separating all infants of believers barely for their parents faith to be visible members of the Christian Church is Mr. Bs. dream as I shall shew with Gods assistance in examing his second argument SECT XI About Mr. Bs. 4. texts urged impertinently to prove infants visible Church-membership PAge 183. he saies it is a palpable untruth which I say he four texts in his Epistle Levit. 25. 41 42. Deut. 29. 11 12. Act. 15. 10. 1 Cor. 7. 14. with Rom. 11. 19. were all he concluded any thing from meaning in the dispute at Bewdley and saies the hearers know it and is to be seen before But to my best remembrance with search into the notes I took after and the notes which were communicated to me it is no untruth Mat. 28. 19. I think he alluded to but I remember not it was urged or any other text besides the forenamed as a medium from which to conclude any proposition to be proved Then he saies I have been fully answered before but yet addes concerning Levit. 25. 41 42. 1. The Jewes infants were infants and the dispute between us was of the species Answ. 1. Though Mr. B. and before him Mr. Cobbet usually call the sort or ranke of men that are infants the species yet other Logicians usually call man the lowest species or kind and say age and sex make not another kinde 2. But allowing Mr. B. and Mr. Cobbet their language I say the dispute is not about the species or kind to wit infants as infants but infants of believers who are particular persons and the question as it was rightly stated between me and Mr. M. was Whether the infants of believers were to be baptized with Christs baptisme by a lawfull Minister according to ordinary rule without extraordinary revelation or direction And if Paedobaptists will maintain their practise they should make good this proposition That all the infant-children of professed or inchurched believers are to be baptized with Christs baptisme by the law full Minister according to ordinary rule Though Mr. Baillee and Mr. B. for some advantage set down this as their proposition to be proved That some infants are to be baptized M. B. saies he had proved our priviledges greater then the Jewes and that I deny it not and that this to wit to be Gods servants was not peculiar to them Whereas I had proved the contrary from ver 55. and the whole chapter is about lawes peculiar to the Jews and ver 38 39 40. going before shew plainly that this law was peculiar to the Jewes that they and their children should return from servitude under which they were for poverty at the year of Jubilee and ver 45 46. plainly restraines it to the children of Israel allowing them to take the children of strangers so journing among them and therefore proselytes as an inheritance And therefore in whatever sense it is meant that they are Gods servants it is meant onely of Hebrews as Exod. 21. 2. is expressed I do not conceive nor any interpreters that I meete with do expound this of a proselyte but onely of an Hebrew borne If Cornelius had children they had not been Gods servants in the sense there meant which is clearly this that they were his servants in this respect only in that place in that they were to be disposed of not as men would but as he onely would who had right to them by his purchase in bringing them out of Egypt and therefore none can get soveraigne Dominion over them no not by their voluntary selling themselves to prejudice his as Deodat annot in Levit. 25. 42. Whence I infer that it is a most grosse abuse of this Scripture in Mr. B. to urge it to prove that the infants of Gentile believers now are servants to God related to him as a peculiar people separated to himself from the world which is spoken meerly in respect of the Hebrew children and their corporal servitude which was to be at Gods disposing by reason of his redemption of them out of Egypt When he tells me of my accustomednesse to mistakes it is more true of himself as I have often shewed yea though the words were written before him And in this very thing he calls my mistake that he argued thus Whosoever is called Gods servant may be baptized whereas he might have seene if he had taken any care to set down my words rightly that my words were as his own notary took them and he hath printed them If this be a good argument Infants are called servants of God therefore they are disciples and must be baptized which was his argument either in words or substance As for the conclusion and argument as he sets it down page 182. I think it was not urged in the dispute and I have proved that Levit. 25. 42. is meant onely of Hebrew children not of Gentiles nor in the sense Mr. B. would prove that they are relatively separate to God from the world in the sense as God 's servants is equipollent to a disciple of Christ. Page 184 he calls my answers to his allegation of Deut. 19. 11 12 vain senselesse reavils and then breaks out into words of pitty to people that take their opinions on my word To which is I say that my answers are not vaine senselesse cavil will appear in my reply to Mr. B. about that text And as he pitties them that take their opinion on my word so I pitty them that take their opinion on his word or any meer mans word contrary to Christs priviledge Mat. 23. 1. Page 184. in my words adoption is printed for doctrine Page 185. he repeates his frivolous charge of our accusing our children as no disciples of Christ and therefore no Christians and therefore no ground to believe or hope they are saved thus calumniating me when I have often said they may be both Disciples and Christians invisibly and so have salvation and we have great reason to hope they are in Gods election by reason of the general indefinite promises of the Scripture and Gods usual dealing with his people though there is no certainty either from Mr. Bs. grounds or mine sith Mr. B. will not say that every visible Church-member is saved All the difference between us is about their visible Church-membership whether the denying that takes away ground of hope of their salvatien Mr. B. saith it doth because there 's no hope of that persons salvation that doth not seeme to be of the invisible Church but he that is not of the visible Church doth not seeme to be of the invisible Ergo But the Minor is not true as he takes the word seem and by Gods assistance I doubt not to shew when I examine ch 27. of part 1. his mistake concerning the terme visible as if it were as much as to appear such in the judgement of probability though not descernad by sense by which defini-nition the opposite termes visible and invisible may be confounded and the terme visible
with men Page 165. what he speaks of my exceeding high and passionate disposition was but his misdeeming likely upon misinformation neither my words nor carriage shewed it Page 166. what the supposed girds were is set down before out of his now printed book whereby it seems my few disciples as he miscalls them are at least excused and no notorious falshood chargeable on them That which he saith I forced him to the disputation I conceive is not right how it came to passe is shewed above that there were thousands of people there I think is overlasting the tale of the dispute is made to prepossesse men with prejudice I told him before that such a dispute was not fit to satisfy and I gave him my reasons and I propounded the way used at the Conference at the Hague judged best by Dr. Raynolds but the way Mr. B. took he liked best and his carriage of it looks like an artifice cunningly contrived to please the common sort of Schollers and others of which few can discerne between sleight and solid proofs But I doubt not my answer will prove Mr. Bs. arguments to be meer trifles The untruths charged on me page 167. are upon his mistake of the words written before him I said not to be used by Mr. B. but by others mentioned next before That his passage was like to be the beginning of a schism among those of Bewdley was no jest but a conjecture which the event hath proved true how he misrepresents my words of charging their blood on them and hypocrisy to them is before shewed it 's not true I had been long time working a fearful schisme unlesse by accident it being true which Mr. Allen and Mr. Shepherd say Advertisement to the Reader pag. 27. scarce truth or error can now adaies be received but in a way of schisme His lines were likely to be the beginning of a schisme in that it was taken as if Anabaptists and with them my self were adjudged hereticks by him which if it were an untruth yet it is so like a truth that I think he that shall read in one period what Mr. B. sayes of Hereticks that they end in wicked lives and in the next find the instance in Anabaptists and after me named as one of them will conceive he called them and me hereticks And however he protest he doth not yet his asserting me a Sect-Master page 188. and his inclining to Vossius c. their definition of an Heretick page 171. and his words page 259. make me think he comes not much short of counting me an heretick To his allegations of my speeches concerning Mr. M. and Independents I have answered before I may say the doctrine was one of the first heresies yet not censure the men that hold it as heretical it 's one thing to be formally an heretick and another thing materially to hold that which denominated a party heretical In my Examen I tell Mr. M. and now Mr. B. that I think none of those glorious lights mentioned held Mr. Ms. position I do not judge all hereticks that be against my opinion but that they may be more justly stiled heretiques then my self Mr. Bs. quicknesse in replying afore he weighed my speeches or perhaps my scantnesse in expressions out of warinesse what I said to him whom I found very captious hath I perceive created me these hard censures That which Mr. B. saies page 172. he dare say of me I dare say is false The inference which he calls strange is none of mine the passage and time of writing it do still prevaile with me to conceive that he wanted a spirit of love through ill surmises of me Page 174. Infant-sprinking or pouring water on them will not be proved baptisme I shall not ease sinners that own their infant-sprinkling as baptism by my assertion that I tell them they never sinned against their baptisme and engagement is a fiction of Mr. B. in which he hath a pretty art I said not Mr. B. gave us a title to make us odious but that might make us odious which imports the term might make us odious not that Mr. B. had that purpose in using it Page 175. He hath a discourse from the end of the accuser and the opposition of justification to accusation and condemnation to prove That it is proper language to say he accuseth another who denies a supposed priviledge to be due to him By the same reason the accusers accusation may be said to be condemnation and execution too for that is the end of the accuser I had thought accusation noted the accusers act not his end that justification is opposed to accusation and condemnation shewes they are distinguished the one being the charging with a fault the other passing sentence I must confesse I yet understand not his language of accusing without charging with a fault nor do I think any law-dictionary doth so define accusation I do not think the non-visible churchmembership of infants is poenal or deprivation of a mercy now it being only by the alteration of the Church-frame Whether the not acknowledging infants visible churchmembership be a denying a mercy reall or imaginary whether there be injustice scorne or any error in my tenet about it is to be examined in answering his book What I do hold I do it not without natural affection to my children out of conscience of maintaining truth The very same he chargeth upon me for denying infant-baptisme might mutatis mutandis by the same reason be charged on him for denying infant-communion I do judge this Rhetorical or Satyrical passage of Mr. B. to be a meer trifling in a serious matter That which is said page 176. of my disputing my children out of the Church by denying them to be visible Church-members is Mr. Bs mistake in defining visible Church-membership as I shall shew in examining the 27. chap. of the first part of his book It 's not true I deny all infants to be in Covenant with the Lord their God or that title to salvation which upon promise they have in point of law Mr. Bs. conditional Covenant gives no title till the condition be put which he will not say is true of any infants but the elect who alone are children of the promise in the Apostles language Rom. 9. 8. pag. 177. he saith I do all I can to keep infants out of the visible Church but I deny that to hinder their baptisme is to keep them out of the visible Church or that to baptize them is to bring them in If it be why have they not the communion according to that which we reade 1 Cor. 12. 13 Are Janizaries who were baptized children of Greek Christians therefore visible members of the Christian Church Mr. B. though he had the Copy of my Sermon yet misrepresents my words I said not that it is the Devils part to say that the infants of believers are members of the visible Church but my words were it being an error
and such pernicious effects following that people think therefore they are Christians because baptized which opinion of theirs is confirmed by Mr. Bs. words For they are visible Christians that are baptized into the name of Christ if they have not since by word or workes renounced him and rest therein and are thereby held in carnal presumption we ought rather to think those that maintain infant-baptisme play the Devils part which expressions of mine being added the vanity of Mr. Bs. arguings will appear That which he hath page 178. that it is no more thankes to me then to Satan that I keep not God from making promise to his people which intimates I would do it if it were in my power for if there be no more thanks to me then Satan it is because there 's no more hindrance in me from doing it then in Satan̄ and so the same will is a suggestion that exceedes all moderation as if Mr. B. were bent not onely to rake up all the dirt he can to cast in my face but also to put an ill construction on all I say My answer was a faire answer to a virulent charge In 2. senses I conceived it might be said that Infants are disputed out of the Covenant of Christ the one as if my dispute made Christ not Covenant to them the other as if it made them not Covenant to Christ. I said neither was true What saies Mr. B. 1. Election is not a Covenant Nor did I say it was And then addes nor are they in Covenant because elected which speech is most false contrary to Rom. 9. 8. where the children of the promise is all one with the Elect as the Analysis shewes as may be seene in the Authors cited by me in my Examen part 3. sect 4. Besides whom more may be produced I will add two now Mr. Rutherfurd in that piece of his which is the exactest of his workes Exercit Apol. 2. c. 2. num 7. Soli electi dicuntur in Scripturis foederati filii haeredes promissionis Rom. 9. 8. The elect alone are said in the Sctiptures to be in Covenant children and heires of the promise Rom. 9. 8. and Mr. Norton in resp ad Apollon c. 2. pag. 30. Objectum foederis gratiae sunt soli electi The object of the Covenant of Grace are the elect alone Next he saith that I deny that God Covenanteth with our infants to be their God in Christ and to take them to be his peculiar people which is the Covenant he formerly made with infants and which he now affirmes What he affirmes distinctly I cannot well tell he doth so confusedly expresse himself in his bookes He distinguished between an absolute and a conditional Covenant of Grace The absolute he saies belongs onely to the elect but this he will not be thought to meane when he speakes of infants of believers being in Covenant or baptism's sealing of it yea he blames me often for so conceiving of him and page 223. he disputes against that tenet as my fifth error The conditional is a Covenant of justification and salvation upon-condition of faith this he saith is sealed by baptisme not the other and this he makes belonging to all the posterity of Adam elect and reprobate And this it seemes most likely he meanes when he speaks of infants of believers being in Covenant because it is that which baptisme seales and they that are in Covenant are to be sealed thereby But according to this conditional Covenaat either all are in Covenant with God whether elect or reprobate infants of believers or unbelievers or else none till they performe the condition which is faith and so not all infants of believers Mr. B. in his additions to the Saints everlasting rest part 3. sect 3. prop. 2. A conditional promise puts nothing in being till the performance of the condition nor gives any certainty but of such performance As for any Covenant of God or Christ besides these containing onely the promise of visible Church-membership or such like imagined priviledges in the New Testament to infants of Gentile believers I take to be a phantasme and when I come to examine Mr. Bs. opinion of infants visible Church-membership which I could not do till I had his book I doubt not to make it appear to be so that not one text he hath brought proves such a promise and that he hath not proved more to belong to infants by promise then I acknowledge and yet neither visible Church-membership nor right to baptisme in infancy ordinarily will follow thereon As for that he saith in general termes that I deny that God covenanteth with infants of believers to be their God in Christ and to take them to be his peculiar people is said like a Calumniator my words being so plaine to the contrary in that very place In a word I have said that the Covenant or promise of regeneration sanctification forgivenesse of sins adoption and eternal life is not made to all the natural children of the most godly believers no not of Abraham himself or to any barely because they are their children but because elect or believers in their own persons which Mr. M. and Mr. Geree in their answers to me confesse to be true as being expresly delivered Rom. 9. 8. and by the streame of Protestant writers maintained But I deny not that many infants of believers are in the Covenant of Grace nor dare I say that no infants of unbelievers are in the Covenant of Christ in this sense I onely say I neither know which of the one or the other are thus in the Covenant of Grace As for the arguings that he that denies Infants baptisme doth deny them to be in the Covenant of Grace they are built on these fancies that to be a seale of the Covenant of Grace is of the essence of baptisme that there is a certain connexion between being in the Covenant of Grace and right to be baptized which with other hypotheses of Paedobaptists I shall examine in my Review Mr. B. addes That I flatly deny infants Covenanting with God whereas my words were farre from such flat denial being onely these for my part I know not how any person should Covenant with Christ till he promise c. which were not such a peremptory or flat denial as Mr. B. saies they are and they are true it being against all experience that infants do so Covenant but on the contrary when they are baptized cry and shew their unwillingnesse as August lib. 1. de remiss et mer. pecc c. 23. flendo et vagiendo cùm in eis mysterium celebratur ipsis mysteriis vocibus obstrepunt Then Mr. B. saies I disswade parents from so engaging their children in Covenant and promising in their names which yet they ever did in the Church before Christ and it was their duty to do as Deut. 29. and other places shew But in which words I perswade parents not to do as he saies I do he
of more credit concerning the Antiquity of Infant-baptism then Augustines who as I shew Apology sect 6. and elsewhere did often inconsiderately call that an Apostolical tradition which was commonly observed in his dayes within the compass of his acquaintance Cyprians speech if it be rightly brought by Mr. B. will prove all still-born Infants to be lost being not of the visible Church Catholick That which Mr. B. page 266. saith fully satisfies him part of it is false the rest so frivolous that I can impute his satisfaction to no other cause then his inconsiderateness The very same or like plea will serve for communion of young children in which yet Mr. B. is not satisfied But to me it is very good satisfaction that baptizing of Infants is but an innovation neither agreeing with the institution of Christ nor the Apostles practise nor known till it began to be conceived necessary to give grace and to save from perishing yet then disswaded and not practised but in case of iminent danger of death nor maintained on any other ground till Zuinglius his dayes What the Churches of Anabaptists so called have done in London that Mr. B. should so much lament till I know what it is I take to be a Calumny That Anabaptists have been in danger by the instigations of Preachers and writers it is a marvel to me that Mr. B. should not understand who can hardly be ignorant whence the ordinance against blasphemies and heresies came That any of my Antagonists are turned out of house and home is unknown to me surely not for non-conformity to rebaptizing most certain that if any such thing hath been done it was never by my procurement nor I think any of the Churches of Anabaptists That which Mr. B. page 267. saies that the same men that subscribe the Anabapiists confession have many of them written other kind of doctrine elsewhere I doubt whether it be true I find him onely naming Paul Hobson page 147. and citing some passages of his of which that which is most liable to exception Mr. B. himself gives us this excuse in his Saints evelasting rest part 2. chap. 1. sect 2. page 169. not understanding that they affirm and deny the same thing in several expressions so that however his expressions be dangerous yet it is probable he held not the Socinian opinion which he contradicted in the subscription to the confession but onely discovered his weakness And yet Mr. B. I think is not ignorant that so holy learned a man as M. Pemble near the beginning of his Vindicae gratiae hath a like conceit of Gods never hating the elect but being reconciled from eternity taking reconciliation for an immanent act in God which as I imagine Mr. B. would excuse in Mr. Pemble so might he with a like charity excuse the other in Paul Hobson What he cites out of Cyprian I wish Mr. B. had Englished it and that both Anabaptists and their opposites would learn it Page 268. he saith if my book of scandals were read men may perhaps receive a preservative from my own hand from the danger of my opinion to which I say I wish my book of Scandals were more read nor do I fear that my doctrine will be the lesse embraced for reading it if my interpretation of my own words justified even by Mr. B. be received as I shew before Page 269. he tells us the Levellers were Anabaptists but I cannot yet learn of any of them he names except Den that was so though I deny not but there might be sundry of them such likely of the Free-willers disclaimed by the seven Churches in London and that they were but few in comparrison of the rest by the Newes-books I gather the Levelling businesse was carried on by such as were in no gathered Church but lived above ordinances As for Mr. Bs. dark criminations I can give no answer to them unlesse I could plow with his heifer and find out his riddle But my hope is those great instruments of God to break the enemies of those that are termed Sectaries though Mr. Bs. words seem to forebode and misdeem evil of them will and do prove better then he discribes them though I imagine they be not Anabaptists Nor do I like Mr. Bs. obscure satyrical criminations they having some shew of a malevolent mind Whatever Mr. B. may conceive of the danger of the Anabaptists way in other things I am sure if they would keep themselves onely to this to be baptized upon profession of faith they should be in a safe way even in the way of Christ. SECT XXII The speech that no one Countrey is gathered into Christs visible Church contains no malignancy to Christ but is a manifest truth MOst of that which is in Mr. Bs. answer to the last section of my Antidote hath either been replied to before or in some other part of my writings or will fall into the main of the dispute wherein I doubt not but I shall fully vindicate my argument against the visible Church-membership of Infants from the different cause of the Jewish and Christian Church though the thing be so manifest to wit that the Christian Church was otherwise gathered then the Jewish that I see nothing but meer wrangling in the questions Mr. B. propounds And to his words page 279 280. Sir if you were my Father I would tell you that when you say Christ makes no one City Countrey Tribe his Disciples you speak most malignantly and wickedly against the Kingdome and dignity of my Lord Jesus I answer I meet so often with Mr. Bs. high charges upon palpable mistakes and weak proofs that I fear his misguided zeal or natural distemper hath brought him to an habit of ill-speaking My words were not as Mr. B. sets them down but thus no one Countrey or City or Tribe together were gathered by the Apostles or other Preachers into the Christian visible Church but so many of all as the Lord vouchsafed to call by his word and spirit which hath neither wickedness nor malignancy against the Kingdome and dignity of the Lord Jesus but a manifest truth expressely taught in the Holy Scripture as congruous to the glory of God and the Lord Jesus 1 Cor. 1. 26 27. 28 29. Not many wise men c. Ergo not the whole Nation Revel 5. 9. out of every Nation Ergo not the whole Nation as he did the Jewes in the Wilderness The relations in the Gospel and Acts of the Apostles plainly prove it true that by John Baptist Christ the 12. and 70. Disciples was no entire Nation City Countrey or Tribe gathered into the visible Church-christian but parts of them and those fewer then the adversaries who in every place were so numerous when the Christians are counted at some few thousands as that even at Jerusalem and elsewhere they prevailed to disperse Christians by persecution Nor do Mr. Bs. questions prove that into the Christian visible Church any one whole Countrey City or
the book of Gods judgements on Sabbath-breakers he is jealous lest it be from no good will to the doctrine of the morality of the Christian Sabbath as being against the scope of the book though the occasion shew it was onely to prove the uncertainty of relations that men may not rest on them as proofes of a truth But I perceive as Mr. B. is very prone to have hard thoughts of me so both he and Mr. M. seek advantage to create prejudice against me about this point of the Lords day which makes me more full in my clearing my self in this thing and in other things not so much regarding my own personal esteeme as desirous to prevent that indirect way of wounding the truth through my sides I would have no man adhere to my tenet because it 's mine nor would I have any to reject it because it is mine I know too much evil by my self yet not in the things in which I am accused at least not in that degree in which Mr. B. accuseth me Mr. Bs. telling me in print this manner of crimes not proved but imagined is no whit justified by the rules and examples he brings his ranking me with seducers I defy and know that I shall better be able to prove it against him then he against me SECT XVI The ground of my opposing infant-baptism is confirmed by Mr. B. himself PAge 205. He tells me all the Ministers and schollers that he can meete with that heard my disputes did think I had silly grounds to build my confidence in and though I boast much of my answers by writing he thinks my writings have little to be boasted of Answ. I have some experience of Ministers and Schollers and I sind few fit to judge of controversies and of those few not many willing to search impartially into a point that 's against the streame and likely to expose them to hard measure some that talk much study little nor is it a new thing to find some that wrangle in dispute for such a sense of a Scripture as when they are out of the heat of dispute they themselves expound otherwise The Ministers and Schollers at the dispute such as they were weigh but little with them that know them best My writings are not boasted of by me yet men equal to Mr. B. or any auditors of the dispute have said more of them then I am willing to speak of My imployment in this argument seemes to me to be part of my work God hath allotted me though I am known not to be idle in other work What Mr. B. calls fallacies passing from me will be proved verities My arguments from Mat. 28. 19. Marke 16. 15 16. are to be found in my Exercit. sect 15. Examen part 4. sect 1. to which Mr. Ms. replies are insufficient as I shall shew in my Review In the worship of God it was wont to be accounted a certain rule that Gods worship should be observed according to his appointment and no otherwise And so Protestant Divines argue from 1 Cor. 11. 28. selfe-examiners are appointed to eate Ergo no infants or younglings though young ones ate the Passeover Yea Mr. B himself page 221. If Christ never sent any but Ministers to baptize then no others may do it If there be no example of any but Ministers that have baptized though parenrs did circumcise then no others may do it For the Apostles established the Church according to Gods mind and the Scripture is a sufficient rule page 222. if there be no command or example in Scripture of any but Ministers administring the Lords Supper then no others may do it Page 342. If we have no warrant by word or example in all the New Testament since the solemne institution of baptisme Mat. 28. to admit any member into the Church without baptisme but both percept and example of admitting them by it then we must not admit any without it ordinarily I take his own medium mutatis mutandis and thence inferre If we have no warrant by word or example in all the New Testament since the solemne institution of baptisme Mat. 28. to admit any member into the Church by baptisme but believers by profession but both precept and constant example of admitting them by it then we must not admit any without it ordinarily I use his own words and texts But the Antecedent is evident John 4. 1. Acts 2. 38 41. and 8. 12 13 16 36 38. and 9. 18. and 10. 47 48. and 16. 15 33. and 18. 8. and 19. 3 4 5. Rom. 6. 3. c. the Consequent is undoubted to those that take the word for their rule If Mr. B. will stand to his own argument he must make good my arguing from Mat. 28. 19. Marke 16. 15 16. unlesse he have some such strange shift as Mr. Cotton puts in the mouth of Silvanus who personates himself in his book intitled The grounds and ends of baptisme in the Preface page 3. where he intimates that the urging against childrens baptism this main principle of purity and reformation to wit that no duty of Gods worship nor any ordinance of religion is to be administred in the Church but such as hath just warrant from the word of God is from Satan but from God when it is urged against the Prelatists and Papists so Mr. B. thinks his medium good against Socinians but not though it be the same for the Anabaptists He addes All your confident words shew me not the least ground for your conclusion no more then thus Scripture requireth faith to justification therefore none but believers are justified which is false yet like yours if I know what you would thence deduce Answ. He now I hope knowes what and how I deduce or rather how Mr. B. deduceth my conclusion from Mat. 28. 19. Marke 16. 15 16. not onely in my words but also his own though I had often long before deduced my argument in the places before quoted and elsewhere in my writings of the validity of which deduction I am the more confident because it is in Mr Bs. own words justly brought by me against himself If the Scripture requireth saith of all to justification then it is not false that none but believers are justified Yet infants may be justified by habitual faith or actual by operation in an extraordinary way But the Scripture requires profession of faith afore any be baptized ordinarily As for what may be done extraordinarily elsewhere I have expressed my self and have vindicated my self from the wrong inferences made thence Postscript sect 15. and elsewhere Page 206. The People of Kederminster did not heare from my mouth in the dispute Jam. 1. How little Anabaptists could say in the hardest point of baptisme for I used no such wordes nor any thing I said or omitted to say can infer it and when they have read my answer me thinks they should believe I could say more then I did say then and see the reason why no
Cor. 7. 14. of infants Covenant-holinesse in his sense before Luther and Zuinglius and then askes is this irue I answer I think it is and if he can produce any one me thinks he should have done it in his book If he do he will do more then Mr. Ms. friend better versed as I conceive in Antiquity then Mr. B. hath done though attempting it page 21. of Mr. Ms. Defence of his Sermon Two places he cites one in Tertullian which I have answered in my Apology page 85. The other in Athanasius qu. 114. ad Antiochum as teaching infant-baptisme by vertue of federal holinesse from 1 Cor. 7. 14. But 1. The Author is confessedly spurious by Rivet Critic sac l. 3. c. 6. Scultetus part 2. Medul Patr. l. 1. c. 42. Perkins Preparat to the Demonstr of the probleme The works falsely imposed on Athanasius are these The book of divers questions of the Holy Scripture unto King Antiochus for therein great Athanasius is cited Yet Mr. M. or his friend hath these words ubi supra These wordes then which are safe and sound grounded upon tho same Scripture which I have much insisted on are read in the works of Athanasius where the question is about infants dying requiring a resolution that might clearely set whether they go to be punished or to the Kingdome The answer is seeing the Lord said Suffer little children to come unto-me for of such is the Kingdome of heaven And the Apostle sayes Now your children are holy observe the Gospel-ground the same that I build upon it is manifest that the infants of believers which are baptized do as unspotted and faithfull enter into the Kingdome This assertion is owned by all the reformed Churches But had Mr. M. or his friend recited the words fully then it would have appeared how impertinently the words are alleadged to prove the baptizing of infants by vertue of federal holines from 1 Cor. 7. 14. that none of the Reformed Churches would own the doctrine of that Author being built on no Gospel-ground but Popish opinion of Limbus infantum For the entire words are these Qu. 114. ad Antiochum Whither go dying infants to punishment or the Kingdome and where are the infants of believers dying unbaptized disposed with the believers or unbelievers Answ. The Lord saying Suffer little children to come for of such is the Kindome of heaven and again the Apostle saying But now are your children holy it is manifest that the infants of believers baptized go into the Kingdome as unspotted and believing but the unbaptized and Heathenish neither go into the Kingdome nor into punishment for they have done no sin Which answer plainly determines that infants of believers if baptized enter into the Kingdome but neither the unbaptized infants of believers or Heathens enter into the Kingdome or punishment for they have done no sin Not a word of federal holinesse but the plain Popish doctrine that infants dying unbaptized go to limbus infantum but the baptized into the Kingdome of heaven which is the same with the doctrine father'd on fustin Martyr qu. 56. ad orthod Now this is contrary to what the reformed Churches assert even from 1 Cor. 7. 14. that the children of believers are federally holy afore baptisme and go into the Kingdome though they die unbaptized Nor doth the alleadging 1 Cor. 7. 14. prove that the Author observed the Gospel-ground more truly Antievangelical or Jewish which Mr. M. buildeth on For the holinesse in that Author is meant either of holinesse in possibility in being likely to be baptized because believing parents would likely breed them up in Christianity and they be baptized in which sense Tertull. de anima c. 39. expoundes the Apostle as calling them holy not in act barely by descent from a believer but because designati sanctitatis or as Hierome Epist. 153. ad Paulinum alledging Tertullian de monogamia quod candidati sint fideiet nullis idololatriae sordibus polluantur which Erasmus in his glosse on Hierom renders thus quodvelut ambiunt et exspectant baptismum or else of actual holinesse in being baptized believers being wont to baptize their infants when neare danger of death not by reason of Covenant-holinesse but the giving of grace by baptisme and the necessity of it to save an infant from perishing I am still confident that neither Father nor Interpreter preceding the sixteenth century did interpret 1 Cor. 7. 14. of holinesse of separation to God as visible Church-members by Gods Covenant to them Nor doth Chamier panstras Cathol tom 4. l. 5. cap. 10. bring any though he purposedly sets down the various opinions about the holinesse there meant and sayes omnes complecti conabor examinare sententias Sure I am Augustin tom 7. l. 2. de pecc mer. remis c. 26. saith Ac per hoc illa sanctificatio cujuscunque modi sit quam in filiis fedelium esse dixit Apostolus ad istam de baptismo de peccati origine vel remissione omnino non pertinet nam conjuges infideles in conjugibus fidelibus sanctificari dicit eo ipso loâ—o c. Unto which I think good to adde that whereas Mr. M. in his Defence page 10. 58. brings in the Pelagians acknowledging that infants were baptized secundum sententiam Evangelii which he imagines to be the Gospel-ground as he calls it of federal holinesse from the Covenant to the believer and his seed in Aug. tom 7. l. 2. contra Pelag. Coelest c. 5. That he hadadded the next words quia Dominus statuit regnum Coelorum non nisi baptizatis posse conferri it would have appeared that the Gospel he meant was John 3. 5. which with Rom. 5. 12. was elleadged in those dayes as a reason of the Churches tradition of infant-baptisme and no other reason can I finde for infant-baptisme nor in any the exposition of 1 Cor. 7. 14. in Mr. Ms. or Mr. Bs. sense till Zwinglius his dayes The eighteenth absurdity is that I said the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is taken many hundred times for authority and askes is that true To which I answer This was spoken in the dispute when I had not time or means to collect the number of times wherein 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used for authority in Scripture and therefore spake at adventure and if I did Hyperbolize it might be neitheir absurdity nor untruth so to speak as is frequent in speakers writers without imputation of falshood Nevertheless I find it used above an hundred times in the New Testament in Matthew 10. and 6. of them it is traslated authority and in most places where it is translated power it might be translated authority and if it be used for liberty in any of these places yet it is no where used for a veile but one 1. Cor. 11. 10. and I doubt not but it is used for authority or power or liberty many hundreds of times in the Lxx Greek of the old