onely excluding all other infants from it in doctrine though not all in practise which are no less then an hundred to one whereby not a moity onely but all save a small moity of infants in the world yea in the very Christian world in which the most by far are unbelievers are cut off at once from not the Church on earth onely but all share in the Kingdom of heaven also which of all these I say viz we he or you are most cruel and desperate and do most justly deserve the censure which you Priests put upon us p. 15. of your pamphlet of damning infants dying contrary to evident testimony of Scriptures and of damning innumerable innocents such as infants of infidels are whose right to the Kingdome of heaven our Saviour declared I propound it to be considered by your selves and all other men at leasure at present seeing this Argument of yours makes also more against then for you whose plea is for some infants against other if your Minor in it viz. that denial of baptism to infants destroyes all hope of their salvation were true as it is not and speaks for a necessity of baptizing all infants and not a few onely I 'le Syllogize it back upon you in much what your own terms and so pass hence to the other That opinion which destroyes all hopes of the salvation of many dying infants to one in the world yea in the very Christian world too is a most desperate ungodly uncharitable opinion But the opinion of you Priests who deny all hopes of salvation to those to whom baptism is deni'd and yet deny it doctrinally your selves to all unbelievers infants which are many to one in the Christian world and dispute for its dispensation to believers infants onely is such as destroyes all hope of the salvation of many dying infants to one as well in the Christian world as elsewhere Ergo the opinion of you Priests is a most cruel desperate ungodly uncharitable opinion Another fine fancie whereby you would fain juggle men into a belief that believers infants and these onely are to be baptized runs thus else say you the Gospel Covenant is worse then that under the law forasmuch as then litle infants were circumcised Now Sirs when I come to meddle with this Argument ore again I shall shew you plainly the imbecillity of it to prove the baptism of any infants at all and the melâ—ority of the Gospel-Covenant above that of the law though infants be not now baptized as Circumcised then at present I am to shew how if it would prove any thing it would prove the right of baptism to unbelievers infants to whom you deny it as well as to believers infants whose baptism onely you seem to plead by it I say suppositively that this is to make the Gospel-Covenant worse then that of the law to deny baptism to infants now sith they then admitted infants to Circumcision then the denial of it to believers infants which is your own opinion makes it worse then it was under the law as well as the denial of it to infants of believers for under the law the infants of unbelievers which were many to one believer among the Iews Is. 53.1 were both de jure and de facto circumcised as well as those of the believing Iews and so by your own rule ought the one to be baptized now as well as the other Again by the denial of baptism to the infants of unbelievers not onely a moity but the most of Christendome as in which are by far more unbelievers infants then others are cut off at once from baptism and membership I conclude therefore thus If that opinion which denies baptism to little children makes the Gospel-covenant worse then that under the law then the opinion of those Priests who deny baptism to all unbelievers infants whereby not a moity onely but most of the Christian world in which the most are unbelievers are cut off from being members of the Church makes the Gospel-Covenant worse then the law But though not veraciter yet secundum te O Presbiter that opinion which denies baptism to little children whereby a moity of the Christian world is so cut off makes the Gospel-Covenant worse then that under the law Ergo thy opinion which denieth baptism to all unbelievers infants whereby more then a moity of infants is so cut off makes it worse under the Gospel then under the law Another curious conceit whereby you undertake to clear the right of baptizing the infants of believing parents above others is the being and plain yea more plain appearing of the holy spirit to be in these children then in others or then in men whom we baptize that make profession which plain and sufficient appearance so you stile it p. 5 of the spirits being in these children is made say you many waies First by these infants faith Secondly by these infants holiness Thirdly by those Eulogies that are given to these children in Scriptures not inferiour to those of the best Saints Fourthly by that Scripture in special 2 Cor. 13. know you not that the Spirit that Christ you should have said is in you except ye be reprobates lastly and mainly by these childrens non-appearing not to have the spirit by these childrens not appearing to be evil by these infants not appearing by any actuall sin to have barr'd themselves or deserved to be exempted from the general state of little infants declared in Scripture by all which on pain and guilt of the breach of Christian charity whose rule is praesumere unumquenque bonum nisi constet de malo we are bound to believe that these infants of believing parents not of others have evidently enough the holy spirit Now Sirs the Lord help you to your eye-sight if it be his wlll for I le be bold to say these Seers are as blind as a beetle what ever they seem to themselves to see who by any thing at all that is here brought do discern the holy spirit to be in any infants but this which is to the present purpose may be more safely asserted that all this proves it not one jot more to be in the infants of believers then it proves it to be in unbelievers infants to whom you deny baptism as well as we in plea pretence and prate at least but not altogether in practise for verily these have as much promise of the spirit as the other those parents Acts 2. being yet unbelievers while Peter spake to them saying the promise is to you and your children yea these have as much capacity for the spirit as much manifestation of the spirit as much capacity to believe as much holyness as much Eulogie in Scripture for Christ commends not the infants of some parents above the infants of others but indefinitly the whole age of infancy alike as little appearance yet of being reprobates and so consequently as much appearance that Christ is in them as in the other
matters of the law and Tithes offerings and things that came by Moses and now are not at all but who hath robbed him in matters of grace and truth and ordinances and things that came by Christ one tittle of whose Testament shall not be contradicted by man nor angel under pain of cursing you talk of golden cups and vessels in which the whore fills out her abominations and filthinesse of her fornication to the whole earth but who hath taken away the key of the Kingdom of heaven i. e. from the people and Church in whom the power lies fundamentally and primarily for t is but derivatively from the church under God secondarily executively and ministerially in the Officers not onely Papa but PP too see Rutherfords Presbytery wherein he wrests the power of the Keyes from the people who hath taken away the key of knowledge and shut up the Kingdom of heaven against men as neither willing to go in themselves by the right way and baptism nor to suffer them that would who but ye O Priests have been in these things more sacrilegi church-robbers then sacerdotes or givers of holy things yea what evil of this kind YYYou have wrought in the sanctuaries of God how you have laid them wast throughout the whole earth how you have defiled the pure waters thereof and did so Claudere rivos shut down the floodgates that the people could have none of these to drink and caused all discourses and all places to overflow with muddy and brackish waters if I should hold my peace the stones out of the wall even those living stones out of the true Temple that are living monuments of Gods mercy at this day in that they are alive from the dead even the dead night of your errors will proclaim to the everlasting infamy of that generation that have been the neerer the church the further from God Thou makest thy boast of God O PPPriesthood and wouldst seem to approve of the things that are most excellent and art confident thou thy self art a guide of the blind and a light of them that sit in darknsse an instructer of the foolisâ— a teacher of babes but indeed thou art a blind guid a dark lantorn a foolish instructer and hast need thy self to be taught by those babes which live upon the sincere milk of the word which be the first principles of the oracles of God thou hast a form of knowledge and of truth as it was in the Law that was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 long since abolished according to which thou Enthusiasts to thy self a Iudai al Pontificall Politicall Pollitical Religion of thy own but thou art grossely ignorant of the truth of the Gospel and that form of doctrine that Rome obeyed from the heart of old before it came to be a mother of harloâ—â—y and of such a crew of corrupt children as have since then come from her to the corrupting ing of the earth thou teachest another but thou teachest not thy self thou preachest a man should not steal but thou stealest thou saiest a man should not commit adulâ—tery but all the Kings and their people in the christian earth have committed adultery with thee thou seemest to abhorre it yet thou more then any committest sacriledge yea thou o PPPriesthood art that holy harlot that holy thief that hast fingred the most holy things yea even the holy Scripture it self which is the store-house and under Christ the treasury of truth and hid it from the world under unknown tongues and a heap of unsound sences which thou hast put upon it therefore thou art inexcusable O woman when thou judgest the now churches of sacriledge for wherein thou judgest them thou condemnest thy self for thou that judgest doest the same things which thou saiest they do but they do not and therefore is he now killing thy children with death and we are sure that the judgement of God is according to truth against them that do such things Yea wo unto you O ye blind guids ye strein at a gnat and make it sacriledge and church robbing to take Fonts and railes and pipes and pictures and altars c. out of your stone Temples and keep a do about cleansing and hallowing and having these outside decencyes and orders and offerings but swallow a camel and demolish the true temple of God and the vessels of the sactuary i. e. the ordinances thereof which is holy indeed which Temple the Saints are that are built together a spiritual house unto him and your selves are full of ravening extortion and excesse you are as graves that appear not and the men that walk over you are not aware of you nor how they are rid over by you nor how very well to be rid of you wherefore the wisdome of God even Christ Iesus now sends you prophets and Apostles and wisemen and Scribes to warn you yet these you kill and crucifie and scourge and persecute as your enemies because they tell you the truth that the blood of all the Prophets that have prophesied in Sack cloth and tormented you and your forefathers and your people that dwell on earth for 42 moneths may come on this generation and so your house be left unto you desolate for ever And fourthly there needs no more to prove you to be what you say of us that we are viz. a lying and blasphemous sect then all these forenamed falsities which are asserted of the Anabaptists when of right they belong more properly to your selves Yea great need indeed and good reason that you should be the Plantiffs in this businesse of loaâ—ing with disgraces belying and blaspheming who have bin your selves nex and immediately under Satan Supreme false accusers of the brethren to the world and the powers Courts and consistories thereof civil and ecclesiastical for Hereticks Schismaticks Sectaries seditious deceivers hypocrites blasphemeâ—s enemies to Caesar trouble Townes and what not with which kind of nicknames you the false kingdome of the Priests have overwhelmed the true royall Priesthood as with a flood the burden of whose scandals blasphemies tales and disgraces wherewith you have loaded the saints per mille ducentos sexaginta annos 1260. years exceeds any id genus that the saints have loaded you with in number weight and measure per millies mille ducentas sexaginta Lias 1000000260 l. You have cloathed the pretious sons and daughters of Sion as the persecuting Emperors did of old with the skins of wild beasts and so cast them to the dogs to be devoured i. e. with the names of Monsters and so exposed them to the hatred of the world with the which kind of sport not onely Dr. Featley and Mr. Edwards while they lived made themselves merry and their friends too by bestowing Legends a piece towards the support of their severall false wayes as one great Benefactor did a Legend of lies on the Papistrey to the maintaining of that which they call the golden Legend but others also bely the nicknamed Anabaptists
the Ministers would not hinder the preaching of the word or call any time unseasonable for that the Ministers answered that they magnified preaching as much as any yet must needs tell them the Apostle makes it inferior to charity and that when charity was in danger to be violated by it it were but Christian prudence to omit it Reply Antichristian priestly-popely pollicy if ye will but neither Christian prudence nor Pastor-like pitty nor Peter-like piety nor Pauls charge to Timothy 2 Tim. 4.1.2 which was to preach the Word and be instant in season and out too to reprove rebuke exhort c. with all long suffering and doctrine Ob. But some there would have been griev'd at it in which case better to have omitted it in charity then hazzard hatreds by performance Aâ—sw Some there its like would not have indur'd it yet is that no plea whereupon to omit it for then we must preach no more Gospel to the world which sets two against three and three against two and occasions not causes by means of mens lusts opposing it more sword then peace at present Luke 12.51 52 53. Yea the time will come and now is when men yea Ministers will not indure sound Doctrine but after their own lusts heap to themselves teachers and what heaps upon heaps of false teachers are there in all Christendom for the Clergy have made themselves many as the locusts many more then to every parish one tickling men up still with an omnia benè in a bad condition even when for their sakes Isa. 24. omnia penè penitus peritura sunt and will turn away their ears from the truth and be turned unto fables of mens feigning but watch thou in all things indure afflictions do the work of an Evangelist fulfill thy ministry 2 Tim. 4.3 4 5. Report That the Congregation consisted of two sorts of men and women whose opinions were different that there was a danger of a breach between them that as they came together and had behav'd themselves quietly all the time so they might be permitted to depart that the mischieâ—s which follow Division are easier prevented then heal'd c. Reply Great indeed are the mischiefs that follow Divisions they are more easily prevented then heal'd but as sure as the Lord lives and his word hath any truth in 't the Divisions of these dayes the mischiefs of which and that 's the best on t ' will light most upon the tripple Tower of BBBabel even the Tripple CCCrown and Kingdome of the CCClergy out of whose clutches God is going to redeem his Captive Clergy the height of which Tower he will bring down to the Earth even to the dust these Divisions I say will neither be prevented nor healed notwithstanding all indeavours to that purpose till that be fully accomplisht which this Division of Languages truly tends to in the Councels of God viz. the utter shattering and disabling of these great Babel-builders so that their Ambitious projects shall come to a Perpetual end till then breach upon breach cannot be avoided while the Earth was as in old time of Priestly pomp it was of one language and of one speech all saying nemine contradicente as the Pope said all worshipping as the Priest-hood appointed all believing as the Church believed there was so much Charity to the Churches peace that all truth was choakt under the name of Schism for the sake on 't the builders by whom the corner-stone is still refused saying one to another go to let us build us a City and a Tower whose top may reach to heaven let us make us a name and nothing was restrained from them which they imagined to do by advantage of this their unity and uniformity of speech and Religion but now God is coming down to view the great Tower this Pompous Kingdom of Priests and finding it swell up to heaven above the stars of God over all on earth at least that 's called God he sayes go to let us go down and confound their language that they may not understand one anothers speechâ— whereupon as the great City is split in three parts so each of these will be subdivided more and more into Sectaries of all sorts so that men understand not now the language of the Pope and Priest-hood nor will Christs sheep hear the voice of those strangers by which Division of tongues if that Great City cease to reign and that montanous Babell come down and become a plain before Zerubabel as it must t is not so devillish as Divine a Division which all are not so sorry for as some whose Alas is lamented back again with Hallelujah yea let the day break more and more and the shadows flie away and my beloved be like a Roâ— or young hart hasting ore these mountains of Bâ—ther i. e. Division Cant. 2.17 And now as to the peoples being permited to depart I know none were held there against their wills besides your selves yea both you and they too that would might have gon in peace and those that would might have staid in peace had you not troubled all with your oppositions if such as had a mind to stay had been as peaceably permitted to abide as you who had such a mind to be out were peaceably permitted to depart for any hinderance you had from us all might have been full as well for ought I know as now it is Report Next you relate I not hearkning to the Reasons of the Ministers it was at last referred to the Minister of the place being there present and he desired to declare whether he would give way to my preaching which he refusing to do upon the reasons before said one of the Congregation began to utter some words tending to a Commotion viz. that he had nothing to do with them that they would do it without his leave and the like whereupon the Ministers conjured me whose interest they observed to be so great in the people by the bonds of Charity the candor and Sobriety of a Christian and ingenuity of a Scholar that I would dissolve the Congregation that they might part without professed hostility that there would great disgrace light upon their meeting besides dangers which they did foresee if I did not that if I persevered in my motion they did protest openly before the Congregation against it and did charge upon me whatsoever inconveniency should follow so being perswaded I went out of the Church with the Ministers and the Congregation followed Reply I saw not so much as a grain of reason in all you spake in prevention of so innocent and in it self inoffensive a purpose as that was to render a reason of my faith to a people that expected it from me and were as your selves were not then and there so willing to hear it whereupon I neither did nor durst decline the doing of it upon any such account as convicted that by right I ought not to have done it nevertheless I must confess when
Abrahams spiritual seed but also to unbelivers and to the whole world and this more plainly too and without a vail holding forth salvatorem exhibitum a saviour that hath already offered himself a ransom and salvation by him in common to all Iews and Gentiles bond and free even every creature that puts it not away from him when â—endered to him Mark 16.15.16 1 Iohn 2.2 so that the Gospel is as good now to the full to all men in its administration as it was of old and in many respects far better though no infants at all be baptized and so I have done with this argument and come to the next Disputation That opinion which destroyeth the comfort that the holy ghost administreth over the losse of our children by death is a desperate and ungodly opinion But such is the opinion of the Anabaptists concerning little children Ergo it is desperate and ungodly The minor proved It destroyes the hope that parents can have of the salvation of their children for it makes them in no better condition then Turks and Pagans and so our Respondent himself professed and when the Apostle saith 1 Thess. 4.13 I would not have you sorrow as those without hope the grieved parents might reply what hope can we have of our child who is in no better condition then the children of infidels what comfort can we have from the Covenant made with and the promises to our children c therefore why should we not sorrow as those without hope Our Respondent replyed to this that for ought he knew the children of Turks and Pagans might be all saved and one replyed Perhaps he thought the devils might also which was the end of the argument there being no other answer given nor to be expected Disproof As I replied then so I reply still that for ought I know the children of Turks and Pagans dying in infancy may be all saved yet will it not follow so much as probably that therefore in reallity or in my opinion either the Devils may be saved also which rude return is recorded by your selves to be then given and stands for ever before the world as the end of this your argument and of your Disputation also there being to this assertion of mine viz. for ought I know the children or dying infants of Turks and Pagans may be all saved no other answer given by you in the Dispute nor yet since in your Account nor yet ever to be expected But Sirs as great an Extasie as you seem to be in about this position yet I assure you if I had not learn'd it before yet I have learn't it since from your very selves who so strange at it to be a thing not so strange as true viz. that the dying infants of Turks and Pagans may be all saved and that the dying infants in your Christendom are in no better condition then the dying infants of Turks and Pagans for so I said and not as you here misrelate it then Turks and Pagans themselves for if the dying infants of infidels are in no worse condition then your dying infants then surely yours are in no better condition then they and that they are in no worse condition then yours nothing need hinder you more then me for ought I know from a belief thereof unlesse you will refuse to believe your selves who preach no lesse both to me and all men no further off hence then in the next page and the next save one above for do you not say there that unlesse we will violate Christian charity whose rule is praesumere c. to presume every one to be in a good condition till he appears to be in an evil we must believe and hope all things of the little children of believers since it cannot appear in infancy that they have barred themselves c. and if so why not of the infants of Turks Pagans and infidels specially to speak in your own dialect since it cannot appear that these have any more than the other by any actual sin barred themselves or deserved to be exempted from the general state of little children declared in the Scriptures which is this viz. That of such is the Kingdome of heaven You see then how you teach us this precious piece of truth your selves p. 4.5 therefore I hope you will learn it your selves viz. that we are to hope well of such infants as have not by actual sin barred themselves from Salvation and allow us to teach it too in time though hitherto you seem to be so far from giving way to us to teach the same that when we speak well of infants that have not by actual sin deserved exemption and hope well of their salvation so dying you so wretchedly forget it to be the doctrine your selves deliver that with detestation you protest against it as abominable as if there were as little hope to be had of the salvation of such dying infants as are not born in Christendome as of the salvation of the very devils but your first doctrine shall stand of the two for truth with me from which though you often contradict it your selves I shal not be frighted by your bigg words but still hope as well of one dying infant as another Secondly Risum teneatis amici it is enough I think to set him on smiling who is never so deep in his dumps to see what a most pat and pertinent place of Scripture you have here dragged in to the proof of infant baptism viz. 1 Thes. 4.13 from whence as the wheel barrow goes rumble to rumble so it followes that infants are to be baptised you might as well have said you may find it in the fifteenth of go look it as send us to a text of so little tendency as this is of to your present purpose for what if we are not to mourn over the death of Saints and Godly friends that sleep in Jesus as those that can have no hope of such friends as they see to dy ungâ—dly which is indeed the direct drift of the place will it therefore follow that all those infants that dy without baptism are universally and unavoidably damned yet no less then this is here told by your selves to be your tenet whilst you say our denial of baptism unto them destroies all hope of their salvation But Sirs is it so in earnest in your opinion that no baptism no hope of salvation Then thirdly I have a treble charge to draw up against you 1. of unchristian cruelty 2. Of point blank popery 3. of clear contrariety both to your selves and to those very authors you refer us to to read and learn by and also to the very professed doctrine of the church of England whereof you profeâ—s to be the Ministers First I must cry out oh the Vnchristian cruelty that is hatched in your hearts and here expressed not onely to these thousands of infants even of Christians that happen to dy unbaptized at least to whom baptism
Ba. argues from the samenesse of the Olive tree the Jew was broken off from and the Gentile was grafted into that therefore as infants stood members then so they must now I answer it is true there is some kind of indentity between the Jewish and the Gospel Church but not such as concludes an indentity of membership for infants they are the same ingenere visiblis Ecclesiae they agree in the common name of Church and visible Church elected and segregated from the world but there 's little else that I know of wherin they are the same they differ in circumstantials in their accidental forms in their officers ordinances customs constitutions subjects members that being constituted of one whole nation of people or fleshly seed of Abraham taken out from all other nations this of a spiritual seed of Abraham i. e. believers scaterred here and there taken out of any nation as they happen to be called almost every nation some the ceremony of inchurching Abrahams own much more any other mans meer fleshly seed being ceased Mr. Bax. peddles on apace and brings a company of Scripures in proof of infants Church-membership and baptism which though he stile them as indeed his whole book Plain Scripture proofs for those two yet a man that is not minded to force the Scripture into the Service of his own fancy because it does not serve it freely may look till dooms day before he see in them any plain perspicuous proof of either one of these or of the other Christ saith he Mat. 23.37 would have gathered Ierusalem oft as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings but they would not therefore sure he would not have put them or their infants out of the Church the strength of the consequence lies here saith he he would have gathered whole Ierusalem and that into the visible Gospel Church therefore infants also Now that Christ does not speak of whole Ierusalem here as he saith he does both men and infants the circumstances of the text do fully evince to us for he speaks of the same persons he speaks to and the same persons he complains of saying ye would not the same and no other are they to whom he speaks when he saies Oh Ierusalem how often would I have gathered c. but those were men and women only whom he called to believed in him and not infants Again he gathered them by preaching of the word into baptism and membership and received all that came and no more viz. sometimes the children and not the parents sometimes the parents and not the children so that a mans foes for the truths sake sometimes were they of his own family his own flesh therefore he offered not to gather infants for he preacht not to them nor called them at all nor were any more baptized and added to the Church-fellowship in the Gospel then they that gladly received the word that did not infants yea 3000 were gathered into the first Gospel Church by preaching and baptism in one day and never an infant among them all for they surely did not continue in fellowship in breaking of bread and prayers Acts 2. Therefore whereas Mr. Ba. in his Epistle to the parish of Bewdley challenges Mr. T. to name him one particular Church since Adam either of Jewes or Gentiles where infants were not Church-members if they had any infants till 200 years ago I name him the first Gospel Church that ever was Act. 2. in which there was not one infant yea there was three thousand baptized in one day and it is a hazard but that those three thousand had many perhaps no lesse than three thousand infants belonging to them all and yet as Mr. Cotton thinkes so think I that none of their infants were baptized with them much lesse were added with them to the Church or continued with them in fellowship as the whole Gospel Church did in breaking of bread and prayers yea though there was no infants in that Church which was gathered at Ierusalem it self to which Christ saies how oft would I have gathered thy children c. and therefore Mr. Baxs sense is very sinister so I challenge him again to shew me not by such dubious muddy cloudy circumlocutory inconsequential consequences as he doth but undeniable evidences any one of all the Gospel Churches of the primitive times either of Jewes or Gentiles which we are all to reâ—orm by viz. Ierusalem Rome Corinth Galatia Philippi Ephesus Thessalonica or any other to fellowship in which there was one infant baptized added and admitted and I shall cry him mercy and lay down the Cudgells at his feet and acknowledge he hath broke my pate The next Scripture he uses is more impertinent then this yet Mr. Ba. makes a certain shift to squeese an argument out of it and to compel it invita minervâ not a little against its own intent and meaning to corroborate his crooked crazie creed concerning the inchurching and cristening of infants viz. Rev. 11.15 whence he thus Syllogizes If the kingdoms of this world either are or shall be the kingdomes of the Lord and of his Christ then infants also must be members of his kingdom i. e. the visible Church the Antecedent is the words of the text indeed as he saies but the sequel is so sure and follows so firmly in his fancy that he saies nothing can be said against it that is sense or reason but indeed it self is against both sense and reason Who would ever think if the word did not declare that the things of wisdome are hid from the wise and prudent that such a disputer as Mr. Ba. holds himself to be should deduce the now membership of infants from such a premise as this viz. because the kingdomes of this world are or else shall be the kindomes of God and Christ what 's this I trow toward the eviction of the other much every way saith Mr. Ba. yea so much that for any thing he can see this text alone were sufficient to decide the whole controversie whether infants must be Church members Amen so beit say I let this Scripture decide it and let 's see what Mr. Ba. saies on t If they can say quoth he by kingdoms is meant here some part of the kingdom excluding all infants such men may make their own creed on those termes let the Scripture say what it will I know in some places the word kingdome and Ierusalem c. is taken for a part but if we must take words alwayes improperly because they are taken so sometimes saith he then we shall not know how to understand any Scripture so of necessity it must be understood properly i. e in its prime signification of the whole kingdoms and whole Ierusalem with him and not improperly for a part onely though Mr. Blake to Mr. Black saith upon occasion of our pleading for the proper signification of baptize nothing more ordinary then to have words used out of their prime signification whereby
we may see how these men wil needs have that signification that best serves their turnes whether proper or improper when the proper most fits them then the improper cannot be meant there when the proper makes against them the improper is pleaded for as none more usual then that thus the word houshold must include infants when baptism is spoken of but when the passover is spoken of then infants are excluded because else we shall argue from thence to their eating the supper as they from circumcision unto their baptism but this by the way that it may be noted how the men will have things their own way by hook or by crook not that I deny the word kingdomes to be taken properly for all the whole kingdome here yea I grant it but let us see what of that why even this if the whole kingdom be the Lords then infants must unavoidably be members of Christs Church and if we ask how comes this about he will tell you two wayes First as infants are all of the Kingdomes of this world taken for the whole kingdom Secondly as by the word kingdom of Christ is meant Christs church Now let us spell and put all together and it is thus much First by Kingdomes of this world is here meant the whole Kingdome of this world or Kingdome taken universally not for some part of it onely Secondly by Kingdomes of the Lord and his Christ is here meant Christs church onely Thirdly infants are a part of the Kingdomes of this world and so consequently of Christs church for the Kingdomes of this world are become the Kingdomes of the Lord and his Christ i. e. Christs church oh brave and plain Scripture proof for infant church-membership and baptism Let us examine what is true and what is false in this First as above I grant that here the Kingdomes of this world signifie the whole Kingdome as he pleads it but that here the Kingdome of the Lord and his Christ signifies Christs church I utterly deny it and am amazed that a reasonable man should affirm it and so consequently I deny that it appears from this place that infants are now members of Christs church But he brings reason for it such as t is and that shall be a little examined First if they say saith he that the Kindome of Christ is not here meant Christs church they speak against the constant phrase of Scripture which calls Christs Kingdome his Church et conversim Christ is King and saviour of the same society what is Christs Kingdom but his church To which I answer Christs Kingdome is the whole world as well as his church And Secondly that he is King and Saviour of all men in some sense as well as of that same society And Thirdly that it is not against the constant phrase of Scripture to say by Christs Kingdome here is not meant his church for though it is true by his Kingdome is sometimes exprest his church et retro by his church is meant his Kingdome in a special and restrictive sense yet not constantly there being many places where the word Kingdome of Christ is taken in a larger sense as signifying not the church but the whole world O bad 21 the Kingdome i. e. Monarchy of the whole earth shall be the Lords i. e. Christs so Dan. 7. the Kingdome i. e. Dominion Monarchy and greatness of the Kingdome under the whole heaven is given to the son of man and the Saints yea his Kingdom is over all he shall rule the Nations govern and judge the whole world in righteousnesse Oh saith Mr. Ba. the Kingdome of Christ is more large and more speciall but here it cannot be meant of his kingdom in the larger sense nor as he ruleth common societies and things for so saith he the Kingdomes of this world were ever the Lords and his Christs and it could not be said that they are now become so To which I answer First that in granting what he here does that Christs kingdome is taken sometimes in a larger sense then for the church he contradicts himself above where he saies it is the constant phrase of Scripture to call Christs Kingdome his church and what is Christs kingdome but his church Secondly whereas he saies the Kingdomes of this world were ever the Lords and his Christs in the larger sense as taken for his Government and Rule I grant de jure Christ hath been Lord of the whole earth a long time but de facto he is not King so as actually to reign over the whole earth as ere long he shall do i. e. at his appearing 2 Tim. 4.1 to this very day but in that indeed i. e. when he comes he shall be King Monarch over all the earth and rule with a rod of iron over the Nations and judge the world in righteousnesse together with his Saints who hath been judged in unrighteousnesse by the Nations and Rulers hitherto Zach. 14. Dan. 7. Act. 17. P 2. Rev. 2. then he shall be in point of execution as before by commission and really and actually as now intentionally King of Kings and Lord of Lords Rev. 19. but till then as yet a little while and his Kingdome comes to his hand and the Kingdomes of the world do thus become his for the work of recovery of his right is now very hot in fieri and will not be long before it be in facto esse till then he hath been an underling and other Lords besides him have had dominion over him in his and also over the whole earth which is his and over the Kingdomes of this world which de jure are his but specially that servus servorum dominus dominorum the Pope and CCClergy that are the whore that hath reigned in three divisions over the earth between whom and Christ the great justle now is in all christendome whether he or they that by permission have had it so long from Christ who onely hath the commission for it shall be King of Kings and Lord of Lords hitherto Christ hath reigned in the world as Charles the second hath reigned in England and no otherwise i. e. hath reigned in the hearts of a few of his friends and followers But I perceive the Gospel or good news of the Kingdome of Christ coming which is to be preached more had more before the end is yet a riddle to Mr. Ba. and though I hope it will be if seeing he will see yet t is not yet given him to know the mystery and manner of Christs Kindome Thirdly whereas he saies that the Kingdom taken in the larger sense i. e. for the world cannot be meant here but the church onely by this phrase the Kingdomes of the Lord and his Christ I strongly assert that of all places in Scripture the word Kingdomes of Christ cannot here be construed for the church that the church cannot be meant in that phrase but the Kingdomes in the largest sense i. e. the whole world and
in matters of faith repentance Religion worship see Barbers answer to the Essex watchmens watch-word p. 7. c. the Magistrate receives no charge from God about Religion neither is cura ammarum but cura corporum onely committed to him Luther himself was of this mind that the Lawes of the Magistrate extended no further then to the bodies and goods that which is external and that God would have none to rule in the soul but himself therefore where the Magistrate goes about to govern in the conscience he usurps that jurisdiction which God reserves to himself certainly this is that great arrogany in the Whore or Woman of sin which God will severely punish in that S S Shee gives lawes to the conscience and sits in the Temple and Church of God as a God King Iames in Parliament 1609 said That it is a sure rule in Divinity that God never loves to plant his Church with violence and blood and again in his Apology for the oath of Allegeance p. 4. speaking of the Papists that took the said oath That he gave a good proof of it that he never intended persecution for conscience but onely desired to be secured of them for civil abuses that it was usually the condition of Christians to be persecuted but not to persecute Again Faith and repentance to acknowledgement of the truth is Gods gift and if wee 'l believe our Clergy no way in every mans power no not by gift from God to perform and so the Magistrate must punish men belike because God who gives where he lists does not give them to believe c. Again Blasphemers Persecutors as Paul Idolators as the Corinthians yea Iewes Turks and Pagans may be converted in time by the word therefore are not to be plucked up out of the Earth for then they can never possibly repent Again persecution was never taught by Christ nor practised by his Apostles but arose among Heathens and was continued by the Roman Antichrist and his Ministers Yet there 's one way more whereby they evade all this and that is by denying that by the Tares here are meant Hereticks False Worshippers and Antichristians and asserting them to be Hypocrites in the Church and this is the way of Mr. Cotton whereby you may see again how Divines are divided among themselves in all things almost as well as some which Mr. Cotton in a book which the Bloody Tenet relates to gives out as I remember that by tares is meant hypocrites in the Church who are so like the wheat that they cannot well be discovered nor discerned from it and so must be let alone in the Church by the Ministers of the Church least they mistake and pluck up wheat instead of tares and cast out men for hypocrites who its possible may be sincere for ought we know In answer to which I must confesse men that cast out persons for Hypocrites had need be pretty wary and not overhasty yea better an inconvenience than a mischief betâ—er erre in letting some Hypocrites stand in the Church then for hast cast out one that seemes to be so to us and yet is not But this is not the sense of our Saviour in this place for as it cannot be the Church that the Tares are here bid to be let alone in as I have shewed above so much lesse by the tares can be meant hypocrites so neer the wheat i. e. true Saints in shew and likenesse and pretence as to be hardly discerned from them For First Though Hypocrites are like Saints and appear so to be oft it may be alwaies to the deceiving of us yet the Tares are not at all like the wheat nor at all to any but such as are stark blind appearing to be wheat Secondly an Hypocrite in the Church who is one that appâ—ars to be what he is not must be supposed while he is in the Church to be discovered or not discovered so to be when not discovered he is no hypocrite to us to whom things are as they appear what ere he may be to God but as true a Saint as the rest and when discovered till when to us he is a Saint and must stand under the notion of a Saint then he must not stand in the Church which is not to harbor any that are palpably wicked and who is so palpable as he whose simulata sanctitas is dulplex iniquitas But now First the tares hee spoken of are plainly said and seen to be tares and appeare to be tares and a distinct stuff from the Wheat and yet for all that they are bid to be let alone in the Field as hypocrites must not be in the Church when they appear to be such But in the field i. e the world t is true enough that hypocrites may stand even after they are cast out of the Church unlesse they act any thing that civil justice will reach them for and so also may Antichristians and all false Worshippers T is evident then that in this place as well as Matth. 15.13.14 that in the time of the Gospel Church Tares that much hinder the wheat that are mingled in the same Field world Civil States Countreyes Common-wealths of Satans sowing among the Wheat Weeds Nettles Bryers Thorns Plants that are not of the heavenly Fathers planting Faâ—se worshippers Hereticks men and their Ministryes of false Religions doctrines faiths waies of serving God may and ought by permission and commission from Christ be let alone and allowed to stand by no means in the same Church by all means in the same world or part of the world locally considered for the Church is not locally considered as a place measured by and consistent of such or such a compasse of ground as the Popes parish Churches did whereupon they went on procession once a year lest they should forget the bounds of their Church but mystically of such or such a company of men however scattered locally here or there yet in one fellowship I say in the same part of the world nation City Countrey civill corporation with the wheat Saints true Church under the protective power of civil Magistracy free from molestation meerly for their religion so be they live justly soberly and peacably with all men any thing said to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding by the Priest who of all men hath least reason to be against toleration of tares in the world and of plants which the heavenly father never planted if he consider what he is himself and unlesse he desire to be rooted out in hast by the civill power before his time See the parable and read it with the exposition of it Mat. 13.37 c. He that sowed good seed in the field is the son of man i. e. Christ the field is the world therefore not the Church the good seed or wheat are the children of the Kingdom i. e. the Saints the true Church and worshippers the tares which while men slept and did not mind it the
would not obey the orders of the Church insomuch that who but the devill who so busie as he now to have Christian Bishops favoured cherished advanced honoured with all the honours that might be next to that of the very Crown Imperial it self who so earnest as he to have all the world brought about by all means possible and in all the hast to become Christians and to become one holy Catholick Christian Church and so within a while Deo permittente non approbante having set forth the beast or Roman Empire in another shape and christned it with the name of Christendome he scrambles up his Kingdome to himself again makes over his power seat and great authority to this beast thus transformed and this beast gives it all up to the Whore he sets him up a Vicar General and names him the Vicar of Christ the head of the Church Bishop of the Universal See and such like and by him and the Ministers of Christ that issued from him fills all the earth with abomination and reigns with as full force though not so open face but under a mask having all things in a kind of apish imitation of Christs kingdome to the suppressing of the truth as in former daies he had done and all this came to passe through this sin of self love in the Clergy which as it grew great so love to the truth grew smaller and smaller till it came to be totally extinguisht and the light of it wholly ecclipsed from the earth for when the good man Constantine in his zeal to the truth gave them great Revenues to which other princes added more still according to the voice that was then heard in the aire viz. hodie venenum infusum est ecclesiae so it sell out for the Clergy fell to make much of themselves and things of the earth to serve and seek their own interests fell to wrangling and jangling about Primacy Superiority who should be universall Bishop and such base unworthy abominable and self-pleasing practises so that the truth took no more place in their hearts from thenceforth for ever From thenceforth they began to grow in high esteem of themselves and not only to fancy but also to inveagle both Princes and people to fancy some perfection holinesse choicenesse spiritualnesse and purity in them more then in all other men and to distinguish themselves from the people by their garbs and titles of Holy men of God the Spiritualty the Clergy or Heritage of God the Tribe of Levi the lot of Gods own inheritance the Priesthood Ghostly fathers Divines shutting out the people from sharing with them in these terms of honour which belong onely to Gods people whom of all the rest in the mean time they villyfyed with the names of Hereticks as if God himself had no regard almost to any but themselves and did behold all manner of men but these Ministers afar off calling other princes and lords for the Clergy men were become lords and princes too now i. e. spiritual ones Temporall Princes Lords Temporall Secular men and the people the Laity Mechanicks that must not meddle with the Scripture so much as to look in it for so it was in old time not so much as to take upon them to be skilled in it much lesse to speak out of it or expound or understand any otherwise then as these Divines say is the meaning of it yea under the raign of these latter Lords the Protestant CClergy though they have it in such plain English before their eyes yet what a horrible thing was it but a few years behind fancied by Featley and still is well nigh universally by the CClergy here in England who appropriate all the wisdome about the Scripture to themselves what a horrible thing I say for the people to talk on or have more to do with Scripture then to take it as the Priesthood gives the sense of it The Shoomaker goes not beyond his last nor the Taylor beyond his measure quoth he only the trade and well might he so call it for by that craft they have their wealth as handicrafts men theirs by other crafts of expounding Scripture is a mystery which every Artizan arrogateth to himself the Physitian here will be prescribing receipts the Lawyer will be demurring upon Dubia Evangelica and every handicrafts man will be handling the pure word of God with impure and unwashed hands this the pratling huswife this the old dotard this the wrangling Sophister in a word this men of all profession and men of no profession take upon them to have skill in sic ille quid ni quaeso O Sacerdos what was the Scripture given for thee only to look in or wast thou set to keep people out from it under lock and key or may the spirit blow no where but where thou listest must not all people search it or must they search and find no more truth in it then thou findest or must they not take it into their mouths lest they defile it as Bishop Wren thought who prohibited the people to talk on it at their tables for fear they should prophane it It should seem so by Dr. Featley who cryed down the people as Asses Apron Levites Russet Rabbies the Clergy of Laicks c. wondering that their dores and posts and walls did not sweat upon which any note was fixed to give notice of the exercises of men of any manual imployment yea t is a thousand pitties quoth he that such owls and bats and night birds as if the Clergy onely were the children of the day and the people the children of the night and darknesse should slutter in our Churches and sile upon our fonts Pulpits and Communion Tables This was the cause of that great Schism of Corah Dathan and Abiram Numb 16. all the congregation is holy But this is the cause of that schism of Pope Prelate and Presbyter from the primitive freedome that gifted Disciples whether officers or no had to speak to exhortation edification comfort and that the congregation then had to admonish her Ministers upon occasion Col. 4.17 viz. all the congregation are prophane onely the Priesthood holy enough to draw neer within the rails and to preach to the people out of the Pulpit they are afraid I wot least the preaching of others there should sile and bewray it what need else of causing the pulpit to be washed as I have heard one of our Kentish Clergy men did his after two tradesmen had preached there in his absence they think they are men meliore luto of some better mould and taller by far in Gods affections then the People are This conceit makes them go apart look upon themselves as sons of Anack their Brethren as Grashoppers shun commerce and society with them as with publicans and sinners In detestation of whom as not consecrated they say Odi Profanum vulgus and in a kind of proverbiall spel procul hinc procul este profani and as
b. c. darians in the School of Christ but Sirs what need so much peccavi and precari if your ware were currant it would go off with acceptance without such a deal of cap and congee and pittiful intreaty to the Reader to cover the weakness of your Arguments the strength of which onely should cause him to gather the goodness of your cause and not strong intreaty to take it for good though the Arguments you plead it by are but weak Vino vendibili non opus est haedera if your Arguments and reasons for baby-baptism be strong and solid your Reader if rational will receive them if weak as you say they are he is a Reader scarce worth writing reason to who will be prevailed with by your desire so to cover their weakness as in charity to suffer himself to be overcome and carried away by them notwithstanding that their weakness to close with you in your cause and to be beaten into a belief of your baptism as good though it hath but broken reeds and bulrushes to maintain it by the force of bare beggings and beseechings or if in this request of yours to us to cover the weakness of your Arguments your meaning is not that we should be so silly as to build our belief and practice upon them though weak by your own confession whose they are but onely that we should not publish discover and divulge their weakness to the world but in charity be content to think our think or to see and say nothing truly Sirs what others will do at your request in this kind I know not but I assure you I cannot possibly for my part grant your desire in this case forasmuch as your selves have engaged me several waies not to be silent on pain of giving away the cause which if it were onely my own too the matter were so much the less you should have it with all my heart yea verily and my own life too to do your souls good for I know I could freely part with it to be a means of effecting your salvation but since it is the cause of God which he hath intrusted me with the pleading of against you who presume to enter the lists against it with such silly tools and weak weapons on behalf of a Babish-baptism which is not from heaven but of men I dare not give place so far as in foolish pitty to spare the Cittie Babylon or in Charity not to bewray a Breach or weakness in her walls of defence when I spie it for that were in Charity to betray the truth of of God and such Charity is more Antichristian by far then Christian what ere you call it and such as could have small hope of acceptance before God however esteemed of among men wherefore I desire you to have me excused if I cannot in charity cover the weakness of your Arguments for in Charity to poor souls that are led aside from the way of truth by your piteous pious pretences and weak reasonings for your way 〈◊〉 I am concerned in the very next place after I have done with this of yours to the Reader to discover to the world the weakness of them besides sith you have made so bold with your selves as to proclaime the weakness of your own Arguments for Infant-baptism I hope the Counties of Kent and Sussex will consider this that their choise Ministry that stood up to maintain Infant-Baptism at Ashford did after in their own Account theerof give out of their own accord that there was weakness in the Arguments they brought for that purpose men mutire nefas I hope it shall be no offence to you for me to second you in your own saying 't is you who have publisht your arguments to be weak my business shall be only publickly to prove them so to be as you assert them yet if it be offensive to you it shall be no wonder to me for I know already that you can bear it better to have your Disputation ly under disgrace and disparagement under shame and censure of weakness from your selves in print then from your supposed Adversary and true Friend my self so much as in a private Letter only and that some men as the Proverb is may more safely steal the horse then some so much as peep o're the hedge Pre. Not to suffer the cause to be wronged thorow the desects of those who had more zeal to maintain it then abilities c. Post. T is both usual and lawfull for us to judge of causes by the effects that naturally and necessarily flow from them for qualis causa i. e. naturalis per se talis effectus Retró e. g. Infant-sprinkling hath been a cause efficient and per se from whence much evil hath necessarily crept into the world for it hath been a means of confounding the Church and the World together of letting the Gentiles or Nations by whole sale into the outter Court of filling the world with meer nominal Christians and carnal Christianity whereby they have got advantage ever since to tread down the holy City and true worship and worshippers as Heresie Hereticks of bringing the nations into one Catholick Church whereof the Pope was universall Bishop or overseer for ages together thorow the eyes of his creatures the Clergy the very Stirrup whereby he and his Ministers who have blended themselves into a blind and beastly uniformity have become Masters of the Kingdomes and have got up to ride them a plea and president for traditions it being one it self which ever make Gods commands void and mens worship of God in vain an inlet of these and innumerable more mischiefs and absurdities for posito hoc uno absurdo sequuntur mille therefore it is undoubtedly an ill cause also t is lawfull to judge of a cause by the common Consequents which come from it not as caused properly but meerly occasioned by it and in respect of which it is called only causa sine quâ non i. e. that without which the other would not be and yet no other then the bare accidentall occasions of those effects which flow from something else as the cause thereof perse and most especially when those consequents are declared by the word of God to be such as will upon that occasion universally and unavoidably come to pass and thus we may give a shrew'd guess that our cause is good viz. that our Gospel Ministery Church-way and Baptism is the true one because we see it is seconded now and ever hath been with what it was of old seconded and foretold also that it should ever be even every where to the worlds end viz. divisions in families two against three and three against two the Father against the Son the Daughter against the Mother c. offences of friends and fleshly relations the account of Heresie and baseness hatred of men persecution cavils stirs tumults about it by which things Christs people Gospel Ministers and Ministrations are ever
so then if you had pleased but your blunt delivery of your selves here without any modification of your meaning makes it out as if you meant to fright the whole Countrey to baptize all their infants in all hast as ever they mean to have any hope they shall be saved besides if they be but doctrinally damned and not really by the denial of baptism to them the matter is so much the lesse for as they are not one straw the better whether living or dying in infancy if they have it so they cannot be as to salvation one straw the worse if they want it and die without it and then what need such thundring out of terror to the parents as if there were no way but one that is damnation to their dying infants out of hand if they do not see to the baptizing of them in infancy before they dye moreover if it be doctrinally to damn all infants to deny their right to baptism then how damnable is your doctrine to that innocent age who deny it to no lesse then 20 to one viz. all the dying infants of unbelievers but the best on t is though your doctrine is so desperate and ungodly as to declare nought but damnation to all such as the Pope doctrinally damnes i. e. all that are not born within the pale of the Church yet there is salvation enough for these infants as well as for the other in Christ Jesus whereby till they deserve exemption by actuall transgression they may be saved really though with you they are doctrinally damn'd and with us as well as you deny'd to have or so much as to have any right at all to baptism Thus Sirs I have done with your deep Disputation there remaining no more but a certain magisterial moderation or determination in which you are your own carvers taking upon you to manage it by the mouth of him whose onely arguments all these are in which piece of your Pamphlet I shall briefly take notice of some passages wherein you speak very fairly of your selves very fowly falsly and injuriously of your respondent very conrradictorily to what you said before very ignorantly of the word very impertinently as to the proof of faiths being in and baptisms belonging to those infants you plead for more then those you plead against and then come to consider your Review you speak as followeth Determination Since it hath been proved that little infants have the holy Ghost c. here let there be a recapitulation of the former arguments therefore baptism is not to be denied unto them Detection Doubting belike whether any stander by can find in his conscience to give so good a testimony as you afford and such ample approbation to your Arguments as you desire and they deserve not you ingrosse the dijudication of the disputation between yourselves and me into your own clutches and then claw your selves in the face of the world and bestow such commendatories upon your simple shuffles as if it were proved and put out of doubt thereby that believers infants have the spirit faith holinesse and such apparent right both to heaven and baptism as no creatures have in the world besides them but having shewed how shallowly fillily and slenderly you have argued all this above I decline detest and disclaim this your positive dijudication and make my appeal from the high Commission Chair of you Clergy men who for ages and generations have sate judges in your own cause unto the people whom you have ever mis-led by your blind guidance to judge between us among whom not they who have so long commended themselves as Orthodox will be approved at last but those whom the Lord commendeth Determination If any doubt be raised concerning particular infants the judgement of Charity will cast that out especially considering no other judgement can be past upon those that are Adulti Detection That the judgement of charity concerning faith the holy spirit and right to the kingdom can in infancy be past no more upon believers infants then upon all infants is told us so plainly by your selves that if you be not resolved that you will never learn any thing that is truth from your selves you must needs see it as well as we since you say p. 18. there is no discovery of the habit of faith but by the asts and none by the acts in any infants at all in infancy and that the spirit is neither bound to work it in all the children of Christians nor barred from working it in any children of infidelâ— and p. 5. that the judgement of charity must so pass that we are to presume well of all who by actuall sin have not barred themselves and deserved exemption and that there 's better ground to build a judgement of charity concerning faith and the spirit in adultis then infantibus viz. profession and visible manifestation by the fruits and acts and a better judgement then that of charity viz. of certainty is to be had of adult persons right to baptism we seeing them certainly to professe faith as infants cannot which whether they deceive us in that profession or no is clear ground to baptize them on this I have shewed so sufficiently above that there needs no more be said of it here Determination Our Respondent hath confessed that Ishmael who was that carnall seed of Abraham yet had right to the seal of the Gospel Covenant circumcision and that the spirituall seed and their children have under the Gospel as good right to the seal thereof which is baptism Detection O rare and base what again Sirs what again I professedly denyed baptism to be a seal at all witnesse my then disavowing the Scotchmans proceedings in the dispute of baptism under the term of initial seal I also denied circumcision to be the seal of the Gospel Covenant or that it was set to Ishmael under such a notion yea you your selves are my witnesses but three pages above that I said circumcision was a seal to Abraham only and not to his posterity and yet here again as well as before you turn false witnesses against me and will needs fasten this upon me for a farewell that I grant all for truth that your selves ignorantly assert in these particulars and not content therewith a matter more monstrous then all the rest you say I confess not only Abrahams spirituall seed themselves i. e. believers but their children also to have under the Gospel as good right to baptism as the seal of it as they the direct contrary to which is the Position I stood then to evince yea which I both then did do still and ever shall till you disprove it better than you have yet done maintain against you or else wherin do we differ Sirs you should have done well to have expressed your minds in plain right down English and then the scope sum and scum of them would have risen and appeared thus viz. we the Disputers and Scribes of the Ashford
are true ones unless I can prove a lineal succession of them from the Apostles times to these let me see what lineal succession is of your Churches from the Apostles daies if I ask you Praelatick Priests as the Masse Priests do where was your Church before Luther and you Presbyterians where was your Church before Calvin in both whose daies you cannot deny but that of those that denyed infant-baptism there were abundance must you not needs see both your Churches swallowed up in the Sea of Rome and for ages and generations together making one with that were not the two little heads of the Roman Eagle spoken of 2 Esdras 11.12 which are the two smaller kingdomes of the Clergy i. e. Prelacy and Presbytery making one head with the great one i. e. the Popedome till of late they separated from him First sure I am you may labour till you are weary and look till your eyes fail before you find a series of visible protestant Churches before Luther and as universal as you Protestant priesthood do proclaim your selves and your Church to have been yet I tell you t will puzzle you to derive your pedigree from the Apostles if the Pope put you to prove it by induction and ennumeration of Churches succeeding without interruption unless you will own him to be your father as to your Clericall function you are fain to do Whereupon in the book stiled Luthers predecessors or an answer to the question of the Papists viz. Where was your Church before Luther p. 3.4 I find it ingenuously acknowledged by the nameless Author thereof in his undertaking to answer that question That if the Papistry the Protestant to assign any visible constituted Church which might have been known by the distinction and succession of Bishops Elders Deacons c. the task is unequal and that records of such a thing are wanting insomuch that he puts it off in replying to the Papists thus That they cannot prove that the Church must alwaies be in such manner visible that in Elias time there were 7000 unknown to him much more to Ahab that in Christs passion some papists say the Church was in Mary the Church being like the Moon allwaies lasting yet not alwaies in the full And then in resolution to the quaere it self alledges not any one protestant Church at all but onely here and there a Protestant professor as Wickliff and such mostly as were after him inlightned by his Doctrine and did suffer for giving testimony thereto so the Iesuitish question is thus answered I find it also thereupon the file that in a conference which was once held upon the same question by Dr. White and Dr. Featley against two others viz. Fisher and Sweet Dr. Featley chose rather to prove a continual succession of protestants by the truth of their doctrine then the truth of the Protestant Churches and doctrine by a perpetuity of succession and so doth that Author himself who ever it was that wrote the answer to that papistical question as well aware that protestant Churches cannot prove themselves true by succession p. 1.2 What saith he if we could not prove that the English Church was before Luther Must it needs follow that the doctrine we hold is untrue or shall the doctrine of Rome be ever the truer because of Antiquitie only No certainly And why not because the Church must be proved and allowed by the doctrine and not the Doctrine authorized by the Church which the Papists a people wise in their generation well knowing have overturned the course of Nature and will have the Scripture and all doctrine to hang upon the determination of the Church hoping that if once they have amazed any one with the name of the Church and driven him from title and interest in the Church before Luthers time they shall easily call in question the whole frame of the doctrine of the reformed Churches So that we see the Protestants are fain to fence off the papists arguments from universality Antiquity perpetuity in which Rome outstrips the reformed Churches with pleading only the verity of their doctrine and its being persecuted in some few professors of it before Luther Yea verily if universality perpetuity or antiquity either I mean that post primitive Antiquity of the fourth or fifth Century may pass for president more current then the primitive the Pope and his priesthood may prove the protestant priesthood to be but upstart Novices to them by this way of arguing from the antient perpetual universal practise of their Church I write not this as taking the Papists part against the Protestants for so far am I from justifying the Iesuites that I rather fight with Dr. Featley and his friend against them in this case holding with them that no succession of true visible and rightly constituted Churches can be shewn of either your way or ours in all that time of popish unity and universallity but I do it to this end onely ut hos suo Iugulensus gladio as Dr. Featley saies of us p. 88. that I may fight against Featleys followers in the point of infants baptism with Featleys own Fauchin i. e. saâ—isfie them concerning the narrownesse novelty and invisibility of our Church in times of popery when they say where was our Church before Nicholas Stock the very same way and no other then that wherin they excuse the non-appearance of their Protestanâ—s Churches then to the Iesuits when vaunting in their own visible universallity they ask them where was your Church before Luther for verily if it must be taken from you by the Papists as evidence good enough that your Churches are the true Churches and lineally descended from Christ though none of them ever visibly appeared before Luther in all that time of the Popes Peterdome ore his fellows because your doctrine is truer then that of theirs and specially since several witnesses successively held it out against Romes contradictions then I hope it shall be taken from us by you Protestants as good evidence that our Churches are yet truer then yours and such as have been as much as yours have been in visible constitution from the time of the treading down till this modern resurrection because our doctrine and practise is that of the primitive and purest times specially since we can evince it as clearly that many witnessed the truth of it against infant-baptism in times of priestly tyranny as you can that any have witnessed yours at all For howbeit you say your infants baptism was not so much as questioned till of late if you had your wits so well about you as you should you could not but see that t was almost ever opposed for though it were never heard of in the first Century yet that it hath been ever withstood since it came up is most evident by the conflicts of corrupt times for it for what made such controversies among the fathers about it what mâ—de Cyprian and his 66 Bishops conven'd in councel lay
the cause of their crucifyings of Christ who depart from it as for us we are crucifyed dead and buried with Christ by baptism Rom. 6. for we are baptized into his death and that but once because Christ dyed but once and yet once because Christ dyed once and that is more then any Rantized Priest in Christendome can say of himself for he is not so much as once baptized at all Review 3. It makes them count the blood of the Covenant an unholy thing for if it be holy what need they repeat it if unholy how do they prophane it Re-review How far forth Anabaptism properly so called i. e the repetition of baptism without such warrantable ground as it was repeated upon Act. 19.5 doth saving the nonsense that is in that expression repeat the bloud of the Covenant and so count it an unholy thing I am not so much a friend to it as to gainsay but sure I am that A-no-baptism and such yours is doth count not only the bloud of the Covenant but also that holy ordinance of baptizing believers which is the token of it an unholy thing for if it be holy why do you neglect it if unholy in so saying oh how do you prophane it Review 4. It makes the Covenant of the Gospel worse then the legal this taking in all Children into the visible Church the Anabaptists excluding them making them no better than Turks and Pagans Re-review What again Review 5. It destroyes all the comforts that afflicted parents can have â—ver their deceased children the grounds of them being destroyed their right in the covenant and promises of Christ. Re-review What again Review 6. It unchristens the whole Church of God for many hundreds of years together and calls in question the truth of Christs promises of being present with his Church to the end and guiding it by his spirit into all truth Re-review What again what ore ore and ore again are you drawn so dry that you are fain to fill up to swell up your Review into the magnitude of a sheet with old ends and pieces and patches of things that were precedent or did these three Renegadoes fearing a storm run from their old ranks hither to secure themselves by crouding in amongst the rest of this rubbish stuff for every one of them have faced us once or twice a piece before page 6.7.12.13 neverthelesse sith I meet with them here again I le have a word or two with every of them now To the first I say thus if the legal covenant did take in all children into the visible Church as you say as indeed it did i. e. as well the children of unbelieving as of believing Jewes neither had the one of these a strawes more right to circumcision then the other then sith the Covenant of the Gospel is inlarged and communicated to both Jewes and gentiles between whom the partition wall is broken down and they both made one And sith now by the Priests own confession it stands in the same way to be administred among the Jewes and Gentiles as that legal Covenant did for a time among the Jewes only the Priest himself makes the covenant of the Gospel worse then the legal that taking in at least to the visible Church all children of that people to whom it extended i. e. the Jewes without any exception without any respect to the parents being godly or ungodly bâ—lievers or unbelievers the priests contrariwise under the Gospel Covenant which extends and belongs to the whole world i. e. both Jewes and Gentiles 2 Cor. 5.19 1 Iohn 2.2 and to all nations as well as one Mat. 28.18 Mark 16.15 Luke 24.47 excluding now the Major part yea almost all children by their doctrine viz. the children of unbelieving Gentiles of heathens Turks and Pagans and unbelieving Jewes too which for all their parents wickednesse and unbelief were wont to be received into the Church under the Law and this not onely from the visible Church neither for that were more tollerable of the two and can do them no hurt if it be all but also from the Kingdome of heaven and salvation it self in their cruel Charity before they have by actuall sinne deserved to be exempted And this I speak not as believing any infants in infancy to have right to entrance into the visible Church and fellowship thereof here on Earth though yet I believe all infants as well as some dying infants and before they have deserved exemption and damnation by actual rebellion to have according to the general declaration of Scripture right of entrance into the kingdome of heaven but that I may discover the unruliness of the Priest who wherein he judges others of streightning the Gospel condemnes himself who undertakes to make laws prescribe rules impose principles upon all men and yet breaks his own lawes varies from his own rules straggles from his own principles through blindness as much as any other whom he blames for it To the second thus if it be so indeed as you told us once before it is p. 7. and here tell us over again that we may know your mind in it that to deny baptism to infants before they dy doth ipso facto destroy all the comforts all the hopes that any parents can possibly have of the salvation of their infants that dy unbaptized and all the grounds of those hopes i. e. all those childrens right in the covenant and promises of Christ and consequently this necessarily followes doth subject them unavoidably unto eternal damnation Then first as I told you once or twice before so I tell you now again that 't is your selves and not we who are the men that say no baptism no salvation for say you there is no ground for parents to hope their children can be saved no though those parents be believers though those children believe also themselves and so both by birth and by their parents faith and their own faith too have right as you say the infants of Christians have in the Covenant and promises of Christ yet they must damn for all this if baptism be denyed them and if they dye without it their parents must mourne without hope of their Salvation This is your judgement of Charity concerning unbaptized infants even of never so believing parents having also the habit of faith in themselves for though parents believe and believe their children to have faith too and right to salvation yet deny them baptism and all the other notwithstanding there 's no hope of them the parents can upon no good ground be comforâ—ed concerning them but that they are damned T is you therefore that place such high and mighty necessity in the bare outward dispensation of the ordinance that are so for the ceremony that hold that the substance doth no good without it why else do you say that be there never so many grounds otherwise on which to hope infants salvation viz. their parents faith and their own faith and
title thereby to the Covenant which though false simple and rotten yet are the grounds on which you hope some dying infants may be sav'd though you fear the most are damn'd for indeed the true grounds on which to hope the salvation of all dying infants is there non-deserving exemption by actual sin and personal rebellion against the Gospel why I say though there be never so much ground of hope of their salvation do you say the grounds whereupon they elsewise may be hoped to be saved are all destroyed if they be denyed to be baptized Moreover I tell you that you run round like a blind horse in a mill and contradict your selves egregiously by holding such a high necessity of infants baptism that there 's no hope of their salvation if it be denyed them so that unlesse you recant it you l in the end repent it that ere you lived your selves and led others so long in such delusion for mark how you mope too and fro in a mist sometimes you say that birth of Christian parents and faith in the children so born these give right to the Covenant and the promises of Christ and so to salvation and the kingdome of heaven and their right to the promises and the kingdome that gives them right to baptism and to entrance into the visible Church supposing their right to salvation to be without baptism and before it as that which intitles them thereto making their visible right to baptism and the visible Church to depend upon their visible right to salvation saying they must be seen by some thing or other distinguishing them from others who are not heirs to be heirs belonging to the kingdome before they be signed as such and so you argue making an apparent right to baptism posteriour to their right to salvation viz. to whom the thing signified i. e. heaven appears to belong to them consequently the sign i. e. baptism else not but that appears to belong to infants therefore this which is as much as to say we must first look upon them and believe them to be heirs of salvation and upon that ground afterward baptize them so making the right to the sign depend upon the being of the thing signified Other while again as here you turn the cat i th pan and tell us a tale that turns all this up side down again and makes all their right to the Covenant promises of Christ to salvation by him to the kingdome which all are according to your other opinion to be Antecedent to baptism and entitling to it so that no apparent right to the Covenant and promise and kingdome and salvation no baptism you make I say all these on which you made baptism depend before so necessarily dependant on baptism so subsequent to it so no way appearing to belong to infants without it that no baptism no title to life deny them baptism and entrance into the visible Church and they are visibly in the kingdome of the divel there 's no hopes they can be saved if their parents let them die without it no grounds on which to hope it but though believers children and apparently enough believing themselves and so thereby in apparent right to the Covenant and promise of Christ and consequently of salvation and all this before they may be baptized yet they are in the visible kingdome of the divel and do but deny baptism to them and all those old evidences are worn out their names blotted out of the book of life their parents can have no hope of other then their damnation nay all the grounds on which to hope that any good comes of them are utterly destroyed So then of the doctrine that you deliver this is the summe in two round heads viz. That infants right to salvation must needs be apparent or else they may not be baptized Secondly to go round again baptism of infants must needs be or else there 's no apparent ground on which to hope they can be saved Finally I tell you I marvel in my heart it being so that such danger comes by denying infant baptism that parents cannot hope they can be saved how you dare for your ears delay so long as you do sometimes a week sometimes a fortnight sometimes almost a year as the custom of England was of old to baptize but twice in the year viz. at Easter and Whitsontide and do not rather baptize your infants so soon as they are born least happily their lying in the visible kingdome of the divel longer then you need to let them they happen to die before your good chear can be made and all your kinsfolks come together and then the parents be left without hope of any other but that their children remain in the kingdom of the divel for ever for persons live or dye visibly say you either in the visible Church of Christ out of which you say also there 's no salvation the visible entrance into which is by baptism by which therefore unbaptized infants never entred or else in the visible kingdome of the divel this is one of Mr. Baxters diseased disjunctions p. 71. for there is no more necessity then there is of sprinkling infants and that 's as little as little can be of their being visibly in either neither are they visibly in either the visible Church of Christ or visible kingdome of the devill till they are at years but in medio abnegationis you salve all that danger which I confesse is none at all in infants dying unbaptized but onely that I speak according to your own principles by telling us that t is not the bare omission or neglect but the contempt of the ordinance that damnes the persons that dye without it I tell you again that if this may passe for true and currant doctrine among those that hold baptism due to men and women onely and not infants as I scarce know how it should sith neglect of known duty is damnable in a lower degree as well as contempt of it is in a higher yet however its false silly and nonsensical doctrine among you that baptize none but infants apply it how you will for the parents neglect and the parents contempt of the ordinance as to his infant is much at one i. e. neither of them damnable to the infant unlesse you will hold up that saying again in the world which God protested long since men should never have occasion to use any more viz. that the child shall die eternally for the fathers sin surely the fathers contempt doth not redound any more then his bare neglect with any danger or disadvantage to the infant and as for the infant he cannot be damned for not being baptized in infancy through his own neglect or contempt of iâ— for he neither contemnes nor neglects it To the third of these three things that you and I both have thrust here into one place you in the Review and I in the Re-Review in order to the dispatching of
that nor so great a mercy but that the mercy of God may be as great to them without it nor so great as that they are capable of any more benefit by it from the Church or from their parents then they are capable of if they have it not they may be prayed for by the Church and by their parents full as much and be brought up by them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord not onely as well but much better when they are capable of being disciples and instructed though in infancy neither counted disciples nor baptized as if they were supposed to be disciples before they are taught It is therefore because they are not capable to be discipled in their nonage and the true reason why they are not capable is that which Mr. T. alledged and alas that it should not satisfy Mr. Bax. viz. because they cannot learn what is taught them Mr. Bax. knowing that fetches a compasse about another way whereby to prove them capable to be disciples viz. their being servants of Christ and subjects of Christs Kingdome and thirdly their belonging to Christ but what a pittiful piece of proof what a messe of miserable mistake is this as if to belong to Christ to be Christs subject Gods servant and Christ disciple were convertible and alltogether one and the same wheras howbeit it cannot be denyed but that every disciple of Christ belongs to Christ and is his Subject and Gods servant yet that every one who may be said to belong to Christ to be Gods servant and his Subject is Christs disciple cannot be asserâ—ed without more absurdity then Mr. Bax. is willing to take notice of in himself for Mr. T. gives him an Item of it plain enough for any reasonable man to consider of but he is deaf to it through a mind forestalld against the truth He tells us that infants are capable to be Gods servants Levit. 25.41.42 and therefore consequently Christs disciples and consequently to be baptized for disciples and Gods servants signifie the same thing denote the same persons and that there is the same capacity requisite to both p. 18.19 yea if there be a difference saith he there is more required to a servant then to a disciple but what wretched evidence is here when as there 's nothing more clear and palpably evident then this that more is required to make a disciple then a servant yea verily the consequence holds sound from Christs disciple to Gods servant but from Gods servant to Christs disciple which is his way of arguing a very novice may see it rotten and invalid there is enough in all the creatures the earth and heavens which as books wherein we may read it though not as men that make any verball narration of it declare the glory of God Ps. 19.1 to denominate them Gods servants Psa. 119.91 Nebucad-Nezar had enough to denominate him Gods servant Ier 43.10 as Mr. T. truly tells him but not enough to denominate him Christs disciple Yea I appeal to Mr. Ba. own conscience whether at that time when Christ exercised his ministry among the Iews the whole Nation of the Iews as well as those he mentions out of Levit. 25.41 and in the self same sense with those were not Iure Redemptionis by right of his Redemption of them from Egypt the servants of God had relatively a peculiar people to himself yet how few of them were Christs disciples viz. those onely that attended to his law in which respect though he stile all Israel his servants yet he distinguishes those few onely from the rest that harkned not to his law by the denomination of his disciples Isaiah 8.16 And whereas he saies of infants may they not be called Gods servants from the meer interest of dominion that God hath to them p. 20. I answer who doubts of that but may they thereupon be called disciples and be baptized if so then from the meer interest of dominion that God hath to all men all men may be called Gods servants as well as they and so consequently be baptized as Christs disciples He tells us further p. 21. that infants are capable of being subjects of Christs kingdome taking kingdome not in the larger sense as it contains all the world nor in the strictest as it containeth onely his elect but in a middle sense as it conteins the visible Church therefore consequently capable of being Christs disciples and of baptizing and to prove the antecedent viz. that they are subjects of Christs kindome i. e. members of the visible Church he uses this medium they are capable of being subjects in any kingdome on earth and therefore why not of Christs kingdome saith he i. e. of the visible Church of Christ Now if this be a good consequence they are capable to be subjects in any Kingdom on earth and therefore to be subjects of Christs Kingdom i. e. his Church then the infants of heathens as well as these being capable to be subjects in any Kingdom on earth are consequently as capable to be subjects of Christs Kingdom and Church and consequently to be Christs disciples and in their infancy to be baptized but Mr. Baxter himself will say non sequitur unto this He tells us further that Christ would have some infants i. e. believers infants for those he meanes to be received as disciples therefore some infants i. e. such are his disciples To prove the antecedent he jumbles together a number of places out of Mat. Mark and Luke viz. Mat. 18.5 the 10.42 Mark 9.41 Luke 9.47.48 in one of which places because Christ saies of a child who so shall receive this child in my name receiveth me by comparing this place with the rest where Christ saies to his disciples and of them also not of infants whoso shall give to you a cup of water in my name because you belong to Christ or as Matthew hath it in the name of a disciple he shall not loose his reward he gathers that some i. e. believers infants are disciples and to be received to baptism as such for saith he in Christs name and as Christs disciple and as belonging to Christ are all one in Christs language To which I answer First by denying that in Christs name and as a disciple and as belonging to Christ are all one for in Christs name is a Term of larger extent and latitude then the rest so that we may be said to do good in Christs name to some persons whom yet we cannot do good to as belonging to him in that neer relation of his disciples in the name of Christ besides severall other significations which the phrase hath is as much sometimes as for Christs sake who requires it and to do good to others in the name of Christ is to do good to them for Christs sake and then we may be said to do good for his sake not onely when we do good to them that are disciples of Christ upon that account of their belonging to
directly oppositly to Mr. Ba. who saies it is the church I disprove his opinion thus First If by the kingdomes of Christ be meant the Church then it must be thus read viz. the Kingdomes of this world are become Christs Church but what an absurdity must that be specially with Mr. Bax. above all men who so strenuously contends that by the word Kingdoms of this world is meant not in part only but the whole kingdom for to hold that by that phrase the Kingdomes of this world is meant all the kingdomes upon the earth taken wholly and not Synechdochically for a part of those kingdomes onely and that by the kingdom of Christ the Church onely is to make the sense thus viz. the whole world is become Christs Church therefore it cannot be so but thus and so all the circumstances of the text do evince for it is spoken of Christs raign over all the world in the latter daies after the seventh Trumpet hath sounded and not over all his Church onely and of Christs taking to himself ver 17. that great Monarchy power kingdome or greatnesse and glory of his reign which before he permitted to be in the hands of the Dragon beast and whore so that they reigned over the whole earth and the saints too in rigour and unrighteousnesse Rev. 13. Rev. 17. ult I say it must be thus viz. the Kingdomes of this world the Kingdomes under the whole heaven the Monarchy of the whole Earth is now come into Christs own hands or the Government over all is now actually on his shoulders Besides what will Mr. Bax. gain more by his sense of that Scripture towards the proof of his infant-membership then I for the membership of heathen infants then for the Church membership of the whole world if I were minded to plead for it if the Kingdomes of this world wholly taken none excluded do become the Church of Christ then all men as well as infants must be Church-members on that account Besides he speaks as de futuro what shall be under the seventh Trumpet therefore if it were to be taken as Mr. Bax. imagines that the Kingdomes of this world infants as well as men are now become Christs Church then it would evince that it was not so from the beginning of the Gospel Church for what effects are spoken of as falling out now newly under the seventh Trumoet are things that never were in being before Besides observe Mr. Baxter how he pleads to have Kingdomes taken in the largest sense in the former part of the verse and how angry he is if it be taken for lesser then all the whole kingdomes of the world but in the latter part where Kingdomes must needs be and is as largely to be taken for it is the Kingdomes of the world are become Christs Kingdomes i. e. dominion not Christs churches there he will needs lace it up into the narrowest acceptation that the word kingdom can possibly bear Oh therefore the grosse pieces of ignorance that are in that Argument of his for infants membership in the Church which he grounds from a Scripture that will as well prove all the world to be Gospel Church-members as believers infants if his very own false sense of it should be admitted but in truth proves not the one nor the other thus he argues viz. the Kingdoms of this world i. e. all and all in them shall become Christs kingdomes therefore infants of only believers not heathens are Church-members under the Gospel He that saies this followes any better then the Pope follows Peter in the holy chaire shall never be counted or voted mentis compos whilest I am compos voti Mr. Bax. therefore had better have found 40 shillings where he never looked for it then have looked for infant-membership in this scripture where he will never find it with his eyes open His three next Arguments viz. the ninth tenth and eleventh run all upon one strain and therefore as he need not have made more then one of them so I need not make more then one answer to them all yea I need make none at all having spoken to that point sufficiently before yet a hint of it here may do no hurt They stand all upon one bottome viz. the meliority of the times under the Gospel above the times of the Law of this new covenant above the old the summe of what he saies is this if believers infants may not now be members of the visible Church then both Jewes and Gentiles are in a worse condition now then before Christ and Christ is come to be a destroyer and not a Saviour and to do hurt to all the world the believing Jewes and the Church yea and the very Gentiles thereby in regard of the happinesse of their children are in a worse condition then of old but this is a vile doctrine saith he for Jesus is a Mediator of a better covenant established on better promises Heb. 8.6 where sin abounded grace much more abounded Rom. 5.14 15.20 and the love of Christ love hath height length depth breadth and passeth knowledge Ephes. 3. To which simple inconsequent conceits I answer by denying the consequence it followes not that the world is in worse estate under Christ then before because infants might be members of the Jewish church but not now of any visible church of the Gospel nay verily the world is in a far better condition then formerly by how much they are under more clear and plain promulgations more faâ—re and universal tenders of salvation then in the narrow or shadowy dispensation of the Law and also under greater love richer grace better and more glorious promises unlesse they fall short of them through their own unbelief then those which were made to the natural Israelites onely all whose glory was but a type of the other for the great favor love and promises of God to them as meerly Abraham Isaac and Iacobs natural seed unlesse they also believed and then they as now all the world might be heirs with Abraham of the grace and promises of the Gospel did make them heirs of that earthly Canaan onely but the Gospel grace makes all men heirs on termes of faith and obedience to Christ of the glory of the heavenly Canaan for ever the grace of God that bringeth salvation unto all men now appears and as for infants albeit no infants now be baptized into fellowship with the visible Church nor are priviledged as the Jewes infants once were with interest in the blessing of an outward earthly Canaan nor yet vouchsafed that meerly titular account of sanctifyed and peculiar people of God as in opposition to other infants as by birth accountatively sinners common and unclean which distinction of a birth holiness and uncleaness Mr. Baxter had he but half an eye in his head might clearly see Acts 10.28 is so taken out of the world and ended in Christ that now no man however born no not a Gentile may be called in
the mercy here promised to thousands of them that love God necessarily to include church-membership he confesses at last that it lies doubtful in the text what mercy in particular is there meant which if he do then t is not necessary that church-membership be implied in it for there may be much mercy yea special yea eternal saving mercy shewed to persons to whom the mercy of membership in the visible church and baptism is not vouchsafed or else what becomes of such infants as notwithstanding your timely admittance do yet dy without both membership and baptism are they shut out of the kingdom of heaven Secondly he confesses it is doubtfull in the text to how many generations God shewes mercy to the children of parents that love him whether it be to the remote or neerest progeny onely and though he passe his judgement that it is onely to immediate children of godly parents that the promise in the commandment is made yet thereby he contradicts his own sense of the place and overthrowes all that he contends for in that if the words were as he would have them read viz. I shew mercy to a thousand Generations or to the thousandth generation of them that love me it were evident that he meant not the next generation only for that to a thousand generation should signifie no more then one generation to come is most irrational and plain brutish to imagine and if he say t is to a thousand generations if such children succeed their parents in godlynesse that sense excludes infants quite from the mercy here promised and extends it to such children onely as are at years and that on condition of being godly themselves and on that condition of being godly themselves God shewes mercy to the immediate seed of the very wickedest parents as well as of the Godliest parents in the world But in very deed to put him out of all his doubts at once about this place viz. whether God mean the remote or immediate children I desire Mr. Baxter to consider that this promise is not made to any mans posterity at all but only to all such individual persons as love him and keep his commandements for the words are not as he reads and construes them viz. I will shew mercy to a thousand generations of them but to thousands of them that love me i. e. to thousands of such people such persons as love me and keep my Commandments and so if the mercy were that of membership yet it were nothing concerning infants in their infancy at all but concerning thousands of such individual persons as love him and keep his commandments or else God must shew mercy to all infants in their infancy to this day meerly for their father Noahs sake though the immediate parents be wicked and if he he do not he shewes not mercy to the thousandth generation of believers infants there being not a thousand generations from Noah to this day We may see what little plain proof these men can find for their false way of inchurching and baptizing of infants in the New Testament in that they are faine to fetch it so far off as the old thus doth not Mr. Ba. onely but others also as well as he who would certainly never look for it so far behind as he second commanment if they could easily find it neerer hand among the rest this mindes me of one of more then ordinary note viz. Dr. Channell of Petworth in Sussex who Ianuary the first 1651. in a publique discourse with my unworthy self being desired to assign some particular place of Scripture where Christ commands the practise of infant-baptism assigned the second commandment to whom as I said then before hundreds of people so I testify here again before the whole world that if any man see infants baptism commanded in the second Commandment it is because his eyes are out for though he tell me that the generall scope of the second Commandment is to command all Gods people to observe all Gods institutions from time to time yet I tell him again as also I did then that infant baptism is none of those institutions yea I tell him yet further and Mr. Bax. also that unlesse it can be made appear by plainer Scripture proofs then ever were yet brought by either of them that Christ Jesus injoined the baptizing and inchurching of infants or that its any other then a tradition of man and an addition to the Gospel which was not so from the beginning and that is more then either of them will ever make plainly to appear the second Commandement doth rather forbid them both yea Ah si fas dicere sed fas the second commandement the general scope of which as their own selves expound it is to prohibit all will worship and superstition all serving of God after our own invention all customes devices innovations Traditions of men all addiâ—ion to and alterations of Christs will and Testament all teaching other doctrine then is contained in the word doth forbid it and therefore as haled in by head and shoulders to serve the turn of these men and to help to uphold them in their rantizing of infants into the same visible body with them whom yet they deny to drink with them into the same spirit as all that are baptized into the same body are to do 1 Cor. 12. which infellowshipping persons by the halves into Gospel participation if it be of Christ what else is of man I plainly know not His 17 plain Scripture-lesse proof for infants Church-membership and baptism is drawn from Psalm 37.26 where it is said that the seed of the Righteous are blessed whence he argues as before and therefore need not have made a distinct Argument of this if God have pronounced the seed of the righteous blessed then certainly they are members of his visible Church its absurd once to imagine quoth he that god should pronounce a society blessed and take them for none of his visible Church But I am ashamed of such trifling stuff such straw and stubble as he here builds upon as if God himself can no way be said to blesse the seed of the righteous unlesse he require them to be baptized and inchurched visibly in their infancy as if God had but one blessing even that of baptism and church-membership upon which all other blessings are so eternally intailed even to infants that such of them as attain not to an actual inrerest in these are ipso facto accursed in all respects else that for ever wheras to say nothing how that phrase the seed of the righteous may be taken for the race of righteous ones that succeed one another in righteousnesse as well as a seed of evil doers Is. 1.4 for the whole race of evill doers that succeed their fore-fathers in evil doing for these indeed I take to be the seed to which the Scripture oft pronounces blessing and cursing and not alwayes the meer natural seed of good men and
he drawes as he saies from Deut. 28.4.18 32.41 blessed shall they be in the fruit of their body that keep the covenant and cursed in the fruit of their bodyâ— i. e. that break the covenant c. he may well say he drawes it for there 's no such thing as he draws flowes freely from that or any other Scripture he produces he drawes indeed but at such a distance that I see nothing followes from thence at all he does not fall flatly upon it nor deal down rightly with the text alledged nor doth he interpret the blessing and cursing to be membership and non-membership so as to say that by blessed shall be the fruit of thy body is meant thus i. e. thy infants shall be inchurched and by cursed shall be the fruit of thy body thus i. e. thy infants shall be dischurched for that had been too palpably to pervert it but he keeps a loof off from it and doth not draw neer to the heart and center of it but syllogizes in a circumference and fetches it from far for fear I think least it should fly in his face The Argument that I fetch hence is this That doctrine which maketh the children of the faithfull to be in a worse condition or as bad then the curse Deut. 28. maketh the children of covenant breakers to be in is false doctrine But the doctrine which denyeth the children of the faithfull to be visible Churchmembers doth make them to be in as bad or worse condition then is threatned by the curse Deut. 28. Therefore The Minor of which Syllogism is most false for infants may be both unbaptized and no visible Church members and yet be in a better condition then such as are under the curse and the captivity threatned Deut. 28. and so are all these to whom baptism and admittance into the visible Church is delayed by yourselves who in the Church of England in old time were wont to defer the baptizing of all infants to two times in the year viz. Easter and Whitsuntide and so are all those also to whom we deny it for both those to whom you delay it and those to whom we deny it dying in infancy without it may be saved without it as well as if they had it And at the same rates as they dispute them to be under cursing to whom we deny baptism and visible Church-membership and our doctrine to be false that denies it may we dispute those infants to be under cursing to whom they delay baptism and visible membership though but for a week during the time of their delaying it and their doctrine to be false that delaies it if we retort the same Argument on themselves which I shall do and leave it That doctrine which makes the children of the faithful in as bad or worse condition then is threatned in that curse Deut. 28. is false But that doctrine which delaies baptism and visible Church-membership to the infants of the faithfull till the tenth twelfth or twentyeth day of their age till Plumcake be made maketh them during the time in which t is delayed in worse Condition then is threatned in that curse Deuter. 28. Ergo t is false Till then you have ingrafted your children into the Church by baptism they are it seems with you in worse state then if they were in captivity and all the poor innocent infants of those parents that are in England to which your selves O Presbyters deny baptism unlesse the parent will confesse his faith before the Bason are in worse and more cursed condition then if they were in captivity And if an Indians infant should be born and bread up here in England and be in never such a hopeful way of comming in time to the knowledge of the truth yet all the time he remains unbaptiz'd and not visibly added to your corrupt church of England he is belike under a worse curse and condition then if he were in slavery or captivity I wonder where Christ or his disciples ever preached such kind of Gospel His 21 plain Scripture-lesse proof for infant-infant-Church membership and baptism runs upon this disjunction viz. Either they are in the visible Church of Christ or in the visible kingdome of the Devil for there is no third state saith he in which they are but if they be not in Christs visible Church they are visibly out of it and if they be visibly out of that visible Church then they are visibly in Satans Kingdome This is the summe and substance of what he laies down and the basis upon which he builds a necessity of admitting the children of the faithfull into and reckoning upon them as in the visible Church of Christ or else we must saith he say they are in the visible Kingdome of the Devill which to say saith he is false doctrine the rest is but amplification and augmentation rather then Argumentation of this position now howbeit a wise body that is not resolved to trouble himself and fill the world with curious pryings long proofs and prolix prates about matters which the wisdome of Christ in the word of his Testament which was written to for and concerning men and women and not infants is pleased to be silent in would surely have sat down satisfyed with that sober saying which Mr. B. himself cotes out of Mr. T. Apol. p. 66. viz. that infants are neither in the Kingdom i. e. visible church of Christ nor Satan visibly till profession For really so it is and no otherwise properly and quoad nos who have no warrant to take cognizance of them as in either one or in the other visibly but as at years they visibly appear to cleave to either neither are these two viz. the visible Kingdome of Satan and the visible Church of Christ the adaequate dividing members of the whole world but excepting infants of the adult ones in it only which visibly obey either Christ or Satan neither doth Satans visible kingdome consist of any infants visibly at all but of such as visibly are acted by him even the children of disobedience in whom he works Ephes. 2.2 nor Christs visible Church of any infants visibly at all save when some were inchurched and incovenanted as a type for a time but of such onely as visibly obey him these I say are visibly the subjects servants disciples and children of each Rom. 6. his servants ye are i. e. visibly to whom i. e. visibly ye obey whether c. 1 Ioh. 3.10 in this i. e. doing or not doing righteousnesse are manifest i. e. visibly the children of God and of the devll so Iohn 8. They are visibly of their father the devil who do the works of their father i. e. in Gospel account for else in the lawes account they as Abrahams seed were then the Churches children howbeit I say any one that is not willing to be wise above what is written and to have vision of more then is visible would rest in this yet sith Mr. B.
will put us positivly to prove a third state denying that there 's any medium asserting that infants if they be not in the visible Church of Christ in their infancy are in the visible kingdome of the devil which to say is false doctrine I shall bring Mr. Baxter to stop the mouth of Mr. Baxter and to convince him that either there is a third state in which believers infants are in their infancy which is neither of these two or else to drive him to that Dilemma to preach this false doctrine himself that believers infants are in the visible kingdome of the Devil To this purpose I first demand of him which of these two viz. the visible church of Christ or the visible kingdome of the devil believers infants are visibly in before baptism First as for the visible kingdom of the devil he must say they are either visibly in it or out of it if he say they are in it then he himself preaches that false doctrine which he saies is ours and makes all infants even of believers members of the visible kingdom of the devil if he say they are out and not in the visible kingdom of the devil then that doctrine which teaches men to leave them unbaptized and denies them to be admitted members of the visible church of Christ till they come to age is not guilty as he saies it is of making them doctrinally members of the visible kingdome of the devil for it is but a delay indeed till they can do what is required to baptism As for the visible Church of Christ he must say they are either visibly in it before baptism or not in but out of it if he say they are in the visible church of Christ visibly before baptism then they cannot be said to be as oh how oft ore and ore again are they said to be by Mr. Bax. p. 24.25 admitted to be members entered listed added initiated into it as into Christs School and first stated into it by baptism for to be first entered into it by baptism and yet to be visibly in it before baptism these two are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 utterly inconsistent each with other as to be let into a room when and while one is already in the room is impossible yet with Mr. B. persons are let into the visible church after they are in it yea they must be in it saith he before they may be admitted to be in it nor will his distinction of a member compleat and incompleat p. 24. which he used before to the tearm disciple which I know he will make help him at all here sith with himself an incompleat member is one that hath but jus adrem not in re ad Ecclesiam not in Ecclesia a right to onely not a standing in the Church a title to the relative change and not a being yet in that relative change that he saies passes upon him by baptism Besides to say the truth they are but incompleat members after baptism whom you baptize sith when baptized and in the church they have not present right to other ordinances of the church for you admit not your infant members to the Supper but if he say they are not visibly in the church of Christ before baptism but out of it as indeed they are then either he must say they are in the visible Kingdome of the devil which is false doctrine with himself to say of believers infants or else say they are in some third or middle state to the unsaying of what he said before by way of denial of such a third state which let him say and we will agree with him and such a third state there is which all infants are in as well as some whether he will deny himself so as to acknowledge it yea or no. His 22. plain Scripture-less proof for infant Church-membership and baptism is this viz. That doctrine which leaveth us no sound grounded hope of the justification or salvation of any dying infant in the world is certainly false doctrine but that doctrine which denieth any infants to be members of the visible Church doth leave us no c. This argument I have spoken to sufficiently above and thereupon might well passe it by here and refer Mr. Ba. thither for an answer where in answer to the Ashford Disputants that urge the same argument enough to satisfie is returned But finding this to be that which of all things most gravels Mr. Baxter and makes him stick so stiffly to his plea for the baptism and Church-membership of infants because unlesse that be owned he can find no good ground in all the word whereupon to hope or believe that any dying infant in all the world can be saved which if he could find he would find the vanity of his venting so much concerning a necessity of baptizing and inchurching infants and save himself a deal of puzzling himself about that which the New Testament hath not one word of and fearing lest I should be judged cowardly to slide by it as if I saw Mr. Ba. handled it more unanswerably then any other and partly because Mr. Ts. suspension of his judgement concerning the future state of any infants is puft at by him and uneffectual to his satisfaction unlesse he could assure him of the salvation of some dying infants at least of believing parents which if he could assure him of out of the way of their church-membership and baptism it should satisfie him sufficiently I perceive to censure all other infants to hell and to say all those millions of poor innocents I mean the dying infants of other men in respect of which these he is so pittiful to are scarce one of a 100. are all damned for ever with which harsh cruel bloody and mercilesse censure of his I am much more and more groundedly dissatisfied then he is about the denial of meer outward membership and bare ordinance of baptism to those few on whose behalf he pleads them and lastly hoping the Lord may lend him some ligh◠whereby to see a consistency between the non membership and baptism of believers infants and the salvation of the dying infants of not believers onely but all dying innocent infants in the world I shall enter on an examination of what he saies to the contrary and an explication of what apprehension in this particular I am begotten to by the word of truth and though I shall decline sacerdotale delirium that common stock of divinity which the Clergy have treasured up in their Theological Systems out of which ocean of error and dead sea of tradition the younger Rabbies use to draw into their common place books and store themselves with arguments against Anabaptistical heresie i. e. this troublesome truth yet I trust I shall give a good account before all the world at the Tribunal of Christ Jesus In order hereunto therefore I first flatly deny the Minor of Mr. Bas. above cited syllogism which by another Syllogism he proves
invisible Church and yet then when converted and baptizd neither one not the other as yet actual members of the visible stones though never so unhewn and ragged are remote matter hewn and polished stones immediate and fit matter for a building yet not a building till built together many sheep are fit matter to make a flock yet not formally a flock till they come neer together Christs visible church is Christs flock Gods house Temple building several sheep and single disciples that hear his voice believe in him and are baptized into his name for remission of sins are pecious materials and in potentiâ proximâ thereunto yet be they never so many of them not visibly actually nor formally a flock an house a Temple a Building his visible Church longer then imbodyed into fellowships nor till fitly framed together they are builded an habitation of God through the spirit Ephes. 2.20.21.22 any more then many sheep that never came neer each other are a flock and a multitude of fitted and squared stones lying a long way a sunder each from other make a building Mr. B. shall be no Champion of my choosing to mannage the matter against the non-churchers of these times for all he flourishes his sword so against them at the end of his book if he plead the cause of them so that sit down satisfyed in single fellowship between God and themselves onely living up with him in the spirit contenting themselves to believe onely and renouncing all ordinances forsaking the assembling of themselves together and all fellowship in breaking of bread and prayers if he grant the denomination of the true visible Church to such as these as well as to those that continue stedfast in the Apostles doctrine and in fellowship in breaking bread and prayers yet Mr. B. does not yet agree with me in this that the particular assemblies collectively taken are the only visible Church for indeed he is aware that it overturns all his visibilities from the bottom and layes this foundation of no salvation for infants without the visible Church on which he frames his present Argument flat on the ground to allow the bounds of the visible Church to be no broader then all the particular visible societies that are actually baptized and in formal fellowship in breaking bread and prayers so as to say he is no member of the visible Church that is not actually entred and solemnly stated in some particular congregation or other therefore being politick he premises this among the rest 3. You must understand saith he but a man may understand a little better if he will that to be a member of the visible Church is not to be a Member of any particular or politick body or society Nay more to make his own matter good and that he may find out a way of his own whereby to hope well of all the infants of believers before baptism that they may be saved for let all other dying infants damn for him he cares not for harbouring any hope of them and finding no way but one whereby to help himself to any hope of those i. e. by feigning them to be of the visible church he fetches the visible church so far that he makes it larger then the number of visible baptized ones and holds all believers infants to be in the visible Church from the womb and though in the last page but two of his book he disputes against twice entring into the visible body he feigns them to enter first into the visible church when they first enter into the world besides and before their second first entrance into the visible Church by baptism I wonder whether he hold those believers infants to be of the visible Church or no that were once alive yet dy again in the womb But for all these flim-flames Mr. Ba. will once know I hope that the true visible church is no other then all those particular politicall assemblies in which baptized believers hold fellowship together and that to be a member of the visible church is to be a member of some political society or else how can such be ruld admonisht complained on to the church as Mat. 18. and excommunicated if need be in case of obstinacy if under no Ecclesiasticall Government and yet to hope well of the salvation of all infants that dy in infancy too without either baptism or visible membership in those visible societies And if he will not agree with me about it that the visible church is all the visible assemblies of Christians onely will he agree with Dr. Featley who defines the true visible church to be where the word is truly taught and the sacraments duly administred where therefore neither word is taught nor sacraments at all administred as to unbaptized infants I judge they are not nor baptized infants neither there 's no visible church Again the universal visible church that is saith he all the assemblies of Christians in the world the visible church and all the assemblies are adaequate with him at least therefore unbaptized infants cannot be of it for they were never entred into the assemblies but if Mr. Ba. will agree with neither of us we shall perswade him I hope to agree in this with Mr. Ba. for howbeit Mr. Ba. will needs reckon upon the very unbaptized infants of believers as not in right to the visible church onely but of it in it visible members of it as as soon as born for let him study his own book how oft does he beat upon that saying there is but two states for them to be in or members of the visible kingdome of the devil or the visible church of Christ but believers infants before baptism are not in the first therefore in the visible church of Christ though I say he speak of them as in the visible church before baptism as not knowing else how to hope their salvation if they dy without it yet if any man living do deny infants or any other to be of or in the visible church before or without baptism Mr. Ba. denies it with whom how often is it exprest that baptism is the first visible entrance into it Yea to say nothing of his own definition of the visible church p. 75. to be such as were baptized and continued together in fellowship in breaking bread and prayers which ought to conclude the whole church so defined unlesse he have defined it by the halves in his plea for the continuance of baptism against the seekers p. 342.343 he saies so and saies moreover that we must not admit any to be of the body without it that it is the appointed ordinary way of ingrafting all into the body that are ingrafted and p. 24.25 he saies baptism still is to be at and not after persons are stated in the Church at and not after our admission at and not after our igrafâ—ing and entrance into the visible Church making baptism and our first being in or of the visible church so
simultaneous that we may not must not be supposed to be in to be of to be visibly members of the visible church before baptism which if it be true as indeed it is that none can be counted to the body as one of it though in never such right to it first before baptism ordinarily at least as he pleads how doth all this hang together and agree with what he pleads here and in the foregoing argument p. 71. where he saith it is not the deniall of baptism directly that leaveth infants in the visible kingdom of the devill I would every one and Mr. Ba. himself would consider this grant of Mr. Ba. for then what ever necessity there may be of supposing them as he doth to be visible members in infancy and even before they are baptized we can suppose them in as good a state as he yet at least there will be no need to baptize them whereby to put us into more hopes of their salvation if they dy in infancy for if I can hope the salvation of some believers infants that die without Baptism upon that account what ere t is I may as well hope the salvation of them all dying without Baptism and so save the frivolous pains of baptizing infants at all he goes on thus t is true saith he that many unbaptized are in the Kingdome of Christ meaning his visible church but no man who is known to be out of Christs visible church ordinarily can be out of Satans visible kingdome I say how do these things square hear what he saies no entring into or being in the visible Church but by baptism and yet many unbaptized are in the visible Church viz. all believers infants before baptism viz. from the womb Either Mr. Ba. must hold two first entrances into the visible church viz. natural birth and baptism or else he must hold that baptism is not the first entrance or else that believers infants are not entred and if not so not in the visible church before baptism whether they have right to be so or no which is another question if he chuse to say the first then he contradicts what he saies of entring the visible Church p. 343. if the 2d he contradicts all he saies of baptism being the onely entrance if the 3d. that believers infants are not entred and so not in nor visibly of the visible church before baptism then of these two things he must say one viz. either that all the infants of believers that dy before their visible entrance into the visible church by baptism are damned without hope which he neither will nor can say or else say that there is hope of dying infants salvation and that they may be seemingly and visibly in a state of saluation and yet not be visible members of the visible church and then what need any further witnesse or disproof for hee l confute the Minor out of his own mouth which I am to disprove and save me the labour For if they may be in a visible state of salvation and yet not be visibly in the visible church then t is so and there 's an end If to all this he saies that he meanes not more but that believers infants before baptism have right to be baptized and to be of it and to deny them that right to it denies them salvation I deny that infants dying without right to be of the visible Gospel church denies them to be in state of salvation and shall shew the contrary neverthelesse Mr. Ba. might have spoken more properly and plainly then to call a right to visible membership by the name of visible membership it self as he often yea all along does therefore we might wish him to mend his Minor before we meddle with it and also he must confesse to the contradiction of himself that there is a third state betwen the visible church of Christ and the visible kingdom of the devil in which infants must be supposed to be by himself viz. a right to the church but not a present standing in it which kind of right and middle state I acknowledge â—â— baptized believers to have but as for infants though they are in a present visible state of and right to salvation as well as they unlesse living longer they reject Gods grace afresh which dying infants cannot do and so not in the visible Kingdome of the devil yet are they neither in nor yet in immediate right to the visible Church as men and women of years not yet baptized and yet believing are but in medio abnegationis together with them these things premised I come now to the disproof of his Minor in which I le take him in a fairer sense for himself then he expresses himself in and yet make no question but to disprove it in contradistinction unto which I lay down my self thus Viz. That not only some men may be de facto no members but all infants de jure in no right to membership in the visible Church of Christ under the Gospell and yet both be possibly in state of salvation Now how far forth de facto persons may be out of an actual standing in the visible church and yet in a visible state of salvation I le not meddle much to examine because the question is though Mr. B. does not so fairly expresse it but I take it in the way that is most to his advantage whether denyal of the jus this imediate right to membership excludes them not from salvation yet thus much I shall say to that viz. if persons must be seemingly and visibly in state of salvation before they are to be admitted members they may be as yet no members of the visible church de facto and yet in a visible state of salvation This is evident not only by the singular case of the theif who never was actually admitted into the visible Church nor so much as baptized at all for want of opportunity and yet in a visible state of salvation but also if we instance in all others that ever we read were baptized in the primitive times who were first seemingly and visibly in a state of repentance faith and disposition to obey Christ in all things and therefore in a visible state of salvation Heb. 5.9 and then after this added to the church Mâ—t. 3. Mark 16.16 Act. 2. Act. 8. Act. 16. Act. 18. for a certain remote and conditional right all persons have thus de facto and now de jure that the denyal of persons present and immediate right to membership in the visible church doth not deny them universally to be in a visible state of salvation is evident also thus viz. If some persons both men and infants may appear to us to be in state of salvation and yet not in immediate present right to be joined to the visible Church then the denyal of persons present and immediate right to membership in the visible Church does not universally deny them to be in a visible
very same that you Protestant Clergy do make in your own defence when you are charged by your old father Caiphas and his Catholicks as Hereticks and Schismaticks in your rending from them and as infringers of the unity of their Church yea in the very words of Calvin to whom you my Ashford opponents are pleased to send us who saith thus of them as I do with him of you all Inst. l. 4. c. 2. S. 2 Magnifice quidem c. They do indeed gloriously set out their Church unto us that there should seem to be no other Church in the world and afterward as though the victory were gotten they decree that all be Schismaticks that dare withdraw themselves from the obedience of that Church that they paint out and that all be Hereticks that daâ—e once mutter against the doctrine thereof But by what proofs do they confirm they have the true Church S. 1. If the true Church be the pillar and stay of the truth it is certain that there is no Church where lying and falshood have usurped the dominion S. 3. There is therefore no cause why they should any longer go forward to deceive by pâ—etending a false colour under the name of the Church which we do reverently esteem as becommeth us but when they come to the definition of it not onely water as the common saying is cleaveth unto them but they stick fast in their own mire because they put a stinking harlot in place of the holy spouse of Christ that this putting in of a changling should not deceive us beside other admonitions let us remember this also of Augustine for speaking of the Church he saith it is it that is sometime darkned and covered with multitude of offences as with a cloud sometime in calmnesse of time appeareth quiet and â—ree sometime is hidden and troubled with waves of tribulations and temptations He bringeth forth examples that oftentimes the strongest pillars either valiantly suffered banishment for the faith or were hidden in the whole world S. 4. In like manner the Romanists do vex us and make afraid the ignorant with the name of the Church whereas they be the deadly enemies of Christ. Therefore although they pretend the Temple the Priesthood and other such outward shews this vain glistering wherewith the eyes of the simple be dazled ought nothing to move us to grant that there is a Church where the Word of God doth not appear for this is the perpetual mark wherewith God hath marked them to be his He that is of the truth saith he heareth my voice Again I am the good shepheard and I know my sheep and am known of them my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me And a little before he had said that the sheep follow their shepheard because they know his voice but they follow not a stranger but run away from him because they know not the voice of strangers Why are we therefore wilfully mad in judging the Church whereas Christ hath marked it with an undoubtful sign which wheresoever it is seen cannot deceive but that it certainly sheweth the Church to be there but where it is not there remaineth nothing that can give a true signifition of the Church for Paul rehearseth that the Church was builded not upon the judgements of men nor upon Priesthoods but upon the doctrine of the Apostles and Prophets but rather Jerusalem is to be severally known from Babilon and the Church of Christ from the conspiracy of Satan by that difference wherewith Christ hath made them different one from another He that is of God saith he heareth the words of God ye therefore hear not because ye are not of God In summe forasmuch as the Church is the kingdom of Christ and he reigneth not but by his word can it be now doubtful to any man but that those be the words of lying by which Christs kingdome is feigned to be without his scepter that is to say without his holy word 5 But now whereas they accuse us of Schism and Heresie because we both teach a contrary doctrine to them and obey not their lawes and have our assemblies to prayers to baptism to the ministration of the supper and other holy doings severally from them it is indeed a very sore accusation but such as needeth not a long or laborsome defence they are called Hereticks and Schismaticks which making a division do break in sunder the communion of the Church And this communion is holden together with true bounds that is to say the agreement of true doctrine and brotherly charity whereupon Augustine putteth this difference betwixt Hereticks and Schismaticks that Hereticks indeed do with false doctrine corrupt the purenesse of faith but the Schismaticks sometime even where there is like faith do break the bond of fellowship But this is also to be noted that this conjoining of charity so hangeih upon the unity of Faith that faith ought to be the beginning thereof the end and finally the only rule Let us therefore remember that so oft as the unity of the Church is commended unto us this is required that while our minds agree in Christ our wills also may be joined together with mutual well willing in Christ Therefore Paul when he exhorteth us to that well willing taketh for his foundation that there is one God one Faith and one Baptism Yea wheresoever he teacheth us to be of one mind and of one will he by and by addeth in Christ or according to Christ meaning that it is a factions company of the wicked and not agreement of the faithful which is without the word of the Lord. S. 6. Cyprian also following Paul deriveth the whole fountain of the agreement of the Church from the onely Bishoprick of Christ he afterward addeth the Church is but one which spreadeth abroad more largely into a multitude with increase of fruitfulnesse like as there be many sun beams â—ut one light and many branches of a tree but one body grounded upon a fast root and when many streams do flow from one fountain although the number seem to be scattered abroad by largeensse of overflowing plenty yet the unity abideth in the original take away a beam of the sunne from the body the unity suffers no division break a branch from the tree the broken branch cannot spring cut off the stream from the spring head being cut off it drieth up so also the Church being overspread with the light of the Lord is exâ—ended over the whole world yet there is but one light that is spread every where Nothing could be said more fitly to expresse that undividual knitting together which all the members of Christ have one with another we see how he continually calleth us back to the very head Whereupon he pronounceth that Heresies and Schismes do arise hereof that men do not return to the original of truth nor do seek that head nor keep the doctrine of the heavenly master Now let them go
may read as it were in text letters your own abstract from that of mine when you please and signing the Titles of the CCClergy whether true or surreptitious with three letters in the front as C. C. C. PPP c. most commonly when I speak of â—hem in the lump to denote the three PPParts into which that great City B B Babylon which they make stands divided I proceed as followeth That Heresies must be the Apostle hath said yet it makes no more for a tolleration of them in the true Church I mean though others mean in the civil state than that of our Saviour of offences saying foreseeing no question how by means of the Clergies crying out Heresie Heresie Schism against the way of truth being once turned aside to Heresie themselves the world would be offended at his little ones for walking in it They must come but wo to the man by whom they come the Apostle reckons Heresies among the works of the flesh Idolatry Witchcraft c. Gal. 5.20 which alone is argument sufficient against the Patronage and Invitation of them unless withal license in the true Church should be given to all other carnal sins why should the Church of God upon Earth make much of those against whom the Kingdome of Heaven shall be shut her pale is not so strong to keep them out from breaking in upon her like wild bores and wolves to spoil and wast her but her good will should not be so great to them as to wellcome them in to her fellowship till they repent from their dead works of superstition bloody tenet of persecution for cause of conscience worshipping God after mens traditions blaspheming the name of God and his Tabernacle and them that dwell in heaven trampling the holy City Heresie Schism from the primitive truth c. Neverthelesse howbeit to tolerate and harbour Hereticks in communion with them whilest they oppose the true way of Christ would be an error and an evill too intollerable in a true Church of Christ yet I hold that opinion of the C C Clergy not onely intollerably Heretical in it self but intollerably hurtful also to themselves that Hereticks may not be tolerated in a civil state for if Fines Prisons Banishments Racks Wâ—ips Tortures headings hangings burnings and such like punishments with the civil sword were the due of every Heretick and Schismatick in the faith as the C C Clergy have for ages and Generations born the world in hand that they are to the causing of all these their national Church censures to be inflicted on the Saints when they have once blindly sentence them to be Schismaticks to the civil power if this I say were the due of every Heretick or Schismatick and every true Heretick and Schismatick had his due too good Lord how have the C C Clergy condemned themselves out of their own mouthes to devastation when the civil powers shall find them to be the Arch-Hereticks in the world if taking them at their word they shall do with them as they say they ought to do in this case concerning others but God forbid that with what judgement they judge they should be judged and with what measure they meet it should be measured to them again at our suggestion if their own Cheek-by-jole carriage to the Stern-men of the State do not pull it unavoidably upon themselves yea verily though as far as those that oppose themselves against the truth of Christ they may well challenge the name of Schismaticall Hereticks and though Amen might justly be said by the Magistrate in this point to the opinion of Gangraena and his Gang and might Amen be said to his wise wishes as concerning us who teach and practise baptism in its primitive fashion we could expect to be suffered in the Common-wealth no more then High-way Murderers yet dare we not desire their exâ—irpation out of any of their native rights in the several states wherein they are nor such uncivill suppression of them meerly for their erroneous Tenets as they have sollicited the higher powers to concerning us we have not so learned Christ nor would they if they had heard him and had been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus for howere it comes to passe that the C C Clergy whose own the worst would he if that were true and execution done accordingly are so besotted as to believe that Hereticks and Schismaticks from the faith men of false waies worships religions though elsewise never fo peaceable and innocent must not onely be dischurched but discommunicated also from the patronage of the civil power and cut off from the priviledges of other Subjects yet neither Christ nor any of his Apostles as from him gave any order for such rigid rejection indeed the Apostle Paul wills in his Epistle to Titus cap. 3. who was a Church officer that a Heretick after a second and third admonition be rejected i. e. from the Church and Gal. 5.12 wishes that they were cut off from the Church that did trouble the Church and Rev. 2.20.21 the Church of Thyatira was reproved for suffering that woman Iezebel which calleth her self a prophetesse to teach and seduce his servants to fornication i. e. false worships c. but it will noâ— follow therefore that such may not have license to live civilly in civil states for the weapons of the Churches warfare wherewith she is to fight against Heresies and which she is ever to have in readinesse to revenge all disobedience to Christ by are noâ— carnall 2 Cer. 10.4 5 6. not such as are used by the officers of States but onely spirituall as admonition reproof and in case of obstinacy putting out from among them delivering up to Satan and not delivering up to the secular power as the Popish Priesthood used to do when any of their creatures specially of their Clerico-creatures turned Hereticks i. e. departed from their Heresies to the truth saying pray take him into your power and be merciful to him meaning hang or burn him for a Heretick The Church I say is neither to use the carnal weapons of the State nor yet to stirr up the State so to use them on her and truths behalf as to imprison fine hang burn or banish false worshippers unbelievers misbelievers or Hereticks further then they are withall as by meer unbelief they are not offenders against the civil State I find the Lord Christ foretelling by himself and his Apostles that for the most part the more is the pitty the Rulers Kings Governours and Princes of the world would be such enemies against his Gospel that his Disciples should be â—ald before them as evill doers for his names sake Matth. 10.18 that not many mighty and noble men would own his truth 1 Cor. 1.26 that rich men would oppresse the Church and draw them before their Judgement seats and blaspheme that worthy name wherby the poor in this world which commonly are the richest in faith are called Ia. 2.6 that the Kings
Ministers to attend continually upon this very thing viz. to reâ—der unto all men their dues as men viz. a room in quiet in the world of what wayes of religion soever yea though Indians and redress of any civil wrongs as they expect to have all men of what religions soever within their power to render to them their dues of tribute honour custome fear for for this cause pay they their tribute also because Magistrates are Gods Ministers to the world ward and to the Church as part of the world and in no other sense then as to the rest of the world to attend continually on this very thing to dispense praise or punishments for civil good and evil among men not spiritual for then they may punish evill thoughts proud looks ignorance non-profiting by the word not Gods Church-ministers to dispense good or evil for good or evil done in the Church but as the same actions may have reference to the state also as theft or the like civil abuse which comes one way under the Churches censure and another way under the Common-wealths they are not I say Church Ministers nor Ministers to the Church qua Church as the Priests principle seemes to make them for then they may claim not only Tribute but Tith also as well as the Priest but that he will be loath to part with though in truth it belongs to him for his Church wasting work full as little as to the other I humbly beg therefore I say of the Powers that truth which hath been trod under foot may be tolerated among them in their several civil States Common-wealths and Kingdomes and to the end it may undoubtedly be so let all that which the Powers in the several Nations do judge in their own consciences to be truth in point of Religion have toleration and protection and no more countenance by them as Magistrates but bare protection from injury as other waies also may have and not such extraordinary supports from a power Heterogeneal to that of the Church nor such extraordinary gratulations gratuities revenews incomes preferments and portions out of the common State-stock let their own private purses be as open to them such as professe it pay to its Ministry as much as they will for besides the partiality of this thing of making other Religions and wayes that judge themselves to be the truth as well as that pay and be tributaries to the true one and the gâ—umbles it will ingender in mens minds this proves the greatest mischief under heaven to the truth when the Ministers who should expect nothing but shame and suffering with their Master who was Beelzebub are flusht with the outward pomps and vanities of this world till they forget themselves so as scarce to know what ground they stand on and howbeit Magistrates may mean honestly in their high honourings of them as that good man Constantine the great did yet as his high embraces and graces done to Christian Bishops proved besides his intent the stirrup whereby those Lord beggars got up on horse back and rode to the devil for so hath that Romish whore rid both her self and the beast under her which is Christ'ndome so though I hope it never will yet it may possibly be so again if care be not taken against it witnesse the two other more seemingly modest and maidenly Minions Episcopacy and Presbitery which qua Ministry came out of her loines who have not brought the world so far out of that old Babilon towards Sion as they pretended to do by reformation as else they might have done being slugged luld asleep by benefits and benefices in the way for positâ eâdem causà ponitur idem effectus sublat â tollitur golden cups ever yet made wooden Priests and ever will do let truth have liberty and peace it will desire no more of the State if it be truth indeed And Secondly let all other wayes and religions besides that which the Magistrate judges to be truth that judge themselves to be in the truth save that of those whose very way as abovesaid is no way but dishonesty and whose way is to root out all wayes but their own by civil power be also tolerated practised and protected from outward violence and oppression as well as that for this besides the knitting of the hearts of men of all wayes under one civill power in intire love and strong affection to that Power that domineers not ore their conscience besides that I say this tolerating all practices in point of religion save that practise of non toleration of any but it self in civil states must needs tolerate the truth among the rest whether it ly in this way or that and so the Power shall be out of all danger and hazard of coming under the guilt of truth treading which the PPPriesthood hath engaged the civil power in for 1260 years together as else it cannot for if toleration be of no way but one then if that chance to be the wrong and the magistrates are no more sure then other men that they are in the right yea 100 to 1 they are not if they use civil violence to others First because the false wayes are many and broad and easie and fine and the true way but one and that so streit and narrow mean and base that not many noble and mighty and men of power ever find it 1 Cor. 1.26 Secondly because as King Iames said persecution is a certain note of a false Church then truth is unavoidably smothered by them and will first or last pull vengeance upon that power Rev. 6.11.12 though it be under the name of Heresie onely that he suppresses it and plucks it up under the name and notion of weeds and tares that would else choak the wheat besides therefore a most strict charge that Christ gives Mat. 13. that in the world i. e. the civil States and Common-wealths of it the Tares should stand together among the wheat untill the harvest which alone is an Argument putting all out of doubt in this controversie he gives this good reason viz. least in plucking up the Tares the wheat also chance to be rooted up with them t is for the wheats good therefore for the Tares to stand and for the wheats sake that Christ wills they should though not in the Church yet in the world to the very end thereof And because the Divine cannot yet divine that to be Christs meaning in that scripture that false worshippers hereticks c. may lawfully if not civil offenders be licenced to live in civil States let us consider how sinister his own conjectures are upon it I have met with some and some of chiefest note in this County of Ken who have shifted it of thus saying that by the Field is meant the Church not the World as we say and Christ himself interprets it in that place Secondly that the servants who ask whether they should pluck up the Taris yea or
enemy came and sowed among the wheat i. e. in the same parts and places of the world Towns Countreyes c. locally considered the children of the wicked one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the same as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Thes. 2. that wicked false worshippers of God after their own inventions mens precepts not his will people and priests grown up into a Church worship ministery religion insensibly by little and little from false principles and foundations custome forefathers prudential additions of orthodox men c. not the pure naked word it self a people born to their religion yea their christian religion in the way of flesh and blood and the will of man of the Pope and councells constituting and civil powers from them commanding not of God by the word of truth The Enemy that sowed them is the devil for he indeed filled the whole world even the whole Christian world with false worshippers false principled Clergy men and when he could not kill the wheat the Christians in the ten persecutions in his open war against them by the mouth of thâ— beast or empire heathen wherein he prosecuted them under their own names because Constantine a Christian was come now to the crown then he turned Christian himself and would have Christianity imbraced by all meanes by a law and sowed the seed of false principles of stablishing Christian religion as the onely religion before which all other shall now down promoting Christianity in the shell that he might kill it in the substance causing great honours revenues Peters patrimonies to be given in favour of Christianity from which principles selfish ambitious lazy luxurious Ministers as the Pope formall meer nominal Christians grew up and overtopt the truth and true Saints that kept close to the truth in the midst of all this mock shew wherin the devil hath kept an apish imitaon of Christs church all along and ministry ordinances baptism supper church censure but all corrupt and trod the holy city to the ground Rev. 11. the same subtle one now he sees his trade of forcing men from the truth by the principle of conformity to the false Christianity and the old Spiritualty fail is now shifting himself undoubtedly in to another Spiritualty that will as much corrupt delude the world by the principle of liberty of conscience abused and turnd by the Ranter into license though we who plead for liberty of truth say in maxima libertate est minima licentia in the greatest liberty of conscience to serve God there 's the least licence to serve the devil by our lusts and corrupt our selves in what we know naturally as bruit beasts nor is that conscience that makes conscience of nothing The harvest is the end of the world the reapers the Angels by whom at that time Christ will throughly purge his floor and gather his wheat into his barn and burn up all chaff Tares husks weeds bryers thornes idolators hypocrites subtle seducers and sinful subverters of the truth whoever shall appear to have been such and all other trash with unquenchable fire Matth. 3.12 Mean while I say still Tares may stand among wheat locally in one Country yet not lawfully in one church society Weeds and flowers Roses and nettles Lillies and thornes Vines and brambles Idolatours and true worshippers Believers and infidells the children of the Kingdome and of the wicked one the Temple of God and idols Christs church and the Devils chappel discovered hypocrites and sincere Saints Christians of all sorts save such whose very principle prohibits toleration and they make the case uncapable to be which will win or loose all stand alone or not at all as whether the P P Priesthoods do not or at least did not let all men judge Jews Turks and Pagans may be lawfully allowed their religions living in subjection under one civil power if the whole world were but one Monarchy in one World in one Field or Common-wealth though not in one Garden not in one Vineyard or Church and may not be made to be of the true religion whether they will or no yea I appeal to the conscience of any sober minded man whether if Pontius Pilate whom the Scripture stiles the Governour of Iudaea and a lawful Governour over the church a very heathen may be but no heathen lawfully a member much lesse an officer or a Governour in the Church whether I saie if Pilate should have been converted by Christ at the bar while he sate on the bench and truely believed in him it would have pleased Christ that he should have improved his civil power to have established Christianity in Iudaea and forced all men under penalty to believe in christ and renounce all meer Jewish worships or whether it had been as lawful a decree in Augustus Caesar to have forced all men to be Christians under a penalty as t was in him to issue out a decree that all the world should be taxed I suppose not but that he must have left all to their waies and have practised it himself and protected it from injury and propounded it to all in way of preaching but not prosecuting any by his civil power if they would yet remain Jewes or heathens and Christ might as easily have made Emperors his Disciples had he meant that the Gospel should be established by civil power And this is for the further safegard and advantage to the wheat as I sayd before for Christ gives this reasâ—n why he would have the tares to be let alone least by rooting out the tares the wheat be rooted out also for if all religions may stand then the true one may stand in quiet without disturbance if all people may walk every one in the name of his God Mich. 4.5 then we may walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever but if all be beaten down in a state and but one stand ten thousand to nothing it is not the truth that is there established for truth may be trodden down but treads not down others in a violent way of persecution Besides if true Religion establish it self alone in some States by forcing men to subject to it its gives a bad example to false religions in other states that think themselves in the right to do the like and force men that love the truth there to submit to them and so there 's quit for quo and no end of disturbances they saying that we are Tares we that they are and so there is nothing but pulling up by the roots if toleration be not tolerated as the most peacemaking principle and so in these bussles if the wheat grow alone some where it must fall elsewhere even every where where the tares are resolved to stand alone and so Homo Homini Lupus Christianus Christiano Diabolus men must be wolves and devils each to other throughout the world Besides if the power in any place be ignorant and under an erring conscience that conscientia errans
several nations in peace together with them and in security from such searches as have been made by their Surrogates Paritors and Proctours c. after men as unsufferable Schismaticks that side not with them but a toleration of them in that wonted Tyranny of treading all under their feet and plucking up all plants by the roots that live beside them by the civil power when they once have censured them â—or such seditious ones as are not fit to be suffered in a state because they submit not to their statelinesse and complain'd of them to Kings as Haman to Ahasuerus of the Jewes the true Churches type saying Esth. 3.8 there is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the people in all the Provinces of thy Kindom and their laws are divers from all people neither keep they the Kings laws therfore it is not for the Kings alias not the CCClergies profit to suffer them and made their modest request that if it please the King it may be written that they may be destroyed which conscience of correcting Hereticks that conform'd not to the CCClergies Christianity carried Christian Kings to condescend to in old time this toleration is too intolerable in all conscience I wish well to the persons of the men called CCClergy God is my witnesse but I wish not so well to their way as to wish it up in the way wherein they would have had it and yet I here wish they may have their way too abating us no more of it then their unreasonable wonted wishes that the state would allow no wayes but their own let them pare off that knotty piece from off their principle wherein they pray the Powers to beat all men into the belief of all they say by the sword the belief of which they can never beat into them by the word then let them and their party practise what they please let their way be no way of civill violence to all other wayes and then in civil peace let them walk in it till they are weary and let it stand till by the word it fall before the true one if it be such a noun Adjective that it cannot stand by it self in Scripture sense and Reason without such a Substantive as the civil sword to support it t is a sign that there 's far more shew then Substance in it for verily that Gospel that will not stand not onely without but against the edge of Caesars sword encountring with it is Antichrists but none of Christs Gospel to me yet such it seems is the CCClergies Gospel which freedom to set it up by other wayes leaves still as helplesse as hopelesse of ever standing unlesse it may be stablisht against all other wayes on the necks of all people by the carnal weapons of Caesars civil State it s very doubtful of entring the feild with no other strength then its own Canons unlesse the state lend it her ordinances to back them but if Baal be a God me thinks he might speak for himself against them that throw down his Altars without imploring all the Gods of the earth to speak for him if the Multitude of his Priests cannot set up his worship without the Magnitude of earthly Princes to relieve them let it go and a good riddance of it too if Dagon cannot stand on his own legs but must fall before the Ark unlesse the benevolence of others lift him up his PPPriests may set him up as much as they will for themselves but they shall never set him up again for me Neverthelesse I am as freely willing sith t is the will of Christ and his Testament that even Baalitish Romish worshippers should have a Room and being in the world by the civil Magistrates permission they yielding civil subjection even to the end thereof as I am willing there should be a Room and being in it for the truth for though the Prophets of Baal were put to death in reforming Elijahs time in the old Church of Israel which was the type yet that pointed out no more then that spiritual execution which is to be done on Iezebel and her false worships in the true Church in these reforming times of the Gospel not one of which may abide any more in the Gospel Israel yea I here seriously supplicate the civil Powers for them that their consciences no more then ours may be forced by any forinsecal power to act in Church worships contrary to their conviction but if nought will content the PPPriesthood at all as of old it would not but that all Hereticks as they call them that hearken not to their Traditions must be clublawd into conformity to their parochial precepts so far at least as to obey the Hue and Cry of their purses without free leave from their own consciences so to do then protesting against the iniquity of their desires after the persecution of those who desire the protection of them from persecution by the civill Power my most humble suit to the supreme Powers is that they will be pleased as to let the PPPriesthood preach as much as they please a little of which work serves the turns of some of them and to let such as are satisfied in their Souls and spirits that they ought to do both to own and pay them so to let such as seem to themselves on sufficient grounds to have clear cause to decline them have the freedome of their consciences to be none of their flocks and being none of their flocks a freedom from being forcibly fleec'd by them any more and if the CCClergy shall he Angry at this without a cause to let them be pleased without amends sith t is most evident that as men ought not to be constrained against their wills to be of Christs much lesse of the CCClergies flock so he that feedeth a flock may freely and not by force live of the milk of that flock he feeds and may not of them that are forrainers to his flock further then they are free to supply him they went forth freely to preach the Gospel for his names sake taking nothing much lesse by force of the Gentiles that were Ministers to the Church of old Iohn Ep. 3. v. 7. and many heathenish Parishes here have the Gospell preacht freely to them when they accept on it by the messengers that go forth of the true churches at this day but many Parish Ministers will make all that live or have to do within their line buy their Sermons of them and that at their own price too whether they like them or no and which is worse though they have sold them once it may be often ore already and a dear penniworth too yet as oft as they remove to other livings they carry them away along with them in their papers from the people that have already bought and paid for them preach them ore again and so sell them for as much more in other places but I hope the civil power throughout Europe
quando intelligitur etiam id cujus est similitudo fit perspicuum et quidem magis quam fine similitudine et ut vera similitudo non intelligitur nisi analogia similitudinis intellegatur ita nec sacramenta nisi Analogia signorum et rerum intellegatur hoc sensu Apologia Augustanae confessionis aliquoties sacramenta vocat picturas x See legh crit sac p. 76.77 where he ore and ore again confesses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—ignifies to dip plunge under water c. primarily and properly p. 76. it signifieth primarily such a kind of washing as is uâ—ed in Bucks where linnen is plunged or dipt Beza neque vero 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 significat lavare nisi a coÌ„sequenti nam proprie declarat tingendi causa mergere also p. 77. the native proper signification of it is to dip into water or plunge under water Joh 3.22 23. Mat. 3.16 tanquam ad tingenduÌ„ mergo Causab immergo intingo abluo Bucan mergo et tingo Bullinger proprie significat immergo submergo obruo aquâ Zanchius videtur copiam abundantiam perfectam quandam perfusionem denotare Areâ— a witnes these words received in a late letter from two Gentlemen of Chichester viz. SIR The occasion of these lines is the result of a late conference viz. to desire your grounds arguments in wriing for the continuance of water-baptism what you conceive required to evidence a right administrator and subject thereof Sir our end herein if we know our own hearts is to be assured of the mind of the Lord Christ touching that ordinance and our duty therein that we may walk conformably to his will c. a Acts. 3.22 b Is. 55.4 * for â—o Mark records the commission whereâ— Matâ—thewes meaning is much explaind Mar. 16.15.16 Go ye out into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature he that believeth and is baptizd shall be saved c. Argu. 1. d For these I speake to now and not to such as are shy of the use of Christs ordinances on an other account viz. a wretched conceit of such worth and weightinesse in them that no men in the world are now found fit to meddle with them or are admitted by Christ to be administrators of them for both these wayes doth the devil deceive men by to erre from the plain way of Christs truth e 1 Cor. 1.18 Rom. 1.16 f 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cor. 1..1.25 Argu. 2. f Act. 20.27 g Mat. 21.25 h Luk 7.29.30 Argum. 3. g Mat. 5.19 h Luke 16.10 h Rom. 14.2.5 i 1 Cor. 7.27 28. k Act. 8.4 l Act. 8 3â— m Act. 8.12 n Act. 8.14.10 36.18 11. o Act. 9.6 p Act. 22.10 q Act. 10.6 r Act. 10.33.48 s Rom. 6.34 t Gal. 3.26.27 v Act. 12.1 2 3 4. c x Col. â—2 12 r Act. 16.15.22.23 Arg. 4. Arg. 5. * for God whose waies limit us not himself was somtimes better then his word and anticipated the disciples obedience in these things so as to give his spirit beyond even Peters expectation to persons before baptized and prayed for yet did not this disingage them from doing that outward service but the more ingage them to be baptized Act. 10.45.46.47.48 h for its most certain that this was the will of Christ and tendred to all the world as so so to stand in all ages generationâ— of it to the end yea a special part of his testament as well as preaching faith repentance prayer and the rest and that since as well as before the Testators death Mat. 28.18.19.20 Act. 2.39.8.12.16.10.47 48.16.15.33.18 8.19 5.22.16 after which death of the Testator no man ever knew so much as a mans testament altered or disanul'd in one tittle of it without grosse palpable injury to the Testator x Mar. 1.4 y in which juncture of time he spake nothing to his discipâ—es by way of commandement or otherwise but such things as pertained to the Kingdom of God and to his Church and Gospel Act. 1.2.3 * See Mar. 1.1 2 3 4. the beginning of the Gospel of Christ Ioh. did baptize in the wildernesse and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins * in his book called Some glimps of that bright and morning starr a Mat. 24.34 Mar. 13.30 Luk. 21.32 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this generation or age meaning wherein we see the signs of Christs coming will no passe or be ended before all be fulfilled and â— he come b Eph. 3 2. speaking of ages divisim even all the several ages to the very end of time and age it self to the end of all times he saies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to all ages of the world or to all ages of time of times even for ever c which how neer kin it is too to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that signifieth semper i e. alwaies every smarterer in Greek may understand 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 * John did no miracle yet what he spake was true nor were any held excused that believed not his baptism to be of heaven but those are said â—e reject the councel of God against themselves that were not baptized of him * as if Christ had administrations in force but had made no provision of administrators whereby they might be at all dispensed * which may serve to the satisfaction of such as think that after the long cessation of tune baptism that hath been in the world there must be an utter omission and no resurrection of it again for ever because none but unbaptized persons to begin it for Iohn himself the greatest administrator of water baptism that ever was eiâ—her was not baptized himself at all or else by â—ome that were never baptized or else by some of those which himself had first baptized which still makes the case the same and evidences that unbaptized persons may possibly be right administrators and that the non baptization of the person that does it nulls not the dispensation of it to believers * As Christ also doth Mar. 16.16 saying he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved for true he that believeth not whether he be baptized or no shall be damned * 1 Pet. 4.11 * for he that hearkneth not to his voice in all things whatever he saith shall be cut off from among his people Act. 3.22 â—3 Major Minor * for no man can of himselfe by name prove expresly that he shall be save the Scripture promising life to neither Peter nor Paul by name save as they were believers but onely by an inference from the Scripture and in the ballance of right reason comparing Scripture with Scripture or by arguing in some such manner out of it viz. he that believeth and is baptized continuing in that his faith and obedience till death shall be saved Mark 16.16 Rom. 2.7 Heb. 10.35.38 but I believe and am baptized and continue in that faith and Gâ—d assisting will never draw back Ergo
no and are bid to let them grow together with the Wheat are not the Civil Magistrates but Christs Disciples who had nothing to doe to pluck them up and so the civil Magistrate may do it no withstanding to this purpose I have been answered when I have askt in way of querie the sense of that place To which I say First that by the Field is most necessarily meant the World and not the Church First Christ so expounds it himself the field saith he is the World but say they the World is oft used to expresse the Church and so may here I reply first I deny that the word world in any one place of Scripture signifies the Church onely it signifies sometimes the fabrick of the Universe Secondly it signifies all man kind good and bad collectively Thirdly sometimes the wicked onely that lie in wickednesse 1 Iohn 1.13 Iohn 17. abstract and in contradistinction to the godly and the Church but never at all the Church the godly the Elect alone abstract and as in contradistinction to the wicked and though I know how far forth to maintain their absurd doctrines in other cases some Divines divine such a matter yet till they shew more for it then they have ever shewed to me or I am sure can shew out of the word not denying but that there is a number electorum i. e. all that believe and obey Christ exmundo electus their Mundus electorum is haud mundus dialectus Secondly here it cannot be the Church however because it is vox secundae intentionis a speech that is expounded by Christ to be the sense of the other speech of field he used before for if the word world were ever used for the Church it must be by a figure synechdoche whereby a smal snip of it is signified by the whole and then Christ speaks figuratively again in his Exposition of the other figurative word field which were incertum per incertum to open one paraboricall expression by another as paraboricall as that which who can think Christ did to his Disciples to whom his intent was to speak more plain that they might understand him but understand him they could not well if while he spake figuratively at first he did not speak properly at last however for whereas he had told them the field was the World they had as much need to have asked again what the world was if they could not think he meant plainly as he said Thirdly the Church is exprest usually by the name of Christ's Garden Vineyard c. which are places more peculiar and sequestred as Cant. 4.12.16 Isaiah 5.6 Ez. 15. and the world or part without the Church by the name of Field Forrest c. wherein Tares wild bores briars thornes as well as wheat and Saints may live Fourthly if by Field and World here is meant the Church then t will follow that sith the Tares i. e. false Worshippers Hereticks Antichristians are bid to be let alone untill the harvest that such as these may be tolerated not in the world or civil state onely with the Church but also in the very Church it self which toleration cannot be for God chides that Church that suffers Iezebel to teach fornication in her and if the P P Priesthood plead for such a Toleration as this as he had need considering how his Church is filled with tares more then he is either able or willing to root out then â—e is for a tolleration far more intollerable then that we plead for for we would have Hereticks and Schismaticks and Erroneous false worshippers and nominall Christians Antichristians no neerer the Church then in the world with them i. e. the same States Towns houses but not in one and the same Church-fellowship or Congregation but they would have them stand in the Church for which sure Christ gives no permission much lesse a strick Commission as here is that they should But say you Christ does not here mean that they shall stand as if none had to do pluck them up but onely forbids these servants who were his disciples from meddling with them to evâ—ry of whom he gives not Authority to pass censures and punish but some may have Authority for it for all that Some who are those I trow it must be then either the Ministry or the Magistracy not the Ministry for it is far more cleer that by the servants here that took notice of the tares to the housholder is meant the servants of Christ in the office of Ministers that would fain have been meddling as the false Ministry ever does to root out all both out of Church and world too that is not of institution by Christ in their opinion and such a spirit may too much shew it self in the true too see the like Spirit in his own disciples the first Ministers Luke 9.54.55 Mat. 15.12.13.14 for which Christ gives them a check and tells them they knew not what spirit they were of and bids them let the false plants alone to the heavenly Father to pluck up in his time saying let them alone they be blind leaders of the blind and will both in due time fall into the ditch t is far more clear I say that t is his Ministry he here forbids then common disciples for why should not their Ministry complain of them aswell as they yet he bids these let them alone which shewes too that t is the World and not the Church they are to stand in for it belongs properly enough and primarily to the Ministers with consent of the Church executively to passe the censure of putting them out of the Church Secondly not the Magistracy for if it were the Church as they say it is how miserably do they mope and yet so the Priest does that make him the highest officer in the Church to cast persons out of the Church who is though the highest officer over the Church and World too yet in truth no Church officer or Minister in the Church qua Church at all Besides lastly which puts all out of doubt the prohibition is to all men as well as some and sounds forth the mind of Christ to be that the tares shall stand in the Field till the harvest and not be pluckt up by any at all but stand till the harvest they cannot according to his will if according to his will either Magistrate or Minister might pluck them up out of the field what field ere t is that is here spoken of his will is not only that such shall not pluck them up but that they shall not be pluckt up until the harvest i. e. the end of the world till he sends his Angels to gather the tares all things that offend every plant that the heavenly father hath not planted out of his Kingdome which taken at large is the whole world and to bundle them for the fire To all these many more reasons may be added why the Magistrate may not force men at all