plainly and directly evinced Infants Faith and Salvation by it which is all one Doth not David say and testifie Psal 8.2 out of the mouths of Babes and Sucklings hast thou ordained or founded strength or perfected praise and doth he not Psal 148.12 call upon and exhort old men and children to praise the name of the Lord the which you cannot expound of spiritual children onely as sometimes it may and somewhere for Mat. 21.15 16. they are real and bodily children that cried Hosanna to the Son of David and fulfilled Davids Speech now if these had no Grace Knowledge or Faith in Christ how could they so glorifie and praise Christ and rejoyce and even Triumph in Christ I ask again are any Infants in Christ or ingrafted into Christ or the Children of God if so as you cannot deny it for we are all one in Christ Jesus whether bond or free male or semale old or young Father or Children And God the Father hath given to Christ Infants and Children as well as Parents and Fathers and to those that Christ hath received his Father he gives eternal life But now they are all the Children of God by Faith in Christ Jesus and if they be Christ then are they Abrahams seed and heirs according to the promise Galat. 3.26 28 if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his Rom. 8.9 and he that is none of his Christ Baptizeth not But Christ Baptizeth with the inward Baptism also unto Remision of Sins many Infants these are some of his as who hath taken them into Covenant to be the God of them and them to be the Children of God And surely if Christ should not impart unto some Infants Knowledge and Faith according to their measure Competent to Salvation but only to the Adule and grown persons he might seem to be an Acceptor both of Ages and personages which he is not Deut. 10.17 Rom. 2.11 See John 6.35 and 37. He that commeth to me shall not hunger and he that beleeveth in me shall not thirst immediately Christ addeth whatsoever the Father giveth me shall come unto me or beleeve in me I ask you now and Quaere you hath not the Father in his everlasting Counsel and Bounty given to Christ all his Elect Infants and appointed them to be Christs when Psal 2.8 the Lord said unto him thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee ask of me and I shall give thee the Heathen for thine Inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession if so why then they also Infants being somewhat of that whatsoever given unto Christ shall come and do come continually unto him or beleeve in him whatsoever you say or write to the Contrary that they neither shall or do believe See Galat. 3.22 The Scripture hath shut up all things under sin that the promise by Faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those that believe you hear the disease of sin in Adam is spread over all things that is all men and whatsoever is of and in man even Infants therefore the Remedy of Faith in Christ must be spread over them too that this may be as generall and large as that so Infants who are saved must and do believe in Christ See 17. John 3. This is life everlasting to know thee the onely true God and him whom thou hast sent Jesus Christ Here is a General and universal Rule given by Christ himself the Author of Salvation without any inkling or tinkling of exception for everlasting life to be atteined namely by knowing and believing for that is also included in it as is specified and more enlarged in the 1 John 5.10 11 12 He that hath the Son hath life this life is in the Son and he that believeth hath this witness in himself c. Now I Quaere you again Have any of the Elect Infants the Son of God have they eternall life you cannot deny it and therefore you cannot deny them some spark of Knowledge and Faith See 2 Cor. 5.7 We walk by Faith and not by sight and 1 Cor. 13.12 now we see through a glass darkly but then face to face whence it appeareth there is but one way of joyning us all to Christ and of our enjoying of Christ which is Sight of him in Heaven or Faith in him upon earth to which Sight our Faith now is answerable being of the same nature and quality onely differing in the measure for Faith is nothing else but a sight of him John 12.44 and 4. Now I Quaere you again do not you think but the same way which serveth for all the rest of Gods Elect doth serve for Children also to joyn them to Christ and that there is but one life begun here which is perfected in heaven according to that He that believeth in me hath eternal life John 6.47 Then also must Infants have some light of the mind to see and behold Christ now here as in a looking glase so hereafter face to face See Rom. 4 6. To all Abrahams seed the promise is firm by Faith and his Title is the Father of the Faithfull the Scripture maketh him the Father of us all and all the Children of the promise i.e. The whole number of Gods Elect for of that Primary cause of our Salvation Gods holy Election Saint Paul there disputeth Rom. 9 8. which is observable against the Anabaptists who impute the Salvation of Infants solely to Gods Election which is acknowledged of us to be the Primary cause whereas in that very place he mentioneth a secondary cause of their Salvation that they are the Children of the promise and so reckoned in Abrahams seed because of that Interest they have in that blessed Seed in whom Abraham and all his posterity are partakers of the holy inheritance Now I Quaere you again here do you or dare you exclude Infants from being Abrahams Seed you must then also bar them from having interest and part in Christ if not why do you or dare you to deny them Faith seeing that in the same manner as Abraham obtained the Blessing which was by Faith so must all Nations of the world Jews Gentiles and every particular person all and as many as lay under the curse before even Infants therefore obtain the Blessing by Faith according as it is Gal. 3.8.13 14. What should I run on thus your self will prove as much for me anon and agaiost your self for in your confutation or rather consideration following upon Acts 2.39 there you say That nothing but Faith answereth the promise and I shall tell you that Faith answereth it as the condition If then there be no other way or means for Infants to come by Righteousness or Salvation but by Faith or believing the condition of the Covenant of Grace and the Gospel as works and doing was of the Covenant of Nature and the Law you must either grant some Infants to believe and have Faith or else
leave them destitute of the ordinary way and means or shew from Scripture some other of their Righteousness and Salvation Yea if Infants be saved without Faith they must then be saved without Christ for as there is none other name or person under Heaven given amongst â—â—en whereby we must be saved than the Lord Jesus Act. 4.12 So there is none other means or grace under Heaven given amongst men whereby we may apprehend the Lord Jesus save Faith Matth. 3.16 and Heb. 11.6 Remember your own words nothing but Faith answereth the Promise If Infants have no Faith to answer the promise nor works to answer the precept how shall they do for the answer of a good conscience towards God or a saving Baptism 1 Pet. 3.21 Or what shall they do when God riseth up and when he visiteth what shall they answer him Job 31.14 If he will contend with them they cannot answer him one of a thousand Job 9.3 unless in Christ by Faith they be and then all is answered I could wish some others of a more vigorous body and brain would prosecute these and many other Scriptures to the proof of Faith in Infants Elect and saved the which as I take it would best stop the mouthes of the gainsayers of Infant-Baptism who now not satisfied with their being in Covenant with God also or his giving of spiritual grace to them never leave calling for Faith Faith in Infants so would it set opener and wider the way of Infants to their Baptism even in the opinion of the adversaries thereof If you question how such could believe in Christ Christ who tells you so gave them to do so and so may give to others Is thine eye evill because he is good may he not do with his own as him pleaseth Take that thine is and go thy way it may be he will give unto this least even as to thee Though Intants want the outward Means of Faith which they are not capable of as the Hearing of the Word by which Faith ordinarily is gotten yet there are other besides what you will say extraordinary and so you will fly now your self to extraordinaries who have taxed us of extraordinaries no such matter for besides the ordinary outward Menas of Faith in the Church which an Infant wanteth and is not capable of there are ordinary inward Means of the same Faith which it may find and of which it is capable namely Christ the Author of Faith and the Spirit of Faith both these are internal but ordinary Means of Faith in the Church and avaylable when the outward are wanting and the outward unavay leable where those inward are wanting But you can discern no such matter of Faith in Infants these shew no such thing as Faith what then what evidence of expression do you see or they shew of a reasonable soul in them by this reason you may conclude them unreasonable as well as unbelievers Even Childrens souls are equal and like as yours and mine are in the essentials which are as large and ample to all intents and purposes though pent up for want of room as our souls are and are capable of Grace They are Rational Creatures Seminally and in the inward Principle of human Nature which is a reasonable Nature though through defect of age they are not Rational Productively and in the fruits or external proceedings or operations of reason and so they may be Believers as to the Root and Fountain of Faith the Spirit of God in the first act though they may want the second act thereof which is the increase of it in themselves and the deriving the knowledge of it to others So then Infants in the Church may have Faith and all the Elect of them have fot it is called the Faith of Gods Elect Tit. 1.1 and you as you cannot descry it in them so you cannot decry it Therefore by your own Tenet and Rule they going for Believers and Elect may be Baptized yea all ought to go so out of a charitable perswasion and opinion that ought to be in us and you howsoever it goeth with them as to the Truth and Reality and therefore all should be Baptized for by the same reason you Baptize any of those you call Believers we Baptize all Infants of Believers and unless it were so none at all were to be Baptized Those that come to you one by one in a profession of Faith you have but a good and charitable opinion of his Faith and Election you can have no sure and certain knowledge of the same For this and that Person may be an Hypocrite and Reprobate yet you Baptize him and him Now therefore may not we do the like there comes presented to us this and that Child one and another in the evidence of Gods Covenant engraven as it were upon them by their birth of Parents in Covenant we have also a charitable perswasion of their Faith and Election and can have no more for there are also Infants born in the Church that are Reprobates and so we Baptize them But if onely the true Beleevers and Elect were to be Baptized then you and we must have a certain knowledge of every Infants and every mans Faith and Election as the ground of our and your Baptizing them the which because neither we nor you can have in any ordinary way neither of us by this Rule must Baptize any at all You hope the best of all and so do we your old Limitation may do well here so far as man can judge which in this case is just nothing and that 's all can be said on both sides but still I must prompt you that it is not knowledge of the Infants being in Election and the signs of it or being in the Faith and the prosession of it but the being in the Covenant and a relation to it that is and ought to be the ground of Baptism in the Church of God now because we find and know all Infants born of Christian Parents within this Covenant Relation know not which of them is Elect or not for if we knew who were Reprobates we neither would nor ought to Baptize them we do therefore Baptize all of them lest otherwise we should and might deny the Seal of the Covenant to some of the Elect Children of God Me thinks you who assume so much of the Spirit to your selves Take heed you do not presume too much of your selves therein there be they who separate themselves having not the Spirit Jude 19. should not be so Covetous or Envious and it may be refistous and then it is blasphemous as to deny some degrees of the Spirit and the graces thereof to Infants when as the Spirit bloweth where it listeth and thou canst not tell whither it goeth when as also the Dove-like Spirit of God hath a neer compliance with and a great complacency in Child-like meekness mildness humility patience of which graces he is pleased to stile himself the Spirit more
is a great deal of distance and difference twixt a Warrant out of Gods word and a Command or Precept out of the same I shall I hope bring you forth some warrants out of the word for our Baptizing Infants but for a Precept or Command for the same I am not engaged no nor required to give by this your Quaere Warrants enough and those from the word I shall serve upon you for though a Warrant from a Justice be a Precept Missive yet a Permissive will of God which is no Precept for it may be a Warrant of an Action and such are and may be any solid Reason or good Consequence or like example drawn there from which though it will not be admitted for a Precept may serve for a Warrant A. first Warrant shall be this Reason which is but a recollection or recapitulation of somewhat immediatly said before If Infants of Christians are all of them capable and some of them partakers of the Spirit and Faith and other inward Graces Then they may and ought to be Baptized This is warranted out of the word and those Texts Act. 8.36 Act. 10.47 The one warranting Baptism to a believer the other to him who hath received the Holy Ghost whether young or old Infant or grown person If Thou believest saith Philip thou mayest be Baptized when the Eunuch asked what doth hinder me so Faith it was that made him capable and removed the hindrance though upon his confession of his Faith it being not otherwise discernable he having no other right pleadable he being one o' the Gentiles He was actually Baptized So can any man forbid water that these should not be Baptized who have received the Holy Ghost as we and so he Commanded them to be Baptized That particular Hypothetical if thou believest c. thou may'st be Baptized may and must be resolved into this general Categorical whosoever Believeth may be Baptized Man or Child Young or Old and howsoever Cornelius and the rest their receiving of the Spirit was in the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit then manifesting it self that way yet any other manifestation of the Spirit any word or act of God declaring that Persons do belong to Gods Covenant as some or other way the Spirit doth manifest it self in all that do belong to Gods Covenant is to us and ought to be to you a sufficient Warrant without any danger of will-worship to account them such and therefore to Baptize them be it this pouring out of extraordinary gists as here upon Cornelius and others or the Consession of Faith as in Philip or Repentance as in those that came to John the Baptist or be it a promise to believing Parents-and their Seed to be their God or Gods owning them as Persons belonging to the Church or any other ordinary Gifts and Graces of the Spirit or the Spirits supplying their infirmities in these cases can any man forbid water that these should not be Baptized This Interrogative and quaestionipropounding Speech may and must be resolved into a Nagative-Answer absolutely No man can forbid water rightly for that 's done that is rightly done or done of Right anless he will forbid that which God hath Commanded and some of these we have abundantly for the Infants of believing Parents where no man can forbid there God Commands that they who have received the Holy Gholst should be Baptized The resule also out of this is this general Proposition whoseever whether Infant or grown Person hath received the Holy Ghost whether apparently or secretly ordinarily or miraculously whether in sight or Faith hath a right to Baptism no man can forbid it and in one of the particulars Peter here Commands it See how I have gratified you beyond a Warrant with a little less than a Command for the Baptizing of Infants if having Faith and the Spirit as many yea all the Elect of them have whom we not able to know one from the other particularly do therefore Baptize all under the Covenant with God More briefly and syllogistically thus take it as I recollect it All Persons who have received the Holy Spirit or have Faith are Commanded by God in Scripture to be Baptized as appears by the two Texts here cited But some Infants of Christians have received the Holy Spirit or have Faith as appears by many Texts formerly cited Therefore some Infants are Commanded by God in Scripture to be Baptized A Second Warrant is This Reason It Infants of Christian Parents be in the Holy Covenant of God and have the same engraven upon them and established with them Then they are to be Baptized and to receive Baptism as the initial seal thereof This Reason is warranted or this warrant may be reasoned out of the word Gen. 17.9 c. and Rom. 4.11 for it s there apparent and the light there shining dazzles all Antipaedobaptists they cannot abide to look thereon that as Abraham and his Proselytes grown men upon their profession of their Faith were Circumcised so the seed or Children of Abraham and those Proselytes were Circumcised as Children of Parents in Covenant and joyned together with them in covenant and both these are there expresly Commanded and so this also that the seed of Abraham and his Proselytes should be Circumcised by vertue and reason of Gods Covenant with them which was to be sealed unto them by Circumcision Now as the Being of Infants in Covenant under the Law made them capable of and gave them a due Right to Circumcision the Initial seal of that Covenant under the Law so the being of Infants in Covenant under the Gospel makes them capable of and gives them a due or Right to Baptism the Initial seal of the Covenant under the Gospel The Covenant being the same for substance and in relation to the eternal wel are of the Soul as in the nâ—x I shall shew which being so if Anabaptists passing by this reason from the Covenant will insist still upon the meer and sole Commandement of God I must tell them the Text saith not Thou shalt keep my Command but thou shalt keep my Covenant implying that this Command of Circumcision had reference to the Covenant and was part of it For here God is to be considered not in his absolute Prerogative commanding but as God in respective mercy Covenanting with his people and all his Commands are to be taken as branches of his Covenant and all prounded upon his Free-grace in Jesus Christ therefore Gen. 17.10 and 13. God calls expresly Circumcision by the name of his Covenant to teach you and all others that will learn that the Covenant made Infants capable of the Seal and not Gods meer Commandement as you and your notional and metaphysical Masters do abstract who love to play with your own Fancies and Imaginations whereas the Seal is nothing but the confirmation of the Covenant and appointed and commanded so to be of God But the Covenant in order of Nature going before the Seal thereof
thee as it were a Shipboard or into the Ark sealing Christ with his benefits unto thee which shall not be pulled off and made Null and therefore need not to be iterated and set to again the first being still of force and efficacy to all true believers in Christ and repenters of sin Thus I have shewed you Sir how most men yea all men who have been Baptized in their Infancy may and ought to look upon themselves as Baptized in their Infancy which you seem to condemn and that to very good purpose and benefit and whereas you adde as the other part of your condemning them for their not looking after the Command of Christ to be baptized when they believe will you have them look after that is not to be seen or found nay have you seen or found out such a Commandment I pray Si lend or sell no some of your eye-salve to annoint our eyes for by and from that eye-salve in the 3. of Rev. 18. wherewith we have anointed our eyes according to Christs Council there given we cannot see from the one end of the New Testament to the other any such Commandement for persons baptized in their Infancy to be baptized when they believe And yet as if you had revealed and brought to light some rare matter of Salvation you have a very scrious and devout epilogue that it your considerations should be considered without a selfiish prejudicial Spirit a Spirit willing to he guided by the Spirit of the Lord according to his word of truth and the Scriptures truly red and interpreted by the Spirit of the Lord which are quoted to prove the Assertions It will appear to every honest and unbyassed Spirit that Infant-Baptism is a great and dangerous errour for ever to be rejected of every Soul that expects Salvation by Christ Jesus What a Cackling is here made upon the laying of an addle egge or rather what a Crowing is here upon the Treading out of a few idle considerations you have the faculty of entitling upon the Spirit and the Scriptures that which they being the Spirit and Scriptures of Truth own not your considerations and interpretations though very seldom you give interpretations them you leave for me to make quotatious and considerations enough you bring and those to no purpose or proof as I have particularly demonstrated where you cite them I leave it to the Honest and unbyassed Spirits to judge and determine whether the Texts you have cited were pertinent to your Consideration or according to your meaning or interpreting if you have given any whether Infant-Baptism be a great and dangerous errour for evewr to be rejected because now opposed of you which ever was a good and Religions Truth ever practised amongst the Saintt because recommended of Christ and the Apostles whether youts or mine be a selfish and prejudiciall Spirit I confess my Spirit is prejudiciall to yours your opinions as your Spirit is prejudicate to mine and thoughts Lastly whether your considerations be not as inconsiderate in the writer so inconsiderable to the Reader However you think so well of them that you go on to more of them when its time to have done with such selfish things and in the next place offer to me some of your considerations upon Act. 2.39 The which if I thought they were no more considerate nor considerable than your former I would consider a while upon it whether or no I should take them into consideration at all or pass by them as inconsiderable And such indeed they seem to be and upon the General view I find them so for in them all there are nothing but answers and solutions made to objections not set down Refutations and denyals of a sense before it be any where mentioned is not this Cart before the Horse which a Carter methinks should not do a consideration without consideration which a Consideratour I am sure should not do we had before your judgment setled out of Quaeres this is as bad your answers to no objections your refuting no Exposition of ours Well as all the way hitherto I have ordered your matters for you so I see I must do so still or else we shall make no work of it at least have no orderly proceeding in it First therefore let the sense of that Text be given and the argument drawn out of it for Infant Baptism which I will do for you and then after let the refutation of that sense and the Answers to that Argument be added or subjoyned the which you shall do for me Peter having preached here unto the Jess and laid to their charge the death and crucifying of Jesus Christ and brought them to some apprehension of their horrid sins at the 38 Verse exhorteth them to repent and be baptized into the Name of the same Jesus Christ and to accept him for their Messias the which he doth upon this reason and ground mentioned in the 39 Vers and drawn from the benefit that should redound not to the mselves onely but to their Children by their believing in Christ The which he proves from the Promise made to them and their Children In plainer and larger words thus it is God hath remembred his Covenant in sending that blessed Seed in whom he promised to be the God of Abraham and his Seed know ye therefore that as God made the Promise of Grace in Christ to come and to be exhibited unto Abraham upon his believing and took also his Children and Posterity into Covenant with him not onely the natural Jews but even amongst all Nations whoever became followers of Abraham's Faith should by vertue of the same inherit Abraham's Promise That he would be their God and the God of their Seed also which should also be taken into the same Covenant so now this blessed Seed in whom the Promise was founded being now come and exhibited would make it good to you all Jews and Gentiles who would believe in him and notwithstanding your cruel practises against him and your crucifying of him if you will believe in this Lord of life and your Messias you shall thereby be in as good or better condition under this last Administration for your selves and your children as in the former therefore deprive rot your selves by your impenitency and infidelity of so great a benefit as may come to your selves and Posterity for the Promise is made to you and your Children c. what Promise or the Promise of what for so I will clear the Text of some exceptions the Promise of the extraordinary Gifts of the Holy Ghost so say some of you that you may the better turn this off from Infants of Believers baptized It is true they are promised also in the Verse before and I acknowledge they were Appendants to the Primitive Baptismes of the adult and peculiar to the first times for the more abundant confirmation of their Faith as Act 10 11. who were converted to it from Paganism and
marriage of the Parents then why was not were not all the sons and daughters of Solomon Rehoboam Jeroboam Nadab and others of the kings of Israel and Judah saved seeing they were all lawfully married according to there their Laws and Customs and why are not drunkard drunkards swarers swearers and other prophane persons saved whyle while they so lived and so died seeing they are in our experience of tymes times the children of lawfull married people according to the laws of the land and why was Jeptah Jephthah saved seeing he was a bastard How now Sir is all the ado for this I looked for Grapes from your mouth and you bring forth wilde grapes I looked for judgement and behold oppression or a scab and for righteousness and behold a cry or a lye In a word I looked for an answer and behold more questions and nothing but questions and those nothing to the purpose for 1. whereas you said before Some will affirm that sanctification of holiness in children such as is the way to heaven and salvation is here spoken of do you affirm if you can of some that say or ever said that it came from the lawfulness of the marriage of the Parents Here you are like Don Quixot who imagined wind-mills in the air before him and ran a tilt at them so you set up images and imaginations in your way to question them thereby to keep your self in breath and your pen on paper 2. Suppose some had affirmed it that childrens sanctification of holiness for as long as I am about your work I shall use your words and when I have done that I shall leave there for I like them not cometh from the lawfulness of the marriage of their Parents doth or may then rationally or religiously follow thereupon such a question as Why then were not all the children of all married Parents in the Church for I pass by your great reading in the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel and Judah and their Genealogies so impertinent here and why not drunkards and swearers which are in your experience of times the children of lawfull married people you seem to be a man of great experience of times and a diligent observer of childrens births and their Parents marriages and are a fit man to be the Register of your Parish and to keep the Book why say you were they not all saved and why was Jephthah saved seeing he was a bastard and not the child of lawfully married Parents what a consequence or rather as I said before a non-sequence of a question is here from a supposition like unto this the qualification of coldness in the water cometh from the confluence of showers into the pond why then are not all the drops and handfuls fetched thence sweet and distilled Sanctification of holiness in the children cometh from the lawfull marriage of their Parents why then are not all their children and issues saved Sirs can you forbear smiling They say when one Almanack-maker looketh upon another they smile both to think how they delude simple people with their vain and false Prognostications certes when you Sectaries see one another you cannot but laugh out to remember how you deceive silly people with your irrational and inconsequent argumentations offer it now unto thy Governour thy God will he be pleased with thee and thy Question Why not all saved he will tell thee that thy and their destruction is from themselves but thy and their help or salvation is in me saith God not in or from any other Parent or not Parent married or not married lawfully or not lawfully you and they are saved by the free grace of God and not by the sanctification of holiness in the one or other Yea do you not answer your self why drunkards and swearers who were children of lawfull married Parents are not saved Why they so lived and so died drunkards and swearers how could they But what is all this to our business which is not of salvation but sanctification Here is another of your absurd and inconsequent questions sanctification of holiness in children if it come from the lawful marriage of the Parents why then are not all sanctified so you should have said would if you could have told how to keep to the Question then you might have answered your self or needed not have made such a question seeing even the wicked children born of lawful married Parents in the Church are in a way which I shall anon shew you sanctified and this their sanctification is a way also unto Heaven and Salvation and all those whom you name were in this way and I suppose you know I shall not need to tell you what fell out in the way that they were not all or any of them saved It is one of your grosse mistakes and Reasonings from every kinde of sanctification of holiness to conclude the salvation of souls when as to go no farther the unbeliever is here said to be sanctified in and by the believing and their children are said to be holy from whence who can infer their salvation these arguings are rattles for boyes to play with not Reasons for men to bring forth But what 's the business why Jephthah is here named It is confessed He was saved because the Scripture beareth witness of it in Heb. 11.32 and also that he was a bastard Judges 11.1 But seeing he was a bastard you ask why he was saved why to teach you that base birth is no obstacle to free Grace nor hindreth the salvation of any believer no more than lawful marriage of Parents so much talked of or rather as you should have spoken the legitimate birth of children doth further the salvation of an unbeliever But in the mean time this Example named by you and produced doth accuse you of inconsiderateness in your Consideration for we are both considering as you will have it of the sanctification of holiness in children whose Parents are one of them an Infidel or unbeliever and you come in with your Jephthah neither of whose Parents were unbelievers though sinful in that act and so its impertinent as not comming within the compasse of the Corinthians doubt and Quaere or the Apostles answer and Argument and so you are besides the Matter and out of the Cause and Case here questioned in all your Questions being nothing to the purpose But now lastly tell me one thing did you not once but a while ago hold the Apostles meaning here of childrens being holy to be noching else but a legitimation of their birth from Parents in lawful Wedlock or Matrimonial holiness or chastity which you also or yours make to be the very sanctification of the unbeliever to or by the believer How then can you and with what constancy can you now here argue against the sanctification of holiness in children as comming from the lawfulness of the marriage of the Parents who before make legitimation of their birth and nothing else to be their
Mothers armes and so might be lesser Children than these But the word in the original for little Children is the same in both Chapters the like also in Marke 10.13 and its acknow ledged by all that both in Mathew 19. and Marke 10. Little Children in age and stature are meant and besides such little Children in age and stature were fittest to be examples of Humility and Innocency the thing intended to the Apostles than either greater Children or grown men who many times are stubborn and harmfull And though in Verse 6. where they are said To beleeve in me little ones be mentioned without little Children it is to me an exegesis or further explication of the word Children that they were little ones and small oner though such as could come to Christ upon his calling of them which maketh no difference in point of the one or the others beleeving in him Lastly when Christ saith Who so shall receives one such little Child in my name receiveth me But who so shall offend one of these little ones c. The very Antithesis or opposition sheweth that he speaketh not of divers sorts of little Children but one and the same And so forewarneth in this 18th Chapter his Disciples that they should not be as he foresaw they would be in the 19th Chapter offensive unto suchdd little Children who were so notwithstanding But if this be not a Text evident enough for their Faith as I will not be contentious but subject my Spirit to the Spirit of the Prophets let another witnesse speak Acts 18.8 Crispus beleeved on the Lord with all his house If there was any Infant there or youngling as most likely it is said to beleeve Yet our Saviour Christs singling out of Children to be examples of Humility and Innocency his accepting of savor shewed to them as done to himself his prohibiting any offence to be done to them all in this 18th of Saint Matthew together with his checking and rebuking of his Disciples for forbidding them to be brought to him or to come to him his taking them up in his Armes laying his hands upon theâ— and blessing them Do not all these shew a great deal of Complacency that Christ had and took in them and that these little Children pleased him very well and therefore sure were not unbeleevers For without faith it is impossible to please God Heb. 11.6 Besides that he pronounceth that of such also little Infants in age and stature is the Kingdom of God but the Kingdom of God is not of unbeleevers Sure some of these little Children nay more some of our little Infants dying before they are baptised are saved and received of God into his Kingdom whither no unbeleever nor unclean can come or enter Lastly I read of two Examples one in the old Testament of Jeremy 1.5 Of whom the Lord saith Before thou camest out of the VVomb I sanctified thee and I ordained thee a prophet Another in the new of John the Baptist who being but a Babe in the Womb of Elizabeth leaped for joy of the approach of Christ then also in the Womb of the Virgin which joy thereof was an act of the Spirit in him Add hereto Jacobs holding of Esau by the heel which the Prophet Hos 12.3 interpreteth to be a kind of striving with him for the Grace and Blessing We cannot think these in the Womb were in Christ and so sanctified one way and when they came to years of understanding by another way If Chidlren of Beleevers may thus have the Spirit of Grace and Faith and that before the Seal of the Covenant then they are not unbeleevers but beleevers Howsoever there are some things extraordinary in these two examples yet I have shewed that the Spirit of God is an internal ordinary Agent and means in the Church of God and as to the Infantile nature and condition which from the two former examples appears to be capable of it doth where it pleaseth infuse Faith and other Graces as before Humility Meeknesse Innocency Patience whereof little Chnildren were also set for examples by our Saviour Christ I do not say that any Infants now have the Spirit and Graces of the same in so ample and large a measure as those above named as who were sanctified and consecrated in a more speciall degree for a more speciall work nor do I say that all Infants now under Covenant have the Spirit and this Grace of Faith and other but that they who are the Elect of God and ordained to eternal life of which there are many have Faith and the Spirit so far forth as is sufficient for their Salvation Acts 13.48 But I will fall upon this poynt more closely and if as I have in part already out of the Texts all ged I can evince this of Infants-Faith I mean and so must you of Infants in speciality or in kind some of them such as he purposeth to save and not of Infants individually and in particular every one Infants Baptism must needs be also evinced As Paul saith to Agrippa about the Resurrection of the dead so may I to you Why should it be thought a thing Incredulous with you that God should give Faith unto Christian Infants They have knowledge and other Faculties of the Mind and the Soul and why may not they have supernatural Grace and so some seeds of the habit of Faith according to their modell and measure for the apprehending of Christ and so Faith it self in a kind and in a like kind unto that is in grown persons Faith wheresoever is alike and but one in kind the which how small soever sufficeth to Salvation What doth the weakness of the Organ of Body or Soul make it impossible for God to work supernaturally even in the little Children at least so much illumination of the Mind more than is ordinary for that age as may be fit to receive the Grace of Christ I shall tell you more Sir than I beleeve you know and I know you will beleeve Such Infants whom deceasing God taketh up into heaven for of such also is the Kingdom of Heaven as Christ said he filleth in a moment and at an instant with an inundation of knowledge and understanding of Christ for they come to sight and vision of him more than you and I have nay more than all the Prophets and Apostles had whilest they lived upon earth And now cannot the same God immediatly before sprinkle their Souls with one jot of the knowledge of Christ or one grain of Faith though but as Mustard-seed and make them to touch Christ though but with the Tip or Fingers and of that hand of the soul which is Faith whom they shall immediately have the full fruition of like as many as touched the Hem of his Garment were made perfectly whole But I remember me you must have plain direct Scriptures for this point one you have had and so you shall have more Scriptures out of which it may be