More Proofs of Infants Church Membership and Right to Baptism, Letters 1 · Section 27
SECT. XXVII.
R. B. THE fifth Queſtion requireth me to lay down this aſſertion, that [there is no Law or Precept of God which doth not oblige to duty; and no actual promiſe or donation, which doth not confer the benefit.] This I aver on occaſion of your laſt Letter, where in contradiction to the former, you confeſs [the promiſes to the natural poſterity of Abraham, Gen. 17. and the Covenants made with Iſrael at Mount Sinai, and Deut. 29. and a precept of Circumciſion, and precepts of God by Moſes, of calling the people, and requiring them to enter into Covenant, Exod. 19. Deut. 29.] Yet you [do not conceive that the Infants of Iſrael were made viſible Church-members by the promiſes in the Covenants, or the precepts forenamed.] If ſo, then either you imagine that among all thoſe precepts and promiſes there was yet no promiſe or Covenant that gave them the benefit of Church-memberſhip, or precept concerning their entrance into that ſtate; or elſe you imagine that ſuch promiſes were made, but did not actually confer the benefit, and ſuch precepts were made, but did not actually oblige. Your words are ſo ambiguous in this, that they ſignifie nothing of your mind to any that knows it not ſome other way. For when you ſay [there is no ſuch particular promiſe concerning Infants viſible Church-memberſhip, or precept, &c. beſides Circumciſion, as in my Book of Baptiſm I aſſert,] who knows whether that exception of [Circumciſion] be a conceſſion of ſuch a precept or promiſe in the caſe of Circumciſion? or if not, what ſenſe it hath? and what you imagine that precept or promiſe to be which I aſſert? and before the ſenſe of your one ſyllable [ſuch] is diſcerned by trying it by a whole volume, I doubt you will make what you liſt of it. However if you ſhould mean, that ſuch precepts there are as have for their ſubject [the avouching God to be their God, the entring into Covenant Circumciſion] of Infants, but not their Church-memberſhip; then, 1. I have proved the contrary to the negative before; 2. And more ſhall do anon; 3. And it's a palpable contradiction to the precedent affirmative. But if you mean that Church-memberſhip of Infants as well as others is the ſubject or part of the ſubject of thoſe promiſes or precepts, and yet that Infants were not made or confirmed thereby; it is the contrary that I am aſſerting, and I have no further need to prove, than by ſhewing the contradiction of your opinion to it ſelf. For an actual Covenant or promiſe that doth not give right to the benefit promiſed (according to its tenor and terms,) is like a cauſe that hath no effect, a Father that did never generate, and it is all one as to ſay, a gift or Covenant which is no gift or Covenant, ſeeing the name is denied, when the thing named and defined is granted. So a Precept or Law to enter Infants ſolemnly into Church-memberſhip, which yet obligeth none ſo to enter them, is as groſs a contradiction as to ſay, the Sun hath not heat or light, and yet is truly a Sun.
Mr. T. here confeſſeth, 2. That the Jews were Gods viſible Church not barely by Gods promiſe to them to be their God, but by their promiſe to God: Gods call of them made them his Church, and their promiſe to God with other acts made them viſibly ſo —
Reply. Reader, is not all here unſaid again by this conceſſion? Unleſs he will ſay that this Call, and Covenant, and Promiſe made them all a viſible Church, and yet none of theſe, but their birth and place made them members? As if any thing made the Whole Church which made none of the Parts as ſuch.