his honour to have been sometimes Physitian to Lewes the Emperour Who being a Sorcerer devoured in the sight and perswasion of many Princes and their Followers a Cart loaden with unchopt Hay not abstaining either from the Horses or the poor Carter Also an armed Man his Horse and Harnesse Yet the Mist being recall'd the Country-Man and Man in Arms and all their Goods were made good againe These Devourers of Souls may in God's good time disgorge againe these Ignorant Country-People and themselves return to their old sucking a Paw or a Claw as the Bear or Polypus CHAP. XXXII HIs fifth Objection holds up the Head There is no Man of late who hath made use of this Text in the Proof of Baptism but the Papists and Bellarmin himselfe receives it not as conducing to such proof nor any of the Ancients I answer Horum Omnium Contraria vera sunt The Contraries of Dr Featly in his Dipper dipt Bellarum l. 1. de Sacramento Baptismi cap. 4. Idem facit Eodem in libro cap. 8. Bellarm. l. 2. de Essectu Sacramentorum c. 3. all these Things are true Dr Featly hath used this very Text in the defence of Paedobaptism Bellarmin chiefly builds upon it in this Matter proving the necessity of Baptism from the necessary meaning of this Text iterùm iterúmque againe and againe Likewise the same Bellarmin hath brought together the solid Testimonies of fifteen most approved Doctors and ancient Fathers who all understand by the water in the Text not the Word or any other like Thing but the Water of Baptism The words of Bellarmin are these Omnes Scriptores hactenùs hunc locum intellexerunt de Baptismo ut Justinus Apolog. 2. Tertullianus in lib. de Baptismo Cyprianus lib. 3. ad Quirinum cap. 25. Ambrosius lib. 3. de Spiritu Sancto cap. 11. Hieronymus in cap. 16. Ezechielis item Basilius Gregorius Nazianzenus Gregorius Nyssenus in Sermonibus de Baptismo Denique omnes Interpretes hujus loci Origenes Chrysostomus Augustinus Cyrillus Beda Theophylacâ—us Euthymins alij O God before whom we shall stand at the last Day how confidently yea how impudently doe these Religious Rats looke out of their Holes and mouth it concerning Protestant Writers concerning that good-liv'd Mirrour of Encyclopedy Bellarmine and all the Ancients and yet relying upon I know not what Perfugium Soricinum Rat-Hole by which to escape utter not one true word Beyond this St Ambrose writing S Ambrose lib. 10. Epist 84. ad Demetriadem Virginem Jansenius Harm in Evang. cap. 20. S Chrysost Hom. super Nisi quis renatus sucrit c. Perlege D. Tho. p. 3. q. 66 67 68. to a Virgin expressely affirms Paedobaptism to be the Constitution of our Saviour and erects his Pillarproof on these words Nisi quis renatus fuerit c. except one be born c. See Jansenius in his Evangelicall Harmony St John Chrysostom not onely Interprets the words for Baptism but also dignifies a famous Homily by making them the Subject of it wherein he carries all before him for the Baptism of Infants Aquinas is of the same Judgement Now indeed one would think a man might in reason give credit as soon almost to this reverend Squadron of Worthies St Justin Tertullian St Cyprian St Ambrose St Hierom St Basil St Gregory Nazianzen St Gregory Nyssen Origen St Chysostom St Austin St Cyril Venerable Bede Theophylact Euthymius I mean to all these in the Complex as to one lone lean leaden Pagnel-Saint in the Country Shall a young barefac'd dough-bak'd Dwarfe of March pane be much more priviledg'd because he is devoted to an old Woman than these walking Libraries wedded to the ancient Church And now in the revolution of my Thoughts why may we not encounter him with three of these being Latine Fathers and three of the Greek Church Why should we muster up fifteen at once Nay verily now I fetch the cud about againe why may not single St Austin take him up and throw him down St Austin was a Godly Man and somewhat learned CHAP. XXXIII BUt the Papists use this Text for Baptism ther 's the grand Ulcer The best Divines concentre in this That the very Devils may performe Acts morally good and that the Pagans and the most obstinate Hereticks have sometimes wrought Miracles and that there was never any Arch-Heretick which did not maintaine some Truths and rightly according to the Rules of Morall Rectitude defend them by Scripture And yet now the Papists concerning whom it hath been generally beleeved in England after some evaporations and ebullitions of heat and passion that they are a part of the true Church though a corrupted one and that many millions of them are sayed may not beleeve any Truths and as beleeved by them justly prop them with Scripture A sad case but fâ—ctitious and absque Fundamento in Re. In the place of Sun stand thou Jos 10. 11 still or as the Vulgar Sol non movearis Interp. vulgat Text. Hebr Sun be not moved the Hebrew gives up Sol tace Sun hold thy peace or be silent For which cause Rabbi Salomon gave it forth R. Salom. in hunc locum for Doctrine as clear as the Sun that the Sun daily sings Hymns sweetly sings them in the praise of God from the which his sweet Hymn-singing he ceased at the command of Joshua The Rabbin seems to run after the Platonick Philosophers who with their nimble-finger'd thoughts did set singng Syrens in the Celestiall Orbs. Be silent be still or hold thy peace is in Originall signification stand still rest or be quiet and the Catachresis or abuse of Speech is frequent in the Hebrew Language Now as it is the same Thing in the Sun to stand still and to hold his peace So shall I construe it one and the same in me who should be the Light of the World to hold my peace and to stand still Which yet I may not untill commanded by Joshua or Jesus who likewise never commands us to hold our peace for the concealement of God's praises which are then sung alowd when oppressed Truth is relieved Wherefore Joshua chose the Sun for the Subject of his Miracle because the Sun was the God of the Amorites and the praises of God were sung in a most high and heavenly Song when a Servant of the true God commanded this their false God to stand still or hold his peace and see his worshippers overthrown Thus therefore The Cosmographers Cosmogrâ—pâ—i inform us that there is more Sea in the Western than in the Eastern Hemisphere and if they doe not know it I now inform them that there are also more Ebbings and Flowings more water-Tempests more Sea-alterations and wave-motions of Religion in these our Western parts than elswhere And the Church of Rome holds Truth fast many Times when others wretchedly betray it And I sincerely confesse that even in this Discourse I walk beyond ordinary walkings upon the Grounds of the
Church of Rome as being well assur'd that these return to the Adversary what is righteously due to him and that none other will overturn him at every Turn when he should be turn'd return'd overturn'd CHAP. XXXIIII HAD my Adversary said that many Papists have abused Scripture in the Sophisticall maintenance of some ungrounded and Air-Castle Doctrines I would have ran along with him heartily and without any discomposing the placid order of my Soul and followed his Game as he with Hoopings so I with a Kennel of lowd Cryers Had he set up his cry against Aquinas his Doctrine restored by D. Tha. part 3. quaest 25. art 3. Bellarmin in his question Utrùm Image Christi sit aâ—oranda adoratione latriae Where he resolves that the Image of Christ or a Crucifix maybe adored with the Adoration of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being a Worship due to God alone I should have set up an outcry and have cried out with him O absurd abominable I would have answered to him with an extraordinary Eccho that should have plainly repeated all his words having done my Eccho's part would have begun and performed my own part by sound Proof As This Worship is abominable and absurd howsoever the Worshipfull Maintainers of it crutch it up with the common distinction of ordinativè and terminativè that is with referring the Worship to the Prototype and not housiing it in the Image First because the Worshipper either gives divine Worship to the Image or destroies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the very Thing in Question Secondly because this Doctrine doth cast a foul dishonour upon the Humanity of Christ and throwes the Businesse as if there were as great an alliance at the least in respect of outward Priviledges betwixt Christ and the Crucifix or Image of Christ as betwixt the Son of God and his Humanity for neither is divine Worship terminated in the Humanity of Christ Thirdly because Acts of divine Worship are from necessary Injunctions and rely upon Principles which are aeternae Veritatis of eternall Truth or true at all times but it lies howsoever in the free pleasure of Men whether or no they will accept such an Image as an Image of of Christ to such Adoration and consequently if they doe such Adoration is not proposed as necessary Fourthly because the common People being the greatest part of Worshippers who are most efficaciously tutor'd by Sense can hardly reach in this case without confessed Idol-Worship to so nice an Act of Distinction betwixt Ordination and Termination in the Worship of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wherein they doe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 actually give divine Worship due only to God to the Creature and to the Creator by one and the same Simple and undivided Act and though the Creator be first and inwardly intended yet even divine worship is out wardly given and impended to the Creature Fiftly because divine Worship is never given except under the strict Bond of the Hypostaticall Union to a Thing propter aliud but always propter se as being altogether incommunicable communicable Things only are given propter aliud and therefore Christ repels and convinces the Devill out of Deutoronomy with Mat. 4. 10. the Law of Worship imposed upon Mankinde 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 him onely shalt thou serve with the Service or Worship of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lastly Because this Doctrine is patched up of insolent and seandalous Terms and sounds offensively which should be avoided as being justly grievous to chast and pious Aelian in Hist Animal Eares And in fit comparison is like the Head of the Frog that Elian saw as he was travelling from Naples to Puteoli which drew a Body of shap'd dirt after it And again I would have declar'd that this idle Idolillo-doting is abhorred by the most conscientious and most learned of their own Bishops As to prefer an example The People in certain parts of Spain namely Cantabria Galetia c. were so deeply enamour'd on their old maimed deformed and worm-eaten Images and which the Verminous Hieronymus Lamas in Sum. p. 3. cap. 3. Rats had gnawn out of shape that as he witnesses who was an Eye-witnesse when by the command of the Bishops they were at length removed and Images of decent composure placed according to the Method of Rome in their rooms the ignorant Spaniards Men and Women young and old and of all sizes put their fore-fingers in their eies and like children having lost their beloved Bables or their Deos rurales country-Gods cried lamentably poor Seniors Senioras for their old Images againe they would not have new ones and this even since the Councill of Trent and the many great complaints there CHAP. XXXV HAD my Adversary said that many Papists have misled Scripture in their inconsiderate labouring to prove the single Life of Priests to be from divine Command I would have joyned Hands and Hearts with him and have diâ—mounted the Papists from the figurative 1 Tim. 3. 2. Sense of the Text. A Bishop must be blamelesse the Husband of one Wife after the very same fashion as I now unsaddle the Anabaptists from the Text in hand by keeping him to the Letter And I should not have rested there but have argued further out of my own Treasure First The boldnesse of tainting this holy Scripture hath been unfortunate as in other places so at London For when John Cardinast Mat. Paris lib. 7. p. 219. of Cremen in a London-Councill had leven'd his Oration with a medly to this purpose he was found at night by the queint disposition of divine Providence notwithstanding his divine Speech and the Divine Command they prophanely recommend to us in bed with a whore and though he had been received with great Pomp and Honour he now tuck'd up his long Traine of Scarlet and stole away in a Mist leaving as the Devill commonly does when he disappeares a poisonous and abominable stink behind him of a whore and a whore-master Secondly I have discovered by reading that when the Christians besieged Ptolemais they tooke a Aldrovandus Pâ—olegom in Ornithol ex Egnatio weary Dove which brought a Letter from the Sultan directed to the Besieged and by letting the Dove fly into the City with a new Letter of their own composing moved the Citizens to Dedition and gained the City But I could never discover by reading or other industry that the Letter which the Holy Ghost the Dove of Heaven brought from Heaven can be changed or altered by Christians upon Earth And had we been commanded to marry in the words Increase and multiply and consequently sinned if we had not married or had the words the husband of one Wife obliged the Bishop to marriage and not inferred only a strict exclusion of Polygamy whether taken in the venerable Sense of Jewish Antiquity or in the construction of the Greek Church it would have sorely troubled the Church of Rome to have learnedly pretended the setting of
whom at last he stabb'd to the Heart even before the Altar in a Church O the Purity of this Duke-stabbing under the roof of the Temple and the white Canopy of Holinesse There wants nothing to the top and top-gallant of this Angelicall Devilishnesse but the presenting of the poison'd Sacrament to a devout Emperour on his Knees which likewise they have devoutly done I would have open'd the door to Jesuiticall examples and let them â—orth tumbling one over another like the Waves in a foul troubled Sea As of Garnet and Oldcorn Jesuites and chiefe Actors in the matchlesse Powder Treason who are English Martyrologe printed in the year 1608. Chronicled for Martyrs of Sixtus Quintus a Favourer and Patron of the Jesuites who consecrated a Panegyricall Oration to the immortall praise of Clement the Jacobin Fryer that Murthered Henry the third King of France by searching into his Belly with a religious knife And of Barrier who endeavoured Arnault â— Frenchman in his Pleadings against the Jesuites on the behalfe of the King and Parliament of France the killing of Henry the fourth with a poisoned Altar-Dagger which Raviliach afterwards expedited animated thereunto by holy Father Varad a Jesuite And I should have sifted the Originall Question An Deus dispensare possit in Lege Nature vel Decalogi Can God the Pope's Lord dispense in the Law of Nature or the Decalogue Wherein Occam Gerson Occam in 2. q. 19. ad 3. 4. dub Gerson in Tract de vita spiritali Lect. 1. Corol. 10. in Alphabeto 61. literâ E. Almainus Tract 3. Morall cap. 15. Scot. in 3. Distinct 37. q. 1. paragrapho Hic dicitur Bonavent in 1. Distinct 47. q 4. Gabr. in 3. Dist 37. q 1. Art 2. Concl. 1. Durand in 1. Dist 47. q 4. num 16. and Almain affirme that he can dispense in every Law of the Decalogue And their Foundation is Every sin is a sin because it is forbidden by the will of God if therefore God will a thing to be no sin hoc ipso it shall not be a sin And in the which Question Scotus Bonaventure and Gabriel defend that God can dispense in the Precepts of the second Table but not in the Precepts of the first Table that is can dispense in those commandements which manage us towards our Neighbour but not in the Commandements which conform us towards God And in the which Durandus declares that God may dispense in the affirmative Precepts of the second Table but not in the negative Precepts thereof And I should have determined that God himselfe cannot dispense directly and formally in any Precept of the Law of Nature The Reason is Because the Lawes of Nature contain and command that which is good intrinsecally and in it's Nature therefore the Things opposed to these Lawes are in their Natures and intrinsecally Evill and not because they are prohibited by the will of God but because of their own Natures they are dissentaneous and contrary to Naturall Reason and reasonable Nature quà talis est As possible Things are possible not because God hath willed them to be possible but because it is not in it selfe Contradictory that they may come into Being Wherefore God cannot make pace Occami the Hatred of God to be Godly good or Lawfull because this Turn of Things overturns all and is contrary not only to Nature and Reason but also to the Divinity of God And God cannot perswade us to these Evils much lesse will them command them to be and make them good lawfull and honest As therefore the Creatures have their existence from the will of God but their possibility from the very Nature of God because if we consider the Nature of God in his Omnipotency it naturally followes and results that there is a possibility of Things by Creation which Things if per impossibile God were not were impossible So the positive Law both Divine and Humane depends upon the will of God but the Law of Nature is derived from the Law Eternall in Mente Dei Yet God can dispense indirectly and materially in these Lawes by changing the matter of the Thing commanded and thereby subtracting it from the Law of Nature and obligation of the Decalogue For God can give to one Man Power over the Goods Body and Life of another But when where or how did God give Power to the Church of Rome over the Goods Bodies and Lifes of Princes And if the Laity be subject to the Clergy as the Body to the Soule yet the Soule hath not absolute Dominion over the Body and therefore may not lop off the Members or pluck an eye out having offended her and cast it from her otherwise than in a spirituall and morall Sense the literall Sense being repugnant with other Precepts though shee may willingly suffer them or freely give them up to be lopped off passively in the Confession of the true Faith or surrender the whole Body to be destroyed in Martyrdome Desist then O ye cruell Jesuites from this your making odious the most acceptable Name of our most mild and meek Jesus CHAP. XLI BUT in regard it is onely Objected by the Aduersary that the Text Except one be born againe c is used by the Papists Per me liceat They may use it without opposition from me their using a Text in a righteous manner and Matter being no sufficient and reasonable Ground of Quarrell As I may not quarrel with them for their using sacred Scripture in the proof of the most sacerd Trinity against the old Arrians those of Transyluania or in the proof of the Incernation of Christ for the Prepossession and corroboration of Christians against the cursed Insinuations of Mahomet The Spirit of Contradiction and the works of it are not unknown to my Adversary And does he think it would become me to be like the Ilanders adjoyning unto China who by reason of some Traverses of discord and jealousies which oftentimes arise betwixt neighbouring Countries and Provinces falling betwixt them and the Chinenses salute one another by putting off their shooes because the men of China performe the morality of their Salutation by putting off their Hats The violent motions of spirit Jesuiticall and Presbyterian cannot be of God in the long Catalogue of whose blessed works their is no violent Thing I would have the World to understand that I now understand the difference betwixt the Doctrines which Pride and private Interest have publikely raised in the Church of Rome and which are not destructive of its being a Church as the sins and errours of the Pharisees destroied not the Chair of Moses and the Doctrines of the Church of Rome lineally descended from Apostolicall Antiquity or included Virtually in their seed and root And that my Quarrell is not with Truth or Integrity but with the Corruption of Integrity and Truth And in the Truth and Integrity of a sincere and unleven'd Soule If I dye on my Bed and with knowledge of
átque lubentèr vela I nunc ut consulas Interpretes ex Ministrorum Collegio quod pro nihilo habes R. C. The Anabaptist washt and washt and shrunke in the washing CHAPTER I. ANd when we have done all we must all dye Yea Howsoever we are parted in the lines of Life we must all meet in the Point of Death as in a full point Death What is Death Heathenish Plato describes it with a Divine Plato in Phaedone and Christian Character 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Death is the dissolution of the Soule and Body And the Latine Orator lookes with a full eye upon the Platonists when he saith Sunt qui Discessum Cicero Tusc Quâ—st lib. 1. Animae à Corpore putent esse Mortem There are who think Death to be a Departure of the Soule from the Body What these thought and was to them a matter of Opinion which is Assensus pendulus a wavering assent is to us Materia Fidei a Matter of Faith which is Assensus immobilis a firme and immoveable Assent to the revealed Truth of God Saint Paul was the Instrument of Revelation and hath settled it first as having a desire to depart dissolvi Philip. 1. 23 Interp. vulgat Tixt Graec. 2 Tim. 4. 6. Edit vulg Codâ—â— Grâ—â—c saies the Vulgar and the Originall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be dissolved when he was in bivio in a way betwixt two waies And secondly as prophecying the time of my departure is at hand The Vulgar Tempus resolutionis meae It is O' 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Original the time or opportunity of my Resolution or Dissolution The Philosophicall Reason is this being also a Philosophicall Truth and there being Philosophicall Reasons of all Divine Truths which are not mysterious miraculous or meerly depending upon Divine Pleasure As Life results from the Union So by the Logicall Rule of Contraries it is the same case with proportion in privatives Death from the Disunion of Soule and Body The Rule is Contrariorum contraria est Ratio The Course of Contraries is contrary And Death as the Lion wounds Fraâ—zius in Leone not a part or member only but divides and rends in peeces the whole substance and subverts the Being caused by the Composition of essentiall Parts CHAP. II. ANd when we have done all we must all dye must be dissolved And then whither the Parts dissolved our Soules and Bodies ours in particular shall go the Devill sitting See Jer. 3. 2 S. Hieron lb. for us by the way as the Arabian in the wildernesse for the Passengers or according to St Hierom ut Latro as a Robber the Arabians being mighty Robbers and Hunters of Men in the Wildernesse and how they shall fare resolve it fairely and positively he that can Two States are assigned to every Soule The State of Conjunction with the Body and the State of Separation from it Of the first we have long triall Of the second we never yet had any No living Man or Woman knows experimentally what is the departure of a Soule from a Body or what Subsistance Adherence Condition Companions Relations a Soule hath in the State of Separation Now me thinkes He and She that may this very night be turned over by Dissolution to this wonderfull unknown and unfathomed State of Separation should be very carefull what they beleeve and how they live Especially the Life of Man being a very Bubble A Bubble puts on the forme of an Hemisphere And shadowing halfe the World as being an Hemisphere it accordingly consists of two Elements It is Aire within which is invisible for its Rarity and without a thin-shapt skin of water and there is all the Bubble The Aire deciphers our Soule and the watery skin our Body in this present World The skin presently breakes the Aire as presently breakes loose and there is a present end of the Bubble and we are as presently delivered up to another World O Lord open thou my Lips and Psa 51. 15. my mouth shall shew forth thy praise And whatsoever others beleeve or do or teach to be done and believed I will not recede from thy known Truth Even the Sea-Monsters or Lam. 4. 3. Sea-Calves driven with every Surge of the Sea draw out the Breast The Vulgar Sed Lamiae nudaverunt Edit vulg mammam But even the Witches or Fairy-Ladies and ranting Night-Dancers have laid the breast forth naked The Septuagint 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sept. Sym. the Dragons Symmachus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Sirens they give suck to their young-ones But they shall not suckle me CHAP. III. ONce more here let me symphonize with the Spirit of David I said saith he and I say with him Psal 39 1. I will take heed to my waies that I sin not with my Tongue I will take heed to my waies that I speake not write not prompted by Prejudice Custome or Carnall Affection But I may not shut the Book after the reading of this Text as the good old Saint in the Lives of the Vitae Patrum Idem exemplum habetur apud Theodoretum in Histor Tripart lib. 8. cap. 1. Et adducitur à M. Marulo l. 4. cap. 6. Fathers that having 〈◊〉 Bible given into his hands and letting his eye first fall and settle upon these words returned the Book shut and cried Sat est quod didici I have learned enough for the present I will first endeavour to digest this divine Lesson Holy Scripture must lye open and enthroned when holy matters are in debating according to the sober Custome of ancient Councils The Word of God being the most authenticall High-Place from whence in our wants and at pleasure we may looke into Heaven and into the first and Originall will of God and God having dealt otherwise with us than Adrian the Emperour Niceph. Eccl. Hisâ— lib. 3. c. 24. with the rebellious Jewes who banished them from their own Country and commanded that they should not look back upon it from an high Place The Scripture as the Logiciaâ—s teach de Terminis Coâ—notativiâ— signifies in recto all that which is materiall in it being the things themselves or the faire and fragrant Posie of the Truths revealed and in obliquo signifies that which is formall in it being the manner of Proposition or the Tradition of these Truths by Writing Wherefore although Scripture-Truths be divine Truths and made legible yet if they be not rightly preached interpreted proposed received they will not be true to us and written in our Hearts The Divines question How light could be created by it selfe according to the narration of Scripture Because there seemes then to have been Accidens cujus esse est inesse sine subjecto An Accident the radicall being wherof is to be in a Subject without a Subject and the narration likewise pretends as if Colour could otherwise be than in a Thing or Substance coloured But Aquinas makes it luce lucidius clearer than
he sacrificed his Prayer to God in this humble manner Averte Domine facie â—uam à peccatis meis c. Lord turne away the Face of thy Justice from my sins and from the sins of the People with me And though we have all deserved thine Anger yet in thy Child Jesus spare us by sparing this innocent Babe with us that never sinned against thee and is now received by thine Ordinance into thy Favour Which Prayer being ended the Tempest ended and the Sea became as harmelesse as the Child and as calme as the water wherein the pretty Babe was baptized We grown Persons are like Lampreys we have all some strong string or other of poysonous actuall … ination in us but Babes have not 〈◊〉 therefore Men are exhorted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wax ye or be ye 1 Cor. 14. 20. children in evill or malice especially baptized Babes translated to a new and heavenly condition and in whom is presented a most pleasant part of Musicke even that wherein the falling from a short Discord to a sweet Concord causeth more than ordinary sweetnesse CHAP. VI. THe holy Doctrine of Infant-Baptisme hath been soyl'd much and polluted How may it be reduced and recall'd to its Native Purity The Naturalists have found Albertus lib. de Gemmis by curious Inquisition That if a Pearle which is foule be swallowed into the wombe of a Dove and remaine there some while the Dove will give it againe most pure and Orâ—â—ut So every Doctrine must be tryed and examined in the wombe of the Scripture-Dove the Holy Ghost which wombe is the Word of God proposed and interpreted by the Church of God And if the Doctrine be Pearle-proofe the Holy Ghost will quickly return it as such and free it from spots clouds deformity For the Church may well be subservient to the Scripture and the Scripture auxiliary to the Church in diverso Genere Causae puta Exemplaris instrumentalitèr effectivae Neither do the Logicians eliminate such Circles or Circulations of Arguments nor do such make us giddy Prophetae saith St Hierom appellabantur St Hieron ep ad Paulinum de sacra Scriptura videntes quia videbant cum quem caeteri non videbant The Prophets were called Seâ—rs because they saw Dono Prophetiae by the gift of Prophecy which gave them to foresee and understandingly to declare their foresight their Prediction including Prevision quia praedicebant ex Praevisione in the which they differed from the Sibyls who neither foresaw the things they Prophesied nor perfectly understood their own Declarations Christ whom the common Herd saw not The Prophets and Apostles in their Holy Writings and the Church interpreting them discover Supernaturall Truths to us which we know not by other meanes and their Testimonies are irresistible The Chymists and Alchumists Chymistae Alchymistae are agreed that the most tried way of effecting the strange Transmutations of bodies in Oyles Plants Minerals is to endeavour and urge pressingly by all means the reducing of them to their old Nothing The Scripture-Texts for Infant-Baptism are so substantiall and solid that rather than they shall prove nothing for it they take strange and many shapes every shape shaping a proofe It is a secret of secrets in Sounds That the whole Sound is not in the whole Aire only but also in every minute Part of the Aire otherwise one and the same Sound could not beat upon many eares and come with all the differences of it in such diversities of convenient Distance and Place True it is of the Apostles Their line is gone out thorough all the Earth and their words to the end of Psal 19. 4. the World as the Hebrew or as the Text. Hebr. Sept. Lectio Vulgat Septuagint 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sensed by the Vulgar In omnem terram exivit sonus corum their sound is gone forth into all the earth and strictly followed by St Paul and the Arabicks Rom. 10. 18. Arab. Alex. Arab. Antioch Interpretes Syr. or as both the Syriack Interpreters Evangelium vel Annuciatio corum Their Gospell or Annunciation is gone forth All these running after the Septuagint in the neere Path of the Sense not with the Hebrew in the Road of the Letter May the Evangelicall sound of the Apostles in this matter reach even to the end of the World and come wholly to every mans and womans eares thorough all the earth The Great Wheele in the Worke after which and impelled by which all others move and the turning of which as the first movable shall be my care is to prove that the words of Christ Except a man be Joh. 3. 5. borne of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdome of God preach Baptism CHAP. VII SOme of the blockish and more earthy kind seeme to be scrupled and scandalized that I have sometimes reformed a Text in the English Translation of the Bible by retriving it in the Original Which notwithstanding ought to be faithfully done by a faithfull Teacher for many Reasons one whereof I shall here indigitate Because the English Translation is now and then so large profuse redundant and running over and so spreading it selfe beyond the modest limits of the Original that it opens a way and window for an Adversary of Truth which the Originall shutteth up and blocketh against him As here The English Translation gives Except a man be borne c. And the Adversary swallows presently and concludes in haste Therefore if the Text hands forth Baptisme the baptized Person must be a grown man as the word man commonly imports Now can I be a faithfull and equall examiner and Preacher of Gods Word and conceale the discrasie of the Translation and the present Obstruction of Truth knowing that the Originall saith only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Vulgar Text. Graec. Edit vulgat answerably Nisi quis renatus fuerit Except one be borne And that except a Child be not one he is not excluded from Baptisme by the warrant of this Text but affixed to it Here the senselesse Censurer ignorantly retorts upon me that I speake my selfe wiser than all the English Interpreters of the Bible and set them before my Tribunall and above all this that I correct the Word of God when I am indeed Gods Advocate and set my selfe before the Tribunall of all the learned Knowers of the Originall to whom I humbly appeale as Judges and when I only vindicate Gods known Word from grosse errour and misinterpretation and protest against it lest I should partake of it according to the Rule in the Canon Law Error Gratian. D 80. C. error cui non cui non resistitur approbatur We approve the Errour which we do not resist The Black within the White is These blockish and dull-soul'd Censurers know no other Language than Mam-English or their mother Tongue and they would faine have the whole worke of sounding Scripture by the Line and
conferred should not be iterated upon the same subject lest it should wander deviate and degenerate from the Nature of Regeneration as forgetting of what house it came It goes without opposition in the schoole of naturall Phylosophy that a thing is by so much the more Noble by how much it hath more of inward forme from which formall interest the Celestiall bodies and pretious Gemms have their Nobility And the Sacraments are dignified by their divine and beautifull Influx and their formall setting our souls in the grace and peace of God which passeth all understanding Aristophanes undertaking the praises of temporall peace findes not Aristoph in pacc a name â—quall with the praises of it and he wishes to finde 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a word or name equalling the capacity of ten thousand Amphors the Amphor was a large two-car'd Vessell in Athens but what word can suffice to blazon the dignity of our Spirituall and Sacramentall peace with God CHAP. X. A Sacrament beyond that it is signum rei sacrae a signe of an holy thing is in the next consideration and in the review Visibile signum Doni invisibilis à Deo institutionem trahens A visible signe of an invisible Gift deriving it's institution St Aug. lib. 2. de Doctrina christiana cap. 1. from God Signum as the Bishop of Hippo defines it est res praeter speciem quam ingerit sensibus aliud aliquid ex se faciens in cogitationem venire A signe is a thing of it selfe causing an other thing to press upon our thoughts besides the resemblance which it offers to our senses First then every Sacrament must be signum sensibile a sensible signe And all Sacraments both old and new are combined in this For Although God might and could have ordained some spirituall signe of grace yet that signe should not have properly been a signe in a Sacrament howsoever some Doctors pull strongly for the contrary as I now speake of Sacraments Because it should not have been signum humanum sed Angelicum an humane but an Angelicall signe and should have conformed to subsisting spirits not to men consisting of souls and bodies Who require such Sacraments as are able to congregate into a being and to conserve in a warme being a visible Church God attemperating and proportioning his Ordinances to us and our mixt condition That the Character impressed upon the soul in Baptism is a spirituall and invisible signe I will not doubt But it hath no shelter here Secondly there are speculative and practicall signes And the Sacraments of the old Law were not signes meerly theoricall or speculative of salvation and Grace but practicall Because the promise of a thing is not speculatively-behaviour'd and manner'd towards the thing promised but practically as causing it in some manner For he that promiseth is afterwards moved by his promise to correspond with it by fulfilling it And thus the promise is Causa moralis Reâ— promissae the morall cause of the thing promised Every promise having a morall force actually moving or apt to move the promiser to performance Whereas therefore all the old Sacraments were certain promises or signes by the which God did as it were promise in figures Christ and our Salvation it is fairly and fruitfully consequent that they were practicall signes of Grace to be given by Christ the Figure-Promises rending to after-performance through him that was to come And if the old Sacraments were practicall signes it is a signe that the new are much more and more excellently as grasping a more excellent promise Thirdly the signe here must represent a sacred and invisible thing not a thing which is profane or visible The sacred invisible thing which the Sacraments of the new Law doe signifie is threefold 1. Habituall and justifying Grace which as present is demonstrated 2. The passion of Christ the mediator which is the cause of Grace and is remembred as being past 3. Glory and life eternall which is the effect of Grace and which all habituall Grace quantum est ex se brings to it 's Subject and which as being hereafter to come is prefigur'd For the Sacraments signifying Grace do consequently signifie the beginning and end of the saine grace And their signification must be consider'd with some proportionable reference to the light of the divine understanding and the beams and irradiations of it which brings binds up uno intuitn both ends together Because the institution of a Sacrament is only of God the author of Grace God alone being able to compound and connex inward grace with an outward signe CHAP. XI I Wade farther It is a fundamentall rule Aequè certa sunt ac evidentia quae ex sacris Literis evidentèr ac certè deducuntur atque ea quae in illis expressè 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. ad verbum in terminis habentur The things are equally certaine and evident which are evidently and certainly deduced from sacred Scripture as the things which are found in Scripture expresly and word for word And the same rule is return'd in another dresse Conclusions are as right as their Principles if rightly and consequentially concluded The first reason of this truth is fundamentall as the truth is Ex vero nil nisi verum of truth comes nothing but truth by true deduction And the second reason is Because the conclusion is in effect the principle and the truth deduced is the truth from whence the deduction issues in other and more declaring terms It is true that of truth falshood may come per accidens by chance and materially not by formall right and necessary consequence Hence we cry Principia fidei vel quae ex eis deducuntur sunt in Scriptura The principles of faith or the truths deduced from them are in Scripture And Omnis divina revelatio est in scriptura vel directè vel per necessariam inevitabilem consequentiam Every revealed truth is in Scripture either directly or by necessary and inevitable consequence And hence we throw abroad he that holds a Doctrine holds all the consequences of it Because the Doctrine and the Consequences are one identicall truth in different language The difference betwixt Principles and Conclusions being according to the Nature of similitudes like the difference betwixt the heavenly and earthly bodies The heavenly bodies having their last perfection from their creation and by their very nature but the earthly bodies acquiring their due perfection by mutation and motion because they are generable and corruptible Or Like the blessednesse of the Creator and the Creature Whereas soli Deo Beatitudo D. Tho. p. 1. q. 62. art 4. in corpore perfecta est naturalis quia idem est sibi esse beatum esse Perfect blessednesse is naturall to God alone because to be and to be blessed is the same thing to him But the blessednesse of the Creature requires a triall of motion in the way which is heavenly-true
the comparison by describing in the rebound how the Word agrees and contracts with water As that 1 Water is of a purifying nature and so is the Word 2 Water is weak of it selfe except it be compounded and made comfortable with comfortable Ingredients and so the word is a dead letter and the comfortable Spirit and Life of the Word is the true sense thereof 3 Water hath a cooling and refreshing quality and so the Word I answer All this is true and all superlatively comprehended in Baptism As 1 Baptism is of a most purifying nature 2 Except the water in Baptism act with the spirit it is most weak and brings cold comfort But an argument raised from water here taken for the word in a word is as weak as water 3 Baptism is indued with a most cooling and refreshing quality Had the chiefe Properties of water closed with the word and not with Baptism and been proper to the word quarto modo proper to the word and only to the word the Adversary and the two proper Pages of his black Guard had made a fairer appearance with their Pageantry Thus did the Devils Oracles deliver many sound truths the better under such palliations to disseminate publish their most unsound errors Thus doth a stinke offend us more when concomitant with some weake perfume which it hath pro vehiculo than if it singly sets upon us the perfume procuring for the stink easier admittance into our sense the stinking Perfumer that smels of Italy knows it practically and stinking Perfumers are more offensive Thus poysons are most dangerous and irremediable when joyned in commission with a cordiall that is not able to resist them It serving to conduct them to the heart and being unable to vanquish their malignity This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to leade Aristoph in Avibus Suidas in voce 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 silly women captive by the admixtion of truth with falshood as the old Fowlers deceiv'd Pigeons by shewing an exoculated Pigeon leaping and dancing in a net And these impious waies of enervating and cutting the sinews of Scripture may soone imbroyle the whole frame of it and overturn all Thus did the Tyrant Mezentius in Virgil binde the quick and the dead together and then throw them into a den leaving the living still imbracing the dead untill death imbraced the living and made the conjunction homogeneall Mortua quâ—netiam jungebat corpora vivis Virgil. Aeneid lib. 8. Componens mantbúsque manus atque oribê° Ora. Excellently Tertullian of Carthage Tert. lib. de Praescriptionibus adversus Haereticos Tantum Veritati obstrepit adulter Sensus quantum Corruptor Stylus An adulterating Sense is as obstreperous to Truth as a corrupting style a false Sense of a true and Divine Text being as mischievous and doing the same work as a profane and ascititious Text. And vel caeco apparet Violentam hanc quasi sidiculis extortam esse explicationem the blinde beggar may see this figurative explication or confession of the Text to be violent and as it were extorted with the Rack CHAP. XVII I Prove secondly that the Text proclaimes Baptism By answering the Arguments marching up in Batalia against this Truth The first is The new Birth is not attributed in Scripture to Baptism I answer This proposition is Antichristian and most odiously false as having the whole toad in it guts and all Baptism is named in scripture Lovacrum Regenerationis the Laver of Regeneration of which afterwards I will here only set in the middle a Text of the Apostolicall Epistle to the Colossians Colos 2. 12. Buried with him in Baptism wherein also you are risen with him through the Faith of the operation of God Buried and risen in Spiritualibus in Spirituall things is nothing else but born againe In the which Buriall and Resurrection Corruptio unius est Generatio alterius The corruption of the old man is the Generation of the new and of the Subjects of sin we are made the Adopted Children of God And the Baptism here exhibited must be Baptismus Fluminis the Baptism of the Flood or water-Baptism which was commonly given with Immersion to represent the Sepulture of Christ answerably to this Text And therefore the Text runs Buried with him And in Sacred Sincerity which in our dealing of sacred things ought to deale most sincerely the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Baptism properly signifieth Immersion though in rigore loquendo Ablution is of the Fssence of our Baptism but the manner of Ablution is accidentary because the Intention of the Law-giver with respect to the thing signified is in the substance ut abluamur that we be washed And in this Baptism whatsoever the Adversary muttereth and champeth betwixt his teeth we are properly Baptized into Christs Death and sufferings Because the virtue of this Baptism is derived from his Death by the which we dy to sin and live to God And what is there in the essentiall Constitution of the new Birth of a reasonable Creature that is in the constitution of a Child by Adoption which is not reasonably discovered in a Baptized Infant etiamsi passivè se gerat Adoption is by habituall Grace which the Infant may receive by Infusion though he cannot cry Abba Father as wanting actuall Gal. 4. 6. Faith Adoption differs from Naturall filiation in this Essentially that Naturall filiation is founded in communicatione naturae viventis in the communication of the Nature of a living Person Christ being called Mat. 16. 16. the Son of the living God quia viventium est generare sibi simile in natura because it is the part of living things to beget their like in Nature Vide Concil Francosordiense circâ— finem But Adoption is the Assumption of an extraneous Person into the place of a Son So may God assume a Child in his free goodnesse Adoptare est quasi optare ut sit quod per naturam non est To Adopt is in a manner to wish that he were a Son by Nature who is not So God may joyne Children closely to him as his Children the wish in the Notation of the Name failing here because it failes of Divine Perfection Adoptio fit per Filium naturalâ—m ubi naturalis Filius est Adoption is made through the naturall Son in whom the Right and Heirship stands where there is one who consentingly yeelds up something of his Right And Children may be Adopted through Christ the Naturall Son and be made partakers of his merits by the Sacrament of Baptism The Sacraments being the Conduit-pipes conveying the Grace of God and Merits of Christ to us The Eagle of the Thomists accords D. Tho. p. 3 q. 62. art â—â—n sine Corporis Unde manifestum est quòd Sacramenta Ecclesiae specialiter habent virtutem ex Passione Christi cujus Virtus quodammodò nobis copulatur per susceptionem Sacramentorum In cujus signum de latere Christi pendentis
Habits are outwardly manifested and explicated by naturall outward and ordinanary Meanes though Habits cannot be strengthened inwardly or augmented but with Acts of the same kinde A Coat for the body of a Child may be a whole Coat a sit Coat and a warme one though it appears outwardly but a little Coat And as we draw Originall sin from our Parents so God our Heavenly Parent in a due Time takes us up de matre cadentes falling from the Mother and being uncleane with a cleansing Ordinance And because the Grace of Christ is at the least as great as the Prevarication of Adam they who are made guilty by the first Adam may not be neglected by the second And therefore his Visible Ordinances are addressed towards them as soone as they Visibly appeare in the world But the reverend and Politick Doctor objects for his Brethren the Doct. Taylor in his Liberty of prophesying Sect. 18. Anabaptists That Grace being an improvement and heigthning of the Faculties of Nature in order to a Supernaturall and most high End hath no influence or Efficacy upon the Faculties of such who cannot reasonably perform the naturall Acts of Understanding The Answer is Grace in Children perfects and heigthens the Faculties of their Souls by cleansing them by adorning them for God and consequently by stating them in a capacity of their supernaturall End For though as Aquinas admonishes Fiâ—em oportet esse praecognitum Hominibus D. Tho. p. 1. q. 1. art 1. in corp qui suas intentiones actiones debent ordinare in Finem It be necessary that the End should be foreknown by Men who ought to direct their intentions and actions to their End Yet in Children in whom for their defect of Understanding there can be no such direction or dirigâ—ble Action God Almighty directs and acts for them and they are directed by him towards their Supernaturall End Sicut Sagitta à Sagittante dirigitur versus Scopum as an Arrow is by the Archer directed towards the Mark God working in and with all things answerably to their being and capacity and supplying as the Supreme cause their defects CHAP. XXII TO the other Member of the objection Or all the Baptized shall enter into the Kingdome of God I answer All fitly qualified for the whole effect of Baptism and rightly Baptized shall enter into the Kingdome of God modò posteà non ponant obicem if afterwards they on their own part scatter no impediment in their own way Simon Magus hath no worke for a Cooper I despise no man whose Father is a Cooper but if such a one shall undertake to Hoope-binde his Hogsheads or Bucking-Tubs and not perform it strongly I shall merrily tell him of it because he was not sitly qualified though Baptized Actâ— 8. 13. Ponder the Text Then Simon himselfe beleeved also and when he was Baptized he continued with Philip and wondred beholding the miracles and signes which were done His Faith and Foundation was not sound therefore his Baptism and Superstructure was not safe he remaining still unqualified the fit qualification of an Adult for the whole effect of Baptism being Faith and Repentance The Divines have truly discovered foure Kindes of false Faith in true and Holy Scripture The Faith of the Heretick The Faith of the false Christian The Faith of the curious Person The Faith of the Person unquiet or unstable All these have misplaced and mis-centred their Faith Guesse now I beseech you which of these false Faiths was the faithlesse Faith of this false Dealer Simon the Magitian Surely his Faith was the Faith which as the rest leanes not upon the Veracity of â—od the Revealer of Truth in his Revelation nor upon the well-groundednesse of the Church the Pillar of Truth in her Proposition but is generated and earth-begotten when this being its differentiall marke the person is hurried on with a curious Motive of seeing Miracles as the Scribes and Pharisees were saying Master Mat. 1â— 38. we would see a signe from thee Of whom also St Paul The Jews require 1 Cor. 1. â—2 a signe And Herod was tainted Luk. 23. 18. in this kind This Faith was the broad-ey'd and staring Child of Amazement and Amulement And therefore even the Apostles themselves were deceived etsi non iâ— materia Juris in materia tamen Facti though not in matter of Right or Law yet in matter of Fact But the Member here serperastro cohibendum est must be swathed up The Alchymists uncertainly obtrude Alchymistae to us to keep streight their curious opinion of the Philosophers Stone and of the making of Gold That Nature intendeth Gold in all Metals and that if the Crudities Leprosities Impurities of Metals were cured they would all evade into Gold Certainly God intends intentione primariâ with his primary intention that the Sacraments should be rightly received by all the Receivers and that they should all enter into the Kingdome of God and if they be not the fault most commonly is in the Impurities Leprosities Crudities of the receivers their impure Heresie their leprous Christianity their curious and unstable Crudity He wils no man absolutely from his entrance into the Kingdome of God And that he foreknows the non-entrance of many hath no forcible operation upon the Things foreknown Sicut enim as St Austin S Aâ—g in sentâ—ntiâ—â— Sâ—â— 379. nemo memoriâ suâ cogit facta esse quae praetereunt sic Deus praescientiâ suâ non cogit facienda quae futura sunt For as no Man by his remembring of things past compels them into Vide quae sequuntur apud Augustinum a past being So God by his prescience and foresight of things to come forces them not into being hereafter But he wils it conditionally from the breach of his Condition in his Covenant with Man-kinde Divinely St Bernard Rectè Deus non pater judiciorum vel Ulâ—ionum S. Bern. Serm. 8. in Natali Domini dicitur sed pater Misericordiarum eò quòd miserendi causâ—m originem sumat ex proprio judicandi vel ulciscendi magis ex nostro God is rightly said to be not the Father of Judgements or of Revenges but the Father of Mercies because he takes the cause and origin of shewing Mercy from his own but of judging and revenging from us And from the bottom of Reason Reprobation is an Act of divine Hatred and God hates nothing in man exept sin and therefore doth not reprobate Man for any thing but for sin CHAP. XXIII TO right Baptism is required ex parte Baptismi vel Sacramenti on the part of Baptisme or of the Sacrament 1 right Matter which is naturall water not artificiall as Rose-water the like And it must be water in its proper and simple Element not compounded 2 right Form As I Baptize thee in the name of the Father Ecclesia Oâ—cidâ—ntaliâ— and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost according to the received use of the
Western Churches or as the Ecclesia Graeâ—â— Eâ— O … ales aliae quaedam Church of Greece and some other Orientall Churches Baptizetur Servus Christi talis in nomine Patris c. Let the servant of Christ be Baptized here he is named in the Name of the Father c. For the Grecians doe not attribute the Act of Baptism to the Minister Sacramenti Minister of the Sacrament that they may de industria of set purpose professedly and practically condemn the old errour of those who attributed the virtue of Baptism to the Baptizers saying I am of Paul and I of Apollo and I of Cephas 1 Cor. 1. 12. With a beame cast upon these Requisites on the part of the Sacrament St Austin is doctrinall Accedit S Aug. Tractat. 80. in Jâ—an Verbum ad Elementum fit Sacramentum The Word is applyed to the Element and there is made a Sacrament And ex parte Baptizantis on the part of the Baptizer we may not undervalue his right intention For as a certaine Forme of words is required by the pull of necessity that the indifferency of the Matter may be determined so there is need of some speciall Intention formall or virtuall to determine the indifferency of the Form otherwise he that shall accidentally reade or utter the words or formall part of the Sacrament in strange or profane matters and occasions shall be said to reade or utter them Sacramentally And in Conscience The Minister of a Sacrament doth not Act Sacramentally but as Minister Christi the Minister of Christ and he cannot act as the Minister of Christ except he doth intend the worke of Christ and to Act after his prescription And lastly ex parte Baptizati on the part of the Baptized right qualification is required which in Infants is That they are offered to the Church and supplied with the Faith of it that they may be offered to God CHAP. XXIIII AND it is not absonous from Truth that the Kingdome of God is open to the rightly Baptized The Scriptures being impregnably strong for it The Apâ—stle St Peter having opened the sluees of Heaven and brought the sloud into his Discourse and how some were saved by water in the Ark. assâ—meth The like figure 1 Pet. 3. 21. whereunto even Baptism doth also now save us And St Paul is divinely Tit. 3. 5. symphonous But according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of Regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost The Originall deales it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Text. Graec Vulgar doth reâ—â—est into its native signification per Lavacrum Regenerationis Edit Vulg. by the Laver of Regeneration Then are we saved by Baptism as by a Sacramentall Instrument Then are we likewise washed in Baptism from Originall sin Then is Baptism the Sacrament of Regeneration and consequently of Initiation And it is most conformable to the royall way of divine Mercy and to right Reason the royall Work of the divine Power that the Sacrament which initiates us should also instrumentally regenerate us and compliablie lift us up into the royall state of Salvation that the Goodnesse of God may be not onely as large and extensive but also in some sort as intensive and efficacious for us to life and deliverance as the malice of the Devill is to Death and destruction Wherefore Ananias to Paul then Act. 22. 16. Saul Arise and be Baptized and wash away thy sins For As the outward filth of the body is washed away with water so the blood of Jesus Christ applied in Baptism 1 Joh. 1. 7. cleanseth us from all sin which is the filth of the Soul Then are our actuall sins also committed if such there be before Baptism washed away by it And either this water-signe must be Signum inane a vain Signe and of no effect or there is an inward washing suppositis intere à supponendis And if there be this washing God's works being perfect and Sanctifying Grace being opposed to all sin must be a washing from all sin Which compleat washing is indeed so properly the Thing intended by the Author of the Sacrament and Giver of Grace that be the outward washing more or lesse I speak here of Infants not of Adults in whom the Grace received is correspondent with the qualification of the Subject the inward effect doth not recipere magis minùs but is ever the same Because God lookes upon the End in every practicall touch of his Power which End is the chiâ—fe in all the course and the first intentionally though executively the last and Grace the Gift of God is an attendant upon the Thing signified and doth not attemperate it selfe to the manner of signifying And therefore Baptism given with a threefold Immersion doth not more justify than Baptism conferred by one Immersion or Inspersion And yet the first is a more expresse and visible signe of Sacrramentall Grace because it washeth more perfectly and furthermore adumbrates the most blessed Trinity in whose most blessed Name the Baptism is given A Roman Councill celebrated under Gregory the Great and the same Gregory together with Gratianus firmly set a bar upon this Truth Leander Bishop of Hispalis or Sivil imploreth Gregory his Determination concerning Immersion whether it should be one or three-fold Gregory answers as followeth De Concilium Roman sub Greâ—â—cio primo idem Greg lib. 1. Registâ—i â—p 4. ad Leandrum Episc Hispalâ—nsem allegat Gratianus de Consecrations Dâ—st 4. cap. de trina trinâ mersione Baptismatis nil responderi verius potest quà m quod ipsi sensistis quia in una Fide nihil officit sanctae Ecclesiae Consuetudo diversa Nos autem quòd tertio mergemus triduauae Sepulturae Sacramenta signamus ut dum tertiò Infans ab aquis educitur Resurrectio trâ—duani temporis exprimatur Quòd si quis fortè etiam pro summae srinitatis Veneratione existimet fieri neque ad hoc aliquid obsistit Baptizando semel in aquis mergere quia dum in tribus Subsistentijs una Substantia est reprehe sibile esse ni … a tenùs potest Infantem in Baptismate vel ter vel semel immergere quâ—ndò in tribus mersionibus personarum Trinitas in una potest D. vinitatis Singular it as designari Concerning the threefold Immersion in Baptism nothing can be answered more truly than that which ye have thought Leander and the Church of Sivil used one Immersion because a diverse Custome of the Holy Church hurts not where there is one Faith â—ut we dipping the third time declare the Mystery of the three dayes Sepulture that while the Infant is drawn from the water the third time the Resurrection of Christ after three dayes may be thereby expressed If any perhaps may thinke it to be done even for the veneration of the highest Trinity neither is there any hinderance to this but such a one may dip once onely the
the Testimony of their Nicol. Lyra Comment in cap. 14. Dan secundùm Edit Vulgat Nicolaus Lyra Aliquandò in Ecclesia fit maxima Deceptio Populi in Miraculis factis à Sacerdotibus vel eis adhaerentibus propter Lucrum Sometimes the People are very greatly deluded in the Church by forged Miracles the Priests or their Adherents forging them for gain Secondly by the Authority of their own Alexander Hales In Alex Halens p. 4 q. 53. Meâ—â—b 4. art 3. Solut. 2. Sacramento apparet Caro interdùm humanâ procuratione interdùm operatione Diabolicâ Flesh appeares in the Sacrament sometimes by humane Procuration and sometimes by Diabolicall Operation the Priests and the Devill doing the same work fraudulently and the Devill whatsoever the Priests may pretend alwayes working for an Evill end And thirdly by the infallible Sentence 〈◊〉 Cl mentis Oâ—â—â—vi transmissum ad Regulaâ—es and most known Precept of their own dear Clement the Eighth commanding the Regulars to surcease from the deceitfull and fraudulent Abuse of their Knowledge acquired in Confessions by the which they made them burdensome to promote their own advantage in their outward Government And having proved the Things I should have strongly and boldly proved against the lawfullnesse of them of these their pious Frauds First because all proper Meanes are naturally suteable to the End and if the End be good the Meanes must be proportionably good and if the Truth of God published be the End the Meanes of Publication must be true void of deceit and godly Secondly because by fraudulent carriages in the way to our good Ends a vile aspersion is cast upon the Providence of God as if good Meanes were not adequately prepared by divine Providence for good Ends Thirdly because by such fraudulent Conveyances in holy Things holy Things in direct motion and issue and not per accidens are disesteemed the most excellent Truths of God question'd and Men become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without God and Atheisticall Fourthly because as evill produces evill and false Actions produce false speeches in the same Subject so much deceit of the Tongue is produced by this deceit of the Heart and action before and after it as pernicious Lying impertinent Equivocation multiplication of idle Words And lastly Because the Devill is the Father of Lies and of double dealing and the old heathenish Priests his impious Instruments were expert in reducing to praxis this pious Art the Holy Ghost is the Author of all Truth and of Holy simplicity Therefore these being so different in their Causes Meanes Ends may not be joyned in their Terms and Logicall Predications and fraud cannot be pious nor piety fraudulent CHAP. XXXIX HAD my Adversary said that Scripture hath been prostituted by some Papists to sanctify the licentiated Stews at Rome I should have come to his hand as a Hauke to the Lure and zealously protested against them First because the Evill in this Permission doth infinitely surmount and preponderate the Good as appeares by the consequents more by thousands being incouraged in this permission to the most grievous Commissions of Adultery Fornication and other Uncleannesse than the Good is or can be that the filth and stinke of the common sinke is restrained from certaine Houses Secondly because the filth might be more perfectly restrained by severe Lawes and a Coercive Power Thirdly this publike permission of the Stews is not like the permission of Usury because in Fornication Adultery c. the Actors both sin but in Usury the Taker or Borrower upon whom he that permitteth Usury keeps the single Eye of his Intention Sinneth not his Concurrence being materiall not formall and he not willing but un willing Fourthly because God hath dealings towards sin before the Commission prohibendo by forbidding it impediendo by hindering it permittendo by suffering it as after the Commission ordinando ad bonum by actuall and executionall ordering it to good ignoscendo by pardoning it puniendo by punishing it and this Permission of the Stews is larger than the divine Permission in such a latitude for God sometimes in all places absolutely hindereth sin but in the Reign of this Permission of sin by the Romanists there is no absolute hinderance there being so much of furtherance on their parts and there is but a dull cool and weak prohibition in consideration of penalties to be inflicted upon sense and these only of all humane Acts work effectually upon a Soul steeped in the Lees of corrupt Nature Fiftly because this permission proves a double Allurement to the single Clergy Lastly because the Jews there are greatly disturb'd and nardened by this Permission And I should have garnished this Reason with a prevalent Example commended to Eternity by Bishop Espenceus who relates of a Jewish Maid that she renounced the Jewish Religion and became a Christian that she might freely exercise the Romish-Christian Art of Ribauderie not unsoundly permitted as amongst Christians but soundly punished by the Jews And the Bishop bewailes the sadnesse of the matter with many a mournfull Accent Dici nequit quà m incredibili Christianorum Espâ—ncaeus de Contin l. 3. cap 4. tum pudore tum etiam eorum qui verè tales sunt cordolio factum est ut Judae filiae scortâ—rs non liceat Dei filiae liceat Imò Israelis filia meretricari non aliter ante possit quà m facta per Baptismum sanctum Christi soror filia It cannot be said with what incredible shame of Christians and also with what heart-griefe of such as are truly such it is come to passe that a Jewish Daughter may not become Whore a Daughter of God may Yea that a Daughter of Israell cannot otherwise play the Harlot than when she is made by Holy Baptism the Sister and Daughter of Christ She was made so quoad externanâ— apparentiam according to outward appearance and she had been really made so remotis impedimentis ex parte Subjecti had the impediments been removed on the part of the Subject CHAP. XL. ROme I Honour thee in thy Truths which are many and excellently obeyed by many But I detest thy Corruptions and I see a large Field before me and could proceed farther against them should I not wander beyond the Lines of Communication with my Matter Finally therefore Had my Adversary said that the Scriptures have been rifled spoil'd exanimated and murthered by some Papists of the Jesuiticall Division to set aloft the Scarlet-coloured practise of the murdering of Princes in the dark by private and obscure Persons I should have cried Murder and Treason too and have fortified my selfe in the Preamble with the forerunning History of the preposterously-Heroicall M. Claudius Paradinus in Heroïcis Courtier of Millain Andreas Lampugnanus who when he desired to Murther Galeazus Marius the Millain-Duke for a Tyrant did practise it long before by stabbing privately the Duke's Image that his hand might not shake or he misse his aim in his stabbing the Duke
giving grace to the religious and humble Receiver of this Sacrament gives it alwaies as an augmentation of Precedent Grace not as the beginning of Spirituall Life But Baptism as vivificatory primarily and properly belongeth to Infants that are dead in sin And a strong digestion of solid nourishment in Spirituall Things conformable to vigorous Augmentation is not without the Spirituall strength and election of grown Persons And the Eucharist most relieves the best disposed As in Nature Est modus operandi Causae uniuscujusque ut cateris Paribus sempèr magis operetur in passum meliùs dispositum Every Cause more works upon a Subject more disposed because it hath lesse to conquer But there is no diversity of Disposition in Children nor any positive or privative indisposition to Baptism And therefore Baptism infallibly necessarily and irresistibly produceth it's whole Effect in them For Causa necessarâ—a sufficientèr applicata debet operari A necessary Cause applied sufficiently must work if it encounter no resistance requiring a Warlike encounter in the Subject and here is none Thirdly when Actions are directed and determined to certaine Persons capable of performance it is supposed that the performance belongs to them and their care to whom the determination and direction is made as in the Text Except ye eat the persons here being all capable of such care and performance But if Actions be enjoyned in Terms that involve all and some be uncapable of the care and performance enjoyned it is supposed that the performance belongs to the capable and knowing part not only in respect of themselves but also in respect of them who are unknowing and uncapable in themselves of such performance and care and therefore Subordinate And Parents are obliged to a care of their Children Superiours to care for Inferiours the Knowing to be carefull of the Ignorant by the Laws of God and Nature Lastly His Text is religiously true and illative even in our Sense For except the grown Jews to whom solid nourishment belonged after their conversion were converted Baptized and received the Sacrament of the Eucharist in Act or Desire Or if they wilfully rejected or neglected the sacred use of it they were void of Life as not having the Life of Grace and conserving it with agreeable nourishment CHAP. XLVI IF St Austin deduced a like necessity S Aug. l. 1. de peccatorum Merit is Remissione cap. 20. S Cypr. in l. de Lapsâ—s that Infants should receive the Lords Supper from the words Joh. 6. as appears by his own cleare expression If within the Line of St Cyprians Dayes the sacred Communion was exhibited to Infants as is evident by his evidence given concerning himselfe giving the Communion to an Infant Which History with its Book is againe Historied by St Austin If it be delivered S Aug. cp 23. up into the Senate and Councill of the Learned by Maldonat that Maldon Comment in Jo. 6. Innocentius the first held a necessity of communicating Infants and that this opinion and practise went on six hundred years with some parts of the Church I shall yeeld it passage as a pious Use but not as absolutely or strictly necessary nor as able to infringe the Baptizing of Infants or our Text concerning Baptism for the most unalterable Reasons newly given And moreover because the susception of the Eucharist cannot have it's whole substantiall or most excellent Effect in Infants And the Authority of private Men say the Sorbonists when they Sorbonista are not made publike by representing the Church in Councils proves little in dubious and those ill-byassed Cases Originall and Secondary Tradition are not of equall Validity Neither are some particular Churches and their use comparable or to be measured with the overspreâ—ding use in the great stream of the Church Innocentius as a private Doctor might accept it as a private opinion So might St Cyprian St Austin and others before them as the Testimony of Dionysius Areopagita makes credible It was a pious use and somewhat like that the sacred crums were anciently given in the Greek Church to innocent Children And uses of Ordinances must be measured with the Natures of them and therby tried I maim no Authority because it is such but as deviating or turning aside from Truth The Couâ—cill of Trent reasons devoutly most piously Concil Triden .. Sess 21. quâ— suit quinta suâ— pio quarto cap. 4. and according to right Reason Sancta Synodus dâ—cet parvulos usu rationis â—arentes nullâ obligari necessitate ad Sacramâ—ntalem Eucharistiae Communionem siquidem per Baptismi lavacrum regenerati Christo incorporati adeptam jà m filiorum Dei Gratiam in illa aetate amitteâ—e non possunt The holy Synod teacheth that Little-ones wanting the use of reason are not oblâ—ged by necessary obligation to the Sacramentall all Communion of the Eucharist because they being regenerated by the Laver of Baptism and incorporated into Christ cannot lose in that Age the Grace of the Sons of God now obtained Where the Councill learnedly enforces that the Eucharist being ordained for the nourishing of the Grace received in Baptism the use of it would be uselesse with regard to the main use in an Age which cannot lose the Grace received And whereas we are nourished not only that we may not perish but also that we may be strengthened we are not strengthened in Grace for present use but by the concurcrence of actuall Grace of the which Children as not acting by Grace are uncapable there only remaining accidentall and adventitious benefits according to the good use afterwards made of Baptismall Grace And now quandoquidem umbone exceperim hoc telum seeing I have received this Dart upon the bosse of my Shield or Buckler I thus retort it If Infants were partakers of the Eucharist then certainly they were Baptized being Infants Baptism preceding the Eucharist Yea Dionysius S Dionys Areap lib. Eâ—cles Hierarch c. 7. part 2. having eternized in his Hierarchy That the unbaptized ought not to be admitted to the sight of the Eucharist And St Austin here wheels to us Ad Sacramentum S Aug. l. 1. de peccat Merit Remiss cap. 20. Tom. 7. Mensae Domini nemo rit è nisi Baptizatus accedit To the Sacrament of the Lords Table none come by direct and orderly proceedings but the Baptized That the Ancients were deceived in the Baptizing of Infants as in communicating them will not follow because the Sacraments are differently natur'd and intended and because the practise was differently carriag'd This return of the Argument is like Aurum fulmâ—nans which is an Extract from Gold admixed with other Ingredients and in the blow forceth downwards with a mighty power This Return drives all down before it but what was down before CHAP. XLVII THirdly I gather up my selfe to prove that the Holy words Except one be born c. word it in the neerest and holiest Sense for Baptism from the sweet harmony concord
this Consequence which with the rest proceeds ex falso Supposito were true the Presbyterians or strict Calvinists would cristas attollere lift up their Crests and Combs and continue their unnaturall and exotick Interpretations upon the old Proverbiall Sentence The Prov. 16. 4. Lord hath made all things for himselfe yea even the Wicked for the Day of Evill Which the Hebrew Text. Hebr. hands forth Omnes operatus est Jehovah propter se improbum ad Diem mali Jehovah hath made all Persons for himselfe the wicked Man to the Day of Evill And which the English Presbyterians English God hath made all Things for himselfe yea the Wicked for the Day of Judgment and eternall Damnation pouring as it were by the carriage of an Indian upon God that he makes the much-greater and massier Part of Men Women and Children of purpose to Damn them Whenas this good Proverb speaks of the Evill Day of temporall Punishment which according to the Hebrew Dialect is called the Day of Evill or as the Septuagint Sept. oftentimes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of affliction or afflictation Or If they will draw the Text to the punishments of Hell Then must they draw with it that God made indeed the Wicked for the Day or Time of Evill intentione secundariâ with a secundary intention and having fore-looked upon them in the Evils of their sins And thus the Ends here God and the Day of Evill as executing the good Justice of God are as we term it in Logick Fines subalterni And when God made the Wicked Man for the Day of Evill he made him for Himselfe Because when he punishes him with temporall or eternall punishments he glorifies himselfe in his executive justice And the wicked man falling by Death from under the Order of his Mercy fals under the Death-Order of his Justice Now God cannot absolutely Ordaine a Wicked Person for this good End the glorification of the divine Justice by his eternall punishment first Because this Ordination would Eclipse his Goodnesse and his very Nature And secondly Because he should then be contrary to his own Sanctity and absolutely Ordain the wickednesse of the Wicked Person as such the absolute Ordination of which would by a necessity derived from the Ordination bring it necessarily into Being And Non est faciendum malum vel minimum ut eveniat bonum vel maximum The least Evill Sâ—â— Rom. 3. 8. may not be done that the greatest good may come of it For Though in the Evils of Punishment we may lawfully chuse the lesser because the lesser Evill tnuc indueret rationem Boni would then put on the State or Nature of a Good as we may rather chuse the losse of our Goods than of our Lives yet Malum Culpae quatenus tale est nunquam potest habere rationem Boni The Evill of sin as such can never put on or have the Nature or state of a good Neither can a good End moralize or sanctifie an Evill Action CHAP. LXXII I Prove it lastly The naturall work of Baptism answerable to the Word the best and most primitive Words signifying the Natures of Things and to the Signe is to wash And Children greatly need Spirituall washing as being greatly defiled with the first sin of their first Parents Therefore Baptism which is a Sacramentall Washing and the first Sacrament greatly agrees with them as not being yet washed And is not in vain with respect to Children Frustrà est quod non potest habere suuÌ„ usuÌ„ that is in vain which cannot have its use As Aquinas expounds D Thom. comment in Aâ—â—stot l. 1. de Coelo Text. 12. upoÌ„ Aristotle's Axiom Deus natura nihil frustrà faciunt God and Nature do nothing in vain Which Axiom thus expounded hath a farther aim yet clearly windes up and proves that even the actuall use of Baptism belongs to Infants And If the Thing which is ordained for all who are touchable by the Faith of the Church may not by reason of humane Restraint be communicated to the Little-ones which are many there follows upon wheels that the Restainers render it uselesse and vain with respect to the many Little-ones at the least and that although God will make nothing in vain yet men make vain the will of God Which likewise all unbeleeving Parents in respect of their Children and all Unbeleevers in regard of themselves doe Baptism being ordain'd for all that want it and all wanting Baptism that want Baptismall Grace and all wanting Baptismall Grace that want to be washed from Originall sin and all wanting to be washed from Originall sin who are desiled with it These Arguments are such as the Substration of the Matter will bear For we cannot in this place eventilate Reasons from the Definition or Nature of a Sacrament or from the Effects of Baptism in themselves and in the proper Houses and Places wherein as the Planets they have their plenary Power Because these things being Spirituall mysticall and Lidden our naturall Reason cannot give an exact estimat of them or bring them forth to the most perfect discernment avowance of the reasonable Man And as Revelation first supposes Reason so Reason afterwards in her Discourses of revealed Things supposes Revelation and sometimes walks only by the walls and Edges of it And for the same Reason we are unfurnished of Demonstrations both à Priori and à Posteriori that is Cause-Demonstrations and Demonstrations by the Effects Yet we have Reasons of the second Order and Metal of the Silver-kinde which are perfectly urging so say the Logicians where Demonstrations cannot be had CHAP. LXXIII LET my Standard be now set up at the Doctrine and Praxis of the Church in Primitive Ages Because there is no expresse Precept in Scripture saying Go and Baptize Infants no President in plaine Terms saying They Baptized Children no clear Promise promising clearly Many Benefits shall accrue to Baptized Children many to the Baptizers of them or the like the Church gave to the Baptizing of Infants the Name of an Apostolicall Tradition Which we therefore understand with respect to the expressenesse of Precept President Promise In a generall Sense and much used anciently the whole Body of the new Testament is an Apostolicall Tradition and in a speciall Sense some speciall Truths of it That in See 2. Thes 2. 15. our Sense is an Apostolicall Tradition which was deliver'd by the Apostles to the Church and is not found expressely in divine Scripture though it be expressely found and extant in the writings of Apostolicall Men in Apostolicall Times Or That is an Apostolicall Tradition which hath many faire and excellent Characters in divine Scripture but hath it's explicitnesse or expressenesse from Apostolicall Precepts Practises Promises warranted to the Apostles by Christ their Master which are Unscriptur'd The Baptizing of Infants being thus received by such Tradition the Disciples of the Apostles preached it in their Sermons it fell from their
lips in the first warmth of the Gospell like sweet Gumms from the Trees of Arabia heated by the Sun the Fathers of the Church published it in their writings the holy Councils Canonized it and it became a Starrified Truth or a Truth of the Firmament And as Vincentius Lyrinensis thunder-strikes the Hereticks of his Time Quid unquam aliud Conciliorum Decretis Vincâ—nt Lyrinens contra Haeres cap. 32. enisa est scilicet Ecclesia nisi ut quod anteà simplicitèr credebatur hoc idem posteà dilâ—gentiùs crederetur What other Thing at any Time hath the Church endeavoured in the Decrees of the Councils than that the Things which were simply beleeved should afterwards be beleeved with more diligence And this Truth thus extracted being as such more than a humane Truth is no lesse than a divine Truth For As the Art or Invention which removes a Thing from Earth must needs exalt it neerer to Heaven and the farther from Earth still the neerer to Heaven So a Testimony comming from God to us through Sanctified Persons if it be more than humane must needs be in some sort divine and it comming through Persons divinely inspir'd and infallibly directed the higher it is raised from the consideration of being humane the more divine will it be And if such a Testimony were not Apostolicall but only Ecclesiasticall even such an Ecclesiasticall Testimony endowed with all it's Perfections and Formalities would be formally Divine CHAP. LXXIIII IN this purified Sense St Dionysius Areopagita who lived in the first Century and was the Disciple of St Paul as having been his Convert at Athens affirms to be delivered S. Dionys Arcop lib Eccl. Hier. cap. ult part ult Author QuaestionuÌ„ ad Orthodoxâ—s quaest 56. by the Apostles that Infants should be Baptized The same thing is Orthodoxly taught by the Author of the Questions ad Orthodoxos who also after some discussion and bandying of the Businesse concludes in the rebound that Baptized Infants are saved unbaptized Infants are not saved leaving us to save our selves as we can And though Justin Martyr be not the Author of this Booke it caling into the Court Irenaeus Origen the Manichees Yet the Author is confessed by all Authors to be very ancient and of great reputation And Justin Martyr himselfe being S Just Mâ—rt in Dâ—alâ—g cum Tâ—ypâ—â—â—e Judaen p. 2. propâ—s 3. a Noble Member of the second Century and contemporary with St John and therefore well familiariz'd with Apostolicall Practise declares himselfe like-minded in his Dialogue with Tryphon the Jew Irenaeus also an honourable Extract S. Lenaeus contra Haeret l. 2. c. 39 of the same Century honourably mentions the Baptizing of Infants In the third Century we have Origen who having alleadged the Words of the Prophet Psal 51. 5. Behold I was shapen in in quity and in sin did my Mother conceive me follows the motion of his matter thus Propter hoc Ecclesia ab Apostolis Orig. lib. 5. Homil in c. 6. ap Rom. Tradâ—tionem accepit etiam parvulis dare Baptismum For this reason namely because we are all conceived in sin the Church received a Tradition from the Apostles enjoyning us to Baptize Infants St Cyprian S. Cypr. Carthag l. 3. Epist 8. ad Fidum Episcopum was the Church-Pillar of Africa in this Century who together with a Councill of Carthage consisting and bound together of 66 Bishops as of so many strong Cartilages whom he venerably cals his Collegues determin'd not only that Children might and ought to be Baptized but also that they might even before the eighth day which was not app … ent and Crystal-clear to Bishop Fidus and his Church in respect of the neernesse and complyance betwixt Circumcision and Baptism and the Determination of the Councill having been occasioned thereby which Determination St Cyprian recounts to Fidus. CHAP. LXXV SAint Hierom witnesseth for us S. Hierom. l. 3. contra Pelagianos S. Aug. l. 10. de Genesi ad literam cap. 23. in the fourth Century And St Augustine who thus writeth Consuetudo Matris Ecclesiae in Baptizandis parvulis nequaquam spernenda est ncc ullo modo superflua deputanda nec omninò credenda nisi Apostolica esset Traditio The Custome of our Mother the Church in Baptizing Infants is not to be despised nor in any sort deemed superfluous neither at all to be beleeved except as an Apostolicall Tradition St Austin imbracing Apostolicall Tradition as the unwritten word of God and speaking here of beliefe built upon expresse Declaration of God's Word The same St Austin to prevent the Insurrections of objection devoteth a Rule to the perfect knowing of an Apostolicall Tradition and Reason in the Light of Nature beholds the evidence of it Quod universa Idem lib. 4. de Baptismâ— Parvulorum contra Donatistas cap. 23. tenet Ecclesia nec Conciliis institutum sed semper retentum est non nisi Authoritate Apostololicâ traditum rectissimè credimus That which the Universall Church holds and was not instiâ—nâ—ed by Councils but hath been alwaies retained we most rightly beleeve to have been deliver'd no otherwise than by Apostolicall Authority The same Father again treating of this Ecclesiastical custome of Baptizing Infants ascertains to us that it was Universall Hoc Ecclesia semper habuit sempèr tenuit hoc à Majorum Idem Serm. 10. de Verâ—is Apost c. 2. fide percepit hoc usque in finem perseverantèr Custodit This the Church always hath had always hath held this she received from the Faith and credit of our Ancestors this she perseveringly keeps to the end Yea the three tutelar Angels of the Church in their Times St Hierom St Augustine and Prosper Aquitanicus alwaies presâ—e on and put forward this Custome in their Victorious S. Hieron ubi Suprà S Aug. Serm. 14. de verbis Apost qui inscribitur De Baptismo Parvâ—lâ—rum contra Pelagianos Tom. 10. Item l. 1. de Peccator merit remiss c. 26. Prosper Aquitan l. 2. de Vocatione Gen. ium cap. 8. Concil Milevit Can. 2. S. Greg. Naz oâ— at in sanctum lavacrum S. Basil Oyat Exhortatoriâ ad Baptismuâ— S. Chrysâ—â— Homil. 1. ad Nâ—ophytoâ— Disputations against the Pelagian Heresy which denied Originall sin CHAP. LXXVI IN the Year foure hundred eighteen The Milevitan Councill being a Provinciall of Africa consecrated this Canon Placuit ut quicunque Parvulos recentes ab uteris Matrum Baptizandos negat Anatâ—enia sit It is the Pleasure of the Councill that is placuit spiritui sancto nobis It hath pleased the Holy Ghost and us that whosoever denies Baptism to Infants newly born be denounced an accursed Thing The intendment is whosoever denies Baptism to such at such a Time as a Thing then alienated from their condition Other Councils give the like Counsill afterwards I add St Gregory Nazianzen St Basill St Chrysostom And I could add very many others But these are sufficiently efficient And this
that respect he hath already sure hold of them And Theodot Job 1. 6. Vide Theophylact in Mat. 12. he who according to Theodotion is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Adversary that lyeth in ambush against us is willing that the Anabaptists should greatly please themselves with a little smattering of Morality and a few beggerly rudiments of pious Profession whil'st they are Soule-poison'd themselves and whil'st they poison the Souls of the People with their impure Arguments which like the inchanted Castles of their Hearts are strong and impregnable only until the Charm be dissolved O the Saviour of Israell Nature in the Naturall Body doth alwaies endeavour to rectify it self And Grace in the Soule rectifies Nature But who shall rectify these out-law'd and strong-will'd people that strongly keep the Fort of their Hearts against Grace Even thou alone who art 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the mighty God CHAP. LXXXVIII THE Results here prefer themselves Whereof the first is This Text thus warded guarded and secur'd with Fortifications of all sorts professing for Baptism the Baptism of Infants is commanded in Scripture The Resultancy is thus brought neer to the Eye Every Proposition is either a Principle principally and properly belonging to some Science I speak of Science in a large Sense from which the Scâ—ence partly floweth and followeth every Science being Virtually contained in it's Principles or is a Conclusion deduced from a Principle Whence every Conclusion is reducible to the Principle from which it was deduced And Sciences are of two Kindes there being some which proceed from Principles known by the naturall Light of our understanding as Arithmetick Geometry and others and some that proceed from Principles known by the Light which a Superiour Science gives to us and these we name Subordinate Sciences As our Science called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Perspectiva proceeds from Principles Vide Alstedâ—i Cursum Philosophicum ultimae Ediâ—ion is in Perspectiva Musica made known by Geometry and Musick from Principles known by Arithmetick Now if the Proposition be a Principle of a Superiour Science it supposeth no other Principle of it's Kinde going before it yet is it big with Inference and the Propositions inferred are Conclusions regulated by it this being one applicatory Sense of the Rule Primum in unequoque Genere est Mensura reliquorum The first in every kinde is a Measure of the rest And every Conclusion supposeth and inferreth unlesse the last Conclusion that is deducible may be â—ound this inferring not but abundantly supposing And of what rank and Order soever the Proposition is which supposeth and inferreth of the very same Order and ranke are the Propositions inferred and supposed If that be a naturall Truth these also be naturall Truths If that be a divine Truth and God's Word these be God's Word and divine Truths Because as that in it selfe expresseth God's Speech so likewise by it selfe it supposeth and inferreth God speaking by these Take now the Text or Proposition here Except one be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdome of God This Proposition supposeth and inferreth What doth it suppose Every Proposition necessarily and immediately supposeth the Proposition whereof it is the immediate Reason the Thing the immediate Reason of the Thing being immediately connexed and such a Reason orderly necessarily and most neerly following the Thing The Thing therefore which this Proposition must of necessity suppose is Go and Baptize all Persons qualified for Baptism yea even Infants offered by the Church it necessarily following as the immediate Reason For except one be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdome of God Or Except ye Baptize all such and they be born of Water and of the Spirit they cannot enter into the Kingdome of God And the immediate Reason hath so severe and sincere a connexion with the Thing that the Thing which even now went before it and was supposed it can now againe infer and bring after it making the Thing omnimodously strong by supporting it on both sides and with both Arms upholding it As thus Except one be born of Water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdome of God Therefore goe and Baptize all Persons qualified for Baptism yea even Infants offered by the Church Finally This Proposition or Conclusion except one be born c. being the Word of God a divine Truth and a Proposition of the Superiour Science which is Scientia Dei Beaâ—orum the Science of God and the Blessed the other Proposition Go and Baptize all Persons qualified for Baptism yea even Infants c. must also be a Proposition of the Superiour Science a divine Truth and the Word of God even upon a double Account and as in the Supposition so in the Inference and must be received by all rationall Persons as of equall waight and worth with the written and expresse Proposition Except one be born c. by the which it is necessarily supposed and from the which it is inferred of necessity And therefore let our Anabaptists never ask more where we finde the Command of Baptizing Infants in the Word of God it being there once and againe within a short space of place And the Truths of Scripture cannot be more cleared by interpretation if we could mingle with our Interpretations the very Beams of the Sun Indeed A Conclusion may proceed ex falsa Hypothesi from a false Supposition But our Conclusion is the Word of God and in a false supposition the Thing supposed is not immediately necessarily naturally supposed but accidentally ad placitum as being far fetch 't neither is the Proposition supposing or before and to which we suppose the immediate Reason of it And the false Supposition may be soone discovered to have crep't and wedg'd it selfe unnaturally into the Order drawn from the Principle and not to belong orderly and naturally to it CHAP. LXXXIX THE second Result is The Baptizing of Infants is necessary tà m necessitate Pracepti quà m necessitate Medii by the necessity of Precept and by the necessity of Meanes That is necessary by the necessity of Precept which is necessary because it is divinely commanded And that is a Command at the least an implicit-one to the breach of which there is annexed an extreme Penaltie as here there is That is necessary by the necessity of Meanes which is appointed by divine appointment as a Meanes of our entring into the Kingdome of God And here Baptism is required as a necessary Condition Qualification or Meanes Except one be born c. the unbaptized being excepted by a contrary exception as unconditioned unqualified and without the Meanes The Reader may perhaps voice it here This is Popery If he doth I reply first I have repeated what I have read in Dr Featly who hath Dr Featly in his Dâ—pper dip't written as I have that Baptism is doubly necessary by these Necessities Secondly I reply
while as remote Spectators only and perhaps there will be matter enough in the latter Acts to throng a Chronicle and publike Shows of all that hath been contriv'd in secret But I have honour'd this vile Relique of the Owl or Cuckow-Eggshell too much in taking so much notice of him I will not hereafter glorifie him in this manner Now I commend to the wise and serious consideration of Ministers and of all Understanding and judicious Persons a Question Are these who as the Goats goe before the Herd of Cattell in the presumption of some thin Hairs under their Chin so thrust themselves before others Are these I pray fit Preachers of God's deep and holy Word and able Determiners of Controversies in Divinity who when a divine Matter is discussed as it ought to be with due enquiry made into liberall Arts and Sciences as Handmaids to Divinity into the secret Orders of Grace and Glory into the naturall and Supernaturall Acts and Habits of the Soul being a Spirituall Substance mark't with the Trinity-Seal into the recluse and hidden Natures Properties Inclinations Motions Effects and Ends of Things into their Definitions whereby their Natures are fairly Character'd into the Differences of Things cleared and opened as the Day by proper Divisions and Distinctions which take Things asunder and as God in the Creation divide betwixt Light and Darkenesse into the waight and strength of Illations Collations Relations into deep and intricate Questions into the Nonultras of a Question when a discourse comes to the Bottom-Puncto and the last Exit into the Grounds of Truth and the Reduction of every Proposition and Inference to their Ground-Truths into Denominations Derivations and Languages and into all their Figures and Dialects into the Resolution of Conscience-Cases upon all Casuall and Emergent occasions into the rich and wondrously various Closets and the Spirituall Magazin of Mysticall Divinity into Councils Fathers Statutes of Emperours Records Utriusque Juris and Manuscripts into all Annals and Histories Ecclesiasticall and profane into the old Liturgies of the Orientall and Occidentall Churches into Things nova vetera new and old and indeed into all the discovered and revealed Treasures of God Nature and Art yea all the dismembred Monuments of the ancient Archives without all which divine Truth cannot be honourably majestically and according to the Crown Dignity and Splendour of it presented and illustrated and the Gainsayers convinced who I say when a divine Matter is justly discussed after this profound bottom-searching and righteous Manner are not able with all their might to utter the lest Atom of a wise word but stand amaz'd as at the sight of a strange Messenger from the other World appearing in an Air-borrow'd Body and after long amazement and wonder coming back to themselves retreit unto Texts of Scripture which in the Authenticall and Originall Copy they Understand not and which if they could interpret the words require oftentimes as Helps from Humane Industry which ordinary Graces require and suppose the Knowledge of Antiquity concerning the Sense of the ancient Church and the Knowledge of naturall Sciences to the Interpretation of their Sense Extraordinary Graces of this kinde being never given without their Mark or Witnesse which is Gratia Miraculorum the Grace of Miracles and publike Exercises answering only to publike Vocations in the same Order I conclude here Scientia non habet inimicum praeter ignorantem Science hath no Enemy but the Ignorant Man And the Ignorant Man is an Enemy to Science because he is ignorant how usefull waighty and worthy Science is and as Ignoti nulla Cupido we desire not the Thing we know not so neither do we judge of the unknown Thing and quemadmodum caecus non judicat de Coloribus ita nemo judicat de Artificio vel Artifice nisi Artifex as the blinde Man judgeth not of Colours so no man judgeth of Workmanship or of a Workman but a Workman Note Let no man deceive you with vain Philosophy that is with Philosophy which vainly exalts it selfe against Divinity or against God and the Sacred Mysteries as the Philosophy of the old Philosophers exalted it selfe in the Primitive Ages But Learning in her proper place is an Attendant upon Divinity and brings the various Goods and richest Materials of Egypt to the building of the Tabernacle and the framing of the Vessels and Utensils belonging to it and there deceives us not as being in a manner Divine And when Mahomet threw sound Learning out of his unsound Religion he threw his Religion beyond all ordinary meanes of Truth-Discovery and set God back to his Principles and first manner of Working by Miracles CHAP. LXXXXVIII I Return and ty a knot upon the Posy of my whole Matter with Inferences Whereof the first is Let all Apostates be ashamed that have not repented of their Apostacy The Prophet meets us opportunely Unto thee O Lord doe I lift up my Psal 25. 1 2 3. Soul O my God I trust in thee let me not be ashamed let not mine Enemies Triumph over me Yea let none that wait on thee be ashamed let them be ashamed which Transgresse without Cause For let them be ashamed which Transgresse the Vulgar Edition Edit vulg brings forth Confundantur omnes â—niqua agentes Let all be confounded with shame Confusion is the overflow of shame who doe unjust and unequall Things The fifth Edition of the Septuagint digs it up out of the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 V. Editio 70. SenioruÌ„ Let all that Apostatize be ashamed Rabbi Saadias is within R. Saadias in versionâ— Arabica sight Let them be ashamed of their vicissitudinary and interchangeable Courses and of their swerving from the divine Rule and Law There be many Hebrew Words which signifie a Thing sometimes whereof sometimes they signifie the contrary yet we have Rules and Observations by the which we are heart-led to the right understanding of these Words in their places But when a Man does now signifie a Baptizer of Children and now again an Anabaptist we are only taught by Rule that he moves irregularly It is undeniably true in Phylosophy of naturall Motions In omni ordinat â Motione oportet virtutem secundi Movent is à Movente primo deduci In every ordinate Motion the virtue of the second Mover must be deduced from the first Mover In religious Motions wherein we have besides our first Mover an Exemplar we should be moved by divine Grace which is the virtus motrix divinely moving virtue of the first Mover according to divine Direction Now although divine Grace be invisible yet the rule of divine Direction is extant and sensible from which the Anabaptists it is already made sure and sinew-strong by proof swerve and deviate as I fear many of them doe also from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of their own Hearts And as the Anabaptists even so let the Presbyterians be ashamed who have led them in the Daunce Some noise it
a Million of Chast Eyes seu majora Vero seu minora nor appeare in publicke eundem de Papismo Coccysmum nobis occinens crowing to us the old young-cockrel crow of Papist and Jesuit that is used by some as a meer Stop-Gap in great penury of Matter by others quasi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 like an efficacious Bug-Beare as if they could and would and might do as they would though according to Right and Law they could not entangle me with a dangerous Name and thereby deter me from my Sacred Purposes and upon these designes often enters tanquam versus intercalaris as the Burden of the Song útque duram de nobis emolliat Sententiam and that he will not entertain hard and Evill Thoughts of me before he wel knows me But although I binde up the Anabaptists into this heterodox Fardle yet the great Aim which my soul hath in this World being to be a perfect Lover and Advancer of Truth I engage my selfe to make it shine as the Sun that many Anabaptists are the Propugners and Maintainers of most excellent and most divine Truths and are more justifiable before God and more sufferable by Man than the Presbyterians or strict Calvinists and attached upon this Account I shall enter the lists with any Man in the fair Field of School-Divinity by measuring and weighing the Doctrines avowched on both sides And a word more in the heat of true Love towards honest and harmlesse Truth It runs amongst the People without opposition that there are or were lately Jesuits in this our Army and that they have Preached there Yea it hath clearly passed and been imbraced and hugg'd with much joyfull wonder that the Pope's latest Agent in England Signior Con a Scotchman hath been seen by Knowing Eyes in this Army For me I have not received any particular Favour from the Army nor from the present Authority neither will I accept of preferment But the God of Truth whom I honour commands me to publish on the behalfe of injured Truth how ungratefull soever and censurable the Publication will be to many That whereas I know Popish Affairs Motions and Contrivements in a large Measure and in holy Truth I know more than many thinke me to know and than some would have me to know I faithfully beleeve this Report to be the most malicious and most damnably-false Invention of the seething-scalding-burning-fire-hothearted Genevenses to bring the State and Army into dishonour and Obloquy ut que Oleum huic Incendio copiosius affundant as other strange Things have been forged by them And I am certaine that Signior Con dyed many years agoe and before the new-moulding of the Army beyond the Seas This I deliver in the word of a Christian and in the Hopes which I have to dwell with the most Unerring Fountain of Truth the all-knowing God We walk in Darknesse deceiving and being deceived Pure Religion and Undefiled is this To beleeve the Truth of God rightly to speak it boldly to build upon this Truth and not upon Lies and to performe religiously towards God and Man well-ordered Love and Obedience The Vindication of one Truth extrudes another Let the World take speciall notice that I bleed in my Spirit and am ashamed of my Company when I heare it asserted in Pulpits by Persons non infimae Classis That the Pope dispenses with Priests and Jesuits to recant and join with the Ministers of England that they may reduce Protestants the more conveniently to his Religion That the Common Prayer is Masse in English That the Papists beleeve they shall be saved by their own Merits excluding the Merits of Christ That the common People amongst them pray most commonly in a Language which they Understand not That all ordinary Papists worship Images as their Gods That they all hold Adultery and Fornication to be but Veniall Sins That no Professours of Chastity live Chastly amongst them That all of that Religion are bloudily minded and the like And conclude that these Fancy-Fram'd Pictures of Doctrines falling foul with my cleare Knowledge may passe along with other Aâ—ntick Shapes It is infallibly certain That there are amongst Papists Corruptions both of Doctrine and Manners But he that obiects Falshood against them will after a while manifest his own Falshood and set them free yea will appeare in the number of the greatest Tyrants as tyranizing over Souls and weak understandings The Man is not well setled in his Wits who blames my reviewing and revising the Secrets of Truth when I am a sad Spectator of Soul-Alterations evill in their Terminations and a mournfull Hearer of Blasphemies every day on every side Perhaps Reader it is troublesome to you that I write my selfe Independent adeò ut me transsig as convitio If it be so So be it Vereor etenim nè muricatus tibi subsit Animus For I fear that which way soever your Mind fals it is pointed towards me sharp hurtfull and Caltrap-like Whereas Hereticks and Scismaticks give me Names at their pleasure I presume that I may have leave to Name my selfe by what Name or Title soever I shal desire to be modestly called It matters not how I am called by my selfe but what in my selfe I am Indeed The chiefe Doctrines which I propose to the Reader I will defend to have been formerly defended and proposed by the most learned Divines of England and now to be recommended to the people by the most Popular Independents And therefore Tell not me Apparatu planè scenico Thrasonismi pleno with your Theatricall Language that my Discourse is Oratio pernicioso confecta Philtro It is the godly Truth of the most true God who is my Rock and I feare you not For God said to the valiant Joshua Josh 1. 5. and the Words are sweetly warbled over again by St Paul I Heb. 13. 5. will never leave thee nor forsake thee Where the Originall is wonderfully big and breeding 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Text. Graec. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In which Versicle there are five Negatives 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And the Originall meaning affirms I will never never leave thee I will never never never forsake thee Then If the Presbyterian comes to bite if the Anabaptist God will never never leave me If the wicked Liver comes if Jesuit if Devill God will never never never forsake me OBIECT VI. LAstly It is objected That I understand not all the Languages which I use I answer I submissely confesse that I doe not understand all the Words and Secrets of these Languages yea that some of these Languages have many Secrets and Words which I reach not I understand English And my old School-Fellowes at Eton Colledge know that I was there a Babler in Greek and Latin I have picked up some odd Ends of Languages abroad And I have taken some pains in the Orientall Languages In the which notwithstanding I goe not the rough and tedious way of the Character but apply my selfe