Scripture Warrant Sufficient Proof for Infant Baptism, Chapter 5
CHAP. V.
NOw for a few words about Sprinkling, which about ten or eleven times you mention in your four leaves against me: Twice you tell me, I Sprinkle Children; and I tell you Once, it is very false, I never Sprinkle any: If you prove it; either you Sprinkle or Dip; but you do not Dip, Ergo, you Sprinkle: I deny your Disjunction, so your Syllogism is false: Datur Tertium; there is a third: I do alwayes in my Administraction, pour such a quantity of Water as may clearly hold forth Washing, which is the largest signification of the worp Baptize; we Wash by Dipping, and we Wash by Fowring of Water. When you Baptize your Tables, Mar. 7.4. do you carry them to your Ponds or Rivers, and there dowze them under Water? I never saw that Practice yet; but to Baptize them, by Powring Water on them, is common: So did Elijah Baptize his Hands, when Elisha Powred Water upon them, Luk. 11.38. with 2 Kings 3.11. Had the meaning of Baptize been only to Plunge under Water, the Spirit would not have directed his Pen-men to use the word to Tables, (or Beds,) Hands, Vessels, which I see often cleansed without Plunging under Water: The Greeks are no so scanty for words that signifie Washing, as foreign, which word the Pen-man used Mar. 7.3. foreign yet in the 4th v. he uses foreign; the Spirit of God is not so nice as you are. Hence Castalio, a Learned Critick, whom Arminius did much Honour, therefore you have cause to honour him; he on Math. 3.13. saith, Beza rejects the words Baptizo, and Baptismus, used by holy Writers, and useth Lavo, and Lotio, Washing; for which he blames him; not because Beza denies the word Baptizo to signifie Washing, but because he departed from other Writers in that place. Thus we read, Heb. 9.10. foreign, Divers Baptisms: Dipping was but one kind of Baptism; there were divers others, but still they were Baptisms. We have then Divine Authority for our signification of the Word.
Nor do I see how that 1 Cor. 10.1, 2. which your admired Plagiary, Mr. Danvers, makes so much of, serves his turn for Dipping. Two things we are sure of from Scripture: 1. They walked through the Sea upon dry ground; this is four times recorded: Is the ground dry when you Dip? 2. It is said, Exod. 15.8. The Floods stood upright as an heap, the Depths were Congealed, (like Ice;) whence, Chap. 14.22. it is said, The Waters were as a Wall unto them, &c. Then the Waters did not touch them: Do you Dip, and the Waters not touch them whom you Dip? As for the Cloud Powring down Water, that agrees with our Baptizing.
One Question, I Pray; Were there no Children passed thorough the Sea at this time? Yes, no question, thousands; then Children were now Baptized: Were they then Baptized with their Parents unto Moses, and shall they not now unto Christ? Baptized they were; that's the Question.
But you tell me in your Preface, how Christ was Baptized by Dipping; and so others.
I Pray tell me, for I profess seriously, I could not tell how to Baptize by Dipping; for a little Child I could tell, but not an Adult Person: Did they go into the Water, be it half way, or what you please, and then the Baptist dipt the other part? I would never thus be Baptized my self, nor would I so Baptize. When you Bury, do your Dead cover themselves half way, and then you cover the rest? If I were to Baptize, being the Administrator, I must take the Person, and Plunge him wholly my self under Water, but then I must leave him at the bottom, for my strength could not take him up.
Again, Though I know we may Bury a Man in his Cloaths, are you sure they Dipt them all in their Cloaths? these things are material to know: Because we know that in Chysostom's time, as Vossius tells us, upon a tumult that rose about him, Women that were to be Baptized ran away Naked; (your young Rustick Anabaptist tells me, What if Chrysostom tells a lying Story? though it were Vossius tells it, but you may judge the Man by his Language,) so that they then Baptized Men, Women and Children Naked; (something before their Shame we conceive.) The Lord would not allow the Priest to go up by Steps to his Altar, That thy Nakedness be discovered thereon, Exod. 20.26.
I hear you now Baptize your Females when it is duskish; but why so? Baptism is a holy Institution, I hope they have no Garment appropriated to Dipping; bad John so? then a Surplice may as well, &c.fit to be celebrated at Noon-time; why do you not then Baptize your Women, and the Younkers stand and look on? how comely this will be! they must also be some time under the Water, that the Water may soak through their Cloaths.
Yet as to this manner of Baptizing; had the Lord Commanded Baptism to be performed by plunging the whole Body under Water, in a Countrey cold, and where it was not the Custom of the People to wash themselves, (unless some Boys and young Fellows in the heat of Summer, as in our Country, I never heard of one Woman that did wash her self in this manner in our Nation) then there had been more reason to urge this manner of Baptizing; but for the Lord to Institute it first in a hot Countrey, where this dowzing under Water had been in practice a thourand years before his Institution, so that now it was onelyonly his pleasme to make it his Institution, that this plunging under water which hath been in practice so long, shall be done in my Name, &c. the Water having this signification, by my Authority, this alters the Case very much: This washing among them, being, partly for Pleasure, for Coolness, for Health, and fiequent for Legal Impurities. I read in Levit. 15. three or four Cases in which those Bathings or Washings were commanded at all times; and the Jews tell us, the whole Body must be baptized, if but a finger were above water it was not rightly performed, (which it seems one of your Baptists observed, having failed in his Act, tells the man he must be Dipt again, as one that stood by relates; I had it from a Friend who knew the mau a zealous Professor before his dipping, but after it fell into gross Vices, and so died;) had the Lord given those Commands in England, many men and women must have lost their Lives, in an ordinary way.
Hence though we read twice of being buried in Baptism, yet I deny that therefore we are always bound to Baptize by Dipping; because that Mode in that Country was Practised many hundred Years before the Institution, so that they did but keep their former Practice, it was nothing to them. But the word signifying Washing, as we have Divine Authority for it, which is done as well by Powring as by Plunging; and we read so often of the Powring of the Spirit, and of Washing by the Spirit and Blood of Jesus, Washing of Regeneration, Prov. 1.23. Isa. 32.15. Isa. 44.3. Joel 2.28, 29. Ezek. 36.25. (the Geneva Translation,) Eph. 5.26, 27. Tit. 3.5. Apoc. 1.5. 1 Cor. 6.11. He that obtains these Washings, is as well as he that hath the same Blessings by Dippings. That Text Mr. Petto quoteth, Luk. 16.24. foreign, is very considerable: Besides what is commonly said, the Baptizing of the three thousand in Acts 2. it cannot be proved to be by Dipping: these thoughts I have. When there have been a multitude to be Baptized, the Text have told us where they were Baptized, as Jordan Water, Aenon Water; so in Jerusalem, if there were such deep Waters to dip so many thousands, whereabouts was it? The People holding John for a Prophet, and there being such Rivers in Jerusalem, why do we not read that John Baptized there, as well as at Jordan and Aenon? We read of a contemptible Brook or River, Isa. 8.6. about Jerusalem; a Brook Kidron, 2 Sam. 15.23. After John and the Commission given to the Apostles, we do not read of any Baptizing in the Scripture which do invincibly prove it was by Dipping; No, not the Eunuch; the going down to a Spring of Water, does not prove his being dowz'd under Water. And for the Baptizings in Houses, so often mentioned, that there should be so much Water in their Houses, is unlikely: And the Apostles to take up lusty Men in their Arms, and Plunge them in those Waters, is more than my Strength could do, and more than any can prove they did. The Jaylour, Act. 16. an ordinary Person in a City, to have so much Water in his House, is unlikely; we should not find so much Water in many great Mens Houses in London.
Against this 'tis Objected, Act. 16.34. saith, The Jaylour brought them into his House after Baptism, v. 33.
A. 1. But the Text mentions nothing of their going out of the House, to any other place to be Baptized, that time in the night.
2. The word foreign, there used, signifies, to Cause to Ascend; and so is used, Luk. 4.5. Act. 9.39. and in other places: The Syriac word in the Text signifies the same, being the same word with foreign in the Hebrew, which is used, Psal. 139.8. If I ascend into Heaven: So the Arabick word in the Text, which the Lexicon translates, Ascendit per Scalas, to Ascend by a Ladder or Stairs: So that the word may refer to his bringing of them up out of the Dungeon, where he had put them for security.
For my part, I am of their opinion, whom I see to be the most Learned and pious, that the Apostles were Indifferent in the manner of Administration, whether by Dipping under water, to hold forth the Burying with Christ, (so am I willing to Administer it, if Parents will,) or by Pouring on of water, to signifie the Washing of Regeneration and pouring of the Spirit, Tit. 3.5, 6. foreign, and Washing with the Blood of Christ: That Blood which cleanseth from all Sin, 1 Joh. 1.7. OnelyOnly let me adde this, as we pour upon the Face immediately by which persons are known, so we can pour it all over the Cloaths, which doth more resemble the manner of Burial through the whole world, for ought I know, than the other: When we bury men, we do not use to run them into the Earth, but first dig the Grave, then powr Earth upon them. But for men to be so het upon a Mode of Administration, when the word signifies but Washing, whether it be by Pouring or Dipping, it is but a kind or degree of Superstition.
It is not baptizing this way or that way, but our improving of the Ordinance; and the Spirits accompanying the Ordinance, which must do us good. God hath blessed the Ordinance, when administred by pouring on of water. A Gentlewoman (whom I name not) when the wretched Doctrine, (as that man of God Mr. Thomas Hooker calls it) of Anabaptism first came up in England, hearing of it: Is this (said she) the Doctrine now coming up? The greatest Comfort that ever I had from God was from my Infant Baptism: A Gentlewoman so eminent in Holiness, that few that are dipt must come near her. One of yours told me it is no Baptism: but we shall not go to Anabaptists, to learn any thing that belongs to God. Water is essential to Baptism, not Dipping. Dip a man over head and ears in Milk or Wine in the Name of the Father, &c. here is no Baptism: pour Water upon the Person, in the Name of the Father, &c. here is Baptism. This signifies something.