righteousness as well as of that eminent prerogative the Fatherhood of the faithful which God gave him upon that great faith Circumcision was given him as a seal in such a sence as t was never given to his seed a Seal I said for it was a sign only but no seal to his posteritie to honor the greatness not to strengthen the weakness of his faith i. e. to confirm him that was so great a believer even beyond hope n that honorable title which God put upon him therfore I told you it runs thus viz. he received the sign circumcision i. e. circumcision which in its ordinary use was a sign a seal to him in this special sense i. e. as a seal of the righteousness of that eminent faith which he had that he might be i. e. to that very end and purpose as to ratifie him in that royal title The father of all that believe to this purpose I then spake shewing withall that in the same sense in which the father is said to seal the sonne Iohn 6.27 to be the giver of that meat that endures to eternall life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 him hath the father sealed i. e. authorized to that business honoured with that office and as Pharoah honoured Ioseph with the sole Dispensation of all the Corn and Government of his Kingdome and as Kings under the Broad seal do seal men to i. e. honour them with and settle them in great Places Trusts and Titles c. in such a sense is God in that place said to give Circumcision to Abraham whereby to seal him up and settle him for ever in that glorious title viz. the father of all that believe in which sense Circumcision though a sign of some things in common to him with his posterity was never given to any one of Abrahams posterity at all this as it is clearly held forth in that place so was so clearly held forth to you from that place of your own naming at that very time that as I wondered you could be ignorant of it then so I much more admire that you are not ashamed to bewray such dissembling in the recording of it as you do and such wretched ignorance of it still besides I know not whether I instanc'd then in any other but I am sure as shy as you seem to be of it there were divers more promises made and priviledges made over to Abraham under the great Seal Circumcision which were neither made nor given much less confirmed by Circumcision as a seal thereof to all his posterity viz. that his seed should inherit Canaan this though it was made and made good to Abraham and that seed of his to whom it was promised yet not to the seed of all his seed for many of his posterity as Ishmael who was circumcised and his children by Keturah also and their whole race had none of all this seal'd to them by Circumcision Again that Christ should come out of his loyns that in his seed all Nations should be blessed these were made to Abraham and were as the rest also great Priviledges to the honour of which he was sealed yet though 't was signified to all his seed by Circumcision that Christ should come of him after the flesh all of them had not that previledge by promise that Christ should come of them after the flesh by all which it undeniably appears that the same Covenant of Circumcision in every of those respects in which Circumcision was given him as a seal of it was not given to all the Iews and their children and that fore-named place speaks of Circumcision onely in reference to Abrahams person and in that sense and respect in which it was given to him only as a Seal of his faith i. e. that strong faith he acted and gave glory to God by Rom. 4.20 for which God also gave that great glory and dignity to him viz. the father-hood of the faithfull All which notwithstanding and much to the same effect that was uttered then to shew that Circumcision had more ends and relations to Abrahams Person then to the Persons of his seed yea and though your own paper which lastly I appeal to doth testifie that I I multiplied words that is to say spake much about other ends of Circumcision to Abraham then to his seed yet you both be-lie me and give the lie to your selves so far as to say I was extreamly foundered which to say and yet to say in the very same line that I multiplied words about other ends of Circumcision the very point your selves had urg'd me to speak to if it be not at once to say and unsay then verily I know not what is for these two are contradictory to each other but perhaps you think to salve all with this that being call'd to speak punctually to that end viz. whether Circumcision were a seal of the righteousness of faith to Abrahams posterity at all or not or if not to shew it I answered nothing to that particular that carried any sense or reason in it but really Sirs I said no less to that very end but rather much more then I have said a little above which whether it have any sense or reason in 't or no yet was it both sensless and reasonless in you however to leave it wholly out and you had dealt far more ingenuously and judiciously in your own Account and in every rationall mans also had you set down what I answered and so put your Reader into a capacity of discerning whether it were to the purpose yea or no but that its like you were very loath to do least as nothing as it was to your purpose it should have been more serviceable then you desire it to be to ours As for that ingagement whereby how wisely a fool may see you bound your selves to become Anabaptists in case I made discovery of what I did abundantly discover I freely dis-engage you from that double performance and shall accept much more of your single submission to that ordinance it being no matter of rejoicing to to me to see any man translated from A-no-baptist to be an Anabaptist for that is from one extream to another Report Next you relate p. 5. that I said I did not deny but that little children might have the holy Ghost and these texts of Scripture viz. Mar. 10.14 Mat. 19.14 Luke 18.16 2. Cor. 13.5 did seem to intimate as much but that it could not be made appear that they had it to the making of them subjects of baptism Reply To this which is another flat falsity and counterfeit resemblrnce I reply thus first that little children might have the holy spirit if God please extraordinarily to infuse it I might then possibly not deny nor dare I yet deny but that possibly they may but it 's more then God hath manifested if they have to either us or you nor will this grant either prove the propriety of your Position who down-rightly
was as to his coming thither by accident so he did too i. e. unappointed and unsent for in which sense I 'm sure some of you came not by accident but as specially bespoke in the name of a great Patron of your Party both to be there and undertake the business and appointed if not primarily yet secondarily or upon their refusal for whom some too confidently undertook they should undertake it who yet say of your selves page 3. you were not the men appointed to undertake it if by accident you mean thus as well you may for a man may come by accident enough to a place though he doth not drop out o th' clouds or slide down thither from the moon that worthy friend and beloved Brother under which name I the rather own him here because I had a letter from a prime one of your Party that speaks somewhat scoffingly of that compellation and besides though with Dr. Featly and his faction he is one of the Clergy of Laicks and an Apron Levite yet as his name is Temple-man so I take him to be a better Church-man then many a one who for not troubling his people with too much truth goes under the Denomination of a good one this man I dare say as far as he said he came by accident so farre he came by accident as he said and this proves your hearsay for its like so you had what you here say to be Heresie if an erring from the truth may as I know not why not be so stiled in civill matters as well as spirituall And this conducts me to another figment wherein you father as false a thing upon my self as any of those you seigned of me before which is at the bottom of that discourse which you record as passing between your selves and him concerning justification of Dying infants whether it be by faith or without it in which discourse though the folly of your opinion in that point and truth of his which is also mine namely that dying Infants are justified without faith I shall shew in due time and place yet I cannot but take notice by the way before I speak of that which more concerns my self of some Legerdemain and illogicall dealings of yours with him Report Reporting him asserting thus viz that there may be justification which is not by faith you report your selves replying thus page 9 that it is the grossest piece of Popery to hold justification by works and not by faith onely and the greatest controversie between them and Protestants Reply What shameful Sophistry have you shewn here in foisting in a foolish phrase and term that was neither used nor touched on by him in any of his fore-going speeches nor yet in that which your reply most immediately relates to viz. Iustification by works whereas you know well enough even as well as he and I and the rest that were there for your wits could not be so far gone a wool-gathering as to need Hellebor here that he neither spake nor meant of Iustification by works whether without faith or with it but of the Iustification of Infants without either faith or works neither of which as your selves confess they are in infancy capable to act although you say but if a man will not believe you he may chuse for there 's neither Scripture sense nor reason for it they have the habit this I say again you know to be the sence of such as you call Anabaptists witness your selves in two places viz. p. 8. where you give account of our opinion thus viz That way of the presentment of the righteousness of Christ without faith is a figment of the Anabaptists also p. 15. thus the adversaries are put to their shifts to find out a new way for the salvation of infants dying in their minority viz. the presentment of the satisfaction of Christ without faith in both which places you give the world to understand that you know our opinion to be that infants are justified by neither works nor faith which is a work but if at all by that which your selves hold is the material cause of the justification of men that act faith and of whom they being capable to act faith it is required as instrumentall viz. the righteousness of Christ secondly you know that this opinion is farther off and more flatly contradictory to that Popery that holds Iustification by works then yours can possibly be found to be for the very Iesuits may have some colour for saying that you say the same with them whilst their Tenet is justification by works yours by faith which say they and truely too is a work theirs by faith and works concurrent yours by faith that hath works concomitant and necessarily consequent thereunto between which two doctrines neither of which need be so much condemned each by other for ought I find as they are provided that all merit on our part be cashiered for there Rome errs besides us all for you will find them both true in the end viz. that both are instrumentally subservient and not either of them alone to the justification of not Infants but men and women of whom both as well as one are required in order unto life beâ—ween which two I say there 's not so vast a difference as you deem there is much less so great as is between these viz. Iustification by works and faith both which is that of the Papists and Iustification without either faith or works which is that of ours when we speak of justification with reference to infants only for between these there 's not the least colour of coincidence yet this was that justification that Inquirer spake of viz. of Infants by Christ without faith or any other work either which you know is no part of Popery yet first you reply besides the business which he spake to and define it gross Popery to hold justification by works as if he had held it yea secondly which is worse and down-rightly injurious you are not ashamed to tell-tale him to the world in the words below that he fell into this popery and that for asserting of a Iustification of Infants so farr as they need any neither by faith nor works but Christ without either so much as instrumentall on their part then which you see nothing more fully contradicts it if ye were blind indeed you had not sin'd so much in this but sure you cannot but see how you shuffle therefore without repentance your sin remaineth Another thing I take notice of by the way as I travel toward that fiction I mention above as referring to my self is this Report That when the quere was put to you by the inquirer as you call him what need infants have of being justifyed at all since they have no original sin which whether it were put for satisfaction in the thing or meerly to hear how readily you would resolve it I cannot say you bring in one of the Ministers in the name of the rest
the principle of reason and facultie of understanding in infants the faculty of understanding is an innate habit necessarily to be concluded and that in the highest degree to be in all infants t is in omni per se quâ ipsum but faith in Christ is by your own confession but an infused habit and by your own confession as not in all infants so in you know not which and which not till you see them act it and yet by your own conclusion to go round again t is in such not in such viz. not at all in Turks and Pagans infants for they are all in a damnable condition with you but in all infants of Christians even such as yet give no specimen of it and that so necessarily that a man may as truly deny that which is naturall to them even the faculty of understanding as deny the habit of faith to be in them Next in order to a fuller and more direct answer you prepare the way by a pannel of six or seven positions which you say you must necessarily hold concerning two or three of which we may say it s no great matter whether you hold them or no for any undoubted and infallible truth that is to be found in them in the sense wherein you take them or at least for any great matter of assistance that acrues to your cause by them and as for the rest of which you say you must necessarily hold them you might have said rather you must necessarily yield them to us for indeed they are the giving up of your cause and no other then the drawing of a dash with your own pen over all that ever you say throughout the residue of your works as concerning that sufficient appearance of faith you assert to be in believers infants yea he is blind that doth not see you thereby perfectly blotting out again what ever you penned in that particular with your own hands First say you the habit of faith must be before it can work I know no necessity of holding this for truth neither indeed would you hold it but that you imagine faith to be another kind of habit then it is for there are more kinds of habits then one though you speak of habit by the lump all along as if you were aware of but one for here 's ore and ore again habit habit habit habit habit but not the least hint of what kind of habit you mean you are never the men that distinguish of habits whereas qui bene distinguit bene docet there being some habits acquired and obtained no otherwise then by acting and faith it self is such a habit as will hardly be proved for all your confidence in the contrary to be any other at least to be apparent in any one or visible to the view of others till some act thereof hath past the persons in whom it is neither is any one in the world that I know of habitually a believer in Christ till having heard of him or his word he doth actually believe Secondly whereas you say the spirit of God infuses this habit I grant he infuses it if you take the word infuse in a true sense i. e. for begetting it in persons by the preaching of the word other infusion of faith if yet that may be properly called infusion which is a phrase rather of your own coining in this case the word knows none God indeed gives it but he gives it in the way of hearing the word of faith in the way of hearing Christ preached in which way he never gave it to infants neither is it his gift to them in any other the spirit works it but not without the use of means not per saltum and in nictu oculi i. e. so suddenly as you fancy but by the discharge of that office he bears from the father to that end and purpose towards the whole world i. e. moving striving perswading inwardly whilest the word doth without inlightning convincing a man of sin in himself of righteousness to be had and of a judgement to come wherein we shall be saved or damned according as we believe or believe not accept or neglect so great salvation upon which motions and convictions which are â—tricter and stronger in some then in other some some yield and believe and obey the Gospel and some for all this rebel and obey not so that t is true the spirit thus effects the business within us yet not so as that he is said wholly to do it without us he is the supreme efficient the operative cause of it but we are to be concurrent cum causà operante we have a part to do as well as he when he hath done his part towards us i. e. to believe which if we do not he will not force us he will go no further nor shall he be blamed but we and we not onely blamed but damnd for not doing it accordingly but if we do believe and turn at his reproof then indeed there is a promise of an infusion or rather effusion of the spirit in other i. e. those more special and peculiar offices of a witnesse to our spirits that we are Gods children a seal a comforter a revealer of the things freely given us of God a supporter under suffering c. all which it performes towards the Saints and in â—espect of which onely its called the holy spirit of promise Eph. 1.13 in this manner the spirit of God in order to that sweet infusion of it self into us may be said if you will call it infusion for which a fitter word may be found to infâ—se i. e. to work faith other infuâ—ion of faith into men much lesse into iâ—fants or such a downright infusion as I suppose you dream on the Scripture makes no mention of at all Thirdly in that you say he is not bound to work it in all the children of Christian parents nor barred from working it in any of the children of infideâ—â— this indeed you must necessarily hold as you say for t is undeniable truth but in holding it you must wholly let go all you held before concerning believes infants appearing to have faith and that in contradistinction to the infants of unbelievers for first you use to say as p. 14. out of Act. 2. that the promise of it is to believers and their seed i. e. as believers seed and so consequently to all and onely their seed not the seed of unbelievers for quod convenit qua ipsum convenit omâ—â— soli semper belongs alwayes to all of one sort and not any man of another and thereby you use to bind the spirit unlesse he will bee unfaithfull to work faith as without which you think he cannot give them salvation in all the seed of believers for a promise that is made to such or such a seed qua si must needs be sure as the Scripture saith Romans 4.16 and made good or else God that cannot lie breaketh his word to
that total dipping was not the way of the primitive baptism viz. because the conversion of disciples and so consequently their baptism hapned sometimes to be when there was no season for dipping the element of water being over cold for that service he speaks thus in way of answer to an objection viz. if any object that in those Hotter Countryes there was no danger in the coldest times I answer saith he The Commission being for all nations disciples were made in all Countries how soon came the word to this nation c. In which words he is void of common sense that doth not discern Mr. Blake siding with us saying that the way of baptism should be one in all ages and places and asserting quite contrary to his fellow disputers against dipping so far as to confute them to our hands for whereas they all uno ore with one consent cry out that the reason why they baptized by dipping in the primitive time was because Judea and the regions round about were Hot Countryes but England is a colder climate and therefore we need not baptize the same way as they dâ—d he tells them plainly that the heat of those Countries could be no reason why they should use totall dipping then more then other nations because the commission for baptizing was one and the same to all Nations and disciples were then made in all Countryes as well as in Iudea in cold Countries as well as in hot yea how soon saies he came the word to England it self baptism therefore in his account should be the same in England as in Iudea not by dipping in Iudea more then in England because that was a hot Country and this a colder but the commission is a like in all places cold and hot this is the sense those words of his sound forth but if Mr. Blake were silent in this case the Scripture speaks loud enough that there is but one baptism for all Nations and no Rantism ordained for any for then the commission must include Christs willingnesse to dispense with colder climates in this point and in our understandings at least run thus viz. go and teach all nations baptizing them that live in hotter countryes and rantizing them that live in colder climates he that believeth and is baptized if he live in Iudea or any Hoter Countrey or is but rantized if he live in England or any cold Countrey shall be saved in which silly unsound sense to understand those Scriptures is to be silly indeed and without either sense or understanding and yet thus it may be understood if this be the reason why they in Iudea must be dipt and we in England must be no more then sprinkled for fear of danger viz. because Iudea was a warm Countrey and England a cold one for either Christ did ordain the thing to be done in this different manner in different regions or he did not if he did then it must be first some way or other intimated in the commission but there it is not and secondly it must be done accordingly in this different manner in the execution or else they are high transgressors that do but rantize in Iudaea and they high transgressors and so Mr. Blake and Mr. Cook say they are with a witnesse but will never prove it that baptize by total dipping in England but if he did not ordain it to be done in such several waies in several Regions according as they are hotter or colder but in one way only in all places then that one way is by baptizing i. e. dipping onely or else by rantizing onely and if by baptizing onely then they are high undertakers that take upon them to correct Christs commission saying t is better and safer to rantize only in some places if by rantizing onely then non tutum est ludere cum saâ—ris they were vain persons that made a Maygame and matter of pleasure of the ordinances of Christ that in Iudaea and the hotter Countreys would chuse to be baptized for delight and coolnesse sake by totall dipping and bathing in water rather then otherwise when Christ ordained no more then sprinkling or infusion Secondly Sirs you grant so much as to say possibly probably it might be done by dipping in Iudaea and the Hot Regions round about but may not be in these colder pray tell me from the bottom of your consciences without stifling them or shuffling with them so as not to suffer them to speak what constructions must be made of those Scriptures which we have canvast to and fro which relate the manner of their baptizings that then were viz. Matth. 3.16 Mark 1.9.10 Act. 8.38 where it is said of the people and Christ that they were baptized in Iordan into Iordan went down into the water and came up out of the water yea were buried with Christ in baptism Rom. 6. Collo 2. yea and of all the other Scriptures that tell us of the baptism that was dispensed in those Hot Countries as Iohn 3.23 Act. 16.13.14.15.33 where it is said Iohn baptized in Aenon because there was much water and Paul went out to a Rivers side and spake the word at which time Lidya and hers were baptized and a while after the Jaylor and his tell me I say what construction all these and all the Scriptures that talk of baptism as dispensed in those Hot Countryes must consequently bear if it be once granted that such total dipping was the manner of baptizing in the primitive times in those Hotter Countreys must they not then needs have the senses we put upon them viz. that Christ and the rest did really descend into the water were buried under the water and raised again and not those forced senses into which you would rest them to your own ends viz. that they went but to the water and there were wetted onely by sprinkling or pouring and from the water again without going into it or being dipped in it if you give us one for granted viz. that in Iudaea and those Hot Countreyes as Rome Phillippi and Collosse the manner of baptizing was by going down into the water and being dipped therein in this Sacramental washing you must necessarily give up also all the interest that you claim in those Scriptures for sprinkling they being no other then the relation of what baptism was done in Iudea and those Hot Coun-Countreys and not what was done in cold if then it be supposed that baptism by submersion and not aspersion was the custome in the Scripture times it must semblably be supposed that the Scriptures themselves that story out the baptism of those times do speak of that Manner of baptism that then was and not of another unlesse we suppose it must be interpreted as speaking of another thing then that it only speaks of and so consequently this Scripture this Testament must be supposed to be wholly on our sides and to speak only of mens baptism by submersion and you must suppose out some New Testament of
impartiall per-users of our Relations Report First you assert page 3. and that point blank that I confessed that at three or four years old many began to be instructed in Principles of Religion and that at that age they might be baptized but afterwards that proof being offered that infants of a day old were as capable of baptism I would have recalled it Reply Sirs why hath Satan filled your hearts to ly thus against the truth and by filching out of the waie purposelie as may be supposed what was of most moment to the making out of my true meaning to wrest and represent my expressions and intentions in them as croslie and contradictorily to what they were intended as yea and nay are one unto the other that children at three or four years old as your selves then affirmed may be instructed I granted and do still acknowledge with you but that I said at that age they might be baptized upon that account of bare instruction unless apparently effectual to their true conversiâ—◠〈◊〉 the faith so that by Profession they give good ground to our consciences to believe that they believe I here disclaim it as either a mis-conception or rather a meer conception and birth of your own brains and profess it in the sight of God and all men to be that which in the sence you here insert it in came not so much as into my mind much less out of my mouth at that time and though I find you so un-ingenuous in your dealing that I wonder how you can wish me to deal ingenouusly with you as you do yet can I not conceive you to be so unjudicious as to conceive I confest as you have here accounted since my speech to all that were not dull of understanding was most plain to a very contrary purpose and tended to shew the utter unwarrantableness of baptizing at any age at all whether in Non-age Middle-age or Old-age unless it be found in the way of Faith and therefore of baptizing anie Infants in respect not only of their incapacitie to believe but much more to make profession of belief I shall therefore give you and the world too wherebie yours must needs appear to be a juggle a more true Account of the Dilation that was then between us on this wise it was I confess I granted for 't is the verie truth though not of a straws weight to your purpose that by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mat. 18.3 was meant children in Non-age to which Christ saies his Disciples must be like although bie the phrase v. 6. viz. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I asserted then and see no occasion of saying otherwise to this hour that he means his Disciples whom he likens to the other and not little ones in age and bodily Stature in proof of which I referr'd you to Mat. 10.42 where under the self same greek phraise viz. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he expresses no other than his Disciples there being no little child then among them of which he could be imagined to speak moreover I shewing how that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 did properly signifie not such an Infant as you sprinkle which cannot speak called infans quasi non fans but a child capable at least to be instructed and so you are to seek still for Infant-baptism 't was bolted out bie you that at three or four years old many began to be instructed even in principles of Religion and that then at least they might be baptized whereupon I replyed that 't was neither this nor that age old or young gave right yea that no age could make a fit subject for Baptism but that wherein a person is apparently instructed to conversion and that when so instructed they were to be baptized whether old or young so that if you could so effectually instruct children at three or four years of age as to bring them to make such profession of faith as I could not but judge to proceed from the reality thereof within I could then for my part baptize them yet I thought it was a thing very seldome if ever at all visibly effected to this effect and much what in iisdem terminis did I then deliver my self yet so willingly were you mistaken in my meaning as downrightly to set me out for such a Childish Novice as met you before thousands to maintain the unlawfulnes of Childrens Baptism and held a Discourse of 6 hours to that end and yet confest the lawfulness of it so soon as ever we had well begun but Sirs suppose I had confessed as I did not that children of three or four years old because capable at that age to be instructed might without respect to the begetting of faith in them by that instruction even then and thereupon only be baptized yet will you not at last be ashamed think you of that ignorant assertion of yours namely that infants of a day old are as capable of baptism as they for grant it should be granted you as it is not that bare instruction without any success thereof to conversion is a good ground to baptize persons on at three or four years of age yet is it a ground whereupon to baptize Infants of a day old that are not capable of so much as that bare instruction a man may in much wisedom and some hopes if not of present yet of future conversion thereby begin to indoctrinate his children at three or four years old and instill the principles of truth into them as preparative to their obeying it hereafter and also to baptism it self in due time yet I judge him as very a Child as his Child that goes about to instruct and baptize it so soon as t is born yet after your own assertion by which you would make men believe I asserted that children of three or four years old are capable of instruction and consequently of baptism so young you second it with another more absurd and false than the former namely that children of a day old are as capable of it as they Say you so Sirs are infants of a day old capable of Baptism that cannot so much as be instructed in principles much less be begotten to the true Religion or if you say you hold not their right to baptism from a capableness of instruction from which you plead the other but upon other grounds upon what grounds I beseech you Sirs upon what grounds as you offered to shew them then so shew them now if you can for none of the Arguments in your Account can possibly prove such a thing What Infants of a day old I 'le saie it again that you may consider it for sure you did not consider what you said when you said it what children of day old fie for shame Sirs had you said infants of eight daies old it might have held some proportion with that grand ground you go upon viz. the Analogy between Baptism and Circumcision but this opinion doth
I saw such conjuring such sensles scar-crows such reasonles referrings such rigid refusings such crooked constructions ready to be made by the Ministers of mens words as Commotions when very parishioners who pay Peter-pence both to the Presbyter and the place onely pleaded their Priviledge to be there without his leave such Emulous observations of the Ministers how great or little my interest was in the people such desires of me to dissolve the Congration rather then resolve them by an exercise about the truth of baptism by the bonds of Charity as if they were to bind us from other duty by the candor and sobriety of a Christian as if this lay chiefly in forbearing to publish the Gospel of Gods grace to the sons of men for fear of displeasing by the ingenuity of a Scholar which makes many a one forget his integrity as a Minister such a sense as profest hostility to them likely to be put upon it by the Ministers if I refused to go out with them or taried there to do service to God such fearful foresights of great disgrace likely to light upon their meeting and dangers of I know not what unless of the downfal of their way which the Ministers had more then all others if the Auditory were not dismist without a Sermon such hydeous apprehensions as they had and direful representations as they made to the people of Chymaera's non entities things that neither were nor were like to be and of they knew not what inconveniency would follow such chargings of all lastly upon my self if I offered to preach there to the people when I saw I say such horrible affrightments at it and such abominable deal of do made by Ministers against so harmless a motion as a Ministers preaching in one of their publick places to hundreds that were then ready to hear him who also would have spoken nothing but the truth or else have given them all or as many of them as would have staid free liberty to rectifie him if he had not I was so ashamed to see it that for very shame I was perswaded to express that love which I truly bear to their persons though I contest with their corruptions so farre as in a loving manner to walk out with them and rather then offend them further then needs must to perform that service to the truth without dores which with their leave might as well have been done within Report You relate that one of you then spake to me as followeth that I would seriously consider into what a dangerous Error I was fallen Reply Aliàs a Dangerous truth that will danger the undoing of you one way or other and that whether you imbrace it or no for if you do it will spoil you here and strip you stark naked of much of your earthly excellencies and enjoyments and expose you to such ridiculosity as to be owls and fooles among the rest of your Cloth that imbrace it not for though if you deny your selves follow Christ and suffer with him here you shall reign with him hereafter and yours shall be that Kingdom of heaven yet you will lose your Kingdom here on earth but if you imbrace it not specially when spoken to your consciences it will judge you at the last day and be your condemnation for ever Report And not onely so but that I was the cause of the fall of many others Reply And of the fall of many more may I be if it be the will of God if they fall no further then from the Scribes to the Scriptures but if they fall away from that truth we walk in after they have known and own'd it as t was foretold many should do and too many accordingly now do separating themselves from the true Congregations of Christ since their separation from the false sensuall having not the spirit that fall will be on their own score and not on mine Report That I would saddly remember what Saint Austen saith of Arrius that his pains are multiplyed in Hell as often as any one departs into his Heresie Reply A sadd thing indeed and seriously to be laid to heart by you and me as not onely Professors but Promotors also to our power of different waies whereof one only can be the truth for the danger will ly on their side that hold the Heresie and hold it up and not at all on the others Report That I would consider what arguments had been used and how unsatisfactory my Answers were Reply So I have done o're and o're again already since you urg'd them and upon occasion of your impression of them am concerned to consider them more closely yet then ever and having now well-nigh finisht this animadversion of your Account 't is the very thing I am to go upon by and by and what ere my answers were then it matters not if they were too short then for want of time and liberty from you to utter them I shall take liberty to speak the more home to your matter now Report That I would not resist the spirit of God Reply But I am to try the Spirits whether they be of God or no a thing which you are not yet too much guilty of unless it be of neglecting it or else I may resist him unawares if after-triall and experience of him I with stiff neck resist his strivings with me to own the truth he manifests to me and leads me to as I know when I was ready to do even when he began to enlighten me first in that part of Christs will he here holds out to your selves and as they did who stoned Stephen in malice when they could not resist with clearer light the spirit by which he spake to them it is hazzardable whether I shall have forgiveness or no in this world or that to come or you either if this as God forbid it should ever prove to be your case Report That I would remember that though in this unsettled and distracted Church I did not fear being called to any Account for my doctrines yet I must appear before the dreadful judgement seat of Christ who is the patron of Paedo-baptism praying God to give me a right understanding you took your leave and departed Reply Though your Church cannot call me to an Account at all if it be a Church of Christ indeed I being none of it the Church judging such only as are within her and not those without yet I shall be willing to give it to the utmost in the stricktest way wherein your Church could as a Church expect it of me or bring me to it if I were a member of it which way is not haling to prison hanging and burning the wonted way of your Churches dealing with falsly supposed Hereticks and should that be the way I should I trust in God submit to give Account in 't rather then deny the truth but it is demanding a reason of mens different faith and as they find it unsound admonishing
reproving and in case of non-amendment rejecting disowning but if your Church and its Ministery be like each other I find not your Church so forward to call us to this Account of our faith for you her Ministery do utterly refuse to accept when we offer it how often have we been an hundred times more ready to give reasons of our way then you Church-men whom she trusts are to receive them but if we durst not give Account to Christ for what we do we durst not give Account for it to your selves Assure him to our consciences to be what you here assert him to be viz. the Patron of Paedo-baptism but this from Mar. 10. nor act 2. nor 1. Cor. 10. nor from any other portion of his Testament nor from his patronizing Paedo-circumcision you cannot much less can you of Paedo-rantism which is your way and then we are so sensible of our future appearance before his Iudgement Seat and have gain'd so much self denial for his sake since we practised Pisto-baptism that we shall as readily lay it down I hope as we took it up Report After the Ministers were retired diverse Gentlemen and others who had been present at the Disputation thanked the Ministers expressed the satisfaction they had received assuring them that many were confirmed by their means and the resolution of the Ministers who were Auditors was that they would faithfully in their several congregations declare their sence of it and oppose the growth of Anabaptism in their respective flocks Reply Here followes the Story of what event and success your meeting had among your selves and you great friends after you were hous'd of its powerfull influence upon you Ministers and your Maecenasses when you met together at your Randezvous which was on this wise you had their gratulatorie expressions of their own satisfactions and assurances of many ones confirmation by your means and this reciprocally raised you Ministers into joint incouragements ingagements and resolutions to declare your sense of this happy efficacy and acceptation your indeavors had among them and to stickle more stifly then ever against Anabaptism in your respective flocks where you usually winne all because you plaie with none there but your selves and that you do with such earnestness and zeal that for fear men should come to Anabaptism i. e. a second Baptism you stave them off at a distance and what in you lies forbid them to own a first thus while they doted on your Doo-little Disputation and plaistered it ore with their applause you in requital agreed to new White-lime and daub ore their Babylonish Idol baby-sprinkling with your untempered Morter Sirs I half wonder at one thing for which whether more happâ—ly or unhappily it befalls you I wot not yet I however rather more pitty then envy you viz. that who ere carries the thing yet you still carry the thank and who e're is at loss in your holy warres against us Hereticks yet your selves take upon you still to be Triumphant you give the satisfactions the confirmations for which you have gratulations from the great ones as if the good issue of things did run only and alway on your side I find it so in all verball Accounts and also in those printed Accounts that are extant of your doings and disputations with them of this way called Anabaptism viz. Dr Featly's Account of his Disputation with them in South-wark and this of your own also with us at Ashford and another of Mr Baxters with Mr Tombes at Bewdley pend all as is supposed by the Opponents themselves who whip them if they have not more wit and less grace then to disgrace themselves too much whilst they continue Clergy-men And now I name Dr. Featly the man whom in the next page you turn us over to for more furniture in this point I cannot but note by the way how finely you Featlifie throughout your whole Account as well as here as if there were a certain Transmigration of Dr. Featly's spirit into that person that was the inditer of your Account for as most of the Arguments are found in not to say fetcht and filcht out of Featly's fardell so how many things in yours are after the very Image of his Account as if one had been the plat-form of the other Dr. Featly pens and prints forth his disputation under the title of a True Relation of what passed and how properly I appeal to all men so do you Dr. Featly saies it was the clamors of the Adversaries awakn'd his or else it had slept securely by him in a whole skin so say you the disgraces the Adversaries loaded your disputation with rakt it out of those ashes in which else it was designed to be smothred Dr. Featly be-Asses us Anabaptists and so do you both us and your selves too as is shew'd above Dr. Featly makes as if none of that sect ever troubl'd him any more after that so ye that after your handling of the enquirer none did propound any more questions as if you had stopt the mouths of all Dr. Featly relates that the dippers were dipt and plung'd ore head and ears in disputation with him so you that your Respondent was extremely foundred answer'd nothing in the least measure satisfactory or that caâ—ried any shew of sense or reason to the purpose Dr. Featly relates the issue of his as to himself to be great thanks so ye how you were thank'd and as you from divers Gentlemen so he from the Knights Ladies and Gentlemen of which rank few stoop so low as to the plainness of the Gospel but neither of you from the poor of this World that are rich in faith and heirs of that Kingdome which God hath promised to them that love him into which few Knights Ladies and Gentlemen except more of them repent believe and obey the Gospel then mostly do shall ever enter thus you flaunt it over the little flock over this sect which is every where spoken against as baffled non plust worsted by you still but Sirs we can give loosers leave to talk you tell of gratulations satisfactions confirmations of people in your wayes by your means but how comes it to pass that there are so many Churches the true Church i. â— those you call Anabaptists may say in her heart after her long widow-hood as Isa. 49.21 who hath begotten me these seeing I have lost my children and who hath brought up these behold I was left alone these where have they been thy people crumble from thee apace O PPPriest for all thy satisfactions and are captivated some more to Christ and some more to the Devill then ever before while they served thee thy Divinity O Divine is as the blood of a dead man it hath no life in 't thy Common stock and store of Religion thou hast treasur'd up to thy self out of this Author and that out of Harmonies of Confessions Councels c. grows stale and begins to stink before the Scriptures in a word gray-hairs
conference and a confused croud of disputation it had had much more to boast of then it hath Pre. The Scandals that have since been cast upon it were expected c. Post. And well they might unless you reckoned without your Host if you scand the Scantines of the provision you made both for your credit and the proof of your practise but what Scandalls I trow were cast upon your Disputation here 's a great talk of Disgraces Scandals Injuries that its under as from us but unless summum jus be summa injuria we righted it rather a little too much in reckoning on it as more then it is worth or at least not setting so slightly by it as well we might But t is as usual a fashion among you Clergy men to count your selves scandaliz'd disparaged disgrac'd vilified undervalued c when you are but either found out in your falsehoods or slandered of a matter of truth as t is for you under one vile name or other to scandalize the Saints most falsly and slander the truth it self yet if your repute be at reparations more then justly through our occasion when we know it we shall make you satisfaction by submission and amends by amendment mean while have patience with us and in due time and Christs strength I trust we shall pay you all Pre. The men which were our Adversaries and their driving was known before c. Post. Were it in respect only to your Infant sprinkling that you did so frequently stile us thus we are no less then many hundreds of its old acquaintance who thinking once as you do that we did God service to be friends to it could now freely answer to the name of Adversaries but we are the best friends in the world to the Truth and your Persons could you once see wood for trees and no further Adversaries to your cause then as we are well assured you can never make it good while the world stands by all the shifts you can devise from the law of Christ whose cause you call it As for our Driving were it like that of Iesu the son of Nimshi it would excuse it self the better sith t is only against the house of the Woman Iezebell that hath sate as Queen over the Nations and stirred up Ahab the Kings and Powers of the Earth to commit fornication with her and to do abominably and to shed the blood of Saints if you be not she then our driving is not towards you but if you be as I dare not be sworn that you the CCClergy throughout all Christendome are not then wo to your house indeed not as from us but from the Lord who yet a little while wherein space is given you to repent and if he cast not you and your lovers into a bed together and into great tribulation except ye repent so that all the Churches of Christ shall know that t is even he that searcheth the heart and tryeth the reins and giveth to every one of you according to your works then the Lord hath not yet spoken at all by me Pre. It is no new thing with them to bespatter those Arguments with their tongue which they cannot unty with their teeth c. Post. It is an old new thing with your selves for it hath been of old the custome of the new Clergie though never of the true by common councel to cry down as Heresie what truth soever was too hard for them as for us it is no new thing with us indeed for it is one of those old things which were in use among us while we were all one with you but since we sincerely sought the truth are past away so that I cannot but clear those men that say it is no new thing with us as speaking no other then the truth and must needs condemn those who condemn us of it now as men condemning us of a meer new nothing Pre. Thou hast here a true though short Relation of the most materiall things that passed c. Post. I was musing a while what of the Ashford-Disputation this True Account could be truly counted a True Account of for I found that it mentioned neither the number nor the names of the Scribes that scrap't it nor the Disputers that disputed it nor the Arguments of more then one of those disputers nor all his Arguments nor half the Respondents Answers nor many more things that should be in it by right nor many of those things rightly that are in it by wrong at last I had resolution here that 't was A True though short Relation of the most materiall things that passed Yea Sirs I assure you a good whipping is fitter for that disputation then a printed Account of it to the world unless on purpose to be laugh't at that lasted no less then six hours whereof five and an half past away mostly in Immaterials and the odd half too in such Immaterials as these you have here accounted for and if these are the most material things that passed how Immaterial may the world well think were the most Immaterial that passed in the Disputation they surely were not worth one quarter of the while they past in Moreover that your Relation is Short yea far short of the Disputation Related I dare not deny but dare you say it ore and oâ—e again that 't is a true one how true it is is so apparent by the preceding Ezamen of your Account that I need not here so much as assert it to be false I shall therefore say no more but thus viz. Had you said false where you say true both here and in your title page where your c. is stiled A True Account A True Relation you had then said true without all question but your saying true in these two places where you should have said false hath made you speak falsly in both indeed Pre. The adversaries answers being rendred to his best advantage c. Post. As for example sometimes his answers are altered and translated into a clear contrary form sense meaning then he ever spake in somtimes added to somtimes defrauded of such clauses as would have given every body to understand his intent to be directly opposite to what its here represented sometimes invented as it were de novo somtimes rendred not at all but only related to be nothing in the least measure satisfactory nothing that carried the least shew of sense or reason to the purpose c. and all this if men would believe you and if they do not I dare say 't is because they have neither sense nor reason whereupon to believe it to your Respondents best advantage but t is utterly against your wills surely Sirs besides your intentions and in some such way as you never meant it if it be for 't were a wonder if you should mind my advantage so much as to render my answers the best way in order thereunto and 't is a chance had you intended my best advantage
then in anothers your very selves acknowledge you cannot if not why more I wonder ad negationem spiritus why more ad negationem baptismi why more ad negationem nugationis istius vestrae viz. your trivial new way or rather no way of baptism to which if it were baptism indeed you must admit if not all then not at all in time of infancy or else your absurdities are unsuffrable Sirs suffer me to come cross to you and hit you home with your own cross interrogatory p. 18. are those infants of infidels between whom and those of believers you objectors will admit no comparison inclinable to acts of holiness or not if the former it presupposes then that infidels infants have the habit also as much as the other and so the working in them and those born of believing parents may be one and so their holiness and faith and spiritualness and baptism be one too which all your Disputation doth deny if the latter I freely confess these are not inclinable nor yet the other neither These premised the Answer is in your own very words pag. 18. That unless it could be certainly presumed what children have the habit i. e. of faith holiness what have not the working of the spirit is not known to us he is neither bound nor barr'd there can be no conclusion made and therefore Quis nisi mentis inops c. how justly may they be concluded by themselves as well as by others to have hand plus cerebri quam cimax sanguinis and no more understanding then those whose right eye is utterly darkned who premising these sentences themselves do for all that make this conclusion viz. that these infants have faith Holiness the Spirit and thereby right to baptism above all others Or secondly Sirs do ye mean by it some Negative holiness consisting in their being without sin and having yet no wickedness and prophanness the thing which and more properly by farr you stile innocency in the next words though yet o curious criss-cross you will not hold them guiltless neither if so for my part I give you in my assent to it that infants are innocent but I cannot help it if it do you no good in your cause for first are infants of believers any more innocent in time of infancie then the rest how so not by birth for they are all alike born in sin secundum â—e not in life for it cannot appear that the one have more blurr'd themselves or barr'd themselves by any actual sin from baptism if innocency be that which intitles to it then the other But secondly to say the truth Sirs so far is baptism from being intailed to innocents and holy ones only as their only right that it belongs rather only unto sinners for though Christ for examples sake and for other ends submitted to it who yet had no sin of his own but he had ours by imputation yet the most proper use of it to all else that submit is to signifie the remission of their sins Mat. 3.6 Luk. 3.3 Act. 2.38 Act. 22.16 If believers infants therefore be so righteous holy i. e. innocent c. as you make them and I dare not deny but that they are nor dare I saie otherwise for the world of other infants in infancie having more charity than your selves even so much as to presume unumquemque bonum nisi constet de malo they are so little inrighted to baptism thereupon that till they sin they are much rather exempted from it for if baptism be a sign to signifie to him who submits to it the remission of his sinnes in plurali as Acts 2.38 and in all other places it seems to be then it s utterly usless to such and therefore to infants as being yet under no Commission of sinnes need yet no sign of Remission of them Secondly Matrimonial holiness I call that which arises from the conjugation of two viz one man and one woman only into one flesh according to Gods holy ordinance and institution the subject of which holiness is not onely marriage it self and the marriage bed which is said to be honourable among all men and undefiled or which is all one to be holy Heb. 13.4 but also the married persons of what rank quality religion soever when once come into that conjugall relation whether both or either or neither of them be believers and the seed or infants that are born of them in that condition which are called by God himself Mal. 2.15 a seed of his own seeking a godly seed or seed of God which he owns as truly lawfully honestly holily begotten according to his own holy appointment and not basely beastly trecherously adulterously nor corruptly as those are which are not begotten in the bed Opposite to this holiness these holy ones I mean the married couples and their holy seed are all the lusts of concupisence objected on strange flesh uncleanness 1 Thess. 4.7 adultery fornication and unclean agents i. e. adulterers and the unclean issues of the adulterous bed viz the adulterous brood or the seed of the adulterer and the whore Isa. 57.3 This kind of holiness I dare say you do not mean yea the most of you will hardly be perswaded that there 's any such kind of holiness at all or if you be it makes nothing for your purpose for what if infants of believing parents be as infants of unbelieving parents also are when begotten in lawfull wedlock holy in such a sense doth this tend at all to prove them to have the holy spirit which is the thing in hand yet this even this and no other is all the holiness meant by Paul 1 Cor. 7.14 where he saith else were your children unclean but now are they holy that very place which your selves so often send us to for proof thereof when we deny your Antecedent in this consequence viz. Infants of believers are holy therefore to be baptized This that I say as 't is not deni'd to my knowledge by some that are for infants baptism so is it most undeniable to any that will but plainly and impartially consider the direct drift of the Apostle in the verse which is not any such matter as to shew that there 's such a sanctity in the unbelieving husband or wife of believing yoke-fellows for these are there said to be holy as well as the children with the same holiness and in their children also as inrolles them all viz. the unbelieving parties and the children as well as the believing parties in the Covenant of grace or in any such outward Church covenant as inrights them to baptism membership and fellowship in the Congregation but to shew such a sanctity or holiness as clears both their conjunctions and conceptions to be pure and guiltless such as frees their bed from the account of baseness and their brood from the account of bastardy both which in the sight of God and men would else be unholy i. e. utterly unlawful and unclean his
not this absurdity ensue which I dare say you will evade if you can if the holiness be such as you say viz. that the unbelieving husbands and wives must be baptized and inchurched also upon their yoke-fellowes faith being sanctified thereby as well as the Inâ—ants therefore is it not rather think you a Civil and Matrimonial then an Ecclesiastical faederall sanctity Your usual evasion is this Babist The Parents are sanctified by the faith one of the other not so as to be in covenant themselves by their sanctification nor yet so as to be baptized thereupon but they are sanctified as a holy root so as to bring forth a holy issue that hath by vertue of its holiness a right to the Church Covenant and Baptism Baptist. Then it seems the unbeliever is with you a holy root as well as the other and gives holiness to the child and makes it holy as well as the other parent yea so holy that by that concurrence the child is in covenant and to be baptized First do you not say somtimes that the child hath its holiness from the believing party onely as if there were no influence passing from the unbeliever towards its holiness why then do you say sometimes again that from a holiness which is in both they are co-contributers of holiness to the Infant which of the two is most undoubtedly true for the holiness what ever t is is such and such it could not be if it were any but Matrimonial as is in and equally flowes from the unbelieving parent as much as the believing to the infant Secondly if the Root be holy are not the branches so and if the branches be holy is not the root at least as if not more so in the same sence with the holiness of the same kind which it conveyeth to the branches and if so then must not this unbelieving parent being a Root have the same kind of holiness the child hath is he not as holy as the child is and so as capable of being baptized and in covenant thereby sith you all agree that Nil dat quod in se non haâ—â—â— and Quodcunque efficit tale id est propriè est magis tale whatever is a proper efficient to make another so or so must be more so it self so that if the unbelivnig parent be as holy with your very covenant holiness it self as his child must he not as well by vertue thereof be admitted to the same priviledges having though no more faith then his child yet somewhat else viz. That holiness that with you intitles to baptism yea it is more eminently in him than the other either therefore deny those old received Axiomes and that I think you need not do for they are truths or else deny that which is so commonly asserted by you viz. that the unbelieving parents are sanctified so as to be holy Roots to their children by the faith of their believing yoke-fellows as well as the believing yoke-fellows are by their own and this you will be very loath to do for you will hardly coin such a handsome shift as that is in hast again if you let it go or else deny that the unbelieving husband and wife is sanctified or holy at all but that you cannot do for the text saith they are hallowed as well and in the same sense as their children and believing companions are in being married to them what sense soever that is or else grant us they are holy with the holiness we stand for as that onely which is meant in this place viz. Legitimacy freedome from the least tincture of uncleanness and baseness in their cohabitations generations and issue and this I believe you must do when all is done but then you lose such a supporter of your practise that let go one more viz. Act. 2.38.39 which must be handled also hereafter and Iachin and Boaz the two prime pillars that stand by the entry into your Temple i. e. Infants sprinkling which is your entring ordinance will be removed a matter of no small tendency to its ruin or else le ts see in you rejoinder for I put these things upon you by way of quaere expecting to see if by silence you give not the cause how well you will distinguish your selves out of the briars which your opinion upon the place brings you into and how well you will wind your selves out of those many absurdities which you are led aside into from the way of truth by the extravagancies and cunning concavities of your crooked logick lane Thirdly let it be considered that the holiness here predicated of the unbelieving parent and the children is not such as is the result of the faith and faederal holiness of the believing parent as is so frequently asserted among you but of the marriage Covenant which being holy by institution and honourable among all and undefiled gives the denomination of civil sanctity to the unbelieving couple and their seed as to a couple of believers and their seed as also the denomination of honourable in an unbelieving magistrate and master arises not from any praise worthy qualification in their persons much less in the persons of the Correllatives as you say the holinesse of the unbeliever doth from the faith of the believer but from Divine ordination which constitutes them as holy in their places this will be evident First if you consider the manner of speech here used by the Apostle who saies not the unbeliever is sanctified in the believing wife and believing husband but in the wife and in the husband i. e. in her being his wife and his being her husband and howbeit its true which is commonly return'd to this viz. that 't is the believing wife of the unbelieving husband and the believing husband of the unbelieving wife when the marriage is between believers and unbelievers yet the believing party is not here preferred before the unbelieving parent as to the conferring of this holinesse upon the issue but they are said to be both and that by your selves who confesse they jointly make one holy root equall in this influence and are sanctified not one by the faith of the other as you suppose the unbeliever to be by the faith of the believer but both by the ordinance of God viz. their marriage each of other so that they both alike do sanctifie the issue Secondly if you consider the true genuine proper direct tendency and weight of this Relative particle else which if you allow it a right reference relates not to the faith or believing of either but to their being true man and wife to the lawful wedlock of them both for that which is the ground of your error about this place is the forcing of this particle else the wrong way for Else i. e. say you if one of the parents be not a believer then the children are unclean wheras the sense of it runs thus vix else i. e. if you be not holy in your copulations
if you be not sanctified one in to and by the other as lawful man and wife by your union formerly contracted notwithstanding your now disunion in Religion then your children are unclean and this is truth for so the children are in this civil sense if begotten and born out of matrimony whether the parents be believers or no buâ— the other is not truth for whether both or but one or none of the parents believe the infants for that cause alone and without respect to matrimony are in no sense ere the more holy or unclean Thirdly and this will yet appear more plainly if you consider that faith alone in either one or both the parents begetting out of wedlock cannot sanctifie the seed so begotten with this civil holiness here meant no nor with that faederall holiness you plead for nor could it do so even then when that holinesse or birth priviledge you talk of was in force as now it is not viz. in the daies of the law for if two believers came together then out of marriage their seed were not onely base born and so unclean in this our sense but also to the tenth generation uncapable to be admitted into the congregation and so consequently unclean even in your own Deut. 32.2 whereupon how Pharez and Zarah were dealt with it matters not sith they were born before the law was given Ieptha was exempted from any inheritance with his brethren because he was the son of a strange woman Iudg. 11.2 and Davids unclean issue by Bathsheba that in the wisdome of God was taken away by death on the seventh day might not surely without breach of the law have been accounted holy and of the congregation if he had lived beyond the eighth whereupon your selves also are much fumbled about the holinesse of bastards and the baptism of base-begotten babies so that you scarcely know how to behave your selves about it though the parents sinning be believers at least en-churched in your Churches yea it s generally known saith Mr Cotton that our best Divines do not allow the baptism of bastards and though he is pleased to say they allow it not sine sponsoribus without Sureties yet I wonder sith Deut. 32.2 Gods denial of such of old is made the ground of their denial of such now to enter into the Congregation as unholy that our Divines dare take on them to admit cum sponsoribus and so to go besides their own Rule viz. the order of things under the law wherein God gave no such allowance but to let that tolleration pass which they take to themselves you may learn thus much of your selves if you will that though wedlock without faith make a holy seed in our sense yet faith without wedlock in the parents can make a holy seed neither in our sense nor in your own nor any at all for the infants of the married are holy but believers bastards are both civilly and federally unclean inso much that your selves see cause to refuse as federally holy the spurious seed euen of those whose lawfull issue you unlawfully sprinkle Fourthly if you more seriously consider that the holinesse in the Infant here must needs be the fruit and result of that and that must needs be the cause of the holiness here spoken of in the infant quo posito ponitur sanctitas sublato tollitur which being in the parents a holinesse must necessarily be thereupon which not being in the parents a holinesse cannot be in the seed for positâ causà ponitur effectus sublata tollitur abstract the cause and the effect cannot be suppose the cause and the effect cannot but be now that which if it be not in the parents the holiness is not but being in them the holinesse is consequently in the infants 't is not the faith but the conjugal or marriage Relation of the parents for as for the first of these viz. faith it may be in one yea in both of the parents and yet no federal holinesse at all be in the infants witness Ishmael the seed of Abraham the father of the faithful and his Sons by Keturah also born of him after Covenant made with him and his seed in Isaac and Iacob and yet neither of them in that Covenant witnesse the base born children of true believers among the Jews suppose David and Baâ—â—sheba which for all the parents faith could not by the law be admitted in thâ— Congregation nor have that birth-priviledge to be reputed holy which from the parents faith you universally intail to the infants moreover this birth-priviledge and Covenant-holiness by generation which did inright to Church ordinances which once was but now is a non-entity and out of date might be then when it was in being in children in whose parents faith was not found at all for most of the Iews were unbeiievers yet all their legitimate children were holy federally therefore faith in the parent cannot be the cause of such a thing yea if you will believe Mr Blake himself the strictest pleader for a birth-priviledge of federal holiness in Infants that ever I met with and that from this very place he condescends so far as to contribute one contradiction to himself toward the helping of the truth in this case viz. That faith in the parâ—nt is not the cause of this holinesse whilst making the holinesse in this text to be a birth priviledge or Church-Covenant holinesse and to be the fruit and result of the faith of the believing parents and consequently their faith to be the sole and proper cause of the same he confesses flatly elsewhere page 4. that a loose life in the parent and mis-belief which is as bad in some cases worse then unbelief for which is worse to believe false things or not to believe true yea Apostacy from the faith which all if they be not inconsistent with faith I know not what is do not divest nor debar the issue from having that holiness which himself saies is meant in this text Babist Perhaps he means not by faith strictly the parents true believing but in generall his being in the covenant and faederally holy himself and so a cause of this federal holiness in the issue Baptist. First Paul means true believing here in 1 Cor. 7.14 whether Mr Blake do or no. Secondly what will he get as to the point in hand by his Synonamizing faith and faederall holiness for still neither the one nor the other is made here the cause of the holiness of the seed for the holiness here spoken of may be where neither of them is and may not be in the seed even where they are both in the parent as for example in Ezras time Ezra 10 3. we find abundance of the Jews both Priests and people that were in the faith or at least in faederall holiness yet the children were put away as unholy as well faederally as otherwise because their marriage was unlawfull and that bed adulterous wherein they lay with strange
and his sons must thus swagger in their service and be set out in such a holy manner for glory and for beauty with his Pontificalibâ— and most holy sumptuous superstitious attire this holinesse of the holy Priest-hood that then was and its holy pertinances that holy people and holy seed you stile very fitly and I agree with you in the term for 't was indeed the holiness of that Covenant that then was while the first tabernacle and its worldly Sanctuary was yet standing a federall holiness nevertheless though you call it by no name but what I freely allow of yet I call it by one or two names which though they be as true and properly due to it as the other and Epithites given ordinarily by your selves to the holinesse of almost every thing else under that Covenant yet least it pluck you up by the roots as touching your opinion in this point of infant-holinesse and baptism I much fear you will hardly allow of them as to the parents and the seed if you can handsomely evade them by secundum quid or some such like cleanly distinction these are first a ceremoniall holiness the rise of which denomination and reason why given are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quasi ad tempus durans for a time onely its non-continuance to the end or its non-conveyance down-wards from the Church of the Jews to the times and Churches of the Gospel Secondly a typical holinesse as being but a shew shadow or figure of some more excellent holinesse to come for the law and first Covenant had but the shadow of things to come and not the very image of the things Heb. 10.1 I say a typicall and therefore but a temporall holiness which stood and was seated onely in divers outward bodily rites sacrifices actions observations ordinances offices officers places gestures vestures ornaments meats drinks and a certain fleshly birth-right and title to certain earthly preheminences dignities priviledgeâ— liberties inheritances a kingdome and all this for the time then being onely and to point out a true more speciall â—eall spiritual and eternal excellency and glory under the Gospell in order to the manifestation of which all the other was but a pageant for as the Map of that Ierusalem that then was delineates to our capacities the beauty of that earthly fabrick yet is far inferious to the City it self therein deciphered so the old Ierusalem with all her holy things were but a shadowy representation and patern of the New Ierusalem and the true heavenly things themselves which the other is as far inferiour to in worth and real felicity as any Mapp of it upon the wall is to the City that is set out and darkly described by it Thus did their High-priests in all their holiness yea and kings too King Solomon specially in all his glory and their prophets also in all their materially holy unctions to those severall holy functions type out that one spiritually anointed one of the father our Lord Iesus though a single person to his tripple office of King Priest and Prophet over his Church so their carnally holy meats drinks and abstinencies our spiritual meat and drink which they are said to eat of in a figure And our abstinencies from fleshly lusts and morall pollutions so their holy washings the washing of Regeneration and renewings by the spirit their holy sacrifices blood of sprinkling which as all the rest could not make perfect as pertaining to the conscience but sanctified onely to the purifying of the flesh i. e. the delivery of them from that outward imputation of impurity and uncleanness that would else have lain upon them the blood of Christ purging the conscience from iniquities and dead works wherewith it s defiled to serve the living God in true holiness and righteousnesse all the daies of our life so Circumcision of their fleshly seed which was outward and in the flesh tipified not Baptism as is simply supposed from Col. 2. but the Circumcision of the spiritual seed i. e. believers new-born babes begotten to Christ by the word with the Circumcision made without hands i. e. sanctification and cutting of the filthy lusts of the flesh so their outwardly royall Priest-hood the spiritual royal Priest-hood i. e. the true Saints who are truly as the other ceremonially and tipically a kindome of Priests made Kings and Priests to the Lamb and shall once reign on the earth 1 Pet. 2.9 Rev. 5.10 So the outward holiness of their nation tipified not the same kind of outward hoâ—inesse of any one Nation taken collectively in the lump as the whole Nation of England Scotland c. and all their seed as you ignorantly imagine but the inward holinesse of the holy Nation of true believers themselves whether parents to wicked children or children of wicked parents scattered through all Nations under heaven these Peter writes to and calls the chosen generation now i. e. the Regenaration themselves not the natural generation of these also a Royall Priest-hood an holy Nation a peculiar people to God in a spiritual sense as Israel was in a certain carnal and outward sense before 1 Pet. 1.1 2.9 so their holy land our inheritance incorruptible reserved in heaven the heavenly country which we look for with Abraham Isaac and Iacob with whom we are heirs by faith of the same promise their holy City our holy City which hath foundations whose builder and maker is God Heb. 11. Rev. 12. Heb. 13. their holy Temple Gods Evangelically holy Temple where he will dwell which Temple ye are saith Paul to the Church 1 Cor. 3. Their carnal freedome our spiritual freedom from sin which who ere commits is but a servant for all the other though born of Abraham Iohn 8. Their passeover Christ our passeover that was sacrificed for us 1 Cor. 5. Their Rock our Rock of refreshment Christ their cloud Christ overshadowing by day and enlightning by night his people 1 Cor. 10. Their Manna Christ our bread that came down from heaven Iohn 6. their delivery out of Egypt the worlds Redemption by Christ and as sundry other things of which I cannot now speake particularly so lastly to draw yet a little neerer to the point in hand their holy seed issue infancy tipified not as both corruptly and carnally you conceive the fleshly seed of believing or in-churched Gentiles for these are in no wise the Antitype to the circumcised infancy of Israel but as I hinted before the truly and spiritual holy seed it self i. e. believers themselves or if the seed of believers not their natural seed but their seed in a spirituall sense i. e. that are begotten by them by their words unto the faith for believers as men beget men onely and no more in that way of bodily propagagation but as believers they may beget believers by way of spiritual influx by comunication of the gospel to their consciences thus Paul was the father of the Corinthians in Christ Iesus begetting them all by the
have not the priviledge to be admitted to it yet at all if the promise to believers and their children run only thus viz. you shall stand under the title of the holy people of God under right to outward ordinances when others shall not not only you but also your children shall be baptized and inchurched but neither you nor they ever the sooner saved as born of you further then together with you they shall believe and obey me in all things in which case of faith and obedience all unbelievers in the world and their children shall be saved as soon as either you or they it is as much as to say the promise of a liberty and freedome to partake of the ordinance is to you and your children above others but the promise to partake of the inheritance is as much to all others and their children as to you and yours what most comfortless comfort is this to men cast down under sense of sin and guilt what a pittious plaister is here applied to men wounded in conscience and smarting under the direfull apprehensions of Gods wrath besides what exquisite non-sense do you make the Apostle speak if his words be taken in your sense for they must run thus viz. first by way of precept repent and be baptized you and your children in the name of Christ for remission of sinnes and then by way of incouragement thus viz. so this great priviledge of being baptized shall belong to you and your seed which impenitent unbaptized ones and their seed shall not enjoy but the promise of salvation and remission of sins is made no more to you then unto them this is to restore them from their contrite and weather beaten condition and to invest them cum privilegio with a witness yet this is all the priviledge if the promise here made to these parents and their children be of no more then being outwardly incovenanted i. e. inchurched by baptism as you say it is But undoubtedly it must be otherwise then thus for all your saying and the promise take it which of these two waies you will viz. for the meer tender or proser of the thing as the word promise is sometimes used or for the thing it self profered or promised in which last sense its mostly taken it must needs be of some more excellent matter then meer outward membership in the Church on â—arth abstract from all true and immediate title to remission of sinnes and salvation yea verily its most evident that the thing here promised is no less then remission of sinnes and salvation itself for as no less is exprest in the very text wherein he names remission of sinnes and the holy spirit which elsewhere is called the earnest of the inheritance so unless you will divide the children from sharing alike with their parents in that promise which in the self same sentence terms and sense is propounded alike to them both so as to say the word promise is to be understood of remission of sinnes and salvation as in relation to the parents but of an inferior thing viz. a right to ordinances onely as in relation to the infants which were intollerable absurdity to utter it must necessarily be meant of one and the same kind of mercy to the children as is exhibited therein to the parents yea and upon the same terms too and no other then those upon which its tendred to the parents viz. personall repentance and obedience and so consequently of remission of sinnes and salvation and not of such a triviall title to external participation onely as you talk on which if it be then unless you assert that God hath promised salvation absolutely to all the natural seed of believers upon those very terms onely as they are their seed which you are ashamed to stand to the promise mean which you will by that word promise in this text whether the bare proposall or the salvation propounded or both upon these terms belongs of right not onely to believers and their posterity but also to all men and their posterity to without difference when at years of capacity to neglect or perform them throughout all ages and places of the world for as the gospel or glad tidings of salvation are commanded by Christ Mark 16.15 16. to be preached or profered to every creature at years to hear and understand though not to infants on terms of belief and baptism so assuredly those terms being performed the salvation so promised shall be injoyed accordingly if he hath any truth in him who said â—e that believeth i. e. lives and dies in the faith of Christ and is baptized shall be saved and Paul likewise Rom. 3.22 intimates no lesse saying that the righteousness of God which is by faith of Iesus Christ is unto all and upon all them that believe and there is no difference so that if they that are now unbelievers and unbelievers children also shall hereafter believe with such faith as shews it self by obedience which kind of faith onely the Scripture means the promise of salvation and remission of sinnes is as well unto them as unto those that do now both believe themselves and were also born of believing parents yea and the promise of the holy spirit also Prov. 1.22.23 for indeed God so loved the world not mundum electorum onely ex mundo electum that he gave his onely begotten Son not to condemn one person more then another but as they should personally reject him but that the world through him might be saved that whosoever in it i. e. in all the world not in the world of Elect for that sounds as if some of the elect may believe and some not doâ—h believe might not perish but have everlasting life Iohn 3.16.17.18.19 All which things well and wisely weighed he is blind that sees any more birth-priviledge or right by birth to salvation or the promise of it in believers seed then in unbelievers neither is there now any more priviledge at all in any one mans naturall seed above anothers save the meer hopefulness of education and advantage of instruction in the way and means of salvation which may possibly befal believers children more then others though in case it happen as it may possibly also do that believers children have their breeding among Turks and the children of very Indians among believers in that case these last have not onely no lesse priviledge as to the promise of salvation by bare birth but a priviledge also by that breeding beyond the other That therefore the promise of the Gospel-Covenant in any sense in the world is made to believers seed as barely such more then to the natural seed of unbelievers can never be proved by the word while the world stands yea the very contrary is most evidently proved in this place Act. 2.38.39 if we consult no other Scripture besides it For First neither were these parents believers as yet when Peter said the promise is to you and to your
should inherit the old Canaan and such is Christ in the reall spiritual Evangelical and everlasting account in relation unto Isaac himself for not Isaac and his seed as they were Abrahams seed by Sarah though they were the children of the promise of the earthly Canaan and a promised seed in respect of Ishmael but Christ who is the true Isaac and those that believe in him among whom sith Isaac was one he will inherit here also as else he could not these are the promised seed that must inherit heaven Rom. 4.13 Gal. 3.16 these children of the promise i. e. these that are of Christ by faith and so his seed after the faith are accounted Abrahams seed his sons and heirs of the world with him and of the eternal inheritance A cleerer illustration of this to be the true sense and meaning of the spirit in Rom. 9. you have in Gal. 3.7.9 where the Apostle uses this term viz. they which are of the faith to express no other then the very same persons whom he here stiles the children of the promise know ye saith he there that they which are of the faith i. e. which believe for none else are of faith that I know of the same are the children of Abraham and blessed with faithfull Abraham he saith not they which be of Abrahams flesh for such neither are accounted his children as to the gospel promise nor simply as such are heirs thereof with him muchless doth he say or mean that those which are born of the bodies of them that be of faith are Abrahams children and such as must be signed as his sonnes and heirs by baptism in such wise as his own fleshly seed were signed by Circumcision as heirs with him of the old Canaan yet these are your common sayings who raise such a sort of seed to Abraham at second hand or third remove as will never be able to prove their pedegree or descent from him either after the flesh or after the faith either till they believe themselves whilest they breath on earth as if because Abraham is the spiritual father of all that believe and walk in his steps and they his seed and sons and heirs with him by promise of eternal life therefore he must patrizare to all their natural posterity too and be the spiritual father not of their persons onely but of their off-spring also But Sirs let me tell you he is not so much as a father to his own seed in the Gospel sense neither can they stand his children or the children of God and heirs of the heavenly blessing and kindome because they come out of his loines unless they do as he did for though his fleshly seed as a type for the time then being stood denominated the children of God and holy in an outward sense and heirs according to the earthly promise yet that account is gone now and there 's no other way whereby the Iews themselves much less any generations among the Gentiles can be stiled the children of God or Abraham so as to expect the gospel portion but believing in Christ Iesus in their own persons Gal. 3.26.29 Ye are all the children of God by faith in Iesus Christ if ye be Christs then are ye Abrahams seed and heirs according to the promise Another place which cleers it that Abrahams own seed in the old Covenants account are not his own in the account of the gospel so as barely thereupon to stand in any title to either the priviledges or ordinances thereof or to fellowship now in his family is Iohn 8. where Christ being cavill'd at by the Iews for promising them the priviledge of the Gospel-freedom from sin to which they were slaves servants and bondmen for all that legal freedom they did so boast of upon faith and continuance in his words discovers so plainly that a man may run and read it the discarding of the Jews from all these three things which I am now proving that for want of faith they are perished from them since the gospel First from the repute and denomination of Abrahams children any longer Secondly from any share in the glorious or spirituall blessing of the Gospel Thirdly from any right of abiding longer in the Church which they were the children of before which Church as visible now as well as then and to the end of the world since Gods conferring the fatherhood of the faithful upon him is called the house or family of Abraham First they say in a snuff two or three times ore that they are Abrahams seed v. 33. that Abraham is their father v. 39. that they are not born of fornication meaning as Ishmael the Son of the bond-woman or servant to their mother Sarah was but they had one father even God v. 41. to which Christ replies not by denial of any of all this for 't was true every tittle in that sense in which they meant it i. e. the typical sense and meaning of the old Covenant yea they were Abrahams children and this Christ confesses in plain terms verse 37. I know you are Abrahams seed yea they were also the children of God by an outward and typicall adoption of them unto himself as his peculiar ones and heirs of that typical inheritance Ezek. 16.8 c. but by telling them that Abrahams children are accounted of otherwise now then formerly viz. not as comming out of his Ioines but as doing his works as being like him and allied to him not so much after the flesh as after the faith whereupon they not yet believing he denies them to be and goes about to prove them not to be Abrahams children in the true and substantial sense in this Hypothesis verse 39. if ye were Abrahams children ye would do the works of Abraham to which do but add the minor viz. but ye do not the works of Abraham and the conclusion follows thus viz. therefore ye are not the children of Abraham you see Christ asserts them to be Abrahams children in the old account so as to stand members of the old house but denieth them to be Abrahams children in the sense of the new Secondly they say they are free men and were never in bondage to any man to which Christ replies by granting it was so indeed in the outward typical sense that they were free men and true heirs of that earthly glory that was promised to Abraham in that old Canaan but denies them to be freemen as to the gosspel with that heavenly fredom of the Ierusalem which is above the mother of all true believers Gal. 4.26 yea in those spiritual respects in which the Son makes free indeed those that know and receive the truth and gospel they were but servants verse 34. and in bondage to sin which is the greatest slavery of all as also Paul sayes Gal. 3.25 that Ierusalem was which was of old and was in bondage with her children so he saies for all their Sonship yet in truth they are but servants and
not by being the fleshly posterity of a believer though it should be of believing Abraham himself for even his own fleshly were not his spiritual seed but onely as they believed with him but by bringing forth fruits of repentance doing his works treading in the steps of his faith you belike have found more wayes to the wood then one whereof when ones failes you in the fight you commonly take your flight by the other and with you there 's two wayes whereby persons nay which is a greater mystery whereby the same persons even believers infants in their very infancy may and do become Abrahams spiritual sons and heirs viz. first by their own walking in the steps of Abrahams faith i. e. believing themselves which though it be the true way of becoming Abrahams spirituall seed yet infants are not capable to walk in it Secondly by being the natural progeny of believing parents which though infants are capable of it yet is none of the way whereby to be canonized according to the sense of Scripture the Spirituall seed of Abraham But it seems the terms upon which persons become heirs with Abraham of Gospel-promises and stand in true title to Gospel-ordinances are not uniform but multiform in your imagination for those on which persons in the capacity of parents are priviledged with the title of Abrahams spiritual seed and title to Gospel-ordinances and enjoyments are their own believings not anothers but those on which others i. e. all that are in the capacity of children to those parents are thus highly priviledged are the believing of their parents whether they have any faith of their own yea or no and yet some count that the childs own faith which the parent professes for him But Genus et pro avos et quae non fecimus ipsi vix ea nostra voco Sirs what pretty intricate blind bo-beep Divinity is this of yours do the same priviledges and promises belong to the believing parents and their children and yet though exhibited to them both alike in one and the self same phrase and form of speech for saith Peter the promise is to you and your children and to them that are farre off yea even as many meaning of you and your children and of them that are far off as the Lord shall call do they belong upon such various and different grounds viz. to the parents upon their own faith to the children upon the parents faith my father then it seems what ere his fathers were must prove his pedegree from Abraham by his doing as Abraham did or else he can be no gospel-son nor share at all in any gospel-priviledges and immunities but if he were a believer I his son may prove mine at easier rates by farr viz. by going no further then the faith and faederation of my father But Sirs will this hold a triall think you by the word is there any such manglements as these to be found there is it to be found there that now under the gospel-Covenant since that outing of the old Covenant and that fleshly seed that were heirs of it and all the tipical pertinencies thereof the faith and faederation of fathers inrights and enrouls all their fleshly seed as Heirs with them of salvation without any evidence of their believing themselves then tell me why the fleshly seed of those great believers Abraham Isaac and Iacob stand excommunicated from all Gospel-priviledges participations of ordinances promises c. even from the beginnings of the Gospel Church and first administring of baptism to this very day will you plead your own right above theirs to stand his children in the Gospel-Church by saying we had holy men and believers to our fathers but their fathers believed not the Gospel therefore worthily are they cut off with them I reply thus were not Abraham Isaac and Iacob their fleshly fathers and though remote ones yet were they not their true fathers after the flesh still as much as ever did Iohn Mat. 3. and Christ Iohn 8. and Peter Acts 2. deny them a standing in the Gospel house and admission unto baptism and membership without repentance and belief in their own persons and doing the works of Abraham did they I say put such off from all Gospel-expectations and priviledges who offered themselves thereto with this plea viz. we have Abraham to our father and dare you admit such without faith or repentance for whom you can make no higher pretence then this viz. they are the children of believers me thinks if meer birth-priviledges and fleshly descent must carry it still without faith in the seed themselves are not the Iews infants to this day higher born then any Gentiles infants in the world whose parents are believers for they verily can say no less then this we are the natural issue of the father of all the faithfull yet may they not be own'd barely upon that account to gospel-ordinances and if the natural seed and that by Isaac and Iacob of Abraham himself the grand believer which seed could of old claim a room by right of birth from Abraham in the house of Moses cannot possibly carry it so high under Christ as by the same descent onely without faith in themselves to gain a standing in his house or so much as right to be stiled their own natural fathers children as to the Gospel I am amazed to see you Gentile believers to conferre upon your meer natural seed the name of Abrahams spiritual seed and denominate your semen carnis his semen fidei 〈◊〉 The Iews though the natural seed of Abraham yet cannot have the account of the spiritual seed nor any right to Gospel priviledges because they believe not themselves which if they did they should have right to the Gospel as well as we who believe but sith they abide in unbelief they are cut off from all share in these things Baptist. Then learn once I beseech you this lessen from your selves which you will not learn from Iohn Christ and Paul viz. that the ground of standing Abrahams spiritual seed sons and heirs and Church-members under the Gospel is not the the faith and faederation of the parents by vertue of which you plead your childrens right to baptism saying they have believers as the Jews once to Iohn pleaded theirs saying we have Abraham to our father but faith it self in the particular persons so standing for so many Jews heathens infidels children as are of the faith of Abraham i. e. not born of faithful parents but faithful themseves as he was are incorporated incovenanted inchurched as Abrahams seed and Evangelically blessed with faithful Abraham but till even believers children yea Abrahams own believe themselves the parents faith cannot now possibly ingraft them the time of faith or standing by faith alone in the house or visible Church of God being now come in the standing by any fleshly generation what soever is done away yea Abrahams own children the naturall branches that grow out of his loynes are
no not with Abraham Isaac and Iacob and their natural posterity so that a bare birth of their bodies doth ipso facto make them heirs of the heavenly inheritance promised therein nor give them a right as such only to be signed as true heirs thereof but only with Abraham and his spiritual seed i. e. Christ and all believers in him so no men and all their naturall posterity are outed from it together but as both they and their posterity do stand together in unbelief upon which account faith being the only way of standing heirs under the Gospel and the Iews Children proving unbelievers in all ages as well as their parents I confess they are broken off together and not otherwise for if the Children of the Iews did appear to have faith as in infancy they cannot and when they are grown up unversally they do not their parents infidelity could in no wise prohibit their standing and since neither in infancy nor at age they appear to be in the faith their parents in case they were never so faithful can in no wise intitle them to a standing for then the natural seed of those thousands of Iews which did believe in the Primitive times have a birth-priviledge and holiness to this day whereupon they may claim admittance unto baptism as well as any specially if those words Rom. 11.16 if the Root be holy so are the branches were to be taken in such a sense as you put upon them but we know that though they are branches growing naturally upon that holy Root as you call it of believing parents yet they are counted unholy by your selves because they believe not in their own persons yea if we should ask how the children of those Iews that at first believed did come to be such strangers to the Gospel Church your selves would answer vs because they believed not as their parents did by which you do no less than grant what we contend for viz. that the faith of Ancestors gives no right to their posterity to stand at all in the Gospel Church and Covenant but faith in the particular persons only so standing Well then they were broken off but why not because they had not believing parents for Abraham was the fleshly Father of all of them and the primitive believing Iews were the fleshly fathers of many of them and are to this day as much as ever if bare birth priviledge could ingraft them as it did of old in the family of the Iewish Church Nor was it because they wanted title upon which they might have stood still in the Iewish Church if that Church it self had stood to this day for they were Abrahams seed and that gave them capacity enough to dwell in the house before their own unbelief notwithstanding but because they do not believe themselves because the terms of standing in the Church which before Christ were these viz. We have Abraham to our Father we are the Children of such and such parents are now quite changed so that it boots not to say such a thing as Abraham is our father Mat. 3. unless we can also say we repent and believe the Gospel The Jews were broken off by unbelief and thou and thine o believing Gentile must stand by faith yet not thine by thy faith but thou thy self by thine and they by their own faith is that in which thou standing and not thy seed thou hast right to stand in the Church and not they in which they standing and not thy self they have right to stand in the Church and thou hast none Perpetuity in personall faith gives perpetual personal right to baptism and to Church-membership but not a perpetuity of the same right to any mans whole posterity there 's now no difference made at all as to Gospel interest by being either this or that by nature but in all the world any person Jew or Gentile male or Female seed of believer or of unbeliever Barbarian Scythian bond or free is capable both to be saved and signed as an heir of salvation by baptism upon personal faith but in no wise the progeny upon the faith of the parentage And yet to put it more out of doubt that the Covenant holiness and church-right of mens fleshly seed which was of old is not continuing under the Gospel but Ceremonial and so ended in Christ in whom your selves say Iudicialia sunt Mortua Ceremonialia Mortifera I will leave two or three consequences upon the file which either answer and that not invitâ Minervâ nor stretching your Genius beyond sense and reason rather than want somewhat whereby to prove your Iudaizing to be judicious or else by silence say you cannot I leave you to consult with them as you see occasion That holiness which sanctified the Iewes Land City Temple Altar all its untensils Priest-hood and the whole body of that people and all the pertinences of the first tabernacle and old Covenant was Ceremonial only and is now abolished and not abiding among believing Gentiles But that holiness that sanctified the Iewish seed was the same and no other then that which sanctified their Land City Temple Altar and its Utensils Priest-hood and whole people and all the appertenances of that first Tabernacle and old Covenant Ergo That holiness which sanctified the Iewish seed is now abolished and not abiding at all among believing Gentiles As for the Major I would wish you not to subject your selves so much to suspicion of superstition as you will do in these daies of light by putting me to prove it as to require proof on 't since no intelligent man or religious Christian save the Pope and Dr. Featley and the rest of their several fryes and fraternities will deny it or did ever in the daies of the Gospel attribute the same holiness to outward and inanimate things viz. places Lands profits Emolluments first fruits Tithes Oblations and other obventions Temples Altars Tables Lavers Chalices Vestiments nor yet to Priests and people that all these were denominated holy by under the Law for to me by the same reason that first fruits tythes and such like are now to be called holy the first born of every creature both of man and beast is still to be called holy also for even these were sanctifyed and holy Denominativè and Dedicativè as much as any of the rest Ezod 13.2 yea as Paul did in another case viz. appeal to the Pharisees to judge between him and the Sadduces so may I to you of the Presbyterian Priesthood to decide this matter between me and the Seducers of the Popish and Prelatick strain whose holy sandalls copes surplices and other superfluities viz. railes high Altars holy Tapers and Candlesticks holy Fonts holy Windows you your selves pulld down and prophaned before that part of the wheele where the Baptists dwell did at all appear so plainly as now it doth in the Horizon of this English Nation for which sort of sacriledge D◠Featley much mistaking you and
having that at present they rather scoff at the holy spirit yet dare you not say they are all reprobates for some of them may turn at Christs reproof for ought you know therefore what consequence is there from not being reprobates to a present possession of the holy spirit Secondly do you know so precisely which infants are Elect and which Reprobate as to take upon you to distinguish them by baptism or are all infants of unbelievers reprobate so that you may accordingly denominate them for such by whole sale as you do Do not the infants of unbelievers very often prove believers and so elect and precious and as ordinarily believers infants when they come to years I mean prove reprobates were not Asa the son of wicked Abia and Iosias of wicked Ammon elected both when Ishmael and Esau the sons of Abraham and Isaac themselves were in Scripture secundum te o Accountant p. 13. both branded for reprobates Lastly to the plain perverture of the words of the the text you quote to your own ends instead of Iesus Christ between whose and the spirits being in men there is no small difference for Christ may be in us by faith I mean we may be in the faith when yet he is not in us by his spirit I mean before the spirit is yet given witness all the disciples that believed and were baptized with water some while before Christ gave them the holy spirit Act. 8. Act. 19. instead of Christ I say you insert the spirit of God you also wholly pervert the sence of the Apostle in that place 2 Cor. 13.5 who speaks it not to infants nor of them neither but of persons that could both know and prove and examine their own selves of all which infants were uncapable by your own confession he wrote it of them to whom he wrote it and so indeed though you are slow of heart to consider it the whoâ—â— Gospel was written viz. de adultis adulâ—orum officiis of grown person whether parents or children and their duties but not for the use of infants in â—â—fancie at all In the next place upon occasion of my denial that it can be made appear that infants have the holy spirit to the making of them subjects of baptism you argue it on thus Disputation The report of Scripture concerning them and the necessary consequences of the former Arguments do make it more plainly appear to any one that will not deny Scripture and reason then the Profession of any particular person who perhaps may be an hypocrite as Symon Magus can make it appear of himself Gods testimony being to be preferred before mans Disproof Here is one of the most prodigious pieces of absurditie and contradiction of your selves as you speak in other places that was ever discerned to pass from men that cried out so loud as you do for libertie to reason logically since the art of Logick was found out In that you here call the consequences of all your former Arguments necessary consequences which is as much as to say such as conclude the thing in hand i. e. that infants have the holy spirit necessarily universally and infâ—llibly for that and no other were you so well skilled in Logick as you would seem to be is a necessary consequence which proves the matter concluded certainly so to be yea certo ità esse nec alitèr se habere posse a necessary consequence is when there is tam necessarius nexus indissolubilis dependentia c. such infallible dependence between the subject and the praedicate that the conclusion must be universally and perpetually true whereas your conclusion which is this viz. That little Children have the holy spirit as it followes not so much as probably nor possibly from all that you have here premised toward the proof on it witness all the Disproof made of your Disputation hitherto so much less doth it follow from them necessarily to be true for then it must be at least truly denominated de omni i. e. universally true concerning all little children that they have the ho-spirit de omni being the very lowest degree of necessity but this for shame you cannot say that all little children of every sort have holy spirit no nor yet so much as all of that sort of whom you so peculiarly assert it viz. the little children of believers among whom when they are at years there are as many destitute of the holy spirit as are indued with it And in further evidence hereof that it follows not necessarily from any thing you have said that those little infants you sprinkle have the holy spirit I appeal from your selves to your very selves for howbeit you here affirm as also p. 16. inch a necessity in the consequences whence you conclude that infants of believers have faith and the holy spirit yet to the utter confutation of your selves herein you elsewhere confesse that at the best your proof can be no more then probable viz. p. 18 where you write concerning the infants of Christian parents having faith and the spirit as if notwithstanding all that was said before to prove the certainty of it you could not now tell well what to say to it for as in p. 16. you acknowledged that all infants have it not so these are your own words p. 18. viz. the spirit is not bound to work it in all the children of Christian parents nor barr'd from working it in any of the children of infidels so that no judgement of science can be passed till the acts themselves be seen and examined for a posteriori onely and yet by the way be it known unto you that every necessary consequence demonstrates a priori the discovery of habits it made that unlesse it could be certainly presumed what children have the habit what have not for the working of the spirit is not known to us he is not bound nor yet bard there can be no conclusion made In which words see how plainly you acknowledge that no conclusion can be made of it that infants of Christians have the habit of faith i. e. it is a thing that doth not necessarily follow and cannot appear in infancy at all nor be certainly presumed whether they have or have it not till they come to years and be seen to act so that then it may be known by your own confession and yet in this place I am now in hand with you say no more nor lesse but in effect the clean contrary as also p. 16. where you seem to wonder almost and fault the difficulty in mens understandings that there are at all any doubts in them about their having it avouching that the Scriptures by necessary consequences confirme the thing viz. that they have it That the report of Scripture concerning little children and the necessary consequences of the former arguments do make it appear yea plainly yea more plainly then the profession of any particular person at years can make it
the thing signified by the understanding and that at the same time when the sign appears to the senses or else the sign is a meer Nullity and of no use and benefit as a sign at all for though infants may have the sense of the thing so as to see and feel if they were dipt in infancy yet have they then no understanding of its meaning and though when they come to years they are capable to gather the meaning of things or from an appearing sign to conceive what is signified thereby yet then the sign it self is fled out of sight and so far out of the reach of their remembrance that as ther 's nothing now presented so neither ever was there any thing for ought they can conjecture any more then by meer human hearsay objected to their senses at all when the Jewes required a sign of Christ they required something that might be seen what sign shewest thou that we may see and believe A sign then must be some memorandum some object obvious to the senses of that person to whom t is a sign properly taken either continually or at sometime or other even then which the understanding drinks in the thing signified else if there neither is nor ever was any such sight or sense of the sign as from the then or now present appearance of it while the understanding of the party whose sign it is is lively acted on the thing then to that person the sign unlesse improperly and improper signes the sacraments are not can possibly be no sign at all this Pareus teacheth us to the life p. 35.7 where deâ—ining baptism and the supper to be signa in oculos incurrentia hoc est visibilia signs that are or once were to be seen by him whose signes they are even at that time while he is to learn something by them he further backs it as I have set down in his own words in the margent and for the use of the unlearned Englished thus viz. for they ought to be such that they may signifie things invisible for if they ought to be helps to our faith they must be perceived by the external sense whereby the internal sense is moved for what thouseest not is no sign to thee he that makes an invisible signimplies a contradiction and makes the sign not a sign at all they are invisible things not signes otherwise also the signes could not so much as signifie the things much lesse confirm them because an uncertain thing would be confirmed by a thing as uncertain as it self hence the antients define a Sacrament thus a sacrament is a visible sign of some invisible grace So then we see that according to your selves a sign is no sign at all to him that is never seen all by him who is to observe it and that too at sometimâ— or other after he comes to observe what is meant by it whereupon I testifie that what was done to us in infancy had it been the true sign of Christs own institution viz. baptism as t was rather a sign of meer mans institution viz. the sign Rantism and the sign of the crosse neither was nor is nor ever will be any sign at all to you or me if at any time it be a sign to vs it must be either while we are infants or when grown to years but not while infants for then we apprehend not the thing signed nor when at years for then we apprehend not the sign How mighty your memories and how exquisite your apprehensive powers are to bring these two I mean the sign and thing signified together in your thoughts I know not but I plainly acknowledge notwithstanding Dr Channels councel to the Auditory at the Dispute at Petworth Ian. 5. 1651 to remember and call to mind what was signified to them in their infant baptism that as in infancy I perceived not to what purpose I was signed so now save what I have by hearsay I perceive not nor ever did of my self to my best remembrance that I was then so signed at all As for that true baptism which I have since submitted to some 4 or 5 years ago as it then preached so far as a sign may be said to preach most precious things to my understanding so it lively appeared to my senses and left such impression upon them and such an Idea thereof in my mind that me thinks I both see and remember it still and so shall I hope have good cause to do whilest I live I conclude then that to signifie things to infants by baptism in infancy is a meer blank and utter nullity a silly cypher that stands for nothing and is of no use to them at all Yea as it would be thought no better then meer mockery or witless wisdom for any Priest to stand talking and making signs over one a sleep while he is understandingly sensible of nothing and then after he is awake and as little a ware of any thing as before begin to make the application and will him to divine both what was done to him by whom and why and to take cognizance and clearer evidence of such and such things by the same token that they were told him and signified to him by what was done while he was asleep by certain signs which he never saw yet nor never shall so is it to me to baptize meer infants or as it were no better than flat folly for any father in a serious and not lusory way to shew the form of the City Ierusalem to his infant 〈◊〉 infancy by the figure and draught of it in a Map saying look here child this stands for the Temple this signifies and sets forth the manner of Mount Sion and and all this is shewed thee now that thou maiest remember it another time that Ierusalem is thus and thus scituated and then when he comes to age without any more resemblance of it to him in the map to indoctrinate him in what was done in his iâ—fancy and bid him reflect back and call to mind what was shewn him in that map in which it was manifested to him what manner of city Ierusalem was and other such like ridiculous stuff and prate of the things so long since done that they are now flown both out of sight and mind even such and no better is it yea such piteous poor and meer painted piety is it for persons whether Priests or parents to stand prating to and ore poor ignorant infants and signing them at a Font or Bason whilest if they be not a sleep as my own silly experience teaches me they have been many a time while I have been sprinkling them in the midwives or the mothers armes yet they are at best no better then asleep because as heedless of what 's done saying to them very seriously by name as if they would have them mind what is said Thomas Anne c. I baptize thee in the name of the Father c. in token of remission
seal together with all your vain conversion and worship by tradition from your fathers yet you never learn'd it from our fathers in the word wherein shew me if you can from the beginning to the end save in Rom. 4.11 where in anosense sense viz. not to strengthen a weak faith but to honor great faith circumcision was set as Gods broad seal to confirm Abraham in his fatherhood any one of the four which you call Gods seals viz. either circumcision or the passeover baptism or the supper is call'd a seal by God himself Babist The formal term of a sign is no more to be found in Scripture to be given either to baptism or the supper then the term of a seal yet you grant it to be properly called a sign and so why may it not be called a seal though it be not so called in Scripture Baptist. Though the expresse denomination of a sign be not given in Scripture to either baptism or supper yet no lesse is sounded forth in sense and signification but the other term of seal as to these things is not consonant to the rule of faith for verily as no other is exprest so no more then one seal of the Gospel Covenant is so much as implied or hinted at in holy writ and that one seal is no other then the holy spirit by which those that believe are said to be sealed Eph. 1.13 Eph. 4.30 and howbeit God preacheth the Gospel to us outwardly by words oaths signes and visible resemblances viz. baptism and the supper and this in the ministration of men who may minister to us all these and set them close to our ears and to our eyes yet when he preaches it to us inwardly so fully and firmly as by seal he preaches it himself alone and though by a baptism yet a better baptism then that of water that is the holy spirit which though the sign may be set first to profest believers that are not so indeed secondly and this very visibly and openly to the view of others thirdly by men like our selves yet first is never set to any but believers in truth secondly and that secretly and indiscernably to any but themselves that are seald thirdly by none but God himself who onely sets that baptism close to the conscience within which baptism no man under heaven can administer what we set i. e. the sign may very easily be to a blank our ministration being liable to mistake but what Christ sets i. e. the seal that makes us most sure from himself that cannot possibly be misplaced for where and whensoever the spirit of God within is sent to bear witnesse and cry Abba i. e. father there and then God is a father indeed your own selves say that where the seal is that soul is sure at that time a real heir and from that time forth say you also for ever and so say I if that soul continue for ever cleaving to the Lord not quenching resisting or so grieving that holy spirit as to cause it to depart for ever for if so ther 's another tale told you from several Scriptures 1 Chron. 28.9 Heb. 6.4.5 Heb. 10 29. But if it be so as you say that Gods seal seals up none but such as are both true heirs by faith at present and must necessarily abide so for ever then first here 's an Argument ad hominem how ever i. e. an evidence to you out of your own mouthes that your baptism is none of Gods seal sâ—th it is set by you not onely to 1000s that after it fall from him but indeed to 1000s that never knew him their father nor never will I again therefore once more for all that I may not trouble my self with them when I meet them in other places protest against these your expressions of circumcision and baptism by the name of seals Gods seales of the Gospel Covenant c. first as none of mine wheresoever you are found fathering them on me as p. 6.7.14 Secondly as none of Gods expressions though I know not how many times ore viz. p. 4.6.7.8.13.14 you aver the ordinances to be Gods seals and father that very phrase on God himself who as he useth not such a phrase when he speaks of those foolish things as the world counts them 2 Cor. 1. which he chuses as his outward witnesses shews signs and love tokens from himself to us so he useth no such tools indeed as these Instrumental signes are when he ministreth himself for these he appoints men to minister in these are the instruments of the foolish sheapherds Zach. 11.15 even the outward instruments which God hath chosen for the under sheapheards to act by he uses none of these I say as his own seal and inward witnesse for that 's no lesse then the holy spirit which whattypes shews and signes of the Gospel Covenant soever there have bin outwardly both before and since the Gospel begun hath bin is and ever shall be the onely earnest that God hath given the only witnesse that him self hath us'd the onely seal that he hath set in any age whether before the law or under the law or under the Gospel Psal. 51.11.12 Eph. 1.13.4.30 2 Cor. 5.5 Rom. 8.15.23 So having removed the rubbish of rude expression with which your last argument was clouded and not a little over loaded as you delivered it I come now to consider it nakedly as it lies substantially enough compriz'd in these expressions viz. Vnder the Law circumcision was by Gods appointment dispensed to little infants Ergo under the Gospel baptism must be to infants also or else the Gospel Covenant is worse to the spiritual seed of Abraham now then it was to his carnall seed under the law This is in short the plain sense and ordinary way of urging this argument By way of Answer to which let me be so bold first as to ask you this one question viz. why you stand so stâ—fly to have baptism dispens'd so strictly after the manner of circumcision and yet stray and vary your very selves from the fashion of that administration in a manner as much as any men in the world for verily though the way of circumcision be that you stickle for yet you stragle from it and as to the very subject it self vary from it as much as in any thing else if that be rhe rule after which men must baptize as you plead why then do ye not baptize for so they circumcised First onely males and no females Secondly all male servants upon the masters single faith as well as male children on the fathers Thirdly on the eighth day onely and neither sooner nor later nor one day before it nor behind it Fourthly by the hands of parents fathers Mrs. Mothers as well as by the hands of the Priesâ—s onely Fifthly any where viz at home or abroad in Inns or other places as occasion is but onely or for the most part in your great stone houses for this is both
onely before they have learned ever a letter but some years before they are capable to be taught a tittle as for circumcision which was so timely dispenst its intent was not to admit the subjects to be taught as Mr. Marshal vainly contends saying that they were then discipled when circumcised i. e. then first initiated and admitted immediately to be taught but somewhat else as I have shewd above for when it was dispenst to infants it was set to a subject utterly uncapable to be taught and when to grown men that subject was to be instructed before it and as for baptism to which from circumcision Mr. Marshall analogically argues the same that is not by intent and institution the first admission of persons to be taught though persons are to be further taught after it in other doctrines Act. 2 42. Mat. 28.20 but it was one of these doctrines of Christ it self which was to be taught before dispensed and as it were a certain sermon wherein the person submitting is to be instructed and shewed many pretious things viz. Christ dead buried and raised while dispensed and though it is one of the six principles or first doctrines of Christ that is to be preached believed and practised by new born babes and I mean not in your sense but another by beginners in Christs School yet is it not the first among the six in order but the third to which two other Doctrines viz. faith and repentance ought to be Antecedent Heb. 6.1.2.3 Act. 2.38 Mark 1.15 Mark 16.15 16. And if it be so as Mr. Marshall saies Spanhemius affirms giving good reason though it s but bald reason as I shall shew by and by for his Analysis viz. that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to make disciples doth not signifie simply to teach for then there would be found Tautology in Christs words because he repeats teaching again after baptizing but to baptize and teach both so as that Christs meaning is this as he saies viz. go and make me disciples out of all nations by baptizing and teaching and so as that this businesse of making disciples is to be accomplisht or attained by two and not under these two actions at least viz. baptizing and teaching as he saies t is then let all the world judge whether infants be not still by that opinion as uncapable to be made disciples as before for whether 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to make disciples be a matter or end attainable simply by that one action of eaching onely or whether not under these two mediums viz. baptizing and teaching both still no men in the world are able to make infants of a few daies old disciples for howbeit they are capable to have one of these actions acted on them viz. to be baptized yet till they come to years they cannot be instructed or taught rill when as Spâ—nhemius sayes well the end of making them disciples is not attained By those very testimonies therfore whereby Mr. Marshall would prove infants to be disciples o how is the understanding of the prudent brought to naught that infants are not capable to be made disciples in Christs sense and present Dialect he hath in print proved it to the world and that for ever Moreover what if notwithstanding all that Mr. Marshal and his curious Criticks conceive his Rabinick phrases as he calls them viz. his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which are in sense the same be both found to signifie otherwise then his learned Spanhemius and reverend Rabbies do render them viz. not meerly to admit to be taught much lesse to disciple one barely by baptizing as Mr. Marshall would perswade us quite contrary to his own quotation out of Spanhemius in this very application of it for Spanhemius saies and so he quotes him that to disciple is to baptize and teach both but he that baptizing onely is discipling I say what if they be found to signifie neither baptizing onely nor baptizing and teaching both nor admitting one by baptism to be taught or consecrating or initiating into Christs School by baptism or any such like thing as you Divines dream on but rather mainly if not onely the acts of teaching and instructing persons till they have learn'd what is taught them abstract from the acts of baptizing and admitting into the Church will it not appear much more plainly then that infants are not capable to be made disciples and yet to the contradiction of Mr. Marshal and all the rest Mr. Cotton declares this to be his opinion viz. that the true meaning of the word disciple is taught or learn'd or if Mr. Cotton may not be credited if Mr. Marshall will take Christs own word for it which is more worth then either Mr. Cottons or those Rabbies and from whose use of the word and not theirs its best to be understood 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to make disciples before baptism and not by it and though baptism is necessit .te praecepti and for many ends viz. the visibility of the thing to others and fuller evidence of things believed to themselves necessarily and immediately to follow after i to teach an instruct men in the Gospel for there can be no other way of making disciples but this of teaching assigned as Antecedent to baptism and in proof that that phrase so signifies in Scripture see Iohn 4.1 where it s said of Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. he maketh and baptizeth more disciples then Iohn which phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 you see by the conjunction copulative 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is set down as a distinct action from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he made disciples and then baptized them therefore he did not make them by baptizing them but by something he acted towards them before viz. by preaching and instruction so it must be for else if you talk of tantology here had been tantology in the Evangelists words indeed for if he had said thus viz. he made or baptized as it must have been if the words he made Disciples and baptized had been Synonimaes in sense just one and the same then you had had some couler for your conception but sith he saies he made Disciples and baptized them it shewes plainly that he made them before he baptized them and that these two words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are not one and the same in signification for then there had been tantology in using them both and though the expression be different yet the sense is no other then if it were said thus viz. Iesus baptized and baptized more than Iohn I appeal also to your own consciences whether what Christ speaks in this very text we are yet upon viz. Mat. 28.19 by the participle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may not without any violation of the sense be read imperatively by the verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thus viz. teach all Nations and baptize them and if so whether 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
to believe witness not my self only who am of little credit with you but Mr. Cotton also none of the least of your Champions that appear for infant baptism whose very words p. 48.49 of his Way of the Churches in New England these are viz. It is not the seed of faith nor faith it self that knitteth a man to this or that visible Church but an holy profession of the faith and professed subjection to the Gospell of Christ in their communion Be ashamed therefore of such a monstrous position that persons not appearing to believe in Christ can conclude no more against their faith in Christ then against their reasonable souls Determination The seed of faith sown after discovers it self when the season comes Detection Yet so audacious are you that whilest it is but in the seed at most by your own confession as in infancy to attempt a discovery of it to all the world to be in these infants viz. of believers and not in those viz. of infidels before the season Determination The testimony of Scripture concerning their faith and the proofs taken from thence are equivalent to the best testimony and profession of any man concerning his own faith Detection O Sapientia as if the Scripture did as punctually personally and particularly testify concerning this and that individual infant which you sprinkle that it doth believe and those infants that you deny to sprinkle that they do not believe as men at years do to us by their words and works that they do or do not believe Secondly there is but one testimony of Scripture alledged by your selves where you say it s asserted of infants that they do believe viz. Mat. 18.6 and that as I have shewed First speaks not of little ones in your sense but of little ones in Christs sense viz. believes indeed and his disciples whom he stiles little ones also a little above Matth. 10.42 a place where we read not that any infant was among them Secondly that Scripture testifies of those of whomsoever it speaks in actu secundo that they do believe and so to do your selves yield is impossible for infants therefore it cannot be meant of them Thirdly if it did speak of little ones properly so called so as to say they do believe yet that they were believers and not unbelievers infants is a thing which a wise man may fumble himself 55 times over and become a fool before he once find it so to be Fourthly 't were but a Prosopopeia however Determination If it be further askt how faith is bread in them it is answered by the holy spirit whose waies are inscrutable who ties not himself to means works where he will and how quo magistro quam cito discitur quod docet saith Cyprian Detection And yet you scrue so farr into the inscrutable waies of the spirit in this matter as though he works where he will and how both to bind and bar him and to determine both where he doth and must work faith and where he doth not and must not viz. in believers infants not in infants of infidels else why do you refuse to baptize the one upon non-appearance of faith and yet plead for the baptism of the other as in whom it appears to you so clearly that by argument you say you make it more plainly appear to any one that will not deny Scripture and reason that they have faith then the profession of any one particular person that ever I baptized can make it appear of himself for thus you peremptorily conclude p 5. and then as prettily unconclude it all ore again p. 18. saying unlesse it could be certainly presumed what children have the habit of faith what have not for the working of the spirit is not known to us there can be no conclusion made why also do you say the promise is to believers and all their seed which is as much as to say God is bound upon his word and covenant unto these children not unto others and therefore must be as good as his word for I hope you all agree that God will not lie p. 14. though I confesse p 18. you unsay all this ore again and grant that he is not bound to work it in all the children of Christian parents nor bard from working it in any of the children of infidels O fine whifles Determination If it be inquired how faith can be said to be in them without their consent the answer is as well as originall sin to which they never consented and that Christ is more powerful to salvation then Adam to condemnation Detection That original sin is in infants so far as it is in them without their consent I do not deny it being a matter more imputative as I have shewed above then inhaesive and that Christ is more powerful to salvation then Adam was to condemnation is an undoubted truth which makes me believe otherwise then once I did viz. that whatsoever befel whomsoever meerly by Adams sin is as universally as well in respect of the subject made miserable thereby viz. whole mankind as of the misery befalling that subject by the coming of the Second Adam taken away for which tenet I could give more proof then you can easily disprove were it not besides the Argument I am in hand with but that faith is in any persons without the consent of those in whom it is is a lesson that I shall never consent to learn while mine eies are open I have found many Divines defining faith by the very term of an assent or consent unto the things promised preacht profered or propounded to us to believe and making assent or consent such a necessary ingredient to the very essence being or nature of faith that faith cannot be faith without it thus Mr. Baxter your fiercest fellow-fendent of infants baptism the very essence of faith saith he p. 98. lyeth in assenting that Christ is king and saviour and consenting that he be so to us Yea he denies them to have any true faith who do not thus assent and consent but of all the faiths that ever I have heard or read of and of all the kinds of believing that ever were broacht in the brains of men I never yet heard of a believing of things whether one will or no I mean a real believing and not such a feigned forced faith as that of those who must say they believe as the Church believes when happily they know not what that is nor did I ever hear of believing without assenting to the things believed since I was born till I met with this figment of yours nor ever shall again I am perswaded while the world stands from any men but such as having uttered one absurdity are resolved rather then to recant it to uphold it with an 100 worse then it self Determination It is further added that there is no other way revealed for the salvation of little infants but by justification and that by faith that way of the
come by faith and not of the way wherein infants have it and t is confest that faith in adultis in them that are capable to hear and understand is begotten by this means of hearing but not so in infants who cannot hear the spirit is not tyed to work by means in little infants to the bringing of them to the faith as he doth in men but without the outward hearing of the word he works saith in little children Baptist. This same that you now say fits us very well to you ward again when you say justification comes by faith for we grant that adultis to them that are capable to act faith justification comes by faith nor shall they by any means obtain it who are capable to believe and yet believe not but not so to infants who cannot believe the spirit is not tied to work by means in little infants to the justification or bringing of them to salvation as he doth in men but by the righteousnesse of Christ imputed without obedience in baptism or faith either he saves them in nonage and farther that they cannot believe which is properly as I shewed before not onely to have but act faith in Christ your selves tell us saying they have not the use the second act the exercise the fruit of it and so do not believe and so must according to your sense of Scripture if the word speak of them be cast into the lake of fire Rev. 21.8 but further grant they could have faith in both the habit and act of it also yet can they not obey Christ in other things which are required necessarily to salvation in the word of the Gospel at least concomitanter et consecutivè as well as faith it self they cannot hear Christs voice in all things they cannot confess Christ before men nor to be come in the flesh they have not crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts of it they cannot deny themselves and take up their cross and follow Christ nor hate father and mother and life for him nor keep his commandments nor abide in his Doctrine and many such like things all which the Gospel saies as universally whosoever doth not as well as whosoever believes not cannot be his disciple Mat. 18. Luke 14. Is not Christs Gal. 5.24 hath not God 2 Iohn 9. is a lyar and shall not enter into the holy City 1 Iohn 2.4 Rev. 21.27.22.14.15 is a deceiver and an Antichrist 2 Iohn 7. shall be denyed by Christ yea punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of Christ for non obedience to the Gospel 2 Thes. 1.6 so that if the Scriptures speaking of the waies and means of salvation be to be understood as the terms and conditions on which dying infants shall be saved as well as men and without which they must be damned then all dying infants must perish contrary to your sense of Mat. 18.14 who take the little ones there for infants for it s said there it is the will of my Father that not one of these little ones should perish put the case therefore that infants could believe yet their case would be little the better as to salvation so long as still they must be short of shewing their faith by other good works without which faith is not saving nor worth a straw for what would it profit if infants could go so far as to say they have faith and yet have not works can faith save them Iam. 2. 14.26 no its dead and helpless for as the body without the spirit is dead so faith without works is dead also Therefore the body of Scripture is to be understood as spoken concerning men and women and the means and way of their salvation and not of infants Babist Yea when the word speaks of works of holiness self denyal suffering mercy c. as the way to life which infants cannot do it excepts them from the doing thereof as no capable subject and not from the salvation nevertheless nor yet doth at except infants when it speaks of faith Baptist. Is not faith a work as well as repentance and the rest yea the main and principal work of the Law of Christ i. e. the Gospel Iohn 6.28.29 Secondly is it not as difficult a work for infants to believe in Christ as to obey Christs voice in other things and are they not still as uncapable a subject to do that as to do any more things that are required why then not exempted from that for the sake of their incapacity as well as from other things Thirdly if the spirit doth go extraordinary waies to work at all about the salvation of infants as you must confess he must and brings them to it without and besides the ordinary means he brings men by why will you tie and limit him him more to the ordinary way and meanes of faith then of obedience in other matters as repentance self denyal c as to their salvation seeing he must go out of the road and tract in the saving of them wherein he saves men may be not as well save infants without faith without which he will save no man as without self deniall and suffering and confessing of Christ c. without which he will save no man Fourthly specially since infants are not mentioned as meant a jot more in the places that speak of salvation by faith then in the places that speak of salvation by obedience in all things for as it is said He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved and be that believeth not shall be damned infants no where expressed or meant there so t is said as universally he is the Author of all them that obey him and he shall take vengeance on all them that obey him not and cut them off that hearken not to his voice infants no way expresly excepted as not meant there The Scriptures therefore are still to be understood de subjecto capaci when they promise or threaten things on conditions and terms of faith unbelief and other good and evill works as confessing and denying Christ and exclusively of infants where infants cannot possibly perform them for as when it s said he that works not let him not eat infants are no where excepted yet are not by the spirits appointment to starve though they work not neither are they meant there because they cannot work and as under law when it was said Cursed is he that continues not in every thing written therein and do this and live the way wherin men were to live or dy was set forth by those words and not the way wherein infants should be cursed or blessed accordingly as they were or were not found therein in infancy so Analogically when it 's said under the Gospel the just must live by faith and he that believes not shall be damned and Christ in flaming â—ire shall render vengeance to him that obeys not the Lord c. it is to be understood as spoken of the waies wherein men
should be baptized as neer as may be upon the time of their conversion and becoming disciples and if it have been then foâ—eslowd it must be after as soon as it can but in no wise so many years before it as the priests unviversally do it and such of whom it is not known nec per se nec per alios when they first were discipled and converted but oh how do I fear that as he that never doubted never believed so many of those implicit converts Mr. Baxter talks on that never knew when they were discipled and converted were never yet truly discipled hor converted at all to the truth as it is in Iesus but as they had it more by tradition from their fathers then unfained search of Scriptures such I say of whom t is not known when they first were converted and discipled shall by my consent be baptized when ever it is first known that they are converted and discipled unto Christ by their own profession of their conversion and discipleship and desire of baptism and this not by my consent alone but by the joint consent of all these very Scriptures which Mr. Baxter himself hath coâ—ed for our example and warrant all which if as far as Christs own precept and practise and the primitive Churches example can do it they do not warrant the baptism of all and onely such persons as were first taught or made disciples by preaching or instructed till they both learnt believed and imbraced the Gospel and professed themselves disciples and offered themselves to baptism and consequently of no infants then for my part I le lay aside all sense and reason as no more to be heeded as a help to understand the Scriptures and turn a very Tom-fool and he that can Altobelogick these Scripture institutions and instances into plain Scripture proofs of infant Church membership and baptism Erit mihi magus Apollo for there 's no mention of infants either expressely or implicitly in any one of them Oh therefore to Eccho back to Mr. Baxter a little in much what his own words to us concerning those Scriptures p. 127 that those who are so inclinable to seperation from the primitive practise would consider the unfitnesse of infants to be admitted by baptism to be Church members under the Gospel Oh that they that in church whole parishes as if they because the Pope will have it so were all Churches and will have no trial at all and discoveries of the work of persons conversion before they admit them but take them all at hap hazard as they fall from the belly within the bounds of that parish where they are plac't and popified would but lay to heart all these Scripture examples and make more conscience of observing their rule and not presume to be wiser and holier then God when it was mans first overthrow to desire to be but as God though he did not attempt to go beyond him as the priests do in adding other Subjects to his ordinances then himself appointed which changing of his law will be mans last overthrow Isa. 24. doubtlesse those that Christ baptized by his disciples were Church-members but those were not infants but such as were first made disciples by preaching onely Iohn 4. and be that will go beyond Iesus Christ in strictnesse shall go without me I do not think he will be offended with me for doing as he did i. e. for baptizing none but such as believe and professe themselves disciples and as repent of their sins and desire to be baptized in the name of Christ for the remission of them and so I have done with Mr. Baxter till we meet again onely since Mr. Marshal is pleased ponere obicem to object and bolt in here that we cannot say none in these places were baptized but such as did thus i. e. believe and professe themselves disciples p. 217. to Mr. Tombs because the word onely is not here I may well call it obicem or objectionem obularem a hint not worth a half penny and if he appeal to his own conscience it will tell him no lesse neverthelesse what ere he thinks I say again all that were baptized in the forenamed places were such as are there specified to be profest converts and believers and if there were any more let him assign and shew us whom and wee l believe him as for the housholds himself is in the sands whether there were any infants in them or no and I have shewd above that they that were baptized in them are exprest all by some clause or other exclusive of infants and conclusive onely of adult disciples besides Mr. Cotton confesses that the infants were not baptized with their parents and that the infants that were brought to Christ were not baptized at all for ought he knows nor their parents neither and here are all the Scriptures that declare how baptism was done then and to whom most of which are cited by Mr. Baxter himself from which you cannot possibly scrape so much as any old odd end of an example for such a businesse as your baptism As for us besides that plain precept we have in Mat. 28. even every whit of this is plain â—resident for our baptism and comes into our assistance against all your cavils O ye Priests for thus I argue viz. The baptism of men and women professing faith in the Lord Iesus confessing sins calling on the name of the Lord c. is a baptism yea all the baptism that the Scripture speaks of either in way of command or example But the baptism which we dispence is a baptism of men and women professing faith in our Lord Iesus confessing sins calling on the name of the Lord gladly receiving the word c. Ergo that baptism which we dispense is a baptism yea all the baptism the Scripture speaks of in way of either command or example Therefore Sâ—rs how hath Satan bewitched you that you cannot believe and obey the truth what will you onely think things and thrust your thoughts of them as oracles upon all others will you imagine and suppose and dream and dote and fancy and fain a baptism that the Scriptures and first Churches never knew and then father your figments upon the Scriptures and fasten them as the fashion which the whole world must be forct to follow and conform to Moreover I do not at present remember any one part of Scripture which your selves summon into your help in this case of infant baptism that doth not yield ammunition and much matter against you more then for you unlesse it be one or two used by your selves which one may as well with Skoggin untile the house to look for an hare as urge either pro or con about infants baptism so farre shall he be from finding in them any proof for that or the true baptism either as namely 2 Cor. 13.5 1 Thess. 4.13 There are but two places that I know of besides those I have already turned
some infants above others as you do who by your mouth I mean Mr. Blake declare some by nature now as of old to be Children of God and Saints and some dogs and swine some holy i. e. in your sense in Covenant as the Iew of old and some unclean i. e. in your sense out of Covenant with God and sinners of the Gentiles which distinction is now destroyed much lesse that such prerogative of seed is intended by the Apostle in that texâ— even I my self I say do look on all infants as holy in some sense as I have shewed before i. e. negative as far as meer innocency and freedom from iniquity may denominate holy not counting them to be in Adam and so impure but recounting them in Christ till by actual sin and a wicked life they take me off from that account and on some children also viz. those of Christian parents as having in some sense a prerogative of seed so far as they may be a seed of prayers more then othess and in some sense too not yours a holinesse above others i. e. as they may be sanctified to their parents as blessings as every thing else may be by their prayers whether good or evill in it self if yet what is blest to us may be properly denominated holy as every creature is said to be sanctified to the Saint 1 Tim. 4. and yet for my life dare I not baptize any at all and as for Tertullian though he mistaking Pauls meaning holds such are holy by a kind of prerogative of seed as Mr. Marshall speaks yet t is very questionable to me whether it be that so transcendent kind of birth holiness and prerogative you expound him of and howbeit Dr. Holmes and Mr. Marshall would fain fetch that father in by force of forged construction to witnesse as a God-father to their federal holinesse yet I cannot easily believe by his words that he hath respect to any more then a bare recounting and reputing these to be holy in a sense abstract from any reallity of their being holy by natural birth and in their childhood as the Doctor vainly descants on Tertullians phrase wherein he mentions them to be holy or till such time as they are holy indeed by that new birth from above and Mr. Marshal takes my part against the Doctor in this too saying they are in Tertullians sense designati sanctitatis i. e. as these words are expounded by the following witnesse the Doctor himself counted holy but not Sancti i. e. not holy till they be born of water and the spirit p. 36. much lesse can I ever believe that he counted them holy and priviledged above others so far as thereupon to assert them or so much as to allow them to be baptized for that 's an utter in consequence of your own from Pauls text 1 Cor. 7.14 and from Tertullians text to who though he take Pauls speech of such childrens holinesse a little the wrong way yet wrests them not so far out of the way to the proof of such a popish practise as you do yea there is not a little in Tertullians testimony you so talk of that tends at all to testifie the truth of infant baptism indeed had the Epithet given by Tertullian fidelium filiis been so as that instead of that phrase wherein he saies they ought to be designati sanctitatis et salutis i. e. reputatively holy and happy ones he had said they should be signati sanctitatis salutis i. e. signed in your own phrase sealed ones of holinesse and happinesse there had been some hint towards baptism but as t is there is none at all of such a matter The Dr. draws neck and heels together to make Tertullian speak to his mind but t will appear he was of another mind then he as to the baptism of any infants when all is done for saith he Babist Tertullian shews childrens capacity of grace and salvation Baptist. And what then yea what if we grant you that they are capable of salvation yea the Scripture asserts it and we do not deny it therefore you need not trouble Tertullian for this testimony but what follows upon it what then Babist What then why consequently they are capable of the seal for the deeds and their seales follow the right of the inheritance Baptist. This is your inference Mr. Dr. from which inference of yours now we talk of inferring I le infer two things by way of quaere and so let it passe viz. First if the seales in plurali marke your words therefore both at least yet both are but signs neither in true locution must both follow the right of the inheritance of which children are in capacity as well as men then to fill you with your own phrase why is not one seal of the same inheritance of the same salvation given to infants by you as well as the other i. e. the supper as well as baptism Secondly if these in plurali or if no more then baptism be to be given to children consequently upon no more then capacity oâ— salvation the capacities of infants being equal and they quoad nos all alike capable to enjoy it if God who is neither bound nor barred please to bestow salvation why are not both these or at least that one sign of baptism which you give to some infants given by you to all infants as well as some i. e. to ungodly mens children as well as to those of godly parents the Dr. strives with all his strength and straines one point more yet to strain Tertullians testimony to his turn yet will it not do in any wise Babist Tertullian in that text mentions not onely childrens being holy but he mentions also that place Iohn 3.4 in relation to children except a man be born again of water and of the spirit c. from which we may perceive that Tertullian grounds infants baptism upon Scripture Baptist. To which first supposing that by that birth of water and the spirit is meant nothing but baptism in that place of Tertullian we are yet upon I reply Secondly thus viz. appealing to the Drs own conscience and Mr. Marshals also whether he speak that very clause of Scripture in that very place of his we are now upon to that very intent as to ground infant baptism upon it or whether if it be read with a right and true Emphasis and reference it doth not of the two rather suppose it was not to be in infancy for having as Mr. Marshal understands confessed so far of infants of the faithful that they are designati sanctitatis et salutis i. e. to be held in the mean time to wit in childhood and before baptism as holy and happy reputatively only yet he saies that none of all them are sancti i. e. holy indeed for that we see is Tertullians sense of the word enter into the kingdom unlesse they be born of water and the spirit that is as I conceive till they
fleshly seed did not make the Gospel promise to him and his fleshly seed but onely that seed of his that believes with him can we think that he made that promise to the Gentile believer and his fleshly seed for his fathers sake unlesse he have faith of his own Babist No we do not say without respect to his own faith but as the believers seed shall believe so it s made to him as well as to his parents Baptist. So it s made to the unbeliever and his seed also viz. as they shall believe as well as to either of the other and by that account you may baptize all the world Again none of the Jews though the natural seed of Abraham and partakers of all the ordinances of the old testament as Abrahams children could be admitted to be baptized upon that same natural relation though they pleaded it never so stiffly Mat. 3 but only on manifestation of amendment besides that 3000 converts should not baptize their children when they were baptized themselves as Abraham by command took all his males and cirmumcised them the self same day with himself argues plainly that both the covenant and the promise as Mr. Marshal saies truly as to the manner of administration was now changed and not continued to parents and children both alike but as they both alike believed And that these were not baptized with their parents I take Mr. Cotton at his word who as I have shewed before confesses it and if he should not stand to his testimonie herein yet these words viz. as many as glady received the word were baptized which exclude infants and were an imperfect relation if he meant not onely them that received the word are so cogent that they cannot but compell him So I have escaped two of your bullets and as for the third viz. that the Gospel which is a better Covenant would be far worse if believers children be not counted in it and have not right to baptism and membership as well as the Iews children and be valued but as Turks and Pagans this is so sick of the same disease of absurdity with the rest that I fear not its doing much execution besides we have lamed it before having told you before and proved it too and now will again that the exclusion of the fleshly seed from this Covenant and administration which was taken into the first doth not lessen or straiten the grace of God under it at all nor render this covenant worse then the first contrary to Heb. 8.6 the place twice quoted by you where it s called a better for the meliority there spoken of of this covenant above that lies not so much in the extension of the grace of it to such subjects as in the meliority of its promises for this is a better covenant still then the other who ere it belongs or belongs not to forasmuch as it makes better promises then the other viz. of a heavenly Canaan and all spiritual blessings in and by Iesus through faith when that promised an earthly Canaan onely and certain temporal blessings therein on performance of those tedious services of the law T is true theirs in this sense and thus farre was a Covenant of great grace too as t was made freely to that people above other nations for he did not so to any people else concerning outward benefits and such statutes and judgements as should on their observation of them not onely continue them therein but as a shadow type and schoolmaster conduct them to this yet greater is the glory of the Gospel covenant which now is so that the other had no glory in respect of this glory that excelleth therefore the grace of God under the covenant to them that are under it is greater also Besides if you speak not onely of the intention but extension of the grace of God in this Covenant and in the administration of it too it goes beyond the other for not only is the Gospel a clearer promulgation of the eternal covenant then that typical covenant was whereby the glory of it may be seen more plainly and with open face then when it was seen onely in the type as a thing to come for we preach Christum exhibitum Christ crucified a sacrifice already offered and baptize and break bread in token hereof but they and that in much dimnesse too Christum exhibendum a Messiah to come he was veiled though seen through the veil in the old but revealed in this new dispensation but also it is of larger extent in respect of the subject to which it belongs for the revelation of it by preaching and real proferring of the grace of it in the name of God who is not willing that any should perish and fail of his grace unlesse they will is to all people in the world the old administration of circumcision and other pertinances of that covenant which was the type of this was limitted and narrowed into a little corner the land of Israel the people of the Iews yea more the very new covenant administration that we are now under as preaching baptizing c. while the old covenant did continue as it did for two or three year after the beginning of this by Iohn till Christ crucified was streitned exceedingly above what it is among us for saith Christ then go not into any way of the Gentiles but now since Christ crucified its extended freely to every nation and every person in it of capacity of years to receive it and till then dying before they shall never be damned for rejecting it without any exception as they believe for go saith he into all the world c. Mark 16 Mat. 28. then circumcision was limitted to males among the Iews but Christ and baptism is to Jew and Gentile male and female without difference as they believe so that the grace is rather lengthned in the administration of baptism by taking in the females that were not circumcised then straitned by the denial of it to infants in their infancy onely for even those also may be baptized too if they will when they come to years the grace of the new covenant therefore is even thus as well as otherwise better then the old in respect of the extent of it and its administration also to more subjects for the Jews onely were the subjects of that grace and heirs by promise of the earthly Canaan but all the world are heirs of heaven by promise according as they repent and believe the Gospel Besides if you think that ever God took the whole body of that nation Israel that belonged all to the typical salvation of the old covenant into the covenant of everlasting salvation by Christ in relation to their fathers faith without their own and thence conclude that the whole body of believers seed must be by faith of their parents admitted into that same Covenant of the Gospel this is a meer Chimaera of your own brain for no such grace of
to children of believing parents as to persons at years for we have Gods testimony concerning them in this matter whilest you have but mans testimony concerning himself yea Christ hath amply declared his good will to them in Scripture whose testimony is not onely Tanta-mount but to be preferred before mens from which it more plainly appears that infants have faith then the testimony of any particular person can make it appear for himself Baptist So you say indeed both before page 5. and behind p. 19. but how dare you assert then that you go not about to prove certainly but only probably that believers infants do believe for verily if it be so as you say that God himself gives testimony for them in Scripture that these little infants do believe then never say no judgement of science can be passed no discovery made of the habit of faith nor peremptory presuming what infants have faith and what not till you see them act it for Gods testimony is more credible then mans indeed hath he said it and is it not so yea verily let him be true but every man a lyar for mans own word can create but probability and charity and not so much neither unless he speak it from Gods word that believers infants do believe and infidels infants do not but if God have said so then cursed be he that will not believe it to be so for if his word be not perfectly demonstrative and scientifical and past all doubt but I confesse I find not a word of his concerning such a thing then I le never trust self confuting Clergy men any more 2. Whereas you answer that in those children where there is lesse promptness to acts of faith then in others we cannot argue ad negationem habitus because they work not equally What is this to the present question and position concerning no more inclinablenesse to holy actions in children of Christians then of infidels for those are such of whom your selves assert the one have faith the other have none but these you speak of now are adult ones such as in whom there is some promptness to acts of faith appearing differenced only secundum magis minus some inclining more some lesse to acts of faith concerning all whom sith those of them that have least promptness have at least an apparent promptnesse to acts of faith who denies but that they may have faith though they work not equally but what 's this to the proof of more or lesse inclinablenesse to holy actions among infants who are so far from having some more some lesse that even none of them have any promptnesse thereto at all 3. Whereas you fiddle it on a little further and think to coop us up by your crosse interrogatory you may well call it a crosse one indeed for its a net that catches your selves let us answer it which way soever you would have us For if we say heathens infants are inclined to acts of faith and should make that good against you as we shall hardly ere trouble our selves to do unlesse we did believe it to be truth can you give any just account of your denial of baptism to these yea who can forbid water why they may not be baptized that have and are inclined to act faith as well as the other and in whom as in those of believing parents the work is palpably at least possibly and probably the very same But if we say no infidels infants are not inclined then we must take what comes on it for you are resolved to hit us home indeed and so you do while you do that at last cast which had you done at first you had saved your selves a deal of hurt which you have done your selves by circumlocuting so long in way of proving the very Minor proposition of that last Argument which Reason urged against you viz. that Christians children are not more inclined to actions of faith then those of infidels for at last you fall flatly as your safest way to deny that Minor and assert contrarily thereto that children of Christians are more inclined to holy actions then other children which if it be true First how grosly do you contradict that you say in the lines above where you seem to grant that there may be more inclinablenesse in infidels children and promptnesse to holy actions then in Christians Secondly I wonder how you come to be experienced in it for if you Clergie men be all Christians and so you are in your own account your children excepting some that by the breeding you give them grow up to the same stamp of Christianity you print upon them do for all their native holy inclinations not seldome prove the lewdest and rudest of any mens children in a Countrey for not onely through the Priests and Prophets own practise but from their posterity too oft times prophaness goes out into all the world or else the Popes had never filled it with iniquitie as they have done The nexâ— objection of Reason is as followes Review 7. Faith comes by hearing Little children cannot hear must lesse understand Ergo they have no faith They might also conclude they have no faculty of understanding neither for that comes by hearing but infants have an hearing the spirit opens their ears he must do it in adultis or for all their hearing they will never believe He is not tyed to means though we are without the outward hearing of the Word he works faith in little children The manner of his working is miraculous as it is in the conversion of every soul enough hath been said to that before nor ought it to be objected if miraculous then not ordinary for the work of the spirit in the conversion of men is both Re-Review Had Reason had the managing representing and writing of this Argument her self she would not have set it down in so weak absurd and silly a manner as Reasonlesse hath done it in in this place Reason never held such a thing yet as is asserted in this Minor viz. that children cannot hear much lesse understand for abstract hearing from understanding and take these two in sensu diviso as you do here and children can hear but in sensu composito they cannot it cannot rationally nor truly be said they cannot so much as hear much lesse understand but they cannot hear so as to understand or they cannot hear understandingly as those must that hear in order to believing and whose faith comes by hearing a hearing t is true infants have for they are not destitute of that sense more then of seeing and the rest Auriculas Asini quis non habet the same hearing that an Asse horse or other bruit beast hath which is only the sound of words without the knowledge of the sense who hath not save he that is deaf but the hearing they have is neither such as Paul speaks of there nor yet that heating you say they have viz. an inward hearing
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what then he p. 2. saies in way of answer to that that there is nothing more ordinary then to have words used out of their prime signification Baptist. Nothing more ordinary then to have words out of their prime signification what a strange extraordinary expression is that I dare undertake to shew him something more otdinary then that and venture to avouch that it is more ordinary to have words used in their prime signification then out of it or else I know not how we should handsomely understand one another in any tongue for howbeit there is now and then a word figuratized besides its proper meaning yet that a secondary borrowed bastard forraign sense should carry words so quite away from their own proper direct prime proxime native signification that we must take them in no sense no not in their genuine sense more ordinarily then in those secondary senses is such a peece of senslesse as will hardly enter into the center of my understanding while I have one yet so do you dote upon the farre fetcht senses of words when they onely though never so untowardly too may be wrested in â—o serve your turn that nothing is more ordinary among your selves indeed in such a case then to shut out the aptest the amplest acceptions altogether and force the first senses from having to do at all with those words whose own whose plainest whose neerest whose likeliest whose chiefest properest senses they are and on this wise do you deal with the truest sense and signification of this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which because it signifies sometimes onely as Mr. Blake observes which is however argumentum ad hominâ—m though I grant it signifies ever yet onely secondarily to wâ—sh therefore if you may have the vote of it it must never signifie any thing else and never be interpreted by its prime signification at all it signifies i. e. usually and for the most part and primarily for who can take Mr Blake as meaning otherwise to dip or drown c. and sometimes quoth he out of Scapula to wash but if I should ask Mr. Blake how often he would give it leave throughout the whole new testament to be taken in that sense which his word sometimes annexed to the sense of washing shewes he takes to be the most usual and common sense of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 viz. to dip plunge or overwhelm I am afraid he will change his note and say it signiâ—ies alvvayes to vvash and not allovv the sense of it to dip or plunge so much as sometimes no not yet so much as once throughout the gospel yea I demand of him vvhere he dare give vvay to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be construed in its prime sense i. e. to dip overvvhelm or in vvhat one place he vvill be pleased to let us give it any other then the secondary that onely sometime signification of vvashing I doubt it must be contented for him and all the Rantists to be vvithout its neerest to be stript of its plainest to be banisht and forct for ever from bearing its truest sense in all places of the book of God unlesse they may be forc't once to be vvithout their vvills for in all the Scripture that I knovv of where the vvord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is placed it is thus displaced from its principall signification by them so that all our desires to them on its behalf that it may sometimes at least be granted the sense of dipping shall in no vvise prevail for itâ— ovvn sense to be allovved it I remember but these places at present vvhere the vvord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used vvhere vvater baptism of persons is spoken of viz. Mat. 3.6.11.13.14.16.28.19 Mark 14.5.8.9.10 and the 16.26 Luke 3.7.12.16.21 Luke 7.29.30 Iohn 1. â—5 26.28 and the 3.22.23.26 and the 4.1.2 Act. 1.5 and the 2.38.41 and the 8.12.13 16.36.38.39 and the 9.18 and the 16.15.33 and the 18.8 and the 22.16 Rom. 6.3.4 1 Cor. 1.13.14.15.16.17 Gal. 3 27. Col. 2.12 in vvhich of all these places dare they allovv us the prime signification of the vvord not so much as one I dare say yet Scapula quotes but tvvo places viz. Mark 7. Luke 11. vvherein it is taken to vvash vve vvould be contented to allovv them that not sometimes onely as they talk of but that alvvayes it shall signifie to vvash for dipping indeed being a chief kind of vvashing it cannot be rationally gainsayed onely proh dolor vve must not once english it dipping or overvvhelming no not by any meanes in the world But Sirs though you are so accustomed to that trick so that it is to be feared you will be hardly brought off it viz. to have nothing more ordinary among you then to carry vvords and specially the vvord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 clearly and that not sometimes onely but continually besides its prime sense of dipping into its farre off sense of vvashing and into its non-sense of sprinkling for it signifies no such thing as that yet vve have no such custome nor the Churches of God but to take vvords ordinarily in the sense vvhich they most properly bear Rantist But Mr. Blake denies dousing over head to be the prime signification of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and tells you p. 3. that the great Criticks in the Greek tongue will not allow you your sence to douse over head and years to be the prime distingishing between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 making the Latter to bear your sense the former to be a dipping more light and overly as Luke the 16. and the 24. it is evidently used Baptist. O that 's another matter he should have said so then at first for because he talked that words are used out of their prime signification and among the rest this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the sake of which he saies the other out of its pâ—ime signification of dipping I took it for granted and so I might well for he allowes it to signifie washing in Scripture and what sense is it that he pleads against by that speech viz. that words are oft used out of their prime significations I took it I say for granted and seriously a grant it is if he well examine it that he took dipping or overwhelming to be the prime sense of baptism unlesse almost a page of of his be pennd in vain and dares he now deny it that is worse then all the rest but I wonder what is if that be not the prime for I am sure the prime is not to wash it is quoth he a dipping more light and overly then so To which I say let the persons baptizing dip the persons baptized as lightly and overly as they will so they dipp them and not some of them barely for then I know they must do it underly also for what man is truly to be baptized that man is to be put under water not a part of him only as
so little truth in the ground of it that its stark rotten at the very root it is a dispute Ex falso suâ—positis t is taken by you for granted as necessary when it shall never be yielded to by us for so much as probable that Christ and the Eunuch were baptized either naked or else in the cloathes they ware immediately both before or after either for both Christ comming purposely to be baptized and the Eunuch though not thinking of baptism till Philip met him yet returning homeward from Jerusalem where he had been for some time were undoubtedly accommodated otherwise and with change sutable enough to such a businesse Secondly it supposes that both Christ Philip and the Eunuch posted all so immediately several waies from the water that they staied not so much as to cover themselves with other Cloathes then those they went with into and came up with out of the water whereas as nature it self forbids us to believe they went in much more that they went away naked for common sense forbids us to take the word immediately in so strict a sense as to think they departed in such extremity of hast as was no way consistent with the shifting and so fitting of themselves for departure Immediately doth seldome sound forth such a suddennesse as admits of no intertime nor invening action at all yea sometimes it signifies no sooner then some howers some daies some years after according to the nature of the matter asserted in the sentence wherein it hath its use as Matth 24.29 nor doth it expresse any other in Mark 1.13 where it is said Immediately the spirit drave Christ into the Wildernesse then within a while after his baptism as appears not only by Matth. 4.1 where it is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which word is there peractis praedictis ordinative of another story but specially by Luke 4.1 where it s said plainly that he was returned from Iordan before it is said he was led into the wildernesse and had you or Mr. Simpson compared Scripture with Scripture or heeded the harmony of the Evangelists you had saved your selves the labour of all those lines and lost nothing by it but what is worth nothing viz. the Argument it self for as if I should say immediately after the child was sprinkled the Gossips and friends went along with it home it were absurd to understand me so as if I meant that they did not stay so long after as to wipe the childs face and put the face cloathes over it and lap it up again in the loose blanket to keep it warm so no lesse absurdity is it to understand that speech viz. And immediately the spirit caught away Philip and immediately after Christ was baptized he went in to the wildernesse so strictly as if there was not staying so much as to reassume any garments they had laid aside in order to the more conveniency of their baptizing One thing more I cannot but take notice of in this clause as t is Mr. Simpsons and that is what little proportion if not contradiction it holds with the words of Mr. Simpson or rather of Mr. Blake used by Mr. Simpson immediately precedent to these in his letter for he will not give way to it at any hand that Christ and the Eunuch went into the water or at least that they were put into the water by Iohn and Philip or taken thence but onely in the phrase of Mr. Blake at the third hand of Mr. Cook that they went to the water and came thence and yet here he forgets himself so far as to the confutation of himself and them to speak 〈◊〉 the phrase or Scripture concerning Christ and the Eunuch viz. that they came out of the water which if they could do and neither went into it nor were put into it then I know not how to understand plain English Rantist Well this is all but by the businesse let us go on and consider what more Mr. Bl. brings to disprove dipping to be the primitive custome he tells you further p. 9. it was the Apostles way to baptize disciples as soon as they were become Converts the same day rather sometimes the same houre as we see in the Eunuch the Jaylor and Lydia and multitudes of others but conversion of Disciples necessarily happened when there was no season for dipping the Element of water being over Cold for that service If any object that in those Countreyes there was no danger in the coldest times He answers the commission being for all Nations disciples were made in all Countreys how soone saith he came the word to this Nation c. sometimes therefore saith he the water and weather was too cold for dipping Secondly the Number of Converts were so numerous 3000 5000. in one day that there was no possibility of baptizing in that Manner Acts 2.41 and the 44. Thirdly Sometimes the Baptizers were in that condition that they were unable for that work in that way as Paul and Silas men newly taken out of the stocks in the Inner Prison with such stripes that their Convert was fain forthwith to wash them in this case they were unfit to wade into the water for that work and had they made any such adventure the Scripture would not have been silent Fourthly Sometimes the baptized have not been in case for dipping and plunging which was Pauls case upon the Aparition of the vision he was lead into Damascus where he continues without meat or drink three daies and upon Ananias his comming in and instructing of him he is baptized and when he had received meat saith the text he was strengthned will any believe he went out in this case with Ananias into the water over head in water before the taking of any sustenance Baptist. That persons were baptized as soon as ever they became Converts and could be discerned to be disciples even the same houre commonly without delay is an undeniable truth for that and no other was the very period of time at which what ever their parents were they were deemed to have true title to baptism for neither if their parents were wicked were such excluded as were nor if the parents were godly were such admitted as were not converted upon the Account of the fathers goodnesse or badnesse but as they believed or not themselves and this makes me the more amazed at it that it is come to passe since that the faith of the father can now intitle the child to baptism though the child have no faith at all of his own and yet I muse more sith you all count infants at least of believers to be disciples from the womb why yet you delay their baptism so long and do it not at the same houre of their birth for whether they be Discipuli nati or discipuli facti if they be disciples as you falsly suppose they are if the primitive rule were to baptize persons as soon as ever they appeared
so far as to undertake that the Church or Churches where such are shall declare every such person as hath wrought such abomination incommunicable without solemn repentance for that sordid practise or be themselves incommunicable by all other Churches But I beliâ—ve he cannot do it though I cannot positively possibly prove a Negative much more am I confident that he cannot make good his charge against us viz. that it is our ordinary and usual practise for besides no lesse then between one and two hundred which in grosse I can ghesse at which with these hands I have baptized I have seen with these eyes many a one more baptized by others yet never did I see male or female baptized naked to this hour nor next to naked neither if I understand Mr. Baxs meaning in that bawbling phrase of next to naked Yea I suppose I may safely say my converse for these 5 years together and upward hath been with them that are commonly called Anabaptists and my businesse hath been for so long time at least among that people more then I perceive Mr. Baxs hath and much more then among any other people being more or lesse acquainted with a score of their Congregations yet howbeit Mr. Blake flings a little at us too and hath his fingers so far in this spatter as to say page 8. Those that have put a kind of necessity upon dipping have spoken much of being received naked â—n baptism I never heard the least speech of such a thing nor a syllable among them to such a purpose And if Mr. Ba. cannot prove it to be our ordinary known practise to dip naked then in the name of the Lord Jesus before whom he and I shall shortly both appear I intreat Mr. Ba. who as concerning zeal yet persecutes the Church of God poures out reproach upon true Christians giving his voice for them with as much modesty as Haman Est. 3.8 as for high way Murderers alias that they may all suffer execution being through blindnesse and excaecation exceedingly mad against them that of an ignorant Saul he would become a seeking a searching a seeing a preaching Paul of the faith which he hitherto destroies and though he verily thinks with himself that he ought to do what he does against the truth yet I beseech him to know that he is but as others have been bâ—fore him zealous of God but not according to knowledg sith it is but of the Traditions of his Fathers Gal. 1.14 And sith he avers from his heart page 129. that for his part he neither knowes the day nor year when he began to be sincere no nor the time when he began to professe himself a Christian in which I believe him if he mean a Christian in Scripture sense I begg of him in the bowels of Christ Jesus that he would now begin to be sine cerâ a Christian indeed not by the halves but altogether for there is yet a mixture of much wax among his honey and of much antichristianism in his Christianity and as sure as he is ignorant when he began to professe to be a Christian so sure I am that he never yet began to professe to be a Christian in truth who knowes not that ever he was otherwise but hath and holds his profession as the Turk and Jew do theirs viz. for the true one at a venture because they were born and bred in it and received it by Tradition onely from forefathers And as he will prove himself to be what he professes to be viz. a hater of ignorant violence so I advise him to be a hater also of violent ignorance of which hateful quallity in my mind he hath as much as any of the greedy gang Gangraena it self onely excepted not excepting Dr. Featley Dr. Bastwick Mr. Bayliff Mr Pagit not any among the proud pack of Prelates that most perheminently prate against the Gospel And sith Mr. Ba. saies this much more that it is very suspicious and to him unsavory that Mr. T. should say no more but that it is not necessary that they be baptized naked as if he took it to be lawfull though not necessary and thinkes he should rather have given his Testimony against it as sinful and expressed some dislike if he do indeed dislike and judge it sinful and if he do not he dare boldly say he is very far gone let me say thus much more that then it is as suspicious and to me unsavory that Mr. Ba. should say no more but that it is a breach of the seventh commandement ordinarily to baptize the naked as if he took it to be lawful to do it sometimes but not ordinarily me thinks he should giue his Testimony against it as sinful to do it at all and express some dislike if he do indeed dislike and judge it sinful and if he do not I dare boldly say he is gone farther in filth then Mr. T. or any baptized person ever went yet save such as are gone quite off from the way of truth to the dishonour of it since they owned it whose sin yet the more shame for Mr. Ba. he in his next argument laies to the truths charge and theirs who both own and honour it by abiding in it who are lesse gladly and more sadly sensible of their sins and villanies then Mr. Ba. can be by how much by reason of their lasciviuos wayes which many follow the way of truth they walk in is as was foretold it should be 2 Pet. 2.1.2.3 by Mr. Ba. and his admirers evil spoken of But if Mr. Ba. shall still say it is suspicious and unsavory for Mr. T. to say the one but not for himself to say the other and will none of the foregoing advice to repent and be baptized but rather reject the counsel of God against himself being not baptized because he hath experience by hearsay that we baptize females naked then a rod and a rod for the back of Mr. Baxter who pardons to himself the same defects wherein he holds others guilty who so slenderly takes up every tattle against the truth and proclaimes it for truth to the whole world for the simple believeth every word but the prudent man looks well to his going Prov. 14.15 a prudent man foresees evil and secures himself but the simple passe on and are punished Prov. 22.3 As for his next and last argument against us which he drawes from the judgments of God that ever follow us wherein he jumbles all kinds of sectaries into the name of Anabaptists as the Antibaptists use commonly to do witnesse Featley and others and makes them bear the burden of all the mischiefs that were ever perpetrated by all the mad braind men in all the world as Iohn of Leyden and all the rest of his ranting strain it is scarce current consequence to say Gods judgements are upon a people therefore that people are none of his for all things come alike to all none knowes love or hatred by what
simultaneous that we may not must not be supposed to be in to be of to be visibly members of the visible church before baptism which if it be true as indeed it is that none can be counted to the body as one of it though in never such right to it first before baptism ordinarily at least as he pleads how doth all this hang together and agree with what he pleads here and in the foregoing argument p. 71. where he saith it is not the deniall of baptism directly that leaveth infants in the visible kingdom of the devill I would every one and Mr. Ba. himself would consider this grant of Mr. Ba. for then what ever necessity there may be of supposing them as he doth to be visible members in infancy and even before they are baptized we can suppose them in as good a state as he yet at least there will be no need to baptize them whereby to put us into more hopes of their salvation if they dy in infancy for if I can hope the salvation of some believers infants that die without Baptism upon that account what ere t is I may as well hope the salvation of them all dying without Baptism and so save the frivolous pains of baptizing infants at all he goes on thus t is true saith he that many unbaptized are in the Kingdome of Christ meaning his visible church but no man who is known to be out of Christs visible church ordinarily can be out of Satans visible kingdome I say how do these things square hear what he saies no entring into or being in the visible Church but by baptism and yet many unbaptized are in the visible Church viz. all believers infants before baptism viz. from the womb Either Mr. Ba. must hold two first entrances into the visible church viz. natural birth and baptism or else he must hold that baptism is not the first entrance or else that believers infants are not entred and if not so not in the visible church before baptism whether they have right to be so or no which is another question if he chuse to say the first then he contradicts what he saies of entring the visible Church p. 343. if the 2d he contradicts all he saies of baptism being the onely entrance if the 3d. that believers infants are not entred and so not in nor visibly of the visible church before baptism then of these two things he must say one viz. either that all the infants of believers that dy before their visible entrance into the visible church by baptism are damned without hope which he neither will nor can say or else say that there is hope of dying infants salvation and that they may be seemingly and visibly in a state of saluation and yet not be visible members of the visible church and then what need any further witnesse or disproof for hee l confute the Minor out of his own mouth which I am to disprove and save me the labour For if they may be in a visible state of salvation and yet not be visibly in the visible church then t is so and there 's an end If to all this he saies that he meanes not more but that believers infants before baptism have right to be baptized and to be of it and to deny them that right to it denies them salvation I deny that infants dying without right to be of the visible Gospel church denies them to be in state of salvation and shall shew the contrary neverthelesse Mr. Ba. might have spoken more properly and plainly then to call a right to visible membership by the name of visible membership it self as he often yea all along does therefore we might wish him to mend his Minor before we meddle with it and also he must confesse to the contradiction of himself that there is a third state betwen the visible church of Christ and the visible kingdom of the devil in which infants must be supposed to be by himself viz. a right to the church but not a present standing in it which kind of right and middle state I acknowledge â—â— baptized believers to have but as for infants though they are in a present visible state of and right to salvation as well as they unlesse living longer they reject Gods grace afresh which dying infants cannot do and so not in the visible Kingdome of the devil yet are they neither in nor yet in immediate right to the visible Church as men and women of years not yet baptized and yet believing are but in medio abnegationis together with them these things premised I come now to the disproof of his Minor in which I le take him in a fairer sense for himself then he expresses himself in and yet make no question but to disprove it in contradistinction unto which I lay down my self thus Viz. That not only some men may be de facto no members but all infants de jure in no right to membership in the visible Church of Christ under the Gospell and yet both be possibly in state of salvation Now how far forth de facto persons may be out of an actual standing in the visible church and yet in a visible state of salvation I le not meddle much to examine because the question is though Mr. B. does not so fairly expresse it but I take it in the way that is most to his advantage whether denyal of the jus this imediate right to membership excludes them not from salvation yet thus much I shall say to that viz. if persons must be seemingly and visibly in state of salvation before they are to be admitted members they may be as yet no members of the visible church de facto and yet in a visible state of salvation This is evident not only by the singular case of the theif who never was actually admitted into the visible Church nor so much as baptized at all for want of opportunity and yet in a visible state of salvation but also if we instance in all others that ever we read were baptized in the primitive times who were first seemingly and visibly in a state of repentance faith and disposition to obey Christ in all things and therefore in a visible state of salvation Heb. 5.9 and then after this added to the church Mâ—t. 3. Mark 16.16 Act. 2. Act. 8. Act. 16. Act. 18. for a certain remote and conditional right all persons have thus de facto and now de jure that the denyal of persons present and immediate right to membership in the visible church doth not deny them universally to be in a visible state of salvation is evident also thus viz. If some persons both men and infants may appear to us to be in state of salvation and yet not in immediate present right to be joined to the visible Church then the denyal of persons present and immediate right to membership in the visible Church does not universally deny them to be in a visible
no and are bid to let them grow together with the Wheat are not the Civil Magistrates but Christs Disciples who had nothing to doe to pluck them up and so the civil Magistrate may do it no withstanding to this purpose I have been answered when I have askt in way of querie the sense of that place To which I say First that by the Field is most necessarily meant the World and not the Church First Christ so expounds it himself the field saith he is the World but say they the World is oft used to expresse the Church and so may here I reply first I deny that the word world in any one place of Scripture signifies the Church onely it signifies sometimes the fabrick of the Universe Secondly it signifies all man kind good and bad collectively Thirdly sometimes the wicked onely that lie in wickednesse 1 Iohn 1.13 Iohn 17. abstract and in contradistinction to the godly and the Church but never at all the Church the godly the Elect alone abstract and as in contradistinction to the wicked and though I know how far forth to maintain their absurd doctrines in other cases some Divines divine such a matter yet till they shew more for it then they have ever shewed to me or I am sure can shew out of the word not denying but that there is a number electorum i. e. all that believe and obey Christ exmundo electus their Mundus electorum is haud mundus dialectus Secondly here it cannot be the Church however because it is vox secundae intentionis a speech that is expounded by Christ to be the sense of the other speech of field he used before for if the word world were ever used for the Church it must be by a figure synechdoche whereby a smal snip of it is signified by the whole and then Christ speaks figuratively again in his Exposition of the other figurative word field which were incertum per incertum to open one paraboricall expression by another as paraboricall as that which who can think Christ did to his Disciples to whom his intent was to speak more plain that they might understand him but understand him they could not well if while he spake figuratively at first he did not speak properly at last however for whereas he had told them the field was the World they had as much need to have asked again what the world was if they could not think he meant plainly as he said Thirdly the Church is exprest usually by the name of Christ's Garden Vineyard c. which are places more peculiar and sequestred as Cant. 4.12.16 Isaiah 5.6 Ez. 15. and the world or part without the Church by the name of Field Forrest c. wherein Tares wild bores briars thornes as well as wheat and Saints may live Fourthly if by Field and World here is meant the Church then t will follow that sith the Tares i. e. false Worshippers Hereticks Antichristians are bid to be let alone untill the harvest that such as these may be tolerated not in the world or civil state onely with the Church but also in the very Church it self which toleration cannot be for God chides that Church that suffers Iezebel to teach fornication in her and if the P P Priesthood plead for such a Toleration as this as he had need considering how his Church is filled with tares more then he is either able or willing to root out then â—e is for a tolleration far more intollerable then that we plead for for we would have Hereticks and Schismaticks and Erroneous false worshippers and nominall Christians Antichristians no neerer the Church then in the world with them i. e. the same States Towns houses but not in one and the same Church-fellowship or Congregation but they would have them stand in the Church for which sure Christ gives no permission much lesse a strick Commission as here is that they should But say you Christ does not here mean that they shall stand as if none had to do pluck them up but onely forbids these servants who were his disciples from meddling with them to evâ—ry of whom he gives not Authority to pass censures and punish but some may have Authority for it for all that Some who are those I trow it must be then either the Ministry or the Magistracy not the Ministry for it is far more cleer that by the servants here that took notice of the tares to the housholder is meant the servants of Christ in the office of Ministers that would fain have been meddling as the false Ministry ever does to root out all both out of Church and world too that is not of institution by Christ in their opinion and such a spirit may too much shew it self in the true too see the like Spirit in his own disciples the first Ministers Luke 9.54.55 Mat. 15.12.13.14 for which Christ gives them a check and tells them they knew not what spirit they were of and bids them let the false plants alone to the heavenly Father to pluck up in his time saying let them alone they be blind leaders of the blind and will both in due time fall into the ditch t is far more clear I say that t is his Ministry he here forbids then common disciples for why should not their Ministry complain of them aswell as they yet he bids these let them alone which shewes too that t is the World and not the Church they are to stand in for it belongs properly enough and primarily to the Ministers with consent of the Church executively to passe the censure of putting them out of the Church Secondly not the Magistracy for if it were the Church as they say it is how miserably do they mope and yet so the Priest does that make him the highest officer in the Church to cast persons out of the Church who is though the highest officer over the Church and World too yet in truth no Church officer or Minister in the Church qua Church at all Besides lastly which puts all out of doubt the prohibition is to all men as well as some and sounds forth the mind of Christ to be that the tares shall stand in the Field till the harvest and not be pluckt up by any at all but stand till the harvest they cannot according to his will if according to his will either Magistrate or Minister might pluck them up out of the field what field ere t is that is here spoken of his will is not only that such shall not pluck them up but that they shall not be pluckt up until the harvest i. e. the end of the world till he sends his Angels to gather the tares all things that offend every plant that the heavenly father hath not planted out of his Kingdome which taken at large is the whole world and to bundle them for the fire To all these many more reasons may be added why the Magistrate may not force men at all
not cotten at all with that for the subject of Circumcision which you all say though falsely is one and the same with that of Baptism was one of at least eight daies old and an Infant of one day only was not a warrantable subject thereof nor an infant of seven daies neither though likely to die before the eighth but as for you though your chief plea for your timely untimely rantizing Infants be grounded upon that timely dispensation of Circumcision yet as if you had a mind to proclaim your selves be-blinded so that you cannot walk by Christs Right rules nor your own wrong ones neither you take the liberty to out-stand or anticipate the eighth day at your pleasure hence the birth day is as warrantable with you as the eight yea in case of imminent danger of death in which case circumcision might not alter ti 's a learned question among some Infant-sprinklers whether the mid-wife may not sprinkle it before it s born i. e. while is hangs yet between the womb and the world but too soon is too soon in all conscience and again when it fits better with your plum-cake occasions the tenth twelfth or eight and twentyth day must be as acceptable to God as the eighth yea when it seems good to the wisdom of the Church i. e. the Clergy it may be deferred for no less than two or three hundred daies together witness the old Rubrik which saith that in old time baptism was not ministered but at two times in the year viz. at Easter and Whitsontide but that custome being grown out of use for many considerations I know not any but the Clergies good will and pleasure cannot now well be restored Thus you ride people to and fro as you lift and run manie miles from your own rules as well as Christs for if Circumcision be your Rule for the time of Baptisms administration keep punctually to the particular time of the eighth day as well as to the generall time of Infancy or else you may tell me the eighth day is a circumstance not to be regarded whilst I tell you 't is such a substance that Moses was like to be slain for overslipping it yet by your favour Sirs and by the same reason that you take an inch I 'le take an ell yea if you can acceptably go a fingers bredth besides the rule of Circumcision I may go an hundred furlongs and by the same Authoritie that you delay the Dispensation beyond the eighth to the tenth twelft or the hundreth day I may delay it unless belief withall the heart do ingage to it before to the ten thousandth day or more nor can you question me why do you thus Secondly whereas for my undertaking to rectifie you in your gross misapprehension and reduce you from the misconstruction I saw you make of my speech which leaves you without excuse in this rude recording you record me as recalling what I said I protest against that as another of your figments which you had need both to recant and repent of there was but one thing recalled all that day that I know of viz. that Iohn Baptist spake so soon as he came out of the womb that being rashly uttered by one in a Black coat was indeed as readily recalled as for my self what I said then I was so far from recalling that I 'le give you the advantage of saying the same over again hear therefore you deaf that you may understand bring me the children of three or four years old not instructed only for so the wickedst heathen may be but instructed to conversion and profession of faith not verbal onely for a Parret may be taught to prate but real as may seem at least and to desire baptism in Christs name yea more bring me the Infants of three or four daies old thus truly discipled and blame me for ever if I be not as forward to baptize them as your selves are to rantize them undiscipled This is the sense I then spake in the Lord knows my heart to whom I appeal ultimately to judge between us I have spoken it thus over again you have now my mind more fully among you mistake it not but take it dexterously and make your best on 't Report Next you relate and that most fictitiously that I having asserted circumcision to be a seal of the righteousness of saith to Abraham only and not to his posterity and being urged to shew any Scripture that did import a change in the signification and told that such a change must needs intimate that the same covenant was not made with Abrahams seed that was made with himself I was so foundered that though you ingaged to become Anabaptists if I did it yet I answered nothing that carried any sense or reason to the purpose Reply This I say is another of your your figments for first to let pass the Sophisticall terms you used whilst you askt how or when Circumcision ceased to be a seal of the righteousness of faith even to Abrahams posterity as if I had granted that Circumcision was once a seal of the righteousness of faith even to Abrahams posterity as well as himself and then was changed ceased left off to be so wheras I told you then that though 't was so to Abraham himself yet it never was so to them at all do also tel you now that when a man saies of a thing that it never was so it is but an illiterate kind of quere to ask him again when it ceased to be so Secondly confessing that I then affirmed and also still affirming the same viz. that Circumcision was a seal of the righteousness of faith to Abraham only and not to his posteritie I profess thirdly before the world appealing to your own consciences to witness that as it is most plain in the Scripture so I then made a most plain discoverie of it from the Scripture that there were other ends uses and significations of Circumcision to Abrahams own person though in some respects there were also the same then those for which it was dispensed to his seed and that notwithstanding many things which were promised to Abraham were promised to all his seed together with him yet there were somethings also promised to Abraham in the Covenant of Circumcision which his seed had no promise of at all as namely First That he should be the Father of all Believers This I am most certain I then instanc'd in and according to your then demand cleared by Scripture even that very Scripture which was then quoted by your selves Rom. 4.11 and repeating the whole verse whereof you for your own ends mentioned but a part I told you t was evident even thence that Abraham had one preheminence and priviledge that none of his posteritie had ever after him which he obtained of God by his preheminence in believing viz. the Fatherhood of the faithful of which eminent faith of his which was imputed to him for
sense as neither had they that Covenant or promise of a father-hood which it was a Seal of though even Ishmael himself and the lowest males in Abrahams house were all to be circumcised upon this account only if if there had been no other as he was commanded to circumcise all his males As to a fuller account of my grounds for this opinion I shall suspend it till I take my other Account of these passages in yours and take notice only here first of your sacred Sophistication in giving that out for granted which was so abundantly denied Secondly that close contradiction you here give not onely to the truth but your selves also for you give out in the next page but one before that I denied Circumcision to be a seal of the Righteousness of faith which in your own sense is as much as of the Gospel-Covenant to any of Abrahams posterity and that I multipli'd words in proof of the contrary and yet here in relation to that very Relation of your own in the weak wilfulness of your memories you give out that I had confessed Circumcision to be even to Ishmael the seal of the Gospel-Covenant that is with you still of the righteousness of faith thus for your own ends fathering your own false-tenet upon me ye have not lost all by the shift for you have fastn'd the fault of sorgery upon your selves and this puts me in mind of another of your mis-reports which because t is so suitable to this I 'le give you some little sense of it here though I find it farre off hence in your Review p. 13. l. 1.2 where looking or rather licking over all your arguments again as somewhat rude and deform'd in their first delivery and among the rest this from Circumcision of infants to their baptism you positively affirm thus that the Adversaries confess baptism to be the seal of the Gospel-Covenant whereas if by Adversaries you mean your friend my self among others besides what else shall elsewhere be produced in proof of my dissent from you in this point your selves can bear me witness or if you will not a thousand others will that on the very day of Disputation when the Clergy-man of Kenington stiled baptism an initial seal I deni'd it to be a seal at all and am sure it would have found you all more work then you are aware of to have made good that un-gospel like expression of it though I grant it to be a sign of the Gospel-Covenant Report Another as flat a falsiâ—y as ever fell from the mouths or pens of men who pretend to truth is that clause which lies in the last line of the seventh page and first line of the eighth wherein consider it with the words before you say I confessed that the spiritual seed of Abraham and their children had under the Gospel as good right to the seal thereof which is baptism as Ishmael who was that carnal seed of Abraham had right to the seal of the Gospel-Covenant Circumcision Reply Whereas besides my constant denial of Circumcision to be a seal to any but Abraham as I said immediately above and as your selves testifie of me and besides my denial of baptism to be a seal at all I either did deny the children of the spiritual seed i. e. of believers to have right to baptism or else to what purpose did you oppose me for this was the very question between uâ— which as you affirm'd so I from the beginning to the end of the Disputation all along most inalterably deny'd Indeed I confessed ore and ore again that Abrahams spiritual seed i. e. believers have right to baptism but that the natural seed of this spiritual seed of Abraham are Abrahams spiritual seed as so born or that believers children quâ— tales are semen fidei as well as their parents is a most silly saying of your own page 14. but that which all the day long I most strenuously stood against much more that they were the subject of baptism yet you say here in the Preter-plu-perfect tense that I had confessed their right to baptism as good as Ishmaels to Circumcision which me thinks if I had done so would have been exprest some where or other in the foregoing part of your true Account or else it is not so true as 't would be taken for but sith it is not to be found that I confest such a thing in all your Relation of the most materiall things that past among which this had it been confest as you here say had been the most materiall of all for it had been the full giving you the cause and saving you the labor of more Disputing we 'l take it for granted if you please rather then charge your true Relation of the most materiall things as not relating the most materiall of all that this your Testimony of my confession of this matter is most prodigiously false and abusive Sirs I wonder you are not ashamed so palpably to speak contrary to what you have here recorded I know not well what you mean by so many foul mis-reports unless as a certain great Benefactor to the Romish religion perceiving it unable to stand by the Scriptures bestowed a Legend of lyes towards its support which is call'd Legenda aurea so you supposing your Infant-baptism uncapable to be maintain'd any longer by principles of truth and reason have thereupon been so bountiful to the cause as to give in this golden-leaden-legend Another sorry tale and strange story you tell is not of me but of one of my side as you are pleased to speak and this me thinks if I be not mistaken with a kind of Emphasis of the Featlean strain as if it were some presumption for a Russet Rabby or secular Artizan to climb so high and flutter and sile so neer the pulpits and pompous Belconies of the Priests and as if he were a man Sacerdotalis ambitionis loving the uppermost Room and chief place in the Synagogue more to be taken notice of himself then that the truth should be taken notice of by the people in which things if you muse as you use yet know Sirs that we have no such custome nor the Churches of God of whom you say thus Report That having plac'd himself on the highest of the pulpit stairs to be seen of all and craved the liberty granted by the propositions to ask questions and receive satisfaction he profest himself a stranger and to come thither by accident though both afterwards appeared contrary Reply Though both will yet appear to be contrary to what you would have them appear to be if you could tell how viz. a couple of untruths for verily he was a stranger and so I then told Mr. Prigg who askt me of him that had not been long in the Countrey and was unknown both by face and name not to my self and some others yet however to most of that Auditory in which I believe not one of many could say who or whence he
or burdens mercies or judgements unless they be excepted Much after the same sort also doth Mr. Blake express himself p. 20. of his birth priviledge concerning Mat. 28.19 viz. The words there comprize infants they are no more excluded then men at years serving to make up a Nation as well as parents the infants of any nation make a part of the nation But who would think such goodly geer as this should manifest it self to the whole world as a fruit of the most serious meditations of men so eminently polemical as they by the Clergy are esteemed to be in their several Tracts in this point and that it should pass without the least item of correction for it from any one of their brethren who rather seem all to consent to then contradict them However I shall make as serious Examen of it as I can First then is it so Sirs that what ever administration extends to all nations belongs to infants therein as well as men so that they are no more excluded from it then men at years how is it then that preaching the Gospel and prayer with laying on of hands for confirmation for the spirit which Dâ— Holmes dotes was dispensed to these infants that were brought to Christ and therfore much more baptism in infancy and as a proof thereoâ— brings testimony that it was never used in the primitive times to be dispensed till past infancy how is it I say that these and also fellowship in the supper are by your very selves denyed to belong to infants in infancy what is the reason that you exclude infants here are not these priviledges belonging to men why then if yours and Mr Marshalls assertion be true not to infants as well as men are they not mercies administrations merciful administrations of God extended to all nations yea is not preaching an administration to every creature that extends not to infants and yet saving Mr Marshals cunning insertion of this clause unlesse they be excepted whereby to salve his proposition from default of falsity though thereby he renders it plainly uslesse to his purpose are infants any where by name excepted from any one of these administrations any more then they are from baptism it self yea is it not an administration of God extending to all nations that persons should work or else not eat in which infants are not included for then must they starve and yet no where at all excepted yea he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved he that believeth not shall be damned Christ is the Author of eternall salvation to all them that obey him Christ shall come in flaming fire taking vengeance on all them that know not God and obey not the Gospell he that confesseth me before men him will I confesse before my father which is in heaven he that denieth me shall be denied whosoever is ashamed of me and of my words of him will I be ashamed he that denieth not himself and taketh not up his crosse dayly and followeth me and hateth not his father and mother and his own life and all that he hath cannot be my disciple him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he saith unto you and whosoever heareth not his voice shall be cut off from among his people if any man love not the Lord Iesus Christ let him be Anathema Maranatha repent and be baptized and an hundred such like are not these Gods Gospel-administrations of duties promises threatnings priviledges burdens mercies judgements extended to all nations from which infants are not excepted and yet do these include and comprize infants as much as men at years or are infants excluded by expresse exception from any of these any more then from that one amongst the rest viz. the duty and ordinance of baptism how then dare you aver so peremptorily so universally that every administration that extendeth to all nations belongeth to infants as well as men yea that I may shame and silence you in this out of your own sayings some of you namely Mr. Marshal perceiving that if you grant that Infants did eat the passeover it will follow from that to their eating the supper as well as from their circumcision of old to the baptism of them now do assert that infants did not eat the passeover yet was not the passeover an administration to the nation of Israel from which infants were never excepted and if so how then can your other sayings be true that every administration that extendeth to the nations belongs to infants as well as to persons at years unlesse they be somewhere excepted Babist We mean not of a formall exception but a vertuall exception an exception in effect at least infants must have or else be supposed as included under every administration that is given to the nations and thus infants are excepted from all those last mentioned precepts promises threats c. forasmuch as it is most notoriously known they are not capable to do the things upon the performance or non-performance of which those mercies and Iudgements are promised and threatned for they cannot hear Christs voice nor know nor love nor obey him nor deny themselves nor hate their lives nor confesse him nor deny him and whereas t is said that if any will not work let him not eat infants must necessarily be understood to be excepted there though not by name because they cannot work and so unlesse excepted must perish by Gods appointment for want of food so concerning eating at the supper Infants are excepted not expressely yet implicitly and in effect in those words let a man examine himself and so let him eat because there 's that required in order to eating there viz. self examination discerning the Lords body and blood which infants cannot do Baptist. T is very true they are excepted from all these as you say implicitly and in effect though not expressely but then let it be considered is there not as fair and as clear an exception of them from baptism as from any of these or in particular as from that service of the supper in as much as theres that required in order to baptisme which infants can no more do then they can do what 's required to the supper viz. to believe with all the heart Act. 8.37 and to be discipled i e to be taught and to learn the Gospel Mat. 28.19 If any should ask this question what hinders why I may not eat the supper you would answer thus if thou examinest thy self thou maiest eat of that bread and drink of that cup so when the Eunuch enquired of Philip what hinders why I may not be baptized he answers him in the very same viz. if thou believest with all thy heart thou maiest for whoever shall say these answers viz. let a man examine himself and so he may eat let a man believe with all his heart so he may be baptized or if thou examinest thy self thou mayest eat or if thou believest with all thy heart thou maiest
be baptized are not the self same in sense and signifification shall never go for a wise man more with me and whoever shall say that the phrase of Philip to the Eunuchs question what hinders why I may not viz. if thou believest with all thy heart thou mayest be baitized is as not exceptive of infants from baptism as that phrase of Paul let a man examine himself and so let him eat is exceptive of infants from the supper can seem no other to me then one whose reason is basely captivated to some carnal interest or other yea the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Act. 8.37 doth ful as much if not more imply an unlawfulnesse of their admission to baptism that believe not with all the heart as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Cor. 11.28 doth imply an unlawfulnesse of their admission to the supper who do not first examine themselves what ever exception therefore ye can find in the word of infants from the supper the self same will I find of infants from baptism and what ever ground of admission to baptism you shall find there for them the same will I bring for their admission to the supper Babist Those places where it s said if thou believest thou mayest he that believeth and is baptized repent and be baptized go teach and baptize imply onely an unlawfulness of baptizing persons at years without instruction belief and repentance and are phrases that relate to such onely and not to infants who may notwithstanding any thing to the contrary there exhibited be baptized without any of these Baptist. So you use to say still indeed of these Scriptures that they speak of persons at age and not in non-age and so say I too but I wonder then where are the Scriptures that speak of infants baptism if all the places of Scripture that speak of baptism at all speak onely of the baptism of adult ones and so you are fain to confesse they do when we come to examine them one after another yea I remember that at two publique disputes when we have put you to assign what Scripture infant baptism is commanded in Mat. 28.19 hath bin nominated as your warrant out of which when it hath been plainly proved that Christ commands no more in that place to be baptized then such whom he commands also first to be instructed reply hath been made to this purpose viz. that Christ there requires that such as are capable of instruction should be instructed first but that hinders not why infants may not be baptized before instruction but if so I say I wonder still where that place is that warrants it that infants may be baptized at all â—ith you are fain to confesse that that phrase go teach and baptize yea even you your selves sometimes who just before assigned it as the warrant for infant baptism that it speaks onely of persons capable to be taught and not of infants As you say therefore that these places speak of the baptism of men and women onely that are capable â—o learn believe and repent and not exclusivly of infants because they are not capable to do those things who yet may be bapâ—ized for all that so I say of these words let a man examine himself and so let him eat they imply an unlawfulnesse in men and women only to eat the supper without self-examination but not in infants who being not capable to examine themselves may any thing to the contrary there notwithstanding be admitted to the supper without it t is men and women onely and not children who upon non-examination of themselves are excepted As you argue therefore that every administration to an Nation includes infants as well as men unlesse the be excepted and therefore they must be baptized I conclude the same from those premises concerning their right to other ordinances viz. therefore they must be preacht to therefore they must eat the supper two administrations given to all nations from which infants are no more excepted then from baptism As therefore you take it for an implicit exception of infants from the supper in that they cannot perform what is required in that place to the receiving of it i. e. not examine themselves nor discern the Lords body though by name they are not excepted so if you be not partial your own consciences will compel you to take it for at least as implicit an exception of infants from baptism in that they are no way capable to perform those things which are required of persons in order to their admission to baptism in other places viz. nor to believe with all the heart nor to confesse sin nor amend their lives nor repent nor call on the name of the Lord all which were required of adult ones that come to baptism as we see Mat. 3. Act. 2. Act. 8. Act. 22. and also in the Rubrick where it being askt what is required of persons to be baptized answer is made thus viz. repentance whereby they forsake sin and faith whereby they stedfastly believe the promises of God made to them in that sacrament though by name they be not excepted in any of these places Your cui signatum ei signum nisi obstet c. your thredbare Argument viz. to whom the thing signified belongs to them the sign unlesse there be some impediment or in capacity to perform what is required in order to the receiving of the sign if it had one farthing worth of force in it to give infants accesse to baptism would equally avail to give them accesse to the supper if we were minded in good earnest to plead their right to both in evidence of which I shall argue upon you with your own Argument thus To whom the thing signified belongs to them the sign also belongs unlesse there be some exception or incapacity to perform what is required to the receiving of the sign But the thing signified in the supper which is the same that 's signified in baptism viz. Christ and his benefits belongs to infants and there 's no more exception of them from it then from baptism nor more incapacity in them to perform that which is required to the supper then there is in them to perform what 's required to baptism Ergo if they may receive the outward sign of baptism they may receive the outward sign of the supper also But in truth as they are no more capable of one of these signs then the other so are they in very dead both uncapable of and plainly enough alike excepted from both Secondly is it so Sirs that infants being a great part if not the Major part of all nations must therefore be baptized because it s said baptize all Nations unless they bad been excepted then I answer again if you mean thus viz. unless they had been some way or other at least vertually or implicitly excepted then infants are most manifestly and clearly excepted in this very text it self Mat. 28.19 if there were no other in