Anti-Paedobaptism Part 3, Section 92
SECT. LXXXXII. Dr. Hammonds imagined evidence from [hath been sanctified] for his sense of the fore part of 1 Cor. 7.14. is nullified, and my opinion of enallage of tense vindicated.
CH. 3. Sect. 2 the Dr. saith thus. First then to my first evidence taken from the word [foreign hath been sanctified] referring to some past known examples and experiences, of this kinde (of a wives converting the husband, &c.) he hath a double answer. 1. That as my paraphrase expresseth it, it should signifie not onelyonly that an unbelieving husband hath been sanctified, but also that there is hope they will, and so it should note not onelyonly some example past, but also some to come, of which there can be a less reasonable account given, then of putting it in the present tense in English. 2. That the enallage or change of tense is frequent ch. 11.24. foreign in the present tense for the future, and here foreign for foreign or foreign, and in the next v. foreign in the preter for the present, and so foreign here, not, hath been, but is sanctified,or if in the preter tense, yet that to be understood of a past thing, yet continued, as foreign John 3.18. notes an act still continued in force. To these two I reply briefly, and first to the former (the same which hee had mentioned before, and excepted against as an excess in my paraphrase, but both there and here without the least cause;) For in my paraphrase I look upon foreign as a verb of the preter tense, and as such onelyonly adapt the sense to it, referring it not to future hopes, but to past experiments or examples; onelyonly because examples are rhetorical syllogismes, and what hath been frequently experimented may also reasonably be hoped, I suppose that the Apostle so meant these examples, as grounds of hoping the like for the future, not making this of the future any part of the sense of foreign in the preter, but explicating the foreign, or rational importance (which is somewhat more then the foreign of the Apostles speech) and supposing this conclusion to lye hid under this premise, as it is ordinary in all discourse to set down the …remises, distinctly leaving the conclusion by every ones reason to be drawn from thence, without setting it down explicitly.
Answ. That the Dr. in his paraphrase qu. 4. §. 31. of his letter, put so much as I have noted Review part. 2. sect. 26. of which there is nothing in the text expressed, is not justified by this plea. For what ever addition a paraphrast be allowed, yet sure no paraphrast is allowed to express that which he conceives it deducible from the sense of the words in thirteen lines, and the sense it self onelyonly in three and especially when he layes that in his paraphrase as the ground of his argument for his position, which hath not a word in the text to leade to that inference. Sure I had great cause to except against his paraphrase, which was so monstrous as to be defective in letting down what was the chief thing to be heeded in the Apostles speech, to wit, the relation of husband and wife, and so extremely exuberant, as to express that as done often, which is mentioned in the singular number onelyonly, and ascribe the sanctifying to the conversation not at all expressed, and put in a long inference that hath no intimation in the text, and mention an act of the Church, of which there is no inkling there or near it, or any where else in Scripture, and so many wayes corrupting the sense, as I shew ubi suprà, especially in the main supposing a mention made of a husband converted by the wife, and yet the husband expressed by the Apostle as continuing an unbeliever, and a husbands being sanctified by the wife which is ever ascribed to Gods spirit, never to any Apostle, to make that which is used as a reason of lawfulness, as if it were a motive from an advantage, to make that as a Rhetorical motive, which is a Logical proof, to make that which was a rare contingent event, which might and it's likely did as often fail as a convincing argument to settle the conscience in the lawfulness of cohabitation, with other faults, as being so audacious an attempt, as I think no approved writer can bee shewed to have made, nor any considerate Reader will allow of. Nor would it ever have come into my thoughts, that so learned a man as Dr Hammond is, should have vented such a conceit as this is in his Letter and Annotations, did I not finde him set to maintain what the Church of England, that is the Prelates, held or appointed, as others what the Scottish or New-English Churches approve of.
As for his excuse of his dealing in his paraphrase, it is too narrow a plaister for such a sore. For neither is any thing 1 Cor. 7.14. set down as an example to move the will the judgement being before setled, nor any Rhetorical syllogism, used, but a Logical; as the termes foreign, used Rom. 11.6. 1 Cor. 15.14, 18, 29, &c. shew, nor doth the Dr. prove, but suppose the Apostle so meant; nor doth he answer the allegations I bring to the contrary, Review par. 2. §. 26. And his words here do imply as if this were the conclusion, that it is probable and a ground of hope, that the unbelieving yoke fellow will be converted by the believer cohabiting, and this the premise, for it hath often so come to pass, whereas there is not the least intimation of that conclusion in the text, and it is manifest by the term [foreign for] that v. 14. is a proof of the determination or conclusion v. 12, 13. concerning the lawfulness of married persons living together in disparity of religion, not of Dr. Hammonds imagined as tacitely implied conclusion.
But hee saith. Wherein that I was not mistaken, I had all assurance from v. 16. where the argument is prest, and the conclusion inferred more explicitely. For what knowest thou O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband — and the like mentioned in the paraphrase from 1 Pet. 3.1.
Answ. Dr. Hammond had no assurance from v. 16. that the unbelieving husband is oft converted by the wife; the thing being expressed so doubtfully as an uncertain contingent though possible, and so with some hope sperable, [Hierom. com. in 1 Cor. 7.14. In dubium quidem …osuit sed semper ambiguam melius evenire credenda sunt.] much less that there is a conclusion of the probability of the converting of the infidel yoke…fellow, v. 14. deducible from the example and experiment of what was done in time past, v. 16. being neither explication nor proof of what is said v. 14. but a motive to make the thing determined as lawfull, v. 12, 13. more swasible, or a motive to what is said v. 15. that God hath called us in peace. In my apprehension if v. 14. were as the Dr. meanes, the unbelieving husband hath been sanctified, that is converted by the wife often, and therefore it is probable, or there is a ground of hope, or it is to be presumed, it will be so for the future, the Apostle had said the same v. 14. which is said v. 16. and so there would have been a meer tautology in the Apostles speeches, which is not to bee conceived. As for 1 Pet. 3 1. though it shew such an event possible, yet not frequent, nor is there in Peters words the least hint that Pauls words 1 Cor. 7.14. are to be understood as the Dr. would have them. But the Dr. hath another string to his bow, which he thus urgeth.
And herein I have the authority of St. Hierom; as for my rendring foreign by the woman (so I find it per mulierem in his 7. Epist. ad Latam, and so Marianus Victorius in his scholia assures us, all the copies ancient and printed read it) so also for this part of my paraphrase. He produceth an example, because (saith he on the place) it hath often happened that the husband hath been gained by the wife, according to that of St. Peter, that if any man believe not the word, he should without the word be gained by the conversation of the wife, that is, that when they shall see them changed to the better, all may know that the law of God might have been taken in exchange for so inveterate a custome. And so again Ep. 7. ad Laetam, speaking of the like example, we have well (saith he) and happily expected (i. e. not mist of our expe…ation) an holy and faithfull house sanctifies an unbeliever, adding his conceipt, that Jupiter himself if he had had such a kin…ed, might have been brought to the faith of Christ.
Answ. 'Tis true that Hierom comment. in 1 Cor. 7.14. reads per mulierem, but in Ep 7 ad Laetam he reads in uxore, and August. tom 7. l. 2. de peccat. merit. & remis. c. 26. and that in Hierom in both places the terms fidelem and fideli are, but not in August. though he render the later part thus, & sanctificatur mulier infidelis in fratre. And I find in the scholies of Erasmus … Roterdam, on Hieroms Epistle to Laeta this the fir… note. For he is san…fied] The place is with S. Paul in the former Epistle to the Corinthians cap. 7. In the ancient copies we find written in the husband, not by the husband, and in the wife, not by the woman. For the Greek hath it, For the unbelieving husband is sanctified in the wife, and the unbelieving wife in the husband. Moreover what the interpreter adds [believer and believer] he hath done for explication. By which it may appear, that Erasmus saith otherwise then the Dr. saith Marianus Victorius doth, and for my part I imagine Erasmus is the more credible scholiast of the two. 'Tis true that Hierom com. in 1 Cor. 7.14. hath the words the Dr. allegeth, but then he addeth, which the Dr. leaves out. Item ideo vir & uxor invicem sanctificantur: quia ex traditione Dei sanctae sunt nuptiae. That is, Likewise therefore the husband and wife are to each other or for each other, or in course sanctified, because by the tradition of God mariages are holy, which expresseth Hieromes second and better thoughts. By which it may appear that Hierom took of foreign as if it were in the present tense. And for the other place of Hierom it is true, Hierom hath the words the Dr. cites, if the word [Jovem] be not put for [proavum] or some such word as Erasmus thinks. But then it is plain from the words left out by the Dr. Jam candidatus est fidei quem filiorum & nepotum credens turba circumdat. That is, He is as one that would be baptized, who hath a company of believing children & grandchildren about him. That the sanctifying is not made the priviledge of the husband in respect of his wife, or of the children by the parent, but also the grandfather is conceived likely to be sanctified by the children and grandchildren, and all is ascribed to example and instruction, with this express speech, Fiunt non nascuntur Christiani; Christians are made, not born such. And though Hierome saith of Laeta's daughter Paula, that she was prius Christo consecrata quàm genita, and she had conceived her, antè votis quam utero, yet the words cui imperatori, cui exercitui nutriatur, cui promissa sit, regis amplexibus parat, de spiritualibus nuptiis sciscitantem, do seem to me to imitate that young Paula was not then baptized, which if right it is manifest, that children of believers were not baptized ordinarily then in infancy. And me thinks the words of Hierom in his commentary on 1 Cor. 7.14. on the words, Else should your children be unclean, but now are they holy; If it were not so as I say your children would yet remain infidels: for it would often happen that the children would follow those parents, who had believed. Upon which hope he would have it believed, that the other might bee saved as well by the example of the children as by the marriage; shew that Hierom understood not the holiness of the children, of their baptism in infancy, but of their embracing the faith, by following the example of the believing parent, and in like manner the unbelieving parent was sanctified according to him, as well by the example of the children as the marriage. So that however Dr. Hammonds paraphrase in the forepart seems to have some countenance from these passages of Hierome, yet the latter part is expounded clean besides the Drs. minde, and the passages yeeld us such hints of the not baptizing of infants of believers, as do overthrow his conceit; as if the infants of believers were then ordinarily baptized.
Dr. Hammond adds. As for his 2d answer, I acknowledge such Enallages to be ordinary in the Hebrew, and sometimes, but more rarely, found in the Hebraizing Greeks or Hellenists, and consequently, that where the context will not bear the sense of the tense which is used, there may be place for this Grammatical figure, which yet is not to be made use of unnecessarily. Accordingly if there were any convincing reason offered, that [foreign in the preter tense] could not be born, … should not then doubt to interpret it by this figure, either in the present or some other tense: But when (as here it is evident) there is no such necessity, then 1. I cannot think fit to do so, ('tis dangerous to forsake the literal sense, when it may be commodiously retained, and fly to either a Rhetorical or Grammatical figure;) and having no motive to do so, I am next to consider, what is the properest importance of that phrase in that tense wherein it is used, and then I could not (I believe) have fallen upon any thing more natural, then that the preter form of speech referred to the past experiences, &c. This is a full satisfaction to his answer.
Answ. 1. The Drs. acknowledging that such Enallages may be, and sometimes are, shews that his interpretation is not necessary, and therefore his inference thereupon not certain, which is enough to make good my answer. 2. It is to me a convincing reason, that there is an Enallage of the preter tense for the present, not onelyonly because Camerarius and other learned men conceive so, and our Translator so render i…; but also because by the making it to import an experience past…nely, a sense is brought in (as I have shewed in my Examen, par▪ 3. sect 8. in the first part of the Review, sect. 19, &c. in the second part of the Review, sect. 26.) which is neither agreeing with the words, nor pertinent or accommodate to the matter of the Apostle speech 3 However the Dr. believe, yet it is shewed here, and Review par. 2. sect. 6 that to refer the sanctifying 1 Cor. 7.14 to past experiences, is not natural. For the Apostles speech being a reason, not of the commodiousness of living together in disparity of Religion, (for if it had been of i…, they could have better resolved themselves then the Apostle, yea, they could have refuted the Apostle, and re…ied his reason against him, we find it not so by experience,) but of the lawfulness, the reason must be conceived to import right, not event; and so the speech is not of what hath been, which onelyonly mentions experience, but of what is de jure, or is lawfull; and as Piscator rightly Schol. in 1 Cor. 7.14. Sanctificatus est] id est, usus illius ut sanctus, & conscientiam uxoris non ladens concessus est. And in this manner it is usual to express such sentences in the preter tense, yet to be expounded by an Enallage, as in the same Chapter the next v. foreign is in the preter tense, yet rightly rendred [is not under bondage,] v. 34. foreign therei… difference, v. 29. foreign is short, 1 Cor. 8.3. foreign is known, 1 Cor. 4.4. foreign am justified, 1 Cor. 15.1. foreign ye do stand, v. 18. foreign are perished, 1 Cor. 16.9. foreign is opened, Tit. 1.15. foreign are defiled, foreign usually is written, Matth. 13.11. foreign is given.
Yet (saith the Dr.) I may in the 2d. place ex abundanti add thus much more, that the utmost he can pretend to by the enallage (whether of the preter for the present, or of the preter understood of a past thing yet continued) is as commodious fo… my interpretation as the preter is: For if it be in the present, then the importance will be, that it is a matter of present daily experience; if in the past continued, then that it is matter both of past and present experience, that the unbeliever is thus wrought upon by the believer, and brought into the Church by Baptism, and this a just ground of hope, that so it may be again in any particular instance, and so a competent motive that the believing wife should abide with the infidel husband, and not depart as long as he will live peaceably with her: And this sure was S. Hieroms understanding in the words newly cited, the Apostle makes instance, produceth example that this hath (and doth) ordinarily come to pass; And to that also agrees the 16th. verse, For how knowest thou &c.
Answ. 1. If it be in the present tense, the importance will not be, that it is a matter of present daily experience, unless it be proved the term [sanctified] notes an iterated event, which I conceive and think I have proved to import right or lawfulness, so as that the sense is, the unbelieving husband is sanctified to or in respect of his wife (as Beza, Piscator, Grotius, &c. do conceive) that is, lawfully used, which is the onelyonly sense that fits the determination of the Apostle, which is not of the conveniency or commodiousness or advantage in living together, but of the lawfulness, v. 12, 13. Nor if it be in the past continued, will it fit the Drs. sense. For the Drs. sense is as if sanctification were the same with conversion, but that is an act transeunt, past, and not continued; and if it include baptism, as the Dr. would have it, the sense should be, The unbelieving husband hath been converted, and brought to baptism, and continues to be converted and brought to baptism by the conversation of the wi…e; which cannot be said of the person said to be sanctified: Yea, there is no less then an implicite contradiction in the words so expounded; for then it should be thus meant, The unbelieving husband (remaining an unbeliever, as the Ap…stles speech supposeth, else it were not apposite to the case v. 12, 13.) is and continues to be wrought upon by the believer, and brought into the Church by baptism. Yet were this exposition allowed, it would no whit avail to the Drs. purpose, unless the futurity of the same act were implied in that imagined sense of the Dr. For it is not the event past that is the motive of cohabitation, but the hope of that which may be: And yet the Dr. tels us in his paraphrase, he looks upon foreign as a verb of the preter tense, and as such onelyonly adapts the sense to it, referring it not to future hopes but to past experiences or examples. Ye… he saith, the Apostle produceth example, and to that also exactly agrees the 16th. v. For how knowest thou, &c. which doth not at all mention an example or past experience, which could not be not done being once done, but onelyonly an uncertain and doubtfull futurity. So that in this again the Drs. speeches do enterfere, and his speech is most false, that the words v. 16. do exactly agree with the meaning of the forepart of the 14th. v. as the Dr. expounds it. I omit that there is not a word that intimates the bringing into the Church by baptism; and i… there were, it would import a strange experience of a wives bringing her husband into the Church by baptism, which cannot be avoided by saying through her perswasion it is done by another; For the Text expresly assigns the sanctification, what or however it be, to the wives individual person, if then, to her as an agent it is done by her. But I have said so much here, and Review 2d. par. sect. 26. of this exposition, as me thinks should make this exposition of the Dr. to be exploded by the learned.
Yet he writes further thus. As for Mr. T. his instances of Enallage, though now I may safely yeeld them all, and rather gain then lose by them, I shall yet in the last place add my sense, that no one of them is any way convincing; that of foreign is not, c. 11.24. for his passion was now so near approaching, that it might very fitly be represented as present, and so that be the force of the present tense.
Answ. This instance is convincing, that enallage of tense is sometimes used, it being used in this place, as Piscat. scholie in locum, Enallage temporis & metaphora. And the Drs. reason doth no whit weaken the allegation of it; for that which notes Paulo post futurum, a future near approaching, is not without an enallage expressed by the present tense. And for the enallage in foreign, I conceive with the Drs. good leave, that usually the Greeks express by foreign or foreign what the Apostle doth by foreign, and so there is an enallage of tense or mood; and for foreign, v. 15. if an enallage be not conceived, then it must not import the present tense at all, whereas the Dr. grants it notes the preter tense yet continued, which is all one as to say it notes the present tense, which without an enallage it could not do. As for foreign, Joh. 3.18. I wonder the Dr. would intimate as if it were produced by me to the prejudice of the preter tense, when my very words say expresly it notes a past thing yet continued, and bring it to that purpose: But how this is far from being still perfectly agreeable to his notion of foreign, the unbeliever oft hath been, and daily is converted; and brought to baptism by the believer, is apparent, in that the continuation of the condemnation, Joh. 3.18. is onelyonly in respect of legal force and vertue; but the sanctification 1 Cor. 7.14. is as he expounds it, a meer transeunt act that imports no legal right, force, and vertue, and therefore cannot be said to be continued as the other can. And how vain the Drs. sense is, and how justifiable my interpretation is by an enallage, is shewed before.