Donative Instrument of God which saith He that believeth shall be justified may effect my Justification when I believe and not before though my faith effect it not at all but dispose the recipient But I deny that the Parents faith being put all the capacity of the recipient is put even when he is born For if it be possible for the Parent to consent for himself and not for his child and to devote himself and not his child to God part of the condition of reception is wanting As far as I perceive could I but hope to be so happy a disputant as to convince Mr. T. that Church-membership visible is any benefit at all it self or was to the Israelites he would grant me all that I plead for of the conveyance of it by Covenant And if I cannot it is a hard case SECT LXXXVI R. B. THe second Commandment Exod. 20.5 6. Deut. 5.9 10. I think is a law and containeth a promise or premiant part wherein he promiseth to shew mercy to the generations or children of them that love him and keep his Commandments of which I have also spoken elsewhere to which I refer you I see no reason to doubt but here is a standing promise and discovery of Gods resolution concerning the children of all that love him whether Jews or Gentiles to whom this Commandment belongs nor to doubt whether this mercy imply Church-membership And that this is fetcht from the very gracious nature of God I find in his proclaiming his Name to Moses Exod. 34.6 7. Mr. T. If this mercy here imply Church-membership to the Infants of them that love him to a thousand Generations then it implieth it to all the Infants in the world But there is nothing to prove that this mercy must be Church-membership or that it must be to all the children of them that love God or that it must be to them in Infancy I incline to conceive this a promise of temporal mercies chiefly to the Israelites Reply 1. That it is not only of temporal mercies the words Love and Hate as the qualification of the Parents seem to prove and the joyning the children to the Parents in the retribution And all the terms seem above such a sense It is the revenge of a jealous God on Idolaters and mercy to his Lovers that is spoken of And the joyning this Command to the first which setleth our relation to God with the Laws annexed in Deut. for the cutting off whole Cities Parents and Children that turn from God to Idols sheweth that it reached to Church-Communion and Life 2. And that it was not only to the Israelites whatever you chiefly mean is proved both in that it is in the Decalogue and the proclaimed name of God Exod. 34.5 6. and exemplified throughout the Scripture and in the Gospel 2. As to the extent we can hardly expect that the world should endure a thousand Generations Therefore it can mean but that God who boundeth the punishment to the third and fourth generation will set no bounds to the succession of his mercies while our capacity continueth And whatever the mercies be the exposition of this continuance concerneth you as much as me 3. As to the conditions I doubt not but it supposeth that the child at age imitate the Parents in their Love or Hatred duty or sin And that if on Repentance the Parent be forgiven his sin may not be visited to the third and fourth And if a child of Godly Parents turn wicked the right is intercepted 4. But the Commandment with the foresaid exposition shews that God meaneth that his Retribuâ—ion to Parents that Love or Hate him shall extend to their children as such unless they interrupt it at age by their own acts And if to their children qua tales then to Infants And it speaketh such a state of mercy as cannot in reason be conceived to belong to them without and can mean no less than Gods visible favour by which the Church is differenced from the world when Lovers and Haters are distinguished sides And when God hath Recorded this decreed granted distinguished mercy to the children of the faithful as such in the Tables of stone sure it is a visible notification which will make them visible favorites and Church-members as soon as they visibly exist And the quatenus seemeth to me to prove that it extendeth to all the children of the faithful because it is to them as such But it followeth not that it must extend to them all alike as to equal mercies nor yet that the sin of Parents after may make no kind of forfeiture But of this I have said more in my Christian Directory SECT LXXXVII to XCIV R. B. IN Psal 102.28 It is a general promise the children of thy servants shall continue and their seed shall be established before thee It is usual in the Old Testament to express Gods favour by temporal blessings more than in the Gospel but yet still they secure us of his favour As I will not fail thee nor forsake thee might secure Joshua more than us of temporal successes and yet not more of Gods never failing favour There is a stable promise to all Gods people in general that have children Psal 103.17 But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him and his righteousness unto childrens children And to be secured by promise of Gods mercy and righteousness is the state of none without the Church And if they were all to be kept out of the Church I scarce think that Children would be called an heritage of the Lord and the fruit of the womb his reward Psal 127.3 nor the man happy that hath his quiver full of them Nor would the sucking children be called as part of the solemn assembly to the humiliation Joel 2.16 2 Chron. 20.13 There is a standing promise to all the just Prov. 20.7 The just man walketh in his integrity his children are blessed after him There is no sort of men without the Church that is pronounced blessed in Scripture A blessed people are Gods people and those are the Church separated from the cursed world One lower blessing will not denominate a man or society a blessed man or society If it were a good argument then Deut. 4.37 because he loved thy fathers therefore he chose their seed after them then it is good still as to favour in general So Deut. 10.15 Psal 69.36 Prov. 11.21 The seed of the righteous shall be delivered In Psal 37.26 there is a general promise to or declaration of the righteous that his seed is blessed and then they are Church-members In Isa 61.8 9. it is promised I think of Gospel times I will make an everlasting Covenant with them and their seed shall be known among the Gentiles and their off-spring among the people all that see them shall acknowledge them that they are the seed which the Lord hath blessed And cap. 62.12 They shall call them the
old Church without professing faith in the Articles necessary to salvation repentance and obedience And wherein the supposed new call and frame doth in this differ from the old save only that a more full and express revelation of Christ requireth a more full express faith Mr. T. I know not what profession each Jew did make or was to make Reply I would you had been as cautelous and modest throughout It is evident that they were to profess consent to Gods Covenant which those that denied Asa would put to death SECT CVI. R. B. YOu may see the words near the end of your Letter that occasion the seven last Questions and towards the middle that occasioneth the first As for your motion of my fully describing the priviledges of Church-members I shall add no more at this time to what is already elsewhere said of it Reply Here Mr. T. chides me for wronging him by length and being afraid the Reader will do so too I make haste SECT CVII CVIII R. B. ANd now I have gone thus far with you in an enquiry into the truth I entreat you be not too much offended with me if I conclude with a few applicatory questions to your self Quest 1. Is it not an undertaking as palpably absurd as most ever any learned sober Divine in the world was guilty of to maintain that Infants were visible Church-members not by any promise or precept but by a transeunt fact and that there was no law or ordinance determining it should be so but only a fact of God which is a transeunt thing not repealable But either by this fact you mean Legislation and Covenant-making or not if you do what a saying is it that Infants were made Church-members not by Covenant but by a Covenant-making not by a Law but by a Law-making If not either you must say that God makes duty without any law and gives right to the benefit without any promise or Covenant-grant as the cause or else that it is no benefit to have right to Church-membership and no duty to enter into that relation and to accept of that benefit and to be devoted to God Which ever of these ways you chuse and one you must chuse or change your opinion hath the world heard of any more unreasonable and ridiculous or else more unbeseeming a Divine from a learned sober man of that profession Pardon the high charge Let the indifferent judge Reply To this I find no answer worth the reciting SECT CIX R. B. Quest 2. IS it not a great disgrace to all your followers that they will be led so far into such ways of Schism and be so confident that they are righter and wiser than others and that by such unreasonable arguings and shifts as these which one would think any man should laugh at that knows what a Law Promise or Covenant is And do you not prove that it is not because of the evidence of truth but by your meer interest or confident words these people are changed and held to your opinion Do they know what a transeunt fact is that without Law or Covenant makes Church-members I say do they know this which no man that ever breathed till now nor ever man will know again And do you not proclaim them men of distempered consciences that dare go on in such a Schism on the encouragement of such fancies as were hatcht so long after their perversion and never waking man I think did before so solemnly maintain Reply I have nothing to say here but Mr. T. seems very angry at this SECT CX R. B. Quest 3. IS it not a desperate undertaking and dare you adventure on it to justifie all the world before Christs incarnation except the Jews from the guilt of not dedicating their children to God to take him to be their God and themselves to be his people Yea to justifie all Jews against this charge that should neglect or refuse to engage their children to God in Covenant as members of his Church And doth not he that saith there is no law say there is no transgression Mr. T. He doth Let him tremble at his desperate undertaking to uphold his Lie of Infant Church-membership and Baptism by such Lies as these and fear the ate of Liers Reply Charge not your self and I will not I propose it to your consideration whether the persons that solemnly take God for their God according to Gods Covenant and are by his visible word of Covenant taken by God for his people be not visible members of the Church universal And whether he that saith There is no Law of God binding to do thus for his children do not infer that they sin not by not doing it SECT CXI R. B. Quest 4. DAre you yet justifie also at the Bar of God all the world since Christs incarnation from the guilt of sin in not dedicating their children to Christ and entring them into his Covenant as members of his Church Dare you maintain that all the world is sinless in this respect Mr. T. I dare justifie the Non-baptizing them Reply Here you make a modest stop It seemeth you dare not justifie men for not solemnly dedicating them in Covenant to God and visibly engaging them to Christ as members visible of his Church SECT CXII R. B. Quest 5. HAve you well considered of the fruit of your ways apparent in England and Ireland at this day Or have you not seen enough to make you suspect and fear whether indeed God own your way or not And is it any wonder if posterity be left in controversie about the History of former times when you can venture even in these times when the persons are living in our company to tell me that you think I am mis-informed that they are Anabaptists and you think that there are very few of them that were ever baptized when of many that we know and multitudes that we hear of there are so few that were not before against Infant Baptism and the Seekers first such and when the Quakers themselves commonly cry down Infant Baptism and it is one of the questions that they send to me and others to answer how we can prove it by express Scripture without consequences or else confess our selves false Prophets Reply The answer to this I leave to the Readers judgement SECT CXIII R. B. Quest 6. HAve you felt the guilt which we too strongly fear you have incurred of the perverting of so many souls opening them such a gap to schism contempt of the Ministry and Apostasie destroying a hopeful reformation that cost so dear or weakning our hands in the work and filling the adversaries mouths with scorn enticing the Jesuites and Friars to seem your proselytes and list themselves among you as the hopeful party to befriend their cause hardning thousands both of the Papists and profane and setling them again on their dregs when many once began to shake O what a Church might we have had and were likely to have
More PROOFS OF INFANTS Church-membership AND Consequently their Right to BAPTISM Or a SECOND DEFENCE of our Infant Rights and Mercies In Three Parts The First is The plain Proof of Gods Statute or Covenant for Infants Church-membership from the Creation and the Continuance of it till the Institution of Baptism with the Defence of that Proof against the Frivolous Exceptions of Mr. Tombes And a Confutation of Mr. Tombes his Arguments against Infants Church-membership The Second is A Confutation of the Strange Forgeries of Mr. H. Danvers against the Antiquity of Infant-baptism And of his many Calumnies against my Self and Writings With a Catalogue of fifty six New Commandments and Doctrines which He and the Sectaries who joyn with Him in those Calumnies seem to own The Third Part is Animadversions on Mr. Danvers's Reply to Mr. Willes Extorted by their unquiet Importunity from an earnest Desirer of the Love and Peace of all True Christians By Richard Baxter London Printed for N. Simmons at the Princes Arms and J. Robinson at the Golden-Lyon in St. Paul's Church-yard 1675. The PREFACE Reader THe first year of my Ministry I fell into a doubt about Infant-Baptism and I was so ignorant as not to understand the nature of that solemn Covenant and Investiture and the Parents duty of entring the Child into the Covenant with God and what the Vow was which then was made when time and light had satisfied me I retained as charitable thoughts of the Anabaptists as of almost any that I differed from About 1646 1647 1648. they made more stir among us than before Mr. Tombes living near me we continued in peace not talking of our difference For I purposely avoided it in publick and private unless any asked my opinion At last his Converts came to me and told me that if I would not answer him in writing they must take it as an encouragement to them to be Baptized and confessed that he sent them or that they came by his consent To avoid long writings one dayes dispute was thought a shorter way That dispute with many additions I was necessitated to publish with some returns to some after arguings of Mr. T.'s He wrote what he thought meet on the other side I thought I had done with that work for ever But in 1655 he sent to me again and drew from me the Letters here recited These without my consent he published with an answer in the midst of a great Book I left his answer these nineteen years or thereabouts without any Reply as also the rest of his books against me I thought it not lawful for me to waste my precious time on things so little necessary A man may find words at length to say for almost any cause I partly know what can be said against this and every book that I have written And I know what I can Reply And I partly foreknow what they can say to that Reply and what I can further say in the defence of it and so talk on till we have wrangled away our Charity and our Time and must all this be printed to ensnare poor readers But at last Mr. Danvers hath laid a necessity upon me I had silently past over all his vain Reasonings and all his accusations of my writings and all his falsifications of Authors had he not called me so loud to repent of slandering some for being Baptized naked And when I found it my duty to speak to that I thought it fit to say somewhat of the rest passing by what Mr. Wills hath done more fully in an answer to his book There are two sorts of men called Anabaptists among us The one sort are sober Godly Christians who when they are rebaptized to satisfie their Consciences live among us in Christian Love and peace and I shall be ashamed if I Love not them as heartily and own them not as peaceably as any of them shall do either me or better men than I that differ from them The other sort hold it unlawful to hold Communion with such as are not of their mind and way and are schismatically troublesome and unquiet in labouring to increase their Party These are they that offend me and other lovers of peace And if God would perswade them but seriously to think of these obvious questions it might somewhat stop them Qu. 1. How inconsiderable a part of the universal Church they hold communion with And unchurch almost all the Churches on Earth Qu. 2. Whether they can possibly hope that ever the Church on Earth will Unite upon their terms of rejecting all their Infants from the visible Church and renouncing all our Infant Rights and Benefits conferred by the Baptismal Covenant of grace Qu. 3. And whether if they continue to the worlds end to separate from almost all the Churches and unchurch them their employment will not be still to serve the great enemy of Love and Concord against the Lord of Love and Peace and against the prosperity of faith and godliness and against the welfare of the Church and souls and to the scandal and hardening of the ungodly THE CONTENTS OF THE FIRST PART THE Preface pag. 1 Mr. Tombes's first Letter p. 5 B.'s Answer to it Ibid. Mr. T.'s second Letter p. 8 B.'s Answer to it p. 9 Mr. T.'s third Letter p. 10 B.'s Answer is divided by Mr. T. into Sections His Answers are confuted Sect. 1 2 3 4. The many Questions to be handled Quest 1. Infants were once Church-members p. 13 Sect. 5. Quest 2. It was not only the Infants of the Congregation of Israel that were Church-members p. 18 How far the Sichemites were of Israel and Church-members p. 21 Sect. 6 7 8 9 10. Of other Nations Ibid. Sect. 11. The Israelites Infants were members of the Church Vniversal p. 26. Sect. 12 to the 18. Infants were members of the Jews Church as well as Commonwealth p. 28. Sect. 18. Quest 4. There was a Law or Precept of God obliging Parents to enter their Children into Covenant with God by accepting his favour and engaging and devoting them to God and there was a promise of God offering them his mercy and accepting them when devoted as aforesaid c. p. 31 Sect. 19 c. Visible Church-membership what it is And that it is a benefit p. 32 Sect. 22. Legal-right to Infants Church-state given by Gods Covenant Mr. T.'s confuted and the case opened p. 35 Sect. 23 24. This Right is the effect of Gods Law or Covenant p. 44 46 Sect. 25 26. The proof of Parents obligation to enter their Children into Covenant what we mean by a Law Mr. T. maketh nothing of Church-membership p. 46 50 Sect. 27. Precepts oblige to duty and the promises give right to benefits p. 54 Sect. 28. No Transeunt fact without Gods statute or moral donation or covenant made the Israelites Infants Church-members proved to Sect. 44. p. 56 Sect. 44 45. Infants Church-membership instituted by God at mans creation and the constitution of Gods
to collect the Printers Errata though I see divers and therefore must leave the discerning of them to your selves And I again admonish and intreat you that the detection of the extraordinary falshoods and blind temerarious audacity of Mr. D. be not imputed to the whole Rebaptizing party to whose Practice Gregor Magn. paralleleth Reordaining and that his crimes abate not your Christian Love and tenderness to others there being truly Godly wise and peaceable persons worthy of our Communion and willing of it of that party as well as of others Hearken not to them that would render the Party of Anabaptists odious or intolerable no more than to those Anabaptists who would perswade those of their opinion to renounce Communion with all others as unbaptized It is against this dividing spirit on all sides that I Write and Preach PART I. My private Letters to Mr. Tombes proving the Church-membership of Infants in all ages vindicated from his unsatisfactory exceptions The PREFACE § 1. THE occasion and time of these Letters is long ago published by Mr. Tombes himself in the third Part of his Anti-Paedobaptism page 353. and forward where he printeth the said Letters without my consent Had I found his Answers satisfactory I had changed my judgement and retracted that and other such writings long ago But I thought so much otherwise of them that I judged it not necessary nor worth my diverting from better employment to write an answer to them § 2. And whatever the singular judgement of that learned and excellent Professor of Theology mentioned in his Preface was or is concerning the arguments that I and many before and since have used for Infant Baptism and notwithstanding his opinion that it was introduced in the second Century c. yet so many wiser and better men than I think otherwise both of the cause and of Mr. T 's writings that I hope the modest will allow me the honour of having very good company if I should prove mistaken § 3. No sober Christian will deny but that Godly men of both opinions may be saved And then I think no such Christian that is acquainted with the History of the Church can choose but think that there are now in Heaven many thousands if not hundred thousands that were not against Infant Baptism for one that was against it And while we differ de jure yet without great ignorance of the state of the world we must needs agree that de facto the number in the Church of Christ in all Nations and Ages that have been against Infant Baptism hath been so small as that they make up but a very little part of the Church triumphant which though I take for no proof of the truth of our opinion yet I judge it a great reason to make me and others very fearful of turning rashly and without cogent proof to the other side I know the Churches have still had their blemishes but that they should all universally so err in the subject of Baptism and Christianity it self is not to be believed till it be proved § 4. Though Christ be not the Author of any of our errors he is the healer of them and he is the Effector as well as the Director of his Churches faith and holiness And yet to say that though thousands or hundred thousands are in Heaven that were for Infant Baptism for one that was against it yet Christ was against even such a constitutive part of his Church as accounted is not to be received without good proof § 5. For my part I must still say that after all that I have read for the Anabaptists and much more than such Catalogues as Mr. Danvers I do not at present remember that I have read of any one Christian that held the baptizing of Infants unlawful in many and many hundred years after Christ at least not any that denied not Original sin Though indeed the Pelagians themselves that did deny it much yet denied not Infant Baptism § 6. But of this enough heretofore I lay not my faith on the number of Consenters but in a doubtful case I think the way that almost all went that are in Heaven and took it as the very entrance of the door of life is safer caeteris paribus than that which few in Heaven did own And though on earth I have more approvers than Mr. T. I think mans approbation so poor a comfort as that I am sorry to read in his Preface and elsewhere how much he layeth upon it Alas were it not more for the good of others than our selves how inconsiderable a matter were it whether men value and honour or despise us and what we are thought or said of by each other when we are all on the borders of eternity where the honour of this world is of no signification § 7. In the answer which I must give to Mr. Tombes should I transcribe all his words and answer every impertinent passage I should needlesly weary the Reader and my self I will therefore suppose the Reader to have his Book at hand and to take his words as he hath given him them that I may not be blamed as concealing any of them And I shall answer to nothing but what seemeth to me to need an answer And for all the rest I am content that the impartial Reader judge of them as he findeth them For I write not for such as need an answer to every word that is written how frivolous soever against plain truth Mr. Tombes his first Letter SIR NOt finding yet that Law or Ordinance of Infants visible Church-membership which you assert in your book of Baptism to be unrepealed I do request you to set down the particular Text or Texts of Holy Scripture where you conceive that Law or Ordinance is written and to transmit it to me by this bearer that your allegations may be considered by him who is April 3. 1655. Yours as is meet John Tombes Richard Baxters Answer Sir I mean to see more said against what I have already written before I will write any more about Infant Baptism without a more pressing call than I yet discern I have discharged my Conscience and shall leave you and yours to take your course And indeed I do not understand the sense of your Letter because you so joyn two questions in one that I know not which of the two it is that you would have me answer to Whether there were any Ordinances or Law of God that Infants should be Church-members is one question Whether this be repealed is another you joyn both into one For the first that Infants were Church-members as you have not yet denied that I know of so will I not be so uncharitable as to imagine that you are now about it And much less that you should have the least doubt whether it were by Gods Ordination There are two things considerable in the matter First the benefit of Church-membership with all the consequent priviledges It is the
B. THE second proposition to be proved is 〈…〉 Israelites children were 〈◊〉 of â—he uâ—â—versal visible Church of Christ as well â—s â—â— the Congregation of Israel But this you did heretofore acknowledge and therefore I suppose will not now deny I suppose it past controversie between us 1. That Christ had then a Church on earth As Abraham saw Christs day and rejoyced and Moses suffered the reproach of Christ Heb. 11.26 and the Prophets enquired of the salvation by Christ and searched diligently and prophesied of the grace to come and it was the spirit of Christ which was in those Prophets signifying the time and testifying beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow 1 Pet. 1.10 11. So were they part of the Church of Christ and members of the body of Christ and given for the edification of that body Though it was revealed to them that the higher priviledges of the Church after the coming of Christ were not for them but for us 1 Pet. 1.12.2 I suppose it agreed on also between us that there was no true Church or Ecclesiastical worshipping society appointed by God in all the world since the fall but the Church of Christ and therefore either Infants were members of Christs Church or of no Church of Gods institution Moses Church and Christs Church according to Gods institution were not two but one Church For Moses was ChristsVsher and his ceremonies were an obscurer Gospel to lead men to Christ And though the foolish Jews by mis-understanding them made a separation and made Moses Disciples to be separate from Christs Disciples and so set up the alone shadows of things to come yet the body is all of Christ Col. 2.17 and by so doing they violated Gods institution and unchurcht themselves 3. I suppose it agreed also that Christs Church is but one and that even those of all ages that are not at once visible yet make up one body 4. And that therefore whoever is a member of any particular Church is a member of the universal Though the Church was more eminently called Catholick when the wall of separation was taken down But I remember I have proved this in my Book part 1. chap. 20. and therefore shall say no more now Mr. T 's Answer The two first are granted To the third Though whoever is a member of any particular Church is a member of the universal yet it follows not which Mr. B. drives at and vainly talks of his proving that every one who was a member of the universal Church in that he was a member of the Jewish Church particular was a visible member of every particular visible Church of Christ 2. Nor that every one that was a member of the universal Church in that he was a member of a visible particular Church of Christ was a visible member of the Jewish particular Church c. Reply 1. None of this ever came into my thoughts which he untruly saith I drive at c. What sober man could imagine either of these assertions What pittiful abuse of ignorant Readers is this 2. And what a poor put off to the point in hand That which I said is but that all particular visible Churches and members make up one visible universal Church and therefore every visible member of any particular Church is a member of the universal He durst not deny this and yet a slander serveth his turn SECT XII R. B. COncerning the matter of the third question I assert that it was not only of the Jews Common-wealth that Infants werâ— members but of the Church distinct from it This is proved sufficiently in what is said before Mr. T 's Answer As yet I find it not prove that the Jewish Church was distinct from the Common-wealth or that there was not any member of the Church who was not of thâ— Common-wealth Reply 1. It is only a formal and not a material distinction that I medled with The formal reason of a Church-member and a Civil-member differ at least after the choice of Kings when the Republick was constituted by a humane head Of which I refer the Reader to Mr. Galuspie's Aarons Rod If the Jews Common-wealth be specified as a Theocracy from God the Soveraign the Sichemites were of it and other nations might 2. But many say that some were of the Common-wealth that were not of the Church though not contrarily And be they distinct or not it sufficeth me that Infants were of the Church SECT XIII XIV XV XVI R. B. MOreover 1. Infants were Church-members in Abrahams family before Circumcision and after when it was no Common-wealth So they were in Isaacs Jacobs c. 2. The banished captivated scattered Jews that ceased to be members of their Common-wealth yet ceased not to be of their Church 3. The people of the Land that became Jews in Hesters time joyned not themselves to their Common-wealth Nor the Sichemites 4. Many Proselytes never joyned themselves to their Common-wealth Mr. T. affirmeth them all to have been Common-wealths Answer The word being ambiguous may in a large sense be extended to a family and to a scattered people that have no Soveraign but is not so usually taken SECT XVII R. B. THE Children of Abraham by Keturah when they were removed from his family were not unchurched and yet were no members of the Jews Common-wealth But I shall take up with what is said for this already undertaking more largely to manifest it when I perceive it necessary and useful Mr. T 's Answer Abrahams children by Keturah when out of the Common-wealth of the Hebrews were unchurched at least in respect of the Church of the Hebrews Reply 1. What a wide gap doth that at least make you yet to say They were a Church or no Church as you please 2. Reader use Scripture but impartially and in the fear of God and I will leave it to thy Conscience to judge whether it be credible that when God had foretold that Abraham would command his children and houshold after him to keep the way of the Lord Gen. 18.19 and when Ishmael Keturahs children and Esau were circumcised by Gods command and God had yet promised the Political peculiarities specially to Isaac and Jacob yet God would have all the grandchildren of Ishmael Keturah Esau to be uncircumcised and all their posterity to cease that usage as soon as they were out of Abrahams house when yet History assureth us that they long continued it Or whether God would have them circumcised and yet be no Church-members Believe as evidence constraineth thee SECT XVIII R. B. TO the fourth question I assert that 1. There was a Law or Precept of God obliging the Parents to enter their children into Covenant with God by accepting his favour and re-ingaging and devoting them to God and so entring them solemnly Church-members And 2. there was a Covenant promise or grant of God by which he offered the Church-membership of some Infants and actually conferred it where
his offer was accepted I should have mentioned this first and therefore will begin with the proof of this By these terms Covenant promise grant or deed of gift c. we understand that which is common to all these viz. A sign of Gods will conferring or confirming a right to or in some benefit such as we commonly call a Civil act of Collation as distinct from a mere Physical act of disposal I call it a sign of Gods will de jure because â—hat is the general nature of all his legal moral acts they are all signal determinations de debito â—f some due 2. I say conferring or confirming â—ight to some benefit to difference it from preâ—epts which only determine what shall be due from us to God and from threatnings which determine what punishment shall be due from God to us Mr. T. If we prove by another grant or deed of gift Physical or Moral which is not a promise or by any Law which is not such a precept he contradicts not my speech c. Reply Your words are I do not confess that there was any Law or Ordinance determining that it should be so that Infants should be members of the Jewish Church but only a fact of God which is a transeunt thing and I think it were a foolish undertaking to prove the repeal of a fact Peruse his words Reader SECT XIX XX XXI R. B. HAving thus explained the terms I prove the proposition If Infants Church-membership with the priviledges thereof were a benefit conferred which some had right to or in then was there some grant covenant or promise by which this right was conferred But the antecedent is most certain Ergo so is the consequent I suppose you will not deny that it was a benefit to be the covenanted people of God to have the Lord engaged to be their God and to take them for his people to be brought so near him and to be separated from the common and unclean from the world and from the strangers to the Covenant of promises that live as without God in the world and without hope If it were asked what benefit had the Circumcision I suppose you would say much every way If Infant Church-membership were no benefit then they that had it were not when they came to age or their Parents in the mean time obliged to any thankfulness for it But they were obliged to be thankful for it Ergo it was a benefit Mr. T. Denyeth not the benefit but denyeth that this is to be Visible members formally or connexively for they may have all this benefit who are not visible Church-members viz. some believing Saints that are dumb Reply Mark Reader what an issue our Controversies with these men come to Men may be the covenanted people of God and have the Lord engaged to be their God and to take them for his people and be separated from the common and unclean from the world from strangers to the Covenant c. and yet be no visible Church-members with them Doth a dumb man signifie his consent to the Covenant by any signs or not If he do that is visible covenanting If not how is he one of these covenanting and separated people And do you think that Mr. T. knew not that I talk to him of visible covenanting and separation and not only of a secret unexpressed heart-consent What will make a Church-member then with such men He next saith that To be the circumcision is not all one as to be visible Church-members Cornelius and his house were visible Church-members yet not the circumcision Reply Reader dost thou not marvail to find him so plead for me against himself or speak nothing to the case To be circumcised then or baptized now is not all one as to be visible Church-members But sure all the Circumcised were and all the Baptized are invested in visible membership Is it not so And if Cornelius and more of the uncircumcised also were members you see it was not inseparable from Circumcision And whom is this against me or him He addeth nor were the benefits Rom. 3.1 2. the oracles of God c. conferred to them as visible Church-members For then all visible Church-members had been partakers of them Reply But it was to them as members of the Jewish visible Church And if you plead for the extent of the Church to others also I thank you for it When I say Infant Church-membership was a benefit He saith Visible Church-membership simply notes only a state by which was a benefit Reply Only is an exclusive term Reader by this thou maist perceive the mystery of making Church-members by a transeunt fact without a Law or promise It is no benefit with these men but a state by which was a benefit Either they or I then know not at all what Church-membership is And are not all our Volumes wisely written to trouble the world about that Subject that we are not agreed what it is and about a term which we agree not of the sense of I take a visible Church-member to be a visible member of Christ as Head of the Church and of his Church as visible To be a Member is to be a Part It is therefore as the member of a Family School Kingdom a related part And is it no benefit in it self besides the consequents to be visibly united and related to Christ and his body to be relatively a member of the Houshold of God Sure were it but for the exclusion of the miserie of the contrary state and for the Honour of it such a Relation to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and the Church is some little benefit and great to me And whether he and Major Danvers and such others should make such a vehement stir about it as they do if it be no benefit let it be considered SECT XXII R. B. THE next thing in the antecedent to be proved is that there was a right conferred to this benefit and some had a right in it And 1. If any had the benefit then had they right to or in that benefit But some had the benefit Ergo. The consequence of the major is certain 1. Because the very nature of the benefit consisteth in a right to further benefits 2. If any had the benefit of Church-membership Covenant-interest c. without right then they had it with Gods consent and approbation or without it Not with it For he is just and consenteth not that any have that which he hath not some right to or in Not without it For no man can have a benefit from God against his will or without it 2. If no Infants had duly and rightfully received this benefit God would have somewhere reprehended the usurpation and abuse of his ordinances or benefits But that he doth not as to this case Ergo. 3. God hath expressed this right in many Texts of Scripture of which more afterward Mr. T. The Infants of the Jews were visisible Church-members not
change not his order therein are as capable of consenting to Grace for their Children as they were of being innocent for them SECT XLVI R. B. THe next Institution of Infants Church-membership was at the first proclamation of grace to fallen man or in the first promise of redemption to sinners in Gen. 3.15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed it shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel I will prove that this fundamental Covenant of grace or promise doth declare it to be the will of God that Infants should be Church-members And to this end let us first consider what the words expresly contain and then what light may be fetcht from other Texts to illustrate them It being a known rule that an Expositor must not turn universals into singulars or particulars nor restrain and limit the Scripture generals where the word it self or the nature of the subject doth not limit them I may well conclude that these things following are comprehended in this fundamental promise 1. That the Devil having plaied the enemy to mankind and brought them into this sin and misery God would not leave them remediless nor to that total voluntary subjection to him as he might haâ—e done But in grace or undeserved mercy would engage them in a war against him in which they that conquered should bruise his head 2. That in this war the Lord Jesus Christ the principal seed is promised to be our General whose perfect nature should contain and his perfect life express a perfect enmity against Satan and who should make a perfect conquest over him 3. The Lord Jesus is promised to do this work as the womans seed and so as conceived of her and born by her and so as an Infant first before he comes to ripeness of age So that here an Infant of the woman is promised to be the General of this Army and Head of the Church This is most evident By which God doth sanctifie the humane birth and the Infant state and assure us that he doth not exclude now that age from the redeemed Church which he admitted into the Church by the laws of creation For the first promise is of an Infant born of the woman to be the Head of the Church and growing up to maturity to do the works of a Head Had God excluded the Infant state from the visible Church he would not have made the Head first an Infant Where note 1. That Christ is the great exemplar of his Church and in things which he was capable of he did that first in his own body which he would after do in theirs 2. That the Head is a Member even the principal Member one of the two parts which constitute the whole As the pars imperans and pars subdita do constitute each Common-wealth So that if an Infant must be a member eminently so called then Infants are not excluded from membership but are hereby clearly warranted to be members of a lower nature If an Infant may be Soveraign no doubt he may be a Subject If an Infant may be the chief Prophet of the Church then no doubt but Infants may be Disciples If you still harp on the old string and say They are no Disciples that learn not you may as well say He is no Prophet that teacheth not And if you will openly deny Christ in Infancy to have been the Prophet of the Church I will undertake to prove the falshood and vileness of that opinion as soon as I know you own it The promise then of an Infant Head doth declare Gods mind that he will have Infants members because the head is the principal member Mr. T. The thing to be proved is a Law or Ordinance of God unrepealed Reply The thing I am to do is to shew you when and how God instituted Infants Church state And that he never had a Church on earth that excluded them And particularly to shew you that they are included in the first edition of the Covenant of Grace made to Adam which is perfected in a second edition but not repealed This I think I have done Mr. T. addeth that It will not hold from Christs Headship in Infancy c. 1. It is not declared in Scripture and so a meer phanâ—y 2. Then an Infant in the womb should be a visible member because then Christ was Head of the Church 3. Then an old man should not be a member for Christ was not an old man Reply 1. Irenaeus thought it would hold who giveth this reason of it And I leave the Reader to consider whether the words cited prove it not Sure I am it greatly satisfieth my judgement that God hereby declared his will to include Infants in his Church visibly For the Head is a Member even the noblest Therefore one Infant is confessed by you to be a visible member of the Church And if one it will be incumbent on you to prove the rest uncapable or excluded When I read that Christ came not into the world at the statute that Adam did but chose to be an Infant and to be persecuted in Infancy and to have Infants murdered for his sake first and to invite and use them as he did it is not the rowling over of your wearisom dry denials and confident absurdities that will perswade me that Christ shutteth out all Infants And I am sure that the Instance confuteth your common exceptions against Infants As that they are not Disciples because they learn not which yet they may be in the same sense as Christ was their Master in infancy when he Taught not And that their Infancy did not incapacitate them to be in Covenant with God to be Christians to be Church-members c. Christ shewed in that in Infancy he bore all the Counter-relations and was in the Covenant of God as Mediator and that as far as we can judge only by a virtual and not actual consent in his Infancy and humane nature to the Covenant of mediation Mr. T. saith Then an Infant in the womb may be a Church-member Reply Yes in the same sense as Christ in the womb was the Churches head not by the solemn Investiture of Baptism but by Consent For believing Parents do dedicate their children to God intentionally when they are in the womb But a man would think that you your self should acknowledge that this dedication and so the visibility of membership hath its gradations to perfection Are not your proselytes visible members in one degree when they openly profess Christianity as Constantine did and in a further degree when baptised The interest of your opinion puts frivolous reasons into your mind which a child might see through Mr. T. addeth Then an old man should not be a member Reply Could you think now that you did not cheat your poor Reader if partiality had not shut one of your eyes It will follow from the affirmative that such a state of
their own then as if they had never been baptized they cannot be saved What hurt then as to this doth their Infant interest do them 2. Yea doubtless it is a great help For 1. To be in the way of Gods Ordinance and Benediction is much 2. And knowing you deny that I add to be conscious of an early engagement may do much to awe the minds of Children yea and to cause them to love that Christ which hath received them and that Society to which they belong 3. If Children till Baptized have any thoughts of dying according to you they must have little hopes of mercy And God accounteth not the spirit of bondage best no not for Children They cannot well be educated in the Love of God who must believe that they are damned if they die and that God hath not given them any promise of life 4. Experience of many Moors servants among us and in our Plantations besides ancient history assureth us that delaying Baptism till age tendeth to make people delay repentance and think I am but as I was and if I sin longer all will be pardoned at baptism and I must after live strictlier and therefore as Constantine and many more they will be baptized Christians when there is no remedy 5. And experience assureth us that it were the way to work out Christianity and restore Infidelity in any Nation For had not Christ early possession and were not Nations discipled and baptized Christians were like to be almost as thin as Puritans now and the multitude being Infidels from a cross interest such as divisions cause would be ready on all occasions as they did in Japan and Monicongo to root them out I take this to be a very concerning consideration whether in reason Infant Baptism be like to do more good or harm The not calling men to serious Covenanting at age doth unspeakable harm To have a few good words about Confirmation in the Liturgie and such as Doct. Hammonds writings of it will not save ignorant ungodly souls nor the souls of the Pastors that betray them I have said my thoughts of this long ago in a Treatise of Confirmation But I must profess that it seemeth to me that if Christ had left it to our wills it is much liker to tend to the good of souls and the propagating Christianity and the strength of the Church for to have both the obligation and comfort of our Infant Covenant and Church state and as serious a Covenanting also at age when we pass into the Church state of the Adult than to be without the former and left to the expectation of adult baptism alone SECT LIII to LVIII R. B. THe law of nature bindeth Parents in love to their children to enter them into the most honourable and profitable society if they have but leave so to do But here Parents have leave to enter them into the Church which is the most honourable and profitable society Ergo That they have leave is proved 1. God never forbad any man in the world to do this sincerely the wicked and unbelievers cannot do it sincerely and a not forbidding is to be interpreted as leave in case of such participation of benefits As all laws of men in doubtful cases are to be interpreted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the most favourable sense So hath Christ taught us to interpret his own When they speak of duty to God they must be interpreted in the strictest sense When they speak of benefits to man they must be interpreted in the most favourable sense that they will bear 2. It is the more evident that a not forbidding in such cases is to be taken for leave because God hath put the principle of self-preservation and desiring our own welfare and the welfare of our Children so deeply in humane nature that he can no more lay it by than he can cease to be a reasonable creature And therefore he may lawfully actuate or exercise this natural necessary principle of seeking his own or childrens real happiness where-ever God doth not restrain or prohibit him We need no positive command to seek our own or childrens happiness but what is in the law of nature it self and to use this where God forbiddeth not if good be then to be found cannot be unlawful 3. It is evident from what is said before and elsewhere that it is more than a silent leave of Infants Church-membership that God hath vouchsafed us For in the forementioned fundamental promise explained more fully in after times God signified his will that so it should be It cannot be denied but there is some hope at least given to them in the first promise and that in the general promise to the seed of the woman they are not excluded there be no excluding term Vpon so much encouragement and hope then it is the duty of Parents by the law of nature to enter their Infants into the Covenant and into that society that partake of these hopes and to list them into the Army of Christ 4. It is the duty of Parents by the Law of Nature to accept of any allowed or offered benefit for their children But the relation of a member of Christs Church or Army is an allowed or offered benefit to them Ergo c. For the Major these principles in the law of nature do contain it 1. That the Infant is not sui juris but is at his Parents dispose in all things that are for his good That the Parents have power to oblige their children to any future duty or suffering that is certainly to their own good and so may enter them into Covenants accordingly And so far the will of the Father is as it were the will of the child 2. That it is unnaturally sinful for a Parent to refuse to do such a thing when it is to the great benefit of his own child As if a Prince would offer Honours and Lordships and Immunities to him and his heirs if he will not accept this for his heirs but only for himself it is unnatural Yea if he will not oblige his heirs to some small and reasonable conditions for the enjoying such benefits For the Minor that this relation is an allowed or offered benefit to Infants is manifested already and more shall be And this leads me up to the second point which I propounded to consider of whether by the light or law of nature we can prove that Infants should have the benefit of being Church-members supposing it first known by supernatural revelation that Parents are of that society and how general the promise is and how gracious God is And 1. It is certain to us by nature that Infants are capable of this benefit if God deny it not but will give it them as well as the aged 2. It is certain that they are actually members of all the Common-wealths in the world perfecte sed imperfecta membra being secured from violence by the laws and capable of honours and
had Had it not been for the Separatists and you And what a lamentable confusion are we now brought into by these Have these things toucht your heart Reply Mr. T. here is angry and I wonder not one stone he snatcheth up from Doct. Owens Appendix and one from the Scotch Church and Elders and the Church at Kederminster and the Worcestershire Association which few before him I think have said much against SECT CXIV R. B. Quest 7. IS a transeunt fact making Infants Church-members without Law Promise or Covenant a sufficient medium to encourage you to venture on all these horrid things and run such hazards us you have done Or is it possible that an humble sober man and a tender conscience durst make all this havock and stand out in it so many years considerately as you have done and this upon such a palpably unreasonable pretence When you should prove to us the revocation of Infants Church-membership to tell us that they had it only by a transeunt fact Is this a safe ground to build so great a weight on Sir my conscience witnesseth that it is not your reproach that is the end of speaking these unpleasing words to you but some compassion on you do not scorn it and more on your poor followers and most on the Church of God which you have so much injured and troubled Reply Here Mr. T. is angry again which is the summ SECT CXV R. B. Quest 8. CAn you prove that ever there was one age or Church particular on earth since Adâ—m till about 200 years ago that the Anabaptists rose wherein Infants were not de facto taken for members of the Church If you can do it Let us hear your proof Mr. T. I can and for proof look back to Sect. 50 51. and besides Constantine Augustine Naz. Hierom Reply I can find no such thing there what if the four men you name were baptized at age the special reasons are told you elsewhere Doth that prove that others were not baptized in Infancy Your 52 Sect. I think to examine in the end SECT CXVI R. B. Quest 9. CAn you bring us proof of any one Infant of true Church-members that was not rightfully a Church-member himself from the creation till Christs days or from the creation till this day except the Anabaptists who reject the benefit whose case as I said before I will not presume to determine Mr. T. I can look back to Sect. 50 51 52 57. Reply I have done and I find no such proof SECT CXVII R. B. Quest 10. SEeing that Infants have been de facto Church-members from the creation to this day as far as any records can lead us is it likely that the Lord and head and all-sufficient Governour of his Church would have permitted his Church till now to be actually made up of such subjects as in regard of age be disallowed And suffer his Church to be wrong framed till now Or is it a reasonable modest and lawful undertaking to go about now in the end of the world to make God a new framed Church as to the age of the subjects And is it not more modest and safe to live quietly in a Church of that frame as all the Saints in Heaven lived in till the other day as a few Anabaptists with vile and sinful means and miserable success did attempt an alteration Mr. T. here denieth the suppositions I leave the Reader to judge how truly SECT CXVIII CXIX R. B. SIR pardon the weakness and bear with the plainness and freeness of Your faithful Brother though not as is meet Rich. Baxter May 14. 1655. Sir if you have any thing of moment to say in reply to these which you have not yet in your writings brought forth I shall be willing to consider of it But if you have not I pray you tel me so in two words and spare the rest of your pains as for me and trouble me no more with matters of this nature For truly I have no sufficient vacancy from greater works Yea I am constrained to forbear much greater than these R. B. After this he tells me that whereas I preached a Sermon at Bewdley in which I refuted by many arguments Infants visible Church-membership I must be either mutable or hypocritical if I deny such a Law and Ordinance which I took on me then to refute and desires a Copy of that Sermon that he may shew the sad mistakes and vanity of those my arguments Reply Reader to Mr. T.'s anger at these ten Questions I must say 1. That the dolefulness of the Churches case constrained me in grief of heart to deal plainly with him 2. But it was in a private letter extorted by his importunity and published to the world by himself and not by me who confess that this plainness was too great for me to have used to him publickly But secret admonition disparageth him not to others It hath now been by himself about nineteen years divulged to the world and I did not so much as trouble his patience by a word of answer and little thought ever to do it But Major Danvers his loud invitation hath drawn me to give them this Farewell THE Reader must here take notice that I am not here called to prove Infants Church-membership out of the New Testament but to shew out of the Old that they were visible Church-members before by a Grant or Covenant which Christ hath not repealed The rest out of the New-Testament I have done long ago in my Treatise of Infant Church-membership and Baptism which Mr. T. is so much displeased at And indeed I think that the proofs are plain though many objections may be difficult to be answered especially by those who have not throughly considered the case When I set together Christs own Infant membership and his kind reception of Infants and his chiding those that would have kept them off and his offers of taking in all the Jewish Nation into his Church and that they were broken off by unbelief and consequently the seed of Believers not broken off from the Church universal and that whole housholds are oft said to be baptized and that Paul pronounceth Believers children holy and that Christ expresly Matth. 28. commandeth his Ministers as much as in them lieth to Disciple all Nations baptizing and it 's prophesied that the Kingdoms of the world shall be made the Kingdoms of Christ and there is no Nation or Kingdom on earth that Infants are not members of All this and much more seemeth to me a plain revelation of Gods will that as he never had a Church which excluded Infants so he doth not now exclude them And it is expresly said of the Jews that they were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea 1 Cor. 10.2 where doubtless the Apostle in the name had respect to our being baptized into Christ of which theirs was a typical Baptism And it is not said in vain that they were all baptized
16. It is a foolish pretence of peaceableness and quietness to stand by in silence for fear of our own or others trouble and see well-meaning people seduced Christ and his truth and name abused and God dishonoured and his Churches shaken and made a scorn and scandal to the world and all for fear of being accounted contentious If it be lukewarm as they say themselves to hear dayly swearers cursers scorners and such other prophane sinners and not give them a close reproof or admonition so much more is it to see or hear hurtful falshoods published as the precious truths of God and not to contradict it nor endeavour to save mens souls from the infection If Satans work must be done without resistance as oft as a mistaken well-meaning man will do it there will be little safety for the flocks § 17. When Paul fore-told the Ephesians of two sorts that would assault them viz. Grievous devouring wolves and men arising among themselves that would speak perverse things to draw away disciples after them his conclusion is Therefore watch And what that watching is he tells Timothy The mouths of such deceivers must be stopped not by force for that Timothy had no power to do but by evident truth And Truth hath a power in its evidence if it be but rightly opened and managed And were it not that God in all ages had enabled some of his servants faithfully and clearly to vindicate truth and defend sound doctrine and hold fast the form of wholesome words and stop the mouth of ignorant pride that wrangleth against them what had become of us long agoe And though ill disputes have done much mischief and too often disputing succedeth more according to the Parts interests or advantages of the Disputers than according to the evidence of truth Yet for all such abuses Truth must be defended and it findeth something even in nature as bad as man is to befriend it few love a plain falshood unless where interest greatly bribeth them And upon tryal Truth will at last prevail where sin doth not provoke God in judgement to leave men to the delusions which they chuse § 18. If then the way be to Teach and Learn and quietly open the evidence of truth and in meekness to instruct those that oppose themselves and to avoid contentions as we avoid wars till other mens assâ—ults do make them unavoidably necessary and yet not to be cowardly betrayers of the Truth and Church of God nor suffer Satan to deceive men unresisted but earnestly to contend for the faith once delivered to the Saints It must be considered I. To whom this earnest contending may be used II. And by whom § 19. I. We must not be over sharp or earnest 1. With those that are yet strangers to Religion of whose conversion there is hope and who are liker to be won by a gentler way which more demonstrateth love and tenderness 2 Tim. 2.25 26. § 20. 2. Nor with Godly Christians who fall into such sins of infirmity as we are lyable to and whose tenderness maketh compassionate tender dealing fittest to their recovery Gal. 6.1 2 3. § 21. 3. Nor with humbled dejected Christians who are apter than we to aggravate their own faults and have need of comfort to restrain their sorrows and keep them from despair 2 Cor. 2.7 § 22. 4. Nor with sinners that under conversion and repentance are humbling themselves by confession to God and man Luk. 15. Philem. 10 16 17. § 23. 5. Nor with Christians that differ from us in tolerable matters and manage their differences but with tolerable infirmities not hazarding the safety of the Church or mens souls § 24. But in these cases we must use plainness sharpness and earnestness 1. When in secret where mens honour with others is not concerned it is necessary to mens convictâ—on and repentance 1. Because of the Greatness of the sin or error which will not be known if it be not truly opened and aggravated 2. Or by reason of the hard-heartedness or obstinacy of the sinner that will not be convinced or humbled by easier means § 25. 2. And when we are called so to admonish a publick sinner for his crimes or heresies which must be opened as they are before he will be convinced and humbled openly before the Church § 26. 3. And when the people or Church is in danger of being infected by the sin or error if the evil of it be not fully and plainly opened and the sinner rebuked before all that others may beware § 27. 4. When the offender or heretick sheweth us by his obstinacy that we have no cause to expect his cure and conviction but are only to defend Gods truth and mens souls against him then he must be used as Christ did the Pharisees and as Rulers execute malefactors not for their own good but for the warning of others and preservation of the innocent § 28. 5. And when our gentle speeches tend to scandalize those without and make them think that we prevaricate and favour Christians in their sins § 29. All these cases you may see proved 1. In Nathans dealing with David and Christs with Peter Matth. 16. and Pauls Gal. 2. c. 2. In Pauls dealing with the incestuous man 1 Cor. 5. and Peters with Ananias and his wife 1 Tim. 5.20 Them that sin rebuke before all c. 2 Tim. 4.2 Tit. 1.13 Rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith cuttingly Tit. 2.15 Rebuke with all authority especially when we deal with Inferiors who must be humbled Tit. 3.10 11. Mat. 23. throughout And Eli's gentleness or remisness is our warning § 30. II. And as to the persons who must use this sharpness and earnestness against errors and sinners in contending for the faith 1. It is not those who overvalue their own conceptions and grow fond of all that is peculiarly their own and insolently take all men to be enemies to truth and faith and godliness who are adversaries to their odd opinions 2. Nor must inferiors rise up with insolency against superiors or the young against their elders and the ignorant against the wife on pretence of a zealous standing for the truth Though they may humbly and modestly defend that which is truth indeed 3. Nor should unstudyed Christians presently think hardly of any party and backbite them and inveigh against them because their Leaders call them hereticks or reproach them as erroneous dangerous men as almost all parties do against each other 4. Nor should those Ministers who have not a through insight into a Controversie meddle much with it nor be too forward to reprove and reproach where they do not understand nor to undertake disputes which they cannot manage 5. But as God doth indow men with various gifts if each man were imployed according to his talent all would have their honour and comfort and the Church the benefit of them all § 31. We have notoriously all these sorts of Ministers in the
miserable than Heathens And if you can first believe that the Infants of all Infidels Atheists and ungodly Christians hypocrites have a promise of salvation you will next be inclined to think better of their Parents state than God alloweth you And where is this promise § 6. Some say that the new Covenant giveth grace and life to all that do not ponere obicem But I must have Gods Covenant in his own terms that I may have it in his own sense if I will be assured of the benefits Non ponere obicem signifieth plainly no Action or positive qualification as necessary but only a negation of some contrary action And it is certain that the terms of Gods Covenant to the adult are clean contrary It is not he that neither Believeth nor opposeth faith shall be saved or he that doth neither good nor harm as a man in an apoplexy or asleep But he that believeth shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned And except ye repent ye shall all perish And without holiness none shall see God But a meer negation is no holiness § 7. And if any will feign another Covenant for Infants let him shew what and where it is for I know but one Covenant of grace which taketh in the Infants with the Authorized Parents whose members or Own God taketh them to be and requireth a positive believing consent and dedication to God as the positive condition which is more than a Negative non ponere obicem though performed by the Parent for the child And so the promises throughout the Scripture run to the faithful and their seed § 8. I know that God promiseth to bless children through many generations for their faithful Ancestors sake But that is on supposition that fidelity continue in the line and that apostasie make no intercision Else all should be blessed for the sake of Noe even Cham's posterity as well as Shem's § 9. What then is the thing made necessary and sufficient by the Covenant to their salvation but that they be the seed of the faithful devoted by them to God that is that their Parents natural or at least civil whose Own they are and have the power of disposing of them for their good do enter them by consent into the Covenant with Christ which it is supposed that Faithful Parents virtually did before and will actually do when God doth call them to it § 10. As to them that say the thing further necessary as the condition of the Infants acceptance and salvation is A promise to educate the Child as a Christian if he live I answer 1. That promise indeed is included in his dedication and consent 2. But who but the Owners of the child are capable of making such a promise unless as seconds promising that the Owners shall do their duty For only he that owneth him can educate him by himself or others or dispose of him for his education who hath power to dispose of another mans child and educate him They that undertake as sureties to do it in case the Parents apostatize or die do plainly imply 1. That till then it is the Parent that is intrusted to do it and therefore that the Parent must consent to do it and therefore that the Parent must enter his child in the Covenant of Christ 2. And that if the Parents apostatize or die they will take the child themselves as their Own or else by what power can they educate him or dispose of him § 11. They that say God did not save one for the faith or consent of another must remember 1. That we are all saved for the meritorious Righteousness of Christ by the way of a free gift whose condition is but suitable acceptance And why may not a Parent accept a donation for his Child who hath no will to accept it for himself Shall he be certainly shut out unto damnation Or shall he have that gift absolutely which is conditional to all others Or is he not concerned in the donation at all 2. And remember that we have guilt and misery from our Parents and therefore though life and pardon be by Christ only yet it is congruous that the meer condition of acceptance may be performed by the Parents § 12. Perhaps some will lay all the right of Infants to the pardon of sin and salvation upon secret election only as if all that we knew of Infants Salvation were that God will save some whom he hath elected but that there is no Promise of grace and salvation to any particular Infant in the world as under any condition or qualification And if this be so then 1. No Infant hath any Right to pardon grace and salvation given him by the Covenant of Grace No more than any elect person at age hath before faith and regeneration Election gave Paul nor any wicked man no right to pardon or salvation Else elect Pagans and Infidels are justified if they have jus ad impunitatem Regnum Coelorum 2. And if this be so we have no assurance that God will save ten or three Infants in all the world For he hath not told us whether he hath elected so many 3. And yet we cannot be sure but that they may all or almost all be saved while the number of the elect is unrevealed 4. Nor can we know that any more of the Children of the Faithful are saved than of the Heathens or Infidels of those that love God and keep his Commandments than of those that hate him 5. And in a word we have then no proper hope upon Covenant right that God will save any one individual Infant in the world For we can hope in this proper sense of nothing but what we do believe and we can believe nothing but what is promised or revealed And so Parents must be thus far hopeless § 13. God who made man after his Image teacheth him to govern according to those principles which are his Image And all the Kingdoms in this world take Infants for Infant-members and the Laws give them Right to Honours and Inheritances the possession and use whereof they may have in the time and degrees that nature doth capacitate them And can we then think that God who made a Conditional Gift of Pardon and Salvation to all the adult persons in the world did wholly leave out Infants and that his Covenant giveth them no rights at all no not to be members of his visible Church § 14. It seemeth to me a matter of doubtful consequence to assert that God will save more yea so great numbers as we will hope are saved in Infancie than ever he promised to save and gave any antecedent Right to Salvation to I doubt we shall open such a gap to the hopes of presumptuous Heathens and Infidels this way as will cross our common doctrine If God may save whole Kingdoms and millions of Heathens Infants to whom he never gave Right to Salvation by any gift or promise
not receive them though we approve not of their way § 30. And were it in my power as a Pastor of the Church I would give satisfaction by such an answerable profession as this Though it be our judgement that Infants have ever been members of Gods visible Church since he had a Church and there were Infants in the world and do believe that Christ hath signified in the Gospel that it is his gracious will that they should still be so And that he that commanded Mat. 28.19 Go ye and Disciple all Nations Baptizing them would have his Ministers endeavour accordingly to do it and hath hereby made Baptism the regular orderly way of solemn entrance into a visible Church state and therefore we devote this child to God in the Baptismal Covenant Yet we do also hold that when he cometh to age it will be his duty as seriously and devoutly to make this Covenant with God understandingly himself and to dedicate himself to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as those must do that never were Baptized in Infancie And we promise to endeavour faithfully as we have opportunity to instruct and perswade him so to do hoping that this his early Baptismal dedication and obligation to God will rather much prepare him for it than hinder it § 31. Me thinks these Professions should put off the chief matter of offence and exception against each other as to the ill consequents of our opinions And if sober good men would by such a mutual approach be the more disposed to live together in love and holy peace how easily should I bear the scorns of those Formalists that will reproach me for so much as motioning a Peace with the Anabaptists even in the same Communion Who by making it a reproach will but perswade me that such as they are less worthy of Christian Communion than sober pious and peaceable Anabaptists § 32. And if with the partial sort of themselves such motions of Peace be turned into matter of contempt and they proceed in their clamours and reviling of me as an enemy of the truth for being against their way I shall account it no wonder nor matter of much provocation finding in all Sects as well as theirs that the injudicious sort are apt to be abusively censorious and the more mens Pride Ignorance and uncharitableness remain the more they will swell into self-conceit and trouble the Church with a mistaking wrangling hurtful sort of zeal § 33. And as I must needs believe as ill of some sort of Zeal as St. James hath spoken of it Jam. 3. and experience hath too long told the world of it yet I take it for truly amiable in men that they have a love and Zeal for Truth in general and a hatred to that which they think to be against it and that their bitterness against the truth and me is upon a supposition that both are against the truth and God for this beareth them witness that they have a zeal of God though it be not according to Knowledge and if they knew truth indeed they would be zealous for it § 34. I conclude with this notice to the contrary minded that the evidence for Infants Church-membership seemeth to me so clear both in nature and in Scripture that I bid them despair of ever perswading me against it But if they will have any hope of changing my judgement it must be by confessing the visible Church-membership of Infants and proving that yet they are not to be baptized and that Baptism was appointed for initiating none but adult converts and not to be the common entrance into the Church which yet I think they can never do while the plain Law of Christ Mat. 29.19 and the exposition of the universal Church doth stand on record to confute such an opinion But here they have more room for a dispute § 35. But though I expect to be censured for it I will say once because truth is truth that though Rebaptizing and Reordaining are justly both condemned by the ancient Churches and pronounced alike ridiculous by Gregory Mag. Lib. 2. Ep. Indict 11. c. 46. and many others yet were men Rebaptized but for Certainty to themselves or to the Church and to quiet their consciences and on such terms as in my Christian Directory I have shewed that a seeming Reordination might in some cases be tolerated and would not wrong Infants nor make it an occasion of division or alienation I know not by any Scripture or reason that such Rebaptizing is so heinous a sin as should warrant us to contemn our brethren No though it were as faulty as the oft commemorative baptizing used by the Abassines CHAP. III. A General View of Mr. Danvers book § 1. MR. Danvers book is entitled a Treatise of Baptism in which he giveth us the History of Infant and Adult Baptism out of Antiquity as making it appear that Infant Baptism was not practised for 300 years in his second edit it is near 300. And in his Append ed. 2. I cannot find that it was practised upon any till the fourth Century And he giveth us a Catalogue of witnesses against it By which those that hold their Religion on the belief of such mens words will conclude that all this is true and that Infant Baptism is a Novelty and those that are against it do go the old and Catholick way § 2. Having perused his testimonies on both sides I am humbled and ashamed for the dulness of my heart that doth not with floods of compassionate tears lament the pittiful condition of the seduced that must be thus deceived in the dark and of the Churches of Christ that must be thus assaulted and shaken and distracted by such inhumane horrid means The book being composed in that part of history which the stress of the cause lyeth on of such UNTRUTHS in fact and history as I profess it one of my greatest difficulties to know how to call them Should I say that they are so notorious and shameless as that I say not only a Papist but any sober Turk or Pagan should blush to have been guilty but of some page or line◠of them and much more a man of any tenderness of conscience the Readers would think that the language were harsh were it never so true and some would say Let us have soft words and hard arguments And should I not tell the Reader the truth of the case I might help to betray him into too much fearlesness of his bait and snare and I doubt I may be guilty of untruth by concealing the quality of his untruths And it is not matter of Argument but fact that I am speaking of § 3. But it pleaseth that God whose counsels are unsearchable as to permit five parts of the Earth to remain yet strangers unto Christ so to permit his Church to be so tryed and distracted between Church Tyranny and dividing separations Sects and parties as that in many ages it hath not been easie to
me over-sharp § 4. His words are Donatus a learned man in Africa taught that they should baptize no Children but only that believed and desired it Answ Utterly false And how doth he prove it By Sebast Frank. whom I will not search to see whether he say so or not Reader if the question be what was done said or held by thousands of men twelve hundred years ago and the Writings of them and their Adversaries were extant and the Histories written of them in that and the next Ages would you have a man pass by all proof from these and tell you what a fellow of his own opinion saith eleven hundred years after He brings us with great ostentation the Dutch Anabaptists Martyrologie and such like Histories of a few years old of fellows that knew little more than as he doth what their Party or Companions told them or what they ignorantly gathered from such Books as are yet to be seen by us as well as by them If I should dispute what Augustine held would Mr. D. fetch his proofs from the writings of James Nailor or George Fox or Isaac Pennington yea or Mr. Tombes to prove his assertions while Augustines works are at hand to be seen § 5. So next he saith that the followers of Donatus were all one with the Anabaptists denying Baptism to Children admitting the Believers only thereto who desired the same And he 〈◊〉 one called Twisk Ansâ— â—tterly false They held no such thing § 6. His next proof is indeed from an unquestionable witness he saith Augustines third and fourth Books against the Donatists do demonstrate that they denied Infant-Baptism wherein he manageth the argument for Infant-Baptism against them with great zeal enforcing it by several arguments but especially from Apostolical Tradition and cursing with great bitterness they that should not embrace it § 7. Answ Mr. Bagshaw is now quite over-done in the quality of untruths Reader either this man had seen and read the Books of Augustine mentioned by him or he had not If not doth he use Gods Church and the souls of poor ignorant people with any tenderness of Conscience sobriety or humanity to talk at this rate of Books that he never saw or read which are so common among us to be seen If he understand not Latine how unfit is he to give us the History of these antiquities And how audacious to talk thus of what he knoweth not If he understand it what cruelty is it to the Church to venture on such untruths to save him the labour of opening and reading the books he talketh of But if he have read them then I can scarce match him again among all the falsifiers that I know in the world I dare not be so uncharitable to him as to think that ever he read them § 8. The Books are seven that Augustine wrote of Baptism against the Donatists And in them all I cannot find one syllable of intimation that ever the Donatists denied Infant-â—â—â—â—ism but enough to the contrary that they 〈◊〉 Nor do the third and fourth books mentioned by him meddle with it any more than the rest There is not in the seven books nor in all the rest of Austins books against the Donatists one word that I can find of any such controversie with them at all And for a man to say that in two books he manageth the arguments for Infant-Baptism against them with great zeal c. when there is not one word that supposeth them to deny it blush Reader in compassion for such a man § 9. Reâ—der the Donatists were a great party of men in Africa They were Prelatical and for Ceremonies as the other Churches were They differed from the rest on the account of the Personal succession of their Bishops In a time of persecution they said truly or falsly was a great controversie that one of the Bishops delivered up the Church-books to the Persecutors to be burnt rather than die himself when they demanded them And that the Catholick Bishops received successively their ordination from that man and called them Traditores whereas the Bishop that all their Bishops had successively been ordained by was one that had refused to deliver up the Church-books And consequently he was the right Bishop and they that had their succession from him were true Bishops and Churches and all the rest were no true Bishops or Churches and therefore that all their Baptism and Sacraments were nullities and their Communion unlawful and that all people were bound in Conscience as ever they would be saved to separate from the rest called Catholicks and to come to them and to be rebaptized So that their Schism was much like the Papists who confine the Church to their party and condemn all others save that the Papists ordinarily rebaptize not though they say some Monks have done it as elsewhere I have cited The Donatists were Episcopal ceremonious Separatists that did it on the account of a purer Episcopal succession Till their days the holy Doctors of the Church had almost all been against drawing the sword against Hereticks even Augustin himself But the greatness of their party and the proud conceit of their greater zeal and strictness than the Catholicks had made them so furious that the Catholick Pastors could not live quietly by them Insomuch that some of them wounded the Ministers in the streets and some of them made a salt sharp water and spouted into Ministers eyes as they past the street to put out their eyes till many such insolencies provoked Augustin to change his judgement of toleration and especially the multitudes seduced by them and the Bishops to crave the Emperors aid The Emperor made Edicts for mulcts and banishment to those that persevered This being a new way so exasperated the Donatists that in very passion many of them yea Bishops murdered themselves to bring odium on the Catholicks to make the people believe that the cruelty of the Catholicks compelled them to it And this was the state of these two parties but not a word of difference about Infant-Baptism between them that ever I read in either part § 10. The Controversie between Austin and them he thus stateth Lib. 1. c. 1 2. Si haberi foris potest etiam dari cur non potest Baptism received out of the Catholick or true Church among Schismaticks is true baptism and therefore baptism given without by Schismaticks is true baptism Impie facere qui rebaptizare conantur orbis unitatem nos recte facere qui Dei Sacramenta improbare nec in ipso schismate audemus They do impiously that endeavor to rebaptize all the united Christian world and we do rightly who dare not deny Gods Sacraments no not in a Schism For Augustin peaceably held the Donatists baptism to be true and valid though irregular and unlawfully given and taken but the Donatists held all the Catholicks Ministry and baptism null § 11. Therefore he thus summeth up their differences cap. 3. Duo sunt
quae dicimus esse in Catholica Baptismum illic tantum recte accipi Item alia duo dicimus esse apud Donatistas baptismum non autem recte accipi Harum sententiarum tres nostrae tantum sunt unam vero utrique dicimus That is Two things we say that there is Baptism in the Catholick Church and that there only it is rightly received Also two things more we say that there is Baptism with the Donatists but that with them it is not rightly received of these sentences three are only ours and one is common to us both Austin held it a sin to be baptized among Schismaticks to joyn with their Sect but not a nullity § 12. Hereupon he addresseth himself to evince the sinfulness of their Schism and unchristianing all the Churches And indeed he seems to think that though Baptism was among them yet hardly Salvation And his argument though I think we must abate for mens passions and temptations is worth the Separatists consideration that baptism that destroyeth remitteth he calls it not sin is not saving that which is without love remitteth not sin But Schismaticks saith he have not love For Nulli Schismata facerent si fraterno odio non excaecarentur Annon est in Schismate odium fraternum Quis hoc dixerit Cum origo pertinacia Schismatis nulla sit alia nisi odium fraternum That is None would make schisms if they were not blinded by the hatred of their brethren Is there not the hatred of brethren in Schism What man will say so Whenas both the Rise and the Pertinacie of Schism is no other than the hatred of brethren But blind zeal will not let men know their own hatred when yet they defame their brethren as no brethren and endeavour to have all others think them so bad as not to be communicated with and separate from them on that account § 13. The main subject of all the rest of these seven Books of Austin is to answer the Donatists claim of Cyprian and his Carthage Council as on their side and to answer all the sayings of him and the several Bishops of that Council The plain truth is this In the first age the Churches were so sober and charitable as not to account every erring brother and party Hereticks but such as subverted the Essentials of Religion And some of these corrupted the very form of Baptism The baptism of these the Church took for null and baptized such as they pretended to have baptized Cyprian and the other African Bishops knowing this and being much troubled with heretical Churches about them stretched this too far and rebaptized them that such Hereticks baptized as did not change the form of Baptism but incorporated men into their corrupt societies The Donatists took advantage by this example and all the Reasons of the Council to go so much further as to take the Catholicks for Hereticks or unlawful Churches and rebaptize those that they baptized Austin answereth all the Councils reasons but praiseth Cyprian as a holy Martyr and no Heretick though mistaken § 14. And it is not enough for me to say that all these Books of Austin have not a word of what he speaketh as controverting Infant-Baptism with the Donatists but moreover he bringeth the Donatists agreement with the Catholicks in the point of Infant-Baptism as a medium in his arguing against them Lib. 4. c. 23. shewing how much baptism availeth in that Christ himself would be baptized by a servant and Infants that cannot themselves believe are baptized Quod traditum tenet universitas Ecclesiae cum parvuli Infantes baptizantur qui nondum possunt corde credere ad justitiam ore confiteri ad salutem quod latro potuit Quinetiam flendo vagiendo cum in eis mysterium celebratur ipsis mysticis vocibus obstrepunt tamen Nullus Christianus dixerit eos inaniter baptizari That is Which all the Church holdeth when little Infants are baptized who certainly cannot yet with the heart believe to righteousness and with the mouth confess to Salvation And yet no Christian will say that they are baptized in vain Thus he argueth against the Donatists If the whole Church hold Infant-Baptism and no Christian will say that it is in vain though they themselves believe not and confess not then you should not say all baptism is vain because we Catholicks administer it or because it is received in our Churches The whole tenor of Austins charitable language to the Donatists and the scope of this place sheweth that he here pleaded universal consent and by all the Church and no Christian includeth the Donatists And so he oft argueth against the Pelagians who though they denied original sin durst not differ from the whole Christian world by denying Infant-baptism but pretended that it was for the conveyance of Grace though not for remitting sin § 15. And Austin next addeth Et si quisquam in hac re authoritatem divinam quaerat Quanquam quod universa tenet Ecclesia nec Conciliis institutum sed semper retentum est non nisi authoritate Apostolica traditum rectissime creditur tamen veraciter conjicere possumus c. That is And if any one in this case of Infant-baptism ask for Divine authority Though that which the universal or whole Church doth hold and was not instituted by Councils but was ever held is most rightly believed to be delivered by the Apostles authority yet we may truly conjecture c. and so he passeth to the Scripture argument from Circumcision § 16. Here note 1. That this was no controversie with the Donatists 2. Nor with any other Sect but hold by all the Church 3. That he only saith as in a Parenthesis that that which all the whole Church holdeth and did ever hold not instituted by any Council is justly taken for an Apostolical tradition which I think few Protestants or sober Christians will deny Who can imagine that Timothy Titus Silas and all the whole Church in the Apostles daies and ever since should hold and agree in any thing as a part of Christian Doctrine or Worship which they had not from the Apostles Had the Apostles so little charity as not to endeavour to rectifie any of their errors 4. Note here that the Donatists never denied this that Infant-baptism was ever held by the whole Church to that day and not instituted by any Council And were not Austin the Donatists and the whole Church liker to know the universality and Antiquity of the thing than the Holland or English Anabaptists about fourteen hundred years after them 5. Note that he bringeth Scripture for it also § 17. Indeed I find some that before those times had been above Ordinances and against all baptism but none against Infant-baptism as unlawful Therefore Augustine saith elsewhere that it is easier to find Hereticks that deny all baptism than any that change the form of baptizing so sure hath the Tradition of universal practice
other miracles and a victory he returned with a prosperous navigation saith Beda c. 20. by his own Merits and St. Albanes intercession Afterwards he returned again in a second necessity with Severus and delivered the Britains from Pelagianism who yet lived in such wickedness as Beda after Gildas describeth Here let the Reader note against Mr. Danvers dream 1. That this was done in 429. And if Mr. D. could prove indeed that all the Bishops of France then were Waldenses or of the judgement so called so long after he would do us Knights service against the Papists in the question of the perpetual visibility of the Church But if I cite Mr. Danvers for it I doubt they will laugh at me and make no more of his authority than I do of the Dutch Anabaptists Martyrology 2. Note that Prosper saith it was the Pope that sent Germanus 3. Note that he was sent by the Bishops of France who then did little differ from Rome but submitted to his Primacy and Patriarchate in the Empire though reserving their liberties Read the Epistles of Leo 1. against Hillary Arelat and all that story and you will see how much the Pope usurped there betimes 4. Pope Celestine was the great maintainer of Augustine against Pelagius and so the apter to do this 5. The Pope had before this sent Palladius to the Britains who received him And therefore they were then on some fair terms with him 6. Germanus and Lupus were Bishops and they that sent him and so Antichristian to some Anabaptists 7. Germanus sure was not of Mr. D's Church that used Reliques so strangely for working miracles Was this an Anabaptist 8. This was all done after Augustine had written that no Christian thought Infant-Baptism vain or about that time And yet were all the Britains then of another mind 9. The Bishops of France with Pope Celestine took part with Augustine against Pelagius and sent Lupus with Germanus to do that work And yet were all these Bishops against Augustine about Infant-Baptism which he saith all the Church Vniversal agreed in 10. Lastly the Britains were infected with Pelagianism Pelagius called Morgan being a Britain and Vsher saith some say born the same day with Augustine and Celestius a Scot or Irish man And the Pelagians themselves were for Infant-Baptism And if any Christians in the world had been against it they would have been the likeliest who denyed Original sin Yet even they durst not deny this And is it a credible thing that all these Britains who were some of Pelagius's mind and some of Augustines were yet against both in point of Infant-Baptism Yea and not a word said of this by any writer when their Pelagianism made so great a stir Yet this man gathereth that the Churches of France were Anabaptists contrary to all history because the Waldenses 600 years after were Anabaptists which is also false And the Britains were Anabaptists because the Churches of France sent two Learned men to dispute against Pelagianism in England when the unlearned Britains could not do it Reader will not this kind o◠arguing make thee an Anabaptist or else make thee pitty the seduced party O what a temptation to Popery do such men lay before the people When men see that every such a one that hath ignorance and pride enough to make him wise in his own eyes shall thus pour out falshoods to cheat mankind and the ignorant know not but it may all be true it tempteth men to think that there must be some Authorized men whom the Ignorant must believe before such seducers or else confusion and falshood will take place of truth and the people will be as children tossed up and down and carryed to and fro with every wind of doctrine And indeed a concordant Ministry is so to be preferred though it infer not a Roman infallibility § 42. 6. His last proof that the Britains were against Infant Baptism is because Augustine the Monk was himself so raw and ignorant in the rite as to ask How long the Baptizing of a child might be deferred there being no danger of death Answ I grow ashamed that I have medled with such a Collector A baculo ad angulum Doth it not rather imply that there was no controversie between him and the Britains about Infant-Baptism seeing he never mentioned any such thing § 43. His next witnesses against Infant-Baptism are in the fourth Century called by him Dadoes Sabas Adulphus and Simonis who saith he in his catalogue oppose it And p. 229. he saith to prove it but that they were charged to have an ill opinion of the Sacrament of the Altar and of Infants Baptism And he citeth Histor Tripartita li. 7. c. 11. and some fellow an hundred years ago Answ And have we here any honester dealing than before Read and judge That which the Tripartite History cited by him saith is this that There was then a Sect called Messalians or Euchetes known in the Catalogues of Hereticks and called The Praying Hereticks who expected the operation of some Devil thinking him to be the Spirit of God refusing to work and giving themselves to lie and sleep to expect Revelations Indeed their opinion was that Prayer was all and Baptism and the Lords Supper were nothing dicentes Divinum cibum nihil nec prodesse nec laedere that the Sacred or Sacramental food did neither profit nor hurt These men were led by one Dadoes Sabbos Adelphius Hermas and Simeon And Adelphus when old for they hid their opinion bewrayed his error in a speech to Flavian of Antioch that Baptism doth the Baptized person no good but prayer only expelleth the Devil And 1. These men were no more against Infant-Baptism than against the adults Baptism For they were above all Ordinances save Prayer 2. They were against neither as unlawful but against both and other ordinances as unprofitable 3. They carryed this much in secret which they could not have concealed had they not Baptized Infants 4. Some hereticks and all Infidels and Pagans were against all Baptism as well as they And doth any of this prove that any one Christian was against Infant Baptism more than adult § 44. Next he tells you that Faustus Regiensis saith that Personal and actual desire was requisite in every one that was to be Baptized Vincent and Cresconius I spoke to before And he citeth not a word of his writings for it nor any other but one Jacob Merning I suppose a Dutch Anabaptist Answ Reader thou seest still how thou art used Faustus Rhegiensis is a known Author his works are common He is commonly taken for a Semipelagian and he hath a book to prove that souls are bodies which Claudianus Mammertus hath answered But I never read one syllable in him nor in any other that ever wrote of him or against him that should make one doubt whether he was for Infant-baptism Could he be in such a station as he was and have so many writings and so many
eight Copies in England which omit twenty three of the Epistles which are commonly received and it 's most credible by other Copies are Genuine And yet none of these leave out the Epistle to Fidus about Infant-baptism § 57. And whereas he saith that Cyprian urged not Tradition I answer there was no cause For the question was not whether Infants should be baptized much less whether they were to be dedicated in Covenant to God and to be Church-members but only whether they should be baptized before the eighth day For Fidus thought that at one two or three days old they were so unclean as made them unmeet for baptism and that the eighth day was the time of their purification which Cyprian and the sixty six Bishops confuted and shewed that Gods mercy accepteth them from the beginning without respect to legal days And what use was here for a plea from Tradition for Infant-baptism which was not denied § 58. And it seems to me to be a great evidence that the Tradition of the Church was then for it in that this Council of Bishops before true Popery was born so unanimously determine of the day or time and not one of them no nor Fidus himself that raised the doubt did so much as raise any scruple or question about Infant-baptism it self at all which sure they would have done on such an occasion if any or many Christians or any Churches had denied it No wonder therefore if Augustin so long after say that no Christian taketh it to be in vain § 59. Yet again I will confess that the words of Tertullian and Nazianzen shew that it was long before all were agreed of the very time or of the necessity of baptizing Infants before any use of Reason in case they were like to live to maturity For I am perswaded that the Apostles and first Ministers were so taken up with the Converting of Infidels Jews and Gentiles that the case of Infant-baptism was so postponed and taken but as an Appendix to the baptism of the adult as that it was thought less needful to give it a particular express mention in the Records and History of the Church The Churches made no question of Infants Church-membership as being undoubtedly in the promise and devoted to God by all faithful parents And they took not baptism at first for their first Covenanting or Consent but for the solemnization of it and so not for Infants first real state of relation to Christ and right to life which was before it as it was to believers before baptism but for the solemn investiture in those rights And so Greg. Nazian Or. 40. giveth this brief definition of baptism that it is nothing else but a Covenant made with God for a new and purer kind of life And hereupon many who thought Infants Church-members visible and safe upon their Parents Covenant consent thought that the time of solemnization was so far left to prudence as that as the Israelites did Circumcision in the wilderness it might be delayed a few years by such Parents as desired it till children could somewhat answer for themselves § 60. Yet after my review of this controversie upon their urgencie I find no proof brought by any of these men that ever one Church in the world was without Infant-members that had Infants nor one person in the Church against Infant Church-membership and baptism from Christs days till the Waldenses about eleven hundred or a thousand years except that Tertullian who took them for Innocent and therefore Church-members did in some case advise the delay I say I find not one Christian or Heretick against it unless you will impute it to them that were against all baptism which Infidels also are And though I verily believe that the Waldenses were not against Infant-baptism nor is there full proof that any in their time were yet because I am loth to judge the Papists utterly impudent lyars I think it most probable that in the Waldenses days and Country there was a sort of odious Hereticks that denied Infant-baptism and the Resurrection and held community of Wives and other abominations reported all together by their opposers in those times CHAP. V. Mr. Danvers's great Calumnie of my self refuted § 1. MR. D. pag. 134. Ed. 1. saith thus Yet is not Mr. Baxter ashamed to fix such an abhominable slander upon the Baptists of this our age of baptizing naked which it seems was so long the real practice of the paedobaptists and about which he spends three whole pages to aggravate the heynousness of their custom which he is pleased to father on them And though I am perswaded he cannot but be convinced that the thing is most notoriously false and brought forth by him rather out of prejudice not to say malice rather than any proof or good testimony he ever received thereof yet have I never heard that he hath done himself his injured neighbours and the abused world that right as to own his great weakness and sinful shortness therein in any of the many Editions of that piece which I humbly conceive as well deserved a recantation as some other things he has judged worthy thereof § 2. Answ To live and die impenitently in so unprofitable a sin and unpleasing to any but diabolical natures as is the belying of others is a very dreadful kind of folly I would heartily wish that Mr. Danvers and I might meet and help to bring each other to repentance by a willing impartial examination of each of our guiltinesses herein § 3. I never look to speak to them thus more nor long to any man on earth and in this station and with these thoughts I must profess not thinking it lawful to belie my self that in the year 1647. or 1648. or both when Anabaptistry began suddenly to be obtruded with more successful fervency than before I lived near Mr. Tombes in a Country where some were and within the hearing of their practice in other parts of the land And that in that beginning the common frame of Ministers and people was that in divers places some baptized naked and some did not And that I never to my best remembrance heard man or woman contradict that report till this man did it in this writing And that no Anabaptist contradicted it to me that I then or since conversed with And that thereupon in 1659. I wrote against both sorts those that baptized naked and those that did not And after all this when Mr. Tombes answered my book and those very passages he never denied the truth of the thing though he did not so baptize himself unless he have any where else since said any thing of it which I never saw or heard of And I appeal to impartial reason whether he would not then at the time have denied it had it been deniable And whether this man now twenty five or six years after be fitter to be believed in a matter of fact than common consent at the present time And
thousand such should write a Cart-load of Calumnies as you have done I think they would break but little of my sleep Set these arguments next before hypocrites that live on man I live not on them But your words do mind me how men that are embodyed in little parties far less than the Donatists or Novatians are inclined to take their Cabin for all the Kingdom and their Sect for the Church and are affected with their praise or dispraise almost as if they were all the world You hear your folks it seems talk against me with whom backbiting is a duty and you seem to dream that it is all my friends If God in Christ will be my friend I can spare others And tell me Sir for what prize or gain do you think I am lost with all my friends No man in his wits will voluntarily be lost for nothing Do you think it is to get other friends that I more value Who be they Is it the Papists Enquire what I get by them Is it the Diocesan party What have I got by them but silencing and the loss of all Ministerial maintenance these twelve years And ask them whose writings have more offended them yours or mine If I am lost it hath â—ost me more years hard study to be lost and to be erroneous or a fool than it hath done you to be some body and to be wise And I tell you I never yet repented of Cost or loss for that Truth and duty which you lament as heinous error and sin But naked truth and the faithful endeavours of pleasing God in promoting that Love among Christs disciples and peace in his Churches which Church Tyrants and Sects have so many ages laboured too succesfully to destroy are sweeter than to be forsaken either through the persecution of one sort or the Revilings of the other or the loss of all mens friendship upon earth And yet I will add that though being long ago glutted with mens applause as finding it a luscious but unwholesome thing and having voluntarily cast up much of it my self I yet perceive no want of friends but take your words of them for meer slanders § 13. Saith Mr. D. Pref. ed. 1. He hath so much abounded in contradictions none more that I know of being as you 'l find sometime a great opposer then a great defender of Episcopacy Answ 1. Yet I know not that ever this man saw me as I said or I him 2. This falshood did unhappily overslip him my writing being so full a confutation of it that he can have nothing of sense to say to cloak it My judgement was for Episcopacy 1639. by Reading Bishop Downame and some others But in 1640. the oath called Et caetera calling us to swear never to consent to the alteration of the present Government by A. Bishops Bishops Deans Archdeacons c. forced me to study the whole cause to the bottom since which time my judgement of Episcopacy never altered which is 34 years ago having setled in the Receptibility of one sort of Episcopacy and the desirableness of another and the dislike of another sort All which I have fully published in my Dispute of Church-Government 1658. when the Bishops here were at the lowest Either this man knew me and my writings herein or not If not what a man is this that dare talk thus confidently and falsly of what he knew not If he did then how much more flagitious is his practice thus to tell the world an untruth so notorious to himself He saith as you may find but never tells you where Let him tell you where and when I ever defended that Episcopacy which I had opposed § 14. Mr. D. Sometime for Nonconformity in whose tents he hath seemed to shelter himself in the storm and with their Indulgence to come forth of his hole and yet at length so highly to disgrace the same Answ 1. Let him shew you if he can where or when I have changed my judgement about Conformity or exprest a change since 1640 Not that I take it for a disgrace to be mutable by growing wiser But necessity forced me so long ago to study those controversies so hard as fixed me and I never heard any thing since which considerably altered me therein Which also being visible in the foresaid Dispute of Liturgie Ceremonies c. written 1658. leave no cloak for this mans calumnies See there whether I said not more for so much of Episcopacy Liturgie and Ceremonies which I took to be lawful than ever I have done since Bishops returned 2. But what doth he mean by sheltering my self in a storm in their tents I cannot imagine what unless sense and truth at once forsook him When a storm fell on the Nonconformists were their tents a likely place for shelter Had not the Conformists tents been likelier Did the Nonconformists shelter me From what and how 3. And what hole was it that I came out of with their Indulgence Are such men as this the Vindicators of Gods Truth against the Christian world that pour out untruths at such a rate in despight of the most publick notoriety of fact Do I need to tell the Reader only for the sake of youths and forreigners that when the Nonconformists cause was at the bar when speaking had any room and hope they set me in their forlorn and engaged me with my Conscience and desire to have prevented that which I foresaw in the tasks of writing and speaking which would most exasperate and offend the Bishops till I was I think the first among them that was forbidden to Preach I continued after that in London a year where I never had place or flock but was a stranger sickness then forced me to remove into the Countrey The Tents I was sheltered in were Gods protection in my own habitation which if a hole I thought good enough for me I Preacht to such as would hear me till being near the Church door and the people numerous Clergie-envy caused me to be sent to the common Gaol among malefactors As soon as I was out another warrant was put into the Officers hands to apprehend me again and send me to Newgate for six months Upon which I removed my dwelling to the next Village out of the County I refused none there that desired to hear me of my Neighbours The writings which he revileth shew that I lived not idle And I think he could wish I had done less and spoken to fewer I came not out of that hole of many months after the Indulgence was granted I stayed on reasons of Self-denyal because I would fore-stall no London Ministers nor hinder their Auditories and therefore resolved to stay till they were setled I came on terms of far greater Self-denyal to the great abatement of my health to say nothing of my greater cost which now hath again forced me at present to retire You see now at what rate these men inform the world and how far they are to
be believed As for his talk of Disgracing the Nonconformists it 's true in two senses 1. As he and I disgrace Christianity by being so ignorant and bad 2. Or if he mean not My own Nonconformity but his even his Nonconformity to a great deal of truth and Christian duty and common honesty by concatenated falshoods I have done my part when constrained to disgrace it § 15. Sometime a friend to Calvin and then a greater to Arminius saith he Answ 1. Did he tell the Reader where by one in any words I contradict the other 2. But see the misery of a Sectarian spirit that taketh it for a contradiction to be a friend to Calvin and Arminius both He would as this inferreth take it ill to be thought a friend to Anabaptists and Paedobaptists both to Independents and Presbyterians and Episcopal too But that is to such as I the greatest duty which to him is a shameful contradiction When I think none Christians but Anabaptists I will be a friend to no other as such Men of so little a Church must have answerably little Love Censoriousness is a friend but unto few 3. But by this your friendship seemeth narrower than I thought it I thought it had extended to all the Anabaptists But they are divided into Free-willers and Free-gracers as they call them that is into Calvinists and Arminians and are you a friend but unto one part of them 4. But indeed Sir the Controversies intended by you under these names are not such as a man of my poor measure can fix his judgement in every young and promise that it shall never change nor that I can take it for a shame to grow any wiser in them than heretofore though perhaps your judgement changed not from your Childhood And I hope if what I have written may be published to make it appear that such as you that speak evil of what you understand not are the grievous enemies of the Churches of Christ as to Truth Holiness and Peace by your militant noise about Calvinism and Arminianism stirring up contentions and destroying Love by making differences seem greater than they are and laying the Churches Concord and Communion and mens salvation upon such questions as Whether the house should be built of Wood or Timber And is not this worthy of your zeal § 16. He adds Sometimes a great Defender of the Parliament and their Cause and then none more to renounce them and betraytor them for their pains Answ 1. Was there never but One Parliament and One Cause Perhaps you mean that the Parliament called 1640 and the Rump as called and the Armies Little Parliament and Oliver and the Army Council and all the rest of the Soveraigns were all One Parliament Or that to swear to the first Parliament or fight for them and to shut out and imprison them and to dissolve them as Usurpers and to set up one chosen by who knows whom and to set up Oliver and his Son and to pull him down again and to set up the Rump again and to pull them down and set up a Council of State c. were all one Cause And that one day it was Treason not to be for one Soveraign and another day not to be against that and for another Your Army did not betraytor them when they forced out one part as Traytors first and thrust out the major part after imprisoning and reproaching many worthy wise and religious men and when they pulled down all the rest at last Had you or I more hand in these matters Whether you know your self I know not but I am sure you know not me nor what you talk of § 17. It followeth Sometimes a great Opposer of Tradition and anon a great defender thereof Answ 1. If you take Tradition equivocally you calumniate but by equivocation but if thereof mean the same Tradition your falshood hath not the cloak of an equivocation Prove what you say by any words of mine It is between twenty and thirty years I think since I largely opened my judgement of Tradition in the Preface to the second edition of my book called the Saints Rest which I never changed since If you will deny that your Father delivered you the Bible or any other or that the Church hath used both Bible and Baptism from the Apostles dayes till now Let the reproach of such Tradition be your glory if you will It shall be none of mine But do you write a book to prove the Tradition of Adult Baptism from Christs time to ours and when you have done renounce and scorn it See Reader how he valueth his own work § 18. He addeth Sometimes a violent impugner of Popery and yet at last who hath spoken more in favour of it Answ Here again if by Popery and it you mean the same thing You hold on the same course Prove it true and take the honour of once writing a true accusation I have not hid my judgement about Popery having written about seven or eight books against it in above twenty years time by which you may see in comparing them whether I changed my judgement If you cannot refuse not to blush But I was and am a defender of that which is Popery and Antichristianity with you the Church-membership Covenant-interest and Baptism of Infants and it 's like many more parcels of the Treasures of Christ which you zealously rob him off and give to Antichrist As too many Sectaries do the greatest part I doubt more than nine parts of ten of his Kingdom or Church universal And as Divines use to prove that carnal minds are enemies and haters of God because they confess honour and worship him both in Name and in respect of many of his Attributes and relations and works yet in respect of others they are averse to him so I would be a monitor to you and such like Sectaries to take heed of going much further lest before you know what you do while you honour Christs name and cry up some of his Grace and doctrines you should really hate oppugn and blaspheme him and take Christ himself for Antichrist and his Churches and servants for Antichristian If you will take him for Antichrist that taketh Infants into the visible Church I think it will prove to be Christ himself § 19. Reader How big a volume wouldst thou have me write in answering such stuff as this Tears are fitter than Ink for such fearless rash continued visible falshoods to be deliberately published to the world as truths by one that calleth himself a man and a Christian and seemeth zealous to new Christen most of the Christian world Unless I should tire my self and thee I must stop and cease this noysome work Only one charge more which runs through much of his book I will answer because it concerneth the cause it self § 20. He oft tells you that when I have called my book Plain Scripture proof I yet there and after contradict my self by saying that
the controversie is difficult and by saying that in the ancient Churches men were left at liberty to Baptize their children when they would And 1. His very words prove that this is no contradiction For these very words I will make plain to a boy of ten years old and yet the world must know in print that he is not able to understand them and that this is worthy the consideration of his proselytes 2. My meaning I opened long ago which he concealeth The Proofs of Infants Church-membership are Plain the proof therefore of their right to Baptism is plain though not in the same degree but there are objections of difficulty which may be brought against it which every weak Christian nor Minister neither cannot answer And the hardest is that which is little taken notice of by themselves but I impartially opened in my Christian Directory And is it a contradiction to say that a doctrine that hath Plain Proof may be assaulted by difficult obâ—ections And yet such as a sober Christian should not be changed by unless on the same reasons he will forsake all Christianity and his everlasting hopes For I take the doctrine of the Souls Immortality to be such as may be Plainly proved But truly I take it to be five degrees above the ability of this Writer to answer solidly all that can be said against it I take it to be Plainly provable that the Scripture is certainly true And yet I take it to be quite above this confident mans ability well to solve all the difficulties objected were it but those poor ones of Benedictus Spinosa in his late pestilent Tractatus Theologico-Politicus I think I have plain proof that God is not the Author of sin and man is not moved in it and all his acts as an engine by unavoidable necessitation But I despair that ten years study more should inable this Writer clearly to solve the objections of Hobbes or Camero about it In a word though we have Plain proof that Christ is the Son of God I should be loth that the faith of this Nation should lie upon the success of a dispute about it between a crafty Infidel and this self-conceited man § 21. And why should my impartiality in acknowledging the Churches liberty as to the time of Baptism at first be so unkindly received I meant not nor said that Christ had left it Indifferent and to their Liberty but that they left one another at liberty herein Because 1. The first and great work was in setling the Churches by converting Jews and Gentiles to the faith And the Adult who were the active members were they that the Apostles had most to do with and therefore whose case is expresly spoken of 2. Because it was a known thing that the Infants of Church-members had ever been Church-members and were in possession of that Relation when Christ and his Apostles set up Baptism 3. And it was a granted case that all Sanctified persons devoted themselves and all that they had to God and every thing according to its capacity And therefore their Infants according to their capacity which God himself had before expounded 4. And it was never the meaning of Christ to lay so much on the outward washing as many Papists and Anabaptists do But as the uncircumcised Infants in the Wilderness were nevertheless Church-members and saved so when Infants were in the Covenant of God by the Parents true and known consent their damnation was not to be feared upon their dying unbaptized by surprize 5. But yet obedience to God being necessary many Parents hastned their childrens Baptism at two or three dayes old Others staid till the eighth day others longer and multitudes had children that were in several degrees entred on the use of reason when the Parents were converted and it remained doubtful whether they were as to the Covenant at their Parents choice or their own And to this day there want not those that think that Baptism was not instituted to be the ordinary initiating Sacrament of the children of Church-members but only of Proselytes And that Christians Infants took their places in the Church of course but Proselytes from without only were to be Baptized Though this be an error it is probable that there were some then as well as now of that opinion But nothing more occasioned as far as I can find the delay of Baptism than the fear of the danger of sinning after it especially of apostasie All held that all sin past was pardoned in Baptism And Heb. 6. and 10. and other texts and the common doctrine of the Church made them think it a very perillous thing to sin wilfully after illumination and the acknowledgement of the truth And therefore abundance delayed their own Baptism till age and many were backward to Baptize their children lest childish folly and youthful lusts and worldly temptations should draw them to trample upon the blood of the Covenant And on such accounts all were not Baptized at one age And divers that were Baptized at age upon their own conversion from Heathenism were not suddenly so knowing as to be acquainted with all the cases about their childrens rights but must have a considerable time to learn For it was be it spoken without offence to stricter men a General and Narrow sort of Knowledge which the Apostles and the Primitive Churches required in the adult as necessary to Baptism yea when they had at last kept them long under Catechizing For even in Augustines time though all used the same words of Baptism so few had a clear understanding of the very Baptismal form or words that writing ubi supra de bapt contr Donat. he saith that as to the Meaning of those words not only the Hereticks sed ipsi carnales parvuli Ecclesiae si possent singuli diligenter interrogari tot diversitates opinionum fortassis quot homines numerarentur Animalis enim homo non percipit c. Annon tamen ideo non integrum sacramentum accipiunt § 22. There remaineth a Catalogue of my heynous errors which he hath put in the preface to his first edition and in the end of the second and which he and such as he have taught many honest weak people in London both Anabaptists and Independents to talk frightfully and odiously of from one another behind my back What should I say to him and them Shall I answer them that never speak or write to me Shall I take this mans accusation for a confutation or conviction Is so deadly an enemy of Antichrist conceited of a self-infallibility or that I must take my faith or trust from Mr. Danvers though not from the Church Pope or General Council If not what did the man think that a recitation should do with me Did not I know what I had written till he told me § 23. But it is others that he tells it to Those others will read my own words or they will not If they will I will not be so
It is a sin to set a Rail about the Communion Table though it be not done to any ill design nor with scandal but only to keep dogs from pissing or dunging at it and boyes from abusing it XV. That in such case yea though scandal be removed by the publick profession of the Church it is a sin to come to such a railed table to communicate even when no sinful distance between the Clergie and Laity is intended XVI Ibid. Christians ought to censure and condemn each other if one come to such a Table or Receive kneeling supposing it a lawful thing XVII Ibid. That it is a sin to keep a thankful remembrance of Gods mercy to his Church by an anniversary day of solemnity in giving them any Apostle Martyr or extraordinary instrument of his blessing as some keep their birthdays or wedding-dayes or dayes of some great deliverance and England the fifth of November Though it be not terminated in the honour of a Saint but of God nor made equal to the Lords day nor kept otherwise than spiritually and piously XVIII Ibid. That for a man that is against commanding the Abstinence of Lent and against obeying such commands as an Imitation of Christ's forty dayes fasting and in all cases of injury to our souls bodies or others yet to say that he is not able to prove it a sin to obey by meer abstinence when the Magistrate peremptorily commandeth it meerly in Commemoration and not Imitation of Christ's fast is a sin in him that saith it though it be true And consequently though it would do no harm to my self or others I ought rather to die than to forbear flesh in Lent if the King command it XIX Ibid. That Church Musick and consequently singing which is the prime Musick is no help to any man in the service of God XX. Ib. That though he find it a help it is sin for any man to use it XXI That either Christ did not joyn with the Jews in worship which had Musick in the Temple or else he sinned in so doing XXII That the experience of prejudiced self-conceited men that know not what melody is must be set against the experience of others so far as to deprive them of all such helps and mercies as the other find no benefit by As singing is now cast out of many Churches XXIII That it is no wrong to Ignorant Christians to put such whimsies and scruples into their heads XXIV Ib. It is a sin to Vow Chastity for any man in the world though it be with this exception or condition Unless any thing shall fall out which shall make it a sin to me not to marry And though under the most extraordinary necessities of avoiding marriage he find such confirmation of his Resolutions needful XXV Ib. That it is in no Case lawful to keep a Vow of Chastity at least among the Papists And consequently whereas Christ saith He that can keep this saying Let him It is every mans duty to break Chastity that hath once vowed it though it were no duty but a sin before For doubtless Marriage is a sin accidentally to some though not in its own nature and far from being a duty to all But according to this doctrine if a man were eighty years old and utterly impotent and unable to break his vow of Chastity if he would he is bound to do it which he cannot do and to break his vow when he cannot break it or if an old mans marriage that hath no necessity would undo himself and his former children he is bound to marry if he have but once vowed that he will not or at least he may do it For which of the contraries you chuse May or Must I am uncertain XXVI Ib. That either it was a sin to put Pictures in the Geneva Bibles and a sin to have our Dutch Chimney bricks which contain all the history of the Gospel or any other Image of Christ crucified wherever or once to see such a Picture or else it is a sin to have any holy affection stirr'd up in our hearts by seeing it so that though all things are sanctified and pure to the pure and I may excite holy affections when I see but a worm or flower or any creature or a house or any work of man yea when I see the sins of the wicked I may stir up thankfulness for grace yet if I see in a Chimney piece or a Geneva Bible or else-where the Image of Christ crucified it is a sin to excite holy affections thereupon Though the twenty one Cases which I have named as unlawful to use an Image in be every one observed as the Cases of danger scandal and all the rest XXVII The Image of Christ Crucified in the Imagination or mind of a Believer is a sin Therefore it is a sin to think of a Crucified Christ or to know Christ crucified or to love Christ crucified as such For it is impossible to think on him know him or love him as crucified without the Image of him on the mind Therefore Paul determined to do nothing but sin when he determined to know nothing but Christ and him crucified and instead of anathematizing them that love him not he should have anathematized or reproved all that love him as crucified Do you and your Companions know that you are renouncing your Baptism and Christianity and the Cross of Christ while you would rebaptize us all I charge it not on you as your meaning But if it be not the downright consequence of the words of all my Religious backbiters who say that the Image of Christ crucified befitteth not our minds or imaginations but is a sin there I have lost all my reasoning faculty and know not what Man or Reason is XXVIII Ibid. Ed. 2. p. 372. That the Ordination and Ministerial Office received by any that live in Communion with the Church of Rome and consequently all their baptizings and other ministrations are not only sins but nullities Though they were such as Bernard Malachie Patrick Gerson Ferus Kempis Gerard Zurphaniensis c. And so none of the English Nation had true baptism from their first Conversion by Augustine till the Reformation but all died unbaptized and should have been baptized again And so should all baptized by them in any Kingdoms of Europe or the World and so Luther Zuinglius Martyr Musculus and the rest of our first Reformers were never Christned but all dyed unbaptized persons and should have been baptized after their conversion XXIX Ib. That it were better have all Europe unbaptized Infants and adult than such as Bernard Ferus Cassander c. should baptize them though they had leave to protest against all that is sinful in it and were put upon no sinful promises professions or acts themselves XXX Ib. That it is a sin for those in any Country that can have no other to consent that a Papist Priest do teach a Child to Speak or to Read or
doubtless whatsoever it is is little beholding to such an Advocate as thinks to reconcile men to it by abusing dissenters As for the alteration I have made I gave the world an account of the reasons and grounds of it in my Retractation of Separation published in the year 1659. which was before the turn of times and in my perswasive to Peace and Vnity since published And if this Author could have solidly discovered the insufficiency of those reasons and grounds to justifie such an alteration and my present practice he would have done his cause better service in my opinion than he hath done in his Treatise by labouring to support it by a misrepresentation of persons and their opinions As for me I can truly say I have had great satisfaction and peace in my own mind touching the alteration I have made upon those grounds not only at other times but even then also when I have been near unto death in my own apprehension As for the other person he mentions with me I suppose he may e're long give the world an account of that alteration he also is charged with as great fault Will. Allen An Admonition to Mr. Danvers SIR YOur vehement importunity having greatly injured me by occasioning the loss of some of my time who have none to spare upon this writing which else would have been needless you must bear with me while I desire you sometime alone to answer these Questions seriously to your Conscience Quest 1. Whether the untruths in matter of fact which you confidently publish be not of so stupendious a magnitude as should have affrighted the Conscience of a Turk or Pagan When no less than four whole Bodies of men are so slandered by you the Donatists the Novatians the Old Brittains and the Waldenses each containing it 's like many hundred thousands And when so many whole Books not particular sentences only are falsified accordingly 2. How great a number would your untruths appear were they all gathered and enumerated to you When in all the lines which I have examined I have met with so few that are not guilty of them 3. When you accuse my Admonition to Mr. Bagshaw and thereby shew that you read it should not the eviction of fourscore undeniable untruths in matter of fact have been a warning to you to avoid the like 4. Whether you do not more by such notorious scandal to dishonour your self and all that are such and hinder your own successes than many writings against you could have done 5. Whether you do not scandalously tempt men to justifie the contempt of Tender Consciences and what is done and said against them by many publick Revilers on the other extream when your Conscience pretending tenderness can swallow such Camels while it cannot endure our Infant-blessings 6. Whether men can judge it probable that such voluminous notorious Forgers and Slanderers have so much more illumination than all other Christians as to be meet men to call all the Christian world almost to be new Christned and to unchristen almost all for about thirteen hundred years to leave out the controverted time 7. Would you be believed in other things that can deliberately in two Editions do thus 8. Is it like that God will bless such unmanly scandals to the Churches good unless as sin by overruling providence may occasion good Are these likely means to propagate truth 9. What is the matter that men that can do all this cannot Conform What durst I not subscribe to if I durst do all this 10. Is it not a dishonour to your rebaptized Churches to be so polluted and to have so loose or partial a discipline as to suffer such publick scandals as these and to retain such a member as you and not bring you to repentance or excommunicate you Have our worst Parish Churches many greater scandals If pride partiality and passion will not let your Conscience work upon these things but you will turn them into gall instead of repentance at least I offer them to the Consideration of others to prevent or remedy their infection And remember which you have told the world now in Print that you sent your Bookseller to me to know what I had to say against your first Edition before you published the second And I have here partly told you what I was not so idle as to answer your Reasons knowing how little a part they are of what Mr. Tombes hath said more largely And that I answer him at all is long of you who would not let me hold my peace I heartily desire your Recovery from the unthankful error and your Repentance for the sinful means of propagating it and for your injury to our early Rights and blessings The Third Part OBSERVATIONS ON Mr. Danvers REPLY TO Mr. WILLES Detecting his impenitent proceeding in false Accusation in hope of his Repentance and the undeceiving of others and to warn this Age to take more heed of the common sin of HASTY RASH JUDGING of things which they have not throughly examined partially taking them on their Leaders trust By Richard Baxter LONDON Printed for Nevil Simmons and Jonathan Robinson 1675. A PREMONITION REader there are two stumbling-blocks to be taken out of thy way which I had rather have had no occasion to mention The first is the Name and Authority of that very worthy and excellent man Doct. T. Barlow S. Th. Prof. in Oxford which Mr. D. over and over citeth as for his cause Of which till he think meet to speak for himself I only mind thee that 1. It is a secret Letter to Mr. T. which they cite 2. That it is unlikely that he that subscribeth the Articles and Liturgie of the Church of England is against Infant-baptism when the Art 27. saith The Baptism of Young Children is in any wise to be retained in the Church as most agreeable with the Institution of Christ II. There is another worthy and eximious Doctor of the same University Doct. Th. Tullie who having thought meet in a Latine Treatise of Justification to endeavour at large in a zeal for Orthodoxness no doubt to confute my supposed errors in my Aphorisms about twenty two years ago revoked taking no notice of the many Treatises since written by me on that subject but only of a late Epistle to Mr. Allens Book he hath also thought good to warn young men to take heed that they do not rashly receive my Theology as bringing forth novel paradoxes because I hold some guilt in Children of their nearer Parents sins exclaiming O caecos ante Theologos quicunque unquam fuistis It seemeth that this Famous Learned man knew not that this was Augustins judgement and many another ancient and modern Writer's and that he is less for the Letany than I that subscribe or declare not full assent who heartily pray Remember not Lord our offences nor the offences of our fore-Fathers c. This having some respect to the subject of this Book I thought meet
world 1. Carnal proud and worldly hypocrites who are enemies to that which is against their pride and worldly interest These contend malignantly against Godliness 2. Ignorant idle fleshly droans that eat and drink and mind the world but meddle not much with controversies 3. Professors of Religious zeal who espouse some singular dividing way and turn all their studies to make good their mistakes who have laudable abilities perverted by prejudice error and interest 4. Honest Preachers that serve God in practical preaching but being but half studied in some controversies are yet as forward and busie in disputing censuring and reproving dissenters as if they knew as much as the cause requireth I would all these would meddle with no controversies but what great necessity in plain and certain cases calls them to 5. We have many humble truly Godly men who as they are conscious that they are not well studied for controversie so they meddle not with it but lay out themselves in preaching the truths that we all agree in and do God and his Church much service in quietness and peace These are the men that the Church is most beholden to 6. Some are judicious and very fit for controversie but too cold in the practical part of Religion 7. Some excellent holy men like Augustine have so digested the matter as to be able to defend the truth against all adversaries and live accordingly Only these two last sorts should be imployed in such disputes SECT II. Of the weight and nature of the present controversie § 1. I think it a matter in this distracted age which you may be much concerned in to know what weight is to be laid on the controversie about Infant Baptism that you may neither come too short nor go too far For my part when the Christian Parent or owner to whom God in Nature and Scripture hath intrusted the Infant doth heartily dedicate him to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and consent that he stand related according to the Baptismal Covenant I am none of those that believe that God who is a Spirit layeth so much upon the application of the water as to damn any such Infant meerly for the want of it And though I cannot subscribe to as much more as some would have me who think so much better of their own understandings than ever any evidence perswaded me to do as to judge themselves worthy to be Creed-makers for all others yea and to be called The Church it self yet I approve of the seventeenth Canon of the Synod of Dort Art 1. that faithful Parents have no cause to doubt of the salvation of their children dying in Infancy § 2. And I hope all the pious Anabaptists themselves do virtually though not actually devote their children to God and consent to their Covenant relation while they vehemently plead against it For surely they have so much natural affection that if they did think that God would be a God in special Covenant with their children and pardon their Original sin and give them right to future life upon the Parents dedication and consent they would undoubtedly accept the gift and be thankful And I believe most of them would say I would do all that God intrusteth and enableth me to do that my child may be a child of God and I would give him up to God and accept any mercy for him as far as God doth authorize me so to do § 3. And if Parents and Owners will not consent that their children be in Covenant with God and be baptized I am not yet satisfied what remedy we have nor who can do it for them to as good effect For if any one may do it as some plead then all Heathens children may be so used and saved And he that perswadeth me that there is extant such a Covenant or promise of God that he will save every Heathens child that is but by any one brought to baptism 1. He must shew me that text where this promise is 2. And when he hath done he will leave me perswaded that God will save all Heathens Infants whether baptized or not 1. Because I and ten thousand more Christians would sit in our closets and offer to God all the Infants in the world that is consent that he be their reconciled God and they his children and in Covenant with him what good man would not desire their salvation 2. And I should not easily believe that God will damn them all meerly for want of a strangers consent to save them were that wanting 3. Much less that when we do consent a thousand or ten thousand miles off that all the children e. g. in China or Siana shall be baptized and saved that this shall not hinder their damnation meerly because the Infants and we are so distant that we cannot in sight and presence offer them to God surely if my consent that a Turks child be baptized and saved will do it if he were with me it may do it a mile off and if so then ten thousand miles off 4. And if I be impowred to consent I shall never believe that the bare want of the water will damn him who hath all things else that God hath made necessary to his salvation as I said before I think they give too much to Baptism who say that God will either save any one by it who wanteth other things necessary to salvation or that he will damn any for want of it that is of the washing of the body who want nothing else which is necessary to salvation And I doubt they that say otherwise will prove dishonourers of the Christian Religion by feigning it to be too like to the Heathenish superstition laying mens salvation on a ceremony as of absolute necessity And I am confident it is contrary to Christs redoubled lesson Go learn what that meaneth I will have mercy and not sacrifice And no men shall unteach me this great and comfortable lesson which Christ hath so industriously taught me and which hath been long written so deeply on my heart as hath made all unmerciful persecutions and separations and alienations very displeasing to me § 4. I have proved afterwards that even Augustine himself doth as on great deliberation assert that where the Ministry of baptism is not despised Heart conversion without it sufficeth to salvation in the adult And no scripture or reason doth make it absolutely necessary to Infants if not to the adult § 5. And if Heathens Infants are not damned meerly for want of outward baptism nor yet for want of the consent of others either because that other mens consent who are strangers to them is not necessary to their salvation or if it be necessary they have it at a distance then it will follow that all the Infants of Heathens are in a state of salvation unless somewhat else be yet proved necessary to it And if they are all saved then so are all Christians Infants also or else they are more
his own understanding and his ignorant Readers by such silly wranglings animated by partiality let him bear the Consequents and know that I have somewhat else to do with my few remaining hours than to write books on such insufficient invitations and expectations CHAP. VII Of Danvers's many other accusations of me § 1. IT was one of the old Characters of the Hereticks in the Apostles dayes To speak evil of the things that they understood not And that may well be their Character in which they contradict the three great constitutive parts of Christianity and all Religion and true honesty viz. TRUTH HUMILITY and LOVE by Falshood Pride and Malignity called commonly Vncharitablness § 2. The Root of this is when Reigning an unsanctified heart in which these vices remain unmortified covered from the owners knowledge by a form of Godliness and especially a zeal for the wayes of some Party more honoured in the persons eyes for wisdom or piety than others In others there is a great measure of the same vices mixed with true Grace where an evil and a good cause are conjoyned as to some effects They love God and his Truth and they hate all that they think against him they would promote piety in the world and repress what they think against it And being persons whose wits and studies were not such as exactness and largeness of knowledge do require but yet lovers of knowledge truth and Scripture they have more knowledge than prophane sots but little alas little in comparison of that which is necessary to a methodical accurate understanding of the matters which frequently fall under controversie And so knowing but little they know not what they are ignorant of nor what others know beyond them And it being the common vice of mans understanding to be hasty in judgeing before they hear or know one half that is necessary to a true and faithful judgement and so to be confident before they understand these men hereby are led to confidence in many an error And an erring judgement first telleth them that Truth is falshood and falshood truth that Good is evil and evil good that Duty is sin and sin is duty and then a good cause and a bad the Love of Truth and a perverse and partial zeal concur to put them on in the way of error Ignorance and error set them on a wrong cause and a mixt affection or zeal partly good and partly evil spurreth them on And in these the Error and Heresie and consequent sins are no more predominant than the cause and God will have mercy on those that in ignorance with good meanings oppose many truths and do much evil § 3. And the great means of nourishing this sin in Churches is departing from Christs Church order who hath appointed Teaching and Learning to be the setled way of getting knowledge And therefore required all his disciples to come to his Church as little children to School with teachable humble minds to Learn and not with proud wrangling minds to dispute If all our children should spend their time at School in disputing with the Teacher and setting their wits against his as in a conflict what would they thus Learn § 4. Therefore Paul saith that the servant of the Lord must not strive and oft calleth men from perverse disputings and striving about words which subvert the hearers and from such contendings as edifie not but tend to more ungodliness though the faith may be contended for and truth defended when opposition maketh it truly necessary § 5. When a man seeketh after knowledge as a Learner he meeteth it with a willing mind he cometh towards it with an appetite and so is a capable receiver But when a man cometh as a disputant he is ingaged already to one side and if that be false he cometh out to fight against the truth with a spirit of opposition hating truth as error and good as evil and thinks it his duty and interest to destroy and shame it if he can and therefore is unapt to think what may be said for it but studyeth all that he can against it And is this loathing and opposition and fighting against truth the way to know it § 6. Therefore that which hath undone the Churches peace is that too many Teachers being themselves too forward to controversies have too hastily drawn in their people into their quarrels and cast such bones before them in books and pulpits instead of food which break their teeth and set them together by the ears instead of nourishing them And so one mans hearers are taught to dispute for this sort of Government and anothers for that sort one mans for free-will and anothers against it when perhaps neither they nor the master of the quarrel can tell you what it is and so of an hundred more such like The honest hearers when they should be digesting the ancient Christian doctrine and learning to increase in Love to God and man and to practise a holy and a heavenly life and prepare for a comfortable death and happy eternity by a Living faith and hope are taught that if they be not zealots for this opinion or that for Anabaptistry for separation c. if they pray by a book or if they joyn with those that hold such things as they hear called by odious frightful names they are not then right zealous Christians but corrupt or complyers or lukewarm And thus each Church is made a miserable Church-militant and trained up to war against each other § 7. And this Ministers have done partly to strengthen themselves by the consent and number of their adherents as the Captain must conquer by his Souldiers When they can set a great number on hating their adversaries and backbiting them and telling the hearers wherever they come to make them seem odious how erroneous and bad such and such men are they think they have done much of their work And while they think it is for Christ they know not how notably they please and serve the Devil But I must remember that I have spoken of this elsewhere and so dismiss it § 8. That Mr. Danvers and his imitaters speak evil confidently and vehemently of the things they know not yea very many such I am sure But from what principle or root or how far that vice which produceth these fruits is mortified or unmortified as to all others I am neither called nor willing to judge I remember how Mr. Tho. Pierce once dealt with me When my Religious neighbour could hardly be perswaded to communicate with those among them that were of his judgement saying they were men that would swear and lie and lived scandalously I thought it my duty to keep up discipline and yet to moderate their censures by telling them what sins I thought might stand with some measure of sincere piety and Church-communion And what doth he but hence take advantage to tell the world how loose my doctrine was and what sinful persons I thought
had grace So now if I should say that notwithstanding these hard-faced falshoods heaped together and confidently obtruded on the ignorant even about publick and visible matter of fact yet I hope the Auâ—hor feareth God truly in other respects and erreth through Ignorance passion and temerity I should be told publickly ere long by one or other that I think the most brazen-faced Lyars may be Saints And if I deny such mens Goodness I look to be told that I am censorious and a reviler of godly men that differ from me Therefore I am thankful to Christ that he not only excuseth us from so hard a work as the Judging of the sincerity of others but calls us off and saith who art thou that judgest another mans servant to his own master he stands or falls But whoever censure me for it I will say that my judgement still inclineth to the hopeful and charitable part For siding and error may draw good men into heinous sins § 9. That He and I do differ in Judgement and Practice is not to be denyed I thought our difference had been but in so small and tolerable things till I saw worse in his writings as should neither abate Love or forbid Communion And thinking so I was the likelier to practise as I thought and not to hate him and such as he But I perceive he takes the differences to be far greater and my errors and sins to be more heinous and intolerable and therefore if he hate me though I know not that ever he saw me or I him it is no wonder it being more agreeable to his judgement And also if he would not tolerate me were it in his power § 10. If he so greatly differ from me and be in the right certainly it is because he is either a great deal wiser and more knowing in these matters or because he is more conscionable to avoid perverting temptations and more Godly and fit for divine light I deny not either but from the bottom of my heart tell him that I am so deeply conscious of the darkness and smalness of my understanding and my little goodness and very ill deserts from God that did he bring me any considerable evidence for his cause my great suspicion of my self would prepare me to hear him But it must not be such stuff as he here obtrudeth on us And I must tell him though I acknowledge God to be a free Benefactor and may give the Greatest Knowledge to them that have least laboured for it yet while diligent searching is his commanded means I shall doubt whether his easier and shorter search hath attained to so much more than my harder and longer till the fruit shall prove it § 11. He tells us Ed. 2. p. 170. that I cannot do my self more right and my offended brethren than to clear my self in these particulars which are indeed so heinous not only to every one of his Nonconforming brethren but to most Protestants that hear them Answ 1. Still such untruths Do you know what most Protestants think that hear them and every one of my Nonconforming brethren Why some of the wisest of them that I know did read them over and approved them before they were printed Others many and many of the most judicious also of my acquaintance have since professed their consent Nay more I remember not one Minister that hath made me know by word or writing to me that he dissenteth from any one of all these heinous things I remember that once some objected what they heard others say not as consenting to the opposers and acquiesced in my answers or rather in the words of the book perused So that if every one of my Nonconforming brethren be offended and I known not of one nor any one of them would ever vouchsafe a word or line to convince me you censure them for woful dissemblers or uncharitable But I believe them of themselves rather than you § 12. He addeth And I dare be bold to say hath given more general offence and lost Mr. Baxter more amongst his Friends than any thing he did in all his life Answ 1. The offence which Christ dreadfully condemneth which is scandalizing the weak or laying snares or stumbling-blocks before them to tempt them to think ill of Christ or Godliness or to commit any sin I would avoid as carefully as I can And to avoid it I have written that which offendeth you But the offence which is but Displeasing dissenters yea mistaking men I little regard on my own account And your talk of my loss or being lost doth savour so rankly of a humane hypocritical temptation as maketh me remember what Christ said to Peter Math. 16.23 that would have had him save himself from suffering though I will not speak out such unpleasing words to you But your words savour too much of the flesh O Sir it is but a few moments more and you and I shall be in a world where the thoughts and words of mortals of us will be of small importance to us And themselves are hasting to the day when all their thoughts perish O cease from man whose breath is in his nostrils for wherein is he to be accounted of Would you tempt me to look to the hypocrites reward the approbation of man O miserable reward Were not that book odious to you I would refer you for my Reasons to the two Chapters of Man-pleasing and Pride If Gods approbation seem not enough for us why call we him our God But if I have lost so much as you intimate you would perswade me that my service is more than I take it to be I have felt little comfort in any service of God which cost me nothing But you shall not tempt me to over-value it so much I find no loss at all by it What have I lost Sir Not one farthing or farthings-worth that I am aware of As I lived not on any man before so I am never the poorer for that duty now Is it mens praise or good thoughts of me Not one friend to my remembrance in the City or Land hath once told me his dissent much less that I have lost his good esteem Only one young man that heard me Preach came for satisfaction about one of the particulars who was satisfied as far as I could perceive and I wisht him but to read over all in my book about that you object concerning the Crucifix and I heard of him no more And if I am so much lost with my friends and no one of them in England tell me that he dissenteth and wherein such friends are not so valuable as to be any of my felicity And do you call a man lost that loseth the thoughts or the breath of man As it is their own duty or sin I regard all mens thoughts or words and so would please all men for their good to edification But as to my own comfort I can spare yours and theirs and if you and a