to collect the Printers Errata though I see divers and therefore must leave the discerning of them to your selves And I again admonish and intreat you that the detection of the extraordinary falshoods and blind temerarious audacity of Mr. D. be not imputed to the whole Rebaptizing party to whose Practice Gregor Magn. paralleleth Reordaining and that his crimes abate not your Christian Love and tenderness to others there being truly Godly wise and peaceable persons worthy of our Communion and willing of it of that party as well as of others Hearken not to them that would render the Party of Anabaptists odious or intolerable no more than to those Anabaptists who would perswade those of their opinion to renounce Communion with all others as unbaptized It is against this dividing spirit on all sides that I Write and Preach PART I. My private Letters to Mr. Tombes proving the Church-membership of Infants in all ages vindicated from his unsatisfactory exceptions The PREFACE § 1. THE occasion and time of these Letters is long ago published by Mr. Tombes himself in the third Part of his Anti-Paedobaptism page 353. and forward where he printeth the said Letters without my consent Had I found his Answers satisfactory I had changed my judgement and retracted that and other such writings long ago But I thought so much otherwise of them that I judged it not necessary nor worth my diverting from better employment to write an answer to them § 2. And whatever the singular judgement of that learned and excellent Professor of Theology mentioned in his Preface was or is concerning the arguments that I and many before and since have used for Infant Baptism and notwithstanding his opinion that it was introduced in the second Century c. yet so many wiser and better men than I think otherwise both of the cause and of Mr. T 's writings that I hope the modest will allow me the honour of having very good company if I should prove mistaken § 3. No sober Christian will deny but that Godly men of both opinions may be saved And then I think no such Christian that is acquainted with the History of the Church can choose but think that there are now in Heaven many thousands if not hundred thousands that were not against Infant Baptism for one that was against it And while we differ de jure yet without great ignorance of the state of the world we must needs agree that de facto the number in the Church of Christ in all Nations and Ages that have been against Infant Baptism hath been so small as that they make up but a very little part of the Church triumphant which though I take for no proof of the truth of our opinion yet I judge it a great reason to make me and others very fearful of turning rashly and without cogent proof to the other side I know the Churches have still had their blemishes but that they should all universally so err in the subject of Baptism and Christianity it self is not to be believed till it be proved § 4. Though Christ be not the Author of any of our errors he is the healer of them and he is the Effector as well as the Director of his Churches faith and holiness And yet to say that though thousands or hundred thousands are in Heaven that were for Infant Baptism for one that was against it yet Christ was against even such a constitutive part of his Church as accounted is not to be received without good proof § 5. For my part I must still say that after all that I have read for the Anabaptists and much more than such Catalogues as Mr. Danvers I do not at present remember that I have read of any one Christian that held the baptizing of Infants unlawful in many and many hundred years after Christ at least not any that denied not Original sin Though indeed the Pelagians themselves that did deny it much yet denied not Infant Baptism § 6. But of this enough heretofore I lay not my faith on the number of Consenters but in a doubtful case I think the way that almost all went that are in Heaven and took it as the very entrance of the door of life is safer caeteris paribus than that which few in Heaven did own And though on earth I have more approvers than Mr. T. I think mans approbation so poor a comfort as that I am sorry to read in his Preface and elsewhere how much he layeth upon it Alas were it not more for the good of others than our selves how inconsiderable a matter were it whether men value and honour or despise us and what we are thought or said of by each other when we are all on the borders of eternity where the honour of this world is of no signification § 7. In the answer which I must give to Mr. Tombes should I transcribe all his words and answer every impertinent passage I should needlesly weary the Reader and my self I will therefore suppose the Reader to have his Book at hand and to take his words as he hath given him them that I may not be blamed as concealing any of them And I shall answer to nothing but what seemeth to me to need an answer And for all the rest I am content that the impartial Reader judge of them as he findeth them For I write not for such as need an answer to every word that is written how frivolous soever against plain truth Mr. Tombes his first Letter SIR NOt finding yet that Law or Ordinance of Infants visible Church-membership which you assert in your book of Baptism to be unrepealed I do request you to set down the particular Text or Texts of Holy Scripture where you conceive that Law or Ordinance is written and to transmit it to me by this bearer that your allegations may be considered by him who is April 3. 1655. Yours as is meet John Tombes Richard Baxters Answer Sir I mean to see more said against what I have already written before I will write any more about Infant Baptism without a more pressing call than I yet discern I have discharged my Conscience and shall leave you and yours to take your course And indeed I do not understand the sense of your Letter because you so joyn two questions in one that I know not which of the two it is that you would have me answer to Whether there were any Ordinances or Law of God that Infants should be Church-members is one question Whether this be repealed is another you joyn both into one For the first that Infants were Church-members as you have not yet denied that I know of so will I not be so uncharitable as to imagine that you are now about it And much less that you should have the least doubt whether it were by Gods Ordination There are two things considerable in the matter First the benefit of Church-membership with all the consequent priviledges It is the
by a Legal right to it antecedent to their being such visible Church-members which they or any for them might claim as due Nor was it capable of being duly and rightfully received or usurped For it was nothing but a state of appearing to be part of that people who were in appearance from things sensible Gods people and this they had by Gods fact of making them to be a part of that people visibly viz. his forming them and bringing them into the world and placing them Reply More mystery still 1. Was there no antecedent Law or Covenant of God giving a jus societatis a Right of membership to Abrahams seed as soon as they had a being initially and commanding them to be devoted to God in Covenant and Circumcised that they by investiture might have a plenary Right Was there no such thing O but this gave them not a right to it before they had it Is the poor Church to be thus abused and holy things thus played with They could not be members before they had a being nor could lay claim to it But could not Gods Law Grant or Instrumental Covenant be made before they were born And could it not be the Instrument of conveying right to them as soon as they were born that is as soon as they were subjects capable And is not the cause in order of nature though not of time before the effect Cannot the Law of the Land be the fundamental cause of the Right of Infants to Honours and Estates though till they are in being they are not capable subjects Is not the Action ut agentis naturally antecedent to it as in patiente Is it only Gods transeunt fact of making them men and these men and placing them in England which maketh Infants to be members of the English Nobility or Gentry or Citizens or members of this Kingdom No but it is the Laws that do morally give the Jus dignitatis vel societatis though their action be not terminated in any subject till it exist For every man born in England is not born a Lord or Esquire or Citizen no nor a free subject unless the Law say it shall be so If Foreigners or Rebels should have children here and the Law were that they shall be Aliens they would be no members of the Kingdom If Mr. T. or Mr. D's children have nothing but Generation and being born in England to shew for their Inheritance their Title will not hold 2. And might not right have been falsly pleadded or usurped by a counterfeit Jew Or the children of such Or the children of Apostates who yet were born of Abrahams seed and in that Land Whatsoever they were that Nehemiah used severely I am sure Achans children and the Infants of the Cities that were to be consumed for Idolatry lost their right to life and Church-membership at once by their Parents sin And God might if he had pleased have continued the Life of Apostates children without continuing their Church-right Or Apostates might and no doubt multitudes did escape the justice of the Law through the fault of Magistrates or people and yet have no true Legal Right to Church-membership for themselves or Infants born after For he that hath lost his right to life hath lost his right or may do to the priviledges and benefits of it He addeth yet I grant they had a right in it that is that they had it by Gods donation Reply And was it not a Moral Donation then if it gave Right You will be forced thus to confute your self Mr. T. It seems to me not true that the nature of the benefit of Infants visible membership consisteth in a right to further benefits Reply Yet he giveth not a word to tell us why he thinketh so If we are at this pass about Relations and Right in general no marvail if Infant Baptism go for Antichristian Doth not the Relative state of a Citizen or of the member of any priviledged society consist in his state of Right to the Benefits Priviledges and Communion of the Society and an obligation to the duties of a member to the end he may have the benefits and the Society the benefit of his membership and duty A conjunction of Right 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and obligation constituteth all such Relations But what shall we be agreed in that are ignorant and differ here Next Mr. T. denieth the consequence For a man may have a benefit without right Reply 1. And yet just now Church-membership in Israel was a thing that none could usurp or have without right 2. But I said no man can have a benefit from God against his will or without it And therefore if God give such a thing as Church-membership which consisteth in a Right to further benefits he that hath it by Gods gift hath it rightfully Natural effects as a prey to a thief may be said to be given of God improperly by Physical disposal to him that hath no right But right it self cannot be given to him that hath no right nor any thing else Relative or Natural by Gods Moral or Covenant donation He conceiveth it to be very erroneous that visible Church-membership is given out of distributive Justice for as Regeneration so also visible membership are of bounty by God as Soveraign Lord not of distributive Justice by God as Judge 2. That all that any man hath of God he hath of debt contrary to Rom. 4.4 3. That visible Church-membership is conceived as a thing offered and to be duly and rightfully received Reply If Mr. T. and I shall tire the Printer and wast Paper and trouble the world with telling them how many errors each of us hold it will be an unsavory task and I doubt it would be a much shorter work for one of us which ever it is to enumerate the useful truths we hold What I hold be it right or wrong I will tell the Reader as to this matter I hold that Gods Kingdom is to be considered in its Constitution and Administration The first hath 1. The efficient 2. The Constitutive 3. The final Causes And in the large sense it containeth 1. Subjects only by obligation such as Rebels are 2. Subjects by consent or voluntary The Efficient cause of the former is only Gods 1. Making them men and Redeemed men quoad precium and commanding their subjection or consent To the effecting of the second is besides these required their Actual Consent Parents consenting for their Infants without which they are but Rebels and have no right to the benefits of the Society God being a King de jure before his Government is Consented to maketh a Law to man to command them to consent and be his voluntary subjects To those that consent as the condition he promiseth the interest and blessings of his Covenant viz. Christ and Life and threatneth the privation of those benefits and sorer punishment to refusing rebels He is Lawgiver and will be Judge of Non-consenters called Vnbelievers and
Cause of Being and Motion as such As a free Benefactor he is the first Cause of all our Good as such And as a Sapiential Rector and Benefactor conjunctly that is by Paternal government he is the first cause of Right Being and Motion are the effects of Physical efficiency Jus vel Debitum is the very formal effect or object of Moral Efficiency by a Rector and the formal object of Ethicks To be a Church-member is to have a stated Relation consisting in Right to the Benefits and obligation to the duty as was said before He denieth this to be any Right and to have any such Civil-moral cause as Right hath but to be quid Physicum as Health strength Riches and an answerable Physical cause Let the shame of this ignorance reform the common error of Schools that teach not their children betimes the principles of Ethicks Politicks or Governing Order It is a shame that at 16. years old any should be so ignorant as these words import I must speak it or I comply with the powers of darkness that so shamefully oppose the truth SECT XXIV XXV R. B. 2. GOD hath expresly called that act a Covenant or promise by which he conveyeth this right which we shall more fully manifest anon when we come to it The second Proposition to be proved is that there was a Law or Precept of God obliging the Parents to enter their children into Covenant and Church-membership by accepting of his offer and re-engaging them to God And this is as obvious and easie as the former But first I shall in a word here also explain the terms The word Law is sometimes taken more largely and unfitly as comprehending the very immanent acts or the nature of God considered without any sign to represent it to the creature So many call Gods nature or purposes the Eternal Law which indeed is no law nor can be fitly so called 2. It is taken properly for an authoritative determination de debito constituendo vel confirmando And so it comprehendeth all that may fitly be called a law Some define it Jussum majestatis obligans aut ad obedientiam aut ad poenam But this leaves out the premiant part and some others So that of Grotius doth Est regula actionum moralium obligans ad id quod rectum est I acquiesce in the first or rather in this which is more full and exact A law is a sign of the Rectors will constituting or confirming right or dueness That it be a sign of the Rectors will de debito constituendo vel confirmando is the general nature of all laws Some quarrel at the word sign because it is logical and not political As if Politicians should not speak logically as well as other men There is a twofold due 1. What is due from us to God or any Rector and this is signified in the precept and prohibition or in the precept de agendo non agendo 2. What shall be due to us and this is signified by promises or the premiant part of the law and by laws for distribution and determination of proprieties All benefits are given us by God in a double relation both as Rector and Benefactor or as Benefactor Regens or as Rector benefaciens though among men that stand not in such a subordination to one another as we do to God they may be received from a meer benefactor without any regent interest therein The first laws do ever constitute the debitum or right afterward there may be renewed laws and precepts to urge men to obey the former or to do the same thing and the end of these is either fullier to acquaint the subject with the former or to revive the memory of them or to excite to the obedience of them And these do not properly constitute duty because it was constituted before but the nature and power of the act is the same with that which doth constitute it and therefore doth confirm the constitution and again oblige us to what we were obliged to before For obligations to one and the same duty may be multiplied 3. Some take the word law in so restrained a sence as to exclude verbal or particular precepts especially directed but to one or a few men and will only call that a law which is written or at least a well known custom obliging a whole society in a stated way These be the most eminent sort of laws but to say that the rest are no laws is vain and groundless against the true general definition of a Law and justly rejected by the wisest Politicians That which we are now to enquire after is a precept or the commanding part of a law which is a sign of Gods will obliging us to duty of which signs there are materially several sorts as 1. by a voice that 's evidently of God 2. by writing 3. by visible works or effects 4. by secret impresses as by inspiration which is a law only to him that hath them Mr. T. I assert 1. There is no such offer promise or Covenant 2. That though there are precepts for Parents to pray for their Children to breed them up yet they are not bound to believe this that upon their own faith God will take their Infant Children to be his and will be a God to them nor to accept of this pretended offer 3. That though Parents may enter into Covenant for their Children as Deut. 29.12 they do not by this make them partakers of the Covenant or promise that God will be their God Reply What a deal of the Gospel and the Churches mercys do these men deny 1. The very nature of our own Holy Covenant is that in it we give up to God our selves and all that is ours according to the capacity of that all And as our Riches are devoted hereby as capable utensils so our Infants as capable of Infant Relation Obligation and Right What is it that a sanctified man must not devote to God that is His If you except Liberty Health Life you are hypocrites And can you except Children It 's true this is but so far as they are our own and we say no more when they have a will to choose for themselves they must do it 2. I have fully proved Scripture commands for Parents to offer their Children to God and that signifieth his will to accept what he commandeth them to offer And his promises to shew mercy to them as theirs are plain and many which I must not tire the Reader with repeating Mr. T. addeth That if there were such a promise and duty of accepting the pretended offer and re-engaging yet this neither did then nor doth now make Infants visible Church-members Reply Reader are not the Anabaptists ductile men where they like as well as intractable where they dislike that they will follow such a Leader as this Promise and Duty of accepting and re-engaging aggravateth the sin of Rebels that reject it but if these performed
big words than to macerate their bodies by imploying their minds in serious long unwearied studies till they have received into their minds the well digested frame of sacred truths § 6. And if this tribe can keep the major vote as it must be a strangely happy country where they do not whoever will be wiser than they shall be a heretick But if it fall out better and they be the weaker part they will make up their honour by the way of singularity among so many as they can get to believe that they are masters of some excellent truths which almost all the Christian world is unacquainted with § 7. And even in men otherwise truly pious there is so much remaining pride as is greatly gratified by singularity Selfishness and the Old man are but One. And an opinion that is peculiarly their own is as lovely to them as their own Children in comparison of others If they can say ego primus inveni it is sweetest If not yet to be one of a singular Society that is supposed wiser and better and more excellent in their way of worship than all others is very comfortable to them that by taking the elect to be fewer than they are do judge it a good mark to hold what few hold and do as few do § 8. And there may be a conjunction of good and evil in the cause of these effects And from hence we now live among many that fall into various kinds of Sects and every one hopeth for the comforts of singularity in their way Many turn Quakers because they are singular in their austerities And many Congregations will not endure the singing of Gods Praise in Psalms at least in Davids Psalms and some will not have the Scriptures read and some are against humane learning and studies and some against Preaching upon a Text and Praying before and after Sermon and some against ordinary Family-worship and many startle if they hear the Creed the Lords-Prayer and Commandments and hence also the Doctrine of denying all Christians Infants Church-membership hath prospered § 9. And too many honest persons in opposition to ungodliness are disaffected to lawful and laudable things in the worship of God meerly because the Vngodly use them When as experience telleth all the world that they that have no Religion in sincerity will usually joyn with the Religion that is uppermost And so if good Rulers and Teachers set up that which is best the best will be outwardly the way of the ungodly and if we must needs be singular from them we must take the worst and leave them the best to their self deceit and our shame § 10. I have thought by this weakness of some singular people that if God should but let us have a King and other Rulers that were Antinomians and against Infant Baptism and against singing Psalms and against the use of the Creed and Lords Prayer and such other things and withal were themselves of wicked lives and would make Laws for their own way and impose it on the people so that the ungodly multitude did fall into this way it would presently cure most that are now for such opinions And though the Godly and the wicked must be greatly differenced in the Church yet before we are aware our secret Pride sets in with this desire of discipline and maketh us much desire to seem eminently Good by a more notable and conspicuous difference from the common sort of Christians than God in Scripture or reason doth allow 2. And how much Ignorance hath to do in all our controversies would soon be acknowledged if the question concerned not our selves For every disputer accuseth his adversary of Ignorance If they be of ten minds inconsistent nine of them must needs be erroneous and therefore Ignorant and yet every one chargeth it on the rest and thinks that he alone is free Alas that mans soul which here must act in such a puddle of brains and in so frail a receptive engine as it here useth should have such high and confident thoughts of its own untryed and undigested conceptions that will not let Ignorance be acknowledged or cured Most certainly we are all so dark and weak that it is but a few Great necessary things or such as are very plain which we have cause to be confident of without all suspicion of mistake Most certainly natural dulness or short and superficial studies through sloth or diversions or want of right teachers or an early reception of wrong methods or opinions leading unto more and many such causes doth and will keep not only most Christians but most Teachers of the Church in so low a measure of Knowledge as unfitteth them to master and manage very difficult controversies And yet sad experience telleth us that he that is least able to speak is oft least able to hold his tongue And it 's too rare to find a man that is not Ignorant of his Ignorance and that chargeth not him with Pride that will presume to contradict him What wonder then if disputes be endless § 12. 3. And that wrath is in the cause needs no proof but experience while we see men come forth with militant dispositions and animosity is their valour and how to make their adversaries seem contemptible or odious is their work § 13. 2. And if I should but open to you the Disputing evil in the effects as I have done in the Causes what a woful tragedy of 1500 years duration should I present you with But I shall put off that part of the work supposing that sight and experience do inform you more effectually than words can do § 14. On all these accounts I still say as Paul The servant of the Lord must not needlesly strive nor meddle with those wranglings which minister Questions rather than godly edifying which is in faith For the end of the Commandment is Love out of a pure heart and a good Conscience and faith unfeigned And the high pretenders are too often proud knowing nothing but doting about questions and strifes of words whereof cometh envy strife railing evil surmising perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth § 15. II. But yet for all this as Politicians use to tell Tyrants that if God and man did but secure them from all resistance men would flie from them as from Tigers or Crocodiles and suppose their boundless uncontrouled pride and cruelty would be insatiable so I say of Heretitical and truly Schismatical Contenders that If they were once secured that whatever folly heresie or ungodly mischievous conceits they vend and that with the greatest industry and turbulency to deceive the people no man yet must contradict them nor open their folly that it may be known to all and go no further for fear of being taken for a man of disputation controversie and strife this would so embolden them to attempt the seduction of all sorts of people that no place would be safe or quiet §
16. It is a foolish pretence of peaceableness and quietness to stand by in silence for fear of our own or others trouble and see well-meaning people seduced Christ and his truth and name abused and God dishonoured and his Churches shaken and made a scorn and scandal to the world and all for fear of being accounted contentious If it be lukewarm as they say themselves to hear dayly swearers cursers scorners and such other prophane sinners and not give them a close reproof or admonition so much more is it to see or hear hurtful falshoods published as the precious truths of God and not to contradict it nor endeavour to save mens souls from the infection If Satans work must be done without resistance as oft as a mistaken well-meaning man will do it there will be little safety for the flocks § 17. When Paul fore-told the Ephesians of two sorts that would assault them viz. Grievous devouring wolves and men arising among themselves that would speak perverse things to draw away disciples after them his conclusion is Therefore watch And what that watching is he tells Timothy The mouths of such deceivers must be stopped not by force for that Timothy had no power to do but by evident truth And Truth hath a power in its evidence if it be but rightly opened and managed And were it not that God in all ages had enabled some of his servants faithfully and clearly to vindicate truth and defend sound doctrine and hold fast the form of wholesome words and stop the mouth of ignorant pride that wrangleth against them what had become of us long agoe And though ill disputes have done much mischief and too often disputing succedeth more according to the Parts interests or advantages of the Disputers than according to the evidence of truth Yet for all such abuses Truth must be defended and it findeth something even in nature as bad as man is to befriend it few love a plain falshood unless where interest greatly bribeth them And upon tryal Truth will at last prevail where sin doth not provoke God in judgement to leave men to the delusions which they chuse § 18. If then the way be to Teach and Learn and quietly open the evidence of truth and in meekness to instruct those that oppose themselves and to avoid contentions as we avoid wars till other mens assâ—ults do make them unavoidably necessary and yet not to be cowardly betrayers of the Truth and Church of God nor suffer Satan to deceive men unresisted but earnestly to contend for the faith once delivered to the Saints It must be considered I. To whom this earnest contending may be used II. And by whom § 19. I. We must not be over sharp or earnest 1. With those that are yet strangers to Religion of whose conversion there is hope and who are liker to be won by a gentler way which more demonstrateth love and tenderness 2 Tim. 2.25 26. § 20. 2. Nor with Godly Christians who fall into such sins of infirmity as we are lyable to and whose tenderness maketh compassionate tender dealing fittest to their recovery Gal. 6.1 2 3. § 21. 3. Nor with humbled dejected Christians who are apter than we to aggravate their own faults and have need of comfort to restrain their sorrows and keep them from despair 2 Cor. 2.7 § 22. 4. Nor with sinners that under conversion and repentance are humbling themselves by confession to God and man Luk. 15. Philem. 10 16 17. § 23. 5. Nor with Christians that differ from us in tolerable matters and manage their differences but with tolerable infirmities not hazarding the safety of the Church or mens souls § 24. But in these cases we must use plainness sharpness and earnestness 1. When in secret where mens honour with others is not concerned it is necessary to mens convictâ—on and repentance 1. Because of the Greatness of the sin or error which will not be known if it be not truly opened and aggravated 2. Or by reason of the hard-heartedness or obstinacy of the sinner that will not be convinced or humbled by easier means § 25. 2. And when we are called so to admonish a publick sinner for his crimes or heresies which must be opened as they are before he will be convinced and humbled openly before the Church § 26. 3. And when the people or Church is in danger of being infected by the sin or error if the evil of it be not fully and plainly opened and the sinner rebuked before all that others may beware § 27. 4. When the offender or heretick sheweth us by his obstinacy that we have no cause to expect his cure and conviction but are only to defend Gods truth and mens souls against him then he must be used as Christ did the Pharisees and as Rulers execute malefactors not for their own good but for the warning of others and preservation of the innocent § 28. 5. And when our gentle speeches tend to scandalize those without and make them think that we prevaricate and favour Christians in their sins § 29. All these cases you may see proved 1. In Nathans dealing with David and Christs with Peter Matth. 16. and Pauls Gal. 2. c. 2. In Pauls dealing with the incestuous man 1 Cor. 5. and Peters with Ananias and his wife 1 Tim. 5.20 Them that sin rebuke before all c. 2 Tim. 4.2 Tit. 1.13 Rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith cuttingly Tit. 2.15 Rebuke with all authority especially when we deal with Inferiors who must be humbled Tit. 3.10 11. Mat. 23. throughout And Eli's gentleness or remisness is our warning § 30. II. And as to the persons who must use this sharpness and earnestness against errors and sinners in contending for the faith 1. It is not those who overvalue their own conceptions and grow fond of all that is peculiarly their own and insolently take all men to be enemies to truth and faith and godliness who are adversaries to their odd opinions 2. Nor must inferiors rise up with insolency against superiors or the young against their elders and the ignorant against the wife on pretence of a zealous standing for the truth Though they may humbly and modestly defend that which is truth indeed 3. Nor should unstudyed Christians presently think hardly of any party and backbite them and inveigh against them because their Leaders call them hereticks or reproach them as erroneous dangerous men as almost all parties do against each other 4. Nor should those Ministers who have not a through insight into a Controversie meddle much with it nor be too forward to reprove and reproach where they do not understand nor to undertake disputes which they cannot manage 5. But as God doth indow men with various gifts if each man were imployed according to his talent all would have their honour and comfort and the Church the benefit of them all § 31. We have notoriously all these sorts of Ministers in the
Tombes had printed the last private papers which past between him and me without my consent I never answered his reply to this day not striving to have the last word and supposing that the studious impartial Reader would find no need of a rejoynder For to me his Reply seemed so empty and next nothing that I thought it unnecessary to say any more § 3. But it is now grown the custom among Papists and Sectaries and almost all the wranglers that trouble the world to scribble somewhat sense or nonsense against that truth which they have not wit or will or humility enough to learn and then say to those that would make them wiser you are answered and it goeth for a victory to any foolery if they can but say such a one that hath written against you is unanswered As if we dealt on such terms with the world in writing as that he that speaketh last that is that liveth longest must be supposed to be in the right Or as if we knew not when we write against the grossest heresie or error that as many words may be said or written for it as against it § 4. And O what pity is it that with the vulgar sort of well-meaning people number goeth for weight and he seemeth to be in the right to them who is nearest them and hath best opportunity to talk to them a few smooth deceitful words for his opinion and to belie and vilifie those that are against him Not but that there are great fundamental Truths which manifest themselves which I hope these honest souls would not be drawn from by an Angel from Heaven But verily no true Charity can be so blind as to deny it that in lower controverted points the knowledge of the vulgar Religious people is so low that he that is lower than an Angel or than a well-studied Divine or than a man of sober solid reason may deceive them having first been himself deceived if he can but speak zealously and reproach others impudently by the spirit described and exorcised in Jam. 3. at large § 5. And I crave thy pity Reader to my self and such as I that our Time and Employment is so much at the will and mercy of such a sort of wrangling men That if I have it in my desire to do Gods Church service upon some greater and more needful subject yet it is in the power of the Devil to stir up the corruption of honest well-meaning Christians to put a necessity on me to do some poor inconsiderable works and leave undone the greater and more excellent § 6. For circumstances may make it a mans duty to do that as presently necessary which within a few years will be of no signification but die with the interests and quarrels of the age § 7. It hath pleased the Lord who did let loose the Serpent upon Adam in Paradise to exercise his Church in almost all ages with temptations from two sorts that seem much contrary but are nearer in disposition and principles than they well understand themselves I mean Church-Tyrants and Church-Dividers And though I and most others of my quality have suffered incomparably more by the former yet it is not a little that I have suffered by the later And especially that by their slanderous and clamorous unquiet importunity they will not give me leave to live by them in peace nor to go on in better work while I meddle not with them I could not obtain that leave from Mr. Tombs And now Mr. D. hath been pleased to open the mouths of so many of his partakers against me as maketh wise men tell me that to be silent will be to be scandalously guilty of their sin And do we live upon these terms that any Railer can call us off from our better services when ever He and Satan please § 8. But my purpose is to meddle with them but this once And if after this these crying Children will bawl and wrangle and foul the house and think that I am made for no better work than either to rock the Cradle or to make them clean I will let them cry and take their course and will no more believe that their humours are the masters of my time § 9. By three or four arguments of his making it hath pleased one Major Danvers a Souldier to call me to this task 1. By heaping up a Catalogue of Accusations against my Doctrine in my Christian Directory 2. By reproaching me for not answering Mr. Tombes 3. By proclaiming me to the world a slanderer who owe the Anabaptists satisfaction for saying that many of them were Baptized naked 4. By perverse citations of my later Writings as if they had been serviceable to his cause 5. By his injury to poor souls and the Churches peace by his ignorant though confident opposition to the truth and writing a Volume of he knoweth not what § 10. And to add to my invitation it is become of late a common saying among the Anabaptists that I am turned to their opinion or very near it but have not humility to retract my former error and openly acknowledge what I hold § 11. The occasion of this is 1. Because I have so many years forborn to answer Mr. Tombes his last 2. Because I seek peace with them and speak for it upon all occasions and seek to abate other mens over-great opposition to them 3. Because upon all occasions I press the consideration and improvement of our Baptism taking it for the summ and Character of our Christianity and the true description of Conversion and the essential mark of Grace and the qualification of Catholick Church-members and the bond of all our Christian duty As if none but Anabaptists could think thus § 12. When I first read Major Danvers Book I thought such a Fardle could not be so regarded as to need an Answer But when his Bookseller came to know of me what I had against it as from him and when I heard how many thousands of them were Printed I rather chose to imitate him that had compassion on a headless multitude than him that said si populus vult decipi decipiatur And they that will not let me rest must bear some of the fruits of my disquietment CHAP. II. More of my Judgement of the Anabaptists and their Cause with a motion to them for peace § 1. I Confess that in my Book against Mr. Tombes I wrote several pages enigmatically of the offensive scandals of the Anabaptists And they that now read them when the occasion is forgotten or unknown will either not understand them or think them too sharp But in all military Controversies no man is so meet a Judge as he that is on the ground § 2. I am almost ready to condemn my self for that and many other things past when I forget the occasion of them and the state that we were in But I will not deny that at that time my heart felt more than I exprest 1.
not receive them though we approve not of their way § 30. And were it in my power as a Pastor of the Church I would give satisfaction by such an answerable profession as this Though it be our judgement that Infants have ever been members of Gods visible Church since he had a Church and there were Infants in the world and do believe that Christ hath signified in the Gospel that it is his gracious will that they should still be so And that he that commanded Mat. 28.19 Go ye and Disciple all Nations Baptizing them would have his Ministers endeavour accordingly to do it and hath hereby made Baptism the regular orderly way of solemn entrance into a visible Church state and therefore we devote this child to God in the Baptismal Covenant Yet we do also hold that when he cometh to age it will be his duty as seriously and devoutly to make this Covenant with God understandingly himself and to dedicate himself to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as those must do that never were Baptized in Infancie And we promise to endeavour faithfully as we have opportunity to instruct and perswade him so to do hoping that this his early Baptismal dedication and obligation to God will rather much prepare him for it than hinder it § 31. Me thinks these Professions should put off the chief matter of offence and exception against each other as to the ill consequents of our opinions And if sober good men would by such a mutual approach be the more disposed to live together in love and holy peace how easily should I bear the scorns of those Formalists that will reproach me for so much as motioning a Peace with the Anabaptists even in the same Communion Who by making it a reproach will but perswade me that such as they are less worthy of Christian Communion than sober pious and peaceable Anabaptists § 32. And if with the partial sort of themselves such motions of Peace be turned into matter of contempt and they proceed in their clamours and reviling of me as an enemy of the truth for being against their way I shall account it no wonder nor matter of much provocation finding in all Sects as well as theirs that the injudicious sort are apt to be abusively censorious and the more mens Pride Ignorance and uncharitableness remain the more they will swell into self-conceit and trouble the Church with a mistaking wrangling hurtful sort of zeal § 33. And as I must needs believe as ill of some sort of Zeal as St. James hath spoken of it Jam. 3. and experience hath too long told the world of it yet I take it for truly amiable in men that they have a love and Zeal for Truth in general and a hatred to that which they think to be against it and that their bitterness against the truth and me is upon a supposition that both are against the truth and God for this beareth them witness that they have a zeal of God though it be not according to Knowledge and if they knew truth indeed they would be zealous for it § 34. I conclude with this notice to the contrary minded that the evidence for Infants Church-membership seemeth to me so clear both in nature and in Scripture that I bid them despair of ever perswading me against it But if they will have any hope of changing my judgement it must be by confessing the visible Church-membership of Infants and proving that yet they are not to be baptized and that Baptism was appointed for initiating none but adult converts and not to be the common entrance into the Church which yet I think they can never do while the plain Law of Christ Mat. 29.19 and the exposition of the universal Church doth stand on record to confute such an opinion But here they have more room for a dispute § 35. But though I expect to be censured for it I will say once because truth is truth that though Rebaptizing and Reordaining are justly both condemned by the ancient Churches and pronounced alike ridiculous by Gregory Mag. Lib. 2. Ep. Indict 11. c. 46. and many others yet were men Rebaptized but for Certainty to themselves or to the Church and to quiet their consciences and on such terms as in my Christian Directory I have shewed that a seeming Reordination might in some cases be tolerated and would not wrong Infants nor make it an occasion of division or alienation I know not by any Scripture or reason that such Rebaptizing is so heinous a sin as should warrant us to contemn our brethren No though it were as faulty as the oft commemorative baptizing used by the Abassines CHAP. III. A General View of Mr. Danvers book § 1. MR. Danvers book is entitled a Treatise of Baptism in which he giveth us the History of Infant and Adult Baptism out of Antiquity as making it appear that Infant Baptism was not practised for 300 years in his second edit it is near 300. And in his Append ed. 2. I cannot find that it was practised upon any till the fourth Century And he giveth us a Catalogue of witnesses against it By which those that hold their Religion on the belief of such mens words will conclude that all this is true and that Infant Baptism is a Novelty and those that are against it do go the old and Catholick way § 2. Having perused his testimonies on both sides I am humbled and ashamed for the dulness of my heart that doth not with floods of compassionate tears lament the pittiful condition of the seduced that must be thus deceived in the dark and of the Churches of Christ that must be thus assaulted and shaken and distracted by such inhumane horrid means The book being composed in that part of history which the stress of the cause lyeth on of such UNTRUTHS in fact and history as I profess it one of my greatest difficulties to know how to call them Should I say that they are so notorious and shameless as that I say not only a Papist but any sober Turk or Pagan should blush to have been guilty but of some page or line◠of them and much more a man of any tenderness of conscience the Readers would think that the language were harsh were it never so true and some would say Let us have soft words and hard arguments And should I not tell the Reader the truth of the case I might help to betray him into too much fearlesness of his bait and snare and I doubt I may be guilty of untruth by concealing the quality of his untruths And it is not matter of Argument but fact that I am speaking of § 3. But it pleaseth that God whose counsels are unsearchable as to permit five parts of the Earth to remain yet strangers unto Christ so to permit his Church to be so tryed and distracted between Church Tyranny and dividing separations Sects and parties as that in many ages it hath not been easie to
know which of them was the more pernicious § 4. And it must grieve every conscionable and discerning lover of Truth and Peace to observe how these two Church-disturbing parties do by their extremities of opposition increase as well as exasperate each other As the Ithacian Prelates did by the Priscillianists and the Priscillianists by them The Pride covetousness dead formality and cruel violence of Clergie Tyrants maketh the poor Sectaries think that they must go so far from them till they have lost themselves and know not where they are and as Mr. Danvers musters up a catalogue of my sayings in his mode and dress which seem ugly to the poor man that thinks he seeth Antichristianity in such Gospel and natural truths which he understandeth not Like that melancholy person who thinks she seeth Spiders upon every one that comes near her and they must brush them off before she can converse with them though she be caetera sana so those on the other extream think them so fanatick and almost mad that they are apt to suspect every word almost that they say of madness and sometimes thereby injure the truths of the Gospel and soberer people that partake not of their guilt and so say of such as agree with them but in aliquo tertio They are all alike § 5. This was the main cause which made St Martin separate from his neighbour Bishops and deny communion with them to the death Because their persecution of the Priscillianists had so animated the looser sort against strict Religious people that they had brought men under the suspicion of Priscillianism if they did but fast and pray and read and talk of the Scripture It 's easie to see of late who they are that have done the like § 6. When this sort of men see the weakness of the Sectaries and the bold-faced falshood which such as Mr. Danvers obtrude on the world and hear them furiously revile what they understand not it maketh them think that they are fitter for Bedlam than for humane societie And their consciences justifie them for all the cruelties that they use against either them or more innocent persons whom in their ignorance and uncharitableness they number with them § 7. And on the like account when they read and hear their erroneous Doctrines and hear their incongruous words in prayer they think they can never be too strict in shackling them and all others in prescribed forms And nothing quieteth their Consciences in all this so much as the undeniable errors and follies and miscarriages of those that thus provoke them § 8. But in this the Church in Augustines days did not think that way the wisest cure when he saith Afferat ut fieri solet aliquam precem in qua loquatur contra regulam fidei multi quippe irruunt in preces non solum ab imperitis loquacibus sed etiam ab haereticis compositas per ignorantiae simplicitatem non eas valentes discernere utuntur iis arbitrantes quod bonae sint Nec tamen quod in eis perversum est evacuat illa quae ibi recta sunt sed ab eis potius evacuatur Aug. de bapt cont Donat. as I remember about lib. 5. c. 11. O truly charitable and peaceable Doctrine And he that will separate from other for every difference or real error in Doctrine or Prayers shall have enow to separate from him § 9. I know nothing that so much multiplieth Sectaries as the notorious miscarriages of Church-Tyrants that oppose them And I know nothing next carnal interest it self that so much multiplieth and confirmeth Papists and Church-Tyrants as the madness of the Sectaries· The wildeness but especially the diversity of their opinions hath done more to increase the number of Papists among us than any thing that ever the Papists themselves could otherwise say for their cause For people see so many giddy with turning round and see so many Sects among us that they are confounded and know not which to be of but they must lay hold of somewhat that is more stable or be wheel-sick § 10. O what a confirmation is it to a Papist to find such a one as Mr. Danvers calling Gods Truths and Ordinances Antichristian Yea our very Baptismal Covenant and dedication to Christ is Antichristian and the chief Fathers and Martyrs of the Church are Antichristian no wonder if I be so And I doubt almost all the Church of Christ for 900 years at least in this mans reckoning And what will the Papists desire more With what scorn will they deride such men Wo be to him by whom offence cometh The chief Quakers are charged by Mr. Faldo and others even some of their own name of denying the person and office of Christ himself It is worth the enquiring whether they reject him not as Antichrist and call not Christianity by the name of Antichristianity CHAP. IV. Of Mr. Danvers's his Witnesses against Infant-Baptism § 1. WHen he hath told you that In his small search shamefully small he cannot find there is any authentick testimony that it was practised on any till the fourth Century he in the next words saith that it is granted that Tertullian spake against it in Africa which is clear evidence that some had been speaking for it in that corner of the world This is no contradiction with him And did they only speak for it and not practise it Speak once like a man And was not that till the fourth Century § 2. His Catalogue containeth three Columns The first of the Baptism of the Adult And what Christian ever denied this And what meaneth the man in labouring to prove it The second is of the Instituting and asserting of Infant-Baptism of which more anon The third is of his Witnesses against Infant-Baptism And the first of these mentioned in the Catalogue is Tertullian in the third Century By which he seemeth to confess that till the third Century he hath no witness against it But I have said so much elsewhere and others more to prove 1. That Tertullians words prove that Infant-Baptism de facto was then in use 2. That he only telleth his opinion of the point of convenience but concludeth not against Infant-Baptism as unlawful 3. That it is most probable he speaketh of the Infants of Heathens 4. That he speaketh from that strict singularity which made him plead also for the Montanists Fanaticism and against second marriages and for his inordinate fastings c. as a man differing from the Churches and numbered with the Hereticks though I think him a learned Godly man And I refer it to the Readers judgement whether in my book of Infant-Baptism I have not proved by many other words in Tertullian that he was not against all Infant-Baptism but for it among Christians § 3. His next and great Witness is the Donatists together This is something were it true but it is such a kind of falshood as I must not name in its due epithets lest you think
delivered down the form and words of baptism to us § 18. Afterward pag. 230. Ed. 2. Mr. Danvers cometh to Austin again and saith that Vincentius Victor did oppose Austin in the point of Infant-baptism citing August li. 3. c. 14. de Anima Answ Not a word of truth no such matter in that Chapter or the whole book § 19. Next he saith Cresconius did also oppose Austin in the point of Infants baptism and did maintain that there was no true baptism but that which administred after faith Answ Utterly false still There was no such controversie between them No wonder if he had miscited sentences that will thus go to falsifie whole Books as speaking of that which they never meddle with Augustine having written against Petilian their best speaker having of a Lawyer been made a Bishop Cresconius a Donatist Grammarian interposed for Petilian and perswaded Austin to gentler thoughts of them but speaks not a word against Infant-baptism § 20. Nay lib. 3. cap. 31. Austin tells us that they held it as well as the Catholicks saith he Circumcisionem certe praeputii in figura futuri baptismi Christi ab antiquis observatum esse negare ut arbitror non audetis That is I suppose you dare not deny that Circumcision was observed by the ancients in figure of the Christian baptism It was a granted thing § 21. And it was Cresconius words to Austin Vna Religio eadem Sacramenta nihil in Christiana observatione diversum adhuc adversus invicem laboramus Saith Austin Quare ergo rebaptizas Christianum Ego non rebaptizo that is We have all one Religion the same Sacraments there is nothing in our Christian observation divers saith Cresconius And yet do we strive against each other Why then dost thou rebaptize a Christian that differeth not from them I rebaptize no Christian saith Austin So that here was no disagreement in Sacraments or any Christian observance Only as Austin saith lib. 7. de bapt c. 2. the quarrel was that the Catholicks were charged to be Traditores quia ex traditoribus the successors of sinners Thus being wise and righteous overmuch did tear and almost ruine the Churches § 22. He addeth pag. 223. Ed. 2. the saying of Osiander Fuller Bullinger that the Donatists and the Anabaptists held the same opinions Answ 1. In what In all things or some that is in the point of Rebaptizing persons before baptized do you own that indeed But not as being against Infant-baptism 2. So many Prelatists have called the Puritans Donatists and abundance of Protestants say that the Papists succeed the Donatists in appropriating the Church to their party Do not write next that they say the Papists are against Infant-baptism lest you make your selves Antichristian also § 23. Reader the Donatists were so great a party of men and had so great a number of Bishops and so many wrote against them whose works are yet extant and their cause had so many publick examinations that I leave it to thee if thou have the brains of a man to judge whether if they had been against Infant-baptism in a time when Austin said no Christian denied it neither Optatus nor Austin nor any other of their most copious opposers would ever have charged them with such an opinion nor any examiners Councils or Historians of their ages even when the Catalogues of hereticks unhappily took in so many little matters as they did and made hereticks some more and worse than they were And now if John Becold will say they were of his side we must believe him § 24. His dealing with the Novatians is the same or worse He feared not in the face of the Sun to write that the Novatians opposed Infant-baptism and numbreth them also with his party When it is a falshood as much aggravated as these particulars import 1. They were an honest and numerous people and scattered almost all over the Empire tolerated till Innocents time in Rome and long tolerated and much favoured by many Emperors and Patriarchs in Constantinople because as Socrates saith they agreed in Doctrine with the Catholicks And could they have denied Infant-baptism and not be accused of it 2. They had many bitter enemies that would soon have cast this in their teeth 3. Many Councils had to do with them where multitudes had opportunity to accuse them 4. They were an ancient Sect arising even in Cyprians time and long continued And in so many generations it would have been known 5. They are put in the Catalogues of many Heresiographers that are keen enough and none of them that ever I found accuse them of any such thing No not Epiphanius himself who is most copious and not very backward to accuse And shall either John of Leyden or any of his party now in the end of the world perswade us by slandering so many thousands of innocent men that they were guilty And can Mr. Danvers now tell us that they held that which for a thousand years hath lain unknown § 25. He citeth Socrates l. 7. c. 9. that Innocent banished them out of Rome Answ Elsewhere indeed Socrates and many more say so But doth that prove they were against Infant-baptism § 26. Somewhat he would fain say at the second hand out of Albaspinaeus Observ 20. I hope he never read the book Albaspinaeus there purposely decideth the Controversie what the Novatian Heresie was in several Chapters and never mentioneth any such opinion or suspicion of them The same doth that great Antiquary Jesuit Petavius and what these two men knew not of the Fathers and Church-history few in the world knew unless I may except Blondel and Vsher In his notes on Epiphanius of the Novatians he entreth on the same Controversie as Albaspinaeus did and never mentioneth any such thing § 27. Next he tells us that Ecbertus and Emericus do assert that the Waldenses the new Cathari conform to the Doctrine and manners of the old the Novatians Answ But did they say that the Novatians were against Infant-Baptism Why did you cite neither words page nor Book And if they had should two railing slanderous Papists near a thousand years after Novatian be taken for witnesses that he was against Infant-baptism against all the History of the Church that concerneth them to the contrary Socrates himself an honest Historian and Sozomen also are ordinarily by the Papists accused as Novatians because they speak fairly and impartially of them as honest men and whether they were or not I know not but by their own words conjâ—cture the contrary And they lived when and where the Novatians were best known And yet tell us not a syllable of any such suspicion of them § 28. Next he saith Perin saith that the Waldenses were the off-spring of the Novatians driven out of Rome about Anno 400. Answ It is very probable Therefore the Waldenses were not against Infant-baptism For it is certain the Novatians were not And the same Perin saith the Waldenses were not But if
adversaries and yet hold such an opinion and never be suspected Do the Anabaptists no better own their cause But the words he alledgeth are but such as he citeth of my own If truly cited no doubt spoken only of the adult and of what the Infants do by them But who can answer words not cited Must we read all his works again to see if there be such a word as oft as such a man will talk to us at this rate § 45. The next is Albanus a zealous godly Minister in the sixth Century was put to death for baptizing Believers though baptized in Infancy or by Hereticks Answ Still all alike 1. Baronius is cited an 413. n. 6. when in my Book there is not a syllable of any such matter 2. But thereabout he hath the History of the Donatists who rebaptized all both old and young as if our Separatists now should tell all England You are all out of the true Church which is only with us and if you come not to us and be not baptized in our Churches you have no true baptism nor can be saved And for such rebaptizing many were troubled And is this a witness against Infant-baptism Shall we not have one true word § 46. His tale of Swermers he refers us for to Merning and Rulicius or Lulicius and Glanaus men that I know not so well as himself and I had rather he had referred me to himself or Mr. Tombes § 47. He addeth p. 231. Nicephorus l. 17. c. 9. saith that In the year 550. one Peter Bishop of Apamen and Zoroarus a Monk in Syria did maintain and defend the point of dipping rebaptization or weder-dipping Answ Did Nicephorus write in Dutch 1. Is dipping any thing to the case of Infants 2. Are you really for Rebaptizing and are you justifying it If not why cite you instances of Rebaptizers Too many besides the Donatists rebaptized others to engage them to their Sect as the only Church 3. Do you know the History of the Council of Calcedon and Dioscorus and the Nestorians Reader believe not this man any further than sense or great evidence constraineth thee That which Nicephorus there saith is this Severus of Antioch and Peter of Apamea and Zooras a Monk were found to curse the Council of Calcedon and to hold but one nature in Christ praeterea anabaptismos aliaque nefandae obscoenitatis plena facinora peragere that is and also to have practised Rebaptizings and other villanies full of such obscenity that is not to be named If he rejoyce in these Witnesses is here a word of Infant-baptism When shall I come to a sentence that is true § 48. The next is Adrian Bishop of Corinth in the seventh Century did publickly oppose Infant-Baptism insomuch as he would neither Baptize them himself nor suffer them to be Baptized by others but wholly denyed Baptism to them Wherefore he was accused by Gregory Mag. Bishop of Rome to John Bishop of Larissa as appears by Gregories Letter to the said John in which among others he complains against the said Adrian that he turned away children from Baptism and let them die without it for which they proceeded against him as a great transgressor and blasphemer Answ Not one true Sentence in all this 1. It 's false that Adrian publickly opposed Infant-Baptism 2. It 's false that he was accused for it by Gregory or that Gregory laid any such thing to his charge 3. Or that they so proceeded if my books be true Reader the case in Gregories Epistles here cited is this Adrian was accused malevolently of many things not by Gregory but to Gregory Among others that through him some Infants had dyed without Baptism Gregory writeth to John Bishop of Larissa on his behalf and saith that no one of the witnesses could say that he knew any such thing by him but that they were told so by the mothers of some children whose Husbands had for their faults been removed from the Church sed nec in baptizatos eos mortis tempus professi sunt occupasse sicut accusatorum continebat invidiosa suggestio cum in Demetriade Civitate baptizatos eos esse constiterit that is Nor did the witnesses say that they died unbaptized as the envious suggestion of the accusers contained for it is manifest that they were baptized in the City Demetrias 1. Is here a word that he was against Infant-baptism 2. Could a Bishop of so great a City and Diocess have been against Infant-baptism and none to be able to prove it even in envious accusations Would not every week detect it 3. Would Great Gregory have thus justified him if he hâ—d but suspected such a thing above a hundred years after Austin said no one Christian thought Infant-baptism vain Was this great Pope an Anabaptist 4. Is it not plain by all this thâ—â— it was but the particulâ—â— children of some excommunicate mens wives who maliciously accuse him not for being against Infant-baptism no nor against their Infants baptism but for delaying it It is like to difference them from the children of Church-members And yet that they were afterward baptized See here what a witness he hath brought § 49. The next in his Catalogue is Aegyptian Divines but after in his book before it he tells you of one Berinius an eminent learned man that professed instruction to be necessary before baptism and that without it baptism ought not to be administred to high or low and citeh Beda l. 4. c. 16. Reader the passage in Beda is but this That Ceadwall having conquered the Isle of Wight gave it to Bishop Wilfrid no friend to Anabaptists who gave it his Sisters Son Bernwin appointing him a Priest called Hildila who by his labour among the Heathens converted and baptized two of the Kings Sons who were baptized and had a strange deliverance And is there a syllable in this story that Infant-baptism is concerned in No nor a word of one Berinus an eminent learned man that professed as he saith though it be nothing to the purpose Nor was the business done as he saith in Lower Saxony but in the Isle of Wight so little is there that hath the least kin to truth in this lamentable Reporter § 50. His Testimony of Aegyptian Divines he citeth two late Papists for instead of just proof who neither of them ever dreamed that those Aegyptians were against Infant-Baptism That the adult should be Catechised and instructed before Baptism all the Christian world agreed That there were some Monasteries of the Aegyptian Monks that would not hold communion with the Church of Rome is known and what a turn was made among many of the Clergy after the Council of Chalcedon on Dioscorâ—s his account whereupon a great body of the Southern Churches cut off from Rome and disowning them are called Nestorians many injuriously to this day And Fulgentius was disswaded from going to the strict Heremites and Monasticks near Aegypt because they were separated from the Roman Communion as you
his own understanding and his ignorant Readers by such silly wranglings animated by partiality let him bear the Consequents and know that I have somewhat else to do with my few remaining hours than to write books on such insufficient invitations and expectations CHAP. VII Of Danvers's many other accusations of me § 1. IT was one of the old Characters of the Hereticks in the Apostles dayes To speak evil of the things that they understood not And that may well be their Character in which they contradict the three great constitutive parts of Christianity and all Religion and true honesty viz. TRUTH HUMILITY and LOVE by Falshood Pride and Malignity called commonly Vncharitablness § 2. The Root of this is when Reigning an unsanctified heart in which these vices remain unmortified covered from the owners knowledge by a form of Godliness and especially a zeal for the wayes of some Party more honoured in the persons eyes for wisdom or piety than others In others there is a great measure of the same vices mixed with true Grace where an evil and a good cause are conjoyned as to some effects They love God and his Truth and they hate all that they think against him they would promote piety in the world and repress what they think against it And being persons whose wits and studies were not such as exactness and largeness of knowledge do require but yet lovers of knowledge truth and Scripture they have more knowledge than prophane sots but little alas little in comparison of that which is necessary to a methodical accurate understanding of the matters which frequently fall under controversie And so knowing but little they know not what they are ignorant of nor what others know beyond them And it being the common vice of mans understanding to be hasty in judgeing before they hear or know one half that is necessary to a true and faithful judgement and so to be confident before they understand these men hereby are led to confidence in many an error And an erring judgement first telleth them that Truth is falshood and falshood truth that Good is evil and evil good that Duty is sin and sin is duty and then a good cause and a bad the Love of Truth and a perverse and partial zeal concur to put them on in the way of error Ignorance and error set them on a wrong cause and a mixt affection or zeal partly good and partly evil spurreth them on And in these the Error and Heresie and consequent sins are no more predominant than the cause and God will have mercy on those that in ignorance with good meanings oppose many truths and do much evil § 3. And the great means of nourishing this sin in Churches is departing from Christs Church order who hath appointed Teaching and Learning to be the setled way of getting knowledge And therefore required all his disciples to come to his Church as little children to School with teachable humble minds to Learn and not with proud wrangling minds to dispute If all our children should spend their time at School in disputing with the Teacher and setting their wits against his as in a conflict what would they thus Learn § 4. Therefore Paul saith that the servant of the Lord must not strive and oft calleth men from perverse disputings and striving about words which subvert the hearers and from such contendings as edifie not but tend to more ungodliness though the faith may be contended for and truth defended when opposition maketh it truly necessary § 5. When a man seeketh after knowledge as a Learner he meeteth it with a willing mind he cometh towards it with an appetite and so is a capable receiver But when a man cometh as a disputant he is ingaged already to one side and if that be false he cometh out to fight against the truth with a spirit of opposition hating truth as error and good as evil and thinks it his duty and interest to destroy and shame it if he can and therefore is unapt to think what may be said for it but studyeth all that he can against it And is this loathing and opposition and fighting against truth the way to know it § 6. Therefore that which hath undone the Churches peace is that too many Teachers being themselves too forward to controversies have too hastily drawn in their people into their quarrels and cast such bones before them in books and pulpits instead of food which break their teeth and set them together by the ears instead of nourishing them And so one mans hearers are taught to dispute for this sort of Government and anothers for that sort one mans for free-will and anothers against it when perhaps neither they nor the master of the quarrel can tell you what it is and so of an hundred more such like The honest hearers when they should be digesting the ancient Christian doctrine and learning to increase in Love to God and man and to practise a holy and a heavenly life and prepare for a comfortable death and happy eternity by a Living faith and hope are taught that if they be not zealots for this opinion or that for Anabaptistry for separation c. if they pray by a book or if they joyn with those that hold such things as they hear called by odious frightful names they are not then right zealous Christians but corrupt or complyers or lukewarm And thus each Church is made a miserable Church-militant and trained up to war against each other § 7. And this Ministers have done partly to strengthen themselves by the consent and number of their adherents as the Captain must conquer by his Souldiers When they can set a great number on hating their adversaries and backbiting them and telling the hearers wherever they come to make them seem odious how erroneous and bad such and such men are they think they have done much of their work And while they think it is for Christ they know not how notably they please and serve the Devil But I must remember that I have spoken of this elsewhere and so dismiss it § 8. That Mr. Danvers and his imitaters speak evil confidently and vehemently of the things they know not yea very many such I am sure But from what principle or root or how far that vice which produceth these fruits is mortified or unmortified as to all others I am neither called nor willing to judge I remember how Mr. Tho. Pierce once dealt with me When my Religious neighbour could hardly be perswaded to communicate with those among them that were of his judgement saying they were men that would swear and lie and lived scandalously I thought it my duty to keep up discipline and yet to moderate their censures by telling them what sins I thought might stand with some measure of sincere piety and Church-communion And what doth he but hence take advantage to tell the world how loose my doctrine was and what sinful persons I thought
censorious of them as to think that they need any more to his frustration If they will not must I write another book to tell them what I have written in the former How shall I know that they will any more read the last than the first If Satan have so much power over them that he can make them err and lie and slander and backbite as oft as a man professing zeal for the truth will be his instrument and messenger it is not my writing more books that can save them The end must tell them whether I or they shall be the greater losers by it § 24. I have therefore but these two wayes now to take 1. Whereas this man saith that my doctrine seemeth heynous to every one of my Non-conforming brethren and most Protestants and that I have lost my self among my friends I do demand as their duty and my right the Means of my conviction and reductâ—on from those brethren if any whom he doth not belie I profess my self ready privately or publickly to give them an account of the reasons of all my doctrine and thankfully to retract whatever they shall manifest to be an error And I challenge any of them to prove that ever I refused to be accountable to them or denyed a sober answer to their reasons or refused to learn of any that would teach me or to study as hard to know as they or that ever partiality faction or worldly interest bribed me to deal falsly with my conscience and betray the truth And if after this claim they will be silent I will take them for consenters or if by backbiting only any will still notifie their dissent I will take them for such as I take this writer and in some respect worse though not in all § 25. II. My second remedy is I will go willingly to School to Mr. D. and having said so much for the Learning against the Disputing way I will become his hearer and reader if he have any thing to teach me that savoureth of Truth and Modesty more than this noysome fardel doth which he hath published And to that end I will here give him a Catalogue of the contrary opinions to mine which I desire him solidly to prove If he hold not the contrary doctrines why doth he exclaim against mine as heynous If he do hold the contrary to what I have with due and clear distinction and explication opened and his Readers after the perusing of all my own words together be of his mind I then take these following to be their own opinions and part of their Religion which I desire them to make good and teach them me by sufficient proof CHAP. VIII A Catalogue of some Doctrines of Mr. Danvers and the rest that with him accuse my Christian Directory if indeed they hold the contrary to mine which they accuse as must be supposed by their accusation which as a Learner I intreat any of them solidly to prove OF the Question 49. p. 826. as cited by him The falshood of his inserting in a Popish Countrey in their way of Baptizing in that cited place which spake only of the Lutherans I pass by as weary of answering such But I. That it is a sin for any man supposing Infant Baptism a duty to offer his child to be Baptized where it will be done with the sign of the Cross or such ceremonies as the Lutherans use though he profess his own dissent and dissallowance of those ceremonies and though he cannot lawfully have it done better but must have that or no Baptism at all II. That in the ancient Churches of the second third and fourth ages it had been better to be unbaptized than to use a white Garment in Baptism as they did or to be anointed as then or to taste Milk and Honey though the Person offering his child to such Baptism had professed his dissent as aforesaid III. That all the Churches of Christ in those second third and fourth and following ages who were Baptized thus Infant or adult had no Baptism but what was worse than none Though Church history certifie us that this use was so universal that it 's hard to find any one Christian in all those or many after ages that ever was against the lawfulness of it or refused it By the way it was but one of your tricks which you know not how to forbear to foist in Peril of Law when I had not such a word or sense as Peril As if you knew of no Obligation there but from Peril IV. Your pag. 373. ed. 2. That anointing using the white Garment Milk and Honey were Blasphemous rites and Popish before Popery was existent or if otherwise that All Christs Church was Popish then V. Your Pref. ed. 1. That Christs Ministers rightly ordained and dedicated to God in that sacred office are not so much as Relatively holy as separated to God therein VI. That Temples and Church Vtensils devoted and lawfully separated by man to holy uses either are not justly Related to God as so separated or though so separated and Related are in no degree to be called Holy VII Your Pref. 16. That no Reverence is due to Ministers and Church utensils VIII Ibid. To be uncovered in the Church and use reverent carriage and gestures there doth not at all tend to preserve due reverence to God and his worship IX Ibid. That the unjust alienation of Temples Vtensils lands dayes which were separated by God himself is no sacriledge no not to have turned the Temple of old and the sacred things to a common use unjustly nor the Lords day now But thou that abhorrest Idols dost thou more than commit Sacriledge Even teach men so to do and say It is no Sacriledge no not when God himself is the separater and man the unjust alienater And yet is Infant-Baptism a sin X. Ibid. That it 's no sacriledge unjustly to alienate things justly consecrated and separated to God by man as Ministers Lands Vtensils c. Remember Ananias and Saphira XI Ibid. That it is a sin to call a Minister a Priest though it be done in no ill design nor with any scandal or temptation to error and though he that useth the word profess that he doth it but as a translation of the Greek word Presbyter and as God himself doth Rev. 1.6 and 5.10 and 20.6 and 1 Pet. 2. 5.9 Question Whether it is sinfully used in Scripture XII Ib. Accordingly it is sin to use the word Altar for Table or the word Sacrifice for worship as thanksgiving c. though with all the foresaid cautions and though God so use them in the Scripture 1 Pet. 2.5 Heb. 13.15 16. Phil. 4.18 Eph. 5.2 Rom. 12.1 Heb. 13.10 Rev. 6.9 and 8.3 5. and 16.7 And that all the ancient writers and Churches sinned that so spake XIII That no sober Christians should allow each other the Liberty of such phrases without censoriousness or breach of Charity and peace Ibid. pref XIV Ibid.
and Printing Contents and Citations or References much more the Geneva Notes and Pictures are all sinful additions to the Word of God As if the sufficiency of the Statutes of the Land lay in Keeping Printing Transcribing Pleading and Expounding themselves without the use of Scribes Clerks Lawyers Law-books or Judges I am well assured that God needeth not our Lies to his Glory and that truth and falshood do so ill agree that though falshood may steal a cloak from truth yet truth will never be beholden to falshood for friendship and defence And if ever Lies pretend any kindness or service to the truth it is but treacherously to supplant it and will turn to its disservice and injury at last In a word All the Devils in Hell and all the Consistory at Rome could not easily find out a more effectual way as far as I can understand to turn multitudes to Popery than 1. By calling truth and sober Principles Antichristian Popery and Idolatrous 2. And by describing the Religion of the enemies of Popery as made up of Lies and Dotages 3. And by falling all together by the ears and breaking into a multitude of Sects and condemning each other as unmeet to be communicated with and so making men believe that they must be Papists or distracted Dotards whose self-conceitedness in Religion hath made them mad I say nothing that I know of doth tend more to multiply Papists than this unless I may except the way of sensuality and violence murdering some and drawing others by fleshly and worldly motives Nor do I know any thing in the world that more quieteth the Consciences of Persecutors and Scorners in all that they do and say against us and hindreth them more from all conviction and repentance Mr. Danvers endeth his book Ed. 1. with a smart reflection on Mr. William Allen and Mr. Lamb for forsaking the cause of Anabaptistry and Separation which they had written for And I will end mine with a few words concerning them concluding with a free and faithful Admonition to Mr. Danvers to consider whether He or They should be most earnestly called to Repentance and most speedily practise it CHAP. IX REader having the following vindication of Mr. Allen put into my hand I think it not unmeet upon this occasion to undeceive some who to render his example in receding from the way of Separation wherein he was sometime engaged upon the account of Infant-baptism the less imitable and his endeavours to draw off others the less successful have given out that he did but turn with the times for worldly ends when the King came in Whereas I can bear him witness that that return was made by him the year before the coming in of the King as did sufficiently appear to me both by Letters which then passed between him and my self about that affair and also by his book called A Retractation of Separation published by him that same year Which Book I would entreat the sober Reader to get and lend to some of the separating mind they will find no temporizing or formality in it but a spirit of Christian love and peace And if the reasons in that Book and in his perswasive to peace and unity since published be such as none of the Separatists can confute or stand before they will have no reason to impute the Authors change to carnal reason or worldly interest I question not but experience after trial which is wont to make teachable men wiser put him upon reviewing the grounds of his practice and so had a great hand in that alteration which he made And I would have those who account it a disparagement to a man to alter his Judgement at any time to tell us at what age we come under that law when we must grow no wiser nor no better And what I say of Mr. Allens alteration of his judgement I must say also of Mr. Lambs whom those that easily judge before they know have accused also as turning with the times when as on my knowledge his change was in 1658. or the beginning of 1659. For by letters I did sollicite him to that alteration and received his answers sooner than I knew of Mr. Allens change And I perceive that Mr. Lambs words and example are slighted by very many upon two accusations 1. That he is run into the other extream of overmuch conformity 2. That he is over hot As to the first my distance maketh me a stranger to his mind and practice But as long as he conformeth not as Ministers do but to that which belongeth to a private man what doth he more than Mr. Tombes hath largely written for And Mr. Nye hath written to prove it lawful to hear Conformists in the Parish Churches and for the Magistrates to appoint publick Teachers for the people 2. And as to the second not justifying my own earnestness much less others which I am not acquainted with to calm the minds of the offended I may well say 1. That it is no wonder if a man that is naturally of a warm and earnest spirit do shew it most when he thinks that he speaks for God and Truth and the Church and mens Souls 2. That it is no wonder if a man that was drawn himself so deep into the guilt as to be a Teacher of an Anabaptists Church and to write for them be an earnest expresser of his Repentance when he is recovered and earnestly desirous to save others from the snares in which he was intangled and to do as much for Truth Unity and peace as ever he did against it What followes are Mr. Allens own words Worthy Sir I Having some intimation that you are about to make some return to the Author of a late Treatise of Baptism do apprehend that if you think fit to Print this following Paper at the end of your Book you may do the good office of removing a stumbling-block at which some are too apt to dash their foot and thereby also further caution men against being misled by giving too much credit to the quotation of Authors as managed by that Treatisor In reading a Treatise of Baptism of the first Edition Penned by H. D. I observed that in the two last pages of his Postscript he mentions two discourses that were publiâ—hed about one and twenty years ago the one by my self and the other by another and saith that both of us are gone back to that which therein we call will-worship and Idolatry Indeed I am sorry that that author should put me upon any necessity of reflecting so much upon him in vindicating my self as to tell the world that upon this occasion I having twice reviewed that Book of mine did not find so much as the mention of either of those two words will-worship or idolatry upon any occasion whatsoever Nor am I conscious to my self of ever being so absurd as once to think that to be idolatry which he most untruly saith I call so in that Book That cause
the controversie is difficult and by saying that in the ancient Churches men were left at liberty to Baptize their children when they would And 1. His very words prove that this is no contradiction For these very words I will make plain to a boy of ten years old and yet the world must know in print that he is not able to understand them and that this is worthy the consideration of his proselytes 2. My meaning I opened long ago which he concealeth The Proofs of Infants Church-membership are Plain the proof therefore of their right to Baptism is plain though not in the same degree but there are objections of difficulty which may be brought against it which every weak Christian nor Minister neither cannot answer And the hardest is that which is little taken notice of by themselves but I impartially opened in my Christian Directory And is it a contradiction to say that a doctrine that hath Plain Proof may be assaulted by difficult obâ—ections And yet such as a sober Christian should not be changed by unless on the same reasons he will forsake all Christianity and his everlasting hopes For I take the doctrine of the Souls Immortality to be such as may be Plainly proved But truly I take it to be five degrees above the ability of this Writer to answer solidly all that can be said against it I take it to be Plainly provable that the Scripture is certainly true And yet I take it to be quite above this confident mans ability well to solve all the difficulties objected were it but those poor ones of Benedictus Spinosa in his late pestilent Tractatus Theologico-Politicus I think I have plain proof that God is not the Author of sin and man is not moved in it and all his acts as an engine by unavoidable necessitation But I despair that ten years study more should inable this Writer clearly to solve the objections of Hobbes or Camero about it In a word though we have Plain proof that Christ is the Son of God I should be loth that the faith of this Nation should lie upon the success of a dispute about it between a crafty Infidel and this self-conceited man § 21. And why should my impartiality in acknowledging the Churches liberty as to the time of Baptism at first be so unkindly received I meant not nor said that Christ had left it Indifferent and to their Liberty but that they left one another at liberty herein Because 1. The first and great work was in setling the Churches by converting Jews and Gentiles to the faith And the Adult who were the active members were they that the Apostles had most to do with and therefore whose case is expresly spoken of 2. Because it was a known thing that the Infants of Church-members had ever been Church-members and were in possession of that Relation when Christ and his Apostles set up Baptism 3. And it was a granted case that all Sanctified persons devoted themselves and all that they had to God and every thing according to its capacity And therefore their Infants according to their capacity which God himself had before expounded 4. And it was never the meaning of Christ to lay so much on the outward washing as many Papists and Anabaptists do But as the uncircumcised Infants in the Wilderness were nevertheless Church-members and saved so when Infants were in the Covenant of God by the Parents true and known consent their damnation was not to be feared upon their dying unbaptized by surprize 5. But yet obedience to God being necessary many Parents hastned their childrens Baptism at two or three dayes old Others staid till the eighth day others longer and multitudes had children that were in several degrees entred on the use of reason when the Parents were converted and it remained doubtful whether they were as to the Covenant at their Parents choice or their own And to this day there want not those that think that Baptism was not instituted to be the ordinary initiating Sacrament of the children of Church-members but only of Proselytes And that Christians Infants took their places in the Church of course but Proselytes from without only were to be Baptized Though this be an error it is probable that there were some then as well as now of that opinion But nothing more occasioned as far as I can find the delay of Baptism than the fear of the danger of sinning after it especially of apostasie All held that all sin past was pardoned in Baptism And Heb. 6. and 10. and other texts and the common doctrine of the Church made them think it a very perillous thing to sin wilfully after illumination and the acknowledgement of the truth And therefore abundance delayed their own Baptism till age and many were backward to Baptize their children lest childish folly and youthful lusts and worldly temptations should draw them to trample upon the blood of the Covenant And on such accounts all were not Baptized at one age And divers that were Baptized at age upon their own conversion from Heathenism were not suddenly so knowing as to be acquainted with all the cases about their childrens rights but must have a considerable time to learn For it was be it spoken without offence to stricter men a General and Narrow sort of Knowledge which the Apostles and the Primitive Churches required in the adult as necessary to Baptism yea when they had at last kept them long under Catechizing For even in Augustines time though all used the same words of Baptism so few had a clear understanding of the very Baptismal form or words that writing ubi supra de bapt contr Donat. he saith that as to the Meaning of those words not only the Hereticks sed ipsi carnales parvuli Ecclesiae si possent singuli diligenter interrogari tot diversitates opinionum fortassis quot homines numerarentur Animalis enim homo non percipit c. Annon tamen ideo non integrum sacramentum accipiunt § 22. There remaineth a Catalogue of my heynous errors which he hath put in the preface to his first edition and in the end of the second and which he and such as he have taught many honest weak people in London both Anabaptists and Independents to talk frightfully and odiously of from one another behind my back What should I say to him and them Shall I answer them that never speak or write to me Shall I take this mans accusation for a confutation or conviction Is so deadly an enemy of Antichrist conceited of a self-infallibility or that I must take my faith or trust from Mr. Danvers though not from the Church Pope or General Council If not what did the man think that a recitation should do with me Did not I know what I had written till he told me § 23. But it is others that he tells it to Those others will read my own words or they will not If they will I will not be so