enemies thereof yea amongst the most sober and discreet to discredit the truth and prejudice men against it yea verily t is scandal reproach and discredit enough in that it is but belied by Mr. Baxter to be so base how much more and more justly would it be reproached if his reports were as true as they are full of falsehood we I say acknowledg the practise of naked dipping to be as bad as Mr. Baxter proves it to be therefore quorsum haec to what purpose doth he with such prolixity proceed to prove what no sober minded man of either party doth deny This is aliud a nogate a plain absurd aberration from the question which is not whether it be a sin ordinarily to dip naked or no but whether we ordinarily use that kind of dipping The first which none doubts of he indeavours to make evident as one that lightâ—… a candle whereby to shew men that the sun shines The second which is unknown utterly among us he proclaims to be our usual ' notorious known practise but he offers no proof of this at all Such silly Sophistry as this Mr. Baxter uses also in almost every of these Arguments whereby he professes to disprove our practise as unwarrantable concluding all along another point than that in question for whereas our tenet is that persons at years professing to believe of what parents so ever born are to be baptized he most simply and sinisterly concludes against us as he supposes in a matter of four or five Arguments that the children of Christians may not be baptized when they come to years and that this practise of baptizing of Christians children is utterly unconsistent with the Rule of Christ as for us we say as much neither is it our practise or opinion to baptize Christians children at age upon that account meerly as they are Christians children any more then the children of them that are no Christians unlesse they professe to be believers and Christians themselves as their parents do and upon that account viz. as they professe to believe we baptize hea heâ—…s children as soon as them Thus the man busies himself beyond measure in beating the aire and wearyes himself ad ravim usque and his reader ad nauseam in refuting non entities about the proof of such things as no body denies and per ignorationem Elenchi concludes that which is as clear to his Antagonists as to himself and leaves that utterly undemonstrated which is the onely thing denyed by them the absurdity of whose way he pretends it to be his businesse to discover For verily those against whom he fights under the name of Anabaptists are as clear in it as he can be that no Christians child qua talis is to be baptized when he comes to years saving upon the same account on which an heathens child may be at years so baptized as well as he viz. his own personal profession of faith and desire of baptism Again they hold dipping naked to be intollerable wickednesse as well as he yet these things he belabours himself not a little in making good but that which is denyed indeed viz. that it is our usual practise to dip women and maids naked this he charges us with most stoutly most desperately and tells a tale of us most absurdly to the base abusing of himself the true Church and the whole world also but he is so impertinent and impertinently imployed in proving naked dipping to be a sin that he either forgets or has no while to prove it to be practised by us at all But Siâ—… who but he that sees the right eye of the idol shepheard to be uâ—…ely darkned would ever think that from such a man as Mr. Ba. desires to be accounted such a piece of paultry should proceed that such a messe of balterdash as here is should ere be broached by him that such a mad report of the walkers in truth should be publisht by one that goes for a publisher of the truth among thousands of deluded people Me thinks I see Satan gone forth and become a lying spirit in the mouthes of the prime among their prophets perswading and in the just judgement of God prevailing with multitudes of meer formal Gospellers to be strongly deluded and to believe lies out of their mouthes that they may be damn'd because they receive not the truth that was troden down for 42 monthes and now rises again and shines forth in the love therof that they may be saved but have pleasure in unrighteousness and superstition
not dipâ—… should be damned be true they as much as lies in them damn to the pit of hell all the Matyrs Professors Fathers believers for many hundreds of years together Which onely doctrine should make all men to abhor them and not let their soules intermeddle with their secret whose rage is so fierce whose wrath 〈◊〉 so cruel Christ shuts out onely unbelievers from heaven whosoever believeth not shall be damned This doctrine shuts out believers if they be not dipt i. e. if they be not Anabaptists it cannot be the ceremony they are so hot for without the substance Re-Review But saving the over apprehensive powers of that judicious Gentleman who ere it was that heard me he most grossely abuses in it himself and me in reporting such a thing to you as also you abuse both him and me and the world too in reporting it as from him to the world yet you have done him honour so farre I confesse as to conceal his name or else you had done him a greater spite indeed himself in shewing such shallowness of capacity in hearing as scarcely calls for that worthy title of judicious Gentleman and me in not only mistaking but mistelling his mistake also to you who print out his mistake to all the world for such doctrine as this That all that did believe and were not dipt should be damned â—…id never yet fall from my mouth nor did ere take place or was ever owned for â—…uth in my mind yea howbeit I summon you or any else to shew me in the word not taken by snatches but in the wâ—…ole intent and scope of it Gods promise of salvation by Christ without obedience to him both in repentance faith and baptism too to those of whom all these things are required I say it again least you mistake me as speaking of infants for they being capable of none of these of them to salvation none of these are required of whom all these are required since all those that obey not the Gospel in what part soever of it it is manifested to them shall be damned 2 Thes. 1. 7 8 9 2. 10 11 12. Howbeit I say I wish you to advise how safely you that know it to be your duty may neglect it and how groundedly you can assure your selves that you do believe at all in truth if you receive not the love of every tittle of Christs truth so as wherein it appears to you to imbrace and obey it yet I am well assured I never utterd the other viz. that all that did believe and were not dipt should be damned noâ—… is it now nor ever was it my judgement to this hour of which for the worlds and your satisfaction sith I have been very often charged and that twice or thrice in publique places where I have preacht so to hold I shall here give this brief account I judge that all persons in the world meaning not infants but such as 〈◊〉 at years of discretion to whom the Gospell comes in any measure are of some or other of these three sorts viz. 1. Either such as neither believe at all nor so much as in words profess so to do Or 2. Such as in words say they believe and indeed do not Or 3. Such as both profess to believe and do indeed believe as they say Now I suppose we all hold the first sort viz. professed prophane ones so living so dying will be damned and unless we will deny the Scriptures we must needs hold the second sort whose professed faith is a dead faith shall not be saved for what doth it profit if a man say he hath faith Jam. 2. 14. and have 〈◊〉 works c. whereby onely faith is proved to be true indeed as it is professed can that faith save him as for the third sort viz true believers I subdivide them in my thoughts into 2 ranks First such as believing in Christ truly for salvation believe also baptism in its true way of dispensation and not rantism to be Christs will concerning them and these I am certain will submit accordingly and obey him in it for such as say they have faith and live in rebellion to what parts of Christs will they know they ought to obey him in have not faith to salvation what ever they say Or Secondly such as believing in Christ neither see nor believe nor practise baptism in that only true way wherin we dispense it and all this meerly for want of meanes to discover it to them or by means of the invincible ignorance of their times and ages wherein they lived and wherein according to the will of God permitting it so to be the mind of God in that thing hath been hid and as we know it hath in many more things for ages and generations together remained undiscovered which times of ignorance I believe God much winked at in those who sincerely owned truth and obeyed it so far as it then appeared and as they saw it thoâ—…gh now he commands all men to return from Babylon in these daies of light wherein men may see but that they will not yea many prophets and righteous ones in the height of Popery have desired to see and hear what we do or may do yet could not the Scriptures lying lockt up as unlawful well-nigh for any to consult with therefore look you to it who say you do not this or that because you see it not for I testify to you that it is a time wherein the true light shineth so cleerly that men need not erre if they love not darkenesse more then light because their deeds are evil And the same measure of light and reformation and truth which might have denominated you reformists had you lived 100 years ago will not serve to denominate you so now since the smoak that darkned the sun and the aire is much more perfectly dispelled then in that twilight in this form I mean of such as could not see not because they would not but because it shone not do I rank all the Martyrs and those honest men whom you doâ—…e on as Fathers and all true professors and believers for many hundreds of years together who witnessed to truth and suffered for it too so far as it did appear to them in their times to this sort of men I am more charitable and tender in my censures then you can possibly prove your selves to be and so I am also to infants for all your pâ—…ate of pleading for them against our cruelties neither doth any doctrine that ever I delivered damn any of these to the pit of hell as your doctrine of so rigid harsh fierce and cruel rejection of all infants from salvation save those of believers doth damn an hundred to one of them that dy in innocent infancy and where it should be that that Gentleman told you I preacht that doctrine That all such as believe and yet are not dipped shall be damned I know not but this I know that I was ever
of himself he is God given over to strong delusion to believe lies that they may be damned because not receiving the love of the truth that they might be saved whom the Lord shall destroy with the brightness of his coming 2 Thess. 2. denying the Lord that bought them and bringing on themselves swift destruction 2 Pet. 2. 2. * Viz touching of dead bo dies Num. 5. 2. eatingâ—… or touching the carcases of any forbidden fishes birds or beast Lev. 11. 24. 31. diseases as the leprosie Lev. 13. 8. running of issues Levit. 15. 2. and such like * for if he that despised Moses law died without mercy of how much sorer punishment shall he be thought worthy that hath troden under foot the son of God Heb. 10. 29. therefore we had need to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard least at any time we let them slip for if the word spoken by angels was sure and stedfast and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation which at first began to be spoken by the Lord and was after confirmed to us by them that heard him Heb. 2. 1. 2. 3 whosoever shall be ashamed of me or my words of him will I be ashamed when I come in the kingdome of my father with my holy angels Mark 8. 38. * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 * as indeed I find thee to be of the whole Scripture which though Paul bids Timothy give attendance to the reading of 1 Tim. 4. 13. 2 Tim. 3. 15. 16. 17. yet thou hast left off to read disswading others also from the reading of it as unprofitable as no other then the writings and inventions of men to keep the world in awe so that it cannot come to enjoy that liberty alias license for lewdnesse and fleshly lusts which thou promisest and pleadest for and that makes thee to be such a weather cock such a well without water such a wandring star althou art such a cloud tost to and fro with a tempest because thou hast no steady rule to steer by no whither goest thou to talke with or to take heed to to recall or to fix thee to any one point but onely the whisling multifarious fancies and foolish sigments of thy own aiery brain and unconstant spirit * Isa 8. 13 14. Eze. 11. 16. 1 Pet. 3. 20 21 * Heb. 10. 25. * all which will fall to the share of the silken snapsack to carry in the end * See how Mr. Baxter defines him out of Bullinger p. 259. Hereticum cum dico intelligosectarum Authorem qui ecclesiam scindis c. when I talk of an Heretick I mean an Author of Sects who rendeth the Church who pertinaciously proceedeth by false and erroneous doctrine to infrings trouble the unity of the Church and out of Viguerius Hereticus est qui relicta side et ec clesiae doctrina alicujus temporalis commodi gratia et maxime gloriae falsas et novas opiniones gigniâ—… vel sequitur ut vel 〈◊〉 maneat ab ecclesia divisus * sucâ—… words as none of you â—…ish PPPriestâ—… in CCChrist'ndome do can or ever did preach in for if your people Ask the Priest what they must do you say repent but be not baptized yea take heed every one of you that at any hand you be not baptized * Dr. Featley p. 161. * For Tent makers such as Paul was to make the Gos pel chargeless you are most ly too proud to be †Sine qua Christianismus non constat saith Calvin * Calvin inst lib 4. c 2. s. 1. verbi et sacramentorum Mi nisterium nobis perpetua â—…ssera dignoscende ecclesiae * divsion * which whether in the Antitype it be not that woman the CCClergy by whom the Kings of the earth have bin as Ahab by the other stirred up to aâ—…l mischief against the the truth may be seen moâ—…e clearly Rev. 17. * witness the case of Iohn Sawtrey the first English Martyr of whom we read thus viz. that Arundel Archbishop of Canterbury 1399 first denouncing him an Heretick 2 in the name of all his fellow brethren the Bishops and of the whole Clergy condemning digrading him from his priestly orders from all his priestly honors in token therof taking from him as he was a Priest the patent and chalice the authority of saying Masse the casul and vestment as a Deacon the book of the New Testament as a Subdeacon the Albe and Maniple as an Acolite the Candlestick and taper as an Exorcist the book of Conjuration as a Reader the book of the Church Legend of lies as Sexton the keyes of Church door and surplice and then rasing his crown and putting the cap of a lay prrson on his head delivers him up to the secular power saying pray be favourable to him who after burns him being called on by the Bishops in the City of London * Whether the magistrate be the minister of Christ as God onley or as Mediatour also I mean God man is a question about which I find some fill the world with a world of confusion viz. Mr. Gelaspie and Mr. Rutherford who are together by the ears about it and Mr. Baxter also who makes much more ado then needs p. 228. c. to prove that Christ exerciseth some of his Government as Mediator by Ministers and some by Magistrates by which if he mean that Magistrates are officers in Christs Church of Christs appointment I pitty his blindness when I read Eph. 4. where its shewed what officers Christ sets in his Church for the edifying and establishing thereof if he mean that the Magistrate is Christs officer and ordinance to the worldward for the Government of it under him and of the Church too as t is a part of the world so far as he doth yet administer in the world and judge it I will not greatly deny that howbeit that he as man yet judgeth the world and as Mediatour governs it as once he is to do by appointment from the father Acts 17. 31 at his appearing his kingdome 2 Tim. 4. 1. when he shall put that power in full execution for which he hath now but the commission when he shall return personally to set up and rule in that Kingdome which he is now gon to heaven to receive Luke 19. 11. 12. 15. c. when the Prince of this world for so Christ himself who is Prince of the world to come is pleased to call the devill now John 14. 30. who is dominus fac totum here by permission and rules over Kings Princes and People by the Beast and whore that rides it Rev. 17. to whom he hath given his seat power and great Authority Rev. 13. 2. shall once be judged and bound up in the bottomlesse pit from domineering over and deceiving the Nations any more that Christ I say yet judges the world as once he is to
Mille testes and a thousand witnesses besides would condemn me as no ordinary self-belyar for I profess before the Lord and those many people that then heard me many of which unless willingly cannot be ignorant hereof I was most forward that day to give out the grounds of the way I walk in but that your selves not the people were most froward against it but the people have believ'd you so long at a venture in other cases that though both you and they know the truth to be contrary to what you say yet you hope they will believe you so still but the Lord grant them to find out your forgery for the future and to be no more guld by your ghostly glosses Report Sixthly That there should be no tumults no interruption of the Disputants that no provoking terms whereby offence might be justly given or taken should be used that if any such were warning should be given and satisfaction made or the Disputation to break up and the blame to ly upon that side which did transgresse Reply You might as well have given Account who they were that did violate this agreement as of the Article it self but then you had brought no little blame upon your selves and thereupon very likely you forbore it for as when you propounded this Article little considering that your selves were most likely to grow regardless of it you made a Rod for your own tails so you had assuredly slashed your selves soundly therewith had you told all the truth indeed for though this as all the rest was your own by Proposall your Antagonists only by assent yet verily even you the Law-givers were the the men that did most grosly transgress it yea some of you seem'd to sit there for nothing else but to blur and blunder the proceedings by some impertinent interposals or other so that after questions askt me three or four times over by your selves and leave as often askt you by me to answer yet the anticipations of some or other of you either forbad me to begin or at least cut me off before the end This Article therefore being broken by you in the other parts of it must be kept in the last clause thereof at least viz. the blame of the breach ly upon you Report Seventhly That after the Disputation ended it might be lawful for any one of the Congregation leave first obtained of the Ministers to ask questions and to propound his arguments not being tyed to any Syllogistical forms and to receive satisfaction Reply 'T was the facultie of the Pharisees of old to affect the chief seats in the Synagogues and t is the fashion of you Masters in Israel now to take upon you to be the Chair-men still and to bear such sway in the publick places that the people may not meddle there to speak a word or urge an argument or ask a question or without leave from you Masters of the Synagogues so much as once to quack in your presence but Sirs the best on 't is you have now in this year of Iubilee 1650. for so doth your book beare date given not only toleration but advice and invitation too to all people to Ask the Priest p. 27. and therefore though formerly they might not do it at all and even now they do it oft to little purpose yet I hope you will have them excused for do it they will by your leave now and then when they ask you questions in your Cathedralls without asking you any more leave so to do Report Next you tell us That it was also moved by the Ministers that two Moderators might be nominated and also Clerks appointed for the writing down both of the Arguments and Answers the Originalls to be left in the hands of the Moderators that so no mis-reports might be raised concerning them or if any were the truth might be made appear to any that should desire satisfaction by repairing to them which I utterly refusing the Ministers superseded from further urging of it Reply I did indeed refuse to chuse any Moderator my self save the whole Auditory as knowing how basely the truth hath been captivated and kept under for Heresy by the Clawes of the Clergy when subjected to their determination yet did I not deny to have any chosen for I left you the liberty to chuse whom you would who very goodly but how justly let all men judge made choise of one to determine as judge in his own cause who was the only opponent almost altogether if the True Account were not false which sets down no Arguments but his but however the prime Plantiff in the Disputation and as finely he fitted your sancies that are affected so much with falsity and foppery of both which there was great store in his Recapitulation As for me could I easily have suspected there would have been such immoderation amongst you as was striking up so many of you together sometimes that neither I could be heard by any of you at all nor your selves very well by one another it had not been amiss to have admitted of Moderators to have kept you in some better order for Clerks also for the setting down of things truly had I thought you would have taken such advantage for want thereof as to raise and that in print too so many mis-reports as your selves have done I had probably closed with you in that motion and though I refused to do it then as being better opinion'd of you then you have since de served for yet it 's more than I am like to do again if e're I meet you in another Disputation for that slippery tricks sake you have serv'd me concerning this Ictus Piscator sapit But as to this there 's no remedy now save my No to your Yea and the memories of the people that heard us my Supreme appeal for moderation is to Christ the Supreme Moderator of Heaven and Earth before whom as I told you then I hoped I should speak nothing of which I should have cause to be ashamed so I tell you now I hope I shall pen nothing of which I maie be affraid to give account when he appears and we appear before his Tribunall the same Lord come quickly and judge between us even so Amen Report After these Propositions were agreed upon you say I moved to have liberty to make my Position which after debate of the unnecessariness of it the question being already stated and the terms known and understood by every one was yielded to so I exceeded not a quarter of an hour which was accepted by me Reply Though the question were stated and terms known never so well as I deny they are to every one in the question of Infants Baptism for such as are used only to sprinkling take that to be Baptism which is not yet the grounds were not known upon which I held the Negative and therefore 't was not unnecessary for me to make a Position Moreover I invading the practise of your Church
from God after waies of mens tradition and teach people to do so as you do I see not how I could have been truly said to revile had I used them directly to your selves Report Thirdly that though I had once been of that opinion and a Minister of the Church and received orders from it yet now I was of another and did renounce both the Church and her orders to which say you 't was answered that it was no marvell that I that had forsaken the Church should afterwards revile and despise her and that God having suffered me to fall into so gross an error as to deny and renounce my first baptism did in his just judgement suffer me to fall further and further Heresie being like a Precipice where after a man hath begun his run he cannot stay till he come to the bottom Reply I was once of that opinion indeed and practise too together with your selves and had not a little zeal thereof though not according to knowledge when I acted in your false function by implicit faith and made the Directories Canons Catechisms Creeds of the Clergies compiling my Rule as many more did besides my self not comparing them so singly as I should have done with that true Directory of the word but I have since seen good occasion to recant it as you will undoubtedly do also first or last and O that it may be yet in time to your peace notwithstanding your now forwardness to uphold it I was also in your sence once a Minister of the Church but since going about to look for that Ministry of the Church and for that Church whereof I thought my selfe a Minister from thenceforth I could never find either t'one or t'other As for your Church of England I confess I received twice her holy orders viz. once from the Bishops in the daies of their Dominion by whom I was ordained a Deacon i. e. in Scripture-sence to look toth'poor but in their sence half a Priest for in that capacity we might sprinkle if allow'd and give the wine to people also in the Supper but not by any means the bread unless very specially licensed thereunto till we should come into the full order of Priest-hood for so ran the phrase in the old English horn-book which as to that part was stiled The book of the Ordination of Bishops Priests and Deacons once also by the Presbyters so called since the time of their Parricid or cutting the throats of their fathers the Bishops that gave the being of Priesthood to them and inducting themselves to reign in their stead as the Bishops themselves had dealt not long before with their old father the Pope who gave the being of Priesthood to them both from whom not as a Priest-hood but a true Presbytery as they say I was in orders to practise their refined Popery more perfectly which I might do before but by the halves but now I know not where this Church of England is if you speak of a true Church of Christ unless you can prove things to have their true being without either their true matter or true form for as the subject matter whereof it consists is false being not baptized believers so the form into which the Pope cast it some 600 years since in to which also the Prelate and Presbyter have new cast it being and that subpaena too National Provinciall Parochiall is utterly false and her fellowship as good as none at all because not free but forced and as for the true Ministry thereof I know not where it is neither if that onely be a true one as you were wont to say it is that can derive it self by a line from the very Apostles neither can you make good your interrupted succession from them unless the Pope from whom your Series comes was even then a true Minister of Christ when he was also an Antichristian Deceiver and unless Apostacy and Apostolicy can so stand together as that Rome was even then an Apostolick Church when 't was palpably apparent to be an Harlot neither if I could tell where can I tell very well which is the Ministry of your Church of England there are so many Ministries in it now namely Prelaticall High-Presbyterian Presbyterian-Independent each of which lay claim to that title but being both themselves and their adherents for such different forms of government cannot all three be the Ministry of one Church unless your Church of England that was of old so full of uniformity is now become capable of tri-formety in its discipline and Ministry and yet to be intirely but one Ministry and Church of England still which if it be it s a â—…r-iform monster then indeed As to your answer to this third head I wish you to weigh how rawly you utter your selves whilst just after your selves had clear'd me from the guilt of Reviling and before I had us'd any new terms that could have the least savor of reviling you return to charge me of it again but no marvel when every round reprover and renouncer of your Romishness is as much a reviler with you as your selves are at Rome for renouncing that grosser Popery that 's there Howbeit in truth he reviles your Church no more that calls it a very Harlot if it be so then your selves revile Rome in calling her a Harlot because she is so you hint at my renouncing my first baptism can a man renounce that he never had for what was dispenc't when I was a child as t is no signe to me now for I remember not that I ever saw it so I learn by the hear-say of it that it was not baptism at all as for this last which is also the first baptism that ever was administred to me I see no cause to renounce it as yet nor yet I am well assured ever shall As for heresie or believing and doing besides the word t is a Precipice indeed where after men have begun their run unless the Lord mercifully prevent them as he hath done me and many more of late and I desire may your selves in due time who are all gone astray from primitive truth after the doctrines and commandements of men they cannot well stay till they come to the bottom even the bottomless pit it self into which that Arch-Heretitk the Pope who open'd it and that numberless crue of corrupt Clergy-men which by the advantage of that smoak of errors with which he darkened the Sun and the Air ascended from it will fall again for out of the bottomless pit those Locusts came and into the bottomless pit they must return Report Fourthly That I was a fool and an Ass and the weakest of many to defend the doctrine of Iesus Christ yet doubted not but to make it clear against every opponent to which your answer was that that which I said of my self out of voluntary humility you the Ministers did acknowledge out of the sense of your wants Reply As to secular
exhort c. with all long suffering and doctrine Ob. But some there would have been griev'd at it in which case better to have omitted it in charity then hazzarâ—…â—…treds by performance Aâ—…sw Some there its like would not â—…ave indur'd it yet is that no plea whereupon to omit it for then we must preach no more Gospel to thâ—… world which sets two against three and three against two and occasions not causes by means of mens lusts opposing it more sword then peace at present Luk. 12. 51 52 53. Yea the time will come and now is when men yea Ministers will not indure sound Doctrine but after their own lusts heap to themselves teachers and what heaps upon heaps of false teachers are there in all Christendom for the Clergy have made themselves many as the locusts many more then to every parish one tickling men up still with an omnia bene in a bad condition even when for their sakes Isa. 24. omnia penè penitus peritura sunt and will turn away their ears from the truth and be turned unto fables of mens feigning but watch thou in all things indure afflictions do the work of an Evangelist fulfill thy ministry 2 Tim. 4. 3 4 5. Report That the Congregation consisted of two sorts of men and women whose opinions were different that there was a danger of a breach between them that as they came together and had behav'd themselves quietly all the time so they might be permitted to depart that the mischiess which follow Division are easier prevented then heal'd c. Reply Great indeed are the mischiefs that follow Divisions they are more easily prevenâ—…ed then heal'd but as sure as the Lord lives and his word hath any truth in 't the Divisionâ—… of these dayes the mischiefs of which and that 's the best out ' will light most upon the tripple Tower of B B Babel even the â—…ripple C C Crowâ—… aâ—…d Kingdome of the C C Clergy out of whose clutches God is going to redeem his Captive Clergy the height of which Tower he will bring down to the Earth even to the dust these Divisions I say will neither be prevented nor healed notwithstanding all indeavours to that purpose till that be fully accomplisht which this Division of Languages truly tends to in the Councels of God viz. the uâ—…ter shattering and disabling of these great Babel-builders so that their Ambitious projects shall come to a Perpetual end till then breach upon breach cannot be avoided while the Earth was as in old time of Priestly pomp it was of one language and of one speech all saying nemine contradicente as the Pope said all worshipping as the Priest-hood appointed all believing as the Churâ—…h believed there was so much Chariâ—…y to the Churches peace that all truth was choakt under the name of Schism for the sake on 't the builders by whom the corner-stonâ—… is still refused saying one to another go to let us build us a City and a Tower whose top may reach to heaven let us make us a name and nothing was 〈◊〉 from them which they imagined to do by advantage of this their unity and uniformity of speech and Religion but now God is coming down to view the great Tower this Poâ—…pous Kingdâ—…m of Priests and finding it swell up to heaven above the stars of God over all on earth at least that 's called God he sâ—…yes go â—…o let us go down and confoâ—…nd their 〈◊〉 that they may not un derstand one anothers speech whereupon as the great City is split in three parts so each of these will be subdivided more and more into Sectaries of all sorts so that men understand not now the language of the Pope and Priest-hood nor will Christs sheep hear the voice of those strangers by which Division of tongues if â—…hat Great City cease to reign and that montanous Babell come down and become a plain before Zerubabel as it must t is not so devillish as Divine a Division which all are not so sorry for as some whose Alas is lamented back again with Halleluâ—… yea let the day break more and more and the shadows â—…ie away and my beloved be like a Roâ—… young hart hasting ore these mountains of Bether i. e. Divisâ—…on Cant. 2. 〈◊〉 And now as to the peoples being permited to depart 〈◊〉 know none were held there against their wills besides your selves yea both you and they too that would might have gon in peace and those that would might have staid in peace had you not troubled all with your oppositions if such as had a mind to stay had been as peaceably permitted to abide as you who had such a mind to be out were peaceably permitted to depart for any hinderance you had from us all might have been full as well for ought I know as now it is Report Next you relate I not 〈◊〉 to the Reasons of the Ministers it was at last refeâ—…red to the Minister of the place being there present and he desired to declare whether he would give way to my preaching which he refusing to do upon the reasons before said one of the Congregation began to utter some words tending to a Commotion viz. that â—…e had nothing to do with them that they would do it without his leave and the like whereupon the Ministers conjuâ—…ed me whose interest they observed to be so great in the people by the bonds of Charity the candor and Sobriety of a Christian and ingenuity of a Scholar thaâ—… I would dissolve the Câ—…ngregation that they might part without professed hostility that there would great disâ—…race light upon their meeting besides dangers which thâ—…y did foresâ—…e if I did not that if I persevered in my motion they did pâ—…otest openly before the Congregation against it and â—…id charge upâ—…n me whatsoever inconveniency should follow so being perswaded I went out of the Church with the Ministers and the Congregation followed Reply I saw not so much as a grain of reason in all you spake in prevention of so innocent and in it self inoffensive a purpose as that was to render a reason of my faith to a people that expected it from me and were as your selves were not then and there so willing to hear it whereupon I neither did nor durst decline the doing of it upon any such account as convicted that by right I ought not to have done it nevertheless I must confess when I saw such conjuring such sensles scar-crows such reasonles referrings such rigid refusings such crooked constructions ready to be made by the Ministers of mens words as Commotions when very parishioners who pay Peter-pence both to the Presbyter and the place onely pleaded their Priviledge to be there without his leave such Emulous observations of the Ministers how great or little my interest was in the people such desires of me to dissolve the Congration rather then râ—…solve them by an exercise about the truth of baptism by the bonds of Charity as
to all the rest with which I must deal once over again as they ly in order in your Relation and Review which first argument of yours is laid down in this form viz. Disputation No man may forbid water to those that have received the holy Ghost Acts 10. 47. But little children have the holy Ghost Disproof In which Syllogism of yours how be it I then did and do still deny your Minor as the main matter that is amiss the falsity of which I shall discover yet there is much fault to be found with your Major in that you repeat the words of Peter but lamely and by the halves out of that Scripture whence you quote it which you adulterate and abuse unless you had inserted the whole sentence the chief clause of which viz as well as we which is most needfull to be exprest to the true proof of any ones right to baptism therfrom you whether more forgetfully or fearfully least the falsity of your Minor should be the more discried by it I say not do yet leave out alltogether In the absence of which clause the falsity of your Minor lies undiscerned which upon the putting in thereof would appear if it be possible for it so to do more palpably false then now it doth specially to every common capacity whereupon very probably you left it out for if your Major had been thus viz. no man may forbid water to those that have received the holy spirit as Peter and other adult Disciples had i. e. visibly and apparently unto others by the acts fruits and effects of it as the words as well as we do import your Minor then must have ran thus viz. but little children have the holy spirit as well as Peter and those adult Disciples Act. 10. 47. i. e. visibly undoubtedly apparently to others and then it had been more apparently false in the eyes of all for verily how perspicuous soever it is to you Clergy men who for your own ends seemingly see what you see not as well as sometimes see not what you see and to your implicit criditors that will seem to see that you see whether it be to be seen or no yet to such as are resolved to see with their own eies and not yours it is so far from being so visible and apparent that infants have the holy spirit as t was that Peter and the rest had received it that it is a thing invisible to you and more then ever did or yet doth or ever will appear to any but the blind and the blind leaders of the blind while the world stands by all you have here stitcht up together to make it appear by the inefficacy of all which to any such purpose as you use it for having thus hinted the crafty quoting and cunning coining of your Major besides the sence of the Scripture you fetch it out on I shall God willing make sufficiently to appear in my Examination of your Minor the proof of which I now come to consider As therefore to your Minor which is this viz. little children have the holy Ghost I lay two evils to the charge of it first a faultering in the terms secondly a falsity in the thing testified in it First it s delivered in tam dubiis terminis such a dubious and indefinite form of speech viz. little children not at all expressing what children nor believers children distinctly from others but all alike which muddling expression of the subject of whom you praedicate this that they have the holy spirit is made well nigh every where else throughout your book and possibly on purpose to shelter that absurdity from being too apparent which unless you dream'd out this Disputation a more determinate delivery of your selves all along in these terms viz. infants of believers you foresaw would light upon it Nevertheless as indefinitely and implicitly as you set down your subject you cannot hide the nakedness thereof let your meaning be what it will for you must take it in some or other of these senses viz. all little children have the spirit or unbelievers little ones onely have the spirit or believers little ones have the spirit or some children have the spirit but we cannot tell which nor whether these more then those or those more then these the spirit being neither bound to all the children of believing parents nor barred from any of the children of infidels you cannot understand it of unbelievers children only nor yet of all children nor yet of unbelievers and believers children promiscuonsly so as to say some of these and some of those but in particular it cannot certainly be presumed which though he that reads your eighteenth page where you confess there can be no conclusion made which have it and which not can hardly tell how to take you handsomely in a better sense for then all men will say fie upon it how miserably do these Logicians labor all along besides their question they propound the baptism of believers infants only but proceed to prove the baptism of all children or of unbelievers children onely or at least of unbelievers children equally with the other they plead to have none but believers infants baptized yet affirm the holy spirit the supposed being of which in these infants is the main ground on which they would have these only baptized to be in all infants at least in other infants for ought they know as well as these yea even in those infants even Infidels infants whom yet they would not have baptiz'd so partial and cruel are they to these though the denial of baptism to poor infants in their own opinion destroies all hope of their salvation but if you take it for little infants of believers only concerning which only the question was stated then every wise man will wound you as much on the other hand and say thus how miserably do these men fumble about their business both proving and practising more then themselves believe to be the truth they assert infants of believers only have the holy spirit and undertake to prove it in contradistinction to other infants yet produce nothing more towards the proof of it then what tends if it do tend indeed to such a purpose to prove it to be in all infants as well as those how egregiously do these Priests gull and cheat their people they profess the holy spirit to be in no infants save those onely that are born of believing parents and that these onely are thereupon to be baptized and yet practise another thing under the name of baptism to unbelievers infants in their parishes whom they truly judge not to have the spirit in common with those whom as blindly they judge to have it i. e. not the seed of true believers only but the seed of true and apparent unbelievers also The second fault I charge upon your Minor Proposition is an utter falseness in the matter affirm'd in 't for take the term little children for what little ones
Religion then your children are unclean and this is truth for so the children are in this civil sense if begotten and born out of matrimony whether the parents be believers or no buâ—… the other is not truth for whether both or but one or none of the parents believe the infants for that cause alone and without respect to matrimony are in no sense ere the more holy or unclean Thirdly and this will yet appear more plainly if you consider that faith alone in either one or both the parents begetting out of wedlock cannot sanctifie the seed so begotten with this civil holiness here meant no nor with that faederall holiness you plead for nor could it do so even then when that holinesse or birth priviledge you talk of was in force as now it is not viz. in the daies of the law for if two believers came together then out of marriage their seed were not onely base born and so unclean in this our sense but also to the tenth generation uncapable to be admitted into the congregation and so consequently unclean even in your own Deut. 32. 2. whereupon how Pharez and Zarah were dealt with it matters not sith they were born before the law was given Ieptha was exempted from any inheritance with his brethren because he was the son of a strange woman Iudg. 11. 2. and Davids unclean issue by Bathsheba that in the wisdome of God was taken away by death on the seventh day might not surely without breach of the law have been accounted holy and of the congregation if he had lived beyond the eighth whereupon your selves also are much fumbled about the holinesse of bastards and the baptism of base-begotten babies so that you scarcely know how to behave your selves about it though the parents sinning be believers at least en-churched in your Churches yea it s generally known saith Mr Cotton that our best Divines do not allow the baptism of bastards and though he is pleased to say they allow it not sine sponsoribus without Sureties yet I wonder sith Deut. 23 〈◊〉 2. Gods denial of such of old is made the ground of their denial of such now to enter into the Congregation as unholy that our Divines dare take on them to admit cum sponsoribus and so to go besides their own Rule viz. the order of things under the law wherein God gave no such allowance but to let that tolleration pass which they take to themselves you may learn thus much of your selves if you will that though wedlock without faith make a holy seed in our sense yet faith without wedlock in the parents can make a holy seed neither in our sense nor in your own nor any at all for the infants of the married are holy but believers bastards are both civilly and federally unclean inso much that your selves see cause to refuse as federally holy the spurious seed euen of those whose lawfull issue you unlawfully sprinkle Fourthly if you more seriously consider that the holinesse in the Infant here must needs be the fruit and result of that and that must needs be the cause of the holiness here spoken of in the infant quo posito ponitur sanctitas sublato tollitur which being in the parents a holinesse must necessarily be thereupon which not being in the parents a holinesse cannot be in the seed for positâ causà ponitur effect us sublata tollitur abstract the cause and the effect cannot be suppose the cause and the effect cannot but be now that which if it be not in the parents the holiness is not but being in them the holinesse is consequently in the infants 't is not the faith but the conjugal or marriage Relation of the parents for as for the first of these viz. faith it may be in one yea in both of the parents and yet no federal holinesse at all be in the infants witness Ishmael the seed of Abraham the father of the faithful and his Sons by Keturah also born of him after Co venant made with him and his seed in Isaac and Iacob and yet neither of them in that Covenant witnesse the base born children of true believers among the Jews suppose David and Baâ—…hsheba which for all the parents faith could not by the law be admitted in thâ—… Congregation nor have that birth-priviledge to be reputed holy which from the parents faith you universally intail to the infants moreover this birth-priviledge and Covenant-holiness by generation which did inright to Church ordinances which once was but now is a non-entity and out of date might be then when it was in being in children in whose parents faith was not found at all for most of the Iews were unbeiievers yet all their legitimate children were holy federally therefore faith in the parent cannot be the cause of such a thing yea if you will believe Mr Blake himself the strictest pleader for a birth-priviledge of federal holiness in Infants that ever I met with and that from this very place he condescends so far as to contribute one contradiction to himself toward the helping of the truth in this case viz. That faith in the parâ—…nt is not the cause of this holinesse whilst making the holinesse in this text to be a birth priviledge or Church-Covenant holinesse and to be the fruit and result of the faith of the believing parents and consequently their faith to be the sole and proper cause of the same he confesses flatly elsewhere page 4. that a loose life in the parent and mis-belief which is as bad in some cases worse then unbelief for which is worse to believe false things or not to believe true yea Apostacy from the faith which all if they be not inconsistent with faith I know not what is do not divest nor debar the issue from having that holiness which himself saies is meant in this text Babist Perhaps he means not by faith strictly the parents true believing but in generall his being in the covenant and faederally holy himself and so a cause of this federal holiness in the issue Baptist. First Paul means true believing here in 1 Cor. 7. 14. whether Mâ—… Blake do or no. Secondly what will he get as to the point in hand by his Synonamizing faith and faederall holiness for still neither the one nor the other is made here the cause of the holiness of the seed for the holiness here spoken of may be where neither of them is and may not be in the seed even where they are both in the parent as for example in Ezras time Ezra 10 3. we find abundance of the Jews both Priests and people that were in the faith or at least in faederall holiness yet the children were put away as unholy as well faederally as otherwise because their marriage was unlawfull and that bed adulterous wherein they lay with strange wives Ezra 10. 3. and that both parents possibly may be faithful and faederally holy and yet their seed be in all
provided raiment for them they should put it on themselves or go without it thus candid are we towards the dying infants of all sorts nevertheless though we tell you of our charity towards them and of your own cruelty in sending all heathen infants to hell and this no less then twenty times over yet we must expect to hear it from ore the pulpit cloth twenty times ore again before the devil be dead how blessed and charitable your doctrine is and what most bloody and cruel opinionists the Anabaptists are concerning infants Infants then I say of what parents soever 〈◊〉 either such as die in the personall innocency of their own infancy and so are universally saved and yet in token or as 〈◊〉 sign thereof to themselves there 's neither need nor sense nor reason to baptize them or else such as live to understanding and then they appear either not to do Abrahams works and then we own them not yet as Abrahams seed though born of believing parents yea though of believing Abraham himself nor as heirs according to the Gospel-promise or else to belieue in Christ and walk in the steps of Abraham and then of what parents soever though of infidels we are to own them as Abrahams spiritual seed and such as so abiding are heirs apparent by promise of the heavenly Canaan this we can never discern by them in their infancy not knowing yet whether they shall die infants or live to years nor whether when they come to years they will reject Christ or receive him To conclude this then that any mans fleshly seed in the world is upon the meer account of their natural descent of such or such parents or further then as dying in infancy they have no actual sin to condemn them or living to act sin they believe in Christ in both which cases the seed of unbelievers are as capable of salvation as the seed of believers themselves are by promise heirs of salvation and in tokeâ—… thereof are to be baptized and in baptism visibly sign'd more then other children as children of God members of Christ and inheritors of the Kingdom of heaven t is a lesson which I learn'd once by roat and had by root of heart when in the minority of my standing in the false ministry with you I was verst in the Priests Primmer of Common-prayer and as to Gospel-administrations was skild but little further then the Psalter but when I once turn'd over a new leaf and began to advance a little further even into the Scripture which in some volumes was in those dayes annexed as some certain appendix at the end of it I could never read that lesson perfectly since neither can I learn now that any mans fleshly seed that lives and yet believes not can make any clearer claim of kindred to Abraham as their father or to the Gospel inheritance by a meer bodily birth of believers only then I can make of my kindred to the Great Turk and of my tight to succeed him as his heir in his dominion by pleading that between them both his Grandmother and mine had four elbowes Now therefore Sirs let it be seriously considered by you that that outward meer denominative birth holiness which was once in the seed of the Iews and is now supposed and asserted by you to be in the seed of believing Gentiles as it was then peculiar to that people only that were Iews by either nature or Religion so it is now universally and utterly ended in Christ crucified and no more to have a being among them or any other people under heaven It was not by Christ comming communicated or as Mr. Blake cloudily contends throughout his Treatiseâ—…f â—…f birth-priviledge and covenant holiness conveyed from the Iews to believing Genâ—…iles and their seed but clearly cashiered and confiscated so that ther 's now no such thing to be found at all 'T is not devolved downwards but rather resolved into that Gospel truth and substance which it shadowed ouâ—… yea and totally dissolved ecclipsed annihilated swallowed up as the light of the Moon before the Sun being clothed upon with a far greater and more glorious holiness than it self for as the type was in time to give way and be gone when the thing typified thereby should once come into existence so all that old covenant holiness even the holiness of that seed Isaac and his posterity as well as other things that were predicated by it was as but a type of a more perfect holâ—…nes and holy seed to come to flee away as Ishmael before himself when once Christ should come and that holy seed to stand in the house to whom the promises of the Gospel do belong Babist This seed you speak of viz. believers was come before Christ and in being under the law as well as now therefore they sure cannot be the holy seed shadowed out by that holy seed that came of Isaac Baptist. True the Gospel holy seed was under the law but not the Laws holy seed under the Gospel the substance being ever when and where the shadow is but the shadow not alwaies when and where the substance Novum Testamentum semper ubique fuit in vetere velatum vetuâ—… non in novo nisi revelatum the law and its holy things are not in being but only revealed what they wâ—…re under the Gospel but the Gospel and its holy things were in being though veiled over under the law and yet for all that the Gospel is said truly to come then because it came not into its full force till Christ came so faith is said to come in with Christ Gal. 3. 23. 25. not as if there were no faith in the world before but because both the fulness of the things before believed came in then and things before believed came then into full force and act and also because the way of standing in the Church which before was chiefly by a fleshly birth comes now to be no otherwise then by a spirituall birth from above by faith in Christ Iesus Rom. 11. thou staâ—…dest by faith saith â—…aul speaking of the manner of the Gospel standing in the visible Church so that the holy seed and heirs of the Gospel covenant i.e. believers which are the seed of Christ Esay 53. He shall see his seed are said to come then though there was such a seed in the world from the beginning thereof because they then came to dwell alone as it were in the house where Ishmael the sonne of the Bondwoman to speak after the Allegory I mean the fleshly Israelites a meer fleshly seed dwelt together with them as Ishmael did with Isaac till he was cast out in former time for even as Ishmael the servant dwelt as it were the Son and heir in the house till Isaac was born and then after a while was cast out that Isaac the true heir might dwell alone and such as should successively come from him so Israel after the flesh though a servant in
above out of Iohn 7. 22. 23. certainly Sirs that cause is none of Christs whose defendants are so hardly besteâ—…d when they are put to clear it that they are driven from Christ himself to call out to Moses Master help us or else we perish Babist Though there is no such Syllabicall or expresse precept for infants baptism in the New Testament as there was for circumcision under the old yet there is precept enough to us so long as we find no prohibition Baptist This was M Kents way of arguing the lawfulness of infants baptism in publike one day at Crambroke and at Staplehurst also the same evening following with my self in the preseâ—…ce of some others it is not forbidden saies he therefore it is commanded to which it was answeted to this effect viz. that it is not commanded therefore it is forbidden for we being forbidden to add to the words of Christ and to preach any other than what was delivered to the Churches by the Apostles Gal. 1. 8. 9. Revel 22. 18. what ordinance dispensation and peece of worship and service soever is not appointed by him must consequently and clearly be prohibited and be but meer Will Worship if performed in fuller proof of which viz. that it is sufficâ—…ently forbidden that of Philip to the Eunuch was made use of whose words if thou believest with all thy heart 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 liâ—…et thou maiest being made in answer to the question quid ni what hinders why I may not be baptized as they express it to be lawfull for such as believe with all their hearts so they must plainly imply to any understanding that is not resolved to be impudent in withstanding truth that non licet it is not lawful for such to be baptized as do not even as your selves being judges there 's not more permission for self examinants to eat the supper in that expression of Paul let a man axamine himself and so let him eat then there is prohibition of all such to approach in that service that are neglective of self examination but all this would not then be accepted for an answer without an express Sillabicall formal forbidding it in such words viz. ye shall not baptize infants by the way I wonder where the express prohibition was for circumcising females if it lye not vertually in this viz. that there 's no command nor example for circumcising them whereupon in our after and occasionall discourse that night I calling for an express prohibition of that popish practise of baptizing bells it was returned in sense I am sure as I remember in words to this purpose viz. that if it were not forbidden then it might be done but it was forbidden in this respect forasmuch as bells were not capable of baptism to which I said nor infants neither and so we parted since when I never saw him nor now shall since he is departed this life till we meet before the Tribunall seat of Christ in that life which is to come And least all this should be of as little weight with others as it was with him I shall adde a little by way of proof that there 's prohibition enough of infants baptism in case it be not clearly commanded For First what is not commanded of God is but tradition of man for which men shall have no thank for their labour Mat. 15. 9. Secondly neither are we altogether without such positive prohibition as may be sufficient to satisfie you at least who hold the command for circumcision of infants to be a command for the baptizing of them in order to your understanding of which I shall refer you to Act. 21. 21. where its said of Paul that he taught all the Iews which were among the Gentiles to forsake Moses saying that they ought not to circumcise their children nor to walk after the customes In which Scripture I beseech you in the fear of God to observe how t is rehearsed that three things were most expressely forbdiden as unlawful for the Iews themselves much more to any believing Gentiles under the dayes of the Gospel by Pauls preaching First they were forbidden in general to follow Moses i. e. to live after his law and testament any longer they are charg'd to forsake Moses Secondly in particular they were forbidden to circumcise their children that being indeed a business the Jews still so doted on that of all things they were unwilling to let it go which by the way shews us plainly that there was nothing injoyned to be done to infants in the room of it as some but simply conceive baptism was by Peter Act. 2. in order to their comfort under the losse of the other for if there had then surely it would have been specified and Paul would have preached thus to the Jews the more easily to weane them from that antient custome of circumcising their children specially considering how loath they were to part with it viz. you ought not to circumcise your children now but instead thereof to baptize them and this may well serve in liew of and satisfie you under losse of the other as being not so painful a service but an easier sign and that of better things then those promised in the Covenant of circumcision but he saies no such matter if he had there would have been doubtlesse less ado then it should seem there was to bring the Iews off from that practise of circumcising their infants of which even after they believed they were so zealous as not to hear of the abrogation of it without offence for this would surely easily have contented and satisfied them if they might have had their children baptized as of old they were circumcised but this doubtlesse made them so difficult to be perswaded to a forbearance of circumcising there infants because they saw the gospel had no answerable dispensation belonging to their infants in the place of it Thirdly in general again they were forbidden to walk so much as after the manner of Moses for the word here rendred customs is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the same that is used in the singular number Act. 15. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is there rendred after the manner of Moses which word after the customes or after the manner of Moses prohibits not onely all observation of those ordinances of the law it self but also all walking after the same fashion way and manner as the ordinances of the law were administred in here 's not only an injunction of non-conformity to the law it self but prohibition of all conformity to the manner of it they are not onely taught not to do the same things that were done under Moses but also not to do under the Gospel in the same way and fashion as of old they are not onely bid not to circumcise children but also not to walk after the manner of circumcision or after the customes of the law and therefore consequently not to baptize children now which practise you of the
conversion of children of christian parents or when they are first discipled cannot be known for the most part by either themselves or others whereupon he concludes that if we baptize them at age though never so punctually at the time of their profession of faith repentance and desire of baptism we cannot possibly baptize them when first discipled or immediately after conversion as we ought to do by the example of the primitive times wherein yet they did thus and no otherwise witnesse all the instances of his own alledging but those that baptize them without delay so soon as ever they are born they cannot do otherwise then jump just with the very time wherein they are first discipled according to the primitive pattern he himself produces wherein of all that were baptized whether Iews or Gentiles immediately upon their being discipled we read not of one infant And good reason why they must needs hit right upon their first being discipled or converted that baptize them in the first infancy for though the time of the first conversion or discipling of the children of Christian parents be not scarce possible to be conjectured at either by themselves or others yet to go round again it may so safely and surely be supposed and conjectured to be in the first of their infancy that they may warrantably be baptized then as then newly made disciples without any danger of aberration from either Christs commission or the primitive custom of baptizing persons when first discipled and professing themselves disciples O the wisdom he that being in the fire would not come out to hear how bravely Mr. Baxter brings about and about again his businesse in that 8 chapter of the second part of his book t is pitty but he should be burnt And lastly whereas Mr. Baxter queries so oft when Mr. Tombs would have such baptized the set time of whose conversion is not distinctly known leaving Mr. Tombs to tell him his mind as he sees good himself I tell him if he ask me the same question that in my mind such whose conversion is not known when it is as by his own confession the conversion ofChristians children some times is not witnesse that one in which he instances and as few as he knowes of that sort yet how many hundreds of the children of Religious parents among whom I my self make one do know when they were first truly converted such I say should be baptized as neer as may be upon the time of their conversion and becoming disciples and if it have been then foreâ—…owd it must be after as soon as it can but in no wise so many years before it as the priests unviversally do it and such of whom it is not known nec per se nec per alios when they first were discipled and converted but oh how do I fear that as he that never doubted never believed so many of those implicit converts Mr. Baxter talks on that never knew when they were discipled and converted were never yet truly discipled â—…or converted at all to the truth as it is in Iesus but as they had it more by tradition from their fathers then unfained search of Scriptures such I say of whom t is not known when they first were converted and discipled shall by my consent be baptized when ever it is first known that they are converted and discipled unto Christ by their own profession of their conversion and discipleship and desire of baptism and this not by my consent alone but by the joint consent of all these very Scriptures which Mr. Baxter himself hath coted for our example and warrant all which if as far as Christs own precept and practise and the primitive Churches example can do it they do not warrant the baptism of all and onely such persons as were first taught or made disciples by preaching or instructed till they both learnt believed and imbraced the Gospel and professed themselves disciples and offered themselves to baptism and consequently of no infants then for my part I le lay aside all sense and reason as no more to be heeded as a help to understand the Scriptures and turn a very Tom-fool and he that can Altobe logick these Scripture institutions and instances into plain Scripture proofs of infant Church membership and baptism Erit mihi magus Apollo for there 's no mention of infants either expressely or implicitly in any one of them Oh therefore to Eccho back to Mr. Baxter a little in much what his own words to us concerning those Scriptures p. 127 that those who are so inclinable to seperation from the primitive practise would consider the unfitnesse of infants to be admitted by baptism to be Church members under the Gospel Oh that they that inchurch whole parishes as if they because the Pope will have it so were all Churches and will have no trial at all and discoveries of the work of persons conversion before they admit them but take them all at hap hazard as they fall from the belly within the bounds of that parish where they are plac't and popified would but lay to heart all these Scripture examples and make more conscience of observing their rule and not presume to be wiser and holier then God when it was mans first overthrow to desire to be but as God though he did not attempt to go beyond him as the priests do in adding other Subjects to his ordinances then himself appointed which changing of his law will be mans last overthrow Isa. 24. doubtlesse those that Christ baptized by his disciples were Church-members but those were not infants but such as were first made disciples by preaching onely Iohn 4. and he that will go beyond Iesus Christ in strictnesse shall go without me I do not think he will be offended with me for doing as he did i. e. for baptizing none but such as believe and professe themselves disciples and as repent of their sins and desire to be baptized in the name of Christ for the remission of tâ—…m and so I have done with Mr. Baxter till we meet again onely since Mr. Marshal is pleased ponere obicem to object and bolt in here that we cannot say none in these places were baptized but such as did thus i. e. believe and professe themselves disciples p. 217. to Mr. Tombs because the word onely is not here I may well call it obicem or objectionem obularem a hint not worth a half penny and if he appeal to his own conscience it will tell him no lesse neverthelesse what ere he thinks I say again all that were baptized in the forenamed places were such as are there specified to be profest converts and believers and if there were any more let him assign and shew us whom and wee l believe him as for the housholds himself is in the sands whether there were any infants in them or no and I have shewd above that they that were baptized in them are exprest all by some
clause or other exclusive of infants and conclusive onely of adult disciples besides Mr. Cotton confesses that the infants were not baptized with their parents and that the infants that were brought to Christ were not baptized at all for ought he knows not their parents neither and here are all the Scriptures that declare how baptism was done then and to whom most of which are cited by Mr. Baxter himself from which you cannot possibly scrape so much as any old odd end of an example for such a businesse as your baptism As for us besides that plain precept we have in Mat. 28. even every whit of this is plain president for our baptism and comes into our assistance against all your cavils O ye Priests for thus I argue viz. The baptism of men and women professing faith in the Lord Iesus confessing sins calling on the name of the Lord c. is a baptism yea all the baptism that the Scripture speaks of either in way of command or example But the baptism which we dispence is a baptism of men and women professing faith in our Lord Iesus confessing sins calling on the name of the Lord gladly receiving the word c. Ergo that baptism which we dispense is a baptism yea all the baptism the Scripture speaks of in way of either command or example Therefore Sirs how hath Satan bewitched you that you cannot believe and obey the truth what will you onely think things and thrust your thoughts of them as oracles upon all others will you imagine and suppose and dream and dote and fancy and fain a baptism that the Scriptures and first Churches never knew and then father your figments upon the Scriptures and fasten them as the fashion which the whole world must be forct to follow and conform to Moreover I do not at present remember any one part of Scripture which your selves summon into your help in this case of infant baptism that doth not yield ammunition and much matter against you more then for you unlesse it be one or two used by your selves which one may as well with Skoggin untile the house to look for an hare as urge either pro or con about infants baptism so farre shall he be from finding in them any proof for that or the true baptism either as namely 2 Cor. 13. 5. 1 Thess. 4. 13. There are but two places that I know of besides those I have already turned upon you above that are held out by any of you out of the armory of Scripture in defence of infant baptism and those are Col. 2. 12. 1 Cor. 10. 1. 2. both which not onely knock sprinkling oth'head but may also very easily be sheathed in the bowels of baby-baprism As for the first it speaks as well nigh all scripture doth not much medling with infants not onely to but of adult disciples only of whom as well as to whom and not of infants in way of satisfaction to them and answer to those that would have brought in the old circumcision made with hands among them Paul saies ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands which circumcision without hands there spoken of is not baptism neither as some dâ—…eam who thence also draw in circumcision and baptism to be of so neer kin that as they have both one name so they must both have one subject also for baptism is no more done without hands then the other but the sanctification or inward circumcision of the heart cutting off the foreskin i. e. the filth of the heart which things infants do not in token of which he tells them they are not sprinkled but buried i. e. overwhelmed in water with Christ in the outward baptism wherin also they are risen with him through faith c. All which things he that imagins they more include then exclude the sucking infants of such to whom he speaks is no man in discretion with me As for the other place its most evident the Apostle speaks not of baptism litterally but Meâ—…aphoically onely there they were baptized unto Moses i. e. by the visible tokens of Gods presence amongst them viz. the cloud and Sea assisting and siding with them and overthrowing their adversaries they were confirmed in the belief of God and his servant Moses as we by baptism are in the faith of Gods goodnesse to us and of his Son Jesus Christ in further confirmation of which meer figurative sence of the word baptized you may do well to consider that though they were said to be baptized in the cloud and in the sea which phrases however sound forth such a total immersion as is not in two or three drops of water fingered on the face yet they were not so much as wetted with either the cloud or the sea for its said Exod. 14. 21. 22. the sea was made dry land under them and they went through it dry shod or on dry ground which they could not be well said to do had it so much as rained upon them such a figurative sence of the word baptize there Mr. Baxter himself denies not p. 90. yet Dr. Channel urged that place in a publique dispute at Petworth Ian. 1651. as one of his arguments for infant baptism besides Secondly if you will needs have it properly taken that they were baptized really and not quasi baptized as Mr. Baxter yields they were and if you will needs make that baptism such an emblem of ours that ours must have an adequate subject to that which say you was infants as well as parents then t will put you to your trumps to excuse your selves handsomly in your now denying to infants the same spiritual meat and drink in the supper which they then eat and drank of in a figure also viz. the Manna and the Rock which both were no other Antitypically then the bread and wine are mistically in the supper i. e. the Lord Jesus Christ. For all your vain boasting therefore of what innumerable arguments you have from Scriptures I say the Scriptures are sure enough on our side nevertheless taking the word in a sutable sense you do well to call your Scripture armes or arguments innumerable for indeed they are not to be numbred for even unit as much more nonit as non est numerus being no more than just none at all Secondly whereas you boast of the innumerable Arguments which may be brought for your infant rantism from reason the full force of reason is utterly against you and so wholly assistant to our cause that the unreasonablest man amongst you will once see it when sound reason comes to reign and sway the scepter indeed Yea not to stand reasoning on it now how reasonless a thing it is to ask a company of men and women as the priests were wont to do at the font thus viz. do you believe in God the Father and Christ c. and will you be baptized in this faith and when they answered yes that is all our desire then
Philistines for which the spirit is pleased to record and recommend them both as examples to all ages and rank them among others of whom the world was not worthy in one line Heb. 11. 32. caeteris paribus unproved too such comparison if any be so is beyond all comparison odious and subject to many exceptions but be it all just as you have said it yet as little yields it to the support of your infant faith and childish baptism as if you had said nothing at all Sixthly whereas you say that instruction of the understanding in matter of faith in some sort must go before any act of faith can be discovered And seventhly and lastly that no judgement of science can be passed i. e. true demonstration made of this habit of faith till the acts themselves be seen and examined and that a posteriore onely the discovery of habits is made and then from all these preparative premises draw up your conclusive answer in three heads answering thus in the first place viz. That it cannot be certainly presumed what children have faith what have not and that the working of the spirit in that particular is not known to us and ore again also that the spirit is not bound nor barred and therefore there can be no conclusion made I say t is all necessarily to be held for truth yea t is a truth so preciously pertinent to our purpose against the purpose of your own pamphlet that had we been to conclude in a little compasse all that need be said toward the appearance of this position viz. that it doth not sufficiently appear by any evidence of it in their infancy that infants of believers have faith any more then other infants we could not in so few words have spoken so pithily to such a purpose which when I consider I cannot but wonder and conceive you will once wonder at your selves when your eyes are open that they whose words all these are should act against them all so absurdly as to make it the biggest business throughout their book to make it appear and that sufficiently that believers infants have faith beyond other infants Babist A charitable judgement concerning their having faith is sufficient to admit them to baptism and that is the utmost that we assert can be had of their belief not a judgement of certainty Baptist. A judgement of charity that there 's faith in persons sufficiently warrantably and certainly grounded is sufficient to baptize upon and such is that judgement on which we baptize who baptize none but such as the word requires us to believe to be believers i e. such as personally profess so to be and of such as those though we have but a judgement of charity concerning their faith yet have we from precept and president out of the word a judgement of certainty concerning their right to baptism but a judgement of charity taken up on meer fancy and conceit without warrant from or rather against both Scripture and reason warrants no man to dispense baptism upon it as from God for if it do I may as well baptize the great Turk as a little infant and no better is your judgement of charity concerning faith in little infants upon which you attempt to baptize them Babist Our charity is better grounded then so yea far better than yours as certain as it is and is as due to children of believing parents as to persons at years for we have Gods testimony concerning them in this matter whilest you have but mans testimony concerning himself yea Christ hath amply declared his good will to them in Scripture whose testimony is not onely Tanta-mount but to be preferred before mens from which it more plainly appears that infants have faith then the testimony of any particular person can make it appear for himself Baptist So you say indeed both before page 5. and behind p. 19. but how dare you assert then that you go not about to prove certainly but only probably that believers infants do believe for verily if it be so as you say that God himself gives testimony for them in Scripture that these little infants do believe then never say no judgement of science can be passed no discovery made of the habit of faith nor peremptory presuming what infants have faith and what not till you see them act it for Gods testimony is more credible then mans indeed hath he said it and is it not so yea verily let him be true but every man a lyar for mans own word can create but probability and charity and not so much neither unless he speak it from Gods word that believers infants do believe and in fidels infants do not but if God have said so then cursed be he that will not believe it to be so for if his word be not perfectly demonstrative and scientifical and past all doubt but I confesse I find not a word of his concerning such a thing then I le never trust self confuting Clergy men any more 2. Whereas you answer that in those children where there is lesse promptness to acts of faith then in others we cannot argue ad negationem habitus because they work not equally What is this to the present question and position concerning no more inclinablenesse to holy actions in children of Christians then of insidels for those are such of whom your selves assert the one have faith the other have none but these you speak of now are adult ones such as in whom there is some promptness to acts of faith appearing differenced only secundum magis minus some inclining more some lesse to acts of faith concerning all whom sith those of them that have least promptness have at least an apparent promptnesse to acts of faith who denies but that they may have faith though they work not equally but what 's this to the proof of more or lesse inclinablenesse to holy actions among infants who are so far from having some more some lesse that even none of them have any promptnesse thereto at all 3. Whereas you fiddle it on a little further and think to coop us up by your crosse interrogatory you may well call it a crosse one indeed for its a net that catches your selves let us answer it which way soever you would have us For if we say heathens infants are inclined to acts of faith and should make that good against you as we shall hardly ere trouble our selves to do unlesse we did believe it to be truth can you give any just account of your denial of baptism to these yea who can forbid water why they may not be baptized that have and are inclined to act faith as well as the other and in whom as in those of believing parents the work is palpably at least possibly and probably the very same But if we say no infidels infants are not inclined then we must take what comes on it for you are resolved to hit us home indeed and so you
and proof after Christs ascension of comon disciples then you have of officers baptizing You therefore make much more a do in this then needs you strain indeed at a gâ—…at and swallow a camel and busy your self so about the truth of administrators that you have lost the truth and substance of the administration it self were your baptism true baptism indeed there is no necessity that ordained Ministers must administer it but unlesse it were â—…ruer then 〈◊〉 it is no matter if it were neveâ—… administred at all Know therefore Sirs I beseech you that the verity worth weight and efficacy of baptism depends not upon the quality of the person administring but upon the truth of the subject to whom and the true form wherein t is administred the Scripture prescribes plainly who they are that shall and in what manner these shall but not at all by whom they shall be baptized t is the duty of them â—…at believe to be baptized and his duty that baptizes to baptize indeed not rantize only and to baptize such as being taught the Gospel do believe it but who they must be that are to baptize those is neither here nor there to the baptism for ought I find in the wordâ—… so they be but Masculine disciples nay though the person baptizing be not only no officer but in the case above named as yet unbaptized himself yet if the person baptized be not only a believing disciple but also baptized really and indeed his baptism is never the worse for the other Experience tells me and I believe many more that have been baptized according to truth that t was drawing neer to Christ with true hearts in his true ordinance that made us accepted in his sight not the qualifications of the baptizers whose baptism and ministerial functions were they invested with both could add never the more validity nor verity to our baptism as neither could the non-entity of either of those in them have possibly made the baptism so sincerely submitted to be in any measure void and of no effect the placing so much in persons administring as to think our selves ere the better for that was that fantastical fopery of the Corinthians for a while one saying I am of Paul another I of Apollo another I of Caepâ—…as i. e. I was baptized by such or such which made the Apostle Paul who with his own hands baptized but some of them well â—…igh wish he had baptized none of them at all when he saw their carnall glories in the persons administring and blesse God that he baptizd no more least they should have thougt the better of themselves and of their baptism for its dispensation of it by his hands The administrators therefore being baptized or not baptized minister or no minister maketh the baptism if elsewise warrantable neither better nor worse of it self all this I speak all this while not as granting that our baptism is by unbaptized persons and that my self am no minister of the Gospel for neither of these shall be yielded by any meanes unlesse you were more able then you are to prove them I speak it suppositively that if these were both so yet both my baptizing and being baptized may be warrantable enough notwithstanding or else if we deemed it worth while to seek out what succession our baptism hath had from the Apostles in a series without interruption t is possible there were some disciples in all ages that owned the truth though so few and despised that their generation can scarcely be declared for who can declare his generation whose life in himself and his was still cut off from the earth but we go by the word that is above all Church and Ministry in our account of our baptism and ministry and not by succession in either and as for your selves that hold so much on succession and boast of a lineal descent of your ministry and Rantism from the Apostles t will pussle you no lesse to prove that if we put you to it then t will if we put you to it to disprove a lineal succession of our baptism for if we cannot name the particular persons that baptized one another in this way wherein we do it successively from the persons of the Apostles in answer to this question who baptized you and who him and who him and so upwards till we come thither are you able if we ask you who sprinkled you and who him and who him and who him c. to particularize more punctually then we are you able to assign who began our way of baptism first of all in the world unlesse you begin as high as Iohn the baptist nay verily though Dr. Featley would fain father it upon Stock yet it s most manifest unto you all that infants sprinkling was denied by some ever since it was known to have a being for it was controverted in the daies of the fathers and that it would not have been had there been none that had then denied it and denied it could not be by any but such as pleaded the baptism of believers in those times and were the right way baptized themselves You have not one president of one infant sprinkled nor proof that such a thing was so much as talked on for at least an hundred years after Christ but we are most certain and your selves cannoâ—… deny it that the baptiâ—…m of believers began at Iohn the baptist and the Apostles and if we could prove a succession of it de facto no further downwards then so yet it is enough to us that we find it then was so whereby to prove that it ought to have been so in all ages since and is to be de jure at this day One word more and then we have done with this if none at all save such as are baptized themselves may in any case dispense baptism to others save such also as are by ordination true ministers of the Gospel then your selves who pretend solely to the title of baptizing are no right administrators as being in truth neither baptized nor ordained in such wise as the Scripture requires that your baptism is null I have cleared it enough already and that your ministry is no lesse is apparent sith whilst you indeavour to derive it from the Apostles you can derive it thence no other wise then the Pope doth his for if a line of succession be a proof of true ministry you may indeed derive it as well but not one jot better then he he can shew you his line of succession if not from Peter yet at least from Linus himself that lived in the daies of the Apostles and you can shew us the line wherein you came from the Pope and so through his loines from the other there is no other way for your ministry to prove its pedigree from the Primitive times but this no way for you to climb up to the Apostles as the fathers and founders of your function but by a chain of many
so no lesse absurdity is it to understand that speech viz. And immediately the spirit caught away Philip and immediately after Christ was baptized he went into the wildernesse so strictly as if there was not staying so much as to reassume any garments they had laid aside in order to the more conveniency of their baptizing One thing more I cannot but take notice of in this clause as t is Mr. Simpsons and that is what little proportion if not contradiction it holds with the words of Mr. Simpson or rather of Mr. Blake used by Mr. Simpson immediately precedent to these in his letter for he will not give way to it at any hand that Christ and the Eunuch went into the water or at least that they were put into the water by Iohn and Philip or taken thence but onely in the phrase of Mr. Blake at the third hand of Mr. Cook that they went to the waâ—…er and came thence and yet here he forgets himself so far as to the confutation of himself and them to speak in the phrase oâ—… Scripture concerning Christ and the Eunuch viz. that they came out of the water which if they could do and neither went into it nor were put into it then I know not how to understand plain English Rantist Well this is all but by the businesse let us go on and consider what more Mr. Bl. brings to disprove dipping to be the primitive custome he tells you further p. 9. it was the Apostles way to baptize disciples as soon as they were become Converts the same day rather sometimes the same houre as we see in the Eunuch the Jaylor and Lydia and multitudes of others but conversion of Disciples necessarily happened when there was no season for dipping the Element of water being over Cold for that service If any object that in those Conntreyes there was no danger in the coldest times He answers the commission being for all Nations disciples were made in all Countreys how soone saith he came the word to this Nation c. sometimes therefore saith he the water and weather was too cold for dipping Secondly the Number of Converts were so numerous 3000 5000. in one day that there was no possibility of baptizing in that Manner Acts 2. 41. and the 44. Thirdly Sometimes the Baptizers were in that condition that they were unable for that work in that way as Paul and Silas men newly taken out of the stocks in the Inner Prison with such stripes that their Convert was fain forthwith to wash them in this case they were unfit to wade into the water for that work and had they made any such adventure the Scripture would not have been silent Fourthly Sometimes the baptized have not been in case for dipping and plunging which was Pauls case upon the Aparition of the vision he was lead into Damascus where he continues without meat or drink three daies and upon Ananias his comming in and instructing of him he is baptized and when he had received meat saith the text he was strengthned will any believe he went out in this case with Ananias into the water over head in water before the taking of any sustenance Baptist. That persons were baptized as soon as ever they became Converts and could be discerned to be disciples even the same houre commonly without delay is an undeniable truth for that and no other was the very period of time at which what ever their parents were they were deemed to have true title to baptism for neither if their parents were wicked were such excluded as were nor if the parents were godly were such admitted as were not converted upon the Account of the fathers goodnesse or badnesse but as they believed or not themselves and this makes me the more amazed at it that it is come to passe since that the faith of the father can now intitle the child to baptism though the child have no faith at all of his own and yet I muse more sith you all count infants at least of believers to be disciples from the womb why yet you delay their baptism so long and do it not at the same houre of their birth for whether they be Discipulinati or discipuli facti if they be disciples as you falsly suppose they are if the primitive rule were to baptize persons as soon as ever they appeared to be disciples then unlesse you have any special instinct whereby you know them to begin to be disciples and in the faith as many of you count them about that very houre you baptize them in and not before you will appear to be a little tardy in your dispensations by your own rule though in truth you are too hasty for all this Now as to Mr. Blakes terrible conceit concerning the coldnesse of the water specially in some weather when yet if dipping were the way there would by means of mens conversion occasion be ministred to dip in sith I see occasion will be ministred to discourse more of winter dipping when I come to Mr. Baxters grand Arguments with one of which this is coincident I shall say nothing to it here but there speak to both under one save only that I must here tell Mr. Blake that conversion of disciples necessarily happened when there was no season for dipping without danger the Climate being by reason of persecutions that rose against that way much more over hot then the Element of water can at any time be over cold for the owning of that service must it therefore be forborn for fear of hazarding our lives if no exemption from a hotter service why from a colder for the lifes sake which whoever will save shall loose but whoever will loose for Christs name sake and the Gospels shall preserve it to life eternal as for the rest under that head I fully agree with it viz. that whatever that is there is commission but for one manner of baptism for all nations As to the multitude of Converts three thousand five thousand converted in one day which shift word for word Mr. Simpson covers his nakednesse with adding thus much theâ—…eunto viz. could Peter and those few with him the dispensers of this ordinance have stayed so long in the water or by dipping every one dipped so many in so short a time I answer how many and in how short a time does the man mean as for the 5000 it is doubtful whether they were all converted in that one day or whether he speaks not rather oâ—… the whole multitude that believed before which were 3000 together with those that afterward were added which might be some 2000 and so 5000 in all but if there were fully 5000 that then believed and that they were all at the same time baptized too which is not said and t is more probable for done it must be that t was done at another time or else by other hands then by Peter and Iohns for they were laid hold on in the Temple as they were speaking
as confines persons necessarily to their beds and puts them out of capacity and ability to betake themselves where it may be done as it ought I am willing to modify Mr. Baxters rigid epithere of a positive command whereby he denominates baptism so far as to spare persons in these cases and respects and to stile baptism a duty but suppositive i. e. a thing that necessarily must be done if either possibly or conveniently it may be done but if it cannot may be let alone but this proves not that self-preservation must be alwaies prefer'd before baptism for then it need never be obeyed at all there being no time wherein it can be done with so little seeming tediousnesse and disease to a mans self but that self will willingly excuse it self from obeying it by pleading the duty of self-preservation This duty of self-preservation hath couzened as honest a man as Mr. Baxter ere now and it couzens the whole Priesthood to this hour who generally suppose that God is no further to be served then self may be preserved hence no pay no preach no countenance from the magistracy no continuance in their ministry but for selfs sake they turn still with the times but no faster as if they durst trust God no further then they see him and this was the plea whereby Peter would fain have put Christ beside a duty that he foresaw would be dangerous for Christ and himself too but Christ gave him no great thanks for his labor far be it from thee Lord quoth he to go to Ierusalem and suffer by no means let this be he thought he did well to rebuke Christ for owning the Gospel in that case wherein he must expose himself to suffer but get thee behind me Satan saith Christ thou art an offence thou savourest not the things of God but those that be of men thou thinkest as if he should say that self must be favoured before positive duty be performed that the life must be saved and the gospel obeyed no further then is consistent with self-preservation but I tell you saith he that if any man will be my disciple he must deny himself and take up his crosse and follow me for he that will save his life i. e. discharge no duty that may prove dangerous to his life shall lose it but he that will lose his life for my name sake and the Gospel shall save it Mat. 16. 11. to 26. if Paul had stood so much upon the point of self-preservation and counted his life so dear unto himself as Mr. Baxter seems to do his he would have harkned to such as besought him to favour himself and not have gon up to Ierusalem where he knew not what should befall him save that he knew that bonds and afflictions did there abide him if he would there testifie to the Gospel Act. 20. 22. 23. 24 21. 22. nor would he have exposed himself to so many hazzards and perils by sea and land perils by water perils by hunger and thirst and cold and nakednesse none of all which things moved him that he might witnesse to the Gospel He tattles to us that God must not be tempted and that it was the divels trick to draw Christ under pretence of Scripture and trusting of God to have cast himself into danger of death who doubts of all this but is it tempting to perform a positive command of God and expose our selves to danger and difficulty in the discharge of our positive duty to him because it is so to indanger our liues by doing that which we have no call to nor warrand for and which is absolutely sin and hath not the least dram of duty in it at all it is true it would have been but pretence of Scripture and trusting of God in Christs casting himself from the pinacle of the Temple but dare he saie there is but pretence of Scripture and trusting of God in submitting to his own ordinance of baptism is there no more word to warrant us to be baptized and to trust in God and to expect his protection in the execution of that so absolute a command then there is to warrand the execution of our selves which God universally forbids and that on no more ground then the bare bidding of the devil who would think a mininister should be so moped as to make these two alike warrantable it was the divels trick therefore to draw Christ under pretence of Scripture and trusting of God to self-execution against duty and whether it be Mr. Baxters trick onely or the divels in him to draw men under pretence of Scripture and tempting of God to self-preservation so far as not to trust God in the discharge of duty is not amisse for Mr. Baxter to examine for that it savours not of spirit but of flesh it is so sure that it needs no examination If therefore it were indeed so dangerous to be dipt as is imagined by Mr. Cook and Mr. Baxter yet I see no word of Christ willing a declension of the dispensation But what if this be but a meer Chimaera of those mens coining how much lesse are we then excused in our non-submission and yet such and no other will it be found to be at last by then we have sounded this most murderous mater to the bottom For as to Mr. Baxters dismall divination of the hideous consequences that are if you will believe him as it were entaild to this course of constant dipping and his composed catalogue of Chronicall diseases viz. Catarrhes obstructions Apoplexies Lethargies Palsies all Comatous diseases Cephalalgies Hemicranies Phthises debilitie of the stomach Crudities Feavers Disentaries Diarrhoeas Colicks Iâ—…ack passions Convulsions Spasmes Tremores and all Hepatick Splenetick pulmoniack distempers and Hippocondriacks also All which to what end he hath Nomen-clattered together here I know not unlesse to make himself whilest he denies Mr. Tombs to be a Physitian seem to be a smatterer in the Art of Physick as to that pittifull piece of proof I say together with that formidable lecture Mr. Cook reads us concerning freezing and suffocation it is ridiculous and frivilous sibbling to fray faint hearted folks with from finding out that straight gate and narrow way that leads to life but a few will find it for all this especially when they shall find their so much believed Mr. Baxter to be such a flat false accuser as he is of this way of truth Hear therefore o ye doters on Mr. Baxters deep divinity he talks if you will believe him as if it were little lesse then impossible that persons should be dipped in cold weather in cold water and not be killed suddenly by hundreds and by thousands or at least not be cast into some Chronical disease which within a while must be an occasion of their death whereas there are hundreds if not thousands alive at this hour even in this cold Countrey as they call it many if not most of which have past through that sharp service in
the sharpest seasons conversion falling out as ordinarily in winter as in summer whose present health both proves the falsnesse and reproves the madnesse of your prophet Yea I have cause to know a little better then every one and a little more then Mr. Baxter in this Expertus loquor I speak by experience against which no Argument of his availes I have seen since my five or six years converse among the commonly called Anabaptists many a one baptized totally in cold water and weather too by others besides toward two hundred by my silly self many of which have come forth covered though not with yee as Mr. Cook phrases it out yet with that water which yee truly covered but just before yet never saw I any one so baptized in all that time who was not if not better in meer bodily respects yet at least as well after it as before he tells you if you will believe him that totall dipping is for nothing but to dispatch men out of the world that are burdensome but then I wonder how the Creature called Anabaptist that is so burthensome to Mr. Baxter doth not dy out of the way by hundreds and thousands and so save him and others that labour of dispute against their growth but rather grow from hundreds into thousands so fast that they are not likely to be dispatcht out of the world till they are such a burthensom stone as will press them to death i.e. the whole Priesthood that is troubled with them He tells you if you will believe him that dipping will destroy men except they be preserved by Miracles why else doth he say speaking specially as to this ordinance of dipping God hath not appointed ordinances in his Church that will destroy men except they be preserved by miracles now if it be not so as hee sales viz. that it is a miracle to be dipped and not destroyed then what a strange man is he to say so but if it be so indeed viz a Miracle to be dipped and not destroyed then â—…o fools and slow of heart to believe the truth though the Lord confirm it to you with Miracles which are wrought day by day amongst the Disciples who are dipped Winter and Summer as occasion is yet are not destroyed Yea whereas Mr Baxter dares say that in Cities like London and amongst Gentlewomen that have been tenderly brought up and antient people and weak people and shopkeepers especially women that take but little of the cold aire dipping in cold weather would in the course of nature kill hundreds and thousands suddenly or cast them into some Chronical disease I dare say that in the City of London there is hundreds if not thousands dipped in cold water and as it happens in cold weather too many of which are Gentlewomen tenderly brought up and antient and weak people and shop keepers and women that take but little of the cold aire and yet by the course of grace they are preserved from perishing by either cold or suffocation yea and out of the City of London too for these hands have baptized of all these sorts in the Countrey viz. Gentlewomen most tenderly brought up very antient people very weak people shopkeepers and specially two women both alive at this day which I 'l become a fool in telling you of them sith Mr. Baxter compells me did take so little of the cold aire that one of them if my memory fail me not and if I were truly informed was but once out of her house in 5 year before by reason of a dropsy and that was with much adoe and but a little before her dipping and to hear this doctrine notwithstanding which weaknesse and such swellings that she was wellnigh twice as bigg as now she is and scarce able to betake her self to the water she was dipped and was rather better in body then worse after it and after sending for some elders of the Church toâ—… pray over her and anoint her with oile in the name of the Lord according to his own institution in that behalf Iam. 5. was within a while so asswaged in her swellings that she is now as slâ—…nder as in former times before ever he distemper took hold on her The other had scarce been out of her Chamber in two years together and durst not dip her finger in cold water and was ready to have her breath stopt with the least annoyance that could be yet was dipped and was better after it through Gods mercy for a pretty while so as to go abroad though she now is weak and much what as she used to be before If then you will not believe the words of God believe the works believe the Miracles for it is by Miracles that they are preserved who are dipt in cold water and not destroyed saâ—…es Mr. Baxter which if it be then God hath wrought very many Miracles among the men you nickname Anabaptists of late for they are constantly preserved from perishing by either cold or suffocation yea I have known many a one better in body but I nere knew any one of whom I could safely say they were the worse in body or Soul for being dipt save such as turned from the truth after turning to it for the latter end with such indeed is worse then their begining Yet how rashly do these men shoot their bolts to the murdering of the truth whilst they make the ordinary practise of it no lesse then flat murder it self and that undeniably to any understanding man unless there be a preservation by a miracle for else it destroyes men quoth Mr. Baxter it directly tendeth to overthrow mens lives in the course of Nature it will kill hundreds and thousands of them but if a man scape perishing with cold yet how can he i.e. how is it possible for him to escape being choaked quoth Mr. Cook and stifled with the water if he must be plunged over head to signify his death to sin 2. Secondly kept under water to signify his burial How can a man escape choaking Sirs if he be put and kept under the water why I tell you that either he can or else he cannot if he can why then he can and so Mr. Cook is confuted if he cannot in the course of nature without miracle then it being certain that thousands do scape choaking it should seem God by Miracle secures them and yet for all this nor Mr. Baxter nor Mr. Cook are convinced whether it be the more shame for them or no not to be so I leave it to themselves and all understanding men to consider Or perhaps Mr. Cook means how can a man escape choaking if he be kept three daies under water for so quoth he the disciple must as Christ abode three daies under water if Christs burial be represented but not onely his own party for mora sub aqua quantulacunque saith Tilenus quantumvis momentanea saith Bucan abode under the water for never so little a while doth most lively resemble
Ierusalem how often would I have gathered c. but those were men and women only whom he called to believed in him and not infants Again he gathered them by preaching of the word into baptism and membership and received all that came and no more viz. sometimes the children and not the parents sometimes the parents and not the children so that a mans foes for the truths sake sometimes were they of his own family his own flesh therefore he offered not to gather infants for he preacht not to them nor called them at all nor were any more baptized and added to the Church-fellowship in the Gospel then they that gladly received the word that did not infants yea 3000 were gathered into the first Gospel Church by preaching and baptism in one day and never an infant among them all for they surely did not continue in fellow ship in breaking of bread and prayers Acts 2. Therefore whereas Mr. Ba. in his Epistle to the parish of Bewdley challenges Mr. 〈◊〉 to name him one particular Church since Adam either of Jewes or Gentiles where infants were not Church-members if they had any infants till 200 years ago I name him the first Gospel Church that ever was Aâ—…t 2. in which there was not one infant yea there was three thousand baptized in one day and it is a hazard but that those three thousand had many perhaps no lesse than three thousand infants belonging to them all and yet as Mr. Cotton thinkes so think I that none of their infants were baptized with them much lesse were added with them to the Church or continued with them in fellowship as the whole Gospel Church did in breaking of bread and prayers yea though-there was no infants in that Church which was gathered at Ierusalem it self to which Christ saies how oft would I have gathered thy children c. and therefore Mr. Baxs sense is very sinister so I challenge him again to shew me not by such dubious muddy cloudy circumlocutory inconsequential consequences as he doth but undeniable evidences any one of all the Gospel Câ—…urches of the primitive times either of Jewes or Gentiles which we are all to reâ—…orm by viz. Ierusalem Rome Corinth Galatia Philippi Ephesus Thessalonica or any other to fellowship in which there was one infant baptized added and admitted and I shall cry him mercy and lay down the Cudgelis at his feet and acknowledge he hath broke my pate The next Scripture he uses is more impertinent then this yet Mr. Ba. makes a certain shift to squeese an argument out of it and to compel it invita minervâ not a little against its own intent and meaning to corroborate his crooked crazie creed concerning the inchurching and cristening of infants viz. Rev. 11. 15. whence he thus Syllogizes If the kingdoms of this world either are or shall be the kingdomes of the Lord and of his Christ then infants also must be members of his kingdom i. e. the visible Church the Antecedent is the words of the text indeed as he saies but the sequel is so sure and follows so firmly in his fancy that he saies nothing can be said against it that is sense or reason but indeed it self is against both sense and reason Who would ever think if the word did not declare that the things of wisdome are hid from the wise and prudent that such a disputer as Mr. Ba. holds himself to be should deduce the now membership of infants fâ—…om such a premise as this viz. because the kingdomes of this world are or else shall be the kindomes of God and Christ what 's this I trow toward the eviction of the other much every way saith Mr. Ba. yea so much that for any thing he can see this text alone were sufficient to decide the whole controversie whether infants must be Church members Amen so beit say I let this Scripture decide it and let 's see what Mr. Ba. saies out If they can say quoth he by kingdoms is meant here some part of the kingdom excluding all infants such men may make their own creed on those termes let the Scripture say what it will I know in some places the word kingdome and Ierusalem c. is taken for a part but if we must take words alwayes improperly because they are taken so sometimes saith he then we shall not know how to understand any Scripture so of necessity it must be understood properly i. e in its prime signification of the whole kingdoms and whole Ierusalem with him and not improperly for a part onely though Mr. Blake to Mr. Black saith upon occasion of our pleading for the proper signification of baptize nothing more or dinary then to have words used out of their prime signification whereby we may see how these men wil needs have that signification that best serves their turnes whether proper or improper when the proper most fits them then the improper cannot be meant there when the proper makes against them the improper is pleaded for as none more usual then that thus the word houshold must include infants when baptism is spoken of but when the passover is spoken of then infants are excluded because else we shall argue from thence to their eating the supper as they from circumcision unto their bapâ—…ism but this by the way that it may be noted how the men will have things their own way by hook or by crook not that I deny the word kingdomes to be taken properly for all the whole kingdome here yea I grant it but let us see what of that why even this if the whole kingdom be the Lords then infants must unavoidably be members of Christs Church and if we ask how comes this about he will tell you two wayes First as infants are all of the Kingdomes of this world taken for the whole kingdom Secondly as by the word kingdom of Christ is meant Christs church Now let us spell and put all together and it is thus much First by Kingdomes of this world is here meant the whole Kingdome of this world or Kingdome taken universally not for some part of it onely Secondly by Kingdomes of the Lord and his Christ is here meant Christs church onely Thirdly infants are a part of the Kingdomes of this world and so consequently of Christs church for the Kingdomes of this world are become the Kingdomes of the Lord and his Christ i. e. Christs church oh brave and plain Scripture proof for infant church-membership and baptism Let us examine what is true and what is false in this First as above I grant that here the Kingdomes of this world signifie the whole Kingdome as he pleads it but that here the Kingdome of the Lord and his Christ signifies Christs church I utterly deny it and am amazed that a reasonable man should affirm it and so consequently I deny that it appears from this place that infants are now members of Christs church But he brings reason for it such as t is
it like Caesar at Rubicon with one foot out saying yet I may go on the other in saying yet I may go back bespeaking its patrons to be in a twitter in a temper between Hawk and Buzzard afraid to dispute too downrightly for disputation least that should ingage them another time ashamed too directly to dispute down disputation least it be thought they have no mind to it any more But to come to the thing it self I confesse you have spoken Bonum but not Bene Rectum but not Recte it is a moddle of for the most part right good true and honest matter onely made use of either very simply or very subtly to a bad end viz. the provoking of the Priesthood no need to bid mad folks run to preach up a false and oppose the practise of the true baptism Secondly most miserably misapplied if â—…cientiously and not cunningly it is the better to an improper subject and perverted the wrong way viz. to the fastning of the name Hereticks and Schismaticks for non-conformity to the Clergy upon those true Churches of Christ for non-conformity to whom in opinion and practise if miscariage about baptism may properly be so stiled the Clergy are in very deed the truest Hereticks and Schismaticks in the world I shall therefore in a serious survey and examine of what Heresie and Schism is discover plainly First that the people whom you call Anabaptists upon account of meer dissent and separation from you in the point of baptism are no Hereticks nor Schismaticks but the truest visible Church that Christ hath upon the earth Secondly that you the P P Priesthood of the Nations who dissent from them in that point are as to that point at least the veriest Hereticks and Schismaticks your selves Thirdly after some pathetical expostulation with your selves addresse my self by way of Peraphrase upon your own pathetical and paraenetical passages pathetically to exhort the true Pastors and paraenetically to perswade all people as you do yours to beware of us to beware of you the spirituallity by whom the way of truth is dispited who though you disguise your selves under the name of Gods Clergy or Heritage for a while yet will appear to be but cruel crushers of his true Clergy in the end First then let us see what Heresie and Schism is and then who is a Schismâ—…tical Heretick in the doctrine of baptism Heresie as to the Gospel is held and that truly by all manner of men I think the holding or maintaining any erroneous opinion in the faith and doctrine of the Gospel contrary to that doctrine delivered by Christ and his Apostles in the primitive times obstinately and pertinacously against all meanes that can be used towards conviction of the truth Schism is division or making of a rent fraction or faction in or separation from the true Church and from walking with them in the truth by the holders or maintainers of such false doctrine or opinion and consequently Schismatical Hereticks who ere they be are such as are bewitched from the simplicity of the truth as it is in Jesus and from the doctrine that was once received by the Church from him and his immediate Apostles so as both to believe and practise contrarily thereunto against all manifestations of the truth whereby to reduce and reclaim them and do also rend from and make a head against the true Church and true head thereof Christ Jesus separating themselves so as to have no fellowship or communion i. e. nor union of action nor unity of affection with them that walk in truth Now whether it be you O PPPriests who rantize infants or we who baptize believers that are thus gone off and divided from the primitive faith and practise from the true head of that Church from the true foundation i. e. the doctrine of the Apostles Eph. 2. 20. Heb. 6. 1. 2. and from fellowship with and conformity to the true Church in baptism and otherwise is evident to him that is not blind or blear-eyed for verily the water baptism which we dispense is abundantly shewed above to be that one baptism Eph. 4. which was used in the primitive times then which there is no other water baptism enjoined or exemplified in the word as Christs ordinance to his disciples viz. the burying of new born babes i. e believers in water and bringing them up again in token of Christs death burial and resurrection and of their dying to sin and rising to newnesse of life this I say is that one onely baptism the Churches then practised and thus and no otherwise do we at this day for which the word is our warrant yea it is that faith which was once delivered unto the Saints that we now contend for and the words which were spoken before by the Apostles of the Lord as we are specially injoined to do in these latter daies by both Peter and Iude who foretold how they would be sleighted as we see they now are by the two Spiritualties viz. the Rantizer and the Ranter the one Hereticizing in the excesse by adding a new thing the other in the defect by owning nothing both Schismatizing accordingly from the way of truth and howbeit after that way which you call Heresie Schism separation from the Church and such like so worship we God yet as sure as the coats upon your back you shall first or last to your wealâ—…er wo find that as to the point of baptism Churchfellowship and the supper also it is no other then the way of truth we walk in yea so far are we from erring and Schismatizing from the Church that we of all men do stand for a full reformation in faith practise doctrine discipline worship manners government and baptism according to the word of God and the example of the best reformed Churches i. e. those mentioned in the word according to which we are all sworn to endeavour to reform as we will not be justly charged with Perjury Perfidiousnesse and Prevaâ—…cation the guilt of all which how little the Orthodox protesting covenanting Clergy are clear of in the sight of God and man is good for them to consider yea conformity in all things to the primitive practise is that we plead for presse after and persue and howbeit to the shame of his ignorance be it spoken Orthodox Mr. Baxter is pleased among other sectaries to charge the Anabaptists so he calls us that baptize aright as the Authors and approvers of the horrible wickednesse of these times and speaks of us as dispappointing and destroying their hopes in point of reformation to the grief of his heart yet with grief of heart that the way of truth should be evil spoken of by him by reason of such as do wickedly indeed yet those lascivious wayes he laies to our score are lesse approvvd on in our Churches then in the purest Parish Church in all Christ'ndom Kederminster not excepted yea I tell him and God I hope will one day seal it home upon
broken his lawes changed his ordinances trampled his truth made void his commandments and subpaena damni Temporalis et eternae damnationis imposed mens Traditions arrogantly in their stead so you in your severall lines have done no lesse yea you also make people to erre with all your might and whatever tender consciences find Christ piping to the contrary in his word yet if they dance not after you pipe when it sounds to the tune of Tithes and put not into your moneths you cry peace but bite with your teeth and prepare war against them Mich. 3. 5. possessing the world with prejudice against them as a sort of seditious Sectaries damnnble Hereticks and Schismaticks yea exceptis excipiendis saving some few scatterings here and there of more sober and moderate minded Ministers like so many graines of salt to keep the rest from stinking too much in these states where you have or would have raigned who have not been so hot spur as their fellowes by the good will of P. the Presbiter as well as of P. the Prelate and P the Pope many an honest mans native countrey for non-conformity to his Gangraenaticall domination should ere this have been made too hot to hold him so far therefore as separa from the true church and her orders may denominate a people Heretical Schismaticks and Divines themselves place the Nature of Heresie much in seperation and Schism the Denomination seems to be your due O P P Priests who are departed from the primitive church and not ours for departing from you ye are are those Schismatical Teachers that are rent all from the primitive plainesse of the Gospel and present pompousnesse of each others way and have seduced the whole world into spiritual thraldome idolatry and superstition and inticed them into a carnal liberty of calling all things according as your carnal ends and interests impose the names of Heresie or truth upon them you are S S She that having got the good liking of the Kings and Kingdomes of the earth to confide in you do close the eyes of their judgements as Dr. Featley faines we do with your birdlime of Schism from the true church and head thereof Christ Jesus and bewitcht them into an implicic submission to Papism Arch-bishopism Occumaenical Synodism Provincial Classism and so lead them as you list into Anti-gospelism Antiscripturism c. making a prey of them and though Featly had the faculty of faining the Baptists â—…o be such yet you are indeed devisers of new religions and Spiritual Impostors falsely pretending to Christ as the Patron and Authorizer of your new doctrines of which Paedo-baptism is one which because there is not the least dram of evidence for it in the word of Christ therefore when people begin to question it you amuse the vulgar with the names of some divine Authors or other not Peter nor Paul c. but St Austin S â— Gregory S Chrysostome c. at Rome his Holiness the Pope the holy Mother the Catholique Church Ghostly Fathers c. and in places where those subterfuges are not regarded Reverend Sinods of grave Orthodox Divines Ministers of Christ Suffrages of all the learned Divines in the Reformed Churches c. and this you do to secure your Tenets from the hazards of disputes and exempt your persons and actions from the test of examination as if there were such infallibility herein that it is no lesse then blaspemy to doubt or call in question the Dictates or Directories c. of such and such thus bearing your selves up with bombasting termes of Fathers Spiritual Ius divinum c. you gain to the captivating of the reason of men so far that they resign up themselves â—…urare in v v vostram sententiam and will be as their Priests are and never believe but that they believe the truth when all this while there is nothing but humane authority and humanum est errare for most things you do yea you are indeed the greatest Schismaticks or Rentmakers in the seamlesse coat of Christ that the Earth bears you are they that have caused divisions and offences contrary to that doctrine which was at first received at Rome and in all Churches and by good words and fair speeches viz. decency order c. have deceived the hearts of the simple so as to make more conscience of serving those belly gods the Priests then the Lord Jesus according to his own will therefore when you talk so much to us of the Church and your Church crying out as the Pope does against the Bishops for theirs and the Bishops against you Presbyters for your departure from them Hereticks Hereticks that disturb the peace of the Church forsake the Church infringe the unity of the Church yet I say what Church so long as there is no other Church constitution among you to this day then that of parishes into which the Pope put all Christ'ndome what Church so long as the doctrine of Christ and his Apostles on which every true Church is built is cut off disclaimed and exploded and neither the word purely preached nor the Sacraments duly administred which by Calvin and Featley themselves are both made such true notes of the true visible Church that wherever they are there is the true Church and where not there 's no true Church what ever there may be in pretence yea verily so far are you from due administration of the sacraments giving the Supper to such as were never at all much lesse truly baptized many of you Presbyterians not administring it at all to your flocks whom you contend were truely initiated into your Church by baptism that indeed as you have substituted infant rantism instead of it so you preach down that due administration of baptism and the Supper which according to the primitive pattern Acts 2. is at this day to be found amongst us withall the vehemency you can proclaiming us Schismatical hereticks for declining your disorderly administrations and according to our covenant pressing on to that purity of administration of Gospell ordinances which lies now in such plain English before mens eyes that all your glosses wil beguile them but little longer there is no danger therefore of being rent from the Church of Christ in departing from participation with you in your oppositions of the truth therefore never glory so much in these vain lying words the Church of God the Church of God which is indeed the Common tone of all you Romanists each to other in your rendings each from other for there is none of you all three have a true visible Church of Christ among you nor yet right any administration of the things you call Sacraments whether we speak of either baptism or the Supper My answer then to the whole PPPriesthood of Christ'ndom even ye Protestant Clergy also from all whom as well as from the Pope we who are fictitiously stiled Anabaptists and charged as Schismatical Hereticks for so doing and troublers
Anti-christians Pedobap tists Sectaries c. and about his law and about Heresie and spiritual Truth and Schism in the Church and Ministry and such like about which the eares of the civil powers have been dâ—…d by the usual addresses of the PPPriesthood unto them for help against Hereticks and Schismaticks and by their hideous outcries viz. of the Prelates against the Presbyters saying help O King and the Presbyters against the Sectaries help O Parliament all will be overspread with a Gangrene of Heresie Murder Murder c. O ye Magistrates restrain dipping in cold water as you will save the lives of your subjects and such stuff and folly as is powred out to the Magistrate by the Minister against men more true to Christ and Magistracy then himself I humbly conceive the Magistrate may lawfully and more acceptably to God then otherwise save himself so much labour as to let these matters alone yea he may do well to see that whatever Religion men be of that are under his civil power in each state whether Iewish Turkish Heathenish Popish Prelatical Presbyterian or Independent may not be injurious each to other without satisfaction in civil matters and to see that none commit any uncivil actions that are contrary to that common honesly and righteousnesse among men which men as magistrates are set to vindicate to see that none live be they of this or that Religion dishonestly without correction to see that none usurp Dominion over each others faith so as to make all men believe as some do whether they see ground to believe so yea or no by the civil sword to see that in order to their own eternal good they find out and walk in the way of truth themselves as it is in Jesus and when they are once assured that they are in the truth themselves to let that truth be verbally declared per se or per alios as much as they please but not forced upon others as their faith further then the light of preachings and discourses may prevail to fasten it on others consciences and to see that even enemies to the Gospel and true Church may have no more then the weapons of the Churches warfare which are not carnal used towards them to make them friends and as to those who walk in truth whoever they are or shall but be supposed by the successive representatives Princes or Powers to walk in the way of truth to see that they be countenanc't but not too much maintenanc't because Christs disciples nor cockt up to all the honour and preferment and places of trust and advantage above their fellow subjects to the ingendring of jealousies and emulations in others that may be happily though not so neer the truth of Christ yet as trusty to the State as themselves for that too often choaks the Church but onely that with an indifferent impartial hand as men whether in Church or out being otherwise honest and able and of publique spirits not selfish nor covetous nor cruel c. may seem fit to be intrusted with such and such places so they may be chosen and disposed of thereunto in a word to see that such as make prayers and supplications and intercessions and giving of thanks for all men for Kings and such as are in authority living in all godlinesse and honesty may as well as others and others also as well as they living soberly and honestly though not Godly in Christ Jesus nor worshipping in way of truth but falsly may live a quiet and peaceable life without persecution as to confiscation bonds or death for doing and denying according to the dictates of their own though yet blinded conscience and that men of all Religions may live without molestation one from another any more then by meer manifestations of their light one to another at seasonable times in wayes of query disputation and preaching and then to leave all men to worship God according to their several wayes even misbelievers Hereticks and Iewes themselves and others that yet believe not in Christ but deny him till the Lord lend them light by the word of truth and to stand or fall to their own master Christ Jesus to whom every conscience shall give account of it self at last who if any man hear his words and believe not nor receives but rejects them judges him not here either by himself or the civil magistrate or by his Church any further then to non-communion with them yet by the word that he hath spoken unto him will judge every man at the last day Thus it is most evident the magistrate whether Christian or Heathen is to do and not otherwise viz. to give protection to men as men living honestly so berly and justly without respect to their Religions whether true or false And as to Religions to allow Tolleration to all men to practise according to their principles the practise of whose principles is not directly destructive to the true Religion common honesty civillity morallity righteousnesse and the peace and safety of the Common-wealth as some mens principles are if put in practise yet verily I know none among Christians at least save those of the two Spiritualties vix the Rantizing PPPriest that in his precincts which is the whole world could he catch it would have no tolleration for any way of worship but his own and the Ranting Prophet who would have toleration of all and more too not onely all Religions but all as well unciuill unnatural lewd abominable as irreligious actions which nature it self cries shame on among beasts magistracy finds it self an ordinance of God to give correction to among heathens for those men are now acting upon the stage of whom Iude speaks when he saies Iude 10. what they know naturally as bruit beasts in those things they corrupt themselves the principles of that old PPPriest and this new Prophet if practised in the hight of them are utterly inconsistent with the standing of truth in the world untrampled viz. that of the Priest and also with the standing of very manhood among men of civility in civil states of the common-health of the Common-wealth it self viz. that of the Prophet the one is so far from owning any power to be a terror to evil works and incouragement to good that despising all Government and speaking evill of dignities he holds that there is at all neither good nor evil nor better nor worse amongst works but all alike and then good Lord how fast must iniquity dishonesty unrighteousnesse and incontinency thrive and abound upon earth to the ripening of iâ—… for the sickle when it shall be acted with allowance from such a principle as this viz. that there is now no iniquity at all this man would have the civil power allow all Religions and good Manners too but allowes of none at least thinks he needs use none himself and is for a Toleration of all truth in the world thoughall truth is the intollerablest thing in the
Lawyers who while the people believe and justifie God being baptized with the true baptism do generally reject the councel of God against themselves being not baptized therewith where had thy message by the mouth of Paul lesse acceptance then at the university of Athens where hath the word now lesse then in the Academies Christian Academies seemingly reforming Academies where if thou didst not tell us that Christ crucified should be foolishnesse to the wise men after the flesh and disputers of this world who could believe that the Princes of Zoan should be such fools such idiots as they are in the matters of thy Kingdom where doth thy truth meet with more difficult entrance more course entertainment more malitious accusatious more captious questions secret underminings open oppositions then among the CCChristian Ministry which therefore is not thine but Antichristian because it is both for thee and against thee yea who so blind as those that seem to themselves to be the onely Seers both for themselves and others ever seeking to thee for thy spirit yet ever resisting thy holy spirit speaking to them out of the mouths of babes as a very babler ever teaching yet never learning which be the first principles of thy doctrine ever serving thee yet ever thinking they do thee service when they affront thy servants O Lord let as many of them as do it ignorantly obtain thy mercy if it be thy will and let thy truth shine into their souls that they may be saved as for such as are more malevolently disposed if it may not be otherwise but that the main body of the CCClergy shall evermore be adversaries to thee and thy Clergy Amen sobeit And now have shewed the Reasons why God suffers Hereticks and hath suffered the Arch-heretick and Schismatick and mother of Abominations of all Christndom i. e. the CCClergy that have been Wolves rather then Pastors to Christs sheep the last of which reasons was this to provoke the true Pastors to diligence and watchfulnesse to prove them whether they be hirelings or not such as will flee when the wolf comes or lay down their lives for the sheep and having discovered whom I mean by Pastors viz. not the Priests but those of the truly gathered and constituted churches that have separated themselves from the Priest and his parish popish posture I proceed yet a little further For This last Reason administers the matter of this ensuing discourse concerning the wayes how Pastors of right constituted Churches such as those of the Baptists onely are should oppose or rather should have opposed the coming in of these wolves the CCClergy for the Pastors of old through their negligence did suffer them to come in and drive them out being entered What the Magistrates duty is in this case it presumes not to set down here partly because the Magistrates duty is discovered and discourst on above and partly because it presumes the Magistrate will be wise enough in this age to know what he is to do towards the freeing of himself from that infinit care and cumber that hath crusht him in former dayes by the CCClergies constant clacking to him to correct Hereticks Schismaticks and Sectaries and crying out to â—…m â—…o lend them his helping hand and the edge of his civil sword about Church-work yea and if God who did once put it into the hearts of the Kingdomes of the earth to fulfill his will and to agree and with one mind to give their power strength and Kingdom unto the beast and to serve the whore that rode them Rev. 17. 13. 17. and as ten horns to toss the Saints at her will will now put it into the minds of these ten horns even all the Kingdoms of Christndom to hate the whore and make her desolate and naked and eat her flesh and strip her of all 〈◊〉 â—…ith and spiritual glory revenue dignity and burn her with fire and in theâ—…â—…age to ruin great BBBabilon the City that in three PPParts or PPProud PPPriesthoods hath reigned over them as I believe he will Rev. 16. 19 17. 16. 18. throughout as I can neither much help or hinder it so I find no warrant to cry Alas Alas for it as the Kings and Merchants that come down with her shall do but rather Allâ—…lujah with all the people Rev. 18. 9. 11. 16. 19. 1. 2. 3. c. There are two publique wayes for private are suffering fastings and prayers and teares c. matters wherewith the CCClergy for the most part of them never yet kild themselves nor approved themselves yet as the Ministers of Christ by as his true Ministers did of old which have been practised by Pastors in those primitive dayes viz. Disputing Preaching concerning both which this discourse intends onely a short suâ—…vey leaving the proceedings in them to their judgements whom God hath made faithful Disputation say our Ashford Disputants hath ever been decried by most iudicious and grave men Tertullian is bitter say they against it Perdes in contentione vocem nihil consequeris nisi vilem de blasphematione laâ—…dem and I say so too a man may very easily wrangle ad ravim dispute himself hoarse and lose his tongue in contention and get nothing but a base repute of blasphemation specially when as t was at Ashford and somewhere else within a mile of an oak the contention is so sharp that there 's not onely six tongues to one or two talking for it tuning alltogether against the truth but six bells balling out also to bear it down with And another magni res est periculi veterem fidem quasi novellam otiosa disputatione discutere and so indeed it is a matter of great disadvantage idâ—…ely to dispute the old faith as if it were some new one whereupon that truth may receive detriment by us in nothing hence forward we do all men to wit that howbeit the CCClergy and their creatures claim antiquity to be on their sides still both in the point of baptism and other differences between them and the men call'd Anabaptists and delude their people into a blind misbelief that all that truthâ—… which now comes to light is to be taken for granted to be heresie before hand new faith new wayes a new Gospel and this they do more easily and effectually by how much t is true that the fog of their errors hath been so thick that men can find but little of that which now shines forth in the dayes of our mâ—…e immediate forefathers though there were many righteous men no question then disiring to see and hear what we now do and could not howbeit I say they have prepostest people thus yet in order to the dispossessing of them of that praejudication by reason whereof the primitive truth which however God winkt while it was a time of ignorance must now it comes to light again be received in the love therof that they may be saved and in the rejection of which they will be damned 2 Thes. 2.
blushing at the lives of those men who stiled themselves their successors I have done with the câ—…uses of his heresies and come to his design The design of the Heretick even this Heretick of Hereticks the CCClergy is to propagate his Error and as his grounds are wicked so are his manners in mannaging of them intrat ut vulpes regnat â—…tleo he pretends verity but intends onely vctory that he may reign over the kings and people of the earth and that they might all stoop to his commands directions and under pretence of verity at first he did get victory at last over the whole world so that Pape Oh strange the whole world wondered after him and doted upon him as their Lord God and became slaves in chains to his Priestly will yea as he loved to be supreme and overcome so the lord let him for a time that he might manifest his own power the more in the overcomming him for ever in the end yea power was given him to make war by the beast that bears him even all nations of Christendom which he overcame first against the Saints and to overcome them also and so to be filled with his own inventions he gives out when any disputes against him that his desire is to be satisfyed by disputing and so perhaps he would but t is with riches more then rightousnesse with tith more then truth for in truth he seemes if he must meet with such as charge him with error in his doctâ—…ine of baptism tith forced maintenance forcing conscience as if he would renounce his opinions and practises in these points if any can prove them to be corrupt but seeks onely opportunities to spread his odd opinions of what sc'â—…ism and sacriledge and robbing of God it is if submission be not acted and tithes be not offered to him among the vulgar among whom his Ghostly pretences produce a kind of aweful affrightment and dread of doing any thing against what he saies being resolved before hand never to be convinced of the truth as t is in the word for that overturns him in all his preferment projects and plucks him up from all the profits of his present princely posture which is such a right eye to him that he hath not faith enough to believe that it can possibly be more profitable to him to part with though Christ himself till him tis then to preserve and perish with it His disciples are for the most part not such as the noble Beraeans that would take nothing upon trust from the very Apostles mouths but searched the Scripture dayly whether the things were so or no not onely men but honourable women too not a few but rather meer idle implicit forefather faitht men simple and weak women who try nothing but keep their Church and believe as their Church believes and as their good churchman saies led away with diverse lusts and pleasures leaning onely on their Priests understandings pinning all their Religion upon their sleeves adoring all that their Orthodox divines deliver at a venture ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth as t is in the word whose honest ignorant devotions he hath won to himself by his cunning artifice of pretended piety voluntary humility seeming zeal to the truth long prayers or rather multitudes of short prayers and praises Pater Nosters Miserere Meâ—…'s Magnificats Te deums Gloria Patri's per Iesum Christum Dominum nostrums and such like devoutries and being once gained are so carried on with the streme of corrupt custome present fashion foolish affection that no reason in the world can reclaim them he deterreth lay people as much as may be from reading expounding or too much prying into the Scripture alledging unto them the perils they may incur by misinterpretations he hath laid his foundations so firmly in the dark consciences of men women by perswading them of his own infallibity Ecclesiastical Authority his Ius Divinum in the Government and guidance of the Church as here in Britain and even of his Temporal jurisdiction too as at Rome over both heaven and earth hell and purgatory of his power in the agony of mens souls to forgive sin that men and women are becharmed into beleif of him he hath woven himself so far into their credulity that all his sayings are received as oracles all his doings as divine all his traditions as truth it self all his Adminstrations as Apostolical all his doctrines as Orthodox all his Arguments though confessed by himself to be weak as unanswerable and all others Administrations Actions Answers Arguments though never so consentaneous to the true sense of Scripture valued at that price which he sets upon them as if the holy chaire of Papall determination Episcopal Convention Synodical constitution could not possibly be mistaken yea the Scripture it self is but a nose of wax with him of what shape soever the CCClergy casts it into of no more authority then Aesops Fables with the Papists if the Pope say the word so as to disdate digrade it or put any part of it out of commission of no other sense then the Bishops and Synod seem to say is the sense on 't with their good Protestants so altogether Oraculous is the Pope among his the Bishop among his the Presbyter among his and even all the three several CCClergies among their three several sorts of CCCreatures that their different ipse dixits are ipso facto divine directory and discharge enough too for these different doters on them insanire cum ratione to dote to and fro by Authority so as to do and undo and do and undo and do by In a word he is too bold to be born down not so much from such things as mae the righteous witnesses to truâ—…h as bold as Lioâ—…s before God and men viz. the goodnesse of his cause for that is stark naugh and rotten nor the clearnes of his call â—…ther to his Clerical function or any actions he goes about by vertue and in persuance thereof for t is clear enough that his orders emission commission as to the external etymology of them are more from the Pope then Christ and the true Church nor any good answer of a good conscience for either his conscience is so cloudy that he cannot or so cowardly that he dares not or so resolved that he will not see or else so clear that he is condemned of himself wâ—…en tâ—…uth shines plainly upon his face but rather from either his great interest in or directive authority over the civil power that hath long back as well as bellyed him as in England or his having it all in his own hands and dispose as at Rome where â—…e duo gladii both swords are in the Clergyes clutches so that he can quickly correct those that conâ—…radict him he is too clamorous to be silenced calling out with such a heavy noise and divine ditty against the truth and condâ—…ing it with such an
truth in the people who before were wont to take their ware on trust without trial then then they can lay again while they live by all the shifts and subtleties they can devise for when once people are resolved to believe things to be heresie by heatsay no more but to fancy them according as they find them in the word and to see into the plainness of speech that is in the Scripture with their own eyes they see so much disproportion between the national Church wayes and those of the primitive Churches of the Gospel that they commonly resolve not to see at all adventures through the unclear eyes of CCClergy men any more This makes them fieâ—… and fume and fain and fiddle hither and thither which way to fasten their Heretical opinions further if it be possible on them in whom they they stick and into whose hearts they have eaten fowl healthless holes already and to dâ—…ive them deeper even with hammer and nailes if they can tell how or else to cleave whole Countries asunder with beetle and wedges Heresie is said by the Apostle to fret like a canker so that it is not the clearness nor yet the coolness nor yet the heat of a disputation can correct it in some mens hearts the tongue may heal any poisoned wound with licking of it sooner then that which the Heretick the Pope and the Priesthood hath made so deeply hath he found his heresies in the dark cells of some mens implicit consciences Athauastus his disputation with Arrius and Austins with Manichaeus are sufficient Instances Indeed it is not possible to expect any good fruit from those former grounds as to the CCClergie themselves and such of their CCCreatures as stand bent to believe all they say and never doubt it though otherwise much good may come to others that are inquisitive by disputation with them or that he which is possessed with self love and hunts so greedily after glory or gain as the CCClergie does should be perswaded to hearken to any reason which contradicts his principles or to disclaim that wase which must advance his design What is the result of this discourse to forbid all disputation with HHHim no by no means it is necessary to stop the clamors of the adversarie to the truth who will cry out victoria if his challenge be not answered and make our silence be a confession of the truth on his side if he be not stoutly encountred with Saint Austin who was in his time called Malleus hereticorum of whom it is said that he never went so willingly to a feast as to a conference when Pascentins the Arrian bragd that he had worsted him in his dispute and those believed it which desired it yet gave not out from disputing but was onely careful to set down his disputations in writing for the future that the truth might appear vindicated from thofe false reports with which commonly it is blasted either by word or else by some such true counterfeit Accounts in print as that which is at this day extant of the disputation held at Ashford A Disputation orderly carried soberly proceeded with without heats and distempered passions not suffered to go out of its due bounds nor to follow every new sent that is taken up by the way nor to degenerate into quarrellings and hasty fals chargings of the Anabaptists as this and that they know not what without proving them such or disproving their doctrines as if others do not I do know more then one place where and where more then once too it hath been so will contribute much to the clearing of truth the begetting of doubts in them that yet never doubted but blindly believed the contrary The removing of doubts in them that are already in doubts about it and putting it out of all doubt to them all in the end that all is not so well yet as it ought to be with the very reforming Clergy and that their parochial posture is popish and their constitution ordination administrations baptism and the supper is all disorderly and out of joint to the confâ—…rming of the strong that stand fast in the true faith the recovery of the laps't world that hath departed from the faith Gospel Baptism Church order which was once delivered to the Saints and been seduced from Christ by the Scholastical incroachments of the CCClergy and as it may chance in time if the civil powers that have preferred them would come once to favour the truth the convincing the SSSeducer it is rare so to mannage one among an unskilful multitude where the auditors take themselves no lesse engaged then their champions and will be ready on all hands too much but an 100 fold more for ought I find among the parochial party then the other disorderly to break the lists which hath made so many able Scholars not in mans onely but in Christs School also almost averse from undertaking it but unless their be sufficient caution against such exorbitatances as jangling with bells to drownd all audience of truth and counter speeches of non-sense rather then nothing to interrupt him that is about to speak the truth and noise of shouting if it were possible to shame the truth and such like geer as I have met with in my daies better be no disputation at all nor preaching of truth among such it being if not a giving of that which is holy to dogs and casting of pearles before swine which will turn again and rent you yet at least impossible any thing should come of it that good is and yet even that shall be no hurt to the Ministers of Christ that are approved in tumults yet cannot help it but blasphemy to the truth stumbling to the weak parishioners that stumble enough already poor souls the Lord help them to see their preachers violently oppose preaching and proving the truth out of the Scriptures a kind of shamefull Glory to the adversaries of the truth the PPPriesthood from some a glorious shame to the undertakers for it There is therefore a better way for the true Pastors of the true Churches and specially the Churches messengers to the world in which to oppose the approach of heresies which the parish Pastors make mickle use of to oppose the truth by under the names of Anabaptism at least in their Respective flocks and that is by preaching To argue substantially against them to convince them soundly is the best in the pulpit if they can freely get in a place wherein one might have hid ones self for a month together or more and sometimes a year from some parish Priests non-resident Parsons divinity Doctors but specially the lazy Lord Bishops not very long since but now to keep out the Anabaptists more frequented by some Priests then else it would be a place which is secured much and yet not alwayes neither when plain truth tellers are in it from those incursions to which disputations are subject It is worth observation that
in filthynesse thus the Seeker seeks to subvert himself and others and all that holy law of Christs own giving as foolishnesse to overturn all that is of Christ whilest Christ is overturning all that is of man he scruples every thing till he is satisfyed to own just nothing as if because there is some waies of error therefore there can be no way of truth he is weak in the faith believing nothing to be good till he believes every thing to be so and nothing to be bad or naught at all And wheresoever his weaknesse is at first it thrives into wickednesse at last so that how ere he seems modest against the truth a while yet after there will be raâ—… censures arrogant and bold speeches and Iudgements condemning or at least contemning both of good persons and holy things Thus this man runs up to ranting by little and little circumcising away all flesh for so he now stiles the waies of the word and spirit crucifying all that flesh of Christ till he becomes welâ—…igh as spiritual as the devil 7 To endeavour after the true temper of a son of the Church which consists especially in these two qualifications 1 Humility or self denial 2. Charity or love humility is a being low in your own eyes Christ bids you learn it of him Nothing hath broacht Heresse and â—…chism so much as self conceit and self love as is shewed above in the case of the PPPriesthood who conceive themselves to be those unerring orracles from whom the law for Religion and faith is to go forth to the people throughout the several Nations this makes men these spiritual men especially to stand out in their own odd opinions as if all were heresy ipso facto that jumps not with them obstinately defend them utterly untractable to any argument though never so clearly urged out of the word it self that shall be brought against them resolved never to yield to any Iudgement nor willingly be in much lesse embrace any company that â—…olds contrary to them proudly prohibiting any but such as are approved of by themselves disdaining to be discipled by any but men in orders as if that poor people and those babes to whom God delights to reveal the Gospel rather then such prudent ones as they are in their own sight were all as they said of old of such a people that know not the law and are accursed for which things sake the Lord suffers blindnes to happen to them leaves them to live in error as men lea ing to their own understanding but true humility as she is ever conscious of her own weaknesse and darknes so when she is most sure that in the Lords power and light she sees light and is most diffusive of it and desirous that all others should see it also and very zealous of promoting it yet is she far from glorying over others or boasting as if she had not received what she hath much lesse is she so impositive as by compulsion or otherwise then by plain proposal round reproof or earnest intreaty to inforce her faith as a rule for all people to believe by and howbeit it submits not as some say she does to the iudgments of others sooner then its own for that verily is no other then that humble ignorance and implicit knowledge into which the PPPriestood hath beguild the earth who as much as they perswade men to expresse their humblenesse by a voluntary submission of themselves to others judgements yet are as far from that expression of their own humility as men can be that would have all men see with their eyes swear into their faith and resign up themselves to their judgement against their own yet she submits her judgement as proud Papacy Prelacy and Presbytery never did to such free examination by others judgements as to lend free leave to such as judge it wrong and are not satisfied to close therewith to decline and reject it and both to believe and worship as they find occasion and howbeit she must contend sometimes she dares not contend with any much lesse her superiours as the Priest does with his whole parish now and then about some trifle or remnant of tithes for so small a matter as a smal matter of means or maintenance but for matters of much more moment and of eternal consequence viz. that faith and Gospel which was once delivered unto the Saints for here indeed she gives place by subjection neither to ghostly father nor holy mother no not for an hour that the truth of the Gospel may continue and as t is Christs things she seeks and strives for and not her own so she assaults not without strong and evident and convincing reason from Scripture for her assertion not such butterflies and brown paper reasons as mans tradition 1500 vears profession nor meer internal imagination and spiritual perswasion which the Rantizer and the Ranter render and even then too she prosecutes her cause with such candor and dociblenesse as to be ready to receive what ever is made manifest in the conscience to the contrary without such arrogauty as appears in some Divines when they dispute who are more ready to call them fawâ—…y fellows that dares affront their false assertions then to clear what they hold to be the truth and without the Spirit of contradiction that is wont to shew it self in every haughty heart which is more asham'd to seem ignorant then to be so most specially in the Priesthood when the truth tendred is such as if it be acknowledged will not onely crack his credit but certainly pare his profit also As for Charity alias love it is the very cognizance of a Christian the property of it is to blow out the coals of contention not kindle them in the true Church of Christ though it contend sharply with the false Churches for the truth to seek what in it lies to prevent not foment rents Schisms divisions and offences therein contrary to the doctrine at first delivered the love of which occasions offences in the world it is the very rafters that hold all the house of Christ whose house they onely are that are built upon the foundation or form of doctrine delivered by the first Apostles the principles of which are set down Heb. 6. 1. 2. together in most comely frame and order Oh that the Saints and faithful brethren in Christ of those Churches that walk in truth would among all yea and above all those pretious things commended Col 3. 12. ad 16. to be put on would put on this which is the very bond of perfectnesse this is that which will make them endeavour in all lowlinesse and meeknesse and forbearance and forgivenesse of each other to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace Eph. 4. 2. 3. the love of the Brotherhood within it self which is hinted to us by Peter Pet. 2. 17. and harpt upon more then any other string by that beloved Disciple Iohn 1 Ioh.
and have no pleasure in the truth Me thinks I see National Ministers of singular piety in peoples eyes prove men of singular pravity singularly bewitched into an implicit belief of the base tales that vain fellowes raise of the way of truth and singularly bewitching their people into implicit belief of them that so it is as they say that neither Priest nor people may obey the truth but both stumble and fall and be broken and snared and taken and ashamed each of other in the end Good Lord how is the practise of the truth made a reproach unto thy people and a derision dayly for I have heard the defaming of many report say they and we will report it possesse the pulpit and make the Priest believe it and then all the Country shall ring out and the people soon be diabolized into the faith on 't but hear ye rude reprochers of that people that are reprovers of the wayes whereby you run a whoring from the Lord you shall not prevail by such sleights such plausible pretences you shall be greatly ashamed you shall not prosper and unlesse you repent of your belying the truth of God your everlasting confusion shall never be forgotten It is too bad to be credulous to flying reports worse so violently to vent them worst of all malevolently to â—…invent them I dare not say nor dare I deem Mr Ba. to be guilty of the last but of the two first I cannot clear him sith I perceive that he takes it for a truth that we ordinarily dip naked and thereupon disputes against it as our usuall practise and then not confidently onely but of a certain relates to the whole world that it is no bare word nor any doubtful thing but an experience a known practise if he can clear himself he hath leave to do it for me who also summon him in the name of Christ Jesus whose true disciples he hath done such dispite to the Lord keep him from despiting the spirit of grace the people of whose love are the people of his wrath to prove it our practise ordinarily to dip naked yea to produce but one instance of any women of maids that ever he saw dipt naked in all his daies and I le abate him much of that I now accuse him of in the court of my conscience but if he say as indeed he does in effect that he never saw any dipt at all whilst p. 134. he saies that all that ever he saw baptized had water powred on them how can he say Epertus loquor it is his experience he having never so much as seen such a thing unlesse it were upon the brazen fac't front of Featleyes book where he fasly feignedly and filthily describes men and women dipping in that fashion or else upon the Titlepage of Ephraim Pagit who there paltrily pictures out this people practising thus and there I believe he hath experienced it or if he only hath it from the the mouthes of such as heard it from the mouthes of others who never saw it but receive it by tradition as well as he and that originally â—…o from the mouthes of some that made it and in such a manner very likely it was first bruted for I am perswaded there was never such a thing done of late in England unless by some Arch Knave and Arrant Whore in way of mockage to the Gospel which is rather a glory then a shame to Christ his truth then let Mr. Ba bear the blame of his blind blaspheming tho people of the everliving God Or if he know indeed that such a thing as baptizing maids and women naked hath been done in serious wise by any persons I further challenge him to make some proof of it and to print the names of such men as have done it and such maids and women that have suffered themselves to be dipped naked and the names of such credible eye witnesses as will testify it as in the fight of God which if he can though I shall not give place to him thereupon so as to be satisfyed therby for his overlashing in asserting it to be our practise to dip naked or for condemning and denominating a whole party much more their cause by the defects abuses of some persons whom the cause disclaimes for then there was 12. devils because one among the twelve and then what an Augaean stable is your Church of England by many members of which notorious roguery is committed every houre Yet I shall satisfy him so far as to undertake that the Church or Churches where such are shall declare every such person as hath wrought such abomination incommunicable without solemn repentance for that sordid practise or be themselves incommunicable by all o her Churches But I believe he cannot do it though I cannoâ—… positively possibly prove a Negative much more am I confident that he cannot make good his charge against us viz. that it is our ordinary and usual practise for besides no lesse then between one and two hundred which in grosse I can ghesse at which with these hands I have baptized I have seen with these eyes many a one more baptized by others yet never did I see male or female baptized naked to this hour nor nex to naked neither if I understand Mr. Baxs meaning in that bawbling phrase of next to naked Yea I suppose I may safely say my converse for these 5 years together and upward hath been with them that are commonly called Anabaptists and my businesse hath been for so long time at least among that people more then I perceive Mr. Baxs hath and much more then among any other people being more or lesse acquainted with a score of their Congregations yet howbeit Mr. Blake flings a little at us too and hath his fingers so far in this spatter as to say page 8. Those that have put a kind of necessity upon dipping have spoken much of being received naked â—…n bapâ—…sm I never heard the least speech of such a thing nor a syllable among them to such a purpose And if Mr. Ba. cannot prove it to be our ordinary known practise to dip naked then in the name of the Lord Jesus before whom he and I shall shortly both appear I intreat Mr. Ba. who as concerning zeal yet persecutes the Church of God poures out reproach upon true Christians giving his voice for them with as much modesty as Haman Est. 3. 8. as for high way Murderers alias that they may all suffer execution being through blindnesse and excaecation exceedingly mad against them that of an ignorant Saul he would become a seeking a searching a seeing a preaching Paul of the faith which he hitherto destroies and though he verily thinks with himself that he ought to do what he does against the truth yet I beseech him to know that he is but as others have been bâ—…fore him zealous of God but not according to knowledg sith it is but of the Traditions of his Fathers Gal.