Peace to be Members of the same Christ 2 Cor. 13.11 Gal. 5.22 Heb. 12.14 1 Cor. 3.4 the Prince of Peace to be acted by the same Spirit of Peace to walk by the same Gospel of Peace and to enjoy the same Heaven hereafter where we shall be at Peace together may if possible be United here that our Divisions may no longer rent the Church of Christ to the great hindrance of the Conversion of both Jew and Gentile and the apparent exposing our Church and State to Ruine and Confusion by the Fury of our Adversaries But that our unanimous Prayers may Deprecate apprehended Judgments and prevail for our continued enjoyment of Gospel Mercies And may these Pages be in any respect serviceable to these Ends so God have the Glory and his Church the Advantage I have my end who am Thy Faithful Friend The PREFACE TO THE Paidobaptist AMongst the many Parties our Church and Nation abounds with the Anabaptists are not the least considerable who not only deny Infant Baptism but proceed so far as to Separate from our Communion on that unwarrantable ground nor contented with that they as if acted by Infallibility confine the Church of Christ to their own People denying our Ministers to be either Members or Ministers of Christ and declaring our selves and our People to be in no visible way to Salvation which sad expression being daily whispered into the Ears of the People committed to my Care did not a little disturb several of them who thus were almost seduced from our Church And to add to my trouble one of the chiefest of their Teachers gave me frequent Challenges to a Publick Disputation which I declining as not yet seeing any good to have been the issue of such Disputes he and my Neighbours supposed my refusing to dispute to preceed from my sense of the weakress of the cause or from my inclination to their Opinion These and such like things Christian Reader occasioned my endeavour to discharge my Fidelity to my Peoples Souls and my own Conscience by Publishly Preaching on Infant Baptism enquiring into its Necessity as to Salvation and Church-membership in order to the satisfying my Peoples troubled minds And then inquiring into the Form Subject and Mode of Baptism to Vindicate the Doctrine and Practice of our Church and to clear my self of those Aspersions I met with which being compleated I endeavoured to solve all those Objections I have yet met with from their Mouths or Writings Which Sermons God was pleased to make so successful as to satisfie my Auditors so that hitherto they have created me no more trouble And that Person who had so often Challenged me to Dispute the Point having a little private Discourse with me assured me he would no more trouble me or my People which Promise he hath hitherto kept and hath declared his desires and as he said the inclination of the most Eminent of their Party to a Compliance with our Church to promote which I know there have been some endeavours Let then your Candor I humbly beg excuse me if when God hath been pleased to make my Endeavours Instrumental to the keeping my People and others from straying from us if not to reduce some from them to our Church And if after I have been sometimes requested to expose my Thoughts I now at length finding their inclinableness declared by word and writing to a closure with us humbly offer them such as they are after my submitting them to my Diocesan's Judgment to the Service of Gods Church in promoting his Glory and Peace and Vnion in our days And may my sincerity in this design obtain your Pardon for what may be amiss in this Tract humbly devoted to the Service of every of your Souls by one who daily Prays for and by all endeavours labours to promote the good of our Church and State it shall ever Oblige Yours in the Service of God and Souls Baptism OF INFANTS VINDICATED Matth. 28.19 Go ye therefore Teach all Nations Baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost 20. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have Commanded you OUR Saviour Christ who was the Messiah promised to the Jews and also a Saviour Prophesied to the Gentiles being when manifested in the Flesh to gather a Church to himself of both Jews and Gentiles did while he was on Earth Commissionate his Apostles to Teach or Disciple all Nations by acquainting them with the Rudments of his Gospel And then Ordered the Reception of them as Members of his Visible Church as by Circumcision under the Law so by Baptism under the Gospel Gen. 17.10 which in the words premised is directed to 1. As to its Form In the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost 2. As to its Subject 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All Nations 3. As to its manner of Performance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Baptizing them Before I come to the Consideration of the parts of the Text I shall premise this Grand Enquiry with its Solution Enq. How far Baptism is necessary as to Salvation and Church-membership which I shall Consider 1. Negatively 2. Positively 1. Prop. 1. I shall assert that this Baptism of Water is not absolutely necessary to Salvation so as that it is impossible for a Person to be saved who is not Baptized which Proposition I shall thus prove 1. Gen. 17.10 14. Because the Children of Israel under the Law to whom Circumcision was as strictly enjoyned as Baptism is or can be to us were Forty Years without its Practice they being not Circumcised all the time of their sojourning in the Wilderness lest their soreness thereby occasioned might hinder them in their Travel towards Canaan Josh 5.2 3 4 5. yet doubtless we dare not entertain thoughts that they who dyed in the Wilderness uncircumcised were all Damned 2. Salvation in no place of Scripture is annexed to Baptism but to the Covenant whose Tenor is not Be Baptized and thou shalt be Saved but Believe and thou shalt be Saved Not was Christ given that all who were Baptized might have Eternal Life John ◠16 Mark 16.16 but that all who Believe on him As for that place Objected against us and Pleaded by the Anabaptists Mark 16.16 it must either if strictly taken include Infants as Believers and so as subjects capable of Baptism or else exclude them as Unbelievers and render them as Persons liable to Damnation according to their own Argumentation which if they evade by saying they who are capable of believing do believe and are Baptized shall be saved Order for Baptism of Riper Years I oppose to this the Practice of our Church which requires actual Profession of Faith of all Persons who are capable of doing it and have been brought up unbaptized And again this Text when it respects Damnation doth not mention Baptism it saith not He who is not Baptized shall be Damned but he that believeth not
Salvation is annexed to Faith and Damnation is the Punishment of Unbelief Baptism therefore is not absolutely necessary to Salvation nor its want absolutely exposing Souls to Damnation 3. This would be to tye God to means and to make it in Mans Power to Save or Damn whom he pleased For if it be impossible any should be saved without Baptism then would it follow that it is Baptism more than Gods free Grace that saves Ephes 2.8 and that it is in the Power of the Minister by Baptism to save whom he please and by denying it to damn whom he will Yea then this Ordinance will be supposed to confer Grace Ex Opere Operate which Assertion detracts from Gods Glory disagrees with Truth and is injurious to Souls who may be hereby brought to rely rather on a Creatures Baptism than their Creaton Mercy for Salvation 4. Then all Children and those who dye unbaptized must be supposed not to appertain to Christ nor to be saved by him which to believe of all Infants is dreadful whom I cannot implead of sin in not being Baptized being not capable of desiring it And though I cannot but think the Parent highly to Offend in slighting the Ordinance where it is to be obtained yet cannot I suppose it to be by God imputed as a sin to the Child so dying for which he will damn it which is the Genuine though Dismal Consequence of that Position That Baptism is absolutely necessary to Salvation 5. The Baptism contended for is but an outward sign of that inward Grace which Entitles the Soul to Heaven John 3.5 and to which Glory is annexed the sign then cannot be so Essential as that they who have received the things signified and inward Grace without Baptism should still be excluded Heaven because they are not Baptized Acts 10.47 Which is as much as to assert that though a Soul should partake of all Christs Benefits to be bestowed on a Worthy Communicant yet unless he actually Eat the Bread and Drink the Wine which are the External Elements in the Lords Supper and Representatives of those inward Benefits yet he could not be saved A Thesis deservedly to be exploded Rubric 3. after Comm. 〈…〉 as nullifying Christs Merits to Idolize External things And our Church is clear against it 6. By this Assertion it would follow that many Thousands of Christians shall be Damned who duly and perhaps more circumspectly walk in Obedience to God than we in and amongst the Turks and Pagans who probably by Reason of their Persecuted Condition or the non-settlement of a Church and Ordinances amongst them are and so dye unbaptized But how sad this would be to a Christians Eat I leave every one to judge 7. When ever Baptism is taken as so necessary to Salvation in Scripture it hath respect to the Internal thing signified by it so St. John 3.9 John hath chiefly respect to the Baptism of the Spirit whereby the Soul is Regenerated and reduced to a state of Grace nor can the Baptism we contend about be there meant this being not Instituted till after our Saviours Resurrection which was some Years after these words were spoken by our Saviour And this Baptism of the Spirit is other where called A Baptism by Fire Mat. 3.11 denoting the cleansing and purifying Nature of the Graces of the Holy Ghost which purifies the Regenerated Soul from its Corruption and burns up its drossie Lusts In comparison of which Baptism St. John accounts his of Water the Subject of our present Controversie so mean as only to have a Relation to it as Precedaneous not as Competitour Again Ephes 1.26 27. St. Paul joyns the Word of God with this Baptism in order to the Purifying Christs Church that acting on the Soul and this terminating on the Body And St. Peter's Assertion is clear 1 Pet. 3.21 that it is not the Water Purifying the Flesh but the Answer of a good Conscience towards God that saveth us And indeed the Trope of using the sign for the thing signified is not unusual in Scripture 8. The All-wise God hath determined the Controversie in that He in divers places of his revealed Will Asserts Gal. 6.15 1 Cor. 7.19 that neither Circumcision nor Uncircumcision avail any thing but a New Creature It is not the being an unbaptized Person that will expose any one to Condemnation for there is not one Woe denounced against any as such Nor is there one Promise in all the Divine Writ Infallibly annexing Salvation to Baptism 2 Thes 1.8 9. John 3.16 All Threats of Misery are to those who believe not and Obey not the Gospel of Christ And all Promises of Eternal Mercies are to those who by Faith close with Christ and live the life of Christians So that I dare not say all who are Baptized shall be saved and all who are not Baptized shall be damned But I dare affirm that whosoever remain and dyeth in unbelief shall be damned though he be Baptized And whoever believes truly on Christ and lives answerably to that Faith though for some Persecution or other Causes he cannot be Baptized he shall be saved Whence will appear That Baptism is not absolutely Necessary to Salvation so as that one cannot be saved without it As I have hitherto endeavoured to remove the great Censure of the Anabaptists of our being in no visible salvable way because not Baptized after their Mode by giving my Reasons why Baptism is not so absolutely Necessary to Salvation So I proceed to prove That Baptism of Water is not absolutely Necessary to Church-membership Prop. 2. so as that they cannot be Members of Christs Church unless Baptized Which will appear thus 1. Wills against Danvers p. 49. There was ever a Church before Baptism or Circumcision were Administred They being both External signs to be acted on visible Professors and Church-members in the Church of Christ there is necessarily presupposed an existence of a Church containing Members to be Circumcised or Baptized and Persons to perform these Offices So that these signs are not the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 esse of a Church or the Essential Constituents of its visibility Noah Seth and those Holy Patriarchs before the Flood who Lived some hundreds of Years before the Institution of Circumcision Gen. 17.24 were doubtless Members of Gods Church And Abraham also doubtless before he was Circumcised which was in the 99th Year of his Age and about the 2107 Year of the World was a True Believer and a Member of the True Church And if it be alledged they were Members of the Invisible Church we may grant them a Membership in the Visible from that known Axiom Omne majus in se continet minus Their being of the Invisible Church being greater than their being Members of the Visible Church Yea it is apparent the Promises were made to Abraham above Twenty Years before Circumcision was Instituted which Promise he believed Gen.
the Sacrament of Baptism nor doth Scripture afford any tittle against it Therefore surely it may be Lawfully Practised Enq. 2 If Children be received to Baptism why are they not also received to the Lords Supper I Answer Answ 1. The Children of the Jews were admitted to Circumcision but not to the Passeover 2. Children though capable of having Baptism Administred to them yet are not capable of Manducation or eating Bread 3. Baptism precedes the Lords Supper as Regeneration doth our growth in Grace and in a Natural state a Child is first Born before he can be Nourished externally in order to his Growth 4. Though Children are capable of Baptism and the Sealing the Blessings of the Covenant of Grace to them thereby yet are they not capable of performing the Duties requisite to be Acted by any Communicant as self-examination and discerning the Lords Body Enq. 3 If Infants are capable of being engaged in Covenant with God by Baptism what need have they of God-fathers and God-mothers Answ 1. I Answer The Jews had at the Circumcision of their Children several Persons by Godwin Antiq. lib. 6. Buxtorf Jud. Syn. c. 2. p. 82. Gen. 17. Isa 8.25 Luke 1.58 Platina in vita Hygini Isaackson Chr. An. 153. as Witnesses to Testifie the Childs Circumcision and thereby its Reception as a Member of Gods Church and to remind the Child Circumcised when it came at Age of what a Covenant it was concerned in between God and its Soul 2. We find this Practice Recorded in Scripture as Witnesses at the first Institution of Circumcision and afterwards continued even to the Circumcision of St. John 3. The rise of God-fathers and God-mothers in the Christian Church was taken from the Practice of the Jews before Christ and was of an early Institution Especially Eyginus Bishop of Rome about 153 Years after Christ who considering the frequent Persecutions attending the Church of Christ whereby the Christian Parents often were taken away and the Children brought up in Heathen Idolatry or Jewish Superstition did Prudently order in the Church Persons to be engaged at Baptism with the Parents to take care of the Childs Education that if the Natural Parents dyed or were taken away by Persecution or else if they Apostatized from the Faith or were Ignorant and could not or wicked and would not bring up the Child in the Principles and Practice of the true Religion these might endeavour their being so Educated that Christianity might be propagated and Children brought up in the fear of God 4. Nor is this contrary to Gods pleasure Ephes 6.1 Deut. 29.10 11. Deut. 6.6 Gen. 18.19 Josh 24.15 who Commands and Commends the Parents and Friends engaging their Children in Covenant with him yea their Saves and Servant were to be engaged by them to be God Servants And we find Godly Parents and Masters Practising this Duty in their Families in their several Ages 5. Children are in the Power of their Parents or Guardians to engage in Civil Contracts and to be Invested with any Priviledge or Estate Therefore our Churches Prudence is Commendable in taking care that with the Child Baptized there should be Persons who should stand in the behalf of the Child engaged to God and the Church of Christ 1. As Witnesses to take notice of the Childs Reception into the Church as a Member of it and to Witness to the Child the tenor of that Covenant it was engaged in when it grows up and that thereby it stands obliged to be a true Christian And also to satisfie the Child that it hath been Baptized and may proceed to other Ordinances 2. As Sureties to engage as much as in them lies to see the Child brought up Vertuously to lead a Godly and a Christian Life in Principle and Practice 3. As God-fathers and God-mothers to engage themselves as it were to God and for his sake and cause to endeavour his Religion may be promoted in the Pious Education of those Children that the succeeding Age as well as the present may serve him 6. Sureties God-fathers and God-mothers are now as necessary as ever for though through Gods goodness we are not under Persecution for the Cause of Christ yet the sad Schisms and Divisions amongst us in Principles and the lamentable Debauchery and Profanenets in Practice of Professing Christians plead it necessary to retain this Commendable Order of our Church and they call aloud on all who stand thus engaged to God and the Church for any Child or Persons Education that they speedily and diligently labour after a discharge of their Duties in a diligent endeavour that those they are engaged for may be reclaimed from Impiety to Holiness and reduced from Error and Heresie to the true Faith For the neglect of those who are thus engaged renders the Order though it be in it self so good to be accounted as a meer Ceremony and as a burdensome Circumstance rather to be laid aside than continued But were the Persons engaged for Children thus Conscientious in the discharge of that great Trust they have undertaken the great good that would thence flow to the Church of Christ would make even its Enemies to be in Love with this Order and Constitution Enq. 4 Are Infants Obliged to perform that Covenant wherein they were by Baptism engaged since it was not their act but the act of other Persons in their behalf to which they gave no Consent Answ I Answer Yes They are obliged to perform it and that for these Reasons 1. Nothing was then engaged but what is Christian and Reasonable to be done 1 Pet. 5.8 Tit. 2.11 1 Pet. 2.11 1 John 5 4. If we would be Happy we must be Holy which is the sum of that Covenant then entred for Holiness will engage our Mortifying the Flesh Crucifying the World and Renouncing the Devil and all his Works So that these Duties of our Baptismal Vow are Commanded by God in Scripture as well as their observance is engaged by us in Baptism 2. Every one hath care of his own Soul and therefore what was in our Childhood engaged for 〈…〉 and every of us when we come to Years of 〈…〉 standing and retain the Christian Religion 2 Tim. 2.19 Tit. 2.14 are obliged to perform and we oguht to endeavour it if we expect Salvation nothing being promised but what our Religion obligeth to A ceasing from sin and a living the Life of Godliness And here how may the desires of all Christians be for the Christian Practice of that Solemn Ordinance of Confirmation of Persons of Ripe Years That they being instructed in the Vow of Baptism engaged in their Childhood may Publickly in the Congregation own that Religion they were Baptized into and be Solemnly in their own Persons engaged to the performance of it This certainly would much dis-engage the engaged God-fathers and Mothers and much Oblige the Catecheumen to abstain from all sin and to perform all Duties when as every Person in the Congregation is a several Witness of his Solemn Engagement it will shame him out of Sin nor will he dare wilfully to act contrary to the Gospel-Rules But 3. A Child is frequently obliged in Civil Contracts to perform what the Parent or Guardian engaged for it as in a Bond Lease or the like or else he is lyable to the Law and debarred from receiving any Profit or Advantage by any such Contract made for him So in Spirituals The Child is doubtless engaged by the Covenant made in his Name and behalf in Baptism to be Holy or else he will be deprived of the Benefits of this Covenant which is Eternal Happiness and be exposed to the Law and Curse of God for as the Commands of God obliging the Parents to engage their Children in Covenant with God are not impertinent So since the Duties they were then engaged in are but what God by Precept to the Children when at Age expects from them Their non-performance of that Covenant incurs Gods Anger and Forfeits Heaven and Happiness 〈◊〉 If they Labour not to perform the Duties of 〈◊〉 Covenant which is their Reasonable Service their Parents and Friends Care for the engaging them in Covenant with God and their devoting of them to God and their Labour in Educating them in true Christianity will Witness against them aggravate their Sin and add to their Torment FINIS