Reply to Philip Cary, Part
A REPLY TO Mr. Philip Cary's Solemn Call.
THE Book I have undertaken to animadvert briefly upon, bears the Title of A Solemn Call; but I am not so much concerned with the Solemnity, as I am with the Authority of this Call. Not how it is, but whose it is. If it be the Call of God, it must be obey'd, tho it be to part not only with the Priviledges, but Lives of our dearest Children; but then we had need be very well assur'd it is the Call of God, else we are guilty at once of the highest Folly and basest T…eachery to part with so rich an Inheritance, convey'd by God's Covenant with Abraham, to us believing Gentiles, and our Seed, at Mr. Cary's Call.
You direct your Solemn Call to all that would be owned as Christs faithful Witnesses.
Here you are too obscure and general; Do you mean all that would be owned by you, or by Christ? If you mean that we must not expect to be owned by you, till we renounce Infants Baptism, you tell us no news; for you have long since turn'd your back upon our Ministry and Assemblies; yet methinks 'tis strange, that we who were lately own'd as Christs faithful Witnesses under our late Sufferings, must now be disown'd by you, when we have liberty to amplifie and confirm our Testimony in the peaceful improvement of our common Liberty.
But if your meaning be (as I strongly suspect it is) that we must not expect to be own'd by Christ, except we give up Infants Baptism; then I say it is the most uncharitable, as well as unwarrantable, and dangerous Censure that ever dropt from the Pen of a sober Christian, 'Tis certainly your great evil to lay Salvation it self on such a point as the proper Subject of Baptism, and to make it Articulus Stantis, vel cadentis Religionis, the very Basis on which the whole Christian Religion, and its Professors Salvation must stand. I hope the rest of your Brethren are more charitable than your self; but however it be, I do openly profess, that I ever have, and still do own you, and many more of your Perswasion, for my Brethren in Christ, and am perswaded Christ will own you too, notwithstanding your many Errors and Mistakes about the lesser and lower matters of Religion. Nor need your Censure much to affect us, as long as we are satisfied you have neither a Faculty, nor Commission thus solemnly to pronounce it upon us.
But what's the condition upon which this dreadful Sentence depends? why, it is our attendance, or non-attendance to the primitive purity of the Gospel Doctrine.
Sir, I hope we do attend it, and in some respects better than some greater Pretenders to primitive Purity; who have cast off, not only the initiating Sign of Gods Covenant, (this did not Abraham) but also that most comfortable and ancient Ordinance of singing Psalms; and what other primitive Ordinance of God may be cashier'd next, who can tell?
We have a Witness in your Bosom, that the Defence of Christs pure Worship and Institutions hath cost us something; and as for me, were I convinced by all that you have here said, or any of your Friends, that in baptizing the Infants of Believers we did really depart from the Primitive purity, I would renounce it, and turn Anabaptist the same day.
But really Sir, this Discourse of yours hath very much convinc'd me of the weakness and sickliness of your Cause, which is forc'd to seek a new Foundation, and is here laid by you upon such a Foundation as must inevitably ruin it, if your Party, as well as your self, have but resolution enough to venture it thereupon.
And it appears to me very probable, that they intend to fight us upon the new ground you have here chosen, and mark'd out for them, by the high Encomiums they give your Book in their Epistles to it, wherein they tell us, Your Notions are of so rare a nature, that you are not beholding to any other for them; and it is a wonder if you should, for I think it never entred into any sober Christians Head before you, that Abraham's Covenant, Gen. 17. was the very same with Adam's Covenant made in Paradise; or that Moses, Abraham, and all the Elect of God in those days were absolutely under the very rigour and tyranny of the Covenant of Works, and at the same time under the Covenant of Grace, and all the Blessings and Priviledges thereof, with many other such rare Notions, of which it is pity but you should have the sole propriety.
I am particularly concern'd to detect your dangerous mistakes, both in love to your own Soul, and care of my Peoples, amongst whom you have dispersed them; though I foresee by M. E's Epistle to your Book what measure I am like to have for my plain and faithful dealing with you: For if that Gentleman, upon a meer surmise and presumption, that one or other would oppose your Book, dare adventure to call your unknown Answerer, before ever he put Pen to Paper, a Man-pleaser, a Quarreller at Reformation, and rank him with the Papists, which opposed the Faithful for their non-conformity to their Inventions: What must I expect from such rash Censurers, for my sober, plain, and rational confutation of your Errors!
As to the Controversie betwixt us, you truly say in your Title Page, and many parts of your Book, and your Brethren comprobate it in their Epistles, that the main Arguments made use of by the Paedo-Baptists for the support of their practice are taken from the Covenant of God with Abraham, Gen. 17. You call this the very hinge of the Controversie; and therefore if you can but prove this to be the very same Covenant of Works with that made with Adam in Paradise, we shall then see what improvements you will quickly make of it.
Ay Sir, You are sensible of the Advantage, no less than a compleat Victory you shall obtain by it; and therefore being a more hardy and adventurous Man than others, put desperately upon it (which never any before you durst attempt) to prove Abraham's Covenant, which stands so much in the way of your Cause, to be a meer Covenant of Works, and therefore now abolished.
My proper Province is to discover here, that part of the Foundation (I mean Abraham's Covenant) whence our Divines, with great Strength and Evidence, deduce the Right of Believers Infants to Baptism now. Next, to evince the Absurdity of your Assertions and Arguments you bring to destroy it: And lastly, To reflect briefly upon the Answers you give in the beginning of your Book, to those several Texts of Scripture pleaded by the learned and judicious Divines you oppose, for the Justification of Infants Baptism.
(1.) Those that plead God's Covenant with Abraham, Gen. 17. as a Scripture Foundation for Baptizing Believers Infants under the Gospel, proceed generally upon these four Grounds or Principles.
(1.) That God's Covenant with Abraham, Gen. 17. was the same Covenant for substance, we Gentile Believers are now under, and they substantially prove it from Luke 1. from the 54. to the 74. Verse, which place evidently shews the sameness of the Covenant of Grace they were, and we are now under; and from Matt. 21. 41, 43. the same Vineyard and Kingdom the Jews then had, is now let out to us Gentiles; and from Rom. 11. that the Gentile-Christians are grafted into the same Olive-Tree, from which the Jews were broken off for their Unbelief; and that the Blessing of Abraham cometh now upon the Gentiles, Gal. 3. 8, 14, 16. and in a word, that the Partition Wall betwixt them and us, is now pulled down, and that we, through Faith, are let into the self-same Covenant, and all the Priviledges they then enjoy'd, Ephes. 2. 13.
(2.) They assert and prove, That in Abraham's Covenant, the Infant-Seed were taken in with their Parents, and that in token thereof, they were to have the Sign of the Covenant applied to them, Gen. 17. 9.
(3.) They affirm and prove, That the Promise of God to Abraham and his Seed, with the Priviledges thereof to his Children, do, for the Substance of them, descend to Believers now, and their Seed, Acts 2. 38, 39. and though the external Sign, viz. Circumcision be changed, yet Baptism takes its place under the Gospel, Col. 2. 11, 12.
(4.) They constantly affirm, That none of those Grants or Priviledges, made to the Infant-Seed of Abraham's Family, were ever repealed or revoked by Christ or his Apostles; and therefore Believers Children now are in the rightful Possession of them; and that therefore there needed no new Command or Promise; in Abraham's Command we find our Duty to Sign our Children with the Sign of the Covenant, and in Abraham's Promise we find God's gracious Grant to our Children, as well as his, especially since the Apostle directs us, in this very respect, to the Covenant of God with Abraham, Acts 2. 38, 39.
These, Sir, are the Principles, on which we lay (as you say) great Stress, and which to this day you have never been able to shake down; here therefore you attempt a new Method to do it, by proving this Covenant is now abolished; and this is your Method in which you promise your self great Success: Three things you pretend to prove;
(1.) That the Sinai Covenant, Exod. 20.
(2.) That Abraham's Covenant, Gen. 17. are no Gospel-Covenants, and that because,
(3.) The Gospel-Covenant is Absolute and Unconditional.
How you come to hook in the Mosaick Covenant into this Controversie, is not very evident, unless you think it were easie for you to prove that to be a Covenant of Works, and then Abraham's Covenant Gen. 17. being an Old Testament Covenant, were the more easily proved to be of the same nature. I am obliged to examine your three Positions above noted, and if I evidence to the World the Falsity of them, the Cause you manage is so far lost, and the right of Believers Infants to Baptism stands firm upon its old and sure Foundation. I begin therefore with your