A Forerunner to a Large Review of the Dispute Concerning Infant Baptism, Treatise · Section 10
SECT. X. That Mr. Bs. charge of accusing and disputing my children out of the Covenant of Christ is vaine; and some inquiry is made how they are in the Covenant.
I Have now gone through Mr. Bs. Epistles and History, vindicated my self and the truth from many objections. There are many other things which are scattered in his answer to my Valedictory Oration and Corrective of my Antidote which are somewhat besides the dispute it self, which I shall rather point at then insist on because many are scarce worth the taking notice of, but for the esteem Mr. B. and his book have gotten with men. Page 165. what he speaks of my exceeding high and passionate disposition was but his misdeeming likely upon misinformation, neither my words nor carriage shewed it. Page 166. what the supposed girds were is set down before out of his now printed book, whereby it seems my few disciples (as he miscalls them) are at least excused, and no notorious falshood chargeable on them: That which he saith, I forced him to the disputation I conceive is not right; how it came to passe is shewed above; that there were thousands of people there I think is overlasting: the tale of the dispute is made to prepossesse men with prejudice. I told him before that such a dispute was not fit to satisfy, and I gave him my reasons, and I propounded the way used at the Conference at the Hague, judged best by Dr. Raynolds: but the way Mr. B. took he liked best, and his carriage of it looks like an artifice cunningly contrived to please the common sort of Schollers and others of which few can discerne between sleight and solid proofs. But I doubt not my answer will prove Mr. Bs. arguments to be meer trifles. The untruths charged on me page 167. are upon his mistake of the words written before him. I said not [to be used by Mr. B.] but by others mentioned next before. That his passage was like to be the beginning of a schism among those of Bewdley was no jest, but a conjecture which the event hath proved true: how he misrepresents my words of charging their blood on them, and hypocrisy to them is before shewed: it's not true I had been long time working a fearful schisme, unlesse by accident, it being true which Mr. Allen and Mr. Shepherd say Advertisement to the Reader, pag. 27. scarce truth or error can now adaies be received but in a way of schisme. His lines were likely to be the beginning of a schisme, in that it was taken as if Anabaptists and with them my self were adjudged hereticks by him: which if it were an untruth, yet it is so like a truth, that I think he that shall read in one period what Mr. B. sayes of Hereticks, that they end in wicked lives, and in the next find the instance in Anabaptists, and after me named as one of them will conceive he called them and me hereticks. And however he protest he doth not, yet his asserting me a Sect-Master page 188. and his inclining to Vossius, &c. their definition of an Heretick page 171. and his words page 259. make me think he comes not much short of counting me an heretick. To his allegations of my speeches concerning Mr. M. and Independents I have answered before. I may say the doctrine was one of the first heresies, yet not censure the men that hold it as heretical; it's one thing to be formally an heretick, and another thing materially, to hold that which denominated a party heretical. In my Examen I tell Mr. M. and now Mr. B. that I think none of those glorious lights mentioned held Mr. Ms. position. I do not judge all hereticks that be against my opinion, but that they may be more justly stiled heretiques then my self. Mr. Bs. quicknesse in replying afore he weighed my speeches or perhaps my scantnesse in expressions out of warinesse what I said to him (whom I found very captious) hath I perceive created me these hard censures. That which Mr. B. saies page 172. he dare say of me I dare say is false. The inference which he calls strange is none of mine: the passage and time of writing it do still prevaile with me to conceive that he wanted a spirit of love through ill surmises of me. Page 174. Infant-sprinking or pouring water on them will not be proved baptisme. I shall not ease sinners that own their infant-sprinkling as baptism by my assertion: that I tell them they never sinned against their baptisme and engagement is a fiction of Mr. B. in which he hath a pretty art. I said not Mr. B. gave us a title to make us odious, but [that might make us odious] which imports the term might make us odious, not that Mr. B. had that purpose in using it. Page 175. He hath a discourse from the end of the accuser and the opposition of justification to accusation and condemnation to prove, That it is proper language to say he accuseth another, who denies a supposed priviledge to be due to him. By the same reason the accusers accusation may be said to be condemnation, and execution too, for that is the end of the accuser. I had thought [accusation] noted the accusers act, not his end; that justification is opposed to accusation and condemnation shewes they are distinguished, the one being the charging with a fault, the other passing sentence. I must confesse I yet understand not his language of accusing without charging with a fault, nor do I think any law-dictionary doth so define accusation. I do not think the non-visible churchmembership of infants is poenal, or deprivation of a mercy now, it being only by the alteration of the Church-frame. Whether the not acknowledging infants visible churchmembership be a denying a mercy reall or imaginary, whether there be injustice, scorne, or any error in my tenet about it, is to be examined in answering his book. What I do hold I do it not without natural affection to my children, out of conscience of maintaining truth. The very same he chargeth upon me for denying infant-baptisme might mutatis mutandis by the same reason be charged on him for denying infant-communion. I do judge this Rhetorical or Satyrical passage of Mr. B. to be a meer trifling in a serious matter. That which is said page 176. of my disputing my children out of the Church by denying them to be visible Church-members is Mr. Bs mistake in defining visible Church-membership as I shall shew in examining the 27. chap. of the first part of his book. It's not true I deny all infants to be in Covenant with the Lord their God, or that title to salvation which upon promise they have in point of law. Mr. Bs. conditional Covenant gives no title till the condition be put, which he will not say is true of any infants but the elect, who alone are children of the promise in the Apostles language, Rom. 9. 8. pag. 177. he saith, I do all I can to keep infants out of the visible Church, but I deny that to hinder their baptisme is to keep them out of the visible Church, or that to baptize them is to bring them in. If it be, why have they not the communion according to that which we reade, 1 Cor. 12. 13? Are Janizaries who were baptized children of Greek Christians therefore visible members of the Christian Church? Mr. B. though he had the Copy of my Sermon, yet misrepresents my words. I said not, that it is the Devils part to say that the infants of believers are members of the visible Church, but my words were [it being an error, and such pernicious effects following, that people think therefore they are Christians because baptized, (which opinion of theirs is confirmed by Mr. Bs. words. For they are visible Christians that are baptized into the name of Christ, if they have not since by word or workes renounced him) and rest therein, and are thereby held in carnal presumption, we ought rather to think those that maintain infant-baptisme play the Devils part] which expressions of mine being added, the vanity of Mr. Bs. arguings will appear. That which he hath page 178. [that it is no more thankes to me then to Satan, that I keep not God from making promise to his people] which intimates I would do it if it were in my power (for if there be no more thanks to me then Satan, it is because there's no more hindrance in me from doing it then in Satan̄, and so the same will) is a suggestion that exceedes all moderation, as if Mr. B. were bent not onelyonly to rake up all the dirt he can to cast in my face, but also to put an ill construction on all I say. My answer was a faire answer to a virulent charge. In 2. senses I conceived it might be said that Infants are disputed out of the Covenant of Christ: the one as if my dispute made Christ not Covenant to them, the other as if it made them not Covenant to Christ. I said, neither was true. What saies Mr. B.? 1. Election is not a Covenant. Nor did I say it was. And then addes [nor are they in Covenant because elected] which speech is most false, contrary to Rom. 9. 8. where [the children of the promise] is all one with [the Elect] as the Analysis shewes, as may be seene in the Authors cited by me in my Examen part. 3. sect. 4. Besides whom more may be produced. I will add two now. Mr. Rutherfurd in that piece of his which is the exactest of his workes. Exercit. Apol. 2. c. 2. num. 7. Soli electi dicuntur in Scripturis foederati, filii & haeredes promissionis, Rom. 9. 8. The elect alone are said in the Sctiptures to be in Covenant, children, and heires of the promise, Rom. 9. 8. and Mr. Norton in resp. ad Apollon. c. 2. pag. 30. Objectum foederis gratiae sunt soli electi. The object of the Covenant of Grace are the elect alone. Next he saith, that I deny that God Covenanteth with our infants to be their God in Christ, and to take them to be his peculiar people, which is the Covenant he formerly made with infants, and which he now affirmes. What he affirmes distinctly I cannot well tell: he doth so confusedly expresse himself in his bookes. He distinguished between an absolute and a conditional Covenant of Grace. The absolute he saies belongs onelyonly to the elect, but this he will not be thought to meane when he speakes of infants of believers being in Covenant, or baptism's sealing of it: yea he blames me often for so conceiving of him, and page 223. he disputes against that tenet as my fifth error. The conditional is a Covenant of justification and salvation upon-condition of faith: this he saith is sealed by baptisme, not the other, and this he makes belonging to all the posterity of Adam, elect and reprobate. And this it seemes most likely he meanes, when he speaks of infants of believers being in Covenant, because it is that which baptisme seales, and they that are in Covenant are to be sealed thereby. But according to this conditional Covenaat either all are in Covenant with God whether elect or reprobate, infants of believers or unbelievers, or else none till they performe the condition, which is faith, and so not all infants of believers. [Mr. B. in his additions to the Saints everlasting rest, part. 3. sect. 3. prop. 2. A conditional promise puts nothing in being, till the performance of the condition; nor gives any certainty, but of such performance.] As for any Covenant of God or Christ besides these containing onelyonly the promise of visible Church-membership, or such like imagined priviledges in the New Testament to infants of Gentile believers I take to be a phantasme, and when I come to examine Mr. Bs. opinion of infants visible Church-membership (which I could not do till I had his book) I doubt not to make it appear to be so, that not one text he hath brought proves such a promise, and that he hath not proved more to belong to infants by promise then I acknowledge, and yet neither visible Churchmembership, nor right to baptisme in infancy ordinarily will follow thereon. As for that he saith in general termes, that I deny that God covenanteth with infants of believers to be their God in Christ, and to take them to be his peculiar people, is said like a Calumniator, my words being so plaine to the contrary in that very place. In a word, I have said that the Covenant or promise of regeneration, sanctification, forgivenesse of sins, adoption, and eternal life is not made to all the natural children of the most godly believers, no not of Abraham himself, or to any barely because they are their children, but because elect, or believers in their own persons, which Mr. M. and Mr. Geree in their answers to me confesse to be true, as being expresly delivered, Rom. 9. 8. and by the streame of Protestant writers maintained. But I deny not that many infants of believers are in the Covenant of Grace: nor dare I say that no infants of unbelievers are in the Covenant of Christ in this sense: I onelyonly say I neither know which of the one or the other are thus in the Covenant of Grace. As for the arguings that he that denies Infants baptisme doth deny them to be in the Covenant of Grace, they are built on these fancies that to be a seale of the Covenant of Grace is of the essence of baptisme, that there is a certain connexion between being in the Covenant of Grace and right to be baptized: which with other hypotheses of Paedobaptists I shall examine in my Review. Mr. B. addes, That I flatly deny infants Covenanting with God, whereas my words were farre from such flat denial being onelyonly these [for my part I know not how any person should Covenant with Christ till he promise, &c.] which were not such a peremptory or flat denial as Mr. B. saies they are, and they are true, it being against all experience, that infants do so Covenant: but on the contrary when they are baptized cry and shew their unwillingnesse, as August. lib. 1. de remiss. et mer. pecc. c. 23. flendo et vagiendo cùm in eis mysterium celebratur ipsis mysteriis vocibus obstrepunt. Then Mr. B. saies, I disswade parents from so engaging their children in Covenant, and promising in their names, which yet they ever did in the Church before Christ, and it was their duty to do, as Deut. 29. and other places shew. But in which words I perswade parents not to do (as he saies I do) he doth not shew, my words are there all assertory of what I conceive infants cannot do in their own persons, not a word of perswasion or disswasion to the parents or any other. And for that which is added [then it seemes you know not how a Father should engage his child by covenanting in his name] and after [you would have no parents to engage their children solemnly to God in Christ by Covenanting in their names] there is not a word of it in that place. 'Tis true in my Sermon intituled Fermentum Pharisaeorum, I gave a little touch against the use of sureties at baptisme according to the Doctrine of the catechisme in the common prayer-book, that they did promise that they should believe, &c. which I conceived onelyonly belongs to Christ as surety of the better Covenant, Heb. 7. 22. But I never denied, that the Elders of a Nation may engage solemnly the posterity even the unborne to take the Lord for their God (but this I rather take to be an adjuration under a curse if they do not, then a promise for them that they shall) nor that a parent may engage his child by a promise of his own endeavour that he shall; and that the child is engaged thereby: but not by vertue of the Fathers promise, but by vertue of the obligation of the thing promised, the Fathers promise is an incitement to do it the rather, but makes not the child bound to do it of it self, but onelyonly because the thing is a duty, which he were bound to did the Father promise for him or not. But I deny, that this makes a visible Church-member, or that in nature or law as his childs act according to the Gospel for his being admitted a visible Church-member. Now Mr. B. hastily answering me jumbles things together, and as one impatient of considering what I say, chargeth me with what I avow not, and then concludes scoffically, And I pray you how well do you free your self from this charge? Should I imitate him I should cry shamelesse foul dealing, &c. But I am resolved to examine his writing, not to follow his fashion Pag. 179. He saies, I did not distinguish of disciples, or yield infants disciples in any sense, & If I acknowledge them disciples in any sense, I should speak out. To which I say, I put in those words in my Sermon in that sense, Christ appointed disciples to be baptized, to intimate that I did not deny, but infants might be disciples by the immediate secret work of Gods spirit, though not in the ordinary & mediate way of preaching the Gospel, about which the rule Mat. 28. 19. is set. As for Mr. Bs. sense of a disciple of Christ without learning Christs doctrine, of a servant of God without service actively or passively, a disciple remotely by the Fathers being a disciple it is nothing like the use of the word [disciple] in the New Testament or the terme [servant of God] as equipollent to [a disciple] and no marvel I should mistake Mr. B. who used termes in a sense I never met with in the New Testament, and I still conceive to be a piece of new gibberish. And when he saith, he took servant, and disciple according to their relative formal nature, and not either with the accidental consideration of active or passive, it is no marvel I should be at a stand what to answer him using termes in such an uncouth non-sense acception as I never met with before. (For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to battel?) And it seemes to me a grosser absurdity which Mr. B. hath in those words, then any of those he chargeth me with, to take disciple and servant in their relative formal nature without learning or service active or passive; whereas Mr. B. himselfe page 92. where he saies, the relation of a servant, disciple, souldier, husbandman, trades-man remaines when the act ceaseth for a time, yet expressely saith, the relation and so the denomination is from the act of service, learning, &c. and yet he would have infants to be denominated disciples and servants of God without their act of learning or service, or capacity of actual learning or service in an ordinary way: and he is not ashamed to call learning or service actively or passively accidental to the title or denomination of a disciple or servant. Which is a monstrous absurdity to make a denomination without the forme denominating, yea to count it accidental to conceive a relation without the foundation, which is all one as to call one a Father without begetting, a Lord without dominion, a signe without signification, not unlike the riddle vir non vir, percussit non percussit, avem non avem, lapide non lapide, super arbore non arbore, or rather absurdorum absurdissimū oppositum in apposito. And yet this notion of a disciple never proved is the ground work of Mr. Bs. first. argument, and therefore if I may use Mr. Bs. words, they are very tractable soules that are led by his notions. page 180. He thinks strange that a man of my parts should know of no separation to God but by election or calling, he questions whether election be proper separation, he saies that the Jewes firstborne were seperated by a law, and men now by dedication separate goods to God, that he meanes separation neither by election nor extraordinary or ordinary call, but by the law or Covenant of God. To which I reply, Mr. B. still abuseth me by leaving out my words [as the case now stands] which were put in as remarkable, to exclude that way of separation to God, whereby the first born, Priests, goods, &c. were holy as separated to God. Election is, alwayes with seperation, that is, differencing one from another, and as election is said to be according to purpose, Rom. 9. 11. so likewise separation, Paul was separated from his mothers wombe, Gal. 1. 15. according to Gods pleasure and purpose, that is by his election: And with this separation infants may be said to be sanctified, as Jeremiah ch. 1. 5. And so the terme [holy] is applied, Rom. 11. 16. to the Jewes then unborne, who were after to be called ver. 24, 25, 26, 27. And called Saints is used 1 Cor. 1. 2. As for infants of believers whether elect or reprobate outward federal holinesse I know no such, there's no law or Covenant separates every child of a believer to God. According to Mr. B. the Covenant sealed by baptisme is conditional, and that belongs to all the sons of Adam till persons are severed by believing, and unbeliefe: this Covenant therefore of it self without putting the condition doth not separate any to God, and so not infants till they be believers: the absolute is onelyonly to the elect, and according to it, and so onelyonly the elect are separated, which are not all, perhaps but a few of the children of believers, but an Isaac of all Abrahams children, Rom. 9. 6, 7, 8. A law or Covenant of God separating all infants of believers barely for their parents faith to be visible members of the Christian Church is Mr. Bs. dream, as I shall shew with Gods assistance in examing his second argument.