more so the Reader cannot know the particular here of them until he take the Bible and look farther so ready I am not to blazen abroad but rather to go backward and cover your nakedness as Cham. But What have I done I thought indeed I had done and replyed to all your Letter But I perceive that it is undone as who have omitted one of your Texts which is in your last line of all John 14.15 and in these words of Christ Jesut If you love me keep my Commandements What a bad-sighted man am I that I should take no sooner notice of these last words of your last Text in your last line words like Apples of Gold with pictures of Silver as spoken in season a Text like a bundle of Mirth worthy to be laid betwixt the breasts A line Sir I speak seriously worth all your Letter besides and had it not been for this last line it had been so far from being any Love-Letter or Message of Jonathans to David that rather it would have been as Davids Letter against Vriah or a Johnathan's Maranatha Letter writing bitter things as Marah and breathing out not onely excommunication but even damnation whose mouth I have stopped notwithstanding If you love me keep my Commandements John 14.15 saith Christ to his Disciples This is a text to purpose which few or none of the former were brcathing love at last the best thing to end a Letter with and to make some recompence for all your hateful horrid hellish and malicious calumniations of your Mother and Brethren in the beginning thereof Above all things and so in the beginning and after things and so in the end Put on love which is the Bond of perfectnesse The Law maketh nothing perfect but love doth for the end and so the perfection and fulfilling of the Commandement is Love out of a pure heart and a good Conscience and Faith unfeigned at leastwise Christ Jesus whom we love as who loved us first is the end of the Law for righteousness to every one that believeth if Christ Jesus be the end of the Law and the Commandement and love the end of the Law and Commandement Then the love which is of Christ sure or Christ who is love for God is love must needs be the end of the Law and Commandement and therefore is ye love me keep my Commandements saith Christ John 14.15 a Text worthy to be thrice mentioned and repeated This is the one onely Text that you and I shall not differ in I hope and which you have rightly applyed and both my self and all of us do take to belong unto us to love the Lord Jesus Christ and to keep his Commandements yea I adde if any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ Let him be Anathema Maranatha 1 Cor. 16.22 And in testimony of our love we walk in obedience of his Commandements but I will say to you asit is Jam. 2.8 9 If ye fulfill the royall Law according to the Scripture That shalt love thy neighbour as thy self ye do well but if ye have respect to persons ye commit sin and are convincedof sin as transgressors For he that said If y love me keep my commandements said also Thou shalt love thy neighbour or Brother and keep that Commandement also of his amongst others and this Commandement have we from him that he who loveth God loveth his brother also 1 John 4.21 If a man say as it proceedeth vers 20. If a man say I love God and Jesus Christ and hateth his brother he is a liar whosoever the man be for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen how can he love God whom he hath not seen And again Love worketh no ill to his neighbour therefore love is the fulfilling of the law also Rom. 13.10 I confess I could now much refresh my self in this sweet rosie Discourse of this point of our love of Christ and our Brethren after my wearisome travelling through other sharp and thorny Disputes but I resolve this Page now in hand shall be the last and determine both Onely I shall minde you that amongst these your Neighbors and Brethren we the Ministers of Jesus Christ are to be accounted and taken in by your leave Sir for by his leave Sir we are so accepted of to be his Neighbours and Brethren his Neighbours as whom the Lord hath brought nigh unto himselfe to do the service of the Tabernacle and Temple Number 16.9 and also his Brethren For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one for which cause he is not ashamed tocall them brethren Hebrews 2.11 whether sanctified by Grace from him or by Office under him and if he called and owned the Hearers and Doers of his Word his Brethren sure he owneth for such also the Preachers and Doers of the same Yea see how Christ Jesus not onely owneth them for such but oneth them also as himself if I may so speak saying He that heareth you heareth me he that receiveth you receiveth me and he that despiseth you despiseth me Matthew 10.4 Luke 10.17 And truly I must tell you that when our People were let alone and left to themselves and our Ministers and before they were befooled and bewitched by you separation from us as the Galathians were by creepers in amongst them they did as the same Galathians Paul receive their learned pious and industrious Ministers as Angels of God even as Christ Jesus Galath 4.14 And will do so again I believe or hope by that time they have had a little more trial and experience of your courses and seen the difference betwixt the new light or flashings of your blazing Comets and the old light and lustre of their own fixed Stars But I give over proving against you or reproving seeing you have given over accusing of us and reviling and are fallen upon love in your last line love I say and that of Christ Jesus the most lovely Object for a fair conclusion from those foul Principles of malice in your former lines malice I say and that against the Church of England and her Ministers the least deserving hatred from you because serving you by love shewed if not saving you by faith Preached to you My advice I know will seem strange and irrational to you in the form of my words and expression Forsake your Principles and leave them hold fast your conclusion and keep it but it is good and religious in the matter of sense and my intention which is this Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamour and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice Ephes 4.31 this was your Original sin and bad Principles And again Be kindly affectioned one to another in brotherly love love as Brethren be pitifull courteous of one minde having compassion putting on the bowels of mercies Rom. 12.19 1 Peter 3.8 Goloss 3.12 And thus your latter end hath been better than your beginning and your conclusion
holds but in the Males for that will infer the state of infancy capable of the Initial Seal of the Covenant of Grace under the Gospel and again under the Law because of the inconveniency and unfimess of the thing it self to be done upon them the Females were Circumcised in the Males as the Church is circumcised in Christ the Males bearing the Type of Christ upon their flesh and the Males and Females in Matrimonial conjunction representing Christ and his Church to which the Apostle alludes Eph. 5 22 and 33. but now such a typical discrimination of Sexes being removed Christ exhibited puts no difference in Baptism between Males and Females Gal. 3 27 and 28. Nor yet do we Argue for Infant-Baptism from the bare Analogy of Infantcircumcision but from the force of the reason that lyeth in the performance which holds not in the circumstances of the eighth day and the Females as it doth in this of Infancy Namely that as Infants of the Jews were circumcised though they declared no right they had unto it but their birth so may the Infants of the Christians be Baptized though they make no manifestation of their Faith c. but shew their birth as Children of Parents in Covenant with God Yea the Foundation and occasion of both Circumcision and Baptism were one the same of common concernment to all to adde somewhat left out before wherein they differ not namely Gods free eternal Love to his Elect and mans misery by his fall in the loynes of Adam and his birth in pollution from the loynes of his immediate Parents derived to them from the loynes of Adam whence also I may argue the original sin and the clensing of Nature by the Spirit of Christ are of Common concernment to Jewish and to Christian Infants Therefore Christian Infants ought to the made partakers of the Seal of Regeneration in their Infancy as the Jewish Infants were and so there lyeth as much necessity in substance yea morality in the duty for believing Christians to Baptize their Infants as for believing Jewes to circumcise theirs but of this particular I shall say more presently 5. If now for all this you shall deny and withold Baptism from the Infants of covenant-Christians in their Infancy notwithstanding that God granted yea commanded Circumcision to the Infants of covenant Jewes in their Infancy but by reason of the covenant which God made with the Parents and their Seed You must of necessity do one of these absurdities yea Impieties i.e. either you must deny Gods covenant of Grace under the Law and the Gospel to be one and the same for substance and these circumcision and Baptism to be the Initial Seales of it according to the diversities of the administeations of the same which is unreasonable and unwarrantable as is shewed 2. Or you must charge God with want of wisdom and discretion in managing his affairs for choosing such unfit and uncapabie parties as Infants to make a covenant with and to Seal too which is Irreligious and Impious to do 3. Or you must prefer the Typical Administration before the Evangelical and so advance Moses above Christ and the shadow before the Sun-light by denying the Infants of Gods covenanted people under the Gospel and since Christs comming the Initial Seal of the Covenant and so making the Grace of less extent than that which Moses allowed the Infants under the Law and before the comming of Christ which is unchristian and un-Gospel-like to do 4. Or you must put our Children born in the bright day of the Gospel and of more abundant Grace into a worse estate and Condition as to the meanes of their Salvation if they be passed by the Seal and not baptised then the Children were who were born in the Twi-light of the Law who were admitted to the Seal Circumcised which is envious and malicious to do 5. Or you must shew that a manifestation of Faith and some personal Righteousnesse is now more requisite Which was onely required of such whose Parents were not under the Faederal Seal unto the baptism of our Infants than it was unto the Circumcision of their Children or that their Children gave at their Circumcision such Testimony of their Faith and Righteousnesse more than ours Which is even foolish and childish to think This Warrant of our Infant-baptism from its Analogy with this Infant-Circumcision lyeth as such a Block in your way as neither you nor any of yours could ever get over as Christ crucified on the Crosse was unto the Jewes a stumbling Block So Christ ministred in Circumcision unto the Jewes in Covenant and their Infants is to you and all Antipaedobatists a very stumbling Block which whilest they have endeavoured to lift at and leap over they have strained and stretched and wrested Scriptures more than their Armes and have broken their shins I mean their first Faith and a good Conscience making shipwrack of both whilest they slit upon this Rock or stumble upon this Block But Sir I hope better things of you and I have better things for you as my Friend and Neighbour I will not leave you in the maze of the five-went way of the Anabaptists that they must walk in I have a single path and a plain way for you if you please to take it and it is this or none 6. You must yeeld in Modesty and Humility at it becomes you to beleeve such parties Infants of both Testaments to be inabled by God with some proportionable Grace for the Covenant and Seals in a way acceptable to himself Though you cannot see it nor have Capacity I will not say Inpenuity to acknowledge it and to clear off all Clouds of Doubts and Quaeres which you or others have raised up and gathered together about the manner and manifestation thereof and for this purpose read Esay 40.13 14. Esay 55.8 and 9. Rom. 11.34 35. Ro. 12.3 16 And of this I have largely before discoursed more briefly and Syllogistically thus take it as I recollect it If all Infants of Jewes are commanded in Scripture to be circumcised and their Parents thereupon bound to bring them to Circumcision Then also all Infants of Christians are commanded to be baptised and their Parents bound to bring them to baptism But all Infants of Jewes are commanded in Scripture to be circumcised and their Parents bound to bring then to Circumcision Therefore all Infants of christians are commanded to be baptised and their Parents bound to bring them to baptism The first Proposition is clear from the cited Texts of Hebrews 13.9 and Colossians 2.11 and from the Analogy of Circumcision and baptism and the samenesse or identity of the Covenant of both Administrations in the substantials as to the good of Souls The second Proposition is the very Letter of the Text in the seventeenth of Genesis and elsewhere as hath been shewed and so I have reasoned Infant-baptism into a command before I intended it A fourth Warrant is this
all may as you say but instead of such you fly high and far and say And so Faith needles in the World because all the children of Abraham and Noah which were faithful are in Covenant I never met with a man that made or called Faith a Cost needless in the world that is and may rather be called that one needfull thing in the world for though actual Faith be not needful in all to entitle them unto their external part of the Covenant and the Seal as in the Baptism of Infants of believers for whom it is sufficient that they are born in and under the Covenant of grace yet it is needful for the partaking of the inward part and benefits of the same and their being in Covenant is an obligation unto them to believe afterwards c. as a part of their Astipulation Now then if I should reckon up the Company of your And so and so and so which are the Formals of your proofs I shall not need to go out into Lanes or Streets and fetch in the Blind and the Halt and the Maimed to fill up the Room so long as your Reasons Proofs and And soes are in presence for they supply us fully as thus The Children of John and Thomas who were Loyall are joyned in the same Copy of Court-roll and so Fealty is needless in the Mannor or thus your Plough lyeth in the Field with its whipple-trees and so rain is needless in the County And a man may see you understand very well the Covenant God made with Abraham and his seed to be a Gospel Covenant of Grace for the Remission of Sins and Salvation of Soules in and through Christ promised who joyn thereto together Noab and his Covenant without any distinction or difference made whereas the Covenant God made with Noah was but a Covenant of Nature as I call it for distinction sake for the Continuation of the world and preservation of the Creatures and fruits of the Earth to which he also annexed as his sign his Bow in the Clouds That Rain bow Are you of the mind of those some of your Cut and Size who when they are put to it and pent up by our Reasons for Infant Baptism from Infant-Circumcision stick not to say that God meant no farther in his Covenant with Abraham and his seed than that he would give him and them a visible standing in the promised Land of Canaan and Circumcision should be the seal of it if Therefore you joyned Abraham and Noah together in your proof and discourse you thereby shewed that you are not of Abraham your Father nor as Noah a Preacher of Righteousness But you call of me to Consider that such an Exposition as overthroweth the promise that cannot be the True Exposition of the Text it is granted but where what is that Exposition such as expound a being in the Covenant from faithful Parents overthrows the promise it seems you are got up again and come to overthrowing again But how do you prove that Exposition overthroweth the promise First By reason taken out of a Text out of Habakkuk because the promise is upon the Account of Faith in our own persons and not in our Parents And secondly because nothing answereth the promise but Faith and if Faith be needless then the promise is needless and this I must take upon your bare word without any Text. Most of this is answered already if you will read back You bid me here compare Habakkuk with John I pray compare your Exposition and the Promise together The Text saith the Promise is made to you and your Children and to all a far off I will be thy God and the God of thy seed where you see Children are Covenanted joyntly and together with the Parents you frame an Exposition and would put it upon us Childrens being in the Covenant is from faithful Parents as if severally and a part faithful Parents were taken into Covenant and then from them their Children should because born of them and when born of them come into Covenant for Abraham believed whil'st he was in uncircumcision but that Faith of his gave no being in that speciall Covenant either to himself or children whereof Circumcision was the Seal but yet God so well accepted of Abrahams Faith that for its sake he was pleased to enter into Covenant with him and with his children at one and the same time and to assume them together into Covenant with himself So there the childrens being in Covenant is not from faithful Parents simply and absolutely as I have shewed but from faithful Parents in Covenant or rather to speak properly and fully from the Covenant God made unto both Parents and Children so that not so much their being in Covenant as their being born in Covenant is from their Faithful Parents in Covenant But neither way doth it overthrow this Promise for the childrens being in Covenant by vertue of the promise made supporteth and supposeth the promise and their being in the Covenant from faithful Parents as you speak doth not overthrow the promise seeing even their being so is from them by reason of the promise made to them for their Children also which rather establisheth and confirmeth than overthroweth and evacuateth the promise You had need add another Exposition to your Exposition and put better light to your New light and into your dark Lanthorn or else none will see to walk by it but your self and so you have done For it overthroweth the promise you say because the promise is upon account of Faith in our own Persons and not in our Parents See how you forget your self in forgetting the Children of whose being in the promise you are discoursing you let them alone and put your self and would joyn me with you but that I will not in their place saying the Promise is upon account of Faith in your own person and not in your Parents True now you are a grown man the promise will be and must be accounted to you upon the Faith in your person as to the vertue efficacy and effects of the promise Now you are become a man you must put away Childish things as the Apostle saith 1 Cor. 13.11 to which purpose onely your Texts are out of Habakkuk and John where Justification and everlasting life are set upon the account of Faith in a mans own person speaking of such onely as are grown to be tall proper men like your self able to account and give a reason of them But why did you single out John 3.36 where the words of the Prophet Habakkuk are not repeated and bauk those other Texts in the Margent Rom. 1.17 Gal. 3.11 and Heb. 10.38 in all which the very words of the Prophet The just shall live by his own Faith are repeated and applyed is it to shew in your own person that light is come into the world and men love darkness more than light you turned onely to John for Name sake out of self-self-love yet
of all the good ends effects benefits of an Ordinance they are not to be forbidden to come or to be kept back from it as being a good and valid Ordiance to such But Infants and little Children are capable of all the good ends effects and benefits of the Ordinance of Baptism Therefore Infants and little Children are not to be forbidden to come or to be kept back from it it being a good and valid Baptism and beneficial to them The first proposition is clear from the 1 Cor. 4 15. 1 Cor. 9.1 already cited to which I add Matth. 19.14 which clears it as to this particular The second proposition is not questionalbe that they are capable as having reasonable souls belonging it may be to election and so having the Spirit and Grace as before and the Letter of the Text sheweth it For theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven c. Except ye become as one of these little ones ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven To shut up this reason the sum and result is this That Infants of baptised parents are in capacity to partake of the ends effects and benefits of Baptism and of the inward Graces of the same and many of them are actually and really partakers of them as well as grown persons who are visible professors and there being in us no infallible ground of certainty but of Charity that either the one or the other have those inward Graces yet they may be accordingly baptised And the visible right to the Covenant and the many promises made to the seed of the faithfu added to their Capability of the Graces of it are as good evidences to ground a baptism of Infants as the external professions of grown men can give yea and to ground a judgement of their partaking of the invisible Graces like as the others And Experience hath and doth shew it that of those that have been baptised in their infancy our Ministry of the Word afterwards following upon our Ministry of Baptism sweetly winning upon them and drawing them to grow in Grace and to bring forth other fruits and duties of the Covenant to which they were bound by Baptism as the Jewes were by their Circumcision to be obedience of the Law Gal. 5.3 there have been as humble and meek as mortified and sanctified Christians both Men and Women as any amongst you to say no more not to say more sound in the faith sorrowful for sin zealous in love fervent in prayer religious in their houses and devout in the house of God sincere in their dealings grave in their behaviour modest in their attire exemplary in their lives mourniful in Spirit and vexed in Soul for to see the unclean conversations and the erroneous courses of others as well as you nay far better than any of you in many of these are or do Now though it be so that God sometimes doth bring good out of evil as light out of darknesse at first yet usually and ordinarily God doth it not and therefore in a visible constituted Church where he proceeds ordinarily he doth not from a false Ministery and an unlawful Baptism produce such good effects and lightful converses I do not mean your new light so full of darknesse the which let it be to the stopping of the mouths of all gainsayers with whom nothing is more rife and frequent than to revile our Ministery and Baptism as false and Antichristian evil and unlawful A word more from hence to you Parents That if you regard the above-named good ends effects and benefits and now know your Children capable of them and desire indeed they should be partakers of them bring them to Baptism a means to those ends a work to that effect an office to such a benefit So whom God destinates to an end he destinates to the means whom 〈◊〉 appoints to an effect he appoints to a work whom he designes to a benefit he designes to office What moreover and above are you not willing your Children should have the privilege to be accounted as belonging to the family and houshold of God upon earth That they should have an obligation upon them to bind them to the duties of the Covenant of God as they grow of capacity to perform them that they have a good Title afterwards to that other Seal of growth and nourishment in spiritual Graces Why then do you with-hold them from Baptism are you not desirous they should as members of the visible Church have a place in the Communion of Saints and a share in those prayers that are put up to the throne of Grace for the welfare of the Church and particularly for a blessing upon the Ordinances thereof and that they should have a Seal to plead not only in the persent day of their initiation but throughout all their life time as to the Covenant for all those good things whereof it is a Seal so to the Condition for fulfilling the good duties and so gaining the answer of a good Conscience and in which case it is said to save Why then bring them forth present them unto Baptism Be not like unto the Ostrich in Job 39 16. She is bardened against her young ones as though they were not hers her labour is in vain without fear because God hath deprived her of Wisdom neither hath he imparted to her Vnderstanding which leaveth her eggs in the earth and warmeth them in dust and forgetteth that the foot may crush them and that the wild beast may break them it needs no application but this Be not so hard hearted to your Children as to leave them in the earth and dust of their natural Generation so every foot they may be crushed your seed not onely bruâ—sed of the Serpent but broken but bring them out to the water and it may be the fire of Baptismal Regeneration The Apostie tels you and you are I beleve very expert in that Lesson and experienced in that matter that if any provide not for his own and specially for those of his own house and kindred he hath denyed the faith and is worse than an infidel but if you provide not for your own Flesh and Children and their Spirits not only giving them bedily provision but not giving them also such provisions as God hath made ready for their Souls you leave them as bad as infidels in a manner unbaptised denying them a means of faith and the Seal of the Covenant I say no more but what Man is there of you whom if his Son ask Bread will be give him a Stone or if he ask a Fish will be give him a Serpent as Psalm 147.9 The young Ravens cry to God for their food to be given them So your young infants methinks cry to you and in their crying and weeping seem to call to you for their Water of Baptism as their milk of the Brests to be the one the relief unto their Souls against original guilt and misery as the other against
natural hunger and infirmity But if you regard not your Children do you look to your selves and your ends and benefits and amongst these your Honor first Is it not a great honour to you to have a Child counted to some great house and of the Houshould and under the Protection of some Noble-man and is it not a great deal more honour to have a Child counted to the House of God the Church and of the Family and under the safegard of Jesus Christ why then baptise your Child If you stand not so much upon your Honor or theirs yet I am sure you are willing to have comfort of your Child and good hope here is not substance and evidence enough for Faith of its well being whilest it liveth spiritually and after death eternally the way is enter him into the Church of God by Baptism So you hope your Child is preferred and made for ever as you speak when once you had gotten him into some great House and noble Family which are but Cottages to the Church and ignoble to the Family of God Whereas if you with-hold him from Baptism you do leave him to have his visible actual standing abode in the House of darknesse and continue him in an outward case and condition as an alien from the Covenant and a stranger from the Common wealth of Christians what in you lyeth which must needs be both dishonorble and uncomfortable to you the while True indeed you may have comfort from the Covenant only if by some invincible and unvoydable act of Providence intervening your child be prevented and deprived of the Seal thereof which is Baptism full against your will and purpose but if through your default and wilfull detaining of him and Contempt of this Ordinance it so fall out that your Child dye unbaptized He may be saved without the Seal of the Covenant I believe but I dare not promise you herein Salvation or Comfort without Repentance of this your fault and sin against God in his Ordinance And so this shall be my last reason to you Parents for the bringing of your Children to Baptism for that thereby you shall not onely get honour to your selves as I said but give honour to God by your submission unto the Seal also for them to God I say who took order for your Childrens honouring you yea honoured you both by entring into Covenant with both and annexing the Seal of Baptism thereto for your further Comfort and Confirmation When our Saviour offered himself to be Baptized John forbade him saying I have need to be baptised of thee and comest thou to me but Christ took him off saying suffer it to be so now for thus it becommeth us to fulfill all Righteousness Matt. 3.13 14 15. as John the Baptist thought Christ above the Ordinance of Baptism by reason of his great perfection and there be also others as say they are above ordinances in a high conceipt of themselves So some of you Anabaptists think Infants of Christians below the ordinance of Baptism by reason of their great Imperfections Me things our Saviour Christ in this place answereth and resuteth both them and you them by his example who being the Highest in perfection yet stooped down and condescended to the Ordinance of Baptism Therefore none sure not the highest and perfectest amongst men in the Church upon earth are above Ordinances and you by his Doctrine and Exhortation suffer it to be so now for thus it becommeth you to fulfill all Righteousness a part and act whereof is the Seal of the Righteousness of Faith which Baptism is now under the Gospel as Circumcision was under the Law Rom. 4.11 and therefore as the Jewish Parents were diligent to fulfill that Righteousness by putting their Children in Covenant under that Seal of Righteousness Circumcision so ought ye Christian Parents to be carefull to fulfill this Righteonsness ousness and to put your Children in Covenant also under this Seal of Righteousness Baptism Suffer it to be so now suffer little Children to come unto Christ and forbid them not for they have need to come to him and now in his absence to his Ministers to be Baptized For thus it becommeth you as them to fulfill all Righteousness Make not a Nullity of the Seal of Righteousness lest you come at length to make Righteousness it self a Nullity too and now that I am fallen upon this matter of Righteousness I shall turn to you again Sir my Quaerist and ask you if you do not deny Baptism to Infants upon this ground that you think the efficacy of Baptism is seated and founded upon the practical Righteousness of a Professour or Member of the Church manifested in words and deeds Confession and Conversation which if you do as indeed you do and all that stand out against Infant Baptism it is a groundless ground For the Text I just now cited sheweth that it is not so grounded but only upon Covenantal Righteousness and the free grace of God in Christ for so Rom. 4.11 He received the sign of Circumcision à Seal of the Righteousness of Faith which he had being yet uncircumcised that he might be the father of all them that believe c. that Righteousness might be imputed unto them also where you see it or hear it in the very Terms Righteousness of Faith not Life or Works Imputed-Righteousness not inherent or practised which both Abraham had and his Children must have Now though our Christian Infants have no inherent Righteousness or practical manifested unto us by their words or deeds as you require in those you Baptize and therefore put off your Christian Infants untill years of discretion to profess true Faith and years of action to practice good works yet we present and dedicate them in their Infancy by Baptism to Gods mercy and fatherly love in Christ their and our Ruighteousness and Atonement for that we know God hath Righteousness to be imputed unto them by vertue of his Covenant of Grace I come to my seventh and last Warrant which I foresse will bring you to no Justice yet I will serve this also upon you for though now and then in your letter you let fall such a word as Primitive Practice and the good old way yet I know you cannot in your heart abide Antiquity and the Primitive practices of the Church of old for that they are point blank against your blank point of Baptizing onely such believers as can and do make Profession of their Faith in Christ which is but a novel New Light of those Blazings Comets and Meteors that sprung out in Germany some while ago but yesterday in comparison of the Baptisin of the Infants of believers which hath brightly shined out throughout all the Churches in good and full Lustre Sun-like untill the Man in the Moon Muncer his Lunaticks or Moon-Sirs interposed and made some Eclipse thereof in the Churches This therefore is my sixth and last Reason If it hath been an ancient practice
contemners and despisers of his Sacraments fall heavily upon you and some or other curse of God pursue you so also that such water may be loathsom and noysom to you afterwards Remember Esau again For ye know how that afterwards when he would have inherited the blessing Heb. 12.16 17 he was rejected for he found no place of repentance though he sought it with tears Are they not ritghtly called Jacob's Supplanters one of the first planters of them was called Jacob and that rightly for they that take away your Birth-right Baptism will also take away your Blessing the Blessing of God in Covenant with you as well as with your Parents Yea remember one of the Separation by name Hodsou of the City of Glecester and by an Epithite called Hodson-peevish who since he was new baptised grew as light in the head as before he was light in heart the which I finde recorded by Master Thomas Wynell in print a Minister of Cranham nigh unto that City Yea remember the sad and desatrous ends of those first Ringleaders of re-baptising Muncer Cnipperdoling c. And now thirdly Can they charm sweetly and delightfully to any of you who have the root of bitterness in them from which I dehorted you and whose mouths are full of cursing and bitterness like as they have bitter envying and sirife in their hearts against your Mother-Church and your Baptism especially wherein ye were if regenerate at all born again of water and the Spirit My Brethren these things ought not to be doth a Fountain send forth at the same place or hole of heart or mouth sweet water and bitter Hear now ye Benjamites ye left-handed Protestants will the Son of Jesse Muncer who I mentioned but now give every one of you the Field Benefits 1 Sam. 22 2 5 and Vine-eard Priviledges of Christ and his Church by their new dipping of you and make you Captains of thousands and Captains of hundreds against your sins that they shall not raign or have dominion over your mortall bodies or immortall Soules that all of you have conspired against your Mother-Church and brethren Ministers O foolish Galathians who hath bewitched you that you should not obey the truth before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth crucified amongst you even in your Baptism Gal. 3.1 as the word and other Sacrament wherein you were sprinkled with the blood of Christ unto the washing away of sin being also crucified in the old man with him and buried with him by Baptism that the body of sin might be destroyed that thenceforth ye should not serve sin I mervaile that you are so soon removed away from your Baptism and your calling into the Grace of Christ and his Covenant of Grace unto another Baptism which is not another but there be some that trouble you and would pervert the Baptism of Christ Gal. 1.6 7 But though they or an Angell from Heaven preach any other Baptism unto you then that which we have preached and reached unto you let him be accursed and as I said before so say I now again if any man preach or reach any other Baptism unto you than that ye have received of us let him be accursed or let him shew where ever the Lord Blessed for ever at any time blessed or consecrated instituted or appointed a Baptism of Baptized ones Parents or Children or any other Baptism then once of Believing Parents and their Children once They say if a man put away his wife and she go from him and become another mans shall be return again to her shall not that Land be greatly polluted But thou hast played the Harlot with many Baptisms and many Dippers yet return again to me saith the Lord I say return again to the Lord Jer. 3.1 and to the Lords Baptism if thou hast put it away from thee and renounced it if thou be gone from him and with the strange woman hast forsaken the guide of thy youth yea Child-hood and forgotten the Covenant of thy God Prov. 2.17 and the Seal thereof art become another mans and betaken thy self to another Baptism for which the Land is also defiled as thy self I say return again to the Lord and his and thy first Baptism The Lord look upon thee and remember thy first Baptism and the words of the Covenant of Christ and go out from amongst them who by their Quaeres and intricate questioning of thee caused thee to deny thy first Baptism and therein thy Lord and Master go out and weep bitterly for the same Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen and repent and do thy first works Rev. 2.5 and leave not thy first Love hold fast that which thou hast already even thy first Baptism till Christ come I say Repent and be still as you were in your Infancy baptized every one of you in the Name of Jesus Christ and you shall have the Remission of your sins even of this sin of being Baptized again if so you have committed it For the promise is made to you and to your Children with many other words I would have testified and exhorted you saying save your self from this untoward Generation But that I hasten and will tell you to the contrary Look often back to your first Baptism in your Infancy and think not upon any other Baptism afterwards as to a Store-house of comfort in all time of your need if you be tempted by the devill and assaulted about your sins in your youth or old age think not now of ny new or second Baptism but recall thy first and old Baptism oppose it against him say and know that therein God hath promised and sealed unto thee the pardon of thy sins and the purchase of everlasting life by Christ If thou beest troubled with doubtings and weakness of Faith Fetch from thy first Baptism such a strengthening consideration and meditation for the doing of which to introduce another Baptism is but a Fetch that God hath given thee there an earnest and pledge of his loving kindness to thee in the water sprinkled upon thee representing the blood of Christ applyed to thee and so as when Thomas saw the Holes in Christs-side and the print of the nailes he strengthened his Faith against doubtings be not thou faithless but faithfull when thou reflectest upon thy Baptism and remembrest the pouring out of the blood of Christ for thee and the earnest thereof the pouring out of water upon thee If thou liest under any kind of Crosse or Calamity whatsoever have recourse to thy Baptism in which God hath promised to be thy God of which promise he will not fail thee nor canst thou be miserable having this promise yea if God be with thee who shall be against thee Thou doest often look upon the wills and Testaments of thy Father and Grandfather when you are in a doubt of hour Estate or in some trouble about it or in want to be resolved in all
by the word of Command and so also the other way turn it and it s as true Sir my hand is now in and I will give you another Syllogism Whosoever are expressed in the Promise Verse 39. are contained in the Precept before Verse 38. Be baptized every one of you But believing Parents and their Children are expressed in the Promise Verse 39. The Promise is made to you and your Children Therefore believing Parents and their Children are contained in the Precept and so both are commanded to be baptized There is no difficulty but in the first Proposition and in it there is none by reason of the mutual relation and reciprocal convertibility that is betwixt a Promise and a Precept in Covenantal and Sacramental matters as hath been shewed And whereas it may be said That a Promise may be without a seal and this here doth not infer Baptism It is true but when men have once put their seal then there needs must be a correspondence and relation between that Seal and the Covenant So here though it was not absolutely necessary the word of Promise or Covenant of Grace should be set forth by outward seals appearing to the senses yet God having once anpointed them to signifie the inward grace it is now necessary there should be such a mutual relation between the word of Promise and the word of Command and the Seal also But I come now to your Consideration upon the Text of Acts 2. verse 39. Consider that such a being in the Covenant as maketh Faith void is no true being But that being in the Covenant which is concluded from the Faith of the Parents is such a being as maketh Faith void therefore no true being That this is so I prove That Title whereby any person hath once a being in the Covenant by the same he may remain in it for ever now then if any one hath such a Title as to be within the Covenant by being the seed of the faithfull he may remain in it for ever and so needs no faith of his own and so by the same reason one may all may and seeing all be the children of Abraham or Noah which were faithfull all are in the Covenant and so Faith needless in the wordl 2. Consider that such on Expositionas overthroweth the Promise that cannot be a true Exposition of the Text but such as expound a being in the Covenant from faithfull Parents overthrow the Promise Therefore this Exposition is no true Exposition for the Promise is upon account of faith in our own persons and not in our Parents as appears in Hab. 2.4 compared with John 3.36 And that it doth overthrow the Promise I farther prove because nothing answereth the Promise but faith and if faith be needless then the Promise is needless Sir I can write no farther being sorry I writ out so much of your needless stuff for to what purpose is all this are these Considerations upon Acts 2.39 they might have been upon any other Text as well which makes any mention of Promise Faith Children And what is it but such an Exposition as overthroweth the Promise Why did you not set it down the Exposition at first and then consider upon it you alwaiet love to shuffle with shadows and fight with fancies and strange Chymaera's Your purpose is to except to the children of Believers being in Covenant with their Parents for so I must still be working upon your earth which is without form and void and darkness upon the face of it like a Chaos and you say it is a false being as concluded from the faith of Parents and so maketh faith void First I must tell you that the being of children in the Covenant of Grace with their Parents was concluded by God jointly and together in that Promise I will be thy God and the God of thy Seed both were in the Promises and concluded together not one from another both in the Promise and confederate together not one from another Your expressions are uncouth unheard in the Church yet we may conclude thus That if the Parent be in Covenant with God then also his seed and children are in Covenant not so much from as for the faith of the Parents God accepting of it so as to Covenant with them and their Seed But grant your Conclusion in your own terms what then Such a being in Covenant as is concluded from the faith of the Parents maketh Faith voyd say you and say I what Faith or whose Faith do you mean Not the Faith of the Parents I suppose for the Baptizing of the Child or the being of it in Covenant from the Faith of the Parents as you speak doth rather confirm establish and bring it into effect than make it void nor can you mean the Faith of the Children for you holding them to have no Faith of their own as here you expresly say how can you say it is here made void any way which was or is no where extant at all nor is Faith required of them as to any manifestation of it for their being in Covenant or taking the Seal though these do require it of them afterwards But the Proof that you bring it being of I know not what nothing asserted before of you or denyed of me deserveth to be answered in its kind that is by a Reproof for thus you prove That Title wherby a person hath once a being in the Covenant by the same he may remain in it for ever I must cast in a grain of Salt here without which it is too fresh yea unsavoury that is so long as he lives and renounce not before whether he be one of our Infants or one of your grown Baptized ones Now then if any one hath such a Title as to be within the Covenant by being the seed of the faithful he may remain in it for ever and so needs no Faith of his own Here 's a rope of Sand for my grain of Salt I grant he may with the former limitation and he that hath such a Title as to be within the Covenant by being converted from Paganism may do so too and as one so all may And he needs no Faith of his own I hope you remember your self no Actuall Faith expressed as elsewhere you write it as to this purpose to give him Title unto the Covenant or Seal which his being the seed of the faithfull doth yet he needs Faith to give him Title to the benefits of the Covenant Justification and Salvation and he must be also a faithful seed himself And so by the same reason one may all may and seeing all be the Children of Abraham and Noah which were faithfull all are in the Govenant and so Faith needles in the world Sir you rise apace but to no preferment of a Proof before it was but He needs no Faith of his own and now it should but have been they need no Faith of their own because by the same reason one may
nature as well as others Eph. 2.3 and Eph. 1.4 and yet were not nor could be called dogs notwithstanding impure or hateful before God because they were in and under the love of God which is called Amor Benevolentiae the love of his eternal good Will and Benevolency in electing of them although before their Conversion and before they have Faith they do not stand actually reconciled unto God which is called Amosr Complacentiae the love of his special delight and complacency in accepting of them by the coming of Christ into the world and purchasing it for them so that their persons are never hateful or detestable but beloved and accepted from all eternity and therefore cannot be as bad as dogs though their state wherein they are in may be odious and detestable as was Sauls when he persecuted the Church and as was yours when you walked in wicked wayes and both of you were ignorant of the Truth but this some similar act or quality of a dog as impurity and ignorance for a while is not enough or sufficient to impute the Title and denomination of a dog to such whose persons belong to Gods Election and are under gracious favour of God in a Christ and are parties covenanted with and partakers of the Seal or Seals Doth God take care for Oxen 1 Cor. 9.9 what Dogs who are Gods what a transposition of letters is this what an Anagram which none but an Ingram and Agrammatical man who is himself transported with a zeal without knowledge can or will affirm or make The field that is intended for Wheat fallowed for Wheat and Sown with Wheat is not called or to be called a barren Wilderness and desart Land though weeds come up in it every where and before the good husbandry hath appeared plucking them up but it is called Tilth-land and a Wheat-field The ground of your error lyeth in this that you thought of no other Grace but that of sanctification when you spake those words of your self and others to be dogs until the Grace of God appearing plucking you out of your wicked wayes to the knowledge of the Truth so the words themselves do shew and therby shew also your ignorance of the Grace of God both that of Election and that of Justification which is not any inherent Righteousness and quality as Papists also hold with you which in matter of Justification or Election is but dung as the Apostle calleth it for the Grace of God is one of his Attributes out of us in God and according to the use of Scripture is either metonymically the special gift of Grace or properly the gracious favour of God in Christ by which Grace we are elected called justified sanctified and shall be glorified and in this order they go one before another as several acts and degrees of Grace sanctification being the end or effect as of our Election Eph. 1.4 and of our Justificaiton Luke 1.75 so of our Vocation 1 Thes 4.7 It s a strange error of yours to account your self and others a sheep onely in and under the Grace of sanctification so you say you were no better then a dog till the Grace of God plucked you out of your evil wayes were you then a dog and no sheep in and under the Grace of Election and Vocation and Justification I am sure others are not But what is your drift and scope I pray Sir in writing thus to me now at this time that your self hath not been so good as a dog till the Grace of God appeared plucking you out of your wicked way unto the knowledge of the Truth Is it to advance the power and efficacy of your separate and dipping Ministery above mine and the Sacerdotal function it must be so and no marvel for you committed soul and body unto but one of them my self and others could seldom get your body unto our Churches and Ministery I prepared my dinner and killed my Oxen and fatlings and had all things in a readiness Mat. 22.4 but you made light of it and went another way or would stay at home or when you came if the good seed I sowed in you did not fall into good ground Mat. 13.4 to bring forth fruit but you suffered the fowls the wicked one to devour and catch it away or the thorns of the care of this world to spring up and choak it you must blame neither Seed nor Sower neither Ministery nor Minister but even say of your self I was a High-way side Hearer a Thorny-ground Auditor like as you say you was no better then a dog that while and so I gave that which was holy to dogs But I do not say so that you were that while any such for you did neither trample the holy things under your feet though they fell upon thorns or by the way side neither did you turn again and rend me Again Let no one of you be puffed for one against another 1 Cor. 4.6 I acknowledge there is a difference of Ministery but who maketh thee to differ from another who is Paul and who is Apollos but the Ministers by whom you believed for neither is Paul that planteth nor Apollos that watereth any thing but God that giveth the increase 1 Cor. 3.5 7. you do well and wisely to say The Grace of God appearing pluckt you out and so to ascribe the glory of your plucking out of wicked wayes to the Grace of God The Grace of God is free as the Spirit of God to blow where it listeth John 3.8 and upon whom so by whom and when it listeth Yet thirdly I add that According to the Grace of God which is given to me I have laid the foundation 1 Cor. 3.10 of your coming out of your wicked way to the knowledge of the Truth for many years together and another doth but build thereon and the foundation I have laid in you was none other then Jesus Christ and him crucified The Covenant of the Grace of God in Christ I will be thy God and the God of thy seed made therefore with your believing Parents and your self with the Seals therof which have been given you and the conditions which are to be performed by you yea I have built upon this foundation Gold Silver and precious stones preach in Faith and Repentance and Obedience in your own words coming out of wicked wayes unto the knowledge and practice of the Truth and just then when the building should have been raised up unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ you fell a pulling down as fast as I had built up yea you suffered others to come in upon you by their sleights and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive to build upon my foundation Wood Hay and Stubble and such combustible things and to set in many of their weak and impotent and beggerly rudiments upon it especially those three your separation from your Church your evil affection to the ordained