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A80339
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Confidence corrected, error detected, and truth defended; or Some farther reflections upon the two Athenian Mercuries lately publish'd about infant-baptism. By Philalethes Pasiphilus.
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Pasiphilus, Philalethes.
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1692
(1692)
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Wing C5803A; ESTC R223470
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47,010
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51
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as to conceit that you may by virtue of your dispensing Power do just what you list And if he don't think good to accept of what you please to give him as the result of your Power tho 't is but Sprinkling for Baptizing or Dipping he 's like to get nothing else from you Yet in your Plea for this Power you do as good as dwindle it into nothing too for you endeavour to make us believe that it only relates to Circumstantials and the manner of Acting but not to the Act it self Really Sirs if this be true you had better have kept where you were without the least pretence to this dispensing Power for it can do you no Kindness at all For if Dipping or Burying in Water be the thing that God requires then according to your own grant your Church has not Power to dispense with this Act and turn it into another which cannot by any means be the same Act which is certainly the Case of Dipping and Sprinkling For Sprinkling and Baptizing are certainly two different Things two different Actions having two different Forms and cannot by any means properly be called the same All that you can fairly pretend to if you be true to your Plea is That the Administrator is at liberty to dip or put the Person under Water divers manner of Ways as forward backward sideway toward the Right-Hand or toward the Left quickly or slowly all these Things being meerly Circumstantial yet all this while Dipping or putting under Water is the Act or Thing to be done Which if it be done the Person may truly be said to be baptized notwithstanding these different Circumstances because the Essential Form of Baptism viz. Dipping in Water is to be found in all these ways But if you only sprinkle a little Water on his Face that is quite another Thing not another Circumstance in which the same Thing is yet done but clearly another Act in which not the same but another Thing is done and the Person thereby is no more truly baptized than as if you had given him a Flip or two with a wet Finger For here is differentia essentialis the very Formality of Baptism is absent So that you had better continue your first Compliance with us than strive as you do in your Second to run away from us for 't is certainly true that if our Practice be Right as you know it is yours must of necessity be Wrong And all your idle Greek Struggles will never be able to make it otherwise I must before I conclude take a little notice of your great Argument so formally laid down in your Second Paper which I had like to have over-look'd and forgot I confess it is here a little out of due place but it 's no great matter better here than no where lest you should think a meer Sense of its Strength frighted me from it The Argument in form appears thus An Ordinance once enjoyn'd and never repeal'd is always in force But the Ordinance of Childrens incovenanting was once in the Old Testament enjoyn'd and was never repeal'd Ergo 'T is yet in Force Good now Sirs do so much as tell us what is the Question this Argument relates to or what is it brought to prove Sirs Do you urge this Argument to prove Infant-Baptism or do you not If not what Business has it here If you do certainly such an Argument was hardly ever laid down for such a purpose by any that pretended the least Skill in Logick For there is not the least mention of Infant-Baptism in any part of the Argument If you had intended the Proof of Infant-Baptism by it it ought to have run thus An Ordinance once enjoyn'd and never repeal'd is still in force But the Ordinance of Infant-Baptism was once enjoyn'd and was never repeal'd Ergo Infant-Baptism is still in force Now if you had argued thus and prov'd your Minor you had then done your Business But now Sirs what is it you have done by this Argument What Ordinance is this that was once enjoyn'd and never repeal'd One would think you must of necessity mean either Circumcision or Baptism If Circumcision then that 's in force still and 't is Circumcision you plead for If you mean Baptism then I deny your Minor and put you to prove that Baptism was ever enjoyn'd as an Ordinance upon Infants But if you mean neither but only a meer Incovenanting as you call it altho I do not well know what you mean by it neither do I understand any thing of such an Injunction separate from Circumcision yet for Discourse-sake I give it you pray take it and make your best of it Incovenant your Children as much as you will or can who shall hinder you But then you must not speak a Word of their Baptism by virtue of this Argument for it 's now suppos'd that this Argument neither mentions or means Baptism much less does it prove their Baptism So that you are as far to seek for Infant-Baptism as ever you were unless you had produc'd a Precept or an Appointment of God for that purpose otherwise all the Inconvenanting you talk of will do you no good For if God had never commanded Infants to have been Circumcised who durst have done it notwithstanding this Plea So if he had no where commanded Infants to be baptized who shall dare to do it notwithstanding the same Plea Altho you were sure you had it which I do not in the least believe tho I will not at this time dispute it Besides what need you care whether you have it or no for you that dare baptize your Infants without being enjoyn'd what need you care whether the other be enjoyn'd or no what need you trouble your selves whether Childrens incovenanting were once enjoyn'd or no or if it was what matter is it if it should be repeal'd You may as well baptize them of your own pleasure without this Plea as with it For if God never appointed it there 's no Plea for it but if he has appointed it there 's none against it So that if it be your pleasure that Infants shall be baptized you had as good insist upon your Churches Power and never trouble the World with an Argument about it And that will be the easiest way for you to answer the three Sheets and a half already publish'd as you it seems are inform'd by the joint Consent of the principal Anabaptist Preachers in London or any other of their Papers Because you know you have publickly oblig'd your selves to give a full answer to all the Questions in them or to any other Questions or Objections that can be sent to you in the mean time And the Remark that you make at the same time is so Remarkable that I shall make a Remark upon it Your Remark is this That surely had not the Anabaptists thought you had advanc'd something of moment in your two Mercuries about Infant-Baptism they would never have call'd in
when you say Infants have faith potentia And yet if they have Power and Ability to do it it must needs be their Sin if they do it not So that our Gentlemen's great Plea for Infants seems to prove a very Fatal Charge against them for the damning Sin of willful Unbelief must needs lye upon them if they have Strength Might and Ability to believe and make no use of it to act accordingly Moreover What reason have you to conclude any Man to be an Artist tho but potentially so when you see him asleep if you never saw nor knew any thing at all of his being an Artist before if he had been asleep all the Days of his Life you would have had small cause to have counted him an Artist tho you had put the word potentia to it But now Infants have to follow your Simile been asleep all their Life-time in this case You never so much as saw or knew of a time when they were so far awake as to shew themselves Believers as the Artist was to shew himself and Artist So that as you have no reason to conclude any Man to be an Artist potentially when asleep that you never knew to be any thing of an Artist actually at one time or another before so you have no reason to conclude Infants Believers potentially unless you had seen or known them at one time or another to have been actually such So that I think you had as good blot out potentia unless you will put it to their Baptism too and let your Children rest without Actual Baptism till you can write upon their Faith Actu visibili But you say our Saviour is full to the purpose who assures us as you tell us in your Second that Children have Faith when he saith Whosoever shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me c. Sirs I do plainly confess that our Saviour is full to the purpose but not to your purpose for he does assure us that the Persons here spoken of were such as did really properly and actually believe in him he does not so much as intimate any thing of their having Faith potentia but not in actu visibili but in down-right terms tells us they are such as do believe in him which little Infants I think by your own Confession cannot do therefore little Infants not here intended by our Saviour in this Passage but only such as were converted and become as little Children in Plainness of Spirit Humbleness Innocency and freedom from Malice Our Saviour does not only assure us that such shall be greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven but also plainly tell us that whosoever shall offend or scandalize one of these thus converted little ones which believe in him shall certainly incur great Displeasure from God And this is easily discern'd with a little Consideration in reading the Text and Coherence of the same That after our Saviour had call'd a little Child and taught his Disciples how they should be converted and become as little Children and humble themselves as that little Child he under that Consideration gives the Denomination of little ones even to such as should so learn and so do which did truly believe in him from that Analogy that was and ought to be between little Children and them therefore whereas you argue thus or to this purpose These little ones which believe in me therefore Infants do believe I argue the direct contrary from the same Text thus Those of whom Christ here speak did really believe in him but little Infants neither do nor can believe in christ Ergo Christ speaks not here of little Infants To prove the Minor here I thus reason Faith in Christ comes by hearing the Word of God understandingly but little Infants cannot hear the Word of God understandingly Ergo Little Infants cannot be Believers in Christ Again if little Infants neither do good or evil nor so much a know good or evil then they can neither hear the Word of God understandingly for if they can they must of necessity be capable of knowing good nor be Believers in Christ for if they be they must of necessity do good for believing in Christ is one of the best things that can be done in the world But the Scripture it self besides Experience plainly tells us concerning Infants that they neither do good or evil nor know good or evil Ergo Rom. 9.11 Deut. 1.39 Isa 7.14 15 16. See the Assembly Annotations on this Passage of our Saviour and Reverend Diodate on the same See also these Scriptures where this Phrase little ones or little Children is us'd to grown Believers and Disciples of Christ Mat. 10.41 42. Joh. 21.5 Gal. 4.19 1 Joh. 2.1 12 13 18 28. 3.7 18. 4.4 5.21 Besides Gentlemen if you must and will have little Infants here intended then it must and will of necessity be but a Prosopopoeia however and so do you no Service at all tho we should out of Charity give you what you so earnestly beg for A few words to your Answer to the fifth Question and so I draw to a Conclusion The Question is only thus Why Sprinkling and not Dipping To which you answer and say Our Church denies not the latter to any one that desires it but looks upon it as a clear Representation of our Saviour's descending into the Grave abiding there and rising up again according as the Apostle makes use of it when he says we are buried with him in Baptism Sirs it 's a clear case that Dipping or Covering the Body under Water was the true Primitive Apostolical and Scriptural way of Baptizing and you and your Church both seems plainly to be convinc'd of the Truth hereof by this free and full Confession and Acknowledgment which here you make that it is a clear Representation of our Saviour's descending into the Grave abiding there and rising up again and this you deliver not as a Conceit that may come into a Man's Brains by chance no but 't is very seriously given us as a thing by your own Acknowledgment which is according to Scripture as the Apostle himself makes use of it when he tells us we are buried with him in Baptism Now Sirs stand by this and all 's well but if you will be so unfaithful as to dissert these true primitive Colours you certainly run away from Truth and Substance to close with Falshood and Vanity for either this is the mind of God which you have here ventur'd to give us or it is not If it be not wherefore did you urge it as a thing not only acceptable to you and your Church but even acceptable to God himself as being according to Scripture If it is the mind of God what 's the reason that you tattle of a dispensing Power in your Church with respect to this matter As if the Mind of God were altogether insignificant with you that let God command what he please you will be so stately