Scripture Warrant Sufficient Proof for Infant Baptism, To the reader 2
READER,
AFter I had finished my Copy, there was another Book of Mr. Grantham's sent to me: The title, Hear the Church. Where he hath several things, new fancies, to take with them who have a mind to Admire him. He talks of Church-Officers which he calls Messengers. All Gospel Preachers I hope are Messengers in one sense: If orderly called, they are all sent. Rom. 10.15. foreign. I know very well, there are Messengers, properly so called, and have known the practice about Fifty years since: but for Messengers in his sense, they are but his new invented Officers. I would have spoken to his Text in Revel. 2. Angels, but 'tis not worth the while; the man mistakes the Texts much, to make them serve his Notion.
He tells his Brethren (as he calls them) p. 41. Our Learned Adversaries, are wont to amuse weak Christians, by telling them they know not the Originals; there he gives them help, by telling them how vain and pernicious this talk is about the Originals.
If that be Vain and Pernicious, I am sure what he writes about the Hebrew and the Greek, is so Vain and Ridiculous, that I would not foul Paper to give him an Answer to it.
But p. 43. there is something requires an Answer: There he falls upon Papists and most Paedobaptists, Who while they seem to admire General Councils and Fathers, regard not the Decrees of the best Councils and Fathers in Act. 15. but without all Conscience of these Decrees, seed upon blood: On the other side, how rigidly do they impose the Decrees of the Council of Trent, in the Case of Transubstantiation, though never heard of before it was there invented, &c. Let the Papists bear their shame for their Persecution.
For eating of Blood (in that manner we eat it) a few words. Considering, First, That the not eating of Blood was one of the seven Laws of Noah, without the observance of which, no Gentile was admitted to be so much as a Proselite of the Gate. Considering Secondly, what James saith, Act. 15.21. which was the ground of the decree, Moses was read every Sabbath day in the Synagogues, where they heard eating of Blood forbidden. Now lest the eating of Blood should be a stumbling-block to the unbelieving Jews, and hinder their coming in to the Gospel, and an offence to the believing Jew, who did not as yet so clearly see the mind of God in that Law, no not (I believe) so long as the Temple stood, the head of the Ceremonial Law; therefore they made those Decrees, and sent them to the Believing Gentiles to forbear Blood.
But let the Reader observe Levit. 17.10. where the eating of Blood is the most severely prohibited, in the 11 v. the Lord gives the reason of the Prohibition, the end of it, The Blood maketh the Atonement for the Soul: The end was, that men might be kept in Faith and Expectation of the Blood of Christ, by which our Atonement is made, Col. 1.20. Eph. 2.13, 14.
1. Hence Now, let them who say that the Blood whereby our Atonement is made with God, is not yet shed, let them, I say, forbear to eat Blood.
2. Let those that say Christ hath not taken down the Partition-wall (in which Wall, Blood was one Stone) between Jew and Gentile, Eph. 2.14. let them forbear Blood.
3. Let them that believe some things are unclean of themselves, cross to the Apostle, Rom. 14.14. and that Blood is so, let them forbear Blood.
But I believe in the Blood of Atonement shed; I believe the Partition-wall is broken down, and that nothing is unclean of it self; therefore I will eat a Blood-pudding, if it be prepared S. A. and Bless God for it.
As for Transubstantiation, which you say was never heard of before it was invented in the Council of Trent; what gross Ignorance does Mr. Grantham declare in the Councils? let him but read the Lateran Council held under Pope Innocent the 3d, in the Year 1215. about three bundred and thirty Years before the Council of Trent, which began Anno 1545. and let him there see if he cannot find Transubstantiation, as well as that Cursed Doctrine of the Pope's Power to Depose Kings determined: Yet this is the Man whom his Creatures admire.
Scripture-Warrant SUFFICIENT PROOF FOR INFANT-BAPTISM: BEING A Reply to Mr. GRANTHAM's Presumption no Proof.
IN your Preface to your Reader, you tell him, I hold it no convenient time for Dissenters to write one against another; why then did you not hold to your own Opinion? but it seems you can hold, and not hold: Or if Mr. Petto upon a Schismatical and very Irregular Act of one of your Perswasion in his Church, wrote a small Treatise very soberly to stablish his People in the Lawfulness of Infant-Baptism, and you must therefore write against him; yet why must you needs write against me, since it was four years, as you tell your Reader, since I wrote that small Treatise upon the Question; which I had not then done, had not one of yours required me in way of common Justice to Mr. Danvers, to Publish- what I had delivered against his Book; nor had I concern'd my self with his Book (for I did grudge the time I spent about it) but that a young Anabaptist, who had been my Hearer, boasted it was unanswerable.
In the end of that small Treatise, I propounded two Questions, (if men would be Writing) to have them answered: In your Preface, you tell your Reader, They seem to be serious and considerable; and in pag. 2. you tell us, Some said they were unanswerable; yet in pag. 3. you call the first an unlearned Question *Senties qui vir sum.; how well your great Learning have answered these, the sequel will declare.
Before you come to my Question, you tell your Reader, He playes a little with some Arguments, rather of other mens devising than his own.
One Argument I borrowed from Mr. Baxter, and tell you so, but I improved it another way different from Mr. B. and so that all you have said against it signifies nothing; for any other Arguments, I know not one that I have took from others. I have several Books against Anabaptists sent me, I know not that I have read four Leaves in any of them together; it's well known I have not time to read Books: I scorn to do as Mr. Wills tells Mr. Danvers he hath done, to take 43 Pages together, for the substance, out of Mr. Tombes, all the while concealing his Name, contrary to the Law of Ingenuity; and calls him therefore a Notorious Plagiarie.
As for an Anabaptist, you tell me, You know no such Creature, &c. Though Presumption be no Proof, as you say, yet understanding what your Parents were, I may presume strongly that they would have you baptized when you were an Infant; and if you were then Baptized, and Baptized again afterwards, then I may well joyn the Preposition foreign, with Baptist: But you deny your Infant-Baptism (as you do mine) to be Baptism, that was Sprinkling; I shall talk with you about this anon, when I answer for my self.
You tell me, I have got Infant-Baptism into a little Corner: Not so little as your Mr. Danvers, who tells us, The Elect-regenerate are the subjects of Baptism; which caused those Reflections you tell me of.
For Baptism being a visible Ordinance, belonging to a visible Church, visible Believers in Christ, who do not by a scandalous Conversation give the Lye to their Profession, these with their Seed have a right to the Ordinance of Baptism; and this is not so little a Corner as Elect-regenerate.
As to what you tell me, We do not find one Infant in the Jewish Church, nor in any other, during the Apostles dayes, Baptized; this, with Where do you find a Positive Command to Baptize Infants? is the summ of all you can say, and have been answered so often, that it is a tedious thing to write any more about it: Yet premising some things, (not stolen out of other Authors, as you falsly charge me) I will give my Answer, though it is very like some have given at least some of the Answers before.
That some Infants have been under a Church-Ordinance, is agreed on both sides; now what our Lord did in answering the Pharisee's Question about Divorce, I will do the same here: He Math. 19.8. leads them to the Beginning; so I will go to the Beginning, and enquire, how came this about, what was the Foundation of it? we find it a Covenant God made with Abraham and his Seed, Gen. 17.7. Here's the Beginning.
Let me with humble Reverence to that Tremendous Majesty, conceive the great God thus Treating with Abraham.
Abraham, thou (with thy Father Terah) livest here in Mesopotamia aActs 7.2., among Idolaters, and thou servest other gods as they do bJosh. 24.2, 14, 15.; but from my own free Love to thee cDeut. 4.37., I that am the only living and true God do now appear unto thee dActs 7.2.: Come out of Haran, and follow me to a Land which I will shew thee; there will I bless thee, make thee a Blessing; yea, so bless thee, that in thee shall all Families of the Earth be blessed eGen. 12.1, 2, 3.: And though I am the absolute Sovereign of the whole World, and need not be tied to any Creature, yet for the sake of him that shall come from thee according to the flesh fRom. 9.5., in whom all the Families shall be blessed; I will make a Covenant with thee gGen. 17.4., and not only with thee, but I will make an everlasting Covenant to be a God to thee and thy Seed hGen. 17.7.; yea, with thy little ones iDeut. 29.11, 12, 13., they shall be mine kEzek. 16.20.21.: And though you may trust me upon my Word, yet to tye my self more sure to thee and thy Seed, and to strengthen your Faith in my Covenant, I will add a Seal to my Covenant, and this shall be administred to thy Seed when they are but eight dayes old lGen. 17.10, 11, 12.: To your seed will I give my Statutes and my Judgments, which I will not do to other Nations mPsal. 147.19, 20.: Now upon my dealing thus with your Seed, I require that they shall cleave only to me their God, and have nothing to do with the gods of the other Nations about them: Observe the Statutes and Judgments which I shall give them nDeut. 10.12, 20. Exod. 23.13.And as for me, I know your Seed shall meet with abundance of troubles; but as they have me an All-sufficient God oGen. 17.1.in Covenant with them, so in all their troubles, be they National or Personal, be they Bodily, be they Spiritual, let them look no further than their God in Covenant with them. If any of them sin against me, as be sure they will, and their Consciences accuse them, and fill them with the fears of my Wrath, let them repent, and lay hold upon me in this Covenant, and they shall find me a merciful God, pardoning Iniquity, Transgression and Sin pExod. 34.6, 7. Mica. 7.18. 2 Chron. 33.12. He humbled himself greatly before the God of his Fathers; with whom God was in Covenant.: Are any of them afflicted and wounded with the vileness and corruption of their Hearts, they cannot purge them, they cannot love me, and walk with me as they would do? let them come to me their God in Covenant, consider the Seal of my Covenant, and I their God can and will help them: I will circumcise their Hearts to love me qDeut. 30.6., &c. And thus, Abraham, what I do with thee and thy Seed, the same will I do with others that are not thy Seed after the flesh, but they own and give up themselves to me thy God, and shall endeavour to keep my Statutes, as I require of thee and thy Seed, they shall partake, and their Seed with them, of the same Covenant, and Seal of my Covenant which thou doestrGen. 17.12, 13.
Many Believers in Christ to come, there were before Abraham, why did not God make this Covenant with Enoch, Noah, or some others of them? What is that to us? Elihu tells us, Job 33.13. He giveth not account of any of his matters?
Here we have the beginning where the Lord expresly declares the Seed of Believing Abraham, to be visible members of the visible Church with him, sealing both Him and Them with the same seal of the Covenant, which was made both with Him and Them. If God hath now since Christ is come, nulled and repealed this Covenant with Abraham and his Seed, I say, if this can be infallibly proved, the controversie between us and the Anabaptists is at an end; for then, no Covenant, no Seal.
But this the Anabaptists must prove by express Scriptures, else we shall not believe them. For,
1. They require of us positive command, to administer the Seal of the Covenant to Infants. Baptism is a Seal of the Covenant of Grace: Gods Covenant with Abraham and his Seed was no Covenant of Works I am sure. To be a God to a Soul, is the Highest God can go; there is nothing above God. This is wont to be called Anima Faederis, the Soul of the Covenant of Grace; remove the Covenant then first by express Scriptures. They who will buy by one Bushel, and sell by a less, we know what we call them in English. If you will buy by express and positive weights, then sell by such weight.
2. God never made any Covenant with his people, but if he repealed the Covenant, he did it himself expresly, and not leave it to us to prove the repealing of it by consequences, which we frame.
(1.) He makes a Covenant with Abraham and his Seed, Gen. 17.7.
(2.) He makes a Covenant with Israel, Deut. 5.2, 3. God made a Covenant with us in Horeb, God made not this Covenant with our Fathers but with us, Exod. 20. and Ch. 24.7, 8.
(3.) God made another Covenant with Israel, in the Land of Moab, beside the Covenant he made with them in Horeb, Deut. 29.1. from 9. to the 16. v.
As to the Covenant made at Horeb, or Sinai, the Lord expresly repeals it, Hob. 8.13. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old, is ready to vanish away.
As to the Covenant in Exodus, and Deuteronomy; when this people rejected the promised Seed to Abraham, the Lord Jesus, Away with him, Crucifie him, Luke 23.18, 21. and continued in hardness and unbelief, God breaks his Covenant with them, expresly, Zech. 11.10. This Covenant of God with them, was their Beauty. This staffe cut asunder, that I might break my Covenant, which I had made with all the people. Rom. 11.19, 20. The Branches were broken off because of unbelief. Hos. 1.9. Call his name Lo-ammi, for ye are not my people, and I will not be your God.
1. But with whom did God break this Covenant? not with the poor of the flock, who believed in Christ, and waited upon him, Zech. 11.11. Not with those whom he had command to Feed, v. 7. The little remnant with whom the Covenant stood firm, thô the body of the Nation were rejected.
2. Nor doth he break this Covenant with the Children first, but he cast off the Parents first, and with them their Children.
As for the Children of Abraham actually believing in Christ come, that God indeed will continue to be their God, and seal the Covenant to them, as he was and did before, but not to their seed, as he was and did before Christ came, name the Scripture that expresly speaketh this.
3ly. If God hath repealed this Covenant with Believers Seed, then Paul was quite out, Eph. 2.12. in his setting forth the miserable state of us Gentiles, compared with the Jews, viz. That we were strangers from the Covenants of Promise. And in Rom. 9.4. amongst the Priviledges the Jewish Church had, the Covenants are numbred for one; and among those Covenants I am sure this with Abraham and his Seed is one; yea the Covenant and the Seal are so conjoyn'd, that the Seal is called the Covenant, Gen. 17.10. Act. 7.8. But as for us, not one Covenant did ever God make with us, thô three times at least, we find him Covenanting with them. But it seems that part of our misery is still upon us, and not only so, but the believing Jews themselves have this misery befallen them by embracing Christ, as to their Seed, from which they were free before: They have lost their priviledge, and their Children as well as ours, are now become, Strangers to the Covenants of Promise: But will any man that is not corrupt, but believes the Scriptures; say, that Paul was out, he err'd in this.
4ly. There is such a dishonour offered to Christ, that he by his Sacrifice should break down the middle wall of Partition, Eph. 2.14, 15. between the Jews and us Gentiles, and make of twain, One; and now set up the Partition wall between the Believing Jew and his Seed, and make of One, twain, dividing between the root and the branch, and now their Seed are no part of the House, v. 19. So expresly contrary to the discourse of the Apostle from the 13th. v. to the end of the Chapter, that unless God had expresly revealed it (then I am sure these verses had never been written) they must be given up to a strange Delusion, that can receive these Anabaptists Doctrine.
From these grounds I answer, to your Positive Command to baptize Infants.
(1.) There was no need that Christ should give any such Command. For,
1. There is nothing more in Baptism, which should make Children Subjects more uncapable of receiving it, and us to Administer it to them, than was in Circumcision.
2. All Christs Apostles were Jews, bred up in the Jewish Church, and they knew very well the Covenant of God with Abraham and his Seed, and what their daily practice was in Administring Circumcision to Infants, a Seal to the same Covenant that Baptism is.
3. Infants now have as much need of the benefits signified and sealed in Baptism, as they had then under Circumcision.
4. The business then, and what took up the minds of the Apostles, was not baptizing of Infants, as how to bring men over to the Faith of the Gospel, to believe in this Christ, the promised Seed; they who did believe in Christ, did declare their Faith in him, by being baptized into him: But believing was the business above baptizing. So the Apostle, 1 Cor. 1.17. Christ sent me not to Baptize, but to Preach the Gospel: That Baptizing of Adult Persons, was not the thing they so much laboured in, as to have men believe in Christ, thò they did baptize Believers, 'tis true.
5. Had the Apostles removed Circumcision, and left no ordinance for their Infants in the room of it, but shut the door against them, who had been a thousand years in the Church with their Parents under an Ordinance; this would have been an Objection of weight against the Apostles, and hindered the Gospel spreading; they should have heard of it with both ears, and we should have read of it, who read so much what a stir there was for removing, and changing a Bloody and Painful Ordinance for a Better.
6. We read of the Baptizing of whole Housholds. Children use to be reckoned as members of our Houses, they were of Gods House once, and are still, if I mistake not the Text, Ephes. 2.19. While Paul tells us, We Gentiles who were before Aliens from the Common-wealth of Israel, v. 12. (and were not Children then members of the Commonwealth of Israel?) are now fellow Citizens — and of the Houshold God. And it is much that in all the Housholds Paul baptized, there should be no Children.
7. Baptizing of the Children of Proselites in their admission into the Jewish Church, Dr. Lightfoot, (a great searcher into the practices of that Church) tells us, was so known, so frequent, and usual, that there is scarce any thing more known and usual. And if so, no wonder thô we read nothing of the Baptizing of Infants; the Baptizing of the Parents who were not so, that is chiefly Recorded, and their Baptizing into the Christian Faith.
(2.) As there was no need of a new positive Command, so had our Lord intended that the Seed of the Jews believing in Christ now come, should be denied to be visible members of the Church, as they were before, and debarred from the initiating ordinance which they had before; I am assured and confident, he would have declared it expresly. It being so contrary to Abrahams Covenant, under which all his Seed had lived to this day, wherein Christ suffered from Abrahams time. In him all the Nations of the Earth shall be blessed, he told Abraham; and is this a blessing, to turn all our Seed out of the Covenant, and deny then the Seal of it to them, which we enjoyed before he suffered? Verily, he that was so careful to remove a Mosaical Law out of the way, about the eating of unclean Creatures, Acts 10.14, 15, 16. that it might not be a stumbling block to Peter now going to the Gentiles, and by this repeal of that Law, the Jews might admit, and eat Swines flesh at their Table; would he I say be so clear and express, to tell the Jews, they might bring a Hog into their House, and would he not be as clear and express, in turning the Seed of Abraham out of his House, in which they had been longer than Moses Law against Hogs, and deny them the Seal of his Covenant, which so long they had enjoyed? Let any considerate man who is not miserably blinded, judge.
(3.) From that Text, Acts 2.38, 39. Monsieur Claude, a very learned French-man, and Sufferer in this last French-Persecution, but now dead, answered his Popish adversary, telling him, That remaining in the Principles of his Sect, he could have no rational assurance of the validity of his Baptism; that the Baptism of Infants was good, and that the Anabaptists were in an Errour, hence he must return to the Communion with the Church of Rome.
He tells him, he need say but a word to that, Acts 2.38, 39. This Scripture, saith he, hath clearly established Infant. Baptism. For since Baptism ought to be given to them to whom the Promise is made, and that is made to our Children as well as to us, it ought to be given not only to us, but unto our Children.
Your Mr. Grif. told us this was no command to baptize, but an encouragement. But I pray do the Scriptures use to encourage us to that, which is not our Duty? When God made that Everlasting Covenant as he calls it, between Abraham and his Seed, there is command strict enough given to Seal it, Gen. 17.9, 10, 11, 14. And thô the Seal be changed, as the Worship of God in the New Testament is changed from what it was in the Old Testament; yet the second Command binds us to observe it, and keep it pure; so that command binds us to Seal the Covenant, v. 9. for he calls the Seal the Covenant.
And because the word foreign Children, is used in this Text, I shall give the Reader notice how you would cheat him, in telling him the signification of the Word, p. 5. foreign signifies Offspring of growth or Stature, but foreign signifies an Infant; say you. But does it signifie onelyonly so; you would perswade your Reader so, telling him but foreign signifies an Infant.
Let the Reader that hath skill in the Greek tongue, see where the word is the first time …used in the New Testament, Math. 2.18. Did Rachel weep only for her Children of growth and Stature? what age these Children were of, v. 16. tells us, from two years old, foreign, and not any above two, but under two downwards, if to a fortnight or week old; thus again, 1 Thess. 2.7. as a Nurse cherisheth her foreign Children. What onelyonly her Children of growth and stature? I told over two and twenty Texts more where the word is used properly, and signifies little Children as well as Children of growth; and two or three of them principally, little Children; and that foreign signifies onelyonly an Infant; then Timothy knew the Scriptures when he was an Infant, 2 Tim. 3.15. Thô this word we never contend about.
Thus you do with the word Baptize; but of this in its place.