because they have need of his protection and all the help they then have comes from him also though in infancy they knew it not nor him so as actually to hope and trust in him for it or properly to believe in his name even more then inanimate creatures in the other case this is the first way whereby you profess to prove infants of believing parent onely if you speak to your proposed purpose to have faith which how weak it is the weakest eye may discern it that is not disposed to be blind and the second is like unto it which is as followeth by two arguments of inconsequence Disputation Children of the Iews had faith Ergo children of believing parents now The Antecedent is proved thus viz. God himself did witness that the children of the Jews had faith by setting to his seal which was circumcision called by the Apostle the seal of righteousness of faith Disproof There 's but two things to be own'd or disow'd at all in this piece of proof as also in the former viz. the Argument and the Antecedent and I 'le deny him to be a Seer that sees not good ground whereon to deny them both O fine O fine O fy these you call your Arguments of Consequence but saying that you say so I am verily perswaded the verieft implicit Simpleton that ever saluted the University or sware Allegeance to your Crown and dignity or was ever implicitly canonized into the obedience of your faith will never see them so to be when ceasing to see through your eyes he shall come once to behold things with his own for really they are the most false absurd and inconsequent that ever I saw with mine Sirs give me leave to make an answer by these ensuing Interrogatories and I 'le expect your Answer to them again had the children of the Iews faith and did God himself witness that they had it by setting Circumcision to them as his seal of it i. e. for that 's the sense in which you take the word seal to assure men that they had it and is it the consequent that the children of believing parents have it now let me then ask you First do you conclude that all the children of believing parents have it now that I think for shame you will not say sith every experience witnesses the contrary or that some believers children have it now therefore all believers children are to be baptized and if so that is as silly an inference as if you had argued thus viz. some people believe therefore all must be baptized Secondly had the Jews children faith first I wonder how they came by it sith the word saies faith comes by hearing and how can there be believing on him of whom they have not heard and how can they hear without a preacher and how can they preach except they be sent and how can they be sent to preach to infants that understand not what is said except you say as you are fain to do not for want of blindness p. 18. that infants have an hearing and the spirit works upon them miraculously and yet not extraordinarily neither but in that ordinary way as he doth on men in the conversion of whom you say the spirits working is but ordinary and yet miraculous too which Popish Bull deserves well to be baited but I le fotbear to fall upon it till I meet it in its proper place in the Review Secondly when had they it begotten in them in the womb or if after birth on what day on the 1st 2d 3d 4th 5th 6th 7th or 8th for on some of these they received it if on the 8th day they were as you say they were circumcised in token that they had it but I muse and am yet to learn on which and so are your selves too I believe for all your confidence in asserting it Thirdly was Circumcision Gods witness yea Gods seal to assure men of thus much that those children to whom it was set had faith First Risum teneatis amici did you ever read or hear that circumcision was set to infants to this end viz. to testifie to the world that they had faith was it set to Ishmael as Gods witness that Ishmael had faith was it set to Esau as Gods witness that Esau had faith when God who would not witness a ly knew that neither the one of these had it nor yet the other unless they lost it again which sure you will not say for shame leave such sorry Shuffles are your Masters in Israel and know not this that Circumcision was set to the Iews children not to shew others that they did believe but as a permanent sign thereof to shew them when they should be at years to take notice of it by sight as of that transient unseen sign of sprinkling in infancy they cannot do what things they then should believe viz. Christ to come of Abraham after the flesh and circumcision of their hearts by him c. was it ever set under this notion as a seal of faith to any person in the world save to Abrahams proper person only to whom too t was a seal not so much to witness or assure men that he had faith as to honor that faith that more evidently and eminently then ordinary he had before with that famous title i. e. the Father of the faithful therefore circumcision as given to Abraham in Rom. 4.11 is not said to be the seal of the righteousness of faith as you corruptly rehearse the words leaving out the residue of the verse which makes them relate to Abraham only as if it had stood as a seal in such a sense to all Abrahams posterity but a seal of the righteousness of the faith i. e. that famous faith which he himself had and to this end that he might be as none of his meer fleshly seed ever were the Father of all them that believe Secondly if circumcision were Gods witness that these infants to whom it was dispensed had faith then certainly baptism which with you at least is of such Analogy and Identity with Circumcision that it hath the same subjects and significations must also with you be Gods witness to others that those infants to whom it is dispensed have faith also and if so then I must make bold to ask you two things First Is not this round about our coal fire to prove two things no otherwise then one by another for when you prove that children are to be circumcised or baptized which with you is all one who falsly call baptism as Paul doth not in Col. 2.12 for he means another thing by that phrase viz. that of the heart the circumcision without hands I say when you prove that children are to be circumcised either one way or other in answer to our why you say because they have faith and thereby right to the Covenant and the seals of it but when you come to prove that children have faith which we deny you say
presentment of the righteousness of Christ without faith is a figment of the Anabaptists without ground or reason from Scripture the Covenant of the Gospel being the righteousness of faith To which I contradictorily reply that there is another way revealed for the salvation and justification of little infants from all the guilt that lies upon them in infancy which is no other then that which comes upon them for the sin of Adam onely and from all that mischief which comes on them onely meerly and simply for that sin then that way of faith and that is the presentment of the righteousnesse of Christ to God on their behalf without faith and this way is no figment of the Anabaptist as you No-Baptists do foolishly fancy but that which hath such strong ground and reason from Scripture as you will never overthrow while you live although to men at years that have acted transgression in their own persons and are capable to act faith and other good as well as evil the Gospel is granted to be a Covenant that gives righteousnesse by Christ in no other way then that way of faith and obedience to him We usually put cloaths upon infants but men put their clothes on themselves and so must we put on Christ by faith in order to justification when we come to years of discretion Gal. 3.27 and not before I know the multitude of Scriptures that speak in general or at least in such indefinit terms as are in sense equivalent to universal concerning salvation to all them that believe and nothing but condemnation to all them that believe not as Mark 16.15.16 Iohn 3.15.16.18.19.36.11.26 Act. 10.42 Act. 13.43 Rom. 1.17.3.22.25.26.28.30.4.6.24 a most monstrous mistake of all which as also of the whole Scripture makes you miserably misbelieve this matter viz. the way that all dying infants are saved in for you deem or rather dream that the Lord by these expressions whosoever believeth in me shall never dye he that believeth not shall be damned he that believeth not on the Son shall not see life c. delivers his will and testament not onely concerning persons at age but concerning infants in their very infancy also whereas if you Divines had not Divin'd your selves to very dotage you could not but understand that little infants are not intended in any of these or any other places that hold out faith as the way of our salvation for do but judge in your selves were it not shameful senslessnesse to read thus out of those places viz. God so loved the world c. that whosoever infants in infancy as well as men believe in him should not perish but have everlasting life those infants that do believe on him are not condemned but those infants that believe not are condemned already and why because they have not believed in the name of the onely begotten Son of God And this shall be the condemnation of infants as well as men that light and life is come to them and yet infants believe it not neither will come unto Christ that they might have life but but love darknesse more then light because their deeds are evil for thus you may read it if infants as well as men be there meant and so were it not sottish to read thus out of Rom. 4.23 it was not written for Abraham onely that faith was imputed to him for righteousnesse but for infants also to whom it shall be imputed if they do believe on him that raised up Iesus our Lord from the dead c. so would it sound any whit savourly in the ears of one that 's of a sound judgement to read Mark 16.15.16 so as to understand infants together with others viz. go preach the Gospel to every creature who ere believeth and is baptized shall be saved but whoever believes not man or woman old or young infant or suckling shall be damned would not this grate harshly upon charitable ears but surely infants are not spoken of here nor are they in any other Scripture for ought I can find with the best sight I have where faith is spoken of as the condition on our part without which nothing is to be expected but condemnation I am sorry Sirs to see you Clergy men cloath your selves with such darke conceits and confusednesse of mind as not to know of whom and to whom things are spoken in the word nor whom in general the Scriptures you professe to be so profound in concern and preach to and I beseech you be not too wise in your own conceits to learn one lesson at least from him that is a fool among you for Christs sake viz. whereas you say infants must believe or not be saved the Scriptures declaring no other way to salvation but faith in Christ that the Scriptures were written only for our instruction that are at years to understand them and not for the use and instruction of infants in infancy in the way of life the Scriptures were given as a coppy of the testament and the will of God concerning men and women to declare to them what he requires of them and in what way he would have them to wait upon him in order to the attaining of that salvation he hath purchased by the blood of Christ and will freely confer on them for his sake viz. the way of faith repentance baptism supplication submission self-denial obedience both active and passive perseverance therein to the end and in a word attendance to the law of Christ the voice of that prophet that he hath now raised up in all things or else to have no part among his people from all which conditions and performances I say from every of them as well as any one of them from believing as well as obeying in baptism or any other part of his will or any other works of God under the Gospel among which belief is a chief one Iohn 6.28.29 little infants as being yet uncapable subjects to obey in any of these are universally exempred in their infancy otherwise I dare a vouch no dying infants in the world shall ever be saved for can they do any of these things in infancy so such as are to be baptized are called to do Act. 22.16 and who ever so doth shall be saved and whoever doth not shall perish Ier. 10.25 if the way wherein men are to be saved must be walkt in by all infants too in order to their salvation then wo to all infants that die in non-age for alas how shall infants call on him in whom they have not believed and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not yet heard and how shall they hear without a Preacher and who can preach to them before they can understand Rom. 10.14.15 so then they cannot believe for faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God some way or other outwardly as well as inwardly preached Babist The spirit here speaks de subjecto capaci onely viz of the way how men
to believe the Scriptures which by necessary consequence confirm the thing we would leave the manner of doing it to him whose work it is the spirit of God who is able to do it we do it in other articles of faith and the resurrection of the body and ask not how it can be done because the Scriptures have delivered it and this of the renovation of soul is no lesse Miracle Re-Review And well may it be difficult to understand how faith should be bred in infants and doubted that they have it not since if we have learned to believe the Scriptures they are so far from confirming such a thing so much as by any possible or probable consequence that by necessary consequence they contradict it while they tell us that there is but one way whereby faith cometh and that such a one as it can never possibly come to infants in viz. hearing the word of God preached not inwardly by the spirit only as you prate below for he speaks not of such a thing there Rom. 10. but outwardly by some visible or audible creaturely ministration as is plain by the words foregoing viz. How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard how hear without a preacher how preach except they be sent And whereas you tell us the spirit is able to work faith in them therefore we must leave the manner of doing it to him not offering as it were to pry into it Good Sirs spare your labor talk not about the unknown manner of a matter as unknown as the other for the thing it self is not yet clear in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 neither doth the spirits ability to do it prove that it is done any more then it proves there is a 1000 worlds or that all men have faith because these things are possible to be effected by him but the evidence that he doth such a thing which if it be wanting as it is in this case it is but egregious folly to argue it from the other so as to say God can do it therefore though the manner how he doth it is not known to us yet we must not meddle further then to believe it is leaving the manner of doing it to him Moreover Sirs assure your selves of this that in some sort the manner is usually manifested to us in the word as well as the matter of such things as we are there called upon to believe even that miraculous work of the resurrection of the body which is your present instance wherein 1 Cor. 15.35 to the end the Lord condescendeth at large to explain the manner oâ— it as well as to prove the matter of it before and whereas you say you leave the manner of the doing things when it is nor clear to you to the spirit himself whose the work is in other articles of faith I wonder you are so forgetful as to bear such false witnesse as this against your selves when as in the point of dying infants salvation which for the matter of it is so clear that you cannot deny it though not clear to you in the manner you leave not the manner of it to God himself whose work it is to save them but limit him to the way of Church-membership faith baptism and holinesse c. whereas the word that was not at all for infants instruction declares to men and women what way he will save them in asking in many places of your book how can infants be justified without faith how can Turks and Pagans infants be saved what hopes of our infant salvation without baptism and all this too though there is no fear of their damnation by actual sin though it also ask you plainly enough how can they believe in him of whom they have not heard and consequently how can they be saved by faith though it tell you also plainly enough Act. 8. where that question is expressely askt what hinders c. even because they yet believe not with all their heart you had said true therefore had your words bin thus viz. we do it not in other articles of faith And whereas you say the renovation of a soul is no lesse miracle then the matter of infants having faith it seems you confesse it to be a miracle that faith should be in infants and for my part I fully confâ—sse it with you for surely t is such a thing as was seldome or never yet seen since the world began to this day but the renovation i. e. conversion of soules of men and women depraved and corrupted as infants never were by any actual sin p. 5. is no lesse miracle indeed then the other for the one is not at all and the other where it is is yet no miracle at all but a matter that happens ever and anon in the ordinary course of things as a miracle doth not and besides you are of those I am sure who are in the mind that miracles are ceased And lastly for you to sprinkle all the new born infants in all the Christian nations at this hour as taking it for granted that these all have faith for so you suppose though you see not any individual or particular infant hath it that is brought to you and yet hold infants faith to be a miracle and yet to hold miracles to be ceased also it is if not miraculum yet mirandum monstrum et horrendum at least to me i. e. a marvelous work and a wonder that ever the wisdome of wise men should so perish and the understanding of prudent men so come to nought Thus having done with your forlorn hope I le march on now to give checkmate to that wretched crew of cavillers that are so impudent as to be responsive against reason and its Regiment and to undertake to make it good against them that infants have faith and must have baptism Review The objection that reason makes against it will easily be answered it is done for satisfaction to the Reader Re-Review Yea Sirs is Reason in so little request with you as that you not onely dare so audaciously ingage against but also set so light by it as to say its objections are easily answered let it be put to the voâ—e if you please throughout the whole earth whether you deserve the title of good Logicians i. e. Reasonable men who here professedly wrestle against reason it self and whether your faith can possibly be found any other then faction and meer fiction against which Reason it self is by your selves confest to be opponent I confesse I have heard men called divines speak of many points of Religion and faith as above reason but I yet never met with men under the name of ministers so far devoid of Reason as to say that Religion and faith are against Reason till I met with you whose faith and practise of baptism to believers infants upon account of their appearing to believe more plainly then the profession of persons at years can make it appear
of the voice of Christ and the spirit opening their ears so as to make them learn things as adult ones do that is a meer figmâ—nt of your own fancies besides if they had such an internal hearing as you dream of what were that to the matter in hand or to the answering the objection that is grounded upon the alledged Scripture which speaks not of an inward but an outward hearing the word of God preached as that by which faith is begotten and without which it cannot come out of which outward way and meanes if persons be brought to believe as usually as by it and so it must needs be if little infants believe by the understanding of ceâ—tain secret whisperings and teachings within the spirit would not have spoken of it as such an unpossible case as he doth in saying how can they believe on him of whom they have not heard and how hear without a Preacher But say you that is the usual means by which faith is begotten in adult ones but the spirit is not tyed to meanes though we are he works faith in little children without the outward hearing of the word Is it so Sirs that the spirit is not tyed to work by means in little children in the same cases wherein he works by means in men and women I wonder then that you whose opinion this is should be so forgetful as to teach quite contrary to your own tenet for verily of all the men that are I know none that limit the spirit and tie him to means in his dealings with little infants like unto your selves As for us we own this position fully and to a tittle viz. that what God acts at all for infants he acts without meanes as to their salvation but as for your selves you own and disclaim this by turnes according as it seems to serve your own turnes so far as to hold it helpes to hold up your monstrous odd opinion of infants faith which hath no footing at all in Scripture you inwardly entertain it and outwardly proclaim it for undoubted truth but when you find it makes against you then t is no other then a figment of the Anabaptists for when we tell you there is no right to baptism without faith but infants cannot believe because faith comes by hearing understandingly the word preached which infants cannot do then such of you as Rantize infants on such a sottish supposition as their having faith in themselves excuse the matter thus viz. The spirit is not tied to means nor to the outward way of hearing the word so but that though he begets men to faith that way and by that means yet he begets infants to believe without it and such of you as ashamed to assert that the infants themselves have faith do Rantize them on the fathers faith without their own excuse the matter thus viz. The spirit is not bound to admit infants to baptism in that same way wherein he admits men viz. the way of faith but admits infants to have right to it without that outward means of believing But when we tell you faith and baptism are the way wherein and the outward means by which the spirit justifies and saves men and women but without this outward way of faith and baptism he can and doth save dying infants and that the spirit is not tied to the same means of belief and baptism in the justifying and saving infants through Christ by which and which onely he saves men then you plainly disclaim what you proclaimd for truth before viz. the spirit is not tied to means in infants but works without them in infants though not in men and hold that he doth work by means among them so that there is no hope to be had by parents of the salvation of their infants out of the way of baptism and no justification of them on of the way of belief Thus you tie and unty confine and lose the spirit at your pleasure you give him leave for your own lusts sake either to approve of your baptism of children out of his own declared and onely approved way of faith or if it be needfull as some of you think it is for infants to believe in order to baptism then to beget faith without that outward means of hearing the word but though it is his own good will to justifie and save dying infants by Christ without the outward means of faith and baptism there he is limitted and cannot obtain your good will he must give way to you to baptize infants out of that ordinary way of faith wherein his will is that men shall be baptized but he may not save infants out of the ordinary way of faith and baptism wherein his will is that men by Christ shall be saved no not by any means in the world There 's but a matter of four gross false unsound and absurd assertions in this reasonless reply which I must intreat you to be ashamed of before I leave it The first is that old piece of sing song which is canted ore some three or four times before but would be rather recanted if you were not resolved on perseverance in perverseness wherein you tune it out as if faith in Christ and the faculty of understanding were both so con-naturally and con-necessarily in believers infants and them onely that we may as rationally and safely conclude neither to be in them as not both This blue vain of artificial non-sense keeps its course well nigh throughout this whole discourse of yours against reason so that every foot when reason alledges aâ—y thing that 's clearly conclusive against the being of belief in Christ in believers infants as namely their not knowing good and evil their giving no testimony of faith when at years without instruction nor upon instruction neither sometimes so much as the adult children of unbelievers their not having any faith at all for the most part witnesse your successelessenesse in your preachings to your parishes to beget it whereby it is evident that either they never yet had it when rantized or else have lost it if they had their non-inclinablenesse to believe caeteris paribus more then other peoples children their uncapablenesse to hear the word with understanding which is the only way and means whereby the word declares faith to be given and to be gotten you answer all along Cuckoo-like in one tone and that 's this viz. That by the same reason we may conclude against the faculty of understanding in them and against their having a reasonable soul as if it were full as clear and altogether as absurd to doubt that these infants have faith which yet your selves confesse you cannot presume what infants have and what have not as to doubt that they have the reasonable soul which is notoriously known to every Novice in very nature to be in all mankind by nature without exception and that so also as essentially to difference them from other creatures The second remaining and
come by faith and not of the way wherein infants have it and t is confest that faith in adultis in them that are capable to hear and understand is begotten by this means of hearing but not so in infants who cannot hear the spirit is not tyed to work by means in little infants to the bringing of them to the faith as he doth in men but without the outward hearing of the word he works saith in little children Baptist. This same that you now say fits us very well to you ward again when you say justification comes by faith for we grant that adultis to them that are capable to act faith justification comes by faith nor shall they by any means obtain it who are capable to believe and yet believe not but not so to infants who cannot believe the spirit is not tied to work by means in little infants to the justification or bringing of them to salvation as he doth in men but by the righteousnesse of Christ imputed without obedience in baptism or faith either he saves them in nonage and farther that they cannot believe which is properly as I shewed before not onely to have but act faith in Christ your selves tell us saying they have not the use the second act the exercise the fruit of it and so do not believe and so must according to your sense of Scripture if the word speak of them be cast into the lake of fire Rev. 21.8 but further grant they could have faith in both the habit and act of it also yet can they not obey Christ in other things which are required necessarily to salvation in the word of the Gospel at least concomitanter et consecutivè as well as faith it self they cannot hear Christs voice in all things they cannot confess Christ before men nor to be come in the flesh they have not crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts of it they cannot deny themselves and take up their cross and follow Christ nor hate father and mother and life for him nor keep his commandments nor abide in his Doctrine and many such like things all which the Gospel saies as universally whosoever doth not as well as whosoever believes not cannot be his disciple Mat. 18. Luke 14. Is not Christs Gal. 5.24 hath not God 2 Iohn 9. is a lyar and shall not enter into the holy City 1 Iohn 2.4 Rev. 21.27.22.14.15 is a deceiver and an Antichrist 2 Iohn 7. shall be denyed by Christ yea punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of Christ for non obedience to the Gospel 2 Thes. 1.6 so that if the Scriptures speaking of the waies and means of salvation be to be understood as the terms and conditions on which dying infants shall be saved as well as men and without which they must be damned then all dying infants must perish contrary to your sense of Mat. 18.14 who take the little ones there for infants for it s said there it is the will of my Father that not one of these little ones should perish put the case therefore that infants could believe yet their case would be little the better as to salvation so long as still they must be short of shewing their faith by other good works without which faith is not saving nor worth a straw for what would it profit if infants could go so far as to say they have faith and yet have not works can faith save them Iam. 2. 14.26 no its dead and helpless for as the body without the spirit is dead so faith without works is dead also Therefore the body of Scripture is to be understood as spoken concerning men and women and the means and way of their salvation and not of infants Babist Yea when the word speaks of works of holiness self denyal suffering mercy c. as the way to life which infants cannot do it excepts them from the doing thereof as no capable subject and not from the salvation nevertheless nor yet doth at except infants when it speaks of faith Baptist. Is not faith a work as well as repentance and the rest yea the main and principal work of the Law of Christ i. e. the Gospel Iohn 6.28.29 Secondly is it not as difficult a work for infants to believe in Christ as to obey Christs voice in other things and are they not still as uncapable a subject to do that as to do any more things that are required why then not exempted from that for the sake of their incapacity as well as from other things Thirdly if the spirit doth go extraordinary waies to work at all about the salvation of infants as you must confess he must and brings them to it without and besides the ordinary means he brings men by why will you tie and limit him him more to the ordinary way and meanes of faith then of obedience in other matters as repentance self denyal c as to their salvation seeing he must go out of the road and tract in the saving of them wherein he saves men may be not as well save infants without faith without which he will save no man as without self deniall and suffering and confessing of Christ c. without which he will save no man Fourthly specially since infants are not mentioned as meant a jot more in the places that speak of salvation by faith then in the places that speak of salvation by obedience in all things for as it is said He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved and be that believeth not shall be damned infants no where expressed or meant there so t is said as universally he is the Author of all them that obey him and he shall take vengeance on all them that obey him not and cut them off that hearken not to his voice infants no way expresly excepted as not meant there The Scriptures therefore are still to be understood de subjecto capaci when they promise or threaten things on conditions and terms of faith unbelief and other good and evill works as confessing and denying Christ and exclusively of infants where infants cannot possibly perform them for as when it s said he that works not let him not eat infants are no where excepted yet are not by the spirits appointment to starve though they work not neither are they meant there because they cannot work and as under law when it was said Cursed is he that continues not in every thing written therein and do this and live the way wherin men were to live or dy was set forth by those words and not the way wherein infants should be cursed or blessed accordingly as they were or were not found therein in infancy so Analogically when it 's said under the Gospel the just must live by faith and he that believes not shall be damned and Christ in flaming â—ire shall render vengeance to him that obeys not the Lord c. it is to be understood as spoken of the waies wherein men
that formed them will shew them no mercy and the lord Iesus shall come with flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God and obey not his Gospel and that because they received not the truth in the love thereof that they might be saved for this cause God shall send them strong delusions to believe lies that they all might be damned who had pleasure in unrighteousnesse c. who ere transgresseth and abideth not in the the doctrine of Christ hath not God every soul that heareth not the voice of that Prophet shall be destroyed with the mouth confession is made unto salvation and an hundred such like as speak of an necessity of good works as well as of faith viz. self-denyall taking up the cross and following Christ c. speak of and to infants in non age while they know not their right hand from their left But Sirs oh that you would once understand for then all your intricacies sottish and absurd assertions and disputes about infants would be ended and save you a world of perplexity that now you are in by the ignorance of it that the word was not written as the way and will of God concerning infants in infancy but concerning men and women in order to their salvation by Christ Iohn 6.39.40 And this Sirs is no other answer then you use to give us when we argue against infants believing thus viz. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word preached But infants cannot hear so as to know Christ by the word preached Ergo infants cannot believe You tell us true faith in Adultis can come no other way but by preaching but in Infantibus faith is begotten otherwise so you fancy but you have no Scripture for it as we have that faith comes no way but by hearing Babist But that Scripture Rom. 10. speaks only of the way of faiths comming to adult ones Baptist So say I of welnigh the whole body of Scripture it speaks of the way wherein men at years must expect to be justifyed and saved and not of infants for they may be saved without faith so when we plead with you against the baptizing of infants I mean such of you and such there be amongst you as are ashamed as well as some that are not to say that infants have faith we tell you the Scripture speaks only of baptism of persons confessing sin professing faith that faith and baptism use still to go together as he that believeth and is baptized the Corinthians hearing believed and were baptized if thou believest with all thy heart c. therefore those that believe not may not be baptized you tell us again of these places and of all that ever we bring out of Scripture where baptism is mentioned that they speak of adult persons of whom t is confessed by you that faith and confession and profession is required in order to baptism but not of infants that cannot perform them So Pareus in Vrsin Cate. p. 384. 385. and also many others and your answer is very true and grants all that we desire for indeed all the places where ever baptism is mentioned throughout the Scripture do speak of it as in relation to grown persons and not to infants therefore because the Scripture is wholly silent in such a thing we dare not meddle to baptize infants but as we grant your answer to be true so I hope you will grant it to be as true in our present case for if some of you when we call for faith to a persons baptism or else deny that person to be baptized say thus viz. true no baptism without faith of such of whom faith is required and who are capable to act it i. e. of men at years but infanâ—s being uncapable to act faith and it being not required of them therfore they may be baptized without it which conclusion you make without book to for the word warrants you not to make it why may not we when you call so universally for faith to every ones salvation or else saying assuredly they are damned return the like viz true no salvation without faith of persons capable to act it and of whom it s required but infants being uncapable to act it and it being not required of them therefore they may be saved without it Babist This conclusion is spoken without book and as unwarrantable by the Scripture as you say ours â—s sith the Scripture speaks as much of salvation by faith as of baptism upon faith and as little of salvation without faith as it doth of baptism without it therefore still we have at least as good ground to say infants may be baptized without faith as you have to assert they may be saved without it Baptist. No I shall leave you behind here for sith the Scripture speaks of the impossibility of infants believing and yet with all of their saluation as your selves confesse in your own interpretation of that clause viz. of such is the kingdome of heaven but no where at all of their baptism it shews that they may be saved without believing but shews not that they may be baptized without it besides to hold any of them to be damned before they have by actual sin debard themselves of salvation is abominable cruelty and breach of Christian charity with you who yet confesse that all of them have not faith p. 19. but to hold they need not to be baptized cannot bear the like construction sith t is acknowledged by them that deny their bapâ—ism and by them also who absurdly assert to the contradiction of themselves that the denyal of baptism to them denies all hope of their salvation that they may be saved nevertheless though they die unbaptized so that whether we who hold that to them all belongs the kindome of heaven though they neither believe nor are baptized before they die or you that hold no salvation to them without faith and yet hold that all of them have not nay that very few of them for how few are believers infants to others have faith whether we or you I say do justly deserve the censure of damning all or at least innumerable infants dying contrary to that evident testimony of Scripture and sentence of our Saviour that to them belongeth the kingdome of heaven and contrary also to the rule of Christian charity set us by your selves which is to presume well of every infant that he is in a good estate till he appear to be in a bad and by actual sin to bar himself and deserve exemption from the general state of little children declared in Scripture which is this that they have right to the kingdome let the most simple but honest Reader judge between us As for the two texts you say are brought in proof of justification of infants without faith viz. Rom. 5.18 Rom. 11.7 who urges the last of them I know not for my part I take it to be of no tendency at all either to your purpose or
years not one of millions gives testimony of his faith without further instruction Nor should he of his reasonable soul not so much as in speaking if he be not taught Re-Review First the faculty of not onely believing in general but also in special of believing the Gospel of believing in Christ to justification is belike as naturally and necessarily in infants of believers as the faculty of reason it self so it seems by your talk why else is that frequent analogy made by you between these two and such frequent allusion in proof of one of them to the other as if whosoever denies one of them viz. the grace of saving faith to be in such infants must needs also deny the other and as if whatsoever concludes against such infants being believers concludes as much against their being reasonable creatures I am much amazed at your ignorance in this specially since your selves agree that all infants even those of Indians Turks and Pagans are reasonable creatures and yet that few not one of many infants are habitually believers as namely the infants of believers onely Secondly I blush at your rudenesse and folly in this also in that you assert that not one infant of millions should give any testimony of his reasonable soul i. e. ever evidence it that he is a reasonable creature when he comes to ripe years if he be not taught What Sâ—â—s will children never shew themselves to be risible and so consequently reasonable by laughing when tickt and toid with in such minority as they are not capable to learn in if they be not taught and instructed how to laugh will they not shew themselves intelligible if not so much as in speaking which with you it seems is the first and least expression of reason in them yet not so much as by understanding what is spoken to them yea how think you must they not be imagined and understood in some measure to be understanding and so consequently to have reasonable souls before they can be rationally instructed at all for verily he is a fool unreasonable and of no understanding himself that offers to teach children to act any act of reason that is to be produced by teaching or to know their letters or to read or write before they can discern them to be at least intelligible and teachable in these things they are to be taught in and consequently to have reasonable souls Yea verily the faculty of reason is habitus naturâ innatus and naturâ notus a habit that comes by generation and puts forth it self into several acts of it self even so many as clearly testifie it to be in us before we are at capacity to be taught and whether ever we be taught any thing or no for a specimen of reason in us must be before we begin to be endoctrinated or else as good endoctrinate a brute creature but justifying faith or belief of the Gospel is such a habit of which we may not onely say as you do truly in the next page p. 18. that instruction of the understanding in the object of it in some sort must â—o before any act of it can be discovered as whereby onely say you discovery of the habit can be made but also that instruction of the understanding in some sort must go before the habit of it can be in us at all for whether you will suppose it to come by infusion onely or by aquisition onely or both it comes not by nature and generation as reason doth but by teaching and instruction if we will believe the word which saith faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God Review 5. They lose it again when they come to more years else why are they taught the element of faith By the same reason they should lose the faculty of understanding also because after they are set to learning learning is for the bringing forth into act and perfecting of the degrees otherwise one that is at 24. years of age having received faith once might give over learning more for if this argument might hold either they lose it or why do they learn Re-Review Hoop Sirs what pretty cutted stuff is here as if you did not know well enough but that for advantage sake to your crooked cause you rather chuse here to seem ignorant of it that reaching and learning is not onely for the further bringing forth of habits that are in us into their acts and perfecting of them in their degrees but also for the begetting of some habits in us that never were before viz. not natural and innate habits as the faculty of reason and understanding for instruction is not for the engendring but improving of these in us but all such kind of habits as faith is viz. acquired habits teaching tends not onely to the perfecting of such a posteriori after they are once begun but a priori also to the very being and begetting of these whether they be habits about matters of this life or that to come t is true therefore learning is to be continued for the perfecting of habits begun and begotten in a man otherwise indeed as you say one of 24 years having once received the faith need be taught no more but it is to be also for the beginning and begetting of faith in him otherwise to one at 24 years of age having not yet received it the faith is preacht by you in vain that he may receive it There is a teaching to beget grace and faith where it is not and a teaching to increase it where it is Mat. 28.18.19 a teaching before and a teaching after faith and baptism and if you ask a reason of both these the one is to beget faith into both the habit and the act the other to build it up into higher degrees the second teaching indeed supposes a being of it in men the first teaching no being of it as yet when you begin first to preach to them for your preaching speaks to them as to unbelievers whereupon this argument holds good that if ever they had faith in their infancy they have lost it now for why else are they taught the element of it why taught in order to the receiving it for reason in this objection must be understood as speaking suppositively onely i. e. in case persons had faith in infancy it s now lost why else are they taught to this end that they might have it but not so positively as your expressions represent it as if reason did really assert that infants do lose any faith they had in infancy for howbeit reason acknowledges that such in whom faith is may lose it if they look not to it yet reason knows well enough that those can never be said to lose faith in whom faith never was at all Review 6. Habits encline more towards their proper actions but children of Christians are not more inclined to actions of faith then infidels An Argument from comparison is subject
the principle of reason and facultie of understanding in infants the faculty of understanding is an innate habit necessarily to be concluded and that in the highest degree to be in all infants t is in omni per se quâ ipsum but faith in Christ is by your own confession but an infused habit and by your own confession as not in all infants so in you know not which and which not till you see them act it and yet by your own conclusion to go round again t is in such not in such viz. not at all in Turks and Pagans infants for they are all in a damnable condition with you but in all infants of Christians even such as yet give no specimen of it and that so necessarily that a man may as truly deny that which is naturall to them even the faculty of understanding as deny the habit of faith to be in them Next in order to a fuller and more direct answer you prepare the way by a pannel of six or seven positions which you say you must necessarily hold concerning two or three of which we may say it s no great matter whether you hold them or no for any undoubted and infallible truth that is to be found in them in the sense wherein you take them or at least for any great matter of assistance that acrues to your cause by them and as for the rest of which you say you must necessarily hold them you might have said rather you must necessarily yield them to us for indeed they are the giving up of your cause and no other then the drawing of a dash with your own pen over all that ever you say throughout the residue of your works as concerning that sufficient appearance of faith you assert to be in believers infants yea he is blind that doth not see you thereby perfectly blotting out again what ever you penned in that particular with your own hands First say you the habit of faith must be before it can work I know no necessity of holding this for truth neither indeed would you hold it but that you imagine faith to be another kind of habit then it is for there are more kinds of habits then one though you speak of habit by the lump all along as if you were aware of but one for here 's ore and ore again habit habit habit habit habit but not the least hint of what kind of habit you mean you are never the men that distinguish of habits whereas qui bene distinguit bene docet there being some habits acquired and obtained no otherwise then by acting and faith it self is such a habit as will hardly be proved for all your confidence in the contrary to be any other at least to be apparent in any one or visible to the view of others till some act thereof hath past the persons in whom it is neither is any one in the world that I know of habitually a believer in Christ till having heard of him or his word he doth actually believe Secondly whereas you say the spirit of God infuses this habit I grant he infuses it if you take the word infuse in a true sense i. e. for begetting it in persons by the preaching of the word other infusion of faith if yet that may be properly called infusion which is a phrase rather of your own coining in this case the word knows none God indeed gives it but he gives it in the way of hearing the word of faith in the way of hearing Christ preached in which way he never gave it to infants neither is it his gift to them in any other the spirit works it but not without the use of means not per saltum and in nictu oculi i. e. so suddenly as you fancy but by the discharge of that office he bears from the father to that end and purpose towards the whole world i. e. moving striving perswading inwardly whilest the word doth without inlightning convincing a man of sin in himself of righteousness to be had and of a judgement to come wherein we shall be saved or damned according as we believe or believe not accept or neglect so great salvation upon which motions and convictions which are â—tricter and stronger in some then in other some some yield and believe and obey the Gospel and some for all this rebel and obey not so that t is true the spirit thus effects the business within us yet not so as that he is said wholly to do it without us he is the supreme efficient the operative cause of it but we are to be concurrent cum causà operante we have a part to do as well as he when he hath done his part towards us i. e. to believe which if we do not he will not force us he will go no further nor shall he be blamed but we and we not onely blamed but damnd for not doing it accordingly but if we do believe and turn at his reproof then indeed there is a promise of an infusion or rather effusion of the spirit in other i. e. those more special and peculiar offices of a witnesse to our spirits that we are Gods children a seal a comforter a revealer of the things freely given us of God a supporter under suffering c. all which it performes towards the Saints and in â—espect of which onely its called the holy spirit of promise Eph. 1.13 in this manner the spirit of God in order to that sweet infusion of it self into us may be said if you will call it infusion for which a fitter word may be found to infâ—se i. e. to work faith other infuâ—ion of faith into men much lesse into iâ—fants or such a downright infusion as I suppose you dream on the Scripture makes no mention of at all Thirdly in that you say he is not bound to work it in all the children of Christian parents nor barred from working it in any of the children of infideâ—â— this indeed you must necessarily hold as you say for t is undeniable truth but in holding it you must wholly let go all you held before concerning believes infants appearing to have faith and that in contradistinction to the infants of unbelievers for first you use to say as p. 14. out of Act. 2. that the promise of it is to believers and their seed i. e. as believers seed and so consequently to all and onely their seed not the seed of unbelievers for quod convenit qua ipsum convenit omâ—â— soli semper belongs alwayes to all of one sort and not any man of another and thereby you use to bind the spirit unlesse he will bee unfaithfull to work faith as without which you think he cannot give them salvation in all the seed of believers for a promise that is made to such or such a seed qua si must needs be sure as the Scripture saith Romans 4.16 and made good or else God that cannot lie breaketh his word to
to children of believing parents as to persons at years for we have Gods testimony concerning them in this matter whilest you have but mans testimony concerning himself yea Christ hath amply declared his good will to them in Scripture whose testimony is not onely Tanta-mount but to be preferred before mens from which it more plainly appears that infants have faith then the testimony of any particular person can make it appear for himself Baptist So you say indeed both before page 5. and behind p. 19. but how dare you assert then that you go not about to prove certainly but only probably that believers infants do believe for verily if it be so as you say that God himself gives testimony for them in Scripture that these little infants do believe then never say no judgement of science can be passed no discovery made of the habit of faith nor peremptory presuming what infants have faith and what not till you see them act it for Gods testimony is more credible then mans indeed hath he said it and is it not so yea verily let him be true but every man a lyar for mans own word can create but probability and charity and not so much neither unless he speak it from Gods word that believers infants do believe and infidels infants do not but if God have said so then cursed be he that will not believe it to be so for if his word be not perfectly demonstrative and scientifical and past all doubt but I confesse I find not a word of his concerning such a thing then I le never trust self confuting Clergy men any more 2. Whereas you answer that in those children where there is lesse promptness to acts of faith then in others we cannot argue ad negationem habitus because they work not equally What is this to the present question and position concerning no more inclinablenesse to holy actions in children of Christians then of infidels for those are such of whom your selves assert the one have faith the other have none but these you speak of now are adult ones such as in whom there is some promptness to acts of faith appearing differenced only secundum magis minus some inclining more some lesse to acts of faith concerning all whom sith those of them that have least promptness have at least an apparent promptnesse to acts of faith who denies but that they may have faith though they work not equally but what 's this to the proof of more or lesse inclinablenesse to holy actions among infants who are so far from having some more some lesse that even none of them have any promptnesse thereto at all 3. Whereas you fiddle it on a little further and think to coop us up by your crosse interrogatory you may well call it a crosse one indeed for its a net that catches your selves let us answer it which way soever you would have us For if we say heathens infants are inclined to acts of faith and should make that good against you as we shall hardly ere trouble our selves to do unlesse we did believe it to be truth can you give any just account of your denial of baptism to these yea who can forbid water why they may not be baptized that have and are inclined to act faith as well as the other and in whom as in those of believing parents the work is palpably at least possibly and probably the very same But if we say no infidels infants are not inclined then we must take what comes on it for you are resolved to hit us home indeed and so you do while you do that at last cast which had you done at first you had saved your selves a deal of hurt which you have done your selves by circumlocuting so long in way of proving the very Minor proposition of that last Argument which Reason urged against you viz. that Christians children are not more inclined to actions of faith then those of infidels for at last you fall flatly as your safest way to deny that Minor and assert contrarily thereto that children of Christians are more inclined to holy actions then other children which if it be true First how grosly do you contradict that you say in the lines above where you seem to grant that there may be more inclinablenesse in infidels children and promptnesse to holy actions then in Christians Secondly I wonder how you come to be experienced in it for if you Clergie men be all Christians and so you are in your own account your children excepting some that by the breeding you give them grow up to the same stamp of Christianity you print upon them do for all their native holy inclinations not seldome prove the lewdest and rudest of any mens children in a Countrey for not onely through the Priests and Prophets own practise but from their posterity too oft times prophaness goes out into all the world or else the Popes had never filled it with iniquitie as they have done The nexâ— objection of Reason is as followes Review 7. Faith comes by hearing Little children cannot hear must lesse understand Ergo they have no faith They might also conclude they have no faculty of understanding neither for that comes by hearing but infants have an hearing the spirit opens their ears he must do it in adultis or for all their hearing they will never believe He is not tyed to means though we are without the outward hearing of the Word he works faith in little children The manner of his working is miraculous as it is in the conversion of every soul enough hath been said to that before nor ought it to be objected if miraculous then not ordinary for the work of the spirit in the conversion of men is both Re-Review Had Reason had the managing representing and writing of this Argument her self she would not have set it down in so weak absurd and silly a manner as Reasonlesse hath done it in in this place Reason never held such a thing yet as is asserted in this Minor viz. that children cannot hear much lesse understand for abstract hearing from understanding and take these two in sensu diviso as you do here and children can hear but in sensu composito they cannot it cannot rationally nor truly be said they cannot so much as hear much lesse understand but they cannot hear so as to understand or they cannot hear understandingly as those must that hear in order to believing and whose faith comes by hearing a hearing t is true infants have for they are not destitute of that sense more then of seeing and the rest Auriculas Asini quis non habet the same hearing that an Asse horse or other bruit beast hath which is only the sound of words without the knowledge of the sense who hath not save he that is deaf but the hearing they have is neither such as Paul speaks of there nor yet that heating you say they have viz. an inward hearing
remarkable absurdity is this viz. in that you most shamelessely assert that the faculty of understanding comes to persons by the same way and means whereby justifying faith comes and no other i. e. by hearing the word preached for when reason argues against infants believing thus viz. faith comes by hearing the word of God but infants cannot hear so as to understand the word of God preached Ergo not believe you reply thus viz. They might also conclude they have no faculty of understanding neither for that i. e. the faculty of understanding comes by hearing i. e. as faith doth O prodigious piece of priestly prudence did ever any but men minded to manifest their folly to all men utter such a thing that the faculty of understanding comes as faith in Christ viz. by hearing the word of God are not the faculties of the soul of man I say the faculties of it i. e. the facultie of understanding the faculty of the will so inseperable from it so essential to it that a person is neither sooner nor longer a reasonable soul then it hath these I confesse that Plus notitiae or acquisitio ulterioris intelligentiae increase of knowledge and the obtaining of more and more understanding may come by hearing wherein the faculty of understanding being set on work not onely exercises but improves it self also and comes to act it self on more intelligible objects then before now newly discovered to it but that Ipsa facultas intelligendi or ipse intellectus the very faculty of understanding it self which comes by nature and generation and is as essentially in man as the reasonable soul it self doth come by hearing is such a mess of matter as was never heard of to this hour nor can I conceive what kind of hearing any faculty of the soul can come by sith the understanding and will must both be known to be in persons and they thereby to be both reasonable intelligible and eligible creatures before they can be fit subjects to be spoken to and before intelligible or eligible objects can reasonably seasonably or any other wise then senslessely be propounded to them in preaching neither if at all they had such a monstrous kind of inward teaching from the spirit as you talk of can they have even that teaching before they have the faculty of understanding for that teaching must be at least after they have a being but they are not in being sooner then the faculty of understanding hath a being in them yea in order of time the sense of hearing it self is not in us before it And howbeit the Axiome be true if rightly taken Nil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu the understanding apprehends nothing which some sense or other doth not first some way or other apprehend yet still the faculty of understanding whereby we conceive and the will whereby we receive begin to be in us at least as soon as the senses whereby we outwardly perceive i. e. as we our selves begin to be Thirdly other ridiculous silly stuff that with the rest this section is stufft with is this in that you would seem to make the spiriâ—s converting and begetting little children to faith to be some strange miraculous and more marvellous piece of businesse then his converting and begetting faith in grown persons because in infants he uses not that ordinary means whereby he converts men without the outward preaching of the word say you he works faith in little children his manner of working i. e. in little children is miraculous and yet when all comes to all instead of proving as one might very well expect you should do that the conversion of infants is such a different transcendent and wonderfull matter ore that of men is you confesse plainly in the very next words that the conversion of every soul is a matter as miraculous as that as also above p. 16. where your words are these the renovation of a soul meaning of any soules of either adult ones or infants is no lesse a miracle then that of the resurrection of the dead which you mind us of here also saying enough hath been said to that before and I say too much unlesse it were beetter for they are both alike egregiously absurd and full of falshood as for the conversion of infants at 7. or 8.9 or 10. daies old for then you sprinkle them upon that account t is a figment a meer Ens rationis and yet I can hardly call it so so little reason is in it unlesse I may call a non entity so or that which never hath a being any further then in the brains that broac hit in a word nothing at all and therefore no miraculous thing at all for that which is not is not a miracle and for the conversion of men unto the faith of Christ it is so far from being miraculous that of the two though indeed neither of them is properly a miracle it is more to be admired rather that no more persons are converted and that considering the pains patience and goodnesse of God that leads to repentance the plain dispensations of himself to men in promises and threats and discoveries of the way of their peace they should yet be so obstinate and unbelieving It was wonderful and marvellous indeed that the Jewes for the most part did not believe in the wildernesse for all they saw so many of Gods wonderfull works but no wonder that some few of them did herein is a marvellous thing that ye know not whence Christ is i. e. own him not by faith as the sonne of God saith the man Ioh. 9.30 and yet he hath opened mine â—yes t was not so marvelous that men believed in Christ when they heard his words and saw his works but much rather because they believed not Act. 13.41 t is wonderful when Gods works are not believed though declared yea Christ himself is therfore said to marvel at their unbelief Mark 6.6 t is not marvellous that some men see and accept of excellent things when they are shewn and tendred to them but that most men seeing do not see them much lesse is a persons believing as great a miracle as the resurrection of the body from the dead for then t was as great a miracle that many Jewes believed on Christ when they saw him raise Lazarus as it was that he raised him from the dead which thing who ever doth believe I believe him in that particular to be a marvelous unwise man for his labor it being rather no lesse then marvellous stupidity that when they saw Christs marvelous works yet for all that they did not believe on him Besides if every conversion of a sinner to the faith be a miracle the gift of working miracles is given to men as commonly in these daies as in the Apostles for how usual a thing is it now for men by the gift that is in them and given them from above as instruments under God and no
baptized and built upon the foundation i. e. doctrine of Christ and the Apostles a spiritual house a holy temple i. e. visible church unto Iesus Christ now in these daies of the Gospel and that no mans fleshly seed or natural posterity no not Abrahams own barely on such an account as being his bodily seed much lesse any believing Gentiles who hath not more priviledge then his seed I think but onely the at least seeming spiritual seed of Abraham i. e. those that are children of God and Abrahams too by faith in Christ Gal. 3.26.28 as no infant is have right to dwell in this family the babes the seed of Abraham circumcised in heart the children of the heavenly promise pointed at and typed out by the Iews babes and that circumcised seed of Isaac and those children of that earthly promise of the old Canaan these are the true sons of the free woman the Gospel visible church before whom the bond woman and her son i. e. Abrahams meer â—leshly seed though by Isaac are cast out that they may dwell alone in the house as Hagar and her son were cast out of Abrahams house of old before Isaac and his seed that they might dwell alone for look how Ishmael and his seed stood in reference to Isaac and his that were the children by promise of the earthly Canaan viz. but servants that must not abide the house longer when the other came in to stand so Isaac the type and his seed themselves in reference to Christ the true Isaac and his seed i. e. believers viz. as servants that must be packing when he comes in and not abide in the house together with him see Iohn 8. Galatians 4. ult But that were to begin the work again which I have finisht above where I have given a touch of these things and but a touch in comparison of what might be said And of multiplying Arguments and making many books there is no end Therefore I le hint but a few among which this shall be the first If the standing upon the root Abraham i. e. the family or visible Church of God since Christ be by faith in the person onely so standing and not by faith in the parent as of old then infants cannot now stand therein But so t is Therefore the other The consequence is cleared by the consideration of the incapacity of infants to believe faith being assent to something propounded to us faith comming by hearing and hearing by the word Rom. 10. so that who so thinks it possible for infants 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere when it is said how can they believe in him of whom they have not heard is wretchedly inconsiderate The Minor is evident out of Rom. 11. where it is said the very natural branches of Abrahams body that did on that account meerly as the fleshly seed of that father of the faithfull stand in the olive tree the visible Church before time yet now could stand no longer on that old account why were they not the seed of Abraham still that stood without faith in the old visible Church to the very end of it yes but they believed not in their own persons therefore could not stand in this house but were cast out of their own olive their own father Abrahams family i. e. the visible Church now Christ came in because of unbelief and thou saith Paul to the Gentile standest how by fleshly descent no that standing is gone from such as come of Abrahams himself therefore is not to thee nor to thine but by faith i. e. personal and not parentall A Second this If all they that are baptized into one visible body under the Gospell are made in the supper to drink into one spirit then infants who cannot drink into one spirit with the body secundum te may not be baptized into that visible body But this is true 1 Cor. 12.13 Therefore that So Col. 2.19 All the body is knit together and by joints and bands hath nourishment ministred and increaseth by that which every joint and member supplieth Eph. 4.16 But infants are not capable to have Spirituall nourishment Minstired and to grow in grace as all the body ought to do at least and this in the use of the Supper If you say they are capable of spiritual nourishment I say as capable I think as of the spiritual birth for where there 's a birth there 's a growth but then me thinks they should be as capable of the supper which is the Sacrament of spirituall nourishment being capable of that as being capable of spiritual birth they are of baptism the outward Sacrament of the same But Mr. Bax. denies that page 114.115 among other reasons for this because though capable to be washed yet not to eat bread and drink wine in their first infancy Oh strange they may have it then as they can eat and drink A third is this If no infants were baptized and added to the first Gospell visible Church then surely they had no right so to be for the Apostles would not do them that wrong as not to add them that had right But this is true Therefore that The Minor is plain out of Acts 2. where to the 120. men and women that without infants continued in fellowship Acts 1. there were added 3000. more in one day and not one infant among them but as many onely as gladly received the word nor more nor lesse for else Luke couzens us in his history and continued after their baptism in fellowship in breaking bread and prayers which no infants did and yet it is well nigh infallible that those 3000 had some infants belonging to some of them which would have been added with their parents if the promise is to you and to your children and them a far off even as many as the Lord shall call would bear the sense divines drawes it to Yea Master Cotton himself conceives that no infants were baptized at that time and when else either these or any other were neither I not any one else ever found since they began to read Christs Testament with their eyes open Yea Peter commanded no more to be baptized but the same persons whom he speaks to also to repent which me thinks he should have done saying be baptized every one of you and baptize your children also if any such thing had been intended and Christians infants were to have been separated out of the world and called to be saints and baptized as Mr. B. believes they are to be but not I. For what saies Paul in his Epistle to the Romans chapter 1. I suppose he wrote not to infants yet to all the called Saints to all that be in Rome called to be saints So in 1 Cor. 14. the 23. If the whole Church come together and all speak with tongues and all Prophe-y So 26. Every one of you hath a Psalm So 31. Ye may all prophecy one by ons that all may be edifyed He writes and
so we cannot say nor do the Apostles speak concerning baptism viz. one man believeth that having the spirit he may but needs not be baptized another who is weak must needs be baptized let every one do as they see good or are satisfied in this case if they be baptized they have not sinned and if they never be baptized they have not sinned c. nay both Christ and they speak here in way of peremptory determination of all persons to one point for whereas if baptism were a matter thus left to our minds Christ must have said to his disciples go teach all nations every creature baptizing as many of those you make disciples onely as judge it needful as have a mind to it not teaching them to observe that outward rite any further then they please and Ananias to Paul and Peter to those he preacht to Act. 2. Act. 10. must have said repent and believe remission of sins and call on the name of the Lord and if any of you be so mindeed you may be baptized in water in token of Christs death burial and resurrection but those that seem to themselves to be as well without it may forbear we have no power either to forbid it or force them to it but they say clean otherwise viz. Go teach all Nations baptizing them teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I command you and now why tarriest thou arise and be baptized â—nd wash away thy sins c. repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Iesus c. who can forbid water why these i. e. all these should not be baptized c. all which if it do not import and expresse water baptism to be every ones duty and not any ones liberty onely then my understanding stands under a cloud of utter darknesse Yea verily t is very remarkable in my mind and as well worth our heeding as any thing else in this case that when Paul in his trembling and astonished condition enquired of the Lord what he would have him to do the first thing and well nigh the onely thing that the word expresses that Christ by the mouth of Ananias declared to him as his will at that time which was immediately after his conversion was this duty of baptism see Act. 6.9 and the trembling and astonished said Lord what wilt thou have me to do and the Lord said unto him arise and go into the City and it shall be told thee what thou must do which passage Paul relating of himself Act. 22.10 expresses it thus viz. and I said what shall I do Lord and the Lord said to me arise and go into Damascus and there it shall be told thee of all things which are appointed for thee to do Now when he was come into Damascus Ananias speaks thus to him v. 14. the God of our fathers hath chosen thee that thou should know his will But what part of Christs will doth the word say Ananias there makes known to Paul in that place as that which at that time he must do and was appointed that he should do no more then what is exprest in these words Act. 22. v. 15.16 thou shalt be his witnesse unto all men of that thou hast seen and heard And now why tarriest thou arise and be baptized and wash away thy sins calling on the name of the Lord. And as Peter in his first preaching the praeceptory part of Christs Gospel to the Jews when they enquired what they should do and to the company at Cornelius's house and Ananias in his to Paul when he quaeried what he should do did preach baptism as the will of Christ concerning them as well as repentance prayer and such like duties so we shall find it was the constant course of all other primitive preachers in their preachings of Christ to any people to hold forth baptism to them as that which was to be submitted to by them out of hand after faith and repentance professed and also the constant course of persons converted to the faith without delay to submit to that dispensation accordingly for howbeit the very form of words wherein they spake to them concerning baptism and prest it upon believers as their duty is not set down syllabically in every place where its evident yet most manifestly evident and past all doubt it is to any but such as seeing will not see that in their doctrine they delivered the mind of Christ to people in this point of baptism and commanded it too even in those places where the Scripture doth not expresse what they said or else how it came to passe that their converts were acquainted with it so as readily to imbrace it and some of them to demand it as we find they did I know not unless we shall imagine they knew and owned it by some divine immediate instinct Acts 16.13.14.15 it s said that the Lord opening the heart of Lydia so that she attended unto the things which were spoken by Paul she was baptized and her houshold who undoubtedly attended to the things that Paul preached together with her doth not this palpably presuppose that baptism was one of those things spoken by Paul and prest upon that Auditory or else how came she to know it and also to what purpose did she perform it likewise Act. 16.30.31.32.33 to the Jaylor asking Sirs what must I do to be saved its said that Paul and Silas preached the word of the Lord and to all that were in his house but what word of the Lord was it that they spake to them indeed the summe of their doctrine is not set down but that the doctrine of baptism was some of it as well as faith which is expressely set down as that which concerned them in the first place is clear or else it s a mystery to me how he and all his who are said v. 34. to believe in the Lord together with him should come to understand that they ought to be baptized much more to submit to be baptized straightway â—o Act. 18.8 it s said that Crispus the chief ruler of the Synagogue and all his house and many of the Corinthians hearing the word bâ—lieved and were baptized which how or why they should suffer themselves to be if the word they then heard none of which is set down did not hold forth baptism as well as faith I cannot possibly conjecture in like manner we read Act. 8.4 that Philip went to Samaria and preached Christ to them and v. 12. that when they believed the things spoken by Philip pertaining to the Kingdom of God and the name of Iesus Christ they were baptized both men and women yea and this not a service they submitted to on their own heads in their own names as that which had they been so pleased they might as well have forborn but v. 16. they were baptized in the name of the Lord Iesus it s said also v. 35. of the Eunuch that Philip preached unto him
once before all the principles of the doctrine of Christ whereof this laying on of hands is said to be one and not only so but secondly from these words you ought to be teachers that by this time they should have been of ability to teach these principles to others which also shews that these principles ought all along still to be taught Moreover if it be queried where or by whom these Hebrewes were at first taught this A B C these principles of the oracles of God there spoken of is it not as clear as the sun to any serious understanding considerate spirit that it was by Peter at Ierusalem in his first preaching there in obedience to Christs commission Mat. 28. after power was come upon him from on high in Act. 2. which I direct to as a second place wherein we may find it preached did not Peter there lay this foundation of the principles of the doctrine of Christ among them in preaching as they did themselves in practising Heb. 6 2. and howbeit the whole form of the doctrine he there delivered is not set down as none of the doctrine that Philip preacht at Samaria is nor of that Paul preacht at Philippi Act. 16.14 nor at Corinth Act. 18.8 yet is it not by sundry passages as evident that he taught that principle of laying on of hands among all the rest as it is and how evident that is is shewed above that they in those other places preached baptism shall we think that Peter taught the principles of the doctrine of Christ all which he was to lay as one foundation among them by the halves did he build them upon one part of the foundation and not on the other part did he constitute them partly upon it and partly beside it did he teach them all the rest of the principles every of which its said Heb. 5.12 they had been taught viz. faith repentance baptism resurrection and judgement and did he leave out that one onely of laying on of hands specially since it s said that with many other words he exhorted that people who are said there also to continue in the Apostles doctrine what man that devotes himself to the comparing of Scripture with Scripture can imagine it and if not why not be satisfied that it was preacht by some at least of Christs Apostles to all baptized believers A third Scripture I direct the inquirers unto is Act. 8.5.12.14.15.16.17 whence first its evident from the Apostles administring and the Samaritans submission to it that the doctrine in the purport and tendency of it was first declared unlesse we shall judge the Saints at Samaria were such idiots as to act by implicit faith as men were not to do but by comparison of what they said with the Scriptures under the ministry of the Apostles themselves Act. 17.22 and to yield blind obedience to they knew not what the Apostles also justifying them in it which if they did then you that professe your selves to be yet ignorant in that service and that you know not the meaning of it may submit to it as safely though as senslessely as they from the hands of such as do which yet when all is done I am sure you may not but Secondly more evident yet if you weigh some passages of that text it self the words whereof are on this wise viz. then went Philip down unto Samaria and preached Christ to them v. 5. and when they believed the things spoken by Philip pertaining to the Kingdom of God they were baptized both men and women when they at Ierusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God they sent unto them Peter and John who when they were come prayed for them that they might receive the holy spirit for as yet he was fallen upon none of them onely they were baptized in the name of the Lord Iesus then laid they their hands on them and they received the holy spirit It s said that Philip preached Christ and spoke of the things pertaining to the the Kingdome of God and that they received the word of God which they did not surely so much as to believe what was to be done till he had preached it now can any rationall man think that he preached Christ and the things pertaining to his kingdome and the word of God and not preach so much as all the principles of the oracles of God not so much as all the first Rudiments or whole beginning word of Christ but left out imposition of hands onely among all the rest as none of the word of Christ nor of the things pertaining to his kingdome as not to be preacht no not in that juncture wherein immediately after it was to be and accordingly was so universally submitted to by them and dispenst unto them or if you say they received not that word of laying on of hands from Philip but from Peter and Iohn I answer t is true practically from the hands of Peter and Iohn dispensing it but by faith so as to believe it to be a practicable doctrine that was their duty to own from the mouth of Philip dispensing the doctrine of it or suppose that Philip spake nothing of it till Peter and Iohn came which is non supponendum yet is it likely that the Apostles that were sent to them from Ierusalem though nothing is said of that they said that therefore they said nothing to them at all yea will right reason ever receive this for truth that the Apostles were sent to Samaria upon the account of some service whether solely that of prayer and laying on of hands it matters not so long as that was one part of it at least and yet neither acquaint them whether before acquainted with it or no to what end and purpose they came and what was the end and purport of that service they onely or mainly came for he that can receive this let him receive it for my part I professe I cannot A fourth place from whence it is easily gathered that the doctrine of laying on of hands in order to their receiving the holy spirit was wont to be preached to all baptized believers is Act. 19.1 2.3 where Paul speaking to the whole company of disciples that he found at Ephesus the number wherof were then but about twelve among whom the doctrine of laying on of hands in order to the receiving the holy spirit had not been preached at the time of their baptism seems to reprove and blame the neglect of it enquiring whether they had not received the holy spirit supposing surely at least that the promise of it had been to them and prayer made for them in the usual way with laying on of hands that they might receive it but marveiling much that they being baptized believers had not been informed about these matters nor had so much as heard of the holy spirit have you received the holy â—pirit saies he no nor so much as heard of it say they no unto what then
of the civil powers have been dâ—nd by the usual addresses of the PPPriesthood unto them for help against Hereticks and Schismaticks and by their hideous outcries viz. of the Prelates against the Presbyters saying help O King and the Presbyters against the Sectaries help O Parliament all will be overspread with a Gangrene of Heresie Murder Murder c. O ye Magistrates restrain dipping in cold water as you will save the lives of your subjects and such stuff and felly as is powred out to the Magistrate by the Minister against men more true to Christ and Magistracy then himself I humbly conceive the Magistrate may lawfully and more acceptably to God then otherwise save himself so much labour as to let these matters alone yea he may do well to see that whatever Religion men be of that are under his civil power in each state whether Iewish Turkish Heathenish Popish Prelatical Presbyterian or Independent may not be injurious each to other without satisfaction in civil matters and to see that none commit any uncivil actions that are contrary to that common honesly and righteousnesse among men which men as magistrates are set to vindicate to see that none live be they of this or that Religion dishonestly without correction to see that none usurp Dominion over each others faith so as to make all men believe as some do whether they see ground to believe so yea or no by the civil sword to see that in order to their own eternal good they find out and walk in the way of truth themselves as it is in Jesus and when they are once assured that they are in the truth themselves to let that truth be verbally declared per se or per alios as much as they please but not forced upon others as their faith further then the light of preachings and discourses may prevail to fasten it on others consciences and to see that even enemies to the Gospel and true Church may have no more then the weapons of the Churches warfare which are not carnal used towards them to make them friends and as to those who walk in truth whoever they are or shall but be supposed by the successive representatives Princes or Powers to walk in the way of truth to see that they be countenanc't but not too much maintenanc't because Christs disciples nor cookt up to all the honour and preferment and places of trust and advantage above their fellow subjects to the ingendring of jealousies and emulations in others that may be happily though not so neer the truth of Christ yet as trusty to the State as themselves for that too often choaks the Church but onely that with an indifferent impartial hand as men whether in Church or out being otherwise honest and able and of publique spirits not selfish nor covetous nor cruel c. may seem fit to be intrusted with such and such places so they may be chosen and disposed of thereunto in a word to see that such as make prayers and supplications and intercessions and giving of thanks for all men for Kings and such as are in authority living in all godlinesse and honesty may as well as others and others also as well as they living soberly and honestly though not Godly in Christ Jesus nor worshipping in way of truth but falsly may live a quiet and peaceable life without persecution as to confiscation bonds or death for doing and denying according to the dictates of their own though yet blinded conscience and that men of all Religions may live without molestation one from another any more then by meer manifestations of their light one to another at seasonable times in wayes of query disputation and preaching and then to leave all men to worship God according to their several wayes even misbelievers Hereticks and Iewes themselves and others that yet believe not in Christ but deny him till the Lord lend them light by the word of truth and to stand or fall to their own master Christ Jesus to whom every conscience shall give account of it self at last who if any man hear his words and believe not nor receives but rejects them judges him not here either by himself or the civil magistrate or by his Church any further then to non-communion with them yet by the word that he hath spoken unto him will judge every man at the last day Thus it is most evident the magistrate whether Christian or Heathen is to do and not otherwise viz. to give protection to men as men living honestly soberly and justly without respect to their Religions whether true or false And as to Religions to allow Tolleration to all men to practise according to their principles the practise of whose principles is not directly destructive to the true Religion common honesty civillity morallity righteousnesse and the peace and safety of the Common-wealth as some mens principles are if put in practise yet verily I know none among Christians at least save those of the two Spiritualties vix the Rantizing PPPriest that in his precincts which is the whole world could he catch it would have no tolleratian for any way of worship but his own and the Ranting Prophet who would have toleration of all and more too not onely all Religions but all as well unciuill unnatural lewd abominable as irreligious actions which nature it self cries shame on among beasts magistracy finds it self an ordinance of God to give correction to among heathens for those men are now acting upon the stage of whom Iude speaks when he saies Iude 10. what they know naturally as bruit beasts in those things they corrupt themselves the principles of that old PPPriest and this new Prophet if practised in the hight of them are utterly inconsistent with the standing of truth in the world untrampled viz. that of the Priest and also with the standing of very manhood among men of civility in civil states of the common-health of the Common-wealth it self viz. that of the Prophet the one is so far from owning any power to be a terror to evil works and incouragement to good that despising all Government and speaking evill of dignities he holds that there is at all neither good nor evil nor better nor worse amongst works but all alike and then good Lord how fast must iniquity dishonesty unrighteousnesse and incontinency thrive and abound upon earth to the ripening of 〈◊〉 for the sickle when it shall be acted with allowance from such a principle as this viz. that there is now no iniquity at all this man would have the civil power allow all Religions and good Manners too but allowes of none at least thinks he needs use none himself and is for a Toleration of all truth in the world though all truth is the intollerablest thing in the world to him and though it hath leave from him to grow besides him and will too among some yet he hopes to loosen it by lending it so much scope
to stand outward and the worst of your Antagonists Answers yea Qui verbis opus est quum facta loquuntur if any believe not me affirming how poorly infant baptism was proved at Ashford let him believe the work it self now extant proclaiming it self weak its argument's weak for so the Thing called the True Account thereof doth in word in its preface and indeed in the residue Litera scripta manet non ita verba diu Litera sculpta manet not ita scripta diu 3. As to the privacy of that my Rescription and Recrimination to the Gentleman you wot of which you complain of not onely in this your monitory missive to my self but in your Preface also to the Reader where you say your Aversaries in Private loaded your disputation with disgraces as if you had been bob'd behind in some base way and so secretly supplanted that he who spake so diminutively of you and yours must needs be ashamed that his words should ever see the light you know Sirs that my letter was not so private but that it might have been made publique if you had pleased by your selves who as you had a quarrel against it so both had it amongst you and free leave also from me of whom if you had had a mind to it or any advantage by it I am sure you would not have askt it to have prest it out in your service with your own defence against it the presse being also as open to your excusation as my accusation 4. If you ask me why I reply not to the sole publisher of the Account but addresse my self in way of blame to you all even such as were no more then present at the disputation I answer 1. How to personate the chief publisher of your collections I knâ—w not for I know him not or if I know him well enough for my self yet I know not how to know him so well as on my knowledge to notifie him to others he hath chosen to be namelesse whether to this end that he might be the more securely shameless in setting down or no I will not say at any hand but many a one will think so for all that for my part since I saw it pleased him to hide himself I was not disposed much to enquire after him much lesse shall he be discovered for me who can tell from the time I first saw his work whose finger it is not more safely then I can yet whose it is for in such sense as some Scripture is it s doubtlesse no finger of God and though I am sure t is the finger of meer man assisted by Satan yet of what man in special I confesse I have good ground to pay it with thinking I may not speak positively in print unlesse I le speak upon bare hearsay which I heed not Secondly if it were mainly the employment of one to gather things together compose them into one bulk yet it seems plainly to be the joint issue of several mens brains and to have been rak't out of more memories then one and therefore well may you call them Collections yea that not meerly one but more then one had a hand in it I am informed sufficiently to belief by the voice of the Baby-book it self which speaking in some places plurally but not any where singularly of its Parentage little lesse then assures me of this that howbeit there might be one prime penman of the Pamphlet or whoere it was that thrust it through the presse yet the minds of more men yea more Ministers then one is sounded forth in it yea of such as were but Auditors at the Disputation whose sense both of it and of its efficacy upon the people is said in your Account to be so unanimous that they resolved together with the rest to declare their sense of it in their several congregations and oppose the growth of Anabaptism as t is cal'd in their respective flocks which since it hath been done by them too accordingly as was then agreed and whether if not all or at lest a pluralty of those Priests who before laid their heads together to betray the truth of God did not since compare their notes together to bely it whether birds of a Feather did not flock together to give their several influences toward this hotch-potch relation t is more 〈◊〉 if any of you can clear your selves of it do then I can clear any of you of at all save the Scotchman of Keningtonâ— who at Folston disclaimed his having any hand in it But should that be more then I have warrand to be sure of yet however I am certain of this that either it is the sense of you all or else some of you have the more wrong whilst the book is so curiously composed that it may seem to be the Ministers book and the Arguments that are set down in it be they never so silly and inconsequent are fathered upon you all in grosse recorded as the Ministers arguments though proceeding but from one Ministers mouth and not few follies and absurd things whilst the Penman dances in the clouds himself are related as spoken and done by the Ministers which the Ministers may very well and will once find time to be ashamed of yet you seem to take all that 's put upon you to your selves not any of you entring your dissent whilst therefore you seem so jointly to justifie him that puts you all upon the score in the Report you cannot justly condemn him who Arrests you all for it in the Reply 5. As to these present Returnes of mine to that threefold thing you have thrust forth I am experienced by your wonted Demeanor toward such as trouble you too much with truth how much more Odium then ever I must come under thereby among both your selves and your Admirers but hic murus ahaeneus esto nil conscire sibi nulla pallescere culpa This verily is no lesse then a Brazen fence to me against all your censures and exceptions that even herein as well as in in other things for which you condemn me I have exercised my self so as to keep a conscience void of offence and that toward both God and man Yea if I have not dealt clearly as you wish me to do i. e. according as the truth is indeed then in the very way of waiting upon God onely singly seriously and with many tears for the understanding of it in which way he that cannot lie hath assured me he will be found my conscience is most wonderfully clouded therefore see that you see if you see But if I have not dealt ingenuously i. e. as candidly as so crooked a generation as the CCClergy is that do alwayes erre in their hearts and have not known Christs wayes can justly claim from any but some Cowardly Clawback that cares not to be unfaithful in his carriage both toward God and them then the Lord deal so graciously with us all as to humble both you under
which you profess to give A true Account of First The Propositions agreed on between your selves and your Respondent his Position and what else was precedent and preparative to the Disputation Secondly The Disputation it self and such things as were subsequent to it in each of which if I shew not that you have recorded more flat falsities and down-right untruths than one and that were too much to fall from your pens were you Ministers of Christ indeed then let my own pen record me for a lyar and my own self bear the blame of over-charging you and that for ever In order to a trial of the Truth in this case between you and me though I suppose I shall not be more critical in considering nor volumnous in dilating on them than your selves are numerous in bewraying of your own negligences ignorances contradictions fictions nakednesses and abusive shifts throughout this your three-fold thing yet I shall make little less than a totall transcription of your Papers before I have done and therin take notice of such absurdities at least whereby you most notoriously delude the world most grosly oppose the truth most unworthily wrong your Respondent and most palpably proclaim your selves to be rather true Dissemblers than true Discoverers of the Ashford Disputation and Smotherers rather than Publishers of that Gospel-truth in the point of Baptism which you pretend also to give as true an Account of to the world as of the other Report You talk first of Propositions agreed upon between your Respondent and your selves the Ministers at the Communion-Table in the Church of Ashford in Kent before the Disputation began Reply Give me leave Sirs sith silence with you may be taken else for Assent to say a word or two to this you stile your selves the Ministers both here and else-where throughout your book But if you mean Ministers of Christ and the Gospel I am yet to learn that from you which I never found you very forward to teach me viz. that you came truly and honestly by that Title you have hitherto wanted no provocation from me to prove the lawfulness of your calling I made bold to denominate you Antichristian Ministers in my Position upon the very day of the Disputation before those Thousands which you say were Auditors thereof And I have asserted the same more abundantly since in that letter to Mr. G. C. which it seems you know so well as even thence to take occasion in a Pet to publish so much as you have done of your Disputation all which is enough to give you to understand that I own you not at all in that capacity yet did you never no neither then at the Disputation nor since in your so true a Relation of it so much as once open your mouth or strike one stroke with your pen whereby to evince it that you are Christs Ministers which gives me to believe that howbeit you have a habit of calling your selves so yet you had rather men believed you on your bare words than put you to prove your selves to be so and that you are as utterly uncapable to clear it as 't is clear you are unwilling to be urged to it You speak of the Church of Ashford and a Communion-Table in it 'T were strange if I should not know what you mean thereby yet had you told this peece of your tale in other Terms it had been so much the less lyable to correction I know but one Church of Ashford that hath a Communion-Table in 't and that is those few persons who since they have gladly received the Word of Truth have been according to Christs will in that kind baptized in his name for remission of sinnes and do now continue in the Apostles doctrine and fellowship and in breaking oâ— bread and prayers to which the Lord I hope will add dayly such in those parts as shall be saved in this Church there is a Communion-Table indeed even the Table of the Lord at which they meet blessing and drinking that Cup of blessing which is the Commemoration and Communion also of the blood of Christ breaking and eating that bread which is the Commemoration and Communion of the body of Christ at which you and your Respondent never yet met but may do yet in due time if the Lord please to grant you for till then surely it never will be repentance to the acknowledgement of his truth But for other Communion-Table I wot not Sirs that there is any at all at Ashford As for that common Table which stands in the great stone house where the Bells hang where the people meet once a week but never do that they should do if they were disciples of Christ indeed which house you call the Church of Ashford and I cannot but allow you so to do sith you disclaim the true one the very Steeple being well nigh as much a truly constituted Church of Christ as a parish people the one whereof is but a compacted number of dead stones in a literal sense and for the most part no less in a spiritual sense is the other besides stone Churches and wooden Priests such as if you are not yet most of the Popes children are suit well enough each with other as for that Table I say where you and your Respondent agreed better about the Articles of the Disputation then they do for ought I see to this day about that Article of faith they disputed on you had need to find some fitter phrase for it than Communion-Table for it hath long since ceased to be of any such use as for people to communicate at it The Gentleman my beloved friend that is now Resident there and President too in pretence at least as a Pastor over that flock having never administred it at all since his abode among them nor since the Classis possest him of that Relation and gave him orders to feed them with that ordinance why he doth not meddle with that service in his parish would be farre more wonderful to me then 't is had not mine own conscience been of the same constitution with his when I was with him in the same condition for as my own feet stuck once in the same stocks when I stood in Pastorall relation to parochiall people so I believe him to be further inlightned then to be free for a promiscuous admittance to the Supper of such Societies among whom he discerns not a few more goats than sheep or to hold Communion there with them whom in the Pulpit he cries out on as unbelievers as knowing well enough there 's no fellowship to be held between light and darkness believers and unbelievers in that holy ordinance yet he sprinkles the Infants of all as you also do and my self blindly did or else that parish will prove happily to hot to hold him upon what account he doth so I know not for sure it cannot be upon this because onely believers Infants are to be sprinkled The Lord open
my Position which after debate of the unnecessariness of it the question being already stated and the terms known and understood by every one was yielded to so I exceeded not a quarter of an hour which was accepted by me Reply Though the question were stated and terms known never so well as I deny they are to every one in the question of Infants Baptism for such as are used only to sprinkling take that to be Baptism which is not yet the grounds were not known upon which I held the Negative and therefore 't was not unnecessary for me to make a Position Moreover I invading the practise of your Church in thaâ— point wherof you profess your selves to be Defendants I ought to have shewed upon what grounds I did it that you might have confuted them this would have tended more to the satisfaction of the Auditory than the omission of it could do if you will not believe me in this yet at least believe your selves for these are no other words then your own yet I confess you have no great reason to give heed to your selves neither considering how many offs and ons you are found in for one while you assert it needfull that I should lay down my grounds as above another while as here that I moved and had you said with importunity too you had spoken now no more than the truth to make a Position or which is all one to lay down my grounds onely you saw the unnecessariness of it O pure stuff at last through much importuning to have an hour or two wherein to do it and promising much more then you would accept of viz. That if that day were too short to dispute in I would give you the next day and the next and lastly pleading the equity of the thing from the order of the Schools where there 's no Disputation without Position to which order you had by Article oblig'd us such high condescension was acted by you Presidents of the place that I was allowed the large liberty of a quarter Report Next you go on to declare the sum of my Position and that being come into the body of the Church you the Ministers entred into the Desk and I standing a little distance off upon one of the seats leaning to a pillar and the multitude being silent I made my Position Reply For your relation of my leaning to a Pillar it being neither true nor material what doth it here I wonder in this your short and true relation as you call it of the most material things that passed yet sith 't is acknowledged by you to be a mistake in the margent of the coppy that you sent me I 'le not onlie excuse it for once though an error but lend you a little toward the making of it truth for I did lean indeed that day to a Pillar even the true Church of God which is the Pillar and ground of truth which would you all lean as much to as you do from it in these tottering times you would stand a little faster than you are like to do and secure your selves from that fall that is threatned in these words Babylon is fallen is fallen which though your Tower reach as high as heaven as that old Tower of Babell seem'd to do the Division of language that is in these daies wil e're long unavoidably bring upon you Report The heads of my Position you say are four to which sith you subject four Answers of your own I 'le reduce each of them to the severall head it relates to and so reply to both of them together First That I need not spend time about stating the question it being done before at the Communion Table to this first you saie answer was made that herein I confirmed the Ministers reasons against my making of a position Reply Though there was no need to spend time in acquainting them with the question over again because that was done before at the Table yet there was need and so I expressed my self often enough to spend time yea four or five times more than I could get of you in stating the question i. e. of making a Position for even with your selves these two are Synonima's for what you stile stating the question in the first head the very same you call making a Position in your answer yet such is your subtilty that you here represent it as if I who was so earnest before to have liberty to state the question in a Position and moved it as a matter most needfull were already so altered in my judgement as in the front of my Position to profess it needless to spend time about it Sirs what a sight of in s and outs are here do you not remember or if you will not yet some people will that my chief complaint of you to them in my Position was this That though I so much desired it though it was very requisite and the manner of the Schools to which you tied me and therefore I ought of right to have had an hours time yet you had crowded me into the corner of a quarter which shewes that though you deem'd it wast of time for me to say anie thing almost about the question yet I judg'd it very needfull to speak more to it than your patience was pleased to permit me and yet it 's not enough for you in your Account of the Position to leave well-nigh all that little out which in that little time was declared as to the falsness of your administration by the way of sprinkling and other matters of your Ministery but you also falter and feign and forge so fowlie in your sum of the Position as to set down more in 't than was ever thought on Report Secondly That I came thither to defend the unlawfullness of Childrens baptism which an evill and adulterous generation did maintain against me to which you saie it was answered that I transgressed the Propositions in giving reviling and opprobrious terms callng you a wicked and adulterous generation to which saie you I replyed that my intent was not to fasten those words upon any there present that I desired they might be so taken which by you was admitted of Reply I came not thither i. e. to Ashford so much to defend as to prove could I have been licensed thereunto by your spiritual Court the unlawfulness of Childrens Baptism yet not of Childrens Baptism so much which though it is easie yet is needless to be disproved because no where dispensed that I know of but rather of Childrens sprinkling which as it is doublie unlawful so is universallie practised of this end of my comming I gave evidence enough in debating the fourth Proposition professing that I came to give account of my dissent and denial of the truth of your waie but when you denied me to give my desired Account wherein I would have been a Plantiff and a prover I must then defend or do nothing neither did I
saie of this evil and adulterous generation that they maintained it against me but themselves for whether they do or do it not they cannot hurt me thereby but if they do it the worst will be their own for as they of old that rejected the true Baptism for none Luke 7.30 did reject the councel of God against themselves so do they that reject it for a false one as to the terms of evil and adulterous generation concerning which you first charge me and then acquitted me as not intending them to you I meant them then in verie deed of this Age wherein we live yet so long as you go a whoring from God after waies of mens tradition and teach people to do so as you do I see not how I could have been truly said to revile had I used them directly to your selves Report Thirdly that though I had once been of that opinion and a Minister of the Church and received orders from it yet now I was of another and did renounce both the Church and her orders to which say you 't was answered that it was no marvell that I that had forsaken the Church should afterwards revile and despise her and that God having suffered me to fall into so gross an error as to deny and renounce my first baptism did in his just judgement suffer me to fall further and further Heresie being like a Precipice where after a man hath begun his run he cannot stay till he come to the bottom Reply I was once of that opinion indeed and practise too together with your selves and had not a little zeal thereof though not according to knowledge when I acted in your false function by implicit faith and made the Directories Canons Catechisms Creeds of the Clergies compiling my Rule as many more did besides my self not comparing them so singly as I should have done with that true Directory of the word but I have since seen good occasion to recant it as you will undoubtedly do also first or last and O that it may be yet in time to your peace notwithstanding your now forwardness to uphold it I was also in your sence once a Minister of the Church but since going about to look for that Ministry of the Church and for that Church whereof I thought my selfe a Minister from thenceforth I could never find either t'one or t'other As for your Church of England I confess I received twice her holy orders viz. once from the Bishops in the daies of their Dominion by whom I was ordained a Deacon i. e. in Scripture-sence to look toth'poor but in their sence half a Priest for in that capacity we might sprinkle if allow'd and give the wine to people also in the Supper but not by any means the bread unless very specially licensed thereunto till we should come into the full order of Priest-hood for so ran the phrase in the old English horn-book which as to that part was stiled The book of the Ordination of Bishops Priests and Deacons once also by the Presbyters so called since the time of their Parricid or cutting the throats of their fathers the Bishops that gave the being of Priesthood to them and inducting themselves to reign in their stead as the Bishops themselves had dealt not long before with their old father the Pope who gave the being of Priesthood to them both from whom not as a Priest-hood but a true Presbytery as they say I was in orders to practise their refined Popery more perfectly which I might do before but by the halves but now I know not where this Church of England is if you speak of a true Church of Christ unless you can prove things to have their true being without either their true matter or true form for as the subject matter whereof it consists is false being not baptized believers so the form into which the Pope cast it some 600 years since in to which also the Prelate and Presbyter have new cast it being and that subpaena too National Provinciall Parochiall is utterly false and her fellowship as good as none at all because not free but forced and as for the true Ministry thereof I know not where it is neither if that onely be a true one as you were wont to say it is that can derive it self by a line from the very Apostles neither can you make good your interrupted succession from them unless the Pope from whom your Series comes was even then a true Minister of Christ when he was also an Antichristian Deceiver and unless Apostacy and Apostolicy can so stand together as that Rome was even then an Apostolick Church when 't was palpably apparent to be an Harlot neither if I could tell where can I tell very well which is the Ministry of your Church of England there are so many Ministries in it now namely Prelaticall High-Presbyterian Presbyterian-Independent each of which lay claim to that title but being both themselves and their adherents for such different forms of government cannot all three be the Ministry of one Church unless your Church of England that was of old so full of uniformity is now become capable of tri-formety in its discipline and Ministry and yet to be intirely but one Ministry and Church of England still which if it be it s a tr-iform monster then indeed As to your answer to this third head I wish you to weigh how rawly you utter your selves whilst just after your selves had clear'd me from the guilt of Reviling and before I had us'd any new terms that could have the least savor of reviling you return to charge me of it again but no marvel when every round reprover and renouncer of your Romishness is as much a reviler with you as your selves are at Rome for renouncing that grosser Popery that 's there Howbeit in truth he reviles your Church no more that calls it a very Harlot if it be so then your selves revile Rome in calling her a Harlot because she is so you hint at my renouncing my first baptism can a man renounce that he never had for what was dispenc't when I was a child as t is no signe to me now for I remember not that I ever saw it so I learn by the hear-say of it that it was not baptism at all as for this last which is also the first baptism that ever was administred to me I see no cause to renounce it as yet nor yet I am well assured ever shall As for heresie or believing and doing besides the word t is a Precipice indeed where after men have begun their run unless the Lord mercifully prevent them as he hath done me and many more of late and I desire may your selves in due time who are all gone astray from primitive truth after the doctrines and commandements of men they cannot well stay till they come to the bottom even the bottomless pit it self into which that Arch-Heretitk the Pope who open'd it
declare they have it or warrant your baptizing them thereupon so long as still 't is unapparent to you that they have it for first à posse ad esse non valet consequentia it follows not because it may be therefore 't is yet such Country-clearing of things is seen now and then among you Countrey Clergy-men that if from may-be to must-be may not pass for good reason there must be no more given at all witness the yery last Argument us'd by the first opponent at this Ashford Disputation whereby to prove infants to have the spirit who having urg'd the example of Iohn Baptist whose example is also hinted in your Review p. 16. of your Pamphlet just before to this effect viz. Iohn had the holy spirit from the womb therefore children have it and being answered to that thus viz. Ex puris negativis et particularibus nihil sequitur universale claps in this consequence to close up his discourse with viz. It doth not appear to you that children have not the spirit as much as to say they may for ought you know have the holy spirit therefore they have it To whom 't was repli'd that it would not follow that I was at Canterbury such a day because it did not appear to him that I was not and this as I remember though your Account doth very freely forget all this but I hope you will remember to be asham'd on 't was the very period of that mans Disputation with me saving what he added after in his recapitulatory moderation and after that in other emergent conferences with me and others to whose non-sequiturs as I have in faithfulness set down what I returned then so pace vestrâ I say thus much more now viz. that if I should go about to prove from the Possibility of things to be so or so or from their non-appearance to be not so though not yet appearing to be so that therefore they are so viz. more worlds then one or another world of men in the moon or as he from the particular case of Iohn Baptist to other infants so I should syllogize from the particular and extraordinary case of Balaams Ass to other creatures of that kind viz. Balaams Ass by a special power of God upon him did speak and reprove the madness of the Prophet therefore very Asses can speak plain enough to reprove the madness of the Priests though I have learn'd Christ better then to record him as such a one for the like deduction yet I know who have so well learn'd the Featlaean language that in their Account I should have been an Ass for my labor Secondly and this I told you then too but your Account had no mind to mention what makes against you Tum demum i. e. proprìe et quoà d nos dicuntur res fieri cum incipiunt patefieri then things as to us are when they appear and not before and to talk de non entibus et non apparentibus is one as frivolous as the other yet such lazy learning and lowzy logick is at Rome with the infatuated Pope and such of his Creatures as trouble themselves so much about Tyth that they have no time to study Truth nor understand either sense or reason that whilst wise men indeed whose wisdome is not as theirs is already turn'd into foolishnese do argue from the Appearings of things to be to their being from the evidence that they are to their existence they magisterially impose things to be received as truth because Ipse Dixit and both assert them to be and make men believe they appear plain enough so to be when their say so shews them though no inquisitive sincere self-denying Christian can in the word find either how or where of but a very little better stamp is your way of arguing here who being hous'd by custom under a cloudy confidence that infants have the holy spirit will needs have it appear whether it doth or no but for my part it appears not yet to me yea I reply Secondly to this part of your Report that I did indeed then say as you have here truly related that it could not be made appear that Infants have the holy spirit to the making of them subjects of baptism yea I testifie the same still that it cannot notwithstanding all your undertakings which of what little force they are to such a purpose I shall try more at large when I handle your Account over again not as an Account but as your Argumentation for Infants having the holy spirit and so right to baptism Nevertheless Thirdly that I acknowledged any such thing as this in the least that the Scriptures above named did seem so much as to intimate such a matter as that infants might have the holy spirit as it had been most contradictory to that which here you say I said immediately after it and is most contrary to my Judgement to this present so I deny it disclaim it and testifie again it as another of your abominable abuses of your selves my self and the world into which you have feigned forth this Account and as an opinion that neither then or ever since nor ever before since I found the way of truth hath had the least entertainment within my bosom And so I pass on to your other juggles among which Nigro Carbone notandum est this would not be let slip without a Selah in that some few lines below this you relate thus Report That my Answer was that in Scripture children were indefinitely taken but concerning this or that particular child no proof could be made Reply Which thing I confess I said yet take notice I must how you let slip your memories being willfully weak as I find them very often to be something more of my then speech which had you not declined to set down would have shewed a little more plainly and yet its prety plain as t is but hardly quite so plain as the nose on a mans face how you strike quite besides the iron stear to a wrong point and in your following undertaking upon that my Answer stickle clearly to another purpose then that proposed by me for my speech was not concernâ—ng this or that particular child only but of this or that particular child above another viz. proof could not be made of this child in its infancy suppose a believers more than of a Heathens if one of these and one of those be lookt on together whereupon also I then added but you have absented it in your Account that if two Infants viz. a believers and an unbelievers as yet unknown which is which should be presented to you whereof but one secundum te o Sacerdos may be baptized It would put you very shrewdly to it to discern of your selves which of the two is the believers Infant by any more manifestation of the spirit in it than in the other yea I now tell you over again that such a presentment would fumble and puzzle both the
are here and there upon thee and thou knowst it not Report And this opposition of Anabaptism hath been since done say you accordingly Reply And 't were enough to make a man think though I say it not that 't was done even immediately considering what a Tom-boyes trick was serv'd us so soon after whilst we were preaching besides the steeple upon a Tombstone which that it grieve you not know Christ preacht in a ship on the shore on a mountain in the Synagogues in houses even any where where people were willing to stay and hear and so may his Ministers too for ought I know for while you were scratching and clawing one another at your Inr we teaching and convincing each other in the Outer Court for there was no room for Christ in the Inner Temple we were curst most bitterly with bell though neither with book nor candle yea there a rose who knows not whence for sure 't was either from you and your party or you in your party or you without your party or at least your party without you such a hot dispute of bim-bom-bell which put us to such a non-plus that least we should perdere in contentione vocem we were fain to give over and be gone and were utterly Routed in the skirmish tell we could well Raylly together in another place So here 's the upshot of the business of that Disputation of which somewhat more might yet be written had my business been to give Account and not rather to take Account of your Account on 't but this is written that people may believe your true Account to be a true Counterfeit and believing it may know the better how to trust you another time One word more yet to the Disputers and Scribes OF THE ASHFORD DISPUTATION OR AN EPILOGETICAL POSTSCRIPT ON THEIR APOLOGETICAL PREFACE Pre. THere was never any Intent this Disputation following should have appeared in publick c. Post. Like enough so Sirs for the first appearance or deliverie of it self in publique by word of mouth was with so little credit to your cause that it might very easily be as ashamed to shew its face in print as the Scribes that penn'd it seem'd to be to shew their names And doubtless so it would have been but that it came disguis'd And yet even this false face whereby you have made it shew fairer by farr on one side I mean your own then at first it did is so black so blind so full of blurres and blemishes that it cannot chuse when it comes to review it self the second time but color red and blush at its own blindnesses if it be not Brazen Pre. But that like Jonas's Gourd it should have died as suddenly as it grew c. Post. Like Ionas's Gourd indeed for Ionas-like O that you were as like him in his best as you are too like him in the basest of his behavior you run away from God O ye Priests and refuse to preach the preaching that he bids you whereupon a mighty tempest is upon you and upon the waters whereon you ride i. e. the tongues nations multitudes and peoples so that they are troubled for your sakes and upon the Earth it self which is as it were the Ship in the bowells of which you have imbarqued your selves ever since your fall from heaven thither in the loins of your Father Abaddon Revel 9.1 So that it reels to and fro like a Drunkard is moved exceedingly like to be split in pieces clean dissolved utterly devoured with a curse for your sinns principally O yee Priests who have trangressed the Laws of Christ the only Lord and Law-giver changed his Ordinances broken the everlasting covenant neither will the sea of the whole world cease to roar about you and be outragious till the lot fall upon you as it did on Ionas to be cast forth though the Ship-Masters row never so hard to have you spared nor till the Tempestuous waves on which you seek still to swim aloft have over-whelm'd you so on every side that you be fain to cry Alas out of the belly of hell But Alas though the ship rock and is ready to suffer ship-wrack yet as if they had made a Covenant with death and with hell were at at an agreement So rockt asleep is Ionas so sluggish are our Renegado Prophets that they yet discern not the mystery of the things that are upon them but are stark sensless of the stirs that are about them and of the storms which themselves are most concern'd in And what the Gourd was to Ionas in his heat even such is this Disputation also to your cause of Infant-baptism viz. as short as sleight a shelter a shadow for there 's no substance in 't under which you have rejoyced a while and receiv'd some thin refreshment and defence against the heat of that truth with which you were a while tormented But God hath prepared a silly worm to smite the Gourd so that though it blossom like a Rose and flourisheth as a chief flower among your followers for a time yet it will die even as suddenly as it grew so that leaving you to your Evensong to the Tune of or like the Gourd that Jonas had men will begin to sing mattens ere-long saying Their Rose withers Their Blossom blasteth Their Flower fades The morning hasteth Their mourning hasteth Their Sun Sets Their shadow flies Their Gourd consumes The Darling dyes Their sprinkling dyes Pre. The truth is the disgraces that the Adversaries in private have loaded it withall have rak't it out of those ashes c. Post. For your Respondent whom you mainly mean here witness these words of yours to me viz. Sir These short Collections of the Ashford disputation had slept long enough if your own private letters had not awakned them by a too much sleighting your opponents and their Arguments not without a just occasion from a friend of yours presented in a letter called a spade a spade and represented your Doo back again in no worse wise then it deserved Asserting that your pleading of Infant-sprinkling from that non-entity of Infant-believing was shamefull and childish pedling and that the miserable rawness and rudeness of some then and there ingag'd in Syllogisticall dispute did â—avor as little of the Scholar as that of the Christian all which and what more is there related was no other then the Truth when I pen'd it and I find nothing to the contrary yet in your Account Howbeit 't was so disgracefull and loadsome that you Disputers immediately became Scribes and posted out a piece of Print on a sleeveles errand i. e. the Recovery of your Retrograde Repute being afraid not more â—hen hurt that if this man of war do not what is not to be done maintain your Infant-sprinkling which premi haud suprimi potest the more you tread the more you spread your credit may grow so crazy upon 't as to die indeed as indeed it doth and that daily for as
carry captive to the law of sin mortifying the deeds of the body teaching all things leading into all truth guiding and gifting persons for the Churches service severally as he will bringing all things to remembrance which Christ spake which are subject to be forgotten manifesting the Father the Son and many more things to them that love Christ and keep his commandements which he will not manifest to the world nor to any of those in it that do not and other such like precious performances in all which he officiates peculiarly towards the Saints onely that submit to him not wicked resisters of him to which Saints or true Disciples of the Lord Jesus he was promised to be given under the Gospel in a fuller measure then in former daies and sent to be their comforter whilst to such as entertain him not but a bare convincer in which respect he is call'd the spirit of promise as being promised in this sense to all those that obey Christ that believe repent and are baptized into his name for remission of sins and ask the father for him and to be set as by office to minister in way of succor to the mournful spouse in the bride-grooms absence to help poor soules that give up themselves to be lead by him and accordingly was is and ever shall be given to those that do not grieve resist and quench him and that are found observing all things that ever Christ commanded non-observation of which disingages Christ of his promise so that it failes not though he be not with men that name themselves his Church for ages and generations together In which senses he is not at all in infants in their infancy neither doth he at all guid or provoke them how far forth soever he may guard and protect them till they come to such capacity as to have good or evil fasten'd on them by perswasion nor doth he any of the aforenamed good offices for infants in whom there 's yet no need they should be done nor doth he delight ordinarily to be where either he must be idle as he must in infants of one two or three daies old or unless he work miraculously imployed altogether to no purpose As to that of Iohn concerning whom 't was promised he should be filled with the holy spirit from the womb besides the singularness and extraordinariness of the case which renders it unfit for you to argue from who deny that such examples are to be drawn in as an ordinary rule to judge by and confess that ex particulari non est Syllogizari I add moreover that there 's no necessity for such an imâ—mediate acceptation of that word from the womb as to make the sense of it thus viz. in the very moment of his birth for it may well be taken as elswhere the same phrase must be viz so soon as ever he should be capable to receive it and be assisted and guided by it which might be in his tender years but was not I believe in such meer non-age as you wot off thus the wicked are said Psal. 58. 3. ab alinare se ab utero to estrange themselves from God from the womb to go astray as soon as they be born speaking lies stopping their ears not hark-ring to the voice of the Charmer which terms do all denote actuall sinne by which your selves confess infants cannot bar themselves p. 5. or deserve exemption it must therefore be understood thus viz. so soon as ever they are capable to do this or that to take the right away or the wrong or to know and act either good or evil I assert therefore once again that the spirit in this second sense is not in infants in their infancy nor know I in what sense they can be said to have him as to have right thereby to baptism unless you can assign me some more senses out of Scripture which if you can do I shall tell you what to say to them and as I cannot find they have the holy spirit in them so neither find I any promise of the holy spirit in such non-age as you wot of if by the spirit you mean the spirit of promise as you must if you plead a right to baptism there from and if you should refer me to Act. 2. I find there no more made to any then to all indeed it s said the promise is to you and your children but I advise you to consider first that t is not said to you and your infants neither are children and infants all one in signification the one expressing the age or rather non-age the other the Relation to the parents of whom they are born all infants are children of some parents or other but all children are not infants Infants are at least such younglings as cannot speak but children may be children in respect of their parents though the parents be eighty years old and the children sixty so that the promise of the spirit might be to them and their children too i. e. their posterity as well as to the Gentiles that were yet far off in both time and place and their posterity to all succeeding generations and be made good too on the same terms upon which and the same time in which it s made good to the parents themselves viz. the terms of faith and the time of their believing and yet all this while not be made to them and their infants as in their infancy moreover it appears most evidently that these parents were yet in unbelief and bare inquiry after what they should do having acted neither faith nor repentance as yet when Peter said thus to them repent and be baptized and ye shall receive the holy spirit for the promise is to you and your children therefore it may seem rather to be to unbeleevers children by that place then unto belieuers children but in very deed t is to all men and their children throughout the world as they and their children should believe repent receive the word gladly come to God at his call and that in all ages and places to the worlds end and as children of unbelievers have as much promise of the holy spirit so as much manifestation of it as the other and that is just none at all But say you these appear to have it first by their faith i. e. as other mens infants do not by their faith Sirs this is no demonstrative Argument I am sure that they have the Spirit for demonstratio est ex notioribus conclusione but this is Ignotum per ignotius or at least per aeque ignotum for now you have much more ado by something else hoc aliquid nihil est to demonstrate to us that they have faith then before you had to demonstrate them to have the spirits yea this will puzzle you the more by how much the last error is worse than the first and more confuted in other places by your selves however we will consider your Argument
children but onely were pricked at the heart upon some measure of conviction that the person whom they had crucified was the Lord of life which thing the very Devils believe and tremble at for in order unto the begetting of that saving faith which yet they had not he spake these words of incouragement and exhortation to them and this to the contradiction of Mr. Vahan whod ag'd in an Argument by the head and shoulders from this place at the Ashford disputation was ingenuously acknowledged by Mr. Prig. Nor Secondly doth Peter make the promise any otherwise to them and their children then he doth to all others in the world i. e. on condition of their comming in at Gods call tis saies he to you and to your children and to them that are far off i. e. all manner of persons even so many in all nations and generations as the Lord our God shall call i. e. as are prevailed with to come when God calls them which to be the sense of this place is further illustrated by that pararel place of Paul Heb. 9.15 where he saies thus viz. they that are called received the promise of eternall inheritance Nor Thirdly when the parents did believe and were baptized were any of their infants baptized with them as they must have been had that promise been to their infants as well as to themselves on that single account of being their seed for recording how many were baptized at that time he concludes them under such a term as excludes the infants from that daies work while he saies thus as many meaning no more then those for else he deceives us utterly in his Relation as gladly received the word this infants could not do were then baptized which number as they are recorded to be about 3000 might in likelihood have amounted to three times 3000 if all the infants of all those had been dipped also Fourthly nor were there any more inchurched that day among the rest but such as gladly receiving the word were then and thereupon baptized for of these onely it is said and not of infants they continued together in the Apostles doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and prayers but all their infants must have bin inchurched also as well as they if equally with their parents and by vertue of the same promise the right of Church-membership had belonged to them Besides Fiftly It crosseth the current of all other Scripture to put such male-construction upon this for that the promise of old I mean the old promise of the Law which was of the earthly Canaan and but a type of this did appertain unto a fleshly holy seed I grant but that the new covenant or Gospel promise is made to any mans fleshly seed as such so that thereupon we may baptize them in token of it before they are called to profess faith in Christ is a thing which I confess I found in the common high way when I look'd not after it but since I searched narrowly for it I could never see it Sure I am the Scripture holds forth no other seed of Abraham himself to be heirs with him of the heavenly Canaan but his spiritual sead i. e. believers that do his works nor doth it own any but these to the right of membership and fellowship in his family i. e. the now visible Church for the visible Church is Abrahams family in all ages as well under the Gospel as under the Law Abrahams house i. e. the visible church as t is under the Gospel is much altered from that it was under the law yea so differently is it constituted and totally translated from its Mosaical form that it is even turned up side down and in a manner nothing remains the same it then was as the covenant is not the same with that of that of the law so neither is any thing else that appertains to it but every thing at it were divers from the other and no way answerable save as the Antitype is answerable to the Type for neither is there the the same Mediator nor the same Priest-hood nor the same Law for the Priesthood being changed there must of necessity be also a change of the Law Heb. 7.12 That being the Law of a Carnal Commandment only in the observation of which perfection was not to the conscience for it sanctified only to purifying of the flesh i. e. from those outward fleshly not morall uncleannesses and therefore with the ordinances thereof called carnall Heb. 9.9 this the power of an endless life i. e. available not to that temporal typical cleansing purifying and pardon only for the procuring of a Temporal life or well being in Canaan but to the obtaining of an eternal life by procuring remission of moral pollution Heb. 9.13 24. nor is there now the same Lawgiver under God that then was that being Moses the Servant who yet was faithful to him that appointed him in all his house the fleshly Israel for a Testimony of those things which were to be spoken after this Christ the son who was worthy of more glory than Moses and is now over his own house whose house we are that believe to the end Heb. 3.2.3.5.6 Nor yet the same Promises that being of of an earthly this of an heavenly inheritance nor yet the same holy Nation holy people holy seed to which the promises are made that being the typical promised seed Isaac and his posterity this the true promised seed i. e. Christ and his seed i. e. all the Saints that are born of God by faith in him Gal. 3.16 to Abraham and his seed were the promises made he saith not unto Seeds as of many but as of one and unto thy seed which is Christ nor the same ordinances and administrations signing the inheritance those being circumcision the Passeover these baptism in water and the Supper nor lastly the same subjects for those ordinances those being by nature Iewes or at least by profession and their Male seed only as to the one Male and Female as to the other and that whether believing yea or no these nor Iewes nor Gentiles by nature only but all persons whether Iews or Gentiles Males or Females yet only as believing for verily so far are the natural posterity of believing Gentiles as such and as yet not professing to believe themselves from being heirs apparent with Abraham of Gospel promises and priviledges and from title to the Gospel ordinances that sign them and from being holy ones by birth as the Iew once was and as Mr. Blake contends for it that these are and from the repute of Abrahams seed in the sense of the Gospel that even Abrahams own natural seed as such only are not at all his seed in this sence at this day nor at all holy with that kind of birth holiness they once had for that is ended and abolished in Christ crucified nor entailed as heirs of that Canaan without faith and repentance in their own
not sonnes he grants their Sonship freedom and title to the old inheritance but denies their son and heirship as to the new Thirdly they boast and bless themselves in their standing in the house or family of Abraham i. e. the Church as to the ordinances rights and priviledges whereof who but themselves had the title for this indeed was their advantage of old that to them were committed all the oracles of God to which Christ replies true they did stand in the house for a time yet but for a time and though sons and heirs in the laws typical sense yet they were were but servants in the Gospels because they believe not in him and being but servants as Moses and all his house or church the old Israel were in comparison of Christ the Son and his house or Church i. e the Saints they must anon be packing out of the house and abide in the Church i. e. Abrahams family no longer that the true Sons and heirs may come in i. e. believers who are the blessed seed to whom onely the Gospel-promises and priviledges do belong ver 35. And the servant saith he abideth not in the house for ever but the son abideth ever if therefore the son make you free and that he doth not for all your former freedome unless you believe in him and continue in his words then shall ye be free indeed even to the glory oracles and blessings of the spiritual house the Gospel-church which else you must be cut off from for ever thus Christ tells them and so indeed it came to passe within a while for not believing and repenting which are the only terms that give right and admittance to the ordinances and fellowship of the Gospel these Iews though natural branches of Abraham still as much as ever if being the fleshly seed of a believer could have steaded them at all as to a standing here were yet clean broken off from the Root Abraham as he stâ—nds a Root to all the faithful because onely of unbelief Rom. 11.20 when such as were wild olives and no kin at all to Abraham after the flesh were in their own persons but not their natural seed with them save as they believed with them own'd as his children by believing and as members of the true Church under the Gospel And this was also most directly declared by Iohn the Baptist and the rest of the first ministers of the Gospel who would not admit of the Jews as Jews though Abrahams own seed and holy by birth and members thereupon of that Church under the law to baptism and membership in the Gospel-church when they offered themselves upon the aforenamed terms without faith repentance and amendment for howbeit the Pharisees and Saduces and the whole multitude of people came forth to be baptized of Iohn Mat 3.7 c. Luke 3.7 c. pretending and pleading that if baptism were a Church-priviledge it must needs belong to them as who were the children of Abraham yet see how he rounds them up as having no part nor portion in that matter O generation of vipers saith he who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come as if he had said what have you to do with that remission of sinnes righteousness and redemption from wrath to come which I preach and baptize in token of being though invested with circumcision Church-membership and other legal rites and priviledges yet corrupt and crooked in conversations bring forth therefore i. e. to the end that you may be admitted baptized and inchurched here fruits answerable to amendment of life and begin not its like that plea was in their thoughts and mouths too whereupon he puts them off from it think not to say that we have Abraham to our father we are the seed of such an eminent believer for God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham i. e. God will without being beholding to you raise a seed to Abraham rather then want them from among these stones which whether he meanes stones litterally or the Gentiles which were yet as stocks and stones in their eies I leave you further to examine but thus much we may gather hence however that even in that very time wherein the birth-priviledge and holiness of a fleshly seed stood in full force and power unrepealed as then it did so far as to give right to all ordinances of the law yet even then I say before how much more since the Abrogation thereof by faith Abrahams own seed could not much less then may the seed of believing Gentiles now it s repealed as such be admitted to baptism without repentance the Jews as impenitent and unbelieving as they were stood uncast out of the Jewish Church while that Jewish Church it self was yet standing but they could not passe per saltum out of that Church into the Gospel Church nor immediately from their right to circumcision which meer fleshly birth gave them prove their right without somewhat more to baptism yet thus they might have done if what gave right of old to one of these ordinances doth in like manner inright persons to the other And this that Abrahams own naturall seed do not now stand his seed so as thereupon onely or at all to stand in this house of Abraham i. e. the visible Church of the Gospel and in title to the promises and priviledges thereof is further and more lively figured out to our understandings in that admirable allusion of Paul to the things transacted of old as a type hereof in the family of Abraham between the two mothers and their children viz. Hagar and Sarah Ishmael and Isaac Gal. 4.21 to the end where to give you but a hint of the thing that you may follow it in your own thoughts at leasure having first related what is written of Abrahams having two sonnes one by his bond-maid Hagar viz. Ishmael that was born after the flesh the other by the free woman or his true wife Sarah viz. Isaac who though born of Abrahams flesh as well as the other yet because he was promised to come of Abrahams true spouse Sarah long before he did was said to be born by promise he asserts these things to be an Allegory i. e. things which though really and truly done yet were done also in a figure and as a shadow of some other things to come viz. the two Covenants and two seeds of Abraham thereunto belonging or the two several Jerusalems or Churches of the law and the Gospel with their several children viz. the fleshly seed of Abraham and the spiritual each answering respectively not only as anti-types to their several types that pointâ—d at them whether the maid and her son or the mistriss and hers but also inter se invicem as the two mothers and their children did each of them unto the other for these saith he i. e. these two mothers and children the bondwoman and her son and the freewoman and her son are the two
tertium semen Abrahae two seeds of Abraham the Scripture mentions but a third sort cannot be assigned all and only those that descend from his loines as the Midianites and others by Keturah the Ishmaelites by Hagar the Edomites and Israelites by Sarah which last only were the holy seed and children of promise in reference to the Hagarens in a type and sole heirs of the typical Canaan all these I say were the first sort all believers of what nation soever are the second sort but the natural seed of believers are neither of the one nor of the other As for the children of the Proselites i. e. Iews not by birth but profession which by way of exception against this may possibly pop into some of your minds I utterly deny them as so born to be any seed of Abraham at all or heirs of either inheritance unless they believed also though their parents believing might be his spiritual seed and heirs of the heavenly inheritance and if you ask why then was every male among the infants of Proselites circumcised I answer not upon any such account as their being Abrahams seed or heirs with him of either this or that but meerly as they were Males in the house of one that was a Jew at least by devotion though a stranger as to fleshly relation that being the express command of God for the time then being and during the standing of that Covenant of circumcision the like to which if you had for infant-baptism the controversie were at an end between us that every man child in every family throughout all generations whether born in the house or bought with money of any stranger that was noâ— of Abrahams flesh should be circumcised Gen. 17. 12. for there was but one Law and ordinance for the stranger or Proselite Iew and him that was a Iew by birth concerning circumcision and the Passeover Numb 9.14 upon this same and no other account very many viz. forreign man-servants in every family of any Iew were by appointment to be circumcised meerly as being males of the family though neither born of Abraham nor believing with him nor any way at all his seed nor yet heirs with him of either Canaan which injunction and order of God concerning that old covenant ordinance of circumcision or the Passeover either to which the Supper answers more lively than baptism to the other if we might at all regard what was done then as a Rule for us now who so shall produce as the Pattern or infer any thing from as the instution of God according to which we are to act in the New Testament ordinances of Baptism and the Supper and yet not act according to them neither but abominably besides them both as the Priest-hood doth baptizing as not at all but rantizing so not at all after the manner of circumcision viz. not males only not on the eighth day only but any other when they may as well upon that not servants also upon the Masters faith as well as the Children upon the parents and as for the Supper denying it utterly to infants that might then eat the Passeover I avouch them to be not a little besides their natural but much more besides their spiritual intellectualls Let this then satisfy as to any conceit that any may have as that the Proselites seed were the children of Abraham and heirs with him because circumcised viz. that though all Abrahams seed that were heirs with him were circumcised yet all that were circumcised were not thereby proved to be Abrahams seed nor heirs with him of either promise and though his fleshly seed Israel the heir especially and his spirituall seed also i. e. believing Jewes and Proselites were both thereupon to come under that dispensation and that as heirs too severally of the two severall promises viz. the typifying and typified Canaan yet many past under circumcision upon that forenamed account only of being males in the house that were neither Abrahams seed after the flesh nor after the faith as Servants and the seed of Proselite Masters Fathers not appearing yet to believe with them for even such were to be circumcised under the law though by your leave not such to be by the like reason baptized under the Gospell for as there is no command for such a matter so if there had the Servants of the Eunuch himself only turning Christian must have been as t is known they were not baptized together with him besides if baptism must be like to circumcision in its subject then not only he that is not yet apparently an heir but he also that is apparently not an heir by faith must be baptized aswell as Abrahams sonne Ishmael and his servant Eleazer and all the other males of his house were circumcised who were all well enough known to Abraham to be none of the heirs of that land of Canaan whereof circumcision was given to him and his seed in Isaac in token of their inheriting of it at that very time when he circumcised them I demand therefore yet once again what seed of Abraham your infants are in that thereupon you undertake as so to baptize them you tell us in your Review pag. 14. They are Semen fidei the children of his faith his spiritual seed I am ashamed to hear you say so which way do they come to be in that minority his spiritual seed sith believers only are so you seem to tell us they are so by believing themselves for so Zachaeus say you by believing was made the Son of Abraham as who should say Zachaeus became as infants do the spiritual seed of Abraham by believing which word believing is as much as not having only but acting faith which to act not others only but your selves who sillyly assert them to have faith do somewhat more sensibly p. 8. confess them to be uncapable Others tell us and even your selves too sometimes and in effect in that very same page that they are semen fidei or the seed of Abrahams faith upon another account viz. as their parents are believers for the promise is say you though that is no Scripture phrase at all in that place whence you quote it viz. Act 2.39 to believers and their seed and if the adversaries say that the Iewes were Semen carnis and had right by the promise so these say you concerning the seed of believers are semen fidei and the promise is to them which words The Promise The Promise The Promise you will scrible down twenty times in one Treatise before you will sit down once and search out seriously what it is or once shew distinctly what it is you mean by it So then howbeit with Iohn baptist Mat. 3. with Christ Iohn 8. Luke 19.8 9. with Paul Rom. 4.13.9 6 8. Gal. 3.7.9 there is but one way of becoming Abrahams spiritual seed or the children of his faith so as thereupon to be signed by baptism as heirs with him of the Gospel-promise and this is
no not with Abraham Isaac and Iacob and their natural posterity so that a bare birth of their bodies doth ipso facto make them heirs of the heavenly inheritance promised therein nor give them a right as such only to be signed as true heirs thereof but only with Abraham and his spiritual seed i. e. Christ and all believers in him so no men and all their naturall posterity are outed from it together but as both they and their posterity do stand together in unbelief upon which account faith being the only way of standing heirs under the Gospel and the Iews Children proving unbelievers in all ages as well as their parents I confess they are broken off together and not otherwise for if the Children of the Iews did appear to have faith as in infancy they cannot and when they are grown up unversally they do not their parents infidelity could in no wise prohibit their standing and since neither in infancy nor at age they appear to be in the faith their parents in case they were never so faithful can in no wise intitle them to a standing for then the natural seed of those thousands of Iews which did believe in the Primitive times have a birth-priviledge and holiness to this day whereupon they may claim admittance unto baptism as well as any specially if those words Rom. 11.16 if the Root be holy so are the branches were to be taken in such a sense as you put upon them but we know that though they are branches growing naturally upon that holy Root as you call it of believing parents yet they are counted unholy by your selves because they believe not in their own persons yea if we should ask how the children of those Iews that at first believed did come to be such strangers to the Gospel Church your selves would answer vs because they believed not as their parents did by which you do no less than grant what we contend for viz. that the faith of Ancestors gives no right to their posterity to stand at all in the Gospel Church and Covenant but faith in the particular persons only so standing Well then they were broken off but why not because they had not believing parents for Abraham was the fleshly Father of all of them and the primitive believing Iews were the fleshly fathers of many of them and are to this day as much as ever if bare birth priviledge could ingraft them as it did of old in the family of the Iewish Church Nor was it because they wanted title upon which they might have stood still in the Iewish Church if that Church it self had stood to this day for they were Abrahams seed and that gave them capacity enough to dwell in the house before their own unbelief notwithstanding but because they do not believe themselves because the terms of standing in the Church which before Christ were these viz. We have Abraham to our Father we are the Children of such and such parents are now quite changed so that it boots not to say such a thing as Abraham is our father Mat. 3. unless we can also say we repent and believe the Gospel The Jews were broken off by unbelief and thou and thine o believing Gentile must stand by faith yet not thine by thy faith but thou thy self by thine and they by their own faith is that in which thou standing and not thy seed thou hast right to stand in the Church and not they in which they standing and not thy self they have right to stand in the Church and thou hast none Perpetuity in personall faith gives perpetual personal right to baptism and to Church-membership but not a perpetuity of the same right to any mans whole posterity there 's now no difference made at all as to Gospel interest by being either this or that by nature but in all the world any person Jew or Gentile male or Female seed of believer or of unbeliever Barbarian Scythian bond or free is capable both to be saved and signed as an heir of salvation by baptism upon personal faith but in no wise the progeny upon the faith of the parentage And yet to put it more out of doubt that the Covenant holiness and church-right of mens fleshly seed which was of old is not continuing under the Gospel but Ceremonial and so ended in Christ in whom your selves say Iudicialia sunt Mortua Ceremonialia Mortifera I will leave two or three consequences upon the file which either answer and that not invitâ Minervâ nor stretching your Genius beyond sense and reason rather than want somewhat whereby to prove your Iudaizing to be judicious or else by silence say you cannot I leave you to consult with them as you see occasion That holiness which sanctified the Iewes Land City Temple Altar all its untensils Priest-hood and the whole body of that people and all the pertinences of the first tabernacle and old Covenant was Ceremonial only and is now abolished and not abiding among believing Gentiles But that holiness that sanctified the Iewish seed was the same and no other then that which sanctified their Land City Temple Altar and its Utensils Priest-hood and whole people and all the appertenances of that first Tabernacle and old Covenant Ergo That holiness which sanctified the Iewish seed is now abolished and not abiding at all among believing Gentiles As for the Major I would wish you not to subject your selves so much to suspicion of superstition as you will do in these daies of light by putting me to prove it as to require proof on 't since no intelligent man or religious Christian save the Pope and Dr. Featley and the rest of their several fryes and fraternities will deny it or did ever in the daies of the Gospel attribute the same holiness to outward and inanimate things viz. places Lands profits Emolluments first fruits Tithes Oblations and other obventions Temples Altars Tables Lavers Chalices Vestiments nor yet to Priests and people that all these were denominated holy by under the Law for to me by the same reason that first fruits tythes and such like are now to be called holy the first born of every creature both of man and beast is still to be called holy also for even these were sanctifyed and holy Denominativè and Dedicativè as much as any of the rest Ezod 13.2 yea as Paul did in another case viz. appeal to the Pharisees to judge between him and the Sadduces so may I to you of the Presbyterian Priesthood to decide this matter between me and the Seducers of the Popish and Prelatick strain whose holy sandalls copes surplices and other superfluities viz. railes high Altars holy Tapers and Candlesticks holy Fonts holy Windows you your selves pulld down and prophaned before that part of the wheele where the Baptists dwell did at all appear so plainly as now it doth in the Horizon of this English Nation for which sort of sacriledge D◠Featley much mistaking you and
are no more capable of the use of any ordinance then the other He tells us these by birth are of the houshold of God of the Citizens of the Saints t is much he said not fellow Citizens in Pauls phrase Eph. 2. sure t was because he bethought himself of their uncapableness of fellowship for all their membership He tells us that these are orderly admitted i. e. by baptism then which Scripture knows no other admission for no sooner do we read of a convert saith he but we presently hear of his baptism whereas of all the converts in Christendom that sit under the ministry of the Pope Prelate and Presbyter I never knew one in all my daies baptized after their coversion of him by preaching till being converted from them to the Truth as it is in Iesus they convert and come to us and then we immediately baptize them indeed but as for them t is impossible for them so much as to preach the Gospel in all Christendome in the way and words in which Peter Ananias Philip Paul and all the first and purest preachers did while they suppose all they preach to to have been baptized in infancy for what Priest in Christendom can say to his parish repent and be baptized for remission of sinnes arise and be baptized and wash away thy sinnes he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved as they of old said Mark 16.16 Act. 22 without gross absurdity having christn'd them all long before he ever preacht to them neither do they baptize any at all after conversion and the best baptism they dispense in token of remission of sins so long before either sins commission or the sinners conversion is at best but meer rantism neither He tells us that those have right to all the immunities of this house to all the priviledges of this City of God meaning the Church here below and have title to all Christs visible ordinances that they belong to Christ and therefore must parâ—ake of that which is of Christ and being of the houshold they must therefore have of the food of the houshold yea the stewards of the mysteries of God must be accountable in case they deny it them And yet till they are at years not any one of them may participate as themselves say of any one of those visible ordinances viz. neither praying preaching hearing not the supper nor any thing else which is the food of the houshold after baptism by which they are barely entred in infancy and onely thrown ore the threshold into the house and then ly starving for many years together without bit or crumb of any other food at all being utterly denied to be communicants at the supper the use of which their folly will once be manifest who say they are lesse capable of in infancy then of the use of baptism for as shall appear more hereafter howbeit they are truly capable of neither they are as truly capable of both as of either yet are they deni'd a share in that service of the supper by these stewards of the mysteries of God the ministry themselves and that for no less then 16 years together at least according to the rule of the old stewards the episcopacy that have almost given up all their earthly account and I know not for how long by the will of the new stewards i. e. the Presbytery for if their rule be to practise it no oftner then they practise it indeed some of them have had no supper at all in their parishes neither for young nor old for about seven or eight years together last past and when they will no body knows and how they can with a good conscience I cannot tell nor never could while I stood among them they standing all and their people all universally unbaptized to this day for which neglect of theirs to give persons their meat in due season order and manner feeding them with a break-fast in baptism before they are fit to be fed so much as with that milk and then denying them any supper at all when they come to years though they then both pay for it and are at least as fit to feed thereon as they were in infancy to feed on baptism the Lord of that supper and of all the other holy ordinances of his which they have dispenst more after their own minds and mens tradition will and Testament then his own will call them ere long to give account of their stewardship too and let them be no longer stewards And yet a little more to trace Mr. Blake to and fro as he daunceth the hay up and down in that tâ—ifling treatise he tells us that these are a holy seed of the noblest birth yea though they be the children of loose living parents of misbelieving parents p. 4.5.25.26 of apostatized parents of excommunicate parents of fornicating parents and consequently a very bastard brood which under the law that Mr. Blake himself professes to be tried by were unclean and not admitted into the congregation unto the tenth generation of papistical parents for even these are but misbelievers and Christians in name still and as himself sayes no infidels though to go round again holding such damnable errors in the faith p. 30. as shut them out from the happiness and therefore I think from the holiness too of Christians yet all this notwithstanning to go round again if the children but of believing parents that are of the Church and to go round again not true believers neither as believer is opposed to unbeliever misbeliever or Christian in name onely with all which he confesses the Church may abound but as believer is opposed onely to infidel p. 25. between which terms unbeliever and infidel which are not synonimaes it seems with him yet the Scripture makes no more difference then is between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the same greek word that expresses both and is translated into latin by infidelis and Englisht by either unbeliever or infidel notwithstanding all this I say if born in England or any where else in any nations or of any parents that are but Christian in name onely or of but one such Christian parent the other being an Indian that is with him an infidel indeed they are with him a holy seed still that God ownes and challenges for his yea frrom the womb Gods heritage a seed so nobly born as noble Nehemiah himself was not yea p. 28. the least of whom is greater then Nehemiahs better These high and Heroick Eulogies Mr. Blake bestowes upon not true believers and real Saints onely to whom yet they peculiarly belong but on meer carnall Gospellers the naturall lukewarm formalists of the Antichristian more then Christian nations upon pretensive verbal professors and that not of truth neither as t is in the word but as in the word of an erroneous Priest-hood who preach truth for tith and yet not the tith of that truth they should preach neither
Ioseph Gen. 40.15.16 the High-Priest all the People Num. 6.23 Moses all Israel before his departure also Deut. 33.1 c and yet they were not actually possessed of the blessings just then when they blessed them but along time after There is a blessing by promise as God blessed Abraham with a Son and the Land of Canaan a blessing by Prophesy as Iacob blessed all his Sonnes fortelling as I may say their several fortunes Gen. ' 41. a blessing by Prayer as in the forenamed places and in this of Mat. 19.13 Mark 10.16 And there 's a blessing by putting into actual possession and fruition of a mercy so God blessed Israel with the real enjoyment of the Land of Canaan and all temporal blessings in that earthly place so Antitypically will once bless all the spiritual seed of Abraham with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places by Christ Iesus Eph. 1.4 Now the three first waies of blessing persons are all concerning things to come and sometimes a long while after yea in prayer Christ blest all that ever should believe on him through the word to the worlds end Ioh. 17. so long before the thing befell them that it was even before most of them were born As to your Minor then wherein you say little children were blessed by Christ I grant it to be true but not in any such sence as truely argues at all that in their infancy they had the holy spirit For First it of the two most plainly appears that his blessing was no other then bodily infirmities which are as incident to infants as men and the end for which they brought them shews the utmost he did to them which was not that he should baptize them as I shall more clearly shew by and by but that he should touch them and put his hands on them and pray no question t was in order to healing for t was at a time when he healed many others if you compare this passage as t is in Mat. 19. with the first and second verses of the Chapter yea v. 15. t is plainly expressed what he did i. e. he laid his hands upon them and departed thence besides Luke saies they brought little children unto him also that he should touch them which ALSO shews that others were brought too as sick folks commonly were because vertue went out of him so that as many as touched him were made perfectly whole Secondly if he did blesse them spiritually in his prayers t was doubtless yet all whom he healed were not so blessed neither witness the nine Leapers concerning things to come and if he prayd for their particular salvation yet they might not immediately have the spirit But Thirdly What ever t was he did to those particular infants which whether they were believers infants or no too no man can tell for many sought him for loaves and outward mercies and many for healing of themselves and children meerly that they might be rid of their burdens on whom yet he had compassion for all that yet first what is this to other infants or to ours that cannot now be brought to his person besides what more to believers than unbelievers infants what more to any then to all away therefore for shame with such dry Divinity as this he touched those children and blest them that were then presented to him that he might touch them therefore all believers infants have the holy spirit and must be baptized away with such dribling dispute also it is not fit for Christs School nor mans neither The next Eulogie you mention is this viz. Their being declared to have right to the Kindome of heaven whence your Argument must run thus Babist Those who are declared to have right to the King dome of heaven have the holy spirit But little children of believing parents are declared to have right to the kingdome of heaven Ergo they have the holy spirit Baptist. In answer to which I must distinguish upon your middle term There 's a twofold right to the Kingdome of heaven viz. a remote right and an immediate right conditional or absolute a right in potentiâ and a right in Actu The remote Conditional potential right ad regnum to the Kingdome upon future Contingencies and Events this all persons that ever were born into the world have i. e. conditionally or in case they dying in infancy do no evil or living to years shall believe and obey the Gospel but what is this right to your purpose for verily First It proves not the holy spirit which you speak of to be in those that have it Secondly if it did it proves it to be in unbelievers as well as believers seed as unto whom when they come to years Christ is a common salvation and the Gospel of the kingdome is to be tendered and that not in moâ—kage but truly and really as theirs till they reject or put it from them 〈◊〉 as the â—ews to all generations since Christ have done that they may believe and believing have life through his name i. e. immediate right to it here and possession hereafter or if they happen to dy in the innocency of their infancie before they have to speak in your own phrase p. 5. by any actual sin barred themselves or deserved to be exempted from that generall stâ—te of littl children declared in Scripture viz. secundum te O Accountant right to the Kingdome of Heaven then have they all such apitudinem regnandi as will cost the Priest-hood of England for all his Christian charity in declaring the right of belivers seed to the Kingdome more reason than they ever did or yet have to bestow that way to clear themselves from the just censure of Antichristian cruelty for their excluding and damning all the dying infants of others which are rari quippe boni numero vix sunt totidem quot c. counting the little corner believers will stand in at least no less then twentie to one And as for that other more immediate actual absolute right to the Kingdom when it shal come this Mediante Morte in infantiâ all dying infants have as well as some and not in infantiâ all dying infants of believers thâ—n of unbelievers for even of such I mean all dying infants for infants living to years are no more infants though it be questionable too whether Christ speaks of the same in the place in hand or of such as are like them in innocency c. of the two most likely to be the truth of such I say I grant the kingdom of heaven to be for ought I know but of no persons living to years whether believers seed or unbelievers Nisi mediante fide et obedientiâ and then they have actual and present right to it all which notwithstanding mark what I say for it cuts in two the sinews of your consequence t will not universally follow neither that those that have right have pro presenti the holy spirit for though nothing can come
upon denial of any sufficience in all your former proofs to make it appear is at last undertaken by you to be made sufficiently appear in this last Syllogism which if it do not make it as sufficiently appear concerning unbelievers infants considering your own matter used to prove the Minor as concerning the other then my candle is quite gone out but if it do then surely the very light that is in you is utter darkness In the next place you dispute upon us by way of Question and Interogation thus Disputation 1. How do those men and women that are baptized at years make it appear to those that baptize them that they have faith and the holy spirit If it be answered by their profession 3. Whether their profession since it is possible they may lie can make it appear infallibly If it be answered no. 3. What judgement then can they that baptize them passe upon them to be the subjects of baptism as they call them whether any other than that of charity If it be answered that of charity T is replyed then let them passe the same judgement upon those little infants of whom in general the Scripture hath given so good a report and against whom in particular no exception can be raised and the controversie between us is at an end Disproof First whereas you quere how those we baptize make it appear that they have the holy spirit before we baptize them I answer I know no necessity of making ir appear that persons have the holy spirit before their admission to baptism for though we find once that God Anticipated his promise and gave the holy spirit before baptism Act. 10. yet I know not nor yet do you any promise there is whereupon in an ordinary way we can expect it of receiving the holy spirit of promise till after faith repentance obedience turning to God baptism and asking of it Prov. 1.23 Iohn 7.38.39 Act. 2.38 chap. 5.32 chap. 8.16.19 Luke 11.13 Ephes. 1.13 Secondly as for the holy spirits appearing infallibly I answer first it may possibly appear infallibly to be in some in whom it is as Act. 10.44.45.46.47 by sundry fruits and manifestations of it which may warrant us to say God is in them of a truth Mat. 7.16.17.18.19.20 1 Cor. 12.7 1 Cor. 14.25 It may I say undoubtedly appear to be in men and women but cannot and way at all so appear to be in infants if we may believe your selves who tell us p 8. that infants have not the exercise and fruit of faith and p. 18. that instruction of the understanding in matter of faith in some sort must go before any act of faith can be discovered and that no judgement of science can be past upon infants till the acts themselves be seen and examined for a posteriore onely the discovery of habits is made and that unlesse it could be certainly presumd what children have it what have not there can be no conclusion made And howbeit I am not of the seekers mind that an appearance of the holy spirit in any person before baptism in water doth exempt him from it but am well assured that it strictly rather ingages him to it or else Peter could not have commanded them in name of the Lord to be baptiz'd in water upon whom the holy spirit fell Act. 10. but must rather have forbid it as frustraneous and altogether superfluous yet that the spirit should appear at all to be in men in order to their baptism much more that it should appear infallibly to be in them is a matter of no necessity that I know of sith in the word it s not required that persons be baptized with the holy spirit first in order to their baptism with water but that they be first baptized in water in order to their receiving the holy spirit Act. 2.38 for the baptism of the spirit as t is promised onely to believers so we believing obeying the Gospel and asking the holy spirit t is signified to us as one thing that shall be given among the rest in that very way of water baptism so that its enough for us as to the baptism of persons to take cognizance of it that they believe and repent which things though they cannot do without the spirit performing its common office of striving drawing moving inlightning convicting of good and evil sin and righteousness c. in all which it acts to the whole world Gen. 6. Rom. 1.20 Iohn 16.8 Act. 7.51 yet they not only may do them without but must do them before they can by promise expect the spirit in those special respects wherein he is promised to believers and calld that holy spirit of promise And now because you ask how we know they have faith whom we baptize I answer by their profession which gives though not infallibility yet by your leave for all your preferring the Eulogies given in general to all infants above any mans personal profession for himself in this case a far clearer and better grounded judgement of charity concerning them that they have faith then that you have concerning infants which at best is but charity mistaken for cruelty whilst it takes that to be in infants and that on pain of their damnation too they dying without it viz. believing see p. 8. which infants are utterly uncapable of and whilst it takes even that too without which it holds no infants are saved to be in but very few infants viz. believers infants onely and so damns all other dying infants which are far more innumerable and as capable of faith and as little barring themby actual sin from salvation and as little deserving damnation as the other so that whether we or you plead the cause of innocent infants let the world judge And whereas you suppose that because in charity onely we judge men and women to believe therefore we passe no other judgement then that of charity onely on them to be the subjects of baptism herein you grossely mistake our grounds of baptizing for thought that of charity onely is the judgement whereby we judge them to be believers yet that is not the onely judgement whereby we judge them to be the subjects of baptism but as to that we go upon a judgement of certainty and infallibility also for though it be not infallible to us that every one that professes to believe doth as truly believe as he professes yet this is infallible to us concerning him that professes viz. both that he professes and also that professing to believe with all his heart so that we in charity may judge him so to do whether he lie or no he is by the rule of the word quoad nos a warrantable undoubted and as no infant is infallible subject of baptism for the word requires us to baptize such as after our preaching the faith to them do truly professe to believe whether they believe as truly as they profest or no for that indeed is not so infallible to
seal together with all your vain conversion and worship by tradition from your fathers yet you never learn'd it from our fathers in the word wherein shew me if you can from the beginning to the end save in Rom. 4.11 where in anosense sense viz. not to strengthen a weak faith but to honor great faith circumcision was set as Gods broad seal to confirm Abraham in his fatherhood any one of the four which you call Gods seals viz. either circumcision or the passeover baptism or the supper is call'd a seal by God himself Babist The formal term of a sign is no more to be found in Scripture to be given either to baptism or the supper then the term of a seal yet you grant it to be properly called a sign and so why may it not be called a seal though it be not so called in Scripture Baptist. Though the expresse denomination of a sign be not given in Scripture to either baptism or supper yet no lesse is sounded forth in sense and signification but the other term of seal as to these things is not consonant to the rule of faith for verily as no other is exprest so no more then one seal of the Gospel Covenant is so much as implied or hinted at in holy writ and that one seal is no other then the holy spirit by which those that believe are said to be sealed Eph. 1.13 Eph. 4.30 and howbeit God preacheth the Gospel to us outwardly by words oaths signes and visible resemblances viz. baptism and the supper and this in the ministration of men who may minister to us all these and set them close to our ears and to our eyes yet when he preaches it to us inwardly so fully and firmly as by seal he preaches it himself alone and though by a baptism yet a better baptism then that of water that is the holy spirit which though the sign may be set first to profest believers that are not so indeed secondly and this very visibly and openly to the view of others thirdly by men like our selves yet first is never set to any but believers in truth secondly and that secretly and indiscernably to any but themselves that are seald thirdly by none but God himself who onely sets that baptism close to the conscience within which baptism no man under heaven can administer what we set i. e. the sign may very easily be to a blank our ministration being liable to mistake but what Christ sets i. e. the seal that makes us most sure from himself that cannot possibly be misplaced for where and whensoever the spirit of God within is sent to bear witnesse and cry Abba i. e. father there and then God is a father indeed your own selves say that where the seal is that soul is sure at that time a real heir and from that time forth say you also for ever and so say I if that soul continue for ever cleaving to the Lord not quenching resisting or so grieving that holy spirit as to cause it to depart for ever for if so ther 's another tale told you from several Scriptures 1 Chron. 28.9 Heb. 6.4.5 Heb. 10 29. But if it be so as you say that Gods seal seals up none but such as are both true heirs by faith at present and must necessarily abide so for ever then first here 's an Argument ad hominem how ever i. e. an evidence to you out of your own mouthes that your baptism is none of Gods seal sâ—th it is set by you not onely to 1000s that after it fall from him but indeed to 1000s that never knew him their father nor never will I again therefore once more for all that I may not trouble my self with them when I meet them in other places protest against these your expressions of circumcision and baptism by the name of seals Gods seales of the Gospel Covenant c. first as none of mine wheresoever you are found fathering them on me as p. 6.7.14 Secondly as none of Gods expressions though I know not how many times ore viz. p. 4.6.7.8.13.14 you aver the ordinances to be Gods seals and father that very phrase on God himself who as he useth not such a phrase when he speaks of those foolish things as the world counts them 2 Cor. 1. which he chuses as his outward witnesses shews signs and love tokens from himself to us so he useth no such tools indeed as these Instrumental signes are when he ministreth himself for these he appoints men to minister in these are the instruments of the foolish sheapherds Zach. 11.15 even the outward instruments which God hath chosen for the under sheapheards to act by he uses none of these I say as his own seal and inward witnesse for that 's no lesse then the holy spirit which whattypes shews and signes of the Gospel Covenant soever there have bin outwardly both before and since the Gospel begun hath bin is and ever shall be the onely earnest that God hath given the only witnesse that him self hath us'd the onely seal that he hath set in any age whether before the law or under the law or under the Gospel Psal. 51.11.12 Eph. 1.13.4.30 2 Cor. 5.5 Rom. 8.15.23 So having removed the rubbish of rude expression with which your last argument was clouded and not a little over loaded as you delivered it I come now to consider it nakedly as it lies substantially enough compriz'd in these expressions viz. Vnder the Law circumcision was by Gods appointment dispensed to little infants Ergo under the Gospel baptism must be to infants also or else the Gospel Covenant is worse to the spiritual seed of Abraham now then it was to his carnall seed under the law This is in short the plain sense and ordinary way of urging this argument By way of Answer to which let me be so bold first as to ask you this one question viz. why you stand so stâ—fly to have baptism dispens'd so strictly after the manner of circumcision and yet stray and vary your very selves from the fashion of that administration in a manner as much as any men in the world for verily though the way of circumcision be that you stickle for yet you stragle from it and as to the very subject it self vary from it as much as in any thing else if that be rhe rule after which men must baptize as you plead why then do ye not baptize for so they circumcised First onely males and no females Secondly all male servants upon the masters single faith as well as male children on the fathers Thirdly on the eighth day onely and neither sooner nor later nor one day before it nor behind it Fourthly by the hands of parents fathers Mrs. Mothers as well as by the hands of the Priesâ—s onely Fifthly any where viz at home or abroad in Inns or other places as occasion is but onely or for the most part in your great stone houses for this is both
be baptized are not the self same in sense and signifification shall never go for a wise man more with me and whoever shall say that the phrase of Philip to the Eunuchs question what hinders why I may not viz. if thou believest with all thy heart thou mayest be baitized is as not exceptive of infants from baptism as that phrase of Paul let a man examine himself and so let him eat is exceptive of infants from the supper can seem no other to me then one whose reason is basely captivated to some carnal interest or other yea the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Act. 8.37 doth ful as much if not more imply an unlawfulnesse of their admission to baptism that believe not with all the heart as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Cor. 11.28 doth imply an unlawfulnesse of their admission to the supper who do not first examine themselves what ever exception therefore ye can find in the word of infants from the supper the self same will I find of infants from baptism and what ever ground of admission to baptism you shall find there for them the same will I bring for their admission to the supper Babist Those places where it s said if thou believest thou mayest he that believeth and is baptized repent and be baptized go teach and baptize imply onely an unlawfulness of baptizing persons at years without instruction belief and repentance and are phrases that relate to such onely and not to infants who may notwithstanding any thing to the contrary there exhibited be baptized without any of these Baptist. So you use to say still indeed of these Scriptures that they speak of persons at age and not in non-age and so say I too but I wonder then where are the Scriptures that speak of infants baptism if all the places of Scripture that speak of baptism at all speak onely of the baptism of adult ones and so you are fain to confesse they do when we come to examine them one after another yea I remember that at two publique disputes when we have put you to assign what Scripture infant baptism is commanded in Mat. 28.19 hath bin nominated as your warrant out of which when it hath been plainly proved that Christ commands no more in that place to be baptized then such whom he commands also first to be instructed reply hath been made to this purpose viz. that Christ there requires that such as are capable of instruction should be instructed first but that hinders not why infants may not be baptized before instruction but if so I say I wonder still where that place is that warrants it that infants may be baptized at all â—ith you are fain to confesse that that phrase go teach and baptize yea even you your selves sometimes who just before assigned it as the warrant for infant baptism that it speaks onely of persons capable to be taught and not of infants As you say therefore that these places speak of the baptism of men and women onely that are capable â—o learn believe and repent and not exclusivly of infants because they are not capable to do those things who yet may be bapâ—ized for all that so I say of these words let a man examine himself and so let him eat they imply an unlawfulnesse in men and women only to eat the supper without self-examination but not in infants who being not capable to examine themselves may any thing to the contrary there notwithstanding be admitted to the supper without it t is men and women onely and not children who upon non-examination of themselves are excepted As you argue therefore that every administration to an Nation includes infants as well as men unlesse the be excepted and therefore they must be baptized I conclude the same from those premises concerning their right to other ordinances viz. therefore they must be preacht to therefore they must eat the supper two administrations given to all nations from which infants are no more excepted then from baptism As therefore you take it for an implicit exception of infants from the supper in that they cannot perform what is required in that place to the receiving of it i. e. not examine themselves nor discern the Lords body though by name they are not excepted so if you be not partial your own consciences will compel you to take it for at least as implicit an exception of infants from baptism in that they are no way capable to perform those things which are required of persons in order to their admission to baptism in other places viz. nor to believe with all the heart nor to confesse sin nor amend their lives nor repent nor call on the name of the Lord all which were required of adult ones that come to baptism as we see Mat. 3. Act. 2. Act. 8. Act. 22. and also in the Rubrick where it being askt what is required of persons to be baptized answer is made thus viz. repentance whereby they forsake sin and faith whereby they stedfastly believe the promises of God made to them in that sacrament though by name they be not excepted in any of these places Your cui signatum ei signum nisi obstet c. your thredbare Argument viz. to whom the thing signified belongs to them the sign unlesse there be some impediment or in capacity to perform what is required in order to the receiving of the sign if it had one farthing worth of force in it to give infants accesse to baptism would equally avail to give them accesse to the supper if we were minded in good earnest to plead their right to both in evidence of which I shall argue upon you with your own Argument thus To whom the thing signified belongs to them the sign also belongs unlesse there be some exception or incapacity to perform what is required to the receiving of the sign But the thing signified in the supper which is the same that 's signified in baptism viz. Christ and his benefits belongs to infants and there 's no more exception of them from it then from baptism nor more incapacity in them to perform that which is required to the supper then there is in them to perform what 's required to baptism Ergo if they may receive the outward sign of baptism they may receive the outward sign of the supper also But in truth as they are no more capable of one of these signs then the other so are they in very dead both uncapable of and plainly enough alike excepted from both Secondly is it so Sirs that infants being a great part if not the Major part of all nations must therefore be baptized because it s said baptize all Nations unless they bad been excepted then I answer again if you mean thus viz. unless they had been some way or other at least vertually or implicitly excepted then infants are most manifestly and clearly excepted in this very text it self Mat. 28.19 if there were no other in
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 would be terms equipollent in that praecept and if so whether it were not tautology to say as in sense you would make Christ to say there go and baptize all Nations and baptize them and little better then such vain repetition is it though you read it by the participle if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to disciple be rendered to baptize and Retro baptizing may well be rendered discipling as Mr. Marshall saies it may for then at the best it is but thus viz. go and baptize the Nations baptizing them which kind of geminations though they are not more frequent then elegant in the Hebrew tongue yet are but tautology in your own judgements among the Greeks Besides that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to make disciples is to teach persons till they have learned and nothing else properly taken is plain to any that considers what these substantives signify and the several roots from whence they are derived in the several tongues to which they appertain for as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Hebrew comes of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 didicit and is rendered discens ab alio and used in Scripture for one that learns and is actually under teaching 1 Chron. 25.8 so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Greek is of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 disco and signifies the very same viz. one that learnes at least and is so used in Scripture yea so necessary is it to learn the commands of Christ in order to the being his Disciples that he himself professes whoever hath not learned to bear his cross and follow him which infants cannot do and yet may be saved nevertheless dying infants these things being not required of infancy as neither to be Christs disciples or to learn of him cannot be his disciple which term disciple comes also of the Latine word disco to learn and signifies one learning and is never used in Scripture for any other yea further that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth contrary to what Mr. Marshall and his Criticks say it doth in Mat. 28. signifie elsewhere if not every where else simply and onely to teach is to be seen by Christs own usage of iâ— in other places for speaking in the passive Mat. 11.29 viz. learn or be ye taught of me for I am meek c. he hath this very phrase in the Greek viz. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so Iohn 6.46 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every one that hath learned so saies Paul Phil. 4.11 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But if you will not learn of Christ and Paul yet be pleased to learn this one from another that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in that place Mat. 28. signifies onely a general teaching for if either you that follow Dr. Featley who saies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not teach or Mr. Bayly or Mr. Marshall who above all the rest hath most reason to hearken to Dr. Holmes sith he mannageth the very same cause of infant-baptism with him and that against the very same Antagonist Mr. Tombes will but consult Dr. Holmes p. 7. he tells you that as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is ver 19. so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ver 20. therefore most likely in v. 19. it signifieth onely a general teaching and this he saies not of his own head but out of as great Criticks as Mr. Marshall quotes to the contrary viz. Legh Crit. S. Novar in Matth. 28. 20. The great Arias who renders it only docete teach So the Renowned Vatablus So the Syr. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Arab. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So many other which for brevitie he omits See also his Alphabetical Index in the Letter D where he saies that go teach is not rendered to disciple or make disciples by the Arabick Syriack and Saint Mark or the exactest Latins or by the best translations of the new Testament in French Dutch Germain Hebrew another Syr. Italian Margin or by the holy spirit which saith he p. 8. renders this text meaning Mat 28.19 and that term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by plain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 preach the Gospell Mark 16.15 much more in proof that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cannot be any other than teach he hath p. 8. and all this over again p. 102. yea so saith he the Great Criticks or learned men in the Greek tongue say that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to teach them that are strangers to doctrine that they may become disciples 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to teach them that are Disciples so say we that are no Criticks viz. that there is a first general teaching to acquaint persons with the Gospel which when once they believe and are baptized there is a second teaching to bring them on towards perfection by all which though the words of Christ who saies go teach baptizing teaching are vindicated from taâ—tology yeâ— you will never be vindicated from the fault of flat Antalogy or contradiction among your selves who quote Criticism against Criticism to the overthrowing and falsifying of one anothers opinions and principles and all this in edification of the same practise of infants sprinkling which must needs be believed to be a good one when in prosecution of it O Woman that ridest and misguidest the Nations thou art so contrary to thy self some saying that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mat. 28. signifies only to teach some to Disciple not by teaching but baptizing or admitting to be taught some to make disciples by both these actions not either of them alone viz. teaching and baptizing some arguing thus viz. infants are disciples and therefore they must be baptized as Mr. Cotton and Mr. Baxter Mr. Bayly Dr. Holmes Dr. Featley Mr. Blake Mr. Marshall and who not some again thus viz. that they must be baptized and thereby made disciples as Mr. Marshall Mr. Baxter and others of you who tell us that by baptism they must be discipled i. e. entered and admitted into Christs School that they may be taught O pure round abouts for thus it runs up and down in your writings viz. that they are not made disciples but by these two actions baptizing and teaching and yet to go round again they cannot be taught nor made disciples in that way of teaching and learning but must be discipled by baptizing and yet to go round again infants of believers are disciples and upon the account of their being so are to be baptized Lastly as to that frivilous flim flam from Acts 15.10 into the blind belief of which you are all indoctrinated and discipled one by another for there is scarce any of you that write but you have a touch on it witness Mr. Cotton p. 7. Mr. Marshall in his Sermon p. 39. in his reply to Mr. Tombes p. 217. Mr. Bayly p. 145. Mr. Baxter p. 15. Dr. Holmes himself that denies utterly that they are bid to be discipled in Mat. 28. p. 7. yet asserts that in Acts 15.10 infants of believers
to believe witness not my self only who am of little credit with you but Mr. Cotton also none of the least of your Champions that appear for infant baptism whose very words p. 48.49 of his Way of the Churches in New England these are viz. It is not the seed of faith nor faith it self that knitteth a man to this or that visible Church but an holy profession of the faith and professed subjection to the Gospell of Christ in their communion Be ashamed therefore of such a monstrous position that persons not appearing to believe in Christ can conclude no more against their faith in Christ then against their reasonable souls Determination The seed of faith sown after discovers it self when the season comes Detection Yet so audacious are you that whilest it is but in the seed at most by your own confession as in infancy to attempt a discovery of it to all the world to be in these infants viz. of believers and not in those viz. of infidels before the season Determination The testimony of Scripture concerning their faith and the proofs taken from thence are equivalent to the best testimony and profession of any man concerning his own faith Detection O Sapientia as if the Scripture did as punctually personally and particularly testify concerning this and that individual infant which you sprinkle that it doth believe and those infants that you deny to sprinkle that they do not believe as men at years do to us by their words and works that they do or do not believe Secondly there is but one testimony of Scripture alledged by your selves where you say it s asserted of infants that they do believe viz. Mat. 18.6 and that as I have shewed First speaks not of little ones in your sense but of little ones in Christs sense viz. believes indeed and his disciples whom he stiles little ones also a little above Matth. 10.42 a place where we read not that any infant was among them Secondly that Scripture testifies of those of whomsoever it speaks in actu secundo that they do believe and so to do your selves yield is impossible for infants therefore it cannot be meant of them Thirdly if it did speak of little ones properly so called so as to say they do believe yet that they were believers and not unbelievers infants is a thing which a wise man may fumble himself 55 times over and become a fool before he once find it so to be Fourthly 't were but a Prosopopeia however Determination If it be further askt how faith is bread in them it is answered by the holy spirit whose waies are inscrutable who ties not himself to means works where he will and how quo magistro quam cito discitur quod docet saith Cyprian Detection And yet you scrue so farr into the inscrutable waies of the spirit in this matter as though he works where he will and how both to bind and bar him and to determine both where he doth and must work faith and where he doth not and must not viz. in believers infants not in infants of infidels else why do you refuse to baptize the one upon non-appearance of faith and yet plead for the baptism of the other as in whom it appears to you so clearly that by argument you say you make it more plainly appear to any one that will not deny Scripture and reason that they have faith then the profession of any one particular person that ever I baptized can make it appear of himself for thus you peremptorily conclude p 5. and then as prettily unconclude it all ore again p. 18. saying unlesse it could be certainly presumed what children have the habit of faith what have not for the working of the spirit is not known to us there can be no conclusion made why also do you say the promise is to believers and all their seed which is as much as to say God is bound upon his word and covenant unto these children not unto others and therefore must be as good as his word for I hope you all agree that God will not lie p. 14. though I confesse p 18. you unsay all this ore again and grant that he is not bound to work it in all the children of Christian parents nor bard from working it in any of the children of infidels O fine whifles Determination If it be inquired how faith can be said to be in them without their consent the answer is as well as originall sin to which they never consented and that Christ is more powerful to salvation then Adam to condemnation Detection That original sin is in infants so far as it is in them without their consent I do not deny it being a matter more imputative as I have shewed above then inhaesive and that Christ is more powerful to salvation then Adam was to condemnation is an undoubted truth which makes me believe otherwise then once I did viz. that whatsoever befel whomsoever meerly by Adams sin is as universally as well in respect of the subject made miserable thereby viz. whole mankind as of the misery befalling that subject by the coming of the Second Adam taken away for which tenet I could give more proof then you can easily disprove were it not besides the Argument I am in hand with but that faith is in any persons without the consent of those in whom it is is a lesson that I shall never consent to learn while mine eies are open I have found many Divines defining faith by the very term of an assent or consent unto the things promised preacht profered or propounded to us to believe and making assent or consent such a necessary ingredient to the very essence being or nature of faith that faith cannot be faith without it thus Mr. Baxter your fiercest fellow-fendent of infants baptism the very essence of faith saith he p. 98. lyeth in assenting that Christ is king and saviour and consenting that he be so to us Yea he denies them to have any true faith who do not thus assent and consent but of all the faiths that ever I have heard or read of and of all the kinds of believing that ever were broacht in the brains of men I never yet heard of a believing of things whether one will or no I mean a real believing and not such a feigned forced faith as that of those who must say they believe as the Church believes when happily they know not what that is nor did I ever hear of believing without assenting to the things believed since I was born till I met with this figment of yours nor ever shall again I am perswaded while the world stands from any men but such as having uttered one absurdity are resolved rather then to recant it to uphold it with an 100 worse then it self Determination It is further added that there is no other way revealed for the salvation of little infants but by justification and that by faith that way of the
Clergy and their colours in order thereunto also highly inhauncing the price of three following forlorn-hope highway Hacksters and Hachny Arguments as not the last nor least though not the first three among the worthies that are engaged in it Whereas that poor blind Implicit-opinion'd people and Clergy-claw'd christen'd creatures may no longer to their utter erring from the way of Christs truth and their own peace trust in the lying words of their Prophets that profit themselves more then them by their traditionary doctrine I do here in the name of the great King Jesus who gave commission Mat. 28.18 to make persons disciples and to teach them first and then to baptize them proclaim it aloud to the whole earth that all these are either clearly against you or all things considered nothing for you First the whole region of Scripture in every coast and quarter thereof is up in armes against you neither is there any one part or place throughout it wherein you ever find that way of infant baptism much lesse your way of infant-rantism so much as probably to have been practised or the war you wage for it promoted by so much as one piece of a precept that such a thing should be done or inch of instance that ere it was done at all yea in all places where ever baptism was dispensed you find it done onely and downrightly in that despised way wherein we do at this day i. e. of dipping persons immediately after but never before converted and discipled all they of Ierusalem and Iudaea and Galilee that were baptized by Iohn in Iordan and by Christs disciples in his presence and by his appointment confessed their sins 3. Mat. were first taught and instructed or made disciples Mat. 28.18 Iohn 3.22 Iohn 4.1.2.3 all they who were baptized by Peter and others after his sermon at Ierusalem to the number of 3000. did first gladly receive the word Act. 2.41 all they that were baptized by Phillip at Samaria and betwen Ierusalem and Gaza were men and women that believed the things spoken by Phillip concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Iesus Acts 8.12.36.37 all they that were commanded to be baptized by Peter in the name of the Lord at Cesarea were such as were converted at the hearing of the word Act. 10.44.48 all that were baptized at Corinth by Paul Silas Timotheus were such as believed Act. 18.8 all they that were baptized by Apollos or any other at Ephesus before Paul came thither which were about 12. were every one of them adult believers Act. 19.1.2 c. Aâ—l that ever we find Ananias baptized at Damascus though there were other disciples there besides himself with whom Paul walkt a while was Paul that was baptized calling on the name of the Lord. All they of the Church of Rome to every one of whom Paul writes his Epistle Rom 1.6 that were baptized into Jesus Christ and buried with him by baptism into his death were such as had formerly lived in sin and actually obeyed it in the lusts thereof and yielded themselves up as servants to it and had now visibly obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered unto them Rom. 6.3.4.12.16.17.19.21 which things I take him to be little better then an infant in understanding that judges they were performed by any infants All they at Galatia who were baptized into Christ were such as had received and imbraced the Gospel and had put on the Lord Iesus Christ and such who through ignorance of God had done service to such as by nature were no gods but now had attained to know God by the preaching of the Gospel to them which things that are spoken to all the Churches of Galatia cannot be said of any infants Gal. 1.9.3.27.4.8.9.13 verses among all which this is most notable in that he saith As many of you as have bin baptized into Christ have put one Christ we see all along throughout the whole body of the new testament It was not the rule of Christ nor the practise of the primitive times to baptize persons till they had had first preached the Gospel to them and according to the commission converted them or made them disciples indeed so soon as ever they were thus discipled or made disciples that no infants can be so in infancy is shewed above as simply as Mr. Bazter seems to suppose believers infants are so from the very womb I agree with Mr. Baxter that their baptism was not to be delayed and forasmuch as he abundantly proves the period of time wherein persons were ever baptized in the primitive times by the will of Christ to be immediately after they were converted and made disciples he consequenâ—ly agrees as much with me as I desire him insomuch that in confirmation of this that I say I mean to declare this truth viz. that persons are not to be baptized till they are first made disciples in the same words wherein he himself declares it to us by the space of well nigh a whole page together in order to the making of his matter to serve our turn against himself and all you that baptize infants but especially against his fellow souldier Mr. Marshal and his critical observations out of which he tells us that infants are not disciples before but are made disciples by baptizing I shall frame this argument viz. If Christs Rule be that persons should be baptized when they are first made disciples without delay or immediately after they are converted and discipled then persons are not to be baptized before they are converted and discipled But Christs Rule is that persons should be baptized when they are first made disciples or immediately after they are converted and discipled Ergo they are not to be baptized before they are converted or discipled The Major is most clear and consequent for if it be Christs will that baptizing should immediately follow our discipling persons or converting them to the faith then consequently t is his will that baptizing should not go before our discipling and converting them if baptism must be immediately subsequent to teaching or making disciples by Christs commission then teaching persons or making them disciples must be Antecedent to baptism unlesse both these be the mind of Christ in his commission whom and when to baptize viz. that they should not baptize persons till they are taught and discipled and yet to go round again that they should not teach them till they have baptized them i. e. in Mr. Marshals sense initiated them first to be disciples by baptism and thereby admitted them to be taught as for the Minor which is this viz. That it is Christs rule that persons shall be baptized without delay when they are first made disciples or immediately after they are converted as I have fully proved it already above both from the commission for baptizing and from Scripture example explaining that commission and from the end and use of baptism so I shall further prove it
should be baptized as neer as may be upon the time of their conversion and becoming disciples and if it have been then foâ—eslowd it must be after as soon as it can but in no wise so many years before it as the priests unviversally do it and such of whom it is not known nec per se nec per alios when they first were discipled and converted but oh how do I fear that as he that never doubted never believed so many of those implicit converts Mr. Baxter talks on that never knew when they were discipled and converted were never yet truly discipled hor converted at all to the truth as it is in Iesus but as they had it more by tradition from their fathers then unfained search of Scriptures such I say of whom t is not known when they first were converted and discipled shall by my consent be baptized when ever it is first known that they are converted and discipled unto Christ by their own profession of their conversion and discipleship and desire of baptism and this not by my consent alone but by the joint consent of all these very Scriptures which Mr. Baxter himself hath coâ—ed for our example and warrant all which if as far as Christs own precept and practise and the primitive Churches example can do it they do not warrant the baptism of all and onely such persons as were first taught or made disciples by preaching or instructed till they both learnt believed and imbraced the Gospel and professed themselves disciples and offered themselves to baptism and consequently of no infants then for my part I le lay aside all sense and reason as no more to be heeded as a help to understand the Scriptures and turn a very Tom-fool and he that can Altobelogick these Scripture institutions and instances into plain Scripture proofs of infant Church membership and baptism Erit mihi magus Apollo for there 's no mention of infants either expressely or implicitly in any one of them Oh therefore to Eccho back to Mr. Baxter a little in much what his own words to us concerning those Scriptures p. 127 that those who are so inclinable to seperation from the primitive practise would consider the unfitnesse of infants to be admitted by baptism to be Church members under the Gospel Oh that they that in church whole parishes as if they because the Pope will have it so were all Churches and will have no trial at all and discoveries of the work of persons conversion before they admit them but take them all at hap hazard as they fall from the belly within the bounds of that parish where they are plac't and popified would but lay to heart all these Scripture examples and make more conscience of observing their rule and not presume to be wiser and holier then God when it was mans first overthrow to desire to be but as God though he did not attempt to go beyond him as the priests do in adding other Subjects to his ordinances then himself appointed which changing of his law will be mans last overthrow Isa. 24. doubtlesse those that Christ baptized by his disciples were Church-members but those were not infants but such as were first made disciples by preaching onely Iohn 4. and be that will go beyond Iesus Christ in strictnesse shall go without me I do not think he will be offended with me for doing as he did i. e. for baptizing none but such as believe and professe themselves disciples and as repent of their sins and desire to be baptized in the name of Christ for the remission of them and so I have done with Mr. Baxter till we meet again onely since Mr. Marshal is pleased ponere obicem to object and bolt in here that we cannot say none in these places were baptized but such as did thus i. e. believe and professe themselves disciples p. 217. to Mr. Tombs because the word onely is not here I may well call it obicem or objectionem obularem a hint not worth a half penny and if he appeal to his own conscience it will tell him no lesse neverthelesse what ere he thinks I say again all that were baptized in the forenamed places were such as are there specified to be profest converts and believers and if there were any more let him assign and shew us whom and wee l believe him as for the housholds himself is in the sands whether there were any infants in them or no and I have shewd above that they that were baptized in them are exprest all by some clause or other exclusive of infants and conclusive onely of adult disciples besides Mr. Cotton confesses that the infants were not baptized with their parents and that the infants that were brought to Christ were not baptized at all for ought he knows nor their parents neither and here are all the Scriptures that declare how baptism was done then and to whom most of which are cited by Mr. Baxter himself from which you cannot possibly scrape so much as any old odd end of an example for such a businesse as your baptism As for us besides that plain precept we have in Mat. 28. even every whit of this is plain â—resident for our baptism and comes into our assistance against all your cavils O ye Priests for thus I argue viz. The baptism of men and women professing faith in the Lord Iesus confessing sins calling on the name of the Lord c. is a baptism yea all the baptism that the Scripture speaks of either in way of command or example But the baptism which we dispence is a baptism of men and women professing faith in our Lord Iesus confessing sins calling on the name of the Lord gladly receiving the word c. Ergo that baptism which we dispense is a baptism yea all the baptism the Scripture speaks of in way of either command or example Therefore Sâ—rs how hath Satan bewitched you that you cannot believe and obey the truth what will you onely think things and thrust your thoughts of them as oracles upon all others will you imagine and suppose and dream and dote and fancy and fain a baptism that the Scriptures and first Churches never knew and then father your figments upon the Scriptures and fasten them as the fashion which the whole world must be forct to follow and conform to Moreover I do not at present remember any one part of Scripture which your selves summon into your help in this case of infant baptism that doth not yield ammunition and much matter against you more then for you unlesse it be one or two used by your selves which one may as well with Skoggin untile the house to look for an hare as urge either pro or con about infants baptism so farre shall he be from finding in them any proof for that or the true baptism either as namely 2 Cor. 13.5 1 Thess. 4.13 There are but two places that I know of besides those I have already turned
in after ages too were the Apostles themselves viz. Father Peter Father Paul Father Barnabas Father Iames Father Iohn and the rest whose authority from Christ was great indeed and adequate with the Scriptures then written and the foundation for all the Churches to build on and such was not the authority of the Churches then much less since which are to be subjected to their word in Scripture this Church and these fathers never knew such a baptism as yours nor is there the least tittle of talk concerning any such matter to be found among them Or if by the Church and Fathers of it whose authority and practise you build on you mean those of the ages next to the Apostles Then first I marvel why you should put your selves upon the triall by succeeding ages and decline the first and purest age of the Gospel of all specially since there 's as clear history and more infallible testimony given in the word of what was done by the Church and the first fathers the Apostles then ever was in any age inferiour to it whatsoever and more specially yet since its being in after ages is no palpable argument of its being in the first age for the mystery of iniquity was at work from the very Apostles t is now Ergo it was then is not so good a wherefore to our why as we look for besides t is ingenuously confest by your own writers viz. Mr. Blake in answer to Mr. Blackwood p. 58. that faith can hang on the humane testimony of the succeeding fathers in whose daies infant baptism was no further then de facto viz. that it was onely and not de jure that it ought to be and Mr. Marshal p. 5. of his sermon that the practise of the thing in their dayes proves not the truth of it at all Secondly neither doth the second Century help you so much as to a proof de facto For First as much as you would seem to be verst among the fathers in which many Priests are better read then in the Scriptures and some to seem to be better read there then they are will quote the fathers when they have not read them but by snaches and pickt a few fine phrases out of them to make their sermons the more sententious yea and sometimes for those very sentences for which they might more truly quote the Apostles that primitively pend them witnesse one of your tribe whom I heard with my own ears say of Heb. 2.16 he took not on him the nature of Angels thus viz. for as Saint Barnard saith when as he might as well have said as the spirit or as the Scripture saith He took not on him c. if yet he knew that t was in the Scripture as much I say as you are versed in the fathers you are desired by Mr. Blackwood a man better read in those fathers then either you or I yea you and Mr. Marshall also who quotes Iustin Martyr are desired by him in his storming of Antichrist p. 25.26.27 to prove if you can out of any place of Iustins genuine works who is the antientest father extant next the Apostles whose works are accounted on that there is so much as the name of infant baptism much more the thing yea he tells you ye may as soon find a Dolphin in the woods as any such thing save onely that t is once mentioned in a spurious book falsely called his out of which book Mr. Marshalls quotation is neither doth Mr. Blake gainsay this nor yet Mr. Marshall in their replies nay they rather seem to grant that it s to be doubted it was so which makes me as well as Mr. Blackwood not a little wonder that Mr. Marshall should quote it with so much confidence I mean so as to assert it thereupon as a matter manifest that the Church counting from the time of Iustin Martyr viz. 150 hath bin possest of the priviledg of infant baptism for the space of 1500 years and upwards for had he not doubted but that the words he cites were without question the words of Iustin himself he had not had sin but now he hath no cloak sith he demonstrates to all men Dubitatum per magis dubium and tells the world to make them believe that Iustin disputes the condition of children that dye baptized and unbaptized when yet it s not believed but much doubted by himself whether Iustin did any such thing yea or no as to the words Mr. Marshal p. 4. of his sermon cites out of Irenaeus who lived toward the end of the second Century which Englisht are thus viz. Christ came by himself to save all all I say who are born again unto God infants and little ones c. it s not likely that in this sentence that father by the word born again meant baptism as Mr. Blake and Mr. Marshal contend for by that sence they father such absurdity upon that their father as children that pretend to honour their father may be ashamed of whilst they make him say Christ came to save all infants that are baptized when as neither all infants that are baptized are actually saved quâ baptized nor are any unbaptized infants damned quâ not baptized but both alike saved as both alike they either dye before they have bard themselves by actual sin and derserved exemption or living to years believe and obey Christ and both alike damned as living to years they both alike obey not his Gospel but however let Mr. Blake and Mr. Marshal squeeze what they can from the quotation it must yet remain as doubtful whether the speech of Irenaeus if it were his own were at all of infants baptism as it doth whether the speech fathered on Iustin though it be of infants baptism were at all his own and so what dubious evidence the second century affords so much as de facto that infant baptism was then in being all men may see whilst you can say no more then perhaps it was so and a fool may say as much as perhaps it was not which is a proportionable answer to that argument for t is commonly said in the Schooles saies Mr. Marshal that forte ita solvitur per forte non Secondly but what if your testimony de facto concerning the practise of infant baptism in the second century were as clear as t is cloudy yet what green headed antiquity is this in comparison of that we plead from viz. the Apostles themselves when you are stormed out of all your strong holds then you send us still to ages above us and cry out your practise is of 1500 years standing but sith you cannot say as we can of ours t is above 1600 years old nor is yours now likely to live to it as good you had said but 15 for our way onely being found in the first century and yours not at all before the second we are a people so much elder then you upstarts that your antiquity is but novelty with us
some infants above others as you do who by your mouth I mean Mr. Blake declare some by nature now as of old to be Children of God and Saints and some dogs and swine some holy i. e. in your sense in Covenant as the Iew of old and some unclean i. e. in your sense out of Covenant with God and sinners of the Gentiles which distinction is now destroyed much lesse that such prerogative of seed is intended by the Apostle in that texâ— even I my self I say do look on all infants as holy in some sense as I have shewed before i. e. negative as far as meer innocency and freedom from iniquity may denominate holy not counting them to be in Adam and so impure but recounting them in Christ till by actual sin and a wicked life they take me off from that account and on some children also viz. those of Christian parents as having in some sense a prerogative of seed so far as they may be a seed of prayers more then othess and in some sense too not yours a holinesse above others i. e. as they may be sanctified to their parents as blessings as every thing else may be by their prayers whether good or evill in it self if yet what is blest to us may be properly denominated holy as every creature is said to be sanctified to the Saint 1 Tim. 4. and yet for my life dare I not baptize any at all and as for Tertullian though he mistaking Pauls meaning holds such are holy by a kind of prerogative of seed as Mr. Marshall speaks yet t is very questionable to me whether it be that so transcendent kind of birth holiness and prerogative you expound him of and howbeit Dr. Holmes and Mr. Marshall would fain fetch that father in by force of forged construction to witnesse as a God-father to their federal holinesse yet I cannot easily believe by his words that he hath respect to any more then a bare recounting and reputing these to be holy in a sense abstract from any reallity of their being holy by natural birth and in their childhood as the Doctor vainly descants on Tertullians phrase wherein he mentions them to be holy or till such time as they are holy indeed by that new birth from above and Mr. Marshal takes my part against the Doctor in this too saying they are in Tertullians sense designati sanctitatis i. e. as these words are expounded by the following witnesse the Doctor himself counted holy but not Sancti i. e. not holy till they be born of water and the spirit p. 36. much lesse can I ever believe that he counted them holy and priviledged above others so far as thereupon to assert them or so much as to allow them to be baptized for that 's an utter in consequence of your own from Pauls text 1 Cor. 7.14 and from Tertullians text to who though he take Pauls speech of such childrens holinesse a little the wrong way yet wrests them not so far out of the way to the proof of such a popish practise as you do yea there is not a little in Tertullians testimony you so talk of that tends at all to testifie the truth of infant baptism indeed had the Epithet given by Tertullian fidelium filiis been so as that instead of that phrase wherein he saies they ought to be designati sanctitatis et salutis i. e. reputatively holy and happy ones he had said they should be signati sanctitatis salutis i. e. signed in your own phrase sealed ones of holinesse and happinesse there had been some hint towards baptism but as t is there is none at all of such a matter The Dr. draws neck and heels together to make Tertullian speak to his mind but t will appear he was of another mind then he as to the baptism of any infants when all is done for saith he Babist Tertullian shews childrens capacity of grace and salvation Baptist. And what then yea what if we grant you that they are capable of salvation yea the Scripture asserts it and we do not deny it therefore you need not trouble Tertullian for this testimony but what follows upon it what then Babist What then why consequently they are capable of the seal for the deeds and their seales follow the right of the inheritance Baptist. This is your inference Mr. Dr. from which inference of yours now we talk of inferring I le infer two things by way of quaere and so let it passe viz. First if the seales in plurali marke your words therefore both at least yet both are but signs neither in true locution must both follow the right of the inheritance of which children are in capacity as well as men then to fill you with your own phrase why is not one seal of the same inheritance of the same salvation given to infants by you as well as the other i. e. the supper as well as baptism Secondly if these in plurali or if no more then baptism be to be given to children consequently upon no more then capacity oâ— salvation the capacities of infants being equal and they quoad nos all alike capable to enjoy it if God who is neither bound nor barred please to bestow salvation why are not both these or at least that one sign of baptism which you give to some infants given by you to all infants as well as some i. e. to ungodly mens children as well as to those of godly parents the Dr. strives with all his strength and straines one point more yet to strain Tertullians testimony to his turn yet will it not do in any wise Babist Tertullian in that text mentions not onely childrens being holy but he mentions also that place Iohn 3.4 in relation to children except a man be born again of water and of the spirit c. from which we may perceive that Tertullian grounds infants baptism upon Scripture Baptist. To which first supposing that by that birth of water and the spirit is meant nothing but baptism in that place of Tertullian we are yet upon I reply Secondly thus viz. appealing to the Drs own conscience and Mr. Marshals also whether he speak that very clause of Scripture in that very place of his we are now upon to that very intent as to ground infant baptism upon it or whether if it be read with a right and true Emphasis and reference it doth not of the two rather suppose it was not to be in infancy for having as Mr. Marshal understands confessed so far of infants of the faithful that they are designati sanctitatis et salutis i. e. to be held in the mean time to wit in childhood and before baptism as holy and happy reputatively only yet he saies that none of all them are sancti i. e. holy indeed for that we see is Tertullians sense of the word enter into the kingdom unlesse they be born of water and the spirit that is as I conceive till they
be converted and baptized which thing that it is at all to the infants of the faithful in their minority he saith not at all here nor any thing like it but elsewhere mentioning the same Scripture Iohn 3.5 as he puts the water and the spirit together so both before and behind it he puts teaching and dipping faith and baptism as things that by the law of dipping are imposed as of necessity to go together saying he hath bound fâ—ith to the necessity of baptism therefore all believers speaking of none else were baptized and then Paul when he believed was baptized in his book de baptismo advers Quintil. Editio de la cerda vol. 2. p. 153. ibid. c. 13. as Mr. Blackwood quotes him in his storm of Antichrist p. 28 29. so that in the quotation were are yet upon the Antithesis lies thus in my conscience as I read him viz. infants of the faithful in their infancy may be reputatively holy but not really holy none being really holy till such time as they be born of water and the spirit which was not in infancy in Tertullians apprehension as it seems to me in that very place which the Dr. and Mr. Marshall make so much of as the words designati sanctitatis non sancti do shew whereupon I perswade my self it was that in that other place of his that I must return to he uses disswasion from dispensing and perswasion to deferring baptism to all but specially to infants not of infidels onely but believers also as I shall shew clearly to Mr. Marshal now who scruples it and that by such reasons as shall take that rub and stumbling block of his out of the way I mean this last text of Tertullian of his own and Dr. Holmes his alleading by which they were both gravelled from believing Tertullian to be ours for indeed whereas that place he last alleadged did give him supposed ground to scruple whether Tertullians disswasion from baptizing of infants were from any but the infants of infidels I hope to shew him such a necessity of understanding his disswasion to be from the baptism of any infants whatsoever as shall give him contrarily sure ground of belief that howbeit Tertullian would have some infants higher accounted on then some yet he would not from thence have any baptized to which end I shall set down Tertullians disswasions of infant baptism in English as I find them quoted by Mr. Marshall in latin who I observe seldom Englishes what may make against him p. 34. of Mr. Marshall against Mr. Tombes and in p. 122. of Dr. Holmes in English and more largely then by either of them by Mr. Blackwood in his storm p. 29. together with the grounds why he would not have little ones baptized and leave it to be judged what little ones he means Tertullians words are these viz. According to every ones condition and disposition and age the delay of baptism is more profitable but especially concerning little children for what necessity is there if it be not so much a necessity as to have the sureties also brought into danger who may both by their own mortallity sail of fulfilling their promises and by the increase of an ill disposition be deceived The Lord saith indeed forbid them not to come unto me let them come therefore when they grow up to youth c. thus far Mr. Marshal and the Dr. Mr. Blackwood writes further thus Let them come whilst they are young whilst wherein they come they are taught let them become Christians when they know Christ a little further he saith shall it be done more warily insecular things that to whom earthly substance is not committed Divine should be committed they shall know to beg salvation that thou mayst seem to give it to him that asketh it also in the 20 chapter of the same book he saith it behoves them that are about to enter into baptism to pray with frequent prayers fastings kneeling and watchings and with the confession of their sins past in all these words is he recorded by the three authors above named disswading from baptizing infants now whereas Mr. Marshall professes he stands much inclined to believe that these little ones to whom Tertullian would have baptism delayed are to be interpreted of the infants of infidels onely and Dr. Holmes helps him what he can in this by quoting the words of learned Iuniâ—â— upon the place who is just of the same opinion with Mr. Marshall yet lends him as little reason towards it as one can likely look for from so rational a man I shall immind them first that Vossius on the place quoted by Dr. Holmes in one and the same page with Iunius found no good ground to evade the bang Tertullian gives to infant baptism in such a fashion as to say he denies onely the baptism of infidels infants how far you will heed him I know not but he thinks his think thus viz. not that infants of the faithful are here denied by Tertullian but that nothing is denied by him but onely the necessity of thâ—se infants baptism when there 's nâ— danger of death because t is said what necessity if there be no necessity defend you your selves if you will against that consent by silence of Vossius to us in this that t is all infants to whom Tertullian would have baptism delaied for that affâ—onâ—s your poor put off and I le look to Vossius his own put off as well as I can that he shall not go clear away with it for my own part then allowing Vossius his own thought I take the like liberty to think otherwise and the boldnesse to assert the contrary viz. That â—ertullian denies more then a necessity of infant baptism yea he denies any conveniency or lawfullnesse of the thing also especially in the testimony cited by Mr. Blackwood which the Dr. and Mr. Marshal durst not mention and clearly enough in those cited by themselvs for if it behoves them that are baptized to pray confesse sin c. which no infant can do then it behoves us not to baptize them and if it bring sureties into danger then t is not convenient nor expedient as well as not necessary and if it be more profitable to delay it to infants then we are so by duty bound to do what 's most profitable and edifying that to do otherwise is to do that which is unlawful moreover it being granted by Vossius that Tertullian denies but so much as the necessity of baptizing any infants I le prove thence a necessity not to baptize any for if there be not more or lesse a necessity of one kind or other viz. vel praecepti vel medii there 's a necessity at least of letting it alone for Christ commands no ordinance of his without need and with such indifferency as destroyes all necessity of obeying it and what way or point of worship was not ordained by himself is by command from him of such necessity to
be declined that as he who preaches it though an Angell from heaven is to be hâ—ld accursed so he that doth thereafter shall have no thank for his labor for in vain do they worship him that either teach or take for doctrines the traditions of men Secondly and further to prove it least Mr. Marshal and the Dr. should not grant Vossius that Tertullians denial is of the baptism of all infants even of believers as well as infidels I argue that more plainly First from the universallity of the expression of himself in his disswasion which extends to all manner of persons without exception for it may be thought he was somewhat soiled with that superstition which was rife in after ages viz. that baptism was best dispensed towards the end of a mans life that he might have a sign of the forgivnesse of all his sinnes at once whereupon Tertullian would not have unmarried persons baptized until temptation was over so far was as he from desiring such early dispensation of baptism as that to infants I say his perswasion to delay it extends to all manner of persons and therefore to the infants of believers as well as to other little ones Secondly his indefinit and indifferent expression of these little ones concerning which he speaks for saith he specially about little ones promiscuously including all excepting none as it had bin necessary for him to do if he would be understood to speak but of some and not of others for if Mr. Marshall should preach or write his opinion against the baptism of unbelievers children onely retaining to himself his present earnestnesse for the baptism of other little ones and deliver himself downrightly and indifinitely thus onely in way of dissawsion viz. I would not by any means have little one baptized I find no ground baptizare parvulos to baptize infants c. so running on and never distinguishing so as to say in that sermon or speech I mean onely infants of infidels I should not take him for so judicious a man as I yet hold him to be saving his holding so stiffly still for infant baptism Thirdly by the reason he gives why he would not have little ones baptized viz. least their sureties should be in hazzard of non-performance of their words by reason of their own death or their God childrens untowardnesse which danger may come as well by baptism of believers infants as of others As whose Sponsors whether fathers or mothers or God fathers and God-mothers may die before they grow up or if they live be frustrated of their ends by the wickednesse of these children or god-children also Fourthly in that he speaks of such children of whom the Lord said forbid them not to come unto me which in the Priesthoods own sense at least are believers children yea and them onely by which clause according to you he may seem to speak of them onely rather then of infidels childrens onely whom you your selves forbid to be brought to Christ at all Fiftly in that he saies let them become Christians when they know Christ belike then if your sense be true some Infants may be warrantably enough made Christians before they know Christ but some infants again may not at any hand be made Christians till they know Christ which if it were Tertullians meaning as t is yours he might mean honestly in it as you do but t is too mean an opinion to keep touch with the word which never knew any way but one wherein disciples and Christians were made i. e. of profest faith repentance and baptism after they knew Christ by the preaching of the Gospel Sixtly in that he saies we should be more wary then to commit Divine substance to them to whom earthly substance is not committed now we know that earthly substance can be no more wisely committed to infants of believers in their non age then to infants of infidels Seventhly by one end why he would have them be capable to beg salvation first viz. that God may seem to give it to them that ask it which end is destroyed if baptism be dispensed to believers infants in infancy for they can no more ask it then the infants of uâ—believers Eightly because he saies it behoves them indifinitely meaning all them that enter into baptism to pray and confesse sin c. which conditions are as exclusive of all infants as of some those of believers being no more capable to do that then infants of infidels are Ninethly what ever children he disswaded from the baptizing of here and so saith Mr. Marshall and Mr. Blake its most evident de facto that they were wont to be baptized then or else there had been no object of his diswasion therefore if his advice to delay to them were concerning infants of infidels then its evident that in Tertullians time t was the custome to baptize infidels infants as well as Christians and so if antiquity of infant baptism were an argument of its goodnes it s as good an argument of the goodness of baptizing infidels infants also which with you is well-nigh as bad as the other is good Babist True de facto we have evidence that the baptism of infidels infants then was but that fathers disswading from it is an argument that t was nought and though crept in yet a thing that was not so from the beginning Baptist. Then I hope if ever you come to be perswaded and it is a wonder that none of the reasons above be cogent that t was indeed from baptizing of any children at all that Tertullian diswaded we have an argument of your own for it that the baptism of any mens infants is naught also and a thing that was not so from the beginning and so if Mr. Marshall himself be not by this time sick of Tertullian I assure both him and on all that I am and of all the Fathers also with whom in this controversie I would not have meddled but that your Pamphlet flutters so so with naming the Fathers and takes iâ—â—ll that testimonies from the Fathers were not taken on the day of the Ashford disputation I say again I am sick of them not so much with fear at the sight of any thing in any of them that makes against us for I find nothing that hath the strength of a straw against our way throughout them all even these few Iunior inferior ones themselves that are most against us for the Seniors are more fully on our sides and some of the Iunior ones also as Basil and Chrisostome both in the fourth Century whose words as Mr Blakwood cites them p. 28 29. of his storm are thus viz. First he ought to believe and after to be sealed with baptism and if any one have not corrected the transgression of his manners and hath not made vertue easie to himself let him not be baptized Which words are exclusive of infants t is not therefore any disadvantage that comes by them to our cause which I am sick
from the time of one or both parents entering the borders of a seperated society and so by this means if an old man or woman that hath ten or twenty children the youngest whereof is no less then twenty years old they all though never so morally wicked yet from thenceforth are faederally holy but not before no though their parents believed before Upon this Account the Churches in New England deny their Nullity sprinkling to infants of such parents as are either not yet joined to them or for which they are very oddly also at odds among themselves excommunicate from them in justification of which Gambole Mr. Cotton lapps himself up in such a manglement of discourse p. 81. to the 88. as betokens that wisdome is perishing from the wise for mans tradition sake which they hold up against Christs institutions yea he sticks not to assert p. 81. Thâ—t the Apostles and Evangelists gathered men whom they baptized into a visible church estate before they baptized them unless they were church-members before they preached to them Which is as if he should say they brought them first into the visible Church that they might be baptized and then to go round again baptized them that they might be brought into the visible Church for unlesse he contradict all those thousands of Old England now becoming New whilest New England growes old who after sprinkling still used this phrase viz. We receive this child into the congregation of Christs flock as in the English refined Masse-book the Priests universally did preaching baptism to be the entrance into the visible Church not in word only but in deed also by placing their Fonts at the Church doors unless I say he be contrary to all Paedobaptists who hold baptism to be the way into the Church and not the visible Church the way into baptism and then what another cross whet doth he wipe them with we must needs take Mr. Cotton in that manner and yet to say the truth the Clergy is cross enoâ—gh to themselves in this case for this is but like that of them that say believers infants are born in the bosome or within the pale of the Church and so must be baptized and must be baptized and so enter within the pale of the visible Church or else they are out and in no better condition than the children of Turks and Pagans What prety Gim-cracks are here yet surely not much above the tyth of those round abouts and contradictions to themselves and one another that are to be found among the Paedorantists should I stand upon a full discovery of them but verily I am weary to see Old England New England and Scotland all together by the ears about their infants sprinkling and had rather if it were possible gain them all to be at peace in that point by laying down their dispensing it any more to infants and pitching all upon the undoubted subject of true baptism i. e. a professed believer without which it is impossible to reconcile them till they have routed each other and stormed themselves out of their strongest garrisons with their own hands Among whom and so to make an end what hold and keep is there likewise about the sprinkling of bastaâ—ds may be seen by Mr. Cotton page 88. of his way c. Some and those the best Divines holding the baptism of Bastards but not sine sponsoribus i. e. not without witnesses or sureties Others holding it without witnesses for ought I find of which sort is Mr. Cobbet who brings in Bastards to baptism by a certain fetch beyond his fellowes viz. the faederal interest of those bastard infants that are born in the Church saying Though the parents faith do not sanctify such yet the force of Abrahams covenant fetches them in which I much marvel at sith the law or covenant of Circumcision admitteth not such into the Congregation unto the tenth generation Others again denying that the Scripture warrants any such thing at all as the admitting of Bastards to come by baptism into the Congregation as his neighbour Mr. Cotton who gives liberty to Christian Sponsors to entitle wicked mens children to baptism by their undertaking for them yet can scarce find in his heart for ought I find to allow them the like to entitle a bastard alledging out of Deut. 23.2 that in the old Testament a Bastard was not to enter into the congregation of the Lord unto the 10 th generation and so indeed he was not upon any terms for ought I see whether the parents repentance or the childs good behaviour when at years after once that particular statute was delivered yet takes upon him to deviate from his old Testament Rule so far himself as to admit such a one into the congregation and to baptism either when the parents repent notwithstanding his bastardy or when the child professes better in his own person p. 87.88 By which kind of often interfearing of so able a man as Mr. Cotton I perceive and therefore believe believe and therefore speak it that the nearer men come from Rome towards reformation if they come not to the perfection of it according to the word the more miserably a great deal are they bewildred with any human tradition that is remaining among them unremoved in so much that the Papacy is lesse troubled with contradictions quarrels quirks and foolish quiddities about their infants sprinkling then Praelacy Praelacy then Presbytery Presbytery then Independency for though they hold none but believers and that all those are to be baptized yet the Pope carries it clearly to all infants born in his Christendem without streining these being all believers with him as in opposition to Turks The Prelate to the infants of Protestants onely that are his believers in opposition to Papists But the High-Presbyter to the infants of protestants universally though with him not 10 of 100 in his parish are believers when they administer the supper The Independent to none but the infants of those that are inchurchâ— with him though himself believes there are 1000s of believers that are not of his way those I say that are most reformed in other things are more muddled and lesse capable to maintain that popish practise of infant-sprinkling then those that are deformed in all other parts of outward order besides it and as they stand in the narrowest streit to hold it up so are they for the most part at the nearest step to lay it down not a few discovering dayly more and more the absurdity and unsuitablenesse of it to so pure a posture as they pretend to and quod fieri non debuit factum valet availing more to the keeping off many from the true way of baptism then any arguments they have whereby to satisfie themselves in the sufficiency of that way of sprinkling Thus we see what a laborinth you Clergy-men would lead poor creatures into if they should follow you yea I know not how a man can follow you unlesse he go
as failing in that point if you do it no otherwise then it was done then and there viz. the dayes and places wherein the primitive Churches dispenst it for they were all so wholly strangers to your infant baptism that not so much as the sound of such a thing was ever heard among them and howbeit Dr. Feaâ—le tells us a tale p. 16. out of Origen on the Romans whose originall is lost and into which work of his on the Romans t is shrewdly suspected by the learned that Ruffinus and the Romans have Sophisticated such a sentence that the Church had infant-baptism from the Apostles and thence very goodly grounds A positive argument of very great moment saith he that may convince the conscience of any ingenuous Christian viz. that the Apostles in their dayes began to baptize infants and the whole Catholique Christian Church in all places and ages even from the Apostles dayes hath admitted the children of Christian parents to holy baptism therefore t is no error Yet I must tell you that Origens bare word and single say so if it were his own is no warrant whereupon all men may safely muchlesse must necessarily believe it was so but the word of the New Testament of which the Apostles mostly were the Pen-men is warrant enough to us to believe that it was not so were the word onely silent about it how much more whilest it hath so much against it that we may say t is exclusive of it Howbeit therefore you say that infant baptism hath been universall it is sufficient proof of its non universallity in that you can never prove that it hath been universall and we have proved that in the Apostles dayes it was not so that in the first Century t was not so nor in the second for ought any man living can possibly shew how ere it began to creep in about the third and howbeit it hath been never so universally and erroneously practised from the fourth or fifth Centuries till now yet neither will it follow that the universall Church hath practised it nor that the universal Church hath erred in it nor that Christs promise Mat. 28.20 Ioh. 16.13.14.16.17.29 concerning the spirits abode and guidance is not true for that 's not more made then made good to those that perform the condition and terms on which it was made viz. the observation of what he commanded in which case the spirit is ever present and ever was and shall be with those few that keep the truth as for the most when they began to dote on mens teachings and traditions and to fashion themselves more at a venture after the words of the wise and prudent then after the word of God it self and to Idolize the dictates of Synods and Ghostly fathers so as blindly to subject themselves to their sentences as their onely Oracles then Terras Astraea reliquit Christ who did ingage to lead them by his spirit who would be led by it was dis-ingaged and true enough in his promises though he left the world to lie in darknesse and to be filled with their own wayes and with the fruits of their own inventions Moreover t was not the Church in the capacity of a Church in respect of outward form and order but his disciples to whom that promise was made to whom also it was performed and made good in all ages according and in such measure as they kept close to him for in the time of the treading down of the Temple and holy City and the true worship and worshippers and of all that visible fabrick and Church posture which stood in the primitive times and even in the grossest darknesse God gave power to his two witnesses i. e. by his word and spirit in the hearts and mouths of his Saints impowered them to prophesie and testifie to the truth against the traditions of Rome and against infant baptism as well as other of her superstitions and heresies how else could Bernard have said as he doth Serm. 65. super cant of some that opposed the corruptions of his time They laugh at us because we baptize infants because we pray for the dead and require the prayers of Saints yet even to those Martyrs that did witnesse to some truth in times of Ignorance the light was though not so totally and terribly as to the rest of the world much ecclipsed ore now it is and that promised manifestative presence of Christ not a little interdicted and communion with him interrupted by the interposition of that smoak which comming out of the bottomless pit clouded the sun and thickned the aire and as Christ himself foretold also it should be Iohn 14.30 by the intervening of the Prince of the darkness of this world who was to have his time wherein to darken all things and had it too so that by his delusive wiles the whole world was won to be once an Arrian and after that an Antichristian worshipping the Dragon and the Beast wondering and erring all together into one Catholique Church-body called Christendome and by common consent bearing the whore or false Ministery called Clergy warring at her will against the Saints and though not finally for so the gates of hell cannot yet or along time prevailing against them that dwell in heaven Rev. 13.4 5 6 7. In all which time nevertheless as I said before some truths were revealed to some and so much to such as then sought to Christ and not to men as may well serve to verify Christs words and justify all the promises of his presence with his people as to the true purport of them as yea and Amen Babist But where was your Church then all this while till these latter times Baptist. Where it was to be according to the word of prophecy Rev. 11.1 viz. troden underfoot for 1260 years by the nominall Christians or Gentiles coming by the lump into the outer Court i. e. into a bare name and feigned form of Christianity after the time of Constantine at the compulsive call of the Clergy since when though there have been an number of Saints in sackcloth that have seen much light from Christ and suffered for it yet I am so far from undertaking to prove there was that I am rather of the mind there was not nor was to be if the word be true any truly collected truly constituted visible Churches at all in right outward form and order standing upon that true foundation i. e. the principles of the Doctrine of Christ and the primitive prophets and Apostles for many ages upwards even from the Clergies carrying the Church captive into Babylon unto these daies wherin the foundation Heb. 6.1.2 with Eph. 2.20.21.22 which hath been razed is laid again and the measuring line gone forth upon the Temple is in the hands of the true Zerubbabel Christ Iesus who shall also finish it not by Army nor by strength but by my spirit saith the Lord of Hosts If this answer be not satisfactory that our Churches
first after once we do repent and believe and that so necessarily first necessitate both praecepti and medii in order to outward membership and fellowship in the visible Church of Christ and in order also to the true being of the visible Church in that outward right form and order that if it be not first done and done according to his own mind and not mans and first laid as a foundation among the rest of those principles Heb. 6.1 2. of Christs doctrine which altogether are called the foundation i. e. to the visible Church of Christ which is said to be built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets i. e. their doctrine or that form of doctrine they delivered whereof baptism in water was a part and a principle though not the principal part Eph. 2.22 Rom. 6.2.3.17 I deny that there can be any visible Church of Christ at all truly constituted according to his own will and such a bearer up of that building it is thaâ— abstract it and there is no building fitly framed together nor people growing together visibly an holy Temple in the Lord and he that in these latter dayes will ever erect that holy City and Temple which was trodden under foot by the Gentiles advancing all into the name of the Church at the door of infant-sprinkling must preach and practise again that true baptism of repentance for remission of sins in the absence of which there was no true visible Church as to outward order and form at all in their opinion as well as mine who hold and so does the whole Clergy that baptism is the way by which persons enter and out of which there is no entring at all into the visible Church in which therefore to erre is in truth such an unsufferable crime and so fearfully to erre in one of the most necessary points of Religion as pertaining to visible Church order that except ye repent of your infant-sprinkling O ye Priests and be baptized truly according to Christs will in the name of the Lord Iesus for remission of that and all other your sins and superstitions your error is enough to justifie our separation from you nor find we how we can in Christs name and according to his will or without violation and palpable breach of that outward order which he gives no dispensation for to us abide in one body or Church fellowship with you in the supper Secondly Sirs though I told it you before yet to conclude this I now tell you again though we deny infant baptism yet we do not hold at all nor conclude thereby that the whole Church of God hath universally erred i. e. the Church of Christ in all ages and places and howbeit it is trâ—e as Dr. Featley saies p. 19 and we with him That particular Churches have erred and may erre as the Greek Church and the Latin Church the two legs upon which Mr. Marshal strives to make infant baptism stand still because it hath stood there so long and general councels which the Schooles term the representative Church are subâ—ect to error and have sometimes as Dr. Featley saies and so often say I that that I le never build my faith upon them decreed heresie and falshood for truth howbeit all christendom hath erred after the Clergy in this point and many more for 1260 years yet t is true as Dr. Featley saies that the formal Church as they speak i. all the assemblies in the world cannot be impeached with errour in this point of infant baptism forasmuch as the true Churches of the first times never knew it and many faithful witnesses that knew it to be a corruption testified against it in the darkest times and the best reformed Churches even no lesse then scores of Assemblies do deny it at this day to the shame of that one general Assemblie that would have settled it Review And not onely so but if Mr. Fishers doctrine which 〈◊〉 lately delivered as a judicious gentleman affirmd who heard him that â—ll that did believe and were dipt should be saved but all that did believe and were not dipt should be damned be true they as much as lies in them damn to the pit of hell all the Matyrs Professors Fathers believers for many hundreds of years together Which onely doctrine should make all men to abhor them and not let their soules intermeddle with their secret whose rage is so fierce whose wrath is so cruel Christ shuts out onely unbelievers from heaven whosoever believeth not shall be damned This doctrine shuts out believers if they be not dipt i. e. if they be not Anabaptists it cannot be the ceremony they are so hot for without the substance Re-Review But saving the over apprehensive powers of that judicious Gentleman who ere it was that heard me he most grossely abuses in it himself and me in reporting such a thing to you as also you abuse both him and me and the world too in reporting it as from him to the world yet you have done him honour so farre I confesse as to conceal his name or else you had done him a greater spite indeed himself in shewing such shallowness of capacity in hearing as scarcely calls for that worthy title of judicious Gentleman and me in not only mistaking but mistelling his mistake also to you who print out his mistake to all the world for such doctrine as this That all that did believe and were not dipt should be damned did never yet fall from my mouth nor did ere take place or was ever owned for truth in my mind yea howbeit I summon you or any else to shew me in the word not taken by snatches but in the whole intent and scope of it Gods promise of salvation by Christ without obedience to him both in repentance faith and baptism too to those of whom all these things are required I say it again least you mistake me as speaking of infants for they being capable of none of these of them to salvation none of these are required of whom all these are required since all those that obey not the Gospel in what part soever of it it is manifested to them shall be damned 2 Thes. 1.7 8 9 2.10 11 12. Howbeit I say I wish you to advise how safely you that know it to be your duty may neglect it and how groundedly you can assure your selves that you do believe at all in truth if you receive not the love of every title of Christs truth so as wherein it appears to you to imbrace and obey it yet I am well assured I never utterd the other viz. that all that did believe and were not dipt should be damned nor is it now nor ever was it my judgement to this hour of which for the worlds and your satisfaction sith I have been very often charged and that twice or thrice in publique places where I have preacht so to hold I shall here give this brief account I judge that all persons
in the world meaning not infants but such as are at years of discretion to whom the Gospell comes in any measure are of some or other of these three sorts viz. 1. Either such as neither believe at all nor so much as in words profess so to do Or 2. Such as in words say they believe and indeed do not Or 3. Such as both profess to believe and do indeed believe as they say Now I suppose we all hold the first sort viz. professed prophane ones so living so dying will be damned and unless we will deny the Scriptures we must needs hold the second sort whose professed faith is a dead faith shall not be saved for what doth it profit if a man say he hath faith Jam. 2.14 and have not works c. whereby onely faith is proved to be true indeed as it is professed can that faith save him as for the third sort viz true believers I subdivide them in my thoughts into 2 ranks First such as believing in Christ truly for salvation believe also baptism in its true way of dispensation and not rantism to be Christs will concerning them and these I am certain will submit accordingly and obey him in it for such as say they have faith and live in rebellion to what parts of Christs will they know they ought to obey him in have not faith to salvation what ever they say Or Secondly such as believing in Christ neither see nor believe nor practise baptism in that only true way wherin we dispense it and all this meerly for want of meanes to discover it to them or by means of the invincible ignorance of their times and ages wherein they lived and wherein according to the will of God permitting it so to be the mind of God in that thing hath been hid and as we know it hath in many more things for ages and generations together remained undiscovered which times of ignorance I believe God much winked at in those who sincerely owned truth and obeyed it so far as it then appeared and as they saw it though now he commands all men to return from Babylon in these daies of light wherein men may see but that they will not yea many prophets and righteous ones in the height of Popery have desired to see and hear what we do or may do yet could not the Scriptures lying lockt up as unlawful well-nigh for any to consult with therefore look you to it who say you do not this or that because you see it not for I testify to you that it is a time wherein the true light shineth so cleerly that men need not erre if they love not darkenesse more then light because their deeds are evil And the same measure of light and reformation and truth which might have denominated you reformists had you lived 100 years ago will not serve to denominate you so now since the smoak that darkned the sun and the aire is much more perfectly dispelled then in that twilight in this form I mean of such as could not see not because they would not but because it shone not do I rank all the Martyrs and those honest men whom you doâ—e on as Fathers and all true professors and believers for many hundreds of years together who witnessed to truth and suffered for it too so far as it did appear to them in their times to this sort of men I am more charitable and tender in my censures then you can possibly prove your selves to be and so I am also to infants for all your prate of pleading for them against our cruelties neither doth any doctrine that ever I delivered damn any of these to the pit of hell as your doctrine of so rigid haâ—sh fierce and cruel rejection of all infants from salvation save those of believers doth damn an hundred to one of them that dy in innocent infancy and where it should be that that Gentleman told you I preacht that doctrine That all such as believe and yet are not dipped shall be damned I know not but this I know that I was ever so far from conceiving much more expressing any such thing that where I speak in publique of that point of baptism in prevention of that prejudice and opinion of our harshness which your publike balling at us begeâ—s in your hearers I commonly deliver my self to the contrary But now Sirs as for your selves who so falsely father this doctrine upon me as mine and that with such abhorrency of both it and me for it and with such patheticall expressions of your zeal against it as that you even set your teeth an edge as it were and whet the spirits of all men to abhor us for it if they had nothing in all the world against us in point of doctrine but that not to let their souls intermeddle with our secrets whose rage is so fierce and whose wrath is so cruel what if I go no further then your own Account of the Disputation at Ashford to prove that your selves are the men that hold this doctrine that though persons believe yet if they be not baptized they must be damned and not we are you not then condemned out of your own mouths to perpetual abhorring now therefore Quid rides de te fabula narratur thou O Accountant art the man of whom this tale may be told more truly then of us who hast plotted so well as to plat a whip here for thy own back yea I appeal to the whole world of wise men â—o judge whether I do not bring proof out of your own paper if your true Account be yours and be as true an Account of your judgements as t is pretended to be of your disputation that it is your own judgement and not mine that baptism is so necessary to salvation that even such as believe and yet are denyed to be baptized notwithstanding that very belief of theirs shall be damned go bur back with me therefore to the 7th page of your Pamphlet and compare it with what you say in the third and fourth pages concerning childrens believing and see what an Account you have there given of your own minds in this matter In the fourth you conclude from the like in the children of the Iewes that the children of beliâ—ving parents have faith in the third page you conclude from Mat. 18.6 that little ones do believe now look but in the seventh page and let all the world judge whether you do not there say of these same persons viz. of the infants of believing parents of whom you asserted before they were believers that if they may not be baptized and that 's none of the childrens fault neither as the neglect of baptism is in men it destroies the hope that the parents can have of their salvation for it leaves them in no better condition say you then Turks and Pagans and their children the salvation of whom is with you as hopeless for ought I see as of the Devills which
thereby members of the Iewish Church could not be the visible church according to the Gospell unless they did manifest faith and so be in covenant with Abraham according to the spirit and baptized into the same faith Whereas if the Covenant now under Christ were the same that was before Christ with Abraham and his posterity in the flesh then by the same right they possessed circumcision and the Iewish Church state they must possesse this since Christ which they could not do therefore it is not the same It is true therefore that the Covenant of God makes the Church both in time of the Law and Gospel too for the Church is nothing else but a people in covenant with God now look how the covenant differs so the Church and people differs which is made by it and which enter into it Now the Covenant whereby God took a people outwardly to be his people then was that whereby they did being circumcised participate of all those outward meanes which led to Christ which was to come Psal. 149.19.20 But the Covenant whereby he takes a people outwardly to be his people now whereby they are admitted to be baptized is that profession they make of faith in Christ Acts 8.12.37 Mat 3.6 Whereby they have true and spirituall conjunction with God and are his people Heb. 3.6 Indeed it is true that Christ is and ever was the Mediator and Means of salvation and also that all those that were saved were saved through faith in him both before and since his comming But yet because the outward means of making Christ known doth differently depend upon his being yet to come and upon his being come in the flesh the one being more dark the other more plain the one more carnall the other more spirituall therefore the participation of these meanes doth make the state of the participants to differ Thus far are his words and then noting certain differences to the number of seven or eight between the Old Testament and the New which is 1. Established upon better promises 2. After the power of an endless life 3. In Christ. 4. And liberty of the spirit 5. A Celestial Jerusalem 6. A State of faith He very truly concludes that such onely as are in the New Covenant in Christ in faith of the promises born from above and partakers of the spirit and the power of that endless life or of the world to come are suitable to be admitted to Gospel Church priviledges In the time therefore before Christ saith he such as would circumcise themselves and their males and observe the Law in the rites and ceremonies therof together with their children by generation were the seed and in covenant with that Church but now since Christ only such as believe in Christ and are thereby children by regeneration are the seed and in covenant with this Church and this he proves further yet First Because None of the Natural seed of Abraham are in the Covenant by vertue of any natural relation though they did remain in the Iewish Church till the death of Christ and as that Church then ceased so their being in the Church by an natural relation ceased also Act. 10.28 Rom. 9.8 Gal. 5.28.31 3.7 8 9 14.16.19.26.28 29. Secondly The Gentiles have no natural relation to become Abrahams seed by therefore a believers child cannot become the seed of Abraham by being the seed of a believer unless such children do believe themselves and cannot otherwise in no respect be participants in the covenant made with Abraham p. 14 15. And again p. 18. No Gentile saith he is Abrahams seed at all but by believing the righteousnesse of faith allthough he be the child of believing parents Now therefore because you tell us not only First that believers children in infancy are Abrahams children though they yet do not the works of Abraham i. e. believe not on him that justifyes them as some of you dote they do but also Secondly that the promise of the Gospel is to believers and their seed These both are abundantly confuted by that quotation of mine which quotes more Scripture then you will ever answer so that I wonder you blush not to shoot out so boldly two such blind and unsound assertions together the second of which I shall say no more to it being virtually answered by what is more formally spoken to the first also because I have shewed so undeniably above that I know your consciences must yield to it and that from this Act. 2.39 whence you would wreâ—t a proof to the contrary that the promise if you take it for the profer of the Gospel Grace is to all men in the world every creature and so not to believers and their seed only but to all unbelievers and their seed also in case they shall believe for he conditionats the promise on calling for such these were whom Peter spake to whilst he was yet speaking that very word to them viz. the promise is to you and your children but if you take it for the thing promised which is not Church-membership and participation of baptism as some say whose absurdity therein I have declared but the spirit remission of sins and salvation this is made good also to the believer himself and it is mercie enough to him that it is so I think but not at all to his seed for his sake nor his faiths sake for if it be I testify his children need no faith of their own nay more God never made promise to save any of believing Abrahams natural seed without faith in themselves for Abrahams sake as neerly as he took Abraham to be his friend for even he had sin enough of his own to have sunck him if the same Mediator that saves any of his seed in that way of faith had not mercifully saved him the same way nor yet for Abrahams faiths sake for that merited not salvation for them nor was it instrumental but faith only in themselves to any one of his sonnes salvation for every one must bear his own burden if Christ bear it not and the just must live by his faith and not his fathers neither did he ever promise for his faiths sake to give faith to his natural seed as his for then they must all have had it qua sic including de omni and being universale summum or God should ly which he cannot neither could God blame them as he doth for unbelief but himself without whom say you they could not believe who had promised to make them believe and did not though yet he promised to circumcise i. e. by his spirit to sanctify the hearts of his spiritual seed as well as his own i. e. all such as believe and are in the faith with him for the promise being still sure to all the seed which it is made to they all must be blessed with faithful Abraham Now if God who made the old Covenant promise of the earthly Canaan to Abraham and his
fleshly seed did not make the Gospel promise to him and his fleshly seed but onely that seed of his that believes with him can we think that he made that promise to the Gentile believer and his fleshly seed for his fathers sake unlesse he have faith of his own Babist No we do not say without respect to his own faith but as the believers seed shall believe so it s made to him as well as to his parents Baptist. So it s made to the unbeliever and his seed also viz. as they shall believe as well as to either of the other and by that account you may baptize all the world Again none of the Jews though the natural seed of Abraham and partakers of all the ordinances of the old testament as Abrahams children could be admitted to be baptized upon that same natural relation though they pleaded it never so stiffly Mat. 3 but only on manifestation of amendment besides that 3000 converts should not baptize their children when they were baptized themselves as Abraham by command took all his males and cirmumcised them the self same day with himself argues plainly that both the covenant and the promise as Mr. Marshal saies truly as to the manner of administration was now changed and not continued to parents and children both alike but as they both alike believed And that these were not baptized with their parents I take Mr. Cotton at his word who as I have shewed before confesses it and if he should not stand to his testimonie herein yet these words viz. as many as glady received the word were baptized which exclude infants and were an imperfect relation if he meant not onely them that received the word are so cogent that they cannot but compell him So I have escaped two of your bullets and as for the third viz. that the Gospel which is a better Covenant would be far worse if believers children be not counted in it and have not right to baptism and membership as well as the Iews children and be valued but as Turks and Pagans this is so sick of the same disease of absurdity with the rest that I fear not its doing much execution besides we have lamed it before having told you before and proved it too and now will again that the exclusion of the fleshly seed from this Covenant and administration which was taken into the first doth not lessen or straiten the grace of God under it at all nor render this covenant worse then the first contrary to Heb. 8.6 the place twice quoted by you where it s called a better for the meliority there spoken of of this covenant above that lies not so much in the extension of the grace of it to such subjects as in the meliority of its promises for this is a better covenant still then the other who ere it belongs or belongs not to forasmuch as it makes better promises then the other viz. of a heavenly Canaan and all spiritual blessings in and by Iesus through faith when that promised an earthly Canaan onely and certain temporal blessings therein on performance of those tedious services of the law T is true theirs in this sense and thus farre was a Covenant of great grace too as t was made freely to that people above other nations for he did not so to any people else concerning outward benefits and such statutes and judgements as should on their observation of them not onely continue them therein but as a shadow type and schoolmaster conduct them to this yet greater is the glory of the Gospel covenant which now is so that the other had no glory in respect of this glory that excelleth therefore the grace of God under the covenant to them that are under it is greater also Besides if you speak not onely of the intention but extension of the grace of God in this Covenant and in the administration of it too it goes beyond the other for not only is the Gospel a clearer promulgation of the eternal covenant then that typical covenant was whereby the glory of it may be seen more plainly and with open face then when it was seen onely in the type as a thing to come for we preach Christum exhibitum Christ crucified a sacrifice already offered and baptize and break bread in token hereof but they and that in much dimnesse too Christum exhibendum a Messiah to come he was veiled though seen through the veil in the old but revealed in this new dispensation but also it is of larger extent in respect of the subject to which it belongs for the revelation of it by preaching and real proferring of the grace of it in the name of God who is not willing that any should perish and fail of his grace unlesse they will is to all people in the world the old administration of circumcision and other pertinances of that covenant which was the type of this was limitted and narrowed into a little corner the land of Israel the people of the Iews yea more the very new covenant administration that we are now under as preaching baptizing c. while the old covenant did continue as it did for two or three year after the beginning of this by Iohn till Christ crucified was streitned exceedingly above what it is among us for saith Christ then go not into any way of the Gentiles but now since Christ crucified its extended freely to every nation and every person in it of capacity of years to receive it and till then dying before they shall never be damned for rejecting it without any exception as they believe for go saith he into all the world c. Mark 16 Mat. 28. then circumcision was limitted to males among the Iews but Christ and baptism is to Jew and Gentile male and female without difference as they believe so that the grace is rather lengthned in the administration of baptism by taking in the females that were not circumcised then straitned by the denial of it to infants in their infancy onely for even those also may be baptized too if they will when they come to years the grace of the new covenant therefore is even thus as well as otherwise better then the old in respect of the extent of it and its administration also to more subjects for the Jews onely were the subjects of that grace and heirs by promise of the earthly Canaan but all the world are heirs of heaven by promise according as they repent and believe the Gospel Besides if you think that ever God took the whole body of that nation Israel that belonged all to the typical salvation of the old covenant into the covenant of everlasting salvation by Christ in relation to their fathers faith without their own and thence conclude that the whole body of believers seed must be by faith of their parents admitted into that same Covenant of the Gospel this is a meer Chimaera of your own brain for no such grace of
all the seed to whom as such it is made But sith now you say that the spirit is not bound to give faith and salvation to believers seed nor barred from giving it to any of the seed of infidels which is as much as to say he is at liberty from all obligation of himself by promise to either of these above the other and to work it in which he pleases you will I hope unless you be more ashamed of seeming to have been ignorant then ashamed of your ignorance so as to give glory to God by confessing it relinquish that wonted position of a birth priviledge in this point in believers seed more tâ—en in others which you ground and prove from that promise Aâ—t 2. and ingenuâ—usly confesse that for ought you know the one hath no more ingagemeat of God to them by promise then the other so that unlesse there were more warrant then you have to single out one from the other as the special subjects of baptism and heirs of salvation you ought to baptize them all alike i. e. in very deed to let them all alone till you come as in infâ—ncy you confesse you cannot to presume what children have the habit of saith and what have not Fourthly where as you say wheresoever the habit of faith is it inclines to holy actions when there is opportunity and the season for bringing them forth whether this be necessary to be held or no yet wee l hold it to do you a pleasure in calling you thereby from your false cause for else its like to do you more displeasure in your cause of infants faith then you well considered when you penned and printed it for wheresoever faith is the opportunity and season for its bearing fruit and working by love and other holy actions is ever present and perpetual yea its never unopportune or unseasonable for him that hath faith to be acting obedience in one thing or other yea if any one say I have faith and have not works and holy actions much lesse if no inclinablenesse to holy actions that faith cannot save nor stand him instead faith without works being dead and profiting nothing therefore if where ever faith is it inclines to holy actions when opportunity and season for it is then I am sure there is no faith at all in infants for there is no opportunity or season at all in infancy wherein faith is found fruitfull in them and if you will say they have faith though you have no evidence of it and prove it is so because it is so then it is a faith without works and that faith is dead unprofitable and cannot save them Iames 2. and if so you would be better opinioned towards infants in my mind to hold them saved without faith then to hold they have a faith which cannot save them for better never a whit at all then never the better Fiftly whereas you say that this inclination to holy actions is not equally alike in all in whom the habits themselves are that may be so too yet Sampson and David are no such sufficient instances of it but that more sufficient might have been given for as there are many worthy things recorded which both these did by the power of faith Heb. 11. so he of whom you say he exceeded in acts of piety was in some things not to say as impious yet impious as well as the other besides to make comparisons between two such worthies as doing the one more good the other lesse both which by faith did no lesse the subdue and in their times fully deliver Israel from the Philistines for which the spirit is pleased to record and recommend them both as examples to all ages and rank them among others of whom the world was not worthy in one line Heb. 11.32 caeteris paribus unproved too such comparison if any be so is beyond all comparison odious and subject to many exceptions but be it all just as you have said it yet as little yields it to the support of your infant faith and childish baptism as if you had said nothing at all Sixthly whereas you say that instruction of the understanding in matter of faith in some sort must go before any act of faith can be discovered And seventhly and lastly that no judgement of science can be passed i. e. true demonstration made of this habit of faith till the acts themselves be seen and examined and that a posteriore onely the discovery of habits is made and then from all these preparative premises draw up your conclusive answer in three heads answering thus in the first place viz. That it cannot be certainly presumed what children have faith what have not and that the working of the spirit in that particular is not known to us and ore again also that the spirit is not bound nor barred and therefore there can be no conclusion made I say t is all necessarily to be held for truth yea t is a truth so preciously pertinent to our purpose against the purpose of your own pamphlet that had we been to conclude in a little compasse all that need be said toward the appearance of this position viz. that it doth not sufficiently appear by any evidence of it in their infancy that infants of believers have faith any more then other infants we could not in so few words have spoken so pithily to such a purpose which when I consider I cannot but wonder and conceive you will once wonder at your selves when your eyes are open that they whose words all these are should act against them all so absurdly as to make it the biggest business throughout their book to make it appear and that sufficiently that believers infants have faith beyond other infants Babist A charitable judgement concerning their having faith is sufficient to admit them to baptism and that is the utmost that we assert can be had of their belief not a judgement of certainty Baptist. A judgement of charity that there 's faith in persons sufficiently warrantably and certainly grounded is sufficient to baptize upon and such is that judgement on which we baptize who baptize none but such as the word requires us to believe to be believers i e. such as personally profess so to be and of such as those though we have but a judgement of charity concerning their faith yet have we from precept and president out of the word a judgement of certainty concerning their right to baptism but a judgement of charity taken up on meer fancy and conceit without warrant from or rather against both Scripture and reason warrants no man to dispense baptism upon it as from God for if it do I may as well baptize the great Turk as a little infant and no better is your judgement of charity concerning faith in little infants upon which you attempt to baptize them Babist Our charity is better grounded then so yea far better than yours as certain as it is and is as due
purses in the name of a prophet she hid it in three measures of flour in all which places the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is Englished in or by Resp. As if because this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath other significations besides into but specially the signification in in other places where very common sense and reason shew that it cannot there bear be Englished into but only in therefore it cannot by any meanes bear to be Englished into in this place where it s as good sense save that it shewes sprinkling to be nonsense yea and more suitable to a genuine and candid construction of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and undoubtedly to the spirits meaning in the place to English it into then to English it in for though he was rantized Anglice sprinkled into Iordan be ridiculous yet he was baptized Anglice dipped into Iordan is as proper to the full as he was baptized in Jordan yet they blush not to say for so saies Mr. Cook and there lies the very force of his reason viz. that because 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies in though he knowes iâ— signifies into also therefore it were absurd to render it into here at all Mr. Blake also makes this his sole ground whereupon to say that the Scripture is against our Englishing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here by into because elsewhere viz. in the places they alledge where the sense will not bear it to be read into its rendred all along in or by I cannot but believe that those two gentlemen are Judicious enough to discern their own halting and meer shuffling in this case for if I should argue upon them as to but one of those places where they will have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be Englished in on this wise viz the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 very frequently and most properly signifies into as namely Luke 5.3 he entered into one of the ships Rom. 11.24 thou art grafted into a good olive tree Ephes. 4.9 He descended into the lower parts of the Earth Mat. 6.6 Enter into thy Closet Mat. 6.13 lead us not into temptation Acts 8.38 they went down both into the water both Philip and the Eunuch therefore it is absurd for you to render it in in Mat. 4.13 and the Scripture is against that interpretation if I say I should urge so upon them and so they argue to us ward they would quickly spye out my nakednesse in that consequence but O how abominable blind are they at home Neverthelesse I tell you plainly that though right is right and to be stood for to a tittle and that if the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mark 1.9 were rightly rendred it should be rather into then in yet the service the word in will do us in that place is little lesse then what the word into will do so that we need not stand contending for the sense of into having enough from your own professed sence of in without the other wherefore waving out right in that at present we wâ—ll freely fall in with you as the sense is in yea we grant that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies in and that in many more places then those alledged by your selves as namely to add to your store Act. 2.27 thou wilt not leave my soul in hell Luke 11.7 my children are in bed with me But is it so that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies in and is so rendred in that place and many more then I am sure that here it doth not signify out of for he that is in a City put a Nazareth or Capernaum is at that time when said to be in it not out of it nor only by it but in it money that is truly denominated to be in a purse is at that time truly in it and neither out of it nor beside it leaven hid in three pecks of Meal whilest hid is in it overwhelmed covered with it and not on the outside with a few dusts of meal sprinkled on it only He that is in hell i. e. the grave in bed while he is truly said to be in it he is in it and not at it only and so he that is truly denominated to be baptized in water or in Iordan in the River Jordan is not out of it not at it not by the side of it not neer it only as you fancy them to have bin that were baptized of John in Jordan He I say who is said truly and the spirit lies not to be baptized in Jordan must needs be whilest he was in the Act of this baptizing not out of Jordan nor just by it only but truely in it and that 's more then he needs to be in order to baptism if he can be baptized as well standing by it only in that fiddling way of sprinkling Whereas therefore you contend against baptizing i. e. dipping into Jordan into Rivers and plead for a baptizing in water onely by the Example of Christs baptism which you yield in Jordan but not into it I marvel what wide difference you see in these two that you should grant it to be in and yet be affraid to grant it to be into Jordan you cry out not into not into by any meanes for that is no way consistent indeed with your dry washing but by all meanes let it be in only viz. in water in the River in Jordan let it be in water then as much as you will for me so it be in water that you are baptized and not out of it and not well nigh without it as most of yâ—ur christened Creatures are whilest little or none in comparison of such a measure of water as must necessarily be in order to a true baptizing of them doth once come neer them Fourthly it appears plainly that the way of baptizing in the primitive times was by totall dipping not sprinkling in that they chose to do it in places where there was much water or many waters which they need not have done if sprinkling might then have past for baptizing Iohn baptized in the River Iordan and was baptizing Iohn 3.23 in Enon neer to Salem and the reason is rendred thus viz. because there was much water there and there they came and were baptized and as the reason why they went to be baptized there was because there was much water or many waters for the word is Plurall so surely the reason why they went to such a place was that they might be baptized i. e. dipped in water as they could not conveniently be elsewhere at least not every were for where might they not easily have bin sprinkled and upon this account no doubt as Iohn chose to preach about those River sides viz. Iordan and Enon that their converts might conveniently be baptized Paul and Silas being at Philippi and abiding in that City certain daies to preach the Gospel on the Sabbath the most likely time of vacuity from other occasions for people to assemble to hear in went
wine powred forth Circumcision or cutting off the superfluous foreskin of the flesh did not only signify but lively represent the signatum the Circumcision oâ— the heart i. e. sanctification the paring off and putting away the fleshly superfluities of the heart and can you give us think you or give your selves either any good account why baptism onely of all the rest should be exempted in this case from bearing semlably with the rest an Analogy proportion and similitude to its signatum i. e. the thing mainly notifyed therein which originally is the death burial and resurrection of Christ and our communion therewith and plantation into the likenesse thereof is not the manner of administration of that to be such also as may resemble and so onely the way of dipping doth a Death Buriall and Resurrection Rouse up and reckon but with your consciences a little and see if they will tell you otherwise if they do they give the ly and that you who deify your Orthodox Divines will be loath to do to all divines both antient and modern who so far as I find except onely Mr. Blake do teach us that the end of all the institutions of the Old and New Testament to which you allow the name of Sacraments are ex instituto to resemble as well as signify their signifyed objects Kekerman referres aâ—l the Sacâ—aments to the signes of that sort that do signifie cum Analogia i. e. that bear a likenesse to the things signifyed System log p. 12.13 Calvin and Vrsin that are men of much note in your Account are thus opinioned both as you may see in the institutions of the one and the Catechism of the other whether we are directed by you for sufficient furniture for infants baptisme Calvin saies thus of the Sacraments Institutionum lib. 4. cap. 14. sect 20. The Sacraments of the old Testament did tend to the very same end and purpose as ours now do namely that they might direct and lead us as it were by the hand to Christ or rather that they might represent him as certain images or pictures and set him forth to us to be known Vrsins Catechism saies no lesse but much more and that much more plainly to this purpose and what is spoken there too is not spoken as the opinion of Pareus or Vrsin onely but as the mind of one that may be more taking with you then any of these viz. Saint Austin who is stiled Malleus Hereticorum one that mauld the Hereticks in his daies who also is fainted up in so many pages of your Ashford Pamphlet that you cannot for shame unfaint him so far as not to believe him but to rehearse a little what is there said in the 358.359 pages of that book after mention made of the promise of the Gospel you may find these words viz. That promise that is given us in the word God doth more plainly declare to us by the sacraments namely by that likenesse which is between the signs and those things which are signified as a picture or image declares that of which it is the image for when the picture is understood that even that of which it is the picture is made cleer and verily farre more cleer then without a picture and as a true picture is not well understood if the likenesse or lively resemblance of the picture be not observed so neither are the sacraments unlesse the likenesse of the outward signes and things thereby signified be understood in this sense the Appollogy of the Augustinian confession doth divers times call the sacraments by the name of pictures And again p. 363. shewing wherein the sacramental union between the sign and the thing signified consists it stands saith he in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vel similitudine signorum cum rebus signatis in the analogy and likenesse that is between the signes and things signified And then he goes on quoting Austin thus De qua Agustinus Si inquit sacramenta quandam similitudinem earum rerum quarum sacramenta sunt non haberent omnino sâ—cramenta non essent and then again p. 365. speaking of those sacramental locutions as you call them whereby the sign is oft called by the name of the thing signified and said to do and be that which onely the thing signified is and doth in truth This saith he is by a sacramental metonimy and the meaning of it is not that one is changed really into the other but because the sign doth so lively resemble the thing signified Next to which he cites again the very same sentence out of Austin which is rehearsed in latin just above together with somewhat more all which I English thus viz. If the sacraments should not have in them some likenesse to the things whereof they are sacraments they could not be sacraments at all but by reason of this likenesse it comes often to passe that they bear the very names of the things they resemble By the way I cannot but take notice what an argument here is against infants baptism as well as against the form of Rantism for if true baptism must resemble as well as signifie to the very eyes and so mediante oculo to the understanding and minds of persons to whom it s dispensed is it possible for that baptism that was dispenst in Infancy to represent lively and cleerly to my sense and reason when I am at years the things therein signified for to call that a sign much more a lively resemblance of a thing before our eyes so Buchau saies of baptism ante oculos objicit which we never saw at all or if we did t was when we could not apprehend it and so long since that we necessarily and universally forget it and that so farre that our fancy can never possibly recollect that outward appearance of those inward things is no better then meer childishnesse and very vanity to me Rantist This shewes indeed that t was the opinion of these Reverend men that there ought to be of necessity as cleer a resemblance as may be of the thing signified in the administration of the outward and visible sign in all sacraments or else they are no sacraments but that is nothing binding to us without some good ground out of Scriptures to believe it therefore le ts see it appear from thence and if you will from the Scriptures you began upon Rom. 6. Col. 2. in which I see nothing on which you can ground that in baptism there must be visibly and representatively a death burial and resurrection though I grant all these are signifyed thereby Baptist. I rejoice much to see you renounce that implicit faith whereby you have formerly lived it may be more upon the mouth of Calvin Vrsin Austin and other Authors then on the mouth of Peter and Paul or the mouth of Christ himself in his word neither do I urge any thing out of these Authors to be taken upon trust without trial yet prove what they
into Christ i. e. into or in token of an interest in him of a onenesse and fellowship with him by faith are baptized into his death i. e. in token of such a communion with the power of his death as kills â—in and crucifies the old man So that henceforth we should not serve sin therefore or hence it is saith he that in baptism i. e. the outward ordinance we are buried with him i. e. outwardly visibly bodily in water into death i. e. in token and resemblance of our dying to sin by vertue of his death that we should be ever practically mindful of this that like as Christ rose again after he was dead so we should rise to a new life for if we have bin planted together in the likenesse of his death i. e. signally in outward baptism spiritually and really in the inward work and washing performed by the spirit upon the soul we shall be also in the likenesse of his resurrection i. e. we should be de jure and shall de facto as we believe Fourthly this burial and resurrection that is immediately expressed by the words buried with him in baptism wherein you are also risen with him is made a motive argument and incitement to the spiritual death and resurrection for therefore are we perswaded to die to sin and live righteously because in baptism we are buried in water and raised again in token that we ought so to do and on this condâ—on are we baptized and buried and raised therein and so interessed into all the other benefits of Christs death remission of sins and salvation viz. that we should die to sin and live holily and to this end also that we may be minded thereby to do so Nos ea conditione in mortem sepeliri in baptismo Scriptura reclamet ut emoriamur ac mortificationem istam exinde meditemer Saith Calvin l. 4. c. 16. S. 16. Now if this death and burial that we are buried with in baptism be to this end to teach us and shew us that and how we must die to sin then the buriall in baptism there spoken of is not the death to sin it self for the motive and things we are moved to are two and so are the sign and thing signified now Fifthly t is not only such as is made a motive to the other therefore is not the other but such a death and resurrection as is performed accomplisht transacted in baptism i. e. in the very time and juncture of our baptizing therefore cannot be meant of our spiritual death and resurection immediatly but of that burial and resurrection which the outward man in a figure or resemblance passes through both at in the administration of the ordinance for the spiritual death and resurection is that which though it be signified and resembled in baptism yet it is seldom if ever transacted in a person in that juncture of time wherein he is baptizing but for the most part before or after yea ever either before or after and never in the very nick and act of baptism no neither of your baptism nor of ours for you who professe to baptize infants have a subject of whom you hope that he will die to sin when he lives to years but you look not on him as one that is mortuus but moriturus and that not in baptism but long after it unlesse you suppose baptism confers the inward grace viz. death to sin ex opere operato still but we baptizâ—ng believers baptize such as repent from dead works and in fieri though not infacto esse are dead to sin before we baptize them as well as oblige them to die more to sin after it yet you say your subjects for all that are buried in baptism too and so say we of ours therefore the burial in baptism there meant is no other then that of the sign for the thing signified viz. the death to sin is not done in baptism whether it be before or after it and one of the two it is for Calvin saies truly that we hold baptismum esse sepulturam in quam nulli nisi jam mortui already dead i. e dying to sin are to be buried but of himself and others that are baptized in infancy he saies quoting Rom. the 6.4 nos jam ante mortuos per baptismum sepeliri i. e. before we are dead to sin we are buried by baptism l. 4. c. 16. S. 16. the burial therefore is not the signatum but the signum i. e. their putting under water in baptism which sacramentally is called a burial even therefore because of the analogy and likenesse it bears to such a thing even to Christs burial and ours with him which are the things analogized and lively resembled thereby i. e. by immersion for by aspersion they are not And so I have proved by three arguments hitherto that Christs ordinance of baptism is a totall dipping viz. First by the prime signification of the word baptize which is to overwhelm or wash by swilling or dipping but never to sprinkle as Rantize never to dipp or wash Secondly by the practise of the primitive times which was totally to dip as I have made appear many wayes Thirdly by the name of a burial and resurrection that 's there given to the outward sign by a sacramental Metonimy i. e. in this respect as in its dispensation it must bear analogy and likenesse as spirinkling does not to the death burial and resurrection of Christ and ours in him which are the things immediatly signified in baptism and therefore mainly and as lively as may be to exemplified thereby If there be yet any more to say against dipping and for sprinkling let us hear it and as I find it true upon triall or false and feigned so accordingly I shall eitâ—er answer it or yield for I know that he who is not as desirous to hear all that can be said against what he holds as what is to be said for it can never be so solidly settled in it as he should be for nil tam certum quam quod ex dubio certum est Nothing more sure to a man then that which he sees as well on what ground some doubt and disown it as one what himself owns and imbraces it and though I professe my self to be beyond all doubt that Rantism is no ordinance of Christ but a meer figment of men meaning to serve Christ by the halves nor infant baptism neither howbeit I have disputed for them both and thought I did God service in it too yet he that knoweth my heart knoweth that I have so unsatiable a thirst after the knowledge of truth that if I could think those things to be the truth of God as I once did upon the same totten and reasonlesse principles you now think so on I should re-entertain them with rejoicing in my flesh which would find much ease and honour by it and in the spirit much more which would have that ease and honour with
Evangelist whence Philip was called Evangelista that being the very thing made him an Evangelist and not his Deaconship besides which he had no other office because he did Evangelizare no man can give a reason why the scattered disciples that did Evangelizare or preach the Gospel with him should not be denominated Evangelists as well as he and indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 differ no more then a Preacher and he that preaches and though every Pastor be both an Evangelist and a Prophet yet he that saies every Evangelist and Prophet is a Pastor or an ordained officer qua sic or that either of these are nomen officii or sounding forth more then a person thus or thus gifted viz. the Evangelist to preach the Gospel for the conversion of such as are yet without the Prophet to speak to the exhortation edification and comfort of the Church and people already converted and both these occasionally only and not as by vertue of an ordination to an office may say it ten times over before the Scripture rightly understood will furnish him to make proof of it once And as these ordinary disciples for the Apostles abode still at Ierusalem Act. 8.1 went every where as well as Philip pro suo modulo Evangelizantes preaching Christ according to their abilities so the hand of the Lord was with those occasional preachers that a great number believed and turned to the Lord by their means and were baptized also undoubtedly by their hands yea the famous Church of Antioch had its foundation from this and grew into a Church which they could not do without baptism before any actual officer came neer them for though Paul and Barnabas walked with them for a year and improved their gifts for their edification yet neither of these were yet actually any more then Evangelists and Prophets though before by God intended and not long after by the Church visibly ordained to their Apostleship i. e. men of excellent gifts and this will appear Act. 11. from verse 19. to the end with Act. 13. v. 4. and backward to the beginning you do therefore greatly err not knowing the Scriptures which tell you also plainly that though Paul converted all the Corinthians yet his own hands baptized but a few committing that dispensation as an inferiour work to his preaching to the hands of inferiour disciples as Mr. Baxter himself also confesses to your confutation asserting it from 1 Cor. 1 17. so though Peter converted the company in Cornelius house yet surely he baptized them not all if any at all with his own hands but left the administration to the hands of others some one or more of the brethren that came with him And the manner of speech implies plainly no lesse for he commanded that they should all be baptized in the name of the Lord yea so far is the word from tying up the dispensation of baptism to an office that we have much more president and proof after Christs ascension of comon disciples then you have of officers baptizing You therefore make much more a do in this then needs you strain indeed at a goat and swallow a camel and busy your self so about the truth of administrators that you have lost the truth and substance of the administration it self were your baptism true baptism indeed there is no necessity that ordained Ministers must administer it but unlesse it were truer then it is no matter if it were never administred at all Know therefore Sirs I beseech you that the verity worth weight and efficacy of baptism depends not upon the quality of the person administring but upon the truth of the subject to whom and the true form wherein t is administred the Scripture prescribes plainly who they are that shall and in what manner these shall but not at all by whom they shall be baptized t is the duty of them that believe to be baptized and his duty that baptizes to baptize indeed not rantize only and to baptize such as being taught the Gospel do believe it but who they must be that are to baptize those is neither here nor there to the baptism for ought I find in the word so they be but Masculine disciples nay though the person baptizing be not only no officer but in the case above named as yet unbaptized himself yet if the person baptized be not only a believing disciple but also baptized really and indeed his baptism is never the worse for the other Experience tells me and I believe many more that have been baptized according to truth that t was drawing neer to Christ with true hearts in his true ordinance that made us accepted in his sight not the qualifications of the baptizers whose baptism and ministerial functions were they invested with both could add never the more validity nor verity to our baptism as neither could the non-entity of either of those in them have possibly made the baptism so sincerely submitted to be in any measure void and of no effect the placing so much in persons administring as to think our selves ere the better for that was that fantastical fopery of the Corinthians for a while one saying I am of Paul another I of Apollo another I of Caephas i. e. I was baptized by such or such which made the Apostle Paul who with his own hands baptized but some of them well nigh wish he had baptized none of them at all when he saw their carnall glories in the persons administring and blesse God that he baptized no more least they should have thougt the better of themselves and of their baptism for its dispensation of it by his hands The administrators therefore being baptized or not baptizd minister or no minister maketh the baptism if elsewise warrantable neither better nor worse of it self all this I speak all this while not as granting that our baptism is by unbaptized persons and that my self am no minister of the Gospel for neither of these shall be yielded by any meanes unlesse you were more able then you are to prove them I speak it suppositively that if these were both so yet both my baptizing and being baptized may be warrantable enough notwithstanding or else if we deemed it worth while to seek out what succession our baptism hath had from the Apostles in a series without interruption t is possible there were some disciples in all ages that owned the truth though so few and despised that their generation can scarcely be declared for who can declare his generation whose life in himself and his was still cut off from the earth but we go by the word that is above all Church and Ministry in our account of our baptism and ministry and not by succession in either and as for your selves that hold so much on succession and boast of a lineal descent of your ministry and Rantism from the Apostles t will pussle you no lesse to prove that if we put you to
ground enough to believe they were all baptized as well as the rest yea Mr. Blake believes it and in the same way as the rest whose baptism with the manner of it is expressed for why should others be baptized in rivers because they were multitudes and yet these multitudes be exempted from that and be dispached with so small a matter as sprinkling therefore the not mentioning t was done is an argument as good as nothing and whereas he saies there is no mentioning of fetching in great store of waters t is true that we never read at all of water fetcht to the persons but of persons going to the water we do though he saies we do not for even Lydia her self and her family which is no other then his own instance were gone out to a river side to hear Paul preach where being converted they were baptized that being the wonted place of preaching and praying no doubt in order to the conveniency of baptizing before ever the Apostles were so much as invited to her house Secondly of this stamp also is Mr. Blakes conceit concerning the baptism of Paul who because the particular place or sourse of water wherein he was baptized is not expressed imagins that he must needs be baptized within doors and no where else and so consequently not by dipping but some other way whereas there is neither necessity nor probability of his being so but rather evidence if not from the very place yet at least from what Mr. Blake saies that it was otherwise For First it seemes to me that Paul was not to be baptized within but to go some where or other to the dispatching of that businesse wherefore else should Ananias rub him up to it as he doth in such wise as this and now why tariest thou arise and be baptized and wash away thy sins c. Which as it Argues it was a service Paul was tardy to and I know no mans flesh forward to it further then by faith it is overpowred specially in such a weak case as Paul it seemes was in at that present so it was as who should say why art thou so undisposed to thy duty in that particular make hast and linger not longer about it but come away and be baptized now had aspersion or infusion been only the work Paul could not have bin so backward as to need such sharp exsuscitation when once convinced for there 's no such great unpleasantness to the flesh as to engender any aversenesse unto that but that Paul was more tardy then he should have been and why he should be so I know not if among the other impediments at least he was not sensible of some tediousnesse in the service was uttered in a publique exercise once from that very text Acts. 22.16 by a friend of yours and mine now deceased at his sprinkling one of mine own children in which Sermon the doctrine was this and a good doctrine it was and very truly grounded upon the Example of Pauls dulnesse in that Scripture and further cleered by Lots loitering in Sodom viz. That by reason partly of the remainder of corruption in the best presenting evill when they should do Good and partly the great grand enemy of our salvation Satan opposing himself to all good the best that have even renounced their vile life have an indisposition to holy duties and have need of excitation and stirring up Again had he not either been to be baptized within by dipping or been to receive within an aspersion or infusion upon his face only he need not to have bin bid to arise or stand up in order to either of these so much as from the present posture he was in for if he were then sitting face rantism might have been done as well and if he were lying down which in his then case is the more likely of the two much better then in a standing posture in which t is not so easie to dispence a pouring upon the face least pouring so little as you do it prove rather a Rantism then a baptism or pouring so much as the baptizer should do on the disciple if he will needs do it by pouring i. e. till he hath buried him in baptism or wholly covered him with water in resemblance of the spiritual he make way for his bodily buriall in the earth also Whereas therefore Mr. Blakâ— saies thus viz. that though the Eunuch coming to the River might saie here 's waâ—er what hinders why I should not be dipped yet there is little probability that Paul could say so in Iudas his house in straight street in Damascus or the Iaylor at his Prison in Phillippi I say it is very likely it was so indeed that they had not any Ponds or Rivers in their houses to dip in but will it follow therefore that they were baptized in the house without dipping no such matter by Mr. Bls. favour but rather that sith there was not water enough for their dipping within doors as there was for the Eunuchs dipping without therefore they went out to some water or other that they might be baptized i. e. dipped conveniently as the Eunuch was and that may possibly not be farre for many a one that hath not brooks nor ponds in their houses yet have them oft not far from their doors and that Iudas had not so who can tell but whether he had or no the matter is not great sith he lived not far from much water however whilest he was living in Damascus for were not Abana and Parphar Rivers of Damascus though not for Namans disease yet for dipping full as good as Iordan it self and all other waters of Israel Thirdly See how miserably Mr. Baxter is mistaken he would make men believe if they would be such Idiots as to take his single word for it against the expresse word of God that in the Countrey of the Iaylor water was so scarce that he could not be dipped over head whereas oh that Mr. Baxter would see how the Lord hath left him to discover his too hasty galloping over the Sripture it is related that a River â—an just by the same City of Phillippi where he dwelt even that by the side of which Paul preached and prayer was wont to be made where also Lidy 1 and her houshold were converted and baptized and all this no further off then in the very same chapter where the Iaylors baptism is spoken of viz. Acts 16.13 14 15. I perceive this scarcity of water is made a mighty Argument among you against dipping some saying that water for dipping was not to be had in the houses of the disciples that were baptized therefore they received no more then some aspersion or infusion within some speaking as though water for dipping were not to be had in whole Cities and Countreys where the disciples dwelt thus doth not onely Mr. Baxter who denies a sufficiencie of water for dipping over head to be in that Country where the Jaylor dwelt but
out and his bringing them in again he took them and washed their stripes and was baptized he and all his straightwav Thirdly that when he had brought them into his house which words compared with verse the 30. where it is said he brought them out shew clearly that he and his were with them still without hearing the word washing them and submitting to be baptized i. e. immergendo washed of them he made them eat and rejoiced now what man but one minded to overlook what likes him not can chuse but see this to the confutation of these three mens opinions which I doubt because it is theirs more then any thing else may be the opinion of 3000 that the Iailor first brought them out and then washed their stripes and was baptized and then brought them in and rejoiced with them is clear Rantist You have spoke long enough to little purpose to this for I am not yet of your mind pray let us see what you will say to those worthy mens writings in disproof of the proofs that you have brought Baptist. I come then to consider what is said by either any or all of these three repugnants in exception against what is said by us for the way of dipping having spoken already to the first as you desire in its several parts The next exception I find Mr. Baxter makes against what we say is this the word signifies saith he to wash as well as to dip and so is taken when applied to other things as Mar. the 7.4.8 and herein he sums up in short the whole mind of Mr. Cook and Mr. Blake also in this matter who say viz. Mr. Blake p. the 4. 5. to Mr. Blackwood that Scapula saies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies to dip to drown and sometimes to wash the Septuagint use the words baptizing and washing promiscuously Mr. Cook p. 11. to A. R. much what the very same viz. that baptism signifies washing and p. 13. quoting the same Scripture Mark the 7. here you have saith he the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to wash To all which I answer but briefly having toucht at this before who doubts of this that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies to wash how is it possible that it should not signifie washing so long as it signifies dipping dipping being no other then a kind of washing what ever word signifies properly and primarily as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth to dip drown plunge in overwhelm with put under water must needs be supposed secondarily consequently and even thereupon to signifie washing neither does it signifie sometimes onely to wash as Mr. Blake observes out of Scapula but it alwayes signifies to wash there being no dipping but signifies a washing dipping being not a dipping onely but necessarily a washing also wherefore very ofâ— baptizing and washing are and well may be promiscuously used each for the other but what will the men make of all this that because baptism signifies a kind of washing viz. the washing of its own kind or such a washing as dipping plunging or swilling is therefore it signifies all manner of washing a kind of washing it ever did but all kind of washing it never did yet signifie since the world stood a washing by immersion and submersion is the sense on t a washing by infusion is not but as for your washing by bare aspersion so far is it from being the true sense of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it is no kind of washing at all yea if you will go critically to work as Mr. Blake would have us about 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 between which yet there is no such difference as he imagines and keep close to the signification of the words both your petty powring and your spoil-all sprinkling will be discarded so far from the name of baptizing that they will not be found to meet it half way nor on a true account to amount to so much as the name of washing for that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies originally to dip plunge or overwhelm and therefore consequently to wash we deny not that being indeed not onely a way but also the most effectual and usual way of washing therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is sometimes promiscuously used with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 both which originally signifie washing of what kind soever whether that which is by dipping in water or rubbing water upon the subject when they are each applied unto the other but as for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the one signifies to powre out onely the other to sprinkle onely but neither this nor that alone and abstract from some other concurrent action as rubbing the water on that 's so applied which was never done at any Rantizing that ever I saw doth yet signifie so much as any kind of washing whatsoever therefore though 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is rendred not onely by mergo submergo to dip or plunge over head and ears but also by lavo abluo to wash clense or wash away and very fiâ—ly sith baptizing or dipping is really and truly such a washing yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is rendred effundo to powre out and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by aspergo perfundo irroro to sprinkle or moisten as it were with a small dew but neither of them by lavo abluo nor do they signifie such a thing as to wash nor are they such a thing as washing in any wise so far are they therefore from bearing the name of baptism that you may as well render baptizing by rantizing and say to baptize is to sprinkle which is a thing that all men in the world cannot shew to be so much as a remote sense of the greek word baptize as render rantizing by baptizing that is to say that to sprinkle is to baptize which likewise can never be shewen to be so much as a remote sense of the word Rantize if therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 come not so neer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as to be adem with it in tertio to be latinâ— with it into lavo or to be englisht with it so much as by the name of washing which is but a secondary sense of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 how will you ever reach your rantism into the name of baptism it self whose prime signification is submergo i. e. to overwhelm out of which prime signification that it should be used continually as you say the spirit uses it in Scripture where all along you strain a point to have it englisht washing and never overwhelming at all for pray where shall it be englisht by the term of overwhelming just no where by your good will is a piece of simple slipslop to utter Rantist But Mr. Blake tells you another tale that I believe will make you eat these words you last declared for whereas you talk so much of dippings being the prime signification of 〈◊〉
it that baptism was not only by dipping then I hope we shall have your answer to them too and the rather because they are of some weight and therefore you are the more willing to slip by them First saith he if the way of baptism were only dipping then the Baptizer must put the baptized over head in the water and after a space receive them up again otherwise he could not say in your sense I baptize thee but we read of no such thing any where in Scripture we find Christ and the Eunuch going to the water and coming thence but neither John nor Philip putting them into the water or taking them from thence p. 8. Baptist. I strange that Mr. Blake should grant as he doth above p. 6. that Philip and the Eunuch are fitly said to go into the water and yet say so shortly after we find no more then their going to the water and from it again how fitly can they be said to go into the water and out of it that go but to and from it I have shewed already but t is more strange to me that he should so far forget himself as to say we read of no such thing in Scripture as of Iohn and Phillips putting Christ and the Eunuch into the water or taking them from thence for we read plainly that Christ was baptized of Iohn into Iordan and in Iordan and we read that Philip and the Eunuch went down both into the water and Philip baptized him and that Christ came up out of the water and that Philip and the Eunuch came up out of the water if all this be not partly an expression partly an implication of the same thing that Mr. Blake saies we no where read of then I shall never trust my spectacles more for what shall we think was done to Christ by Iohn when it is said he was baptized by him into Iordan if he was not dipped overwhelmed put under the water was he sprinkled into Iordan and what shall we think Philip did to the Eunuch when it is said he baptized him after they were both gone down into the water if he did not put him under it did he no more then sprinkle or pour a few drops of water on him either of those might have been done as easily and more if they had never gone into the water yea if they had never went so much as to the water at all and when it is said of Christ and the Eunuch that they came up out of the water is it not necessarily implyed and therefore what need it be expressed that Iohn and Philip who put them under the water did take them up again after a space and not hold them alwaies under it for if they had how they could have come up out of it I know not Had Mr. Blake therefore more believed the Scripture then he did Mr. Cook from whom he borrowed this Argument and lent it again to Mr. Simpson of Bethersden or else Mr. Simpson stole it for without any cotation of Mr. Blake he hath it word for word in that forenamed Letter of his which he desired should be communicated he would not have transpenn'd Mr. Cooks matter who saies p. 16. of his there is not the lest hint that John doused cast or plunged Christ into the water and took him out of the water into another phrase viz. we read of no such thing any where in Scripture that John and Philip put Christ and the Eunuch into the water and took them up again but it is your fashion to follow by implicit faith and to take up things at a venture by tradition one from another as the people do from you Rantist Now you talk of dipping under water and taking up thence again I pray tell me how it is possible for the baptizer to dip the whole baptized under water and to lift him up again above the water sith for this the strength of more men then one is necessary perhaps you will say the person to be baptized may be an assistant and an agent in the businesse so far himself as to go into the water and stand there up to the middle and then to yield the rest of his body to be put under by the administrator but this is for a man for the most part to dip himself and divinity doth not admit of se-baptism and permits not the baptized to be agents but in this act will have them to be patients and baptized by others is there any command for them to go into the water Baptist. I think Mr. Simpson of Bethersden and you have laid your heads together you jump so right in one mind in this matter for in this manner and almost in the very same words doth he speak in that letter of his I spake of above divinity admits not say you of se-baptism c. what your sinodical divinity admits of as good baptism I weigh not and what you call se-baptism I know not but if you call that self-baptizing for the baptized to go with the baptizer into the water and there submit himself to be overwhelmed in the water by the hands of the administrator putting him under the Scripture admits of such a se-baptism as this and if we had no command for acting so far in order to our own baptism yet we have president so plain as is equivalent witnesse the Eunuch that went down with Philip into the water and yet saving your ignorance which permits not the baptized to be agents Paul had command to be so farre an agent in order to his baptism as to do more then barely sit still viz. to arise and put himself in a posture suitable to that purpose neither can you totally deny him to be truly baptized and overwhelmed in water according to the will of Christ and that is sufficient that betakes himself not onely to the water but also so farre into it that the dispenser may conveniently put him under it unlesse you suppose that the dispenser of old did carry the disciple in upon his back and then dash him in against his will and that were in the disciple the part of a proper patient indeed besides doth the condemned mans being agent and assistant so far toward the cutting off of his head as to ly down and fit his neck to the block make him a se-slayer or accessary so far to his own death that you can properly call him a murtherer of himself what dribling Divinity is this Rantist Mr. Blake saies further that if the Scripture way of baptizing were thus to dip or drown them the baptizer and baptized must both put off their garments and lay them aside for that businesse but we find no such thing mentioned we find saith he one iâ— the new testament stoned and the laying aside of the garments of the witnesses is more then once mentioned but among all the multitudes that were baptized there is not one word of unclothing for that end nor yet of
so little truth in the ground of it that its stark rotten at the very root it is a dispute Ex falso suâ—positis t is taken by you for granted as necessary when it shall never be yielded to by us for so much as probable that Christ and the Eunuch were baptized either naked or else in the cloathes they ware immediately both before or after either for both Christ comming purposely to be baptized and the Eunuch though not thinking of baptism till Philip met him yet returning homeward from Jerusalem where he had been for some time were undoubtedly accommodated otherwise and with change sutable enough to such a businesse Secondly it supposes that both Christ Philip and the Eunuch posted all so immediately several waies from the water that they staied not so much as to cover themselves with other Cloathes then those they went with into and came up with out of the water whereas as nature it self forbids us to believe they went in much more that they went away naked for common sense forbids us to take the word immediately in so strict a sense as to think they departed in such extremity of hast as was no way consistent with the shifting and so fitting of themselves for departure Immediately doth seldome sound forth such a suddennesse as admits of no intertime nor invening action at all yea sometimes it signifies no sooner then some howers some daies some years after according to the nature of the matter asserted in the sentence wherein it hath its use as Matth 24.29 nor doth it expresse any other in Mark 1.13 where it is said Immediately the spirit drave Christ into the Wildernesse then within a while after his baptism as appears not only by Matth. 4.1 where it is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which word is there peractis praedictis ordinative of another story but specially by Luke 4.1 where it s said plainly that he was returned from Iordan before it is said he was led into the wildernesse and had you or Mr. Simpson compared Scripture with Scripture or heeded the harmony of the Evangelists you had saved your selves the labour of all those lines and lost nothing by it but what is worth nothing viz. the Argument it self for as if I should say immediately after the child was sprinkled the Gossips and friends went along with it home it were absurd to understand me so as if I meant that they did not stay so long after as to wipe the childs face and put the face cloathes over it and lap it up again in the loose blanket to keep it warm so no lesse absurdity is it to understand that speech viz. And immediately the spirit caught away Philip and immediately after Christ was baptized he went in to the wildernesse so strictly as if there was not staying so much as to reassume any garments they had laid aside in order to the more conveniency of their baptizing One thing more I cannot but take notice of in this clause as t is Mr. Simpsons and that is what little proportion if not contradiction it holds with the words of Mr. Simpson or rather of Mr. Blake used by Mr. Simpson immediately precedent to these in his letter for he will not give way to it at any hand that Christ and the Eunuch went into the water or at least that they were put into the water by Iohn and Philip or taken thence but onely in the phrase of Mr. Blake at the third hand of Mr. Cook that they went to the water and came thence and yet here he forgets himself so far as to the confutation of himself and them to speak 〈◊〉 the phrase or Scripture concerning Christ and the Eunuch viz. that they came out of the water which if they could do and neither went into it nor were put into it then I know not how to understand plain English Rantist Well this is all but by the businesse let us go on and consider what more Mr. Bl. brings to disprove dipping to be the primitive custome he tells you further p. 9. it was the Apostles way to baptize disciples as soon as they were become Converts the same day rather sometimes the same houre as we see in the Eunuch the Jaylor and Lydia and multitudes of others but conversion of Disciples necessarily happened when there was no season for dipping the Element of water being over Cold for that service If any object that in those Countreyes there was no danger in the coldest times He answers the commission being for all Nations disciples were made in all Countreys how soone saith he came the word to this Nation c. sometimes therefore saith he the water and weather was too cold for dipping Secondly the Number of Converts were so numerous 3000 5000. in one day that there was no possibility of baptizing in that Manner Acts 2.41 and the 44. Thirdly Sometimes the Baptizers were in that condition that they were unable for that work in that way as Paul and Silas men newly taken out of the stocks in the Inner Prison with such stripes that their Convert was fain forthwith to wash them in this case they were unfit to wade into the water for that work and had they made any such adventure the Scripture would not have been silent Fourthly Sometimes the baptized have not been in case for dipping and plunging which was Pauls case upon the Aparition of the vision he was lead into Damascus where he continues without meat or drink three daies and upon Ananias his comming in and instructing of him he is baptized and when he had received meat saith the text he was strengthned will any believe he went out in this case with Ananias into the water over head in water before the taking of any sustenance Baptist. That persons were baptized as soon as ever they became Converts and could be discerned to be disciples even the same houre commonly without delay is an undeniable truth for that and no other was the very period of time at which what ever their parents were they were deemed to have true title to baptism for neither if their parents were wicked were such excluded as were nor if the parents were godly were such admitted as were not converted upon the Account of the fathers goodnesse or badnesse but as they believed or not themselves and this makes me the more amazed at it that it is come to passe since that the faith of the father can now intitle the child to baptism though the child have no faith at all of his own and yet I muse more sith you all count infants at least of believers to be disciples from the womb why yet you delay their baptism so long and do it not at the same houre of their birth for whether they be Discipuli nati or discipuli facti if they be disciples as you falsly suppose they are if the primitive rule were to baptize persons as soon as ever they appeared
for a pretty while so as to go abroad though she now is weak and much what as she used to be before If then you will not believe the words of God believe the works believe the Miracles for it is by Miracles that they are preserved who are dipt in cold water and not destroyed saies Mr. Baxter which if it be then God hath wrought very many Miracles among the men you nickname Anabaptists of late for they are constantly preserved from perishing by either cold or suffocation yea I have known many a one better in body but I nere knew any one of whom I could safely say they were the worse in body or Soul for being dipt save such as turned from the truth after turning to it for the latter end with such indeed is worse then their begining Yet how rashly do these men shoot their bolts to the murdering of the truth whilst they make the ordinary practise of it no lesse then flat murder it self and that undeniably to any understanding man unless there be a preservation by a miracle for else it destroyes men quoth Mr. Baxter it directly tendeth to overthrow mens lives in the course of Nature it will kill hundreds and thousands of them but if a man scape perishing with cold yet how can he i. e. how is it possible for him to escape being choaked quoth Mr. Cook and stifled with the water if he must be plunged over head to signify his death to sin 2. Secondly kept under water to signify his burial How can a man escape choaking Sirs if he be put and kept under the water why I tell you that either he can or else he cannot if he can why then he can and so Mr. Cook is confuted if he cannot in the course of nature without miracle then it being certain that thousands do scape choaking it should seem God by Miracle secures them and yet for all this nor Mr. Baxter nor Mr. Cook are convinced whether it be the more shame for them or no not to be so I leave it to themselves and all understanding men to consider Or perhaps Mr. Cook means how can a man escape choaking if he be kept three daies under water for so quoth he the disciple must as Christ abode three daies under water if Christs burial be represented but not onely his own party for mora sub aqua quantu lacunque saith Tilenus quantumvis momentanea saith Bucan abode under the water for never so little a while doth most lively resemble Christs Burial but his own practise confutes him clearly in this for as the Ministers hand with which Dr. Featley resembles Christs burial is not dipt three daies together under water so the insusion of water upon the face of the infant which why may it not represent the burial as well as dipping quoth Mr. C. p. 17. doth not last for three daies together neither Thus you see how well Mr. Baxter and Mr. Cook have quitted themselves in their proof of our practise to be murder and against the sixth commandement and what high and mighty reason Mr. Baxter hath to accuse us to the magistrate as murderers and to suggest it his duty to him out of Mr. Craddock to restrain us to save the lives of his subjects and not to suffer but to destroy us Rantist But if you give way to Mr. Baxter to answer for himself he clears himself of moving the magistrates to destroy you I never moved Magistrate or people saith he p. 246. either to drive them out of the Land or to destroy them Baptist. What an egregious untruth is there doth he not say here if those that make it Religion to Murder themselves and urge it on their consciences as their duty are not to be suffered in a common-wealth any more then High-way Murderers then judg how these Anabaptists that teach the necessity of such dipping are to be suffered Is not this to tell men that we are no more to be suffered in a Common-wealth then high way Murderers which high way Murderers Mr. Baxters conscience I dare say desires that they may not be suffered but may suffer no lesse then hanging and yet dares he say he stirs not up the Magistrate against us I know not what is to excite the Magistrate against persons if this be not to charge them to be as guilty as high way Murderers which if he judges us to be indeed he is bouâ—d both in law and conscience to prosecute us to the very death but if he in his conscience judges us not to be such as oh how after to the contradiction of himself in this doth he judge more charitable of us then so e. g. p. 310. where he saith who dare think their error to be such and yet such is high way murder when lived and died in as concludeth them from grace then I marvel how he dare charge us so high as to rank us with and represent us as bad and as unworthy to be suffered in a Commonwealth as high way Murderers themselves especially since it remains yet on his part unproved that ever any disciple dyed in the time of dipping or by occasion of submission to that dispensation Rantist If there be not such danger of death to the Baptized yet the Baptizers may be murderers of themselves for it is evident that if the Minister must go into the water with the party it will certainly tend to his death saies Mr. Baxter p. 137 though they may scape that go in but once for weak Students to make a frequent practise of going into the water it will cure their ich after novelties and allay the heat of their intemperate zeal therefore me thinks saies Mr. Baxter the Ministers should have regard to themselves Baptist. Me thinks so too or else they are not like their wonted selves for self was ever yet for ought I see regarded by most Nationall Ministers much more then truth But I pray Sirs how certainly will it tend to your Ministers death any more then it doth to the death of our Ministers that do dispense it among whom I have known men full as sickly though not half so selfish as you that have often dipped men in the sharpest seasons and yet never lay by it so much as once but your ministers are weak students indeed that are studyed no further in common sense and reason and experienced no more in cold and other Gospel hardships which Paul was skilled in then to think that genum tenus must certainly and unavoidably make an end of them unless the Lord by a miracle deliver them and such as are fitter to make Curates of for Gentlemens chappels of ease then to take care of the poor afflicted Church of Christ. Rantist Well if it do not prove to be murder and so against the eighth commandement yet I am sure it will prove to be adultery to dip naked as they say you do and so flatly against the seventh for either you dip naked or you
so far as to undertake that the Church or Churches where such are shall declare every such person as hath wrought such abomination incommunicable without solemn repentance for that sordid practise or be themselves incommunicable by all other Churches But I beliâ—ve he cannot do it though I cannot positively possibly prove a Negative much more am I confident that he cannot make good his charge against us viz. that it is our ordinary and usual practise for besides no lesse then between one and two hundred which in grosse I can ghesse at which with these hands I have baptized I have seen with these eyes many a one more baptized by others yet never did I see male or female baptized naked to this hour nor next to naked neither if I understand Mr. Baxs meaning in that bawbling phrase of next to naked Yea I suppose I may safely say my converse for these 5 years together and upward hath been with them that are commonly called Anabaptists and my businesse hath been for so long time at least among that people more then I perceive Mr. Baxs hath and much more then among any other people being more or lesse acquainted with a score of their Congregations yet howbeit Mr. Blake flings a little at us too and hath his fingers so far in this spatter as to say page 8. Those that have put a kind of necessity upon dipping have spoken much of being received naked â—n baptism I never heard the least speech of such a thing nor a syllable among them to such a purpose And if Mr. Ba. cannot prove it to be our ordinary known practise to dip naked then in the name of the Lord Jesus before whom he and I shall shortly both appear I intreat Mr. Ba. who as concerning zeal yet persecutes the Church of God poures out reproach upon true Christians giving his voice for them with as much modesty as Haman Est. 3.8 as for high way Murderers alias that they may all suffer execution being through blindnesse and excaecation exceedingly mad against them that of an ignorant Saul he would become a seeking a searching a seeing a preaching Paul of the faith which he hitherto destroies and though he verily thinks with himself that he ought to do what he does against the truth yet I beseech him to know that he is but as others have been bâ—fore him zealous of God but not according to knowledg sith it is but of the Traditions of his Fathers Gal. 1.14 And sith he avers from his heart page 129. that for his part he neither knowes the day nor year when he began to be sincere no nor the time when he began to professe himself a Christian in which I believe him if he mean a Christian in Scripture sense I begg of him in the bowels of Christ Jesus that he would now begin to be sine cerâ a Christian indeed not by the halves but altogether for there is yet a mixture of much wax among his honey and of much antichristianism in his Christianity and as sure as he is ignorant when he began to professe to be a Christian so sure I am that he never yet began to professe to be a Christian in truth who knowes not that ever he was otherwise but hath and holds his profession as the Turk and Jew do theirs viz. for the true one at a venture because they were born and bred in it and received it by Tradition onely from forefathers And as he will prove himself to be what he professes to be viz. a hater of ignorant violence so I advise him to be a hater also of violent ignorance of which hateful quallity in my mind he hath as much as any of the greedy gang Gangraena it self onely excepted not excepting Dr. Featley Dr. Bastwick Mr. Bayliff Mr Pagit not any among the proud pack of Prelates that most perheminently prate against the Gospel And sith Mr. Ba. saies this much more that it is very suspicious and to him unsavory that Mr. T. should say no more but that it is not necessary that they be baptized naked as if he took it to be lawfull though not necessary and thinkes he should rather have given his Testimony against it as sinful and expressed some dislike if he do indeed dislike and judge it sinful and if he do not he dare boldly say he is very far gone let me say thus much more that then it is as suspicious and to me unsavory that Mr. Ba. should say no more but that it is a breach of the seventh commandement ordinarily to baptize the naked as if he took it to be lawful to do it sometimes but not ordinarily me thinks he should giue his Testimony against it as sinful to do it at all and express some dislike if he do indeed dislike and judge it sinful and if he do not I dare boldly say he is gone farther in filth then Mr. T. or any baptized person ever went yet save such as are gone quite off from the way of truth to the dishonour of it since they owned it whose sin yet the more shame for Mr. Ba. he in his next argument laies to the truths charge and theirs who both own and honour it by abiding in it who are lesse gladly and more sadly sensible of their sins and villanies then Mr. Ba. can be by how much by reason of their lasciviuos wayes which many follow the way of truth they walk in is as was foretold it should be 2 Pet. 2.1.2.3 by Mr. Ba. and his admirers evil spoken of But if Mr. Ba. shall still say it is suspicious and unsavory for Mr. T. to say the one but not for himself to say the other and will none of the foregoing advice to repent and be baptized but rather reject the counsel of God against himself being not baptized because he hath experience by hearsay that we baptize females naked then a rod and a rod for the back of Mr. Baxter who pardons to himself the same defects wherein he holds others guilty who so slenderly takes up every tattle against the truth and proclaimes it for truth to the whole world for the simple believeth every word but the prudent man looks well to his going Prov. 14.15 a prudent man foresees evil and secures himself but the simple passe on and are punished Prov. 22.3 As for his next and last argument against us which he drawes from the judgments of God that ever follow us wherein he jumbles all kinds of sectaries into the name of Anabaptists as the Antibaptists use commonly to do witnesse Featley and others and makes them bear the burden of all the mischiefs that were ever perpetrated by all the mad braind men in all the world as Iohn of Leyden and all the rest of his ranting strain it is scarce current consequence to say Gods judgements are upon a people therefore that people are none of his for all things come alike to all none knowes love or hatred by what
Ba. argues from the samenesse of the Olive tree the Jew was broken off from and the Gentile was grafted into that therefore as infants stood members then so they must now I answer it is true there is some kind of indentity between the Jewish and the Gospel Church but not such as concludes an indentity of membership for infants they are the same ingenere visiblis Ecclesiae they agree in the common name of Church and visible Church elected and segregated from the world but there 's little else that I know of wherin they are the same they differ in circumstantials in their accidental forms in their officers ordinances customs constitutions subjects members that being constituted of one whole nation of people or fleshly seed of Abraham taken out from all other nations this of a spiritual seed of Abraham i. e. believers scaterred here and there taken out of any nation as they happen to be called almost every nation some the ceremony of inchurching Abrahams own much more any other mans meer fleshly seed being ceased Mr. Bax. peddles on apace and brings a company of Scripures in proof of infants Church-membership and baptism which though he stile them as indeed his whole book Plain Scripture proofs for those two yet a man that is not minded to force the Scripture into the Service of his own fancy because it does not serve it freely may look till dooms day before he see in them any plain perspicuous proof of either one of these or of the other Christ saith he Mat. 23.37 would have gathered Ierusalem oft as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings but they would not therefore sure he would not have put them or their infants out of the Church the strength of the consequence lies here saith he he would have gathered whole Ierusalem and that into the visible Gospel Church therefore infants also Now that Christ does not speak of whole Ierusalem here as he saith he does both men and infants the circumstances of the text do fully evince to us for he speaks of the same persons he speaks to and the same persons he complains of saying ye would not the same and no other are they to whom he speaks when he saies Oh Ierusalem how often would I have gathered c. but those were men and women only whom he called to believed in him and not infants Again he gathered them by preaching of the word into baptism and membership and received all that came and no more viz. sometimes the children and not the parents sometimes the parents and not the children so that a mans foes for the truths sake sometimes were they of his own family his own flesh therefore he offered not to gather infants for he preacht not to them nor called them at all nor were any more baptized and added to the Church-fellowship in the Gospel then they that gladly received the word that did not infants yea 3000 were gathered into the first Gospel Church by preaching and baptism in one day and never an infant among them all for they surely did not continue in fellowship in breaking of bread and prayers Acts 2. Therefore whereas Mr. Ba. in his Epistle to the parish of Bewdley challenges Mr. T. to name him one particular Church since Adam either of Jewes or Gentiles where infants were not Church-members if they had any infants till 200 years ago I name him the first Gospel Church that ever was Act. 2. in which there was not one infant yea there was three thousand baptized in one day and it is a hazard but that those three thousand had many perhaps no lesse than three thousand infants belonging to them all and yet as Mr. Cotton thinkes so think I that none of their infants were baptized with them much lesse were added with them to the Church or continued with them in fellowship as the whole Gospel Church did in breaking of bread and prayers yea though there was no infants in that Church which was gathered at Ierusalem it self to which Christ saies how oft would I have gathered thy children c. and therefore Mr. Baxs sense is very sinister so I challenge him again to shew me not by such dubious muddy cloudy circumlocutory inconsequential consequences as he doth but undeniable evidences any one of all the Gospel Churches of the primitive times either of Jewes or Gentiles which we are all to reâ—orm by viz. Ierusalem Rome Corinth Galatia Philippi Ephesus Thessalonica or any other to fellowship in which there was one infant baptized added and admitted and I shall cry him mercy and lay down the Cudgells at his feet and acknowledge he hath broke my pate The next Scripture he uses is more impertinent then this yet Mr. Ba. makes a certain shift to squeese an argument out of it and to compel it invita minervâ not a little against its own intent and meaning to corroborate his crooked crazie creed concerning the inchurching and cristening of infants viz. Rev. 11.15 whence he thus Syllogizes If the kingdoms of this world either are or shall be the kingdomes of the Lord and of his Christ then infants also must be members of his kingdom i. e. the visible Church the Antecedent is the words of the text indeed as he saies but the sequel is so sure and follows so firmly in his fancy that he saies nothing can be said against it that is sense or reason but indeed it self is against both sense and reason Who would ever think if the word did not declare that the things of wisdome are hid from the wise and prudent that such a disputer as Mr. Ba. holds himself to be should deduce the now membership of infants from such a premise as this viz. because the kingdomes of this world are or else shall be the kindomes of God and Christ what 's this I trow toward the eviction of the other much every way saith Mr. Ba. yea so much that for any thing he can see this text alone were sufficient to decide the whole controversie whether infants must be Church members Amen so beit say I let this Scripture decide it and let 's see what Mr. Ba. saies on t If they can say quoth he by kingdoms is meant here some part of the kingdom excluding all infants such men may make their own creed on those termes let the Scripture say what it will I know in some places the word kingdome and Ierusalem c. is taken for a part but if we must take words alwayes improperly because they are taken so sometimes saith he then we shall not know how to understand any Scripture so of necessity it must be understood properly i. e in its prime signification of the whole kingdoms and whole Ierusalem with him and not improperly for a part onely though Mr. Blake to Mr. Black saith upon occasion of our pleading for the proper signification of baptize nothing more ordinary then to have words used out of their prime signification whereby
will put us positivly to prove a third state denying that there 's any medium asserting that infants if they be not in the visible Church of Christ in their infancy are in the visible kingdome of the devil which to say is false doctrine I shall bring Mr. Baxter to stop the mouth of Mr. Baxter and to convince him that either there is a third state in which believers infants are in their infancy which is neither of these two or else to drive him to that Dilemma to preach this false doctrine himself that believers infants are in the visible kingdome of the Devil To this purpose I first demand of him which of these two viz. the visible church of Christ or the visible kingdome of the devil believers infants are visibly in before baptism First as for the visible kingdom of the devil he must say they are either visibly in it or out of it if he say they are in it then he himself preaches that false doctrine which he saies is ours and makes all infants even of believers members of the visible kingdom of the devil if he say they are out and not in the visible kingdom of the devil then that doctrine which teaches men to leave them unbaptized and denies them to be admitted members of the visible church of Christ till they come to age is not guilty as he saies it is of making them doctrinally members of the visible kingdome of the devil for it is but a delay indeed till they can do what is required to baptism As for the visible Church of Christ he must say they are either visibly in it before baptism or not in but out of it if he say they are in the visible church of Christ visibly before baptism then they cannot be said to be as oh how oft ore and ore again are they said to be by Mr. Bax. p. 24.25 admitted to be members entered listed added initiated into it as into Christs School and first stated into it by baptism for to be first entered into it by baptism and yet to be visibly in it before baptism these two are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 utterly inconsistent each with other as to be let into a room when and while one is already in the room is impossible yet with Mr. B. persons are let into the visible church after they are in it yea they must be in it saith he before they may be admitted to be in it nor will his distinction of a member compleat and incompleat p. 24. which he used before to the tearm disciple which I know he will make help him at all here sith with himself an incompleat member is one that hath but jus adrem not in re ad Ecclesiam not in Ecclesia a right to onely not a standing in the Church a title to the relative change and not a being yet in that relative change that he saies passes upon him by baptism Besides to say the truth they are but incompleat members after baptism whom you baptize sith when baptized and in the church they have not present right to other ordinances of the church for you admit not your infant members to the Supper but if he say they are not visibly in the church of Christ before baptism but out of it as indeed they are then either he must say they are in the visible Kingdome of the devil which is false doctrine with himself to say of believers infants or else say they are in some third or middle state to the unsaying of what he said before by way of denial of such a third state which let him say and we will agree with him and such a third state there is which all infants are in as well as some whether he will deny himself so as to acknowledge it yea or no. His 22. plain Scripture-less proof for infant Church-membership and baptism is this viz. That doctrine which leaveth us no sound grounded hope of the justification or salvation of any dying infant in the world is certainly false doctrine but that doctrine which denieth any infants to be members of the visible Church doth leave us no c. This argument I have spoken to sufficiently above and thereupon might well passe it by here and refer Mr. Ba. thither for an answer where in answer to the Ashford Disputants that urge the same argument enough to satisfie is returned But finding this to be that which of all things most gravels Mr. Baxter and makes him stick so stiffly to his plea for the baptism and Church-membership of infants because unlesse that be owned he can find no good ground in all the word whereupon to hope or believe that any dying infant in all the world can be saved which if he could find he would find the vanity of his venting so much concerning a necessity of baptizing and inchurching infants and save himself a deal of puzzling himself about that which the New Testament hath not one word of and fearing lest I should be judged cowardly to slide by it as if I saw Mr. Ba. handled it more unanswerably then any other and partly because Mr. Ts. suspension of his judgement concerning the future state of any infants is puft at by him and uneffectual to his satisfaction unlesse he could assure him of the salvation of some dying infants at least of believing parents which if he could assure him of out of the way of their church-membership and baptism it should satisfie him sufficiently I perceive to censure all other infants to hell and to say all those millions of poor innocents I mean the dying infants of other men in respect of which these he is so pittiful to are scarce one of a 100. are all damned for ever with which harsh cruel bloody and mercilesse censure of his I am much more and more groundedly dissatisfied then he is about the denial of meer outward membership and bare ordinance of baptism to those few on whose behalf he pleads them and lastly hoping the Lord may lend him some ligh◠whereby to see a consistency between the non membership and baptism of believers infants and the salvation of the dying infants of not believers onely but all dying innocent infants in the world I shall enter on an examination of what he saies to the contrary and an explication of what apprehension in this particular I am begotten to by the word of truth and though I shall decline sacerdotale delirium that common stock of divinity which the Clergy have treasured up in their Theological Systems out of which ocean of error and dead sea of tradition the younger Rabbies use to draw into their common place books and store themselves with arguments against Anabaptistical heresie i. e. this troublesome truth yet I trust I shall give a good account before all the world at the Tribunal of Christ Jesus In order hereunto therefore I first flatly deny the Minor of Mr. Bas. above cited syllogism which by another Syllogism he proves
him he next begins to act according thereunto to act like him self to make out his mind to his disciples concerning them and all men most expressely and plainly about this matter of water baptism and to give order to them both when and to whom both in what time and to what subjects they should dispense it and likewise both how and for how long he would have the nations as by command from himself commissionating his disciples so to teach them to practise the same dispensation of water baptism in the two following verses Going out therefore teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father Son and holy spirit teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you and â—o I am with you alwaies even to the end of the world Where note first in general three things First That he gives order to his disciples to teach the nations and baptize them in water in his name ver 19. going out teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father son and holy spirit Secondly that whatever order is given out by Christ to his disciples concerning this businesse of water baptism as to the order of its administration and the term of its continuance the very same and no other doth Christen join his disciples to give out to the disciples â—hat should be successively in all nations to be observed as his will concerning them v. 20. teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you Thirdly that what ever he gives out as his will concerning both them and the disciples in the nations that they should make he gives out as his standing will and Testament to them and their standing duty to him in all ages of the world as well as that even to the very end thereof in these words v. 20. and lo I am with you alwaies i. e. in the observation of these things I command you to the end of the world Secondly more particularly yet let it be observed what Arguments in particular do most naturaly arise hence in proof of the continuance of water baptism by comcommand from Christ to this very day and that from several clauses and passages of this Scripture severally considered First from these words Go ye out therefore and teach all nations baptizing them in the name c. it is very evident to the utter confutation not onely of those who are for infant baptism as is shewed above but also of those that are now for no water baptism at all that our lord Christ expressely enjoines these two things viz 1. That all those whom his disciples presume to baptize in his name shall be first taught by them or made disciples i. e. preached to or instructed in the Gospel till they learn and believe it 2. That all those whom his disciples do teach till they have learnt the Gospell or by preaching to them have converted to faith in his name shall in his name like wise be baptized so inseperable hath Christ made these two viz. discipling and baptizing believing and baptizing in his will and Testament to us that as he would have no creature in the nations be baptized without precedent teaching and believing so he would have no creature that is instructed till he believes to go unbaptized whereupon in one and the same word of command he requires both neither can any one abstract either from the other without such violation to the will and Testament of Christ confirmd by his blood which wo be to that man or angel that disanulleth in the least particular so as to take upon him to give a toleration to persons either to be baptized before believing or to content themselves with belief only without baptism But first as expresse as t is the mind of Christ that one of these should be done so expresse it is that the other should be done and each in its proper order Secondly as clear as it is that these are commanded to be done by the very persons he then spake to viz that they should teach and baptize so clear it is that the very same is commanded to be done in all nations and among all people by such persons as should be discipled by them in these words v. â—0 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you Thirdly and as long as t was his mind the one should be used viz. teaching and believing so long t was his mind that the other should continue viz. baptizing and being baptized and that was that they should all abide in force to the very end of the world Whence more formally we may argue thus viz. What Christ hath conjoined man must not seperate But Christ hath conjoined our discipling of persons and baptizing them as a standing course to the end of the world as Matth. 28.18 19 20. plainly shews Ergo man must not seperate these two In this very manner and form of words word for word little heeding how while he declines the gulf of no-baptism he runs against the rock and makes shipwrack of his infant baptism by the shift and at once breaks the neck of all his Arguments for it doth Mr. Baxter argue against these new No-baptists in p. 341. of his Plain Scripture-lesse proofs for infants Church-membership and baptism whereby verily as he wounds both himself to death and all those that together with him do plead for the baptizing of such subjects as they never teach viz. infants whom themselves must needs acknowledge to be uncapable of conversion by their instruction so all those likewise that plead for the teaching of all nations still and preaching of the Gosel to every creature and yet plead against any more baptizing of them in water who are converted to the faith by preaching who tear the Testament of the Lord Christ to pieces and take what of it will serve their own easie turnes and reject what of it is more tedious to the flesh as the way of outward ordinances is specially that ordinance of water baptism as a businesse long since abolished and out of date as being ended almost as soon as instituted as bondage as meer bodily exercise that profiteth little or nothing as but indifferent at most and so may be done and yet as well be let alone as a low weak thing as a foolish matter to make such ado about as needlesse for every one to submit to or make use of as that which some can live as well without as with c. as if Christ Jesus was a fool for so all those do say in figures though not in words at length to invent such foolish instruments to appoint such simple tooles to be used in his house such earthen vessels such vessels as are not honourable enough nor fit in their conceit for the masters use or for any thing but to be thrown aside as out of date and not worthy to be now meddled with any more to which high Notionists who camaelion like live
in matters of faith repentance Religion worship see Barbers answer to the Essex watchmens watch-word p. 7. c. the Magistrate receives no charge from God about Religion neither is cura ammarum but cura corporum onely committed to him Luther himself was of this mind that the Lawes of the Magistrate extended no further then to the bodies and goods that which is external and that God would have none to rule in the soul but himself therefore where the Magistrate goes about to govern in the conscience he usurps that jurisdiction which God reserves to himself certainly this is that great arrogany in the Whore or Woman of sin which God will severely punish in that S S Shee gives lawes to the conscience and sits in the Temple and Church of God as a God King Iames in Parliament 1609 said That it is a sure rule in Divinity that God never loves to plant his Church with violence and blood and again in his Apology for the oath of Allegeance p. 4. speaking of the Papists that took the said oath That he gave a good proof of it that he never intended persecution for conscience but onely desired to be secured of them for civil abuses that it was usually the condition of Christians to be persecuted but not to persecute Again Faith and repentance to acknowledgement of the truth is Gods gift and if wee 'l believe our Clergy no way in every mans power no not by gift from God to perform and so the Magistrate must punish men belike because God who gives where he lists does not give them to believe c. Again Blasphemers Persecutors as Paul Idolators as the Corinthians yea Iewes Turks and Pagans may be converted in time by the word therefore are not to be plucked up out of the Earth for then they can never possibly repent Again persecution was never taught by Christ nor practised by his Apostles but arose among Heathens and was continued by the Roman Antichrist and his Ministers Yet there 's one way more whereby they evade all this and that is by denying that by the Tares here are meant Hereticks False Worshippers and Antichristians and asserting them to be Hypocrites in the Church and this is the way of Mr. Cotton whereby you may see again how Divines are divided among themselves in all things almost as well as some which Mr. Cotton in a book which the Bloody Tenet relates to gives out as I remember that by tares is meant hypocrites in the Church who are so like the wheat that they cannot well be discovered nor discerned from it and so must be let alone in the Church by the Ministers of the Church least they mistake and pluck up wheat instead of tares and cast out men for hypocrites who its possible may be sincere for ought we know In answer to which I must confesse men that cast out persons for Hypocrites had need be pretty wary and not overhasty yea better an inconvenience than a mischief betâ—er erre in letting some Hypocrites stand in the Church then for hast cast out one that seemes to be so to us and yet is not But this is not the sense of our Saviour in this place for as it cannot be the Church that the Tares are here bid to be let alone in as I have shewed above so much lesse by the tares can be meant hypocrites so neer the wheat i. e. true Saints in shew and likenesse and pretence as to be hardly discerned from them For First Though Hypocrites are like Saints and appear so to be oft it may be alwaies to the deceiving of us yet the Tares are not at all like the wheat nor at all to any but such as are stark blind appearing to be wheat Secondly an Hypocrite in the Church who is one that appâ—ars to be what he is not must be supposed while he is in the Church to be discovered or not discovered so to be when not discovered he is no hypocrite to us to whom things are as they appear what ere he may be to God but as true a Saint as the rest and when discovered till when to us he is a Saint and must stand under the notion of a Saint then he must not stand in the Church which is not to harbor any that are palpably wicked and who is so palpable as he whose simulata sanctitas is dulplex iniquitas But now First the tares hee spoken of are plainly said and seen to be tares and appeare to be tares and a distinct stuff from the Wheat and yet for all that they are bid to be let alone in the Field as hypocrites must not be in the Church when they appear to be such But in the field i. e the world t is true enough that hypocrites may stand even after they are cast out of the Church unlesse they act any thing that civil justice will reach them for and so also may Antichristians and all false Worshippers T is evident then that in this place as well as Matth. 15.13.14 that in the time of the Gospel Church Tares that much hinder the wheat that are mingled in the same Field world Civil States Countreyes Common-wealths of Satans sowing among the Wheat Weeds Nettles Bryers Thorns Plants that are not of the heavenly Fathers planting Faâ—se worshippers Hereticks men and their Ministryes of false Religions doctrines faiths waies of serving God may and ought by permission and commission from Christ be let alone and allowed to stand by no means in the same Church by all means in the same world or part of the world locally considered for the Church is not locally considered as a place measured by and consistent of such or such a compasse of ground as the Popes parish Churches did whereupon they went on procession once a year lest they should forget the bounds of their Church but mystically of such or such a company of men however scattered locally here or there yet in one fellowship I say in the same part of the world nation City Countrey civill corporation with the wheat Saints true Church under the protective power of civil Magistracy free from molestation meerly for their religion so be they live justly soberly and peacably with all men any thing said to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding by the Priest who of all men hath least reason to be against toleration of tares in the world and of plants which the heavenly father never planted if he consider what he is himself and unlesse he desire to be rooted out in hast by the civill power before his time See the parable and read it with the exposition of it Mat. 13.37 c. He that sowed good seed in the field is the son of man i. e. Christ the field is the world therefore not the Church the good seed or wheat are the children of the Kingdom i. e. the Saints the true Church and worshippers the tares which while men slept and did not mind it the
a number of ignorant Mass Priests Monks and Friats who blind guids as they were of the blinder people fell with them into the ditch of Superstition Heresie and Sensuallity and say I the English Antichrist i. e. the Arch-bishop of Canterbury a chip of the old block that was an Apprentice at Rome in old'n time till he set up for himself here and became indeed what the old Caiaphas Pope Urbane the second prophesied of him in a complement about 1099 little thinking then God wot that he would serve him such a trick as to set up his posts against his posts and take away his custome and trading here in England Papatus alterius Orbis this English Antichrist I say hath multiplyed many teachers and feeders that are far better â—ed then taught in matters of either God or man and as few Scholars as are among the true Churches if there were none the truth would stand without them and God delights in no mans legs but if there were need of that to the making ministers of the Gospel there is proportionably fewer among your churches considering how little Christs flocks is and how voluminous the fold of the WWWhore and how few truly are so that go under that name among the people with whom hand tam cultus quam cucullus facit monachum for though you talk of secular learning yet if that were so necessary to a Minister as the Ministry say it is it would not onely cut off Peter and Iohn from that denomination who were though better gifted yet lesse learned in that sense then the least of you but most of you CCClergy also among whom throughout your whole dominion of Christndome there 's few Country Curates are well studied Scholars indeed in Logick and other arts and sciences and as for the tongues and original languages of the Scriture I speak it to the shame of the Ministry who unminister themselves in saying it is so necessary there is scarce five of 20. know the originall in the old Testament and not twenty to 5 so well as you should do in the new and as for the onely true learning and original of all wisdom the fear of God growth in grace and the knowledge of Christ and misteries of his kingdom and the spirit that Christ promised to his people to teach them all things which it were better for you by all your learning that you had more of unlearned Peter himself may truly tearm the most of you such unlearned ones as wrest the Scripture to your own destruction Act. 4.13 2 Pet. 3.16 yea so ungifted are the most of you so much as to pray and then well may you be to preach and that is to be unlearned as to the ministers office that unlettered or at least unspirited Artificers may be the proper name of some Clergy men as well as of the teaching tradesmen Dr. Featly speaks of for these receive the holy spirit that gifts them to it but not many of the Clergy are gifted to pray extempore without book if I onely said this you would not believe me but sith your great Patron Dr. Featly to whom you send us is my Patron as to this you must believe it whether you will or no unlesse you would have us believe him whom you will not believe yovr selves who gives this good reason p. 95. why its necessary to have set formes for the Ministers of the church of England to pray by if they pray at all in publique for there is not one Minister saith he or Curate of an 100 specially in Country Villages or Parochial churches who hath any tolerable gift of conceived as they term them or extempore prayers which if so you have smal reason to cry out of others as illiterate yea verily your selves will appear to be as the Anabaptists are stil'd by you an illiterate and Sottish generation in things principally pertaining to Christ and to Ministers of Christ to be skil'd in for that indeed is to be truly learn'd or unlearn'd in quoquo genere viz. to be raw or ready either in that which men supremely pretend to excell in as the Divine doth to excell other men in the things of God or else in that which is most excellent in it self and most worthy ouâ— being learn'd in as the highest and most excellent objects that are knowable being Christ and the mysteries of his kingdome those consequently are the best Scholars in the world that are most deeply insighted thereinto though elsewise never so ignorant Si Christum nescis nihil est si caetera noscis Si Christum noscis nihil est si caetera nescis Now count which of these two waies you will the greatest Clerks will appear to be the greatest Novices the greatest Doctors the greatest Dunces the greatest Schoolmen the least Schollars the prime of the Priesthood the prime Ignoramus's that the Christian earth doth carry for howbeit O yee PPPrists some of you for the most of you will never be mad with much learning even surfeit on inferiour literature viz. arts tongues c. and are taller then other men by the head in the reading of History Oratory pieces of pibald Poetry and such like yet as to the misterious plain Gospel wherein are hid and whence are handed out unto us the treasures of eternity in earthen vessels i. e. the homely base foolish weak wayes and dispensations which are of Christs chusing which it concerns Christs Ministers of all men to be more clear in then in any thing else they are low and therefore too high and wonderful for you high studied men to reach to they are far about out of your sight Yea I thank thee O father Lord of heaven and earth that thou hidest these things because seeing they will not see them from the wise and prudent and revealest them unto babes yea O Lord how great is the multitude of meer Humanists that feed onely upon the common Theory of that Theology they have framed to themselves and relish nothing but what is of man how are thy depths even thy downright deliveries of soul saving truth in plainess of speech by the mouths of stammerers stark duncery to them how will not a poor marred mocked misreputed Saviour and gospel in any wise down with them who did of old and who do still stand out most stiffly against thy gospel O Christ but the proud self conceited Pharisees Priests and Lawyers who while the people believe and justifie God being baptized with the true baptism do generally reject the councel of God against themselves being not baptized therewith where had thy message by the mouth of Paul lesse acceptance then at the university of Athens where hath the word now lesse then in the Academies Christian Academies seemingly reforming Academies where if thou didst not tell us that Christ crucified should be foolishnesse to the wise men after the flesh and disputers of this world who could believe that the Princes of Zoan should be such fools
illuminated Tradesmen Christ the Carpenter Peter the Fisherman Paul the Tentmaker Aquilla and his wife Priscilla from which kind of poor folks and babes to whom it seems good in gods fight to preach the plain Gospel and reveal by his word and spirit what he hides from wise men when they will not see this prudent PPPriesthood if he were not proud might learn more truth and Gospel purity then ever was taught him by his Grand-father the Pope or any of those Clerical Councells or Ghostly fathers which he consults more with then with Christ and Scriptures The Reason of all his obstinacy against tradesmens teachings is this he knows that his trade of teaching for hire and divining for money Must fall if tradesmen begin once to turn divines and to teach truth for nothing ye know that by this craft quoth he Act. 19.25 c. we have our wealth moreover ye see and hear c. he is well aware and so are we that if he lose the lives of persecution for conscience and sprinkling of infants Iachin Boaz the two main pillars grand Supporters of his kingdom his Temple will quickly rend in to more pieces then 3 PPPs from the top to the very bottom and all his matchlesse magnitude and numberlesse priestly Prerogatives drop directly to the ground viz. his Lieutenantship to the prince of this World his Lordship over the heritage his headship over the Church his dominion over the faith his title to the tenth of every mans estate his merchandize of slaves bodies and souls of men his leave to trample the holy city and slay at pleasure the truth tellers that torment him his rich revenues dignity glory power seat and great Authority together with all the priviledges profits liberties immunities thereunto belonging All this his royalty must fail if he give ground but a little and would have failed ere this time If he had a face could blush at his own abominable blindnesse or ingenuity to confesse himself hurt or own the plain truth while his lungs will serve him in reply or Amor sui constrain him to cry heresie against the truth therefore this Diotrêphes that loves to have the preheminence over all for ever because he hath had it for a while receiveth not truth but prates against it in the pulpit and elsewhere with malicious words and though he contradict himself ever and anon in his own Sermons and discourses yet if he say any thing at all he thinks it much when wisemen weighing it find it little to the purpose Tertullian thus describes Hermogenes Loquacitatem facundiam existimaret Impudentiam constantiam deputaret c. so he when he bumbasts the pulpit and slashes the Saint Schismaticks in their absence before his people supposes he hath spoken with no small grace when t is for want of grace that he did it and that when he is most audacious against all reformation as at Rome and even that he hath sometimes sworn himself and others to as here in England when he finds it more crosse to his credit then he thought of when he undertook for t he counts them fickle unconstant that change their minds and mend their manners and himself only stable and constant to the CCChristian Religion Hence it is that the effects of Disputation with him have been not onely fâ—ustrate but dangerous dangerous I say to him no otherwise then as it overturned his Kingdome that the truth of Christ might take place but to them that disputed with him in this respect as it hath been no lesse then their pretious lives were worth once to oppose or open their mouths against him witnes Wickliff Hus Ierome of Prague and all the executions done in Queen Maries daies upon such as durst dispute against the Pope or meddle against the mass and those done in Queen Elizabeths upon Barrow Greenwood and Penry who were hang'd by Episcopal malice for professing against them and the Common-prayer which now well nigh all England hath renounc't as a corruption and what should have been done upon such as disputed against or depraved the Presbyterian directory is well known for that Clergy hath shew'd themselves so much in their Fathers colours that ere long all England will renounce both it and them and in this respect it hath been also frustrate as to peoples conviction for truths witnesses to dispute never so clearly against him for as much as he hath still stopt their mouths with the stake prison or gallows and kept his own wide open against them in the pulpit when he hath secured them from all capacity of storming him there for The common sort are apt to think those have the victory that live to speast last and that their CClergies cause is never wrackt by the cause of Christ as long as one is left alive that can speak a word in that against the other And by how much error takes with our corrupt nature more then truth by so much there is more danger of its spreading where the Roots i. e. the self love vain glory ambition covetousnesse pride Lordlines universality and cruelty of the CCClergy who are plants that our heavenly father never planted Stocks from whom stemes out a stench from whom abomination branches it self out to the corrupting therof in al quarters of the Earth Rev. 11.18.17 5.19.2 are not plucked up and rooted out for from the Priest and the Prophet profanness heresie hath gone out into all the world and spread it self like a leprosie or some raging canker and for the most part such is the resolvednesse of the CCClergy to bind the people still to a blind obedience to their blind guidance of them beside the word that Disputations with them if not carefully I mean clearly and also coolly proceeded in with love to their persons and almost without zeal against their evils which yet we must not abate them an ace of for all their anger pacem cum hominibus cum vitiis bellum they Raise more evil spirits of wrath and divellishnesse in them then we can lay because they see them raise more good spirits of doubts and earnest enquiries after truth in the people who before were wont to take their ware on trust without trial then then they can lay again while they live by all the shifts and subtleties they can devise for when once people are resolved to believe things to be heresie by hearsay no more but to fancy them according as they find them in the word and to see into the plainness of speech that is in the Scripture with their own eyes they see so much disproportion between the national Church wayes and those of the primitive Churches of the Gospel that they commonly resolve not to see at all adventures through the unclear eyes of CCClergy men any more This makes them fret and fume and fain and fiddle hither and thither which way to fasten their Heretical opinions further if it be possible on them in whom they they
stick and into whose hearts they have eaten fowl healthless holes already and to drive them deeper even with hammer and nailes if they can tell how or else to cleave whole Countries asunder with beetle and wedges Heresie is said by the Apostle to fret like a canker so that it is not the clearness nor yet the coolness nor yet the heat of a disputation can correct it in some mens hearts the tongue may heal any poisoned wound with licking of it sooner then that which the Heretick the Pope and the Priesthood hath made so deeply hath he found his heresies in the dark cells of some mens implicit consciences Athanasius his disputation with Arrius and Austins with Manickaeus are sufficient Instances Indeed it is not possible to expect any good fruit from those former grounds as to the CCClergie themselves and such of their CCCreatures as stand bent to believe all they say and never doubt it though otherwise much good may come to others that are inquisitive by disputation with them or that he which is possessed with self love and hunts so greedily after glory or gain as the CCClergie dots should be perswaded to hearken to any reason which contradicts his principles or to disclaim that waie which must advance his design What is the result of this discourse to forbid all disputation with HHHim no by no means it is necessary to stop the clamors of the adversarie to the truth who will cry out victoria if his challenge be not answered and make our sâ—leuâ—e be a confession of the truth on his side if he be not stoutly encountred with Saint Austin who was in his time called Malleus hereticorum of whom it is said that he never went so willingly to a feast as to a conference when Pascentins the Arrian bragd that he had worsted him in his dispute and those believed it which desired it yet gave not out from disputing but was onely careful to set down his disputations in writing for the future that the truth might appear vindicated from those false reports with which commonly it is blasted either by word or else by some such true counterfeit Accounts in print as that which is at this day extant of the disputation held at Ashford A Disputation orderly carried soberly proceeded with without heats and distempered passions not suffered to go out of its due bounds nor to follow every new sent that is taken up by the way nor to degenerate into quarrellings and hasty fals chargings of the Anabaptists as this and that they know not what without proving them such or disproving their doctrines as if others do not I do know more then one place where and where more then once too it hath been so will contribute much to the clearing of truth the begetting of doubts in them that yet never doubted but blindly believed the contrary The removing of doubts in them that are already in doubts about it and putting it out of all doubt to them all in the end that all is not so well yet as it ought to be with the very reforming Clergy and that their parochial posture is popish and their constitution ordination administrations baptism and the supper is all disorderly and out of joint to the confirming of the strong that stand fast in the true faith the recovery of the laps't world that hath departed from the faith Gospel Baptism Church order which was once delivered to the Saints and been seduced from Christ by the Scholastical incroachments of the CCClergy and as it may chance in time if the civil powers that have preferred them would come once to favour the truth the convincing â—he SSSeducer it is rare so to mannage one among an unskilful multitude where the auditors take themselves no lesse engaged then their champions and will be ready on all hands too much but an 100 fold more for ought I find among the parochial party then the other disorderly to break the lists which hath made so many able Scholars not in mans onely but in Christs School also almost averse from undertaking it but unless their be sufficient caution against such exorvitatances as jangling with bells to drownd all audience of truth and counter speeches of non-sense rather then nothing to interrupt him that is about to speak the truth and noise of shouting if it were possible to shame the truth and such like geer as I have met with in my daies better be no disputation at all nor preaching of truth among such it being if not a giving of that which is holy to dogs and casting of pearles before swine which will turn again and rent you yet at least impossible any thing should come of it that good is and yet even that shall be no hurt to the Ministers of Christ that are approved in tumults yet cannot help it but blasphemy to the truth stumbling to the weak parishioners that stumble enough already poor souls the Lord help them to see their preachers violently oppose preaching and proving the truth out of the Scriptures a kind of shamefull Glory to the adversaries of the truth the PPPriesthood from some a glorious shame to the undertakers for it There is therefore a better way for the true Pastors of the true Churches and specially the Churches messengers to the world in which to oppose the approach of heresies which the parish Pastors make mickle use of to oppose the truth by under the names of Anabaptism at least in their Respective flocks and that is by preaching To argue substantially against them to convince them soundly is the best in the pulpit if they can freely get in a place wherein one might have hid ones self for a month together or more and sometimes a year from some parish Priests non-resident Parsons divinity Doctors but specially the lazy Lord Bishops not very long since but now to keep out the Anabaptists more frequented by some Priests then else it would be a place which is secured much and yet not alwayes neither when plain truth tellers are in it from those incursions to which disputations are subject It is worth observation that neither Transubstantion nor consubstantion have so much as appeared in these days wherin so many old Heresies as infant sprinkling for one which as a mad bul having its deaths blow on the forehead struggles more then ever are in a sort revived and stickled for and plyed with new and fresh assaults and unheard of arguments for t was pleaded for but as a tradition mostly in times above us as well as new ones broached And the reason is because all Ministers in these parts good and bad true false even the Priests themselves in their Sermons provided for the sacrament have every where oppugned them as having indeed no cleer colour in them of either Scripture common sense or reason as neither hath infant sprinkling if the National Ministers would once wisely consider it The learned Hooker observes that in Poland so
nought but shame belongs to man and pray for those that desire as the conversion of others to it so thy preservation in the truth which oh how hard is it to abide by in these evil times of temptation from the fals Churches the non-chuches which both seek what they can to unchurch the true which thou continuing faithfully in it to the death shall onely lead thee unto everlasting life but if any man will be ignorant let him be ignorant Now as to the Apologetical part I say thus to you O ye Priests you are of all men the generation whose great and general displeasure I expect to fall under and for this present works sake to become your enemy more universally then ever yet because I here tell you the truth but as little hope as I have to be heeded by you in what I say I must tell you and the Lord judge between you and me whether I speak the truth or not I am so far from desiring the temporal much more the eternal destruction of any one of you that as far as t is possible I would prevent both yea if by the publication of all this I seek any thing next to Gods glory more then the salvation as well of your own souls as of such as are seduced and insnared by your spiritual sorceries in wayes of false worship heresie and Schism from the primitive truth will not the Lord at last find me out nay verily I love the persons of you all as well as other mens indeed I love you too well to spare sharpness toward you or in silence suffer you to perish as I verily believe and therefore speak the more plainly to you that by any means I may save some of you without remedy you will do persisting in your wonted obstinacy against the Gospel this being the faith which God hath begotten me to by a serious search and observation of the word and world together the faith which he hath for some years made me to live in and will I trust if he call me to it strengthen me to die in rather then deny one jot of it to please men good or bad friend or foe unlesse it be discovered to me to be a false one I must not be ashamed to professe it for fear of them that kill the body for then wo unto me from him that is able to destroy both soul and body in hell and should I be altogether silent as my fearful flesh would fain be least I should prove an intollerable offence to my friends and seem to be as O my God thou knowest how far I am not a self avenger on my foes and expose my self as at no hand I desire to do might it be avoided to the hatred and hard censure of you all the light of this truth would arise many other wayes yea the Lord pleadeth it before you day by day by the tongues and pens of others besides my self but I neverthelesse might be destroyed I had at first illumination and strong impulsions of spirit not perceiving like Samuel who thought it had been Eli that called him and not the Lord whether it were the suggestion of Gods spirit or my own and when at last I understood clearly that t was the Lord himself that told me he would do such a thing to the house of Eli i. e. the Generation of the Priesthood as should cause the eares of all that â—ear it to tingle I feared likewise to shew Eli the vision and was as loath to declare as you OPPPriests are to hear the things concerning you here declared I was ready to say to the Lord send this message by the hand of him by whom thou wilt send but necessity was upon me yea wo unto me my God had been a terrible one to me had I refused it yea I may say as Ieremy Ier. 20.7.9 O Lord thou hast deceived me and art stronger then I and hast prevailed for I said I will not make mention of this nor speak it in thy name but his word was within me as fire in my bones and I was weary with forbearing and I could not stay he whose face onely I seek that I may not be deceived the light or louring of whose countenance is more to me then the favours or frowns of all faces hath prest me in spirit to tell that on the house tops which he hath told me in the ear in a closet what shall befal me in so doing I know not save that the spirit witnesseth that afflictions do every where abide me and all those that will live godly in Christ Jesus yet none of these things move me neither count I my life dear unto me that I may finish my race and the ministry I have received of the Lord Jesus to testifie the Gospel of the grace of God Act. 20.24 if your Ministry Gospel doctrine Baptism be right then ours is wrong and if ever it appear we shall come back to you if ours be right then yours is wrong and must be declared that you may return to the truth I know there are many things you will question not to say quarrel with me about First you 'l ask me why I do not for the peace sake of the Church forbear and keep my opinions in these points to myself rather then publish them so plainly in print as well as by word and penne to the disturbance thereof To which I say if it be the truth I hold and matter of weight withall it wil excuse the promoting of it self if it were to the distraction of the Church which is to be subject to the truth and not the truth to her also to the distruction of the world fiat justitia aut pere at mundus Secondly the matters held forth here by me which are mainly the falsness of your Ministry and baptism are as truth so of such consequence as to be well worth discovering if either Luther did well to declare against the Pope and Clergy of Rome or your selves O Presbyters against Prelates Deans and Chapters c. without regard to the several disturbances that were like to be consecutive thereto yea the true subject and manner of administration of baptism which when it serves your turn so to do you call a circumstantial matter a ceremony for which if you should erre therein none but weak querulous consciences will complain and separate an indifferent thing for which why should we make so much ado aâ—gâ—at not to be streind at and such like is so necessary a matter one of the most necessary points of Religion which those that erre in do most fearfully erre and are totally deserted by the spirit of God these are your own words Thirdly you talk much and t is the language of the Pope to your selves since you rent from his Church of the Church and our holy mother the Church and Ghostly fathers of the Church and good and true tempered sons of the Church and the peace of the