1. The piece of the Waldensian Confession which he sayes is not to our purpose is but an Introduction to the 7th Article in the same page which sayes That by baptism we are received into the Holy Congregation of the people of God declaring openly our Faith c. which our Answerer takes no notice of That of Vignier is pertinently enough brought wherein the Waldenses reject all Doctrines which have not their foundation in Scripture and all Ceremonies and Romish Traditions because the Baptism of Infants at that time was practiced from that ground And that he gives â— testimonial of them that they denyed Infants Baptism in totidem Verbis See what he sayes viz. Nicholas Vignier in his Book called la Vraye Histoire de l' Eglise p. 354. upon the year 1136. speaking of the Waldenses and some of their principal Barbs where he hath these words Et qu'ils condamnoient le Baptesme de Petits Enfans alleguans que le Baptesme n'aportoient qu' a ceux qui ont foi i. e. And they condemned the Baptizing of little Infants alledging that Baptism belongs to none but those that have Faith As to the agreement between the Donatists and Novations it is also properly enough applyed for all Mr. Whiston's hast as the following words of Mr. Ds. make out viz. they held That none ought to be received into Churches but such as were visibly true Believers and read Saints c. The way of being received into the Church Mr. W. knows to be Baptism but he overlooks this also As to the Three other Particulars out of the Waldensian Confessions p. 282 283 284. 1 Ed. he Excepts against as not to our purpose let the same return serve them as before That out of Thuanus from Dr. Vsher viz. that the Beringarians held that Baptism did not profit Children to Salvation is a proper and suitable Argument of their denying Infant-Baptism it being elsewhere evidenced and which Mr. Whiston nor his Associates never Answered that that was the only ground of its administration viz. that it Saved the Child's Soul 3. As to his Charge of Mr. Ds. perverting Authors sayings viz. Paedo-baptists in general it is already fully cleared by himself in his Rejoynder to Mr. Ws. and to him the Reader is referred 2. Mr. Whiston would have us shew wherein lyes the inconsistency of their words with their practice which is also fully done But me thinks it might be a properer task for themselves to reconcile their Contradictions which they are loudly called to do if they can and so either yield up the Cause or remove the stumbling blocks they themselves lay in our way 4. He says Some of Mr. Ds. Authorities are against himself and instances Mr. Baxter we confess he is sometimes against us to the purpose but sometimes he is also kind enough and gave us Twenty good Arguments improved by Mr. Tombs in his Felo de Se. But for the rest 't is but meer prattle Chrysostom is instanced to shew the Erroneous ground upon which Infant-Baptism was practiced viz. to take away Original Sin and if it be a proof for Mr. Whiston let him take it I 'll give him another proof too if that will please him out of his Friend Aâ—stin 23 Epist ad Bonif. Nec illud te moveat quod quidam non ea fide ad Baptismum precipiendum parvulos ferunt ut gratia spirituali ad vitam regenerentur Aeternam sed quod eos putant hoc remedio temporalem retinere ac recipere sanitatem non enim propterea illi non regenerantur quia non ab illis hac intentione offeruntur celebrantur enim per eos necessaria Ministeria But he must excuse me if I leave him the pleasure of Translating it seeing he may perhaps do it to most advantage That Peter Bruis and Henricus denyed Infants Baptism we have good ground to believe from many substantial Reasons offered by Mr. D. and if we reject the testimony of Papists in whose hands most of our ancient Writings have been for some Centuries which we are well enough satisfied to do in this why not in other things That Cluniacensis owned to be a very learned man disputed with Peter Bruis and Henry is evident he layes down their Position to be this Nos vero tempus congruum fidei expectamus hominem postquam Deum suum cognoscere in eum credere paratus est non ut nobis imponitis Rebaptizamus sed Baptizamus quia nunquam baptizatus dicendus est qui baptismo quo lavantur peccata locus non est i. e. We wait for the fit season of Faith and when a man knows his God and believes in him we baptize him not rebaptize as you charge us for he cannot be said to be ever baptized that is not washt with the baptism that washeth away sins And then makes this pathetick declamation against them enumerating the Absurdities he fancies that follow their Opinion he saith thus Itane desipuere praeterita saecula tot millibus parvulorum per mille eo amplius annos illusiorum baptisma tribuerent c. which I thus English And have past Ages been so foolish and have given but a mock-baptism to so many thousand Little ones for this thousand years and more and from Christs time to ours have made them not real but fantastick or imaginary Christians Was the whole World so blinded and involved in so huge a mist of darkness hitherto that it mâ—st wait for you at length to open its eyes and to dispel so tedious a Night that after so many Fathers Martyrs Popes and Princes of the Vniversal Churches it must chuse Peter Bruis and Henry his Lackey as the last Apostles to correct its long error What hath all the World perished till the coming of these New Reformers of our Age and have all things been managed by the Sons of Light and Truth in darkness and falshood that whereas all of any Age or Rank having been baptized in Infancy and received their Christian name then and in convenient time have been preferred in divers degrees in the Church no Bishop of the Bishops no Priest no Deacon no Clerk no Monk not one as I may say of those innumerable numbers will be a Christian for whosoever is not baptized with the Baptism of Christ hath not Christ nor can he be of the Clergy People or Church And if it be so what manifest absurdities will follow For whereas all France Spain Germany Italy and all Europe for almost three hundred or four hundred years have none baptized but in Infancy they have therefore no Christian if no Christian then no Church if no Church no Christ and if no Christ then certainly they are damned Our Fathers therefore have perished because they could not be baptized with Christs baptism in their Infancy And we that live shall also perish unless after Christs Baptism we be Baptized with Henries Baptism also And innumerable of the Saints shall be pluck'd
obedience do by that means take Christs divine prerogative out of his own hands and so make themselves joynt Authors of his Sacraments yea rather indeed the destroyers of them For he that practises an Ordinance otherwise then Christ hath instituted doth not honour the Ordinance but an Idol of his own making This the Apostles durst not do they tell us they declared unto them the Counsell of God but nothing else And Paul tells the Corinthians he delivered nothing unto them but what he had received from the Lord 1 Cor. 11.23 and sure he did not receive Infants-Baptism from the Lord for he never declares it unto them This therefore should be a boundary to Ministers that they deliver nothing to the people but what they have received from the Lord. That faith that was once delivered to the Saints must be preach'd and contended for but nothing else and if Ministers have not received Infants-Baptism from the Lord and if they cannot prove that it was once delivered unto the Saints it is not to be preached It is sad to think how full our pulpits are of vain traditions and humane mixtures as if the all-wise God wanted the help of dim-ey'd man to mend his worship by mixing their Inventions with Gods institutions But as to mixtures they are useful only for these two purposes either to slacken and abate something that is excessive or to supply something that is deficient And so all heterogeneous mixtures do plainly intimate either a vitiousnesse to be corrected or a defect to be supplyed Now it were great wickednesse to charge any of these upon the pure and perfect word of God and by consequence to use deceit by adulterating of it either by such glosses as diminish and take away the force of it or by the addition of humane Traditions as argue any defect So that to stamp any thing of but an humane original with a divine character and obtrude it upon the consciences of men to take any dead child of ours as the harlot did and lay in the bosome of the Scripture and father it upon God to build any Structure of ours in the road to Heaven and so stop up the way is one of the highest and most daring presumptions that the pride of man can aspire unto To erect a throne in the consciences of his fellow creatures and to counterfeit the great seal of heaven for the countenancing his own forgeries is a sin most severely provided against by God with special prohibitions and threatnings seâ— Deut. â—2 32 What thing soever I command you observe to do it thou shalt not add thereunto nor diminish from it So Deut. 18.20 The prophet that shall speak a word in my name that I have not commanded even that prophet shall dye So Jer. 26.2 and Prov. 30.6 Adde not unto his words lest he reprove thee and thou beest found a lyer And that will-worship is so great a sin we have the testimony of that learned man M. Greenhill in his exposition upon EZekiel where he hath these Observations fit to be written with the the point of a Diamond upon the heart of every Christian 1. That men love to have somthing of their own in worship they are not content with what the infinite wise God commands them but will be adding The second Commandement shews that man is prone to be medling and making somthing in Worship till he marrs Israel provoked God to anger with their Inventions Psal 106.29 2. God is not pleased with any thing in worship which is not his own It is not the works of mens hands nor their heads that are pleasing to him that which pleases God must come from God what he appoints he approves and nothing else 3. That will-worship and mixtures of mans inventions with Gods pure ordinances are the great Canons that batter Cities and the Gunpowder that blows them up These bring the Lord of hosts to warr against them it was the Calves that wounded Israel and laid their Cities wast Hos 10.5 the Inhabitants of Samaria shall fear because of the Calves of Bethaven 4. That false worship doth grive God Ezek. 6.9 I am broken with their whorish heart their superstitious and corrupt mixtures did not simply displease God but oppressed afflicted and broke his heart Great injuries enter deep and eat up the spirits of any they are done unto and what greater wrong can be done to God then to set at nought his Counsels forsake his worship and impose that which he never commanded yea it draws away the heart of men from God and therefore they are said to go a whoring from God by their own inventions 5. Will-worship is a work of darkness Ezek. 8.12 See what the Ancients of the house of Israel are doing in the dark 6. Will-worship is that which God will not honour with his presence Neither Christ nor the Angels will be present at it as Ezek. 9.2 The six men in the vision that came into the Temple stood besides the brazen Altar they had made a golden Altar thinking that would please God better but they would not come at it but stood by the brazen Altar which was of Gods appointment Haec ille Thus you see that will-worship is a horrible sin and methinks you should examine whether Infant Baptism be not will-worship as having no institution and if it be will-worship it is not only evil in it self but stands aggravated with this circumstance that it makes void the commandement of God for will-worship doth usually oppose some part of Gods true worship as Infants-Baptism doth believers Baptism in these nations as Christ told the Pharisees you make void the Commandments of God by your Traditions Poed But these persons you mention in Ezekiel against whom God threatens such Judgments were Idolaters And I hope you do not count Infant-Baptism Idolatry Bap. That Infant-Baptism is will-worship and Superstition is evident But whether it be Idolatry I leave that to enquiry But I shall give you the Definition of Idolatry as we have it from our Protestant Divines which say they â—s to worship a false God or the true God in a false manner And that appears from the Second Commandment where all kinde of Idolatry is forbidden as all sin is forbidden in the ten Commandements though not in expresse words yet in the meaning thereof For it is a received Maxime That all sins forbidden by the word are reducible to the 10 Commandements and fall under the prohibition of one of them or other For upon the two tables of the law hang all the law and the prophets Math. 22.40 Now it is plain all sins are not contained in the letter of the Commandements and therefore we must open the later by Synechdoche's and Metonymies Synechdoches do comprehend all sins of the like kinde and all the degrees thereof and Metonymies do comprehend all causes and means and occasions thereof so that for opening the 2d Commandement which forbids both making and the worshiping any image
true So that like a Tree his Book runs out into so many smaller Boughs and Twigs and layes it self out at large into such a train of Trivials so many littles to the purpose that he will find himself great store of small business that shall throw away so much of his precious time to read his Book The next thing I take notice of in his Book is his Answer to Mr. Danvers his Collections c. wherein the Reader will find so much Gall and Vinegar such a proud austere magisterial Spirit such scurrilous unchristian Language that it makes me amased and to question whether this be Mr. Baxter or his Coadjutor Mr. Wills But it seems they are both agreed in their unsavory Dialect Is this the man that Wrote so much for Love and Unity and would make the World believe that he is made up of nothing but Charity Suppose Mr. Danvers should be mistaken in some of his Collections had it nbt been better to have shewed him his mistakes in a Mild Christian and Brotherly way And if you say the offence was publique and therefore deserved a publique reproof Grant that also yet what need these peevish bitter and angry reflections Hath Mr. Baxter forgot that Scripture Gal. 6.1 If any man be overtaken in a fault ye that are spiritual restore such a one in the Spirit of meekness He contemptuously calls him Maj. Danvers a Souldier but why a Souldier I confess an Officer ought to be a Soldier but he was a Collonel as well as Mr. B. was a Chaplain and Mr. B. knows 't is not civil nor do Souldiers love to be retrograded no more than Chaplains Would he think it kindly done if he were dwindled from a Chaplain in Folio to a puny Curate in duodecimo I doubt his ambitious Humor would rather be Pope but I suppose he means that he was so once and perhaps it was when M. Baxter was Chaplain and surely it is the Chaplain's work with all mildness and gentleness to convince his Officers of any error But it 's like in those dayes he used better Language and accomodated himself to the humors of his Officers or else Fama mendax But perhaps hee 'll tell us he looks upon Mr. Danvers as a rigid Anabaptist whom with the Independents he condemns and censures as ignorant silly persons c. in his usual Civility not deserving the least grain of his Charity But what does the man mean do they separate from the Church of Rome so do's Mr. Baxter Do they separate from the Church of England so did Mr. Baxter as constituted by Episcopacy but what he does now is a hard question But I shall leave Mr. Danvers to vindicate himself Another thing notable is his 56 Articles of Faith that he supposes the Anabaptists and others must hold if they deny his Popish Positions in his Christian Directory c. It were no hard matter to Father many grosser absurdities upon Mr. Baxter were his raw and undigested Notions and erroneous principles noted that have past his Pen at several times for above these Twenty years But leaving his other mistakes it will be no Injury to tell you that one Article of Mr. Baxter's Faith is That all the Children all the numerous posterity of Vnbelievers yea of such Vnbelievers whose immediate Parents or Parent were not Enchurcht are all in the Kingdom of the Devil and necessarily damned Seeing he holds that the Children of Believers only are the Subjects of Baptism being born within the Covenant of Grace Children of God Heirs of Christ and inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven But if Mr. Baxter in these Fifty six Articles nay in most of his late Writings hath not more gratified the Papists and contributed to their Cause more than any English Protestant Divine ever did yea at once as much as in him lyes thrown away the Protestant Cause and as far as his Credit goes spoiled all that our Famous Champions have done I am much mistaken having hereby lai'd such stumbling blocks in the way of ordinary Christians far beyond the most crafty Jesuite that ever hath been amongst us He tells us he will Write no more but he hath a mighty Faith that will believe him I am of Mr. Bagshaw's mind who told him some time since when Mr. Baxter told him he would not answer him Mr. Bagshaw replyes I know you will not keep your word for your pride will put you upon Writing and your guilt will necessitate you to do it just in as unbecoming a manner as you have done for an ill Cause must be maintained by Calumny And then in a lusory way tells us That if these Children will after this baul and cry and wrangle and foul the House a savory Metaphor he is not bound to rock the Cradle and to make them clean From whence may it not follow 1. That Mr. Baxter owns the Anabaptists as his Children but whether instead of an indulgent Nurse he has not proved a cruel Step-mother let the World judge 2. That the Anabaptists are soul sweetly spoken and all the paines he hath taken in his Writings these Twenty years has been to clean them But whether he hath not cast more dirt and filth upon them and made them fouler than ever he found them is easie to be determined by any that reads his plain Scripture-proof c. The next thing I observe is How strenuonsly he strives to have the Fathers on his side and fearing he should lose the Argument from Antiquity we see how the sleepy Lyon's roused and roars like a Son of Thunder fearing the Old worn-out cause of Infant-Baptism should be routed and never rally again But he must know we are not so fond of the Fathers from the Third Century that being as Tully sayes Omissis fontibus consectari rivulos we believe Infant-Baptism is ancient and so are other Errors more antient but from the beginning it was not â—o But that which confirms me against this Fallacy of Infant-Baptism is that the first that mention it do also mention the Erroneous Grounds upon which it was practised viz. for the washing away Original Sin for the conferring of Grace and absolute necessity thereof to Salvation c. But let Mr. Baxter shew us if he can that any of the Fathers speaks of Infant-Baptism as to be performed upon the grounds he and others in this Land have practiced it i. e. the Child 's being in the Covenant of Grace by vertue of both or one of the Parents personally manifesting his Faith and Repentance and being an Enchurched Member of some Congregation c. Here I dare say Mr. Baxter has none of the Fathets of his side now his Orthodox Fathers are Heterodox but is it not strange that if Infant-Baptism were an Apostolical Tradition as divers affirmed and some still dream that the Apostles had not delivered the true grounds upon which it should be practiced as well as the practice it self Or did these Holy Fathers only keep the