Truth proved by Scriptures and yet but propounded in Quaeres and what will they be at the last your Quaeres will appea you say a Truth also at the last and great day you will be deceived then as now for your Quaeres are not Resolutions Decrees Axioms but Quaeres it doth not yet appear what is Truth in them to your self or any others put them out of Question into Propositions come out of your Quaeres into your Resolves and then I will tell you whether now in the later little daies they do or in that last great day they will appear a Truth or Truths In particular to passe by your Questions and Quaeres your Sacrilegious Usurpation to Preach Baptize and distribute the Sacramental Bread and Wine your injurious Detension of Christian Infants from Baptism the Seal of the Covenant God made with them also your ridiculous dopping and plunging of grown persons over head and ears back ward in a Pond who were before Baptized in their infancy in the face of the Congregation your Scrismatical separation from your Parochial and National fellow members professing truth and holiness your Scurrilous railing upon the true visible Church of England and the Ministers thereof as Baalitish Devillish and Antichristian professing and worshiping Christ Jesus and God in spirit and truth with a world more of fraudulent misinterpreting and misapplyings of sacred writ virulent Caluminations of holy Truth violent oppositions of lawful order uncharitable imaginations and contempts of higher Powers and all persons who are not of your S ct and Set can I think or any man else whose brains and heads have not been intoxicated by a superfluous re-baptization that these will appear a Truth or truths at that great and last day which in all the former daies the Word of God hath judged and condemned for errors and untruths it hath been the fashion of some Heretiques and Scismatiques when they have been confuted and confounded with the evidence and light of Truth which hath been flashed in their faces here from the Word and Scriptures to make their appeals to the great and last day for trial and to Jesus for the Judge of truth or untruth but we have it already as a ruled Case from himself in the 12. of John 48. ver The word that I have spoken the same shall judge him and you and all at the last day and the Apostle Paul speaketh of the same day When God shall judge the secrets of men according to his Gospel Rom. 2.16 Flap not me off therefore with this put off of your Tenets if you have done with Quaeres as its high time that they will appear Truths at that great and last day for if you cannot now in this your little present day make them to appear Truths according to Christs word and Pauls Gospel better than you or others have done as yet and yet I think you and they have done your best they will never appear Truths in the great and last day but the Word and Gospel will then as now they do appear against them for errors and untruths and by that Word and Gospel Christ and his Apostles and all the Saints shall judge and condemn them for such so that you and they who held up your heads in these waters of strife and contention here on Earth with the pust and blown bladders of your self-conceipted fansies will be fain to hang them down in shame and confusion of face Revel 3. â—â— Calling upon the Hills to fall upon you and to the Mountains to cover you from the face of him that siteth upon the Throne and from that shine and lustre of Truth that then will appear at that great and last day I will therefore give you the good counsel of the Apostle Let every man for the counsel is good for all of us take heed how he buildeth upon the Foundation Jesus Christ every mans work shall be made manifest for the day shall declare it Especially the great and last day you speak off Because it shall be revealed by fire and the fire shall try every mans work of what sort it is whether Gold Silver precious Stones or whether Wood Hay Stubble if any mans work abide which he hath built thereupon he shall receive a reward if any mans work shall be burnt he shall suffer losse 1 Cor. 3.10 and 12. And whereas in your next close you bid me lye down before it and stoop to it it is spoken like an imperious School Master or imperial Master of the Field which as yet you are neither as for all the Truths of Christ set forth in his Word and Gospel I do here stoop to them and ly down before them prostrating and casting down all my imaginations and every thing of my Reason that exalteth it self against the knowledge of God bringing into captivity every thought or affection of mine to the obedience of Christ and his Truth and pleasure laying my hand upon my mouth and putting my mouth in the dust and laying dust upon my head I do here bow down my head incline my heart throw down all within me and without me and wholly and totally yield my self unto Truths of the Word of God as to the Victorious and Conquering the powerful and Triumphant Rod and Scepter of Christ Speak Lord for thy servant heareth 1 Sam. 3.10 1 Kings 18.39 Numb 23.18 Deut. 32.4 The Lord he is the God The Lord he is the God God is not as man that he should lye a God of Truth and without iniquity just and right is he yea God is truth it self and Christ is the Way and the Truth and the Spirit is truth 1 John 5 6. And thy Law is truth and all thy Commandements are truth John 14.6 Psalm 119.142 and 151. Thy Word is true from the beginning Psal 119.160 and so to the end thy Word endureth Heaven and Earth shall passe away but one jot and tittle of the Word shall not passe away till all be fulfilled Matth. 5.18 But Sir to lye down before or stoop to your Quaeres and Considerations and Interpretations so void and empty of the Divine Truth of God and his Word so full and even swoln with the Humane sanfie of man and his will though you masterly expect it I shall Scholarly defeat you I am now too strong and well truss'd and truth'd to untrusse or untruth to such a dip-dop pedant or rather Anti-pedant as you are such a one as you are I could have disciplined that way and discipled any other way fifty years ago and I have too much of Mordecai the Benjamite in me and of his zeal to the Church of God than to bow or stoop to such a Haman a man the Agagite the separate that speaks so ill and vilely of the people of God and seeks to destroy it and them utterly Nay rather let your Dagon fall upon his face to the earth before the Ark of the Lord and your Quaerulous errors lie down
so many of them as he did and I would wish you to be very wary when you go over to the Savages in New England and the Pagans in our West Indes that you broach not this either doctrine or interpretation amongst them lest the Parents there and husbands and especially the mothers and wifes fly in your face and all to scratch you and scald you for calling and making their children bastards and left the children 〈◊〉 come forth out of the Cities and mock you and throw stones at you or words as hard Go up thou baldhead he interpretation is bald indeed and hath not one hair of a rational Writer whatsoever the head is or hath under the cap I know not and the she Bears come out of the Wood and tear the false Prophet and interpreter instead of the true children and no bastards What a man are you Sir that thus fill the world with bastards by such your interpretation I mean the world of Pagans and Heathens where man and wife being neither of them believers and so neither sanctified by the other their children must be unclean bastards according to your doctrine and Exposition thus instead of satisfying and pacifying the doubtful and scrupulous consciences of some converted yoke fellows the other remaining unconverted you will trouble and disquiet a world of consciences or the conscience of the greater part of the world which being unconverted and lying in infidelity must sadly look upon their issue as bastardly and illegitimate because unclean Yea this will make such mutinies insurrections in those Kingdoms that there will be no Conscience of peace made as no peace of conscience successions in them and all inheritances may be hereby questioned and overthrown by this your Divinity although it be not good Humanity Yea those worthy Primitive Christians converted by the Apostles who were born in Paganism of both Infidel Parents must lie under your censure and sense of bastardy until you release them and the very father of the faithful Abraham himself cannot escape you but by your exposition must be a bastard too as whose Parents were Idolaters both and servers of other gods than the true one Jos 24.2 I pray you Sir you that pretend so much to the language of the Spirit as if it were your Mother-Tongue the cloven Tongue of the Spirit as also to exposition according to the minde of the Spirit as you said of your self even now as if you were the Spirits Secretary or Clerk of its Closet shew me such a language of the Spirit such a minde of the Spirit in any one Text throughout the whole Bible for this in hand fails of it where a child or children of two unbelieving or Infidel Parents lawfully married together are called or but intimated bastards and will you have the face and impudency without any exemplary Text or parallel Scripture or miraculous gift of Prophesie it would be miraculous indeed if you were so gifted but indeed miraculous gifts are ceased and they were for confirmation of Truths not for confusion of them as are your prophesyings to affirm such children bastards as you cannot avoyd it whilest you interpret the children in St. Paul whereof but one of the Parents in lawful wedlock is an Infidel or unbeliever are therefore caleld holy because they are legitimates or lawfully born and not bastards and when you have done it or before you do it to call it the genuine sense and meaning of the Text and to father it as it were upon the Spirit to be an exposition according to the minde thereof And so now having gone thus far against your interpretation of bastardly uncleanness and legitimal holiness I shall now come back to mine which is also the Exposition generally of all Orthodox Baptist Protestants and I may adde more truly an Exposition according to the minde of the Spirit and the very genuine sense of the Text. For I suppose you will not deny but the minde of the Spirit was in Paul Now Paul was of this minde you must confesse it That children of though but one Christian Parent were holy in the Scripture phrase in the Spirits language in the Churchs relation and if they be judged and reputed such esteemed and spoken of as such by Paul I shall not hereafter much minde or regard what they are in your or others mindes and meanings expositions and interpretations For if the Apostle reputeth them so then God reputeth them so in some things the Apostle said I but not the Lord 1 Cor. 7.10 in other not I but the Lord 12 ver but in this I and the Lord for not I saith he i.e. I onely but the Lord also verse 14. the believing wife is sanctified by the husband c. else were your children unclean but now they are holy I said before that such holiness is here meant and spoken of as is opposite to uncleanness as appears in the very words placed and set in opposition one to the other else they were unclean but now they are holy but to what uncelanness not to the uncleanness of bastardy as you will have it to make up a holiness onely of legitimation both which I have refelled but the uncleanness of infidelity or a state out of Covenant as our Divines will have it to make up the holiness of these children a holiness of federation or federal holiness For so this state out of Covenant as Infidelity and Paganism and Idolatry is very often stiled and called uncleanness as I touched before and such Infidel and Idolatrous Parents or people are even named Adulterers and Fornicators and said to go a Whoring after strange gods or Idols and so it s the condition and denomination of their children to be called unclean all after a Spiritual or Ecclesiastical sense But you cannot shew me where by unclean are meant bastards though bastards may be called unclean for where the unclean persons are reckoned up bastards are not mentioned But if this must go for an Exposition of the Text and that according to the minde of the Spirit as thus unclean i.e. Bastards then the terms or words must go or run true both waies backward and forward that bastards are unclean and the unclean are bastards And whereas bastards amongst the Jews might not by their Laws bear any Office in Magistracy ordinarily for Jephthah was extraordinarily chosen by God and the people for this valour nor sit in the Sanctuary nor execute any Priestly Office as over the Congregation of the Lord Deut. 13.7 like as by the Civil Laws they could not enjoy Inheritances yet they were Circumcised and might eat the Passeover and had free accesse to the Temple and Tabernacle to perform worship and hear the Law and were federally holy as any legitimates But for the particular of infants holiness I say 1. in general Any person or family for so it was at first in Abraham or Nation as afterwards it was with the Jews and is now with the
say they have converted you and so say some others I am sure and done you much good to your souâ— which you have said you would commit to them and trust them with a very foolish almost blasphemous speech if you said it And God faith here they shall not profit you at all and therefore do you no good either in soul and body as to Conversion and Salvation whom shall I believe God or you whom do you believe God or your self Gods true prediction or your own false suggestion Come come Sir Let God be true and every man a lyer Rom. 3.4 as it is written also for so your self and every other man that saith he hath profited in soul unto Salvation or Conversion by these unsent and unordained Preachers of the separation when as God saith such shall not profit the people at all by their Anabaptistical Doctrines and Preachings Mistake me not I am not against the profit that may come even from them to you or others by mutual and fraternal conferences exhortations admonitions supplications so long as their words be seasoned with the falt of Truth and Grace and be good to the use of edifying and your selves have your senses exercised to discern both good and evil and be able to try and prove all things and hold to that which is good for so God hath allowed and approved of it and profit may come upon it Col. 3.16 1 Thes 5.11 But this from Gods Word I hold That an usurped publick taking upon them the cure of souls without Commission as teaching Anabaptists do in a manner yea upon the matter of the fraternity and sorority within their limits and also their dispensing and dividing the mysteries of the Word and Seals of the Sacraments without a lawful sending ordination and separation thereto and that in a rightly constituted and planted Church where there is a power of order and degrees and a settled or fixed Ministery will be of no profit and benefit to you or the people as to Faith and Conversion that wait and attend onely upon such a service or Ministery if I may so call it For now lift up your eyes and look on the fields are they white unto the Harvest since people left praying that God would send Husbandmen into his work and Laborers into his Vineyard and since people have left coming to and attending upon their own painful preaching Ministers and have betaken themselves to the hearing of self-intruding peakers which were none of Gods calling or sending are they not rather smutched and smitten with blasting and mildew with pride haughtiness malice variance rancour envy fraudulency covetousness lying defamation hypocrisies impuâ—ities more then ever they were and compassed about of late with such a dark cloud of Satans witnesses and his Emissaries every where transforming themselves into Angels of New light no better then darkness Besides the Schisms in the Churches of God and destractions of mens minds the contempts of Gods Ordinances the broaching of Errors and Heresies the Rapines Sacriledges and Massacres that have been committed the slighting of Laws and Civil Magistrates the uprising of bloody Wars and throwing down of Order and Proprieties Insurrection and Rebellion And now Sir I return to you again to whom I have a sixth thing to acquaint you with and then I shall take my leave and subscribe a friendly farewel to you § Sixthly What shall I say more to you of these men for that indeed a notable change and alteration hath been wrought in you is manifest to all them that dwell here abouts and we cannot deny it my self as I have said rejoyce at it yea and the Angels in Heaven rejoyce over one sinner that repenteth and converteth truly and sincerely This therefore I will say even the same still that you do That the Grace of God appeared plucking you out of your wicked wayes to the knowledge of the Truth But I ask as St. Paul doth Gal. 2.3 This onely would I hear and know of you Received you the Spirit by the works of the Law or by the hearing of the Faith so received you this Grace or your Conversion of being pluckt out of yoru evil wayes to the knowledge of the Truth from the Word preached by your Brethren of the separation or from the Word preached by my self or other ordained Ministers I have proved before that unsent Teachers and Preachers shall not and cannot profit you with their Doctrines especially being not of God and his Word and therefore they have not wrought any such thing in you by their Doctrines and that you could not cannot attain and therefore have not attained to Faith but by hearing of a sent and ordained Preacher and the Word of God by him Again received you this Grace of God or your Conversion and plucking out of your evil wayes from the Spirit of God in and by your last Dippism or your first Baptism not in and by your last dipping at Laver for this requireth Conversion and Faith and Profession of it before you can be partaker of it you must bring these with you already wrought to your dipping your dipping doth not work them at that time but presupposeth them so I cannot call your dipping a Laver of Regeneration but a Generation of I know not what at Laver or a degeneration Besides I have shewed this your dipping which is but a Re-baptizing at the best to be a humane device yea Heretical practise so esteemed and for such condemned of the Churches of God throughout all Ages and therefore it can be no means or instrument of God and his Grace to pluck you from your wicked wayes to the knowledge of the Truth Whither now Sir will you go as Hos 2.7 so is yur case She shall follow after her Lovers but she shall not overtake them and she shall seek them but shall not finde them then shall she say I will go and return to my first Husband for then was it better with me then now Follow not therefore after those your Suitors and Solicitors rather your inveiglers and beguilers that rather have tempted your spiritual chastity and attempted also somewhat upon your body but come and return to your first Husband Christ Jesus and your first Covenant of Grace sealed unto you in your first Baptism from which as from the Fountain hath issued out all other Grace of God appearing to you sithence and even that plucking you out from your wicked wayes and bringing you to the knowledge of the Truth through his dispensing his word and your hearing the same of Gods Ministers sent to that purpose and through the operation of his Spirit stirring up the Grace of God in you and the Grace of the same sanctifying your afflictions and last sickness and fears and other things that have befallen you She did not know that her first Husband gave her Corn and Wine and Oyl and multiplyed her silver and gold which they prepared for Baal Hos 2.8 or as in the
persons in the Church holy and so reputed by the Apostle to be by their being in and under the holy Covenant of God or by being children of a believing Parent or Parents in Covenant may and ought to have the holy Initial Seal of that Covenant which in the Gospel is Baptism But all infants in the Church of believing Parents are such persons holy and so reputed by the Apostle to be by their being in and under the holy Covenant or by being children of a believing Parent or Parents in Covenant Therefore all infants in the Church may and ought to have the holy initial Seal of the Covenant which in the Gospel is Baptism You will now Sir of your self I shall not need to urge or advise you being experienced and practised often before therein now the eighth time with much facility deny the conclusion For the first Proposition you cannot deny it being grounded out of that Text Act. 10.47 where Peter saith Can any man forbid water that those should not be Baptized who have received the holy Spirit and as is largely explained and proved before as also upon this Reason deducible hence that where holiness is the Spirit is and where the Spirit is Christ is and where Christ is the Covenant is and where the Covenant is the Seal initial namely Baptism may and ought to be For the second Proposition you cannot deny it being the expresse affertion of Paul here But now they are holy namely their children And whereas I have put in my whole Discourse all these my eight or nine Arguments into the form of a Syllogism I have done is the better to inform you to which you pretend to be willing in the close of your Letter I hope you will taste it now at last the better though savouring much of our University Arts and Humane learning as consonant and agreeing subservient and conducing to the Divine wisedom and of good use for the understanding and Expounding of the Scriptures written in the learned Tongues and Languages and often referring to Moral and Phylosophical matters of which I have spoken largely before and should not have mentioned again but that you have another fling at the same in the close of your Letter saying that it appears that the most learned by Humane learning want the learning of the Spirit to interperate interpret Scripture It is true that some of the learned by Humane learning may and do want the learning of the Spirit to interpret Scripture but do not more of the ignorant by their Humane ignorance much more want the same yet none of the learned and much less of the most learned do by humane learning as you must mean though you point not your words with any Comae's or Colons for want of Humane learning by Humane learning I say want the learning of the Spirit seeing the Spirit of God hath both taught it at first as the Author of it and made much use of it practising some of it in the Scripture and as Hagar and Sarah may dwell together in the same house humane learning as you call it and the learning of the Spirit may keep together in the same head-house so long as Hagar is an obedient handmaid to her Mistris Sarah and Humane learning humbly submits and is servant or subservient unto the learning of the Spirit and the Misteries of it But of this matter there is enough written before and how it should now at the last appear to you that the most learned by Humane learning do want the learning of the Spirit to interpret Scripture if you mean it of those who interpret the Scriptures for Infant-Baptism against you it is marvelous to me for I will instance but in this one and last interpretation of 1 Cor. 7.14 But now they are holy We interpret it holy federally as who are born in Covenant with God and of a believing Parent or Parents in Covenant with God and so are not unclean as the Gentiles out of Covenant but you interpret it holy legitimally as who are lawfully born of Parents in wedlock according to the Law and so are not unclean as bastards born out of wedlock now do you remember your words four times repeated in one of your pages I will repeat them once more for you but to you Judge you but judge you righteous judgement for God will judge you I say whether of the interpretations savours most of Humane learning or the learning of the Spirit yours or ours doth it not clearly appear to your eyes that your interpretation is a meer Humane natural carnal political interpretation and such as you can bring no word or example for from the learning of the Spirit the Scriptures where holy are called or meant legitimates and unclean bastards and therefore it is a meer Humane learning and not agreeable to the learning of the Spirit nay repugnant to it for by the learning of the Spirit all bastards are not unclean nor all legitimates holy But our interpretation is a very Divine gracious spiritual Ecclesiastical interpretation and such as I have brought both word and example for from the Scriptures the learning of the Scriptures where all in Covenant with God or born of Christians or one Christian Parent are stiled holy and all childeren born out of Covenant or of Parents both Heathens are called unclean and therefore ours is the very learning of the Spirit to take your words now out of your mouth and put them into ours as justly I may according to the minde of the Spirit as who declared unto us in the Scriptures and we from it to you that all Covenanters born of Covenanters with God are holy and all out of Covenant and born of such as are out of Covenant are unclean And so now by this as indeed by all or most of the Scriptures that you have made use of throughout your whole Letter which rather you have made an abuse of it will appear yea doth that your self is one of them the most learned by Humane learning certainly Sir for all your talk against it you have been at the University and gotten up some Humane learning and are a great Practitioner therein as appears by this and your other interpretations yea I take you to be a man if not a Master of Arts and Humane learning more than of the learning of the Spirit though pretending to this more a better Humanist than Divine or rather an Alchymist who can extract out of the Spirits holy in Scripture the spirit and flesh to a child lawfully born and out of spirits unclean the quintessence of a bastard Do you call this the learning of the Spirit to Interperate Scriptures with all for so you write and shew your self to be good at expounding as you are at spelling your Orthography and Orthodoxy being both alike do you interpret the Scripture by your learning of the Spirit no sure you Interperate interpret Scripture rather by the ignorance and illiterature of
of Israel both Civil and Ecclesiastical such corruptions as are mentioned in those Texts at that time what reason or Religion prudence or conscience is there in this to make use and your application of them to our State both of Magistracy or Ministry until you had cleared the Doctrine and proof of the same sins to reign amongst both What Prophet do you know makes the People to erre bite with the teeth and cry peace to teach for hire and if their mouths be not filled to prepare for war do you not remember who it was that said And how like unto him you are herein doth Job serve God for nought and who said Ye are of your father the devil he is the accuser of the Brethren and a false accuser we Ministers teach not for hire and yet we labourers are worthy of our hire and if it be detained and taken out of our mouths the Law is open they may implead one another as I have largely shewed before we may flie into the arms of the Law which is no Law of Arms or War But farther the word of Micah was that which he said concerning Samaria and Hierusalem and for any thing appears the word in the Text might be concerning Samaria and not Hierusalem and then it concerns you more than us you more and your Prophets for Samaria was the head City of the separate Jeroboam and his company the ten Tribes who divided from the House of David and departed away from Hierusalem and the Temple and set up their Calves in some private stalls and houses and so ever after continued separates so that the Samaritans had no dealing with the Jews ordinarily when Christ came and lived with them but kept aloof and apart from the publick Services of the Temple 1 Kings 12. John 4. The third is Isa 3.12 15. O my people they which lead the thee cause the thee to erre and desroy destroy the way of thy paths What mean you to beat my people to pieces pieces and grind the face of the poor saith the Lord Neither here wanted you any time to write out all the words Besides here 's excellent good order in your proceedings from Esay to Micah from Micah to Esay by a new retrograde method or rather your old crab-order backward and forward forward and backward But these words are wholly and solely directed by the Prophet to the secular Powers and Civil Rulers of the People of Israel the which if you by-your bold and prophetical spirit shall as you do here or else you are quite out of your Texts revile the Temporal Rulers of our Nation with beating Gods people to pieces and grinding the face of the poor I must refer you over to their Temporal Authority and Justice to chastise your insolency and rebellion according to those Texts Exod. 22.28 Rom. 13.4 the which for want of time I have not writ out in all the words The next is Jer. 5.30 31. A wonderfull and horrible thing is committed in the land the prophets proplesie falsely talsly and the priest priests bare bear rule by there their means and my people love to have it so and what will ye do in the end thereof Falsly written and falsly applied is all this Text. In what and which of our Prophets for so and such you make us and must grant us or all your Applications of the Prophets to us out of prophets is vain impertinent and inconsistent I say which of our Prophets and wherein do they prophesie falsly we neither foretell or reveal hidden particular things to come some of your Prophets do as Christs coming to reign temporally and gloriously upon earth for a thousand years together with the very year of the beginning of his Reign and have herein prophesied falsly for the year is passed of late wherein some of them said it should begin Or if you mean by prophecying expounding and interpreting of Scripture I will go no farther than your self for a false prophet at the next door because I am weary with travelling thus far than whom if there be a more false Expounder and Interpreter of Scripture as I have abundantly declared throughout this whole Tractate I will forfeit all my Commentaries upon the Bible into his hands if he will reade them and take them so into his head thereby by such help to make himself a true Expounder and Interpreter of the Scriptures afterwards As for our Priests bearing rule by their means your own eyes looking about you may serve to give your tongue I will not say the lie an answer to the contrary And for our People love to have it so I thought you had been better acquainted with the People than so or to say so of them for the People love to have it otherwise than so that Priests should bear rule by any means And if you love the People no better than so to say they love to have it so they may likely begin not to love you so as they have done to make you a Father or Son of the People and Vox Populi I think you understand that word a Preacher of the Peoples making and a voice of a Crier in the Wilderness against John the Baptist though your name-sake and their Childrens Baptism And for the last Clause And what will ye do in the end Here 's a Quaere indeed I who have answered so many of your Quaeres before will not stand out for this one at last but will tell you what I will do in the end let others tell you what they will do in the end I will now in the end pray to God and I do so that he would give unto you a better understanding of his Word into your head and a greater love of his Ministers into your heart For to end with that you began the Text with a wonderfull and horrible thing is committed in the Land and by you for one and a chief one some prophets but they are onely so called by some expound the Word of God falsly and revile the Ministers of God falsly and the Priests and Jesuites bear rule by their means and some people love to have it so and what will you do in the end I hope you will have doen in the end and hold your peace at last as you promised even now by your Sarety Job in your first Text which you have cause to do lest Job minde you of it and say as he doth Job 18.2 How long will it be ere you make an end of words words indeed and little else besides I hope you will do so anon for I perceive the next Text is your last you end with Matth. 23.4 Foor for they bind heavie burdens and grievous to be bourne born and lay them on mens shoulders but they themselves will not move them with one of there their fingers in vain do they worship me teaching for doctrines the commandements of men Matth. 15.19 And if ye love me keep my commandements John
Ancients their dipping and immerging as I have before touched in part and now shall fully handle For 1. I have shewed how the Ancients dipped and immerged in Rivers and Fountains and Wells and Fonts or Baptisteries made so wide and big of purpose but you especially of the later brood of the Separation run out into Ponds to do the same 2. They the Ancients dipped the whole bodies of those who were baptized naked and out of the cloaths such was the Candid Innocency honesty of the old times and for other reasons I have given but you do dip your converts and proselytes covered and in their cloaths for no reasons given by you that I hear of unless it be fear lest Satan tempt you to incontinency as these last ages are very naught indeed and wicked And yet I know some of the Ancients dipped immerged but a part of the body in the water this is not yet touched upon and it will make somewhat for what I have said before of sprinkling and pouring the water upon the head of the baptized Augustine in his 4. Homil saith and so he is cited of Gratian. decret de consec distinc 4. cap. 66. Postquam vos credere promisistis tertiò capita vestra in sacro fonte demersimus and this in the words following he calls Ordo baptismatis it was the very order and manner of baptism after their confession to dip and immerge their heads in the sacred Font. And before him Hierom. Dial. adversus Luciferianos hath these words Multa quae per traditionem in Ecclesia observantur authoritatem sibi scriptae legis usurpaverunt velut in lavachro ter caput mergitare To dip and immerge the head thrice in the laver of baptism he makes it a tradition of the Church and as Authentique as if it were a Law written And before Hierom a little a matter of two years Chrysostom upon these words of John 3. Vnless a man be born of Water and the Spirit saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To those who dip and immerge their head in the water as in a sepulchre the old man is buried and overwhelmed c. Yea before him Eunomius and his followers as ever the Heretiques like Apes will be following some Ancient Customs of the Church who started up in the year 360 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when they baptize they wet them down to the breast and no lower the word is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dip and immerge strictly but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i.e. dew or wet them it may be our English dew may be derived thence and so here by the way may be a proof of the Antiquity of our aspersing or sprinkling or bedewing the baptized for which cause when they the Eunomians baptized 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is labrum quasi lavabrum in a large and ample vessel such as they used in bathes or bucks the party to be baptized standing on the outside or brim thereof 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they bowed down his head unto his breast into the water all this is reported by Theodoret. lib. 4. haeret fabularum Lastly before these it is recorded of B. Laurentius that he baptized one Lucillus and the manner this as the words in the Acts are cum expoliasset eum fudit super caput ejus when he had stript him of his cloathes he poured the water on his head these lived about Cyprians time in the year 260 recorded by Surius tom 4. in the Hist of the Martyrdom of the B. Laurentius But you as you differed from some of the Ancients in dipping and immerging cloathed bodies wheras they did them so naked so do you differ from some other of them in dipping their whole bodies down even to their feet whereas these did but their heads down to their breasts 3. The Ancients dipped those thrice whom they baptized you had but even now the Testimony of Hierom and Augustine a part of whose words I reserved for hither Qui ordo baptismatis duplici mysterii significatione celebratur The order of baptizing with thrice dipping and immerging is famous in the Churches for these two mysterious significations 1. Of three Persons of the Deity 2. Of the three dayes death and resurrection some others add a 3. of the three sorts of sin cleansed by baptism offencâ—s in thought word and deed To which may fitly come in next Teâ—tullian advers Praxeam cap. 26. Nam nec semel sed Ter ad singula nomina in personas singulas mergimur as also Athanasius in dict interp scr qu. 91. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. To dip the childe thrice in the Baptistery or Font is to signifie as above Augustine saith I might add to these Chrysostom homil De fide in Deum Patrem Filium Spiritum sanctum Ambros lib. de Sac. 2. cap. 7. Gregor Mag. in Epistela ad Leandrum And it appears that as this custome was very general so very Ancient for that Arrius also who lived in 314. some ten years before Athanasius but yet a great while after Tertullian who lived in 190. and therefore best sheweth to be ancient He I say Arrius had got up also this manner of baptizing by thrice immerging who did it for an ill purpose and proof of three natures in the Trinity and not three persons and one God as the Catholiques then spake and therefore according to Christs form baptized in the Name and not in the names for there is but one Name and so but one Divinity which when the Fathers of the Church perceived they saw good reason to change that custome and order of thrice dipping and instead thereof to use but once dipping and thereupon Gregory the Great and the 4 Tolletan Councel are very earnest about it the leaving of that Trine immersion and taking up the simple or once immersion for the avoiding of the scandaling the weak and incouraging the heretiques and lest they should seem to countenance their error when they complyed in their customes But you herein also differ from the Ancients and your practise is to dip but once for so you tell me in your Letter and that with an emphatical reduplication If he had dipt them more then once I would have expressed so in my first Letter but he did dip them but once and so in your saying twice once and again that he dipt them but once you gain-say the greater and higher Antiquity and your self too for once dipping though it was also a good old way yet it was not The good old way as you say that is it is not the best and the oldest way amongst the orthodox Ancients Not but that I acknowledge once dipping to be as efficacious to the ends and fruits of baptism and as mysterious to the signifying of the one Deity of the three holy Persons and the one Death of Christ Jesus besides that in the unity of the same faith a diverse or different custom of the Churches cannot be
some used the one in their Dioceses some the other manner of baptizing in their Divisions and both sorts with an opinion of indifferences of the thing in it self and with liberty of practise left each unto other as the affairs and the occasions of the Church required of changing and altering Who can justly challenge or rebuke our Church of England and the guides thereof for holding and retaining either the one or the other or both as she doth in some way and case but betaking her chiefly and most usually to aspersion and pouring on-water and that but once so leaving both the Ancient Fathers of old some of them and the younger Fathers of Rome all of them in the number of the Trin or thrice for that the Trinity is sufficiently enough set out in the very form of our baptizing In the name of the Father the Son and the holy Ghost why should any impose upon us or require of us either the Trine immersion at all or immersion at all constantly and continually considering we are not of the Eastern Churches where the Clymate being hot parties to be baptized might the better undergo the waters and be dipt but we are of the Church Western and our Church of the more Northerly side were the air waters clymate being cold the tenderer bodies of our infants cannot be immerged or dipt without evident danger to their healths and lives Have we not power to lay down and old custom as well as Gregory and Augustine and Cyprian or I onely and Barnabas the Ministers of the Church of England have we not power to forbear dipping and immerging especially where it may be sodangerous prejudicial What though some ancient Churches had such a custom of old we have no such custom neither the Churches of God now a dayes 1 Cor. 11.16 and when they had it it was but for a time Temporary it was but for an use upon an occasion Arbitrary it was not under a necessity for but with a liberty to other Churches It is a part of the former Gregory his words in the same Epistle worthy notice taking In eadem fide nihil officit sanctae Ecclesiae consuetudo diversa where there is the same faith and an unity in it a different custom in things indifferent nothing burteth or prejudiceth the Church of God as which hath power and authority to enact and to abrogate such things to be observed or omitted to all her Church children and members And therefore Sir I have not nor do censure and condemn you absolutely for the one and simple immersion nor for immersion simply and onely but for your immersion your simple one an immersion that hath almost nothing of Antiquity being such as is every way distant and different from the ancient immersion in all things but in this that your dipping was but once and simple and also for that it was a rash and presumptuous undertaking of a few private Plebeians and vulgar people without any Law or Licence or order of Church or State so far is it from any precept or prescript or President of the Word and Scripture I will be briefer in the next Corrollary for it is time to have done about this matter Coroll 3. §. 3 The nature of baptism is but this the cleansing and washing away the guilt and filth of sin by the application of waters according to the appointment of Christ signifying and exhibiting the blood of Christ that purgeth and purifieth that way and all the outward Sacramental actions thereof are but onely to represent and set out more lively the inward grace of baptism which is still but the ablution of sin This indeed ablution and washing of sin is necessary as being of the nature as I said and Essence of Baptism for this is called therefore the very washing of regeneration by which we are saved through the mercy of God Tit. 3.5 and so the washing of water by the Word with which Christ doth sanctifie and cleanse his Church Ephes 5.26 and so St. Paul tells the Corinthians 1 Cor. 6.11 Such were some of you soul sinners but ye are washed but ye are sanctified c. in the Name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God But the manner and way of washing and ablution of sin either that way by dipping and immerging the whole body into and under the water or by aspersion or perfusion or rather superfusion of water upon some part of the body this is not necessary but as I said Indifferent and Adiaphorous and Arbitrary and so not of the essence and form but of the accidence and formality rather or solemnity of Baptism so then if the ablution of sin washing off the guilt and filth thereof may be as well if not better represented by aspersion and sprinkling and pouring on of water upon some part of the body and gently rubbing on the same by the moving of the hand thereupon as by the dipping immerging and plunging of the whole body into and under the waters and holding it some while thereunder as it must be I add also if it the aforesaid aspersion or perfusion be as effectual to the good spiritual ends and purposes of baptism as the aforesaid immersion I see no reason to the contrary but that both the ancient and modern or present aspersion and perfusion or superfusion of water is as warrantable and allowable in baptism if not still more as the somewhat ancienter immersion dipping and diving in and under water for as for any such modern or present immersion dipping or diving under water as yours is I acknowledge it not we have no such custom nor the Churches of God as I said but now It is true the body must be washed and wetted with water in baptism either one way or another and that 's enough for the truth and nature of baptism now this may be and is done when we baptize with sprinkling and pouring water upon it or part of it and gently rubbing the flesh therewith as well as by dipping and immerging And therefore we do not speak falsly when but sprinkling and pouring on water we say we do baptize and do not dip that 's your false speech for though we dip not into the water we lay on water and wash and therefore do baptize Oh but were it not far better more agreable to Antiquity and the benefit from baptism more ample and large if the whole body were dipt and immerged then onely some part thereof the face forehead or head aspersed and washed This is answered already that our way of superfusion or aspersion with water is as significant as effectual as the other and as ancient within a sew years if any as the other way yea was in force and life amongst the Ancients when the other was dead and gone and besides we are freed from it where we will plead our freedom because we live out of the Hot Countreys where it was bred and born and was to be