Anti-Paedobaptism, Section 15 – Section 17
SECT. XV.
Mr. Mashalls 5th and 8th arguments being the first and last of his additionals against my exposition of 1 Cor. 7. 14. in that the sanctification and holiness could not be except one were a believer are answered.
I Shall here answer Mr. Marshals 5th and 8th arguments against my interpretation, being the first and last of his additionals, sith the answer already given serves for those also.
First, saith Mr. Marshall page 155. you say the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and sanctification you here take for chastity, which is a most incongruous speech, to say the one party makes the other chast, if he or she were not unchast how are they made chast by the husband or wife? and if they be unchast, how doth this make them chast? mariage is then honourable or chast when the bed is undefiled, this argument is onelyonly from the unseemliness of the expression.
Answ. I do not say that either sanctification is here taken for chastity, or that the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, or that the one party makes the other chast, but the unbelieving husband is sanctified to his wife, that is, is as if he were sanctified, so that he may be enjoyed lawfully as a chast husband, without fornication, notwithstanding his unbelief, and this hath no unseemliness of expression: nor do any of Mr. Marshals inferences follow on it, that either the one was unchast before, or that the one makes the other chast, by my doctrine, and that it is unexplicable how being unchast they should be made chast. These questions arising meerly from Mr. Marshals mistake of my meaning, are impertinent; though in some sense they may be made chast by mariage, who were unchast before, as when two fornicators mary, they now chastly live together, though before unchast. Perkins exposition of Revel. 2. 15. Hosea took a wife of fornication not to maintain her in her sin; but to make her a chast woman.
Lastly saith Mr. Marshall page 156. Yet one argument more I propound, Your sense makes the Apostles argument wholly inconsequent, if the unbelieving party were not sanctified [viz. matrimonally) then were your children unclean, that is (in your sense) bastards, which follows not; for if they were both unbelievers, yet their children were not bastards, and if they were both chast (yet being infidels) their children were unclean, id est, infidels and pagans; so that to close this, I retort your own words page 75. That let it be granted (that it is meant of matrimonial sanctification (as of necessity it must) then the uncleanness must be meant of bastardy, and holiness of legitimation, but I say è contra, let this be granted (as of necessity it must) that it is not meant of matrimonial sanctification or lawfulness of wedlock, then uncleanness must not be meant of bastardy nor holiness of legitimation, but of some other holiness, which what that is, is next to be enquired.
Answ. This argument also is upon the same mistake as if the sanctification must be by vertue of the faith of the one party as the cause, which is still supposed but never proved. The Apostles Consequence is good as I make it, and Mr. Marshalls retortion vain, as wi…l appear in the issue of the dispute.
SECT. XVI.
The third argument of Mr. Marshal urging that by my Exposition the Apostle is made to prove the same by the same, is answered.
I Return to consider Mr. Mar. third and fourth arguments. My third argument, saith he, was, the Apostles argument had had no strength in it, supposing the text were to be interpreted as these men would have it: their doubt (say they) was, their mariage was an unlawfull wedlock; and so consequently their children bastards; which kind of argument (said I) were but idem per idem. Your answer to this is such a one as I know not what to make of it: you say I do not rightly set down my adversaries explication of the Apostle, the doubt (say you) was only whether they might live in conjugal use, but there was no question of their children whether they were legitimate or not; they were assured their children were not bastards, but legitimate, and this the Apostle uses as his medium to prove they might lawfully live together.
Answ. My answer was plain enough for a man less acute than M. Marshall to have discerned it; but it seems, either want of leisure, or some perturbation of mind or distraction of thoughts hindred him.
My answer was, 1. By denying that the adversaries he opposeth make the doubt which the Apostle resolves to be that which Mr. Marshall made it, whether their mariage (to wit, at their entring) were an unlawfull wedlock: and I said plainly the doubt was, not (as Mr. Marshall curtals my words, and makes them obscure) whether they might live in conugal use, but whether the believer might continue with the unbeliever in conjugal use. Between that which Mr. Marshall sayes they make the doubt, and that which they do make the doubt, there is a manifest difference, the later doubt might arise from sundry causes not incident to the former. As suppose a Papist that holds that heresy makes void a mariage, should doubt whether he is to live any longer with a wife with whom being then a Catholique he conceives his mariage at first lawful, doth he not at the same time take his mariage undoubtedly lawful at first, and yet doubt of his present continuance? So I conceive the Corinthian Christians did doubt of their continuance in conjugal use with the unbeliever, and yet doubted not of the lawfulness of their mariage at their first entring on it.
2. I answered (which Mr. Marshall leaves out in the repetition, and so darkens my answer) that the reason whereby the Apostle resolved the doubt was, for they were sanctified each to other, notwithstanding the unbelief that was in one party: which did directly take away the occasion of the doubt, which arose from the opinion, that the unbeliever being an unsanctified person, did pollute the believer, the Apostle answers no, the unbeliever is to his wife notwithstanding his unbelief as if he were sanctified, and so may still be lawfully enjoyed as her husband; By which answer he plainly resolves that the mariage and the lawfull use of it still continues between them.
3. I answered by denying that his adversaries conceived the Corinthians to doubt whether their children were bastards, which Mr. Marshall charged on them, and told him that the legitimation of their children was out of doubt wi…h them, yea, that the Apostle makes this the medium, whereby he proves that the unbelieving husband was sanctified to his wife, and that it is an argument ab absurdo, which Piscator rightly observes in his Scholie on the place. Argumentum ab effectu, videlicet consequente absurdo. Now if it be an argument from a consequent absurdity, then he knew they took it as an absurdity that their children should be unclean, which Mr. Marshall must also acknowledge if he stand to his fourth agreement page 146. where he grants my Analysis of the Apostles argument to be right. Now let the question be according to this stating of it, may the believing wife continue to dwell with her unbelieving husband? and the answer thus, she may, for the unbelieving husband, though such, is to his wife in respect of conjugal use as if he were sanctified, the Apostle resolving by his Apostolical authority, that Christianity takes not away the continuance of natural & civil relations according to a known principle among all that mariage was lawful among all sorts of people, persons, and this confirmed by an argument ad homines, from that which themselves counted absurd, that their children whether begotten before the conversion of the one party (taking foreign as Beza, not for an Adverb of time, but for a particle of reasoning, as much as [atqui but] as Piscator in his Scholie, and is rightly acknowledged by Mr. Cobbet in his just vindic. part. 1. ch. 1. sect. 1. where he cites for foreign as in like sort used, 1 Cor. 12. 18, 20. Rom. 3. 21. Heb. 8. 6 & 9. 26. & 11. 16. which to me is most probable, and that [your children] is changed from the third to the second person, not as Mr. Cobbet ibidem sect. 2. to note that this belongs to them as inchurched believers as a privilege; but to note they were once unbelievers, your children, which you begat in unbelief) or since conversion (taking foreign now, for an adverb of time) should be accounted bastards, which they must needs be if the unbelieving husband though an unbeliever were not to his wife as if he were sanctified (which is the right interpretation of the Apostles meaning by Mr. Marshalls adversaries) I appeal to any man of competent understanding, whether it be not farre from a trifling proving of the same by the same, and not rather a solid and demonstrative satisfactory way of arguing, the position being resolved by answering the reason of the doubt, the unbelief of the one party, and therefore unsanctified, and so unlawfull for a believer to company with, and this answer proved by a consequent absurdity in the judgement of the doubters if this were not true. Yea I say further, were our frame of the Apostles argument as Mr. Marshall saies, were you not lawfull man and wife, your children were bastards, it were not a proving of idem per idem, but from differing things whereof one is at least antecedent to the other, for not being lawfull man and wife is not the same with bastardy though they are connex. And yet every proof when the same is proved by the same, is not alwayes trifling, when there is a formall difference though not reall, as when an argument is from the definition to the thing defined, from the notation of the word to the thing noted, from one conjugal term to another, as Mr. Marshals Logick I presume may inform him. But let us hear his reply.
To which saith he, I reply, take this for granted which you say, and (if I want not common sense) you plainly and fully answer your self; for if they were out of all doubt that their children were not bastards, then it was not possible for them to doubt whether their own mariage were lawfull; take this to be his argument, Your children are legitimate, this you all grant; Ergo, your mariage is lawfull, of which you doubt: risum teneatis amici? they received the one as a supposed principle, that their children were lawfully begotten, which could not be but in lawfull wedlock, yet had not light enough to know that their wedlock was a lawfull wedlock, if they doubted not of the later how could they of the former?
Answ. The thing that Mr. Marshall in this passage would evince is, that if the Corinthians did not doubt of their childrens legitimation, they could not doubt of the lawfulness of their own wedlock, and thereby that I plainly and fully answer my self; but to what objection or expression of mine I answer, he tells me not. But he supposes I make the doubt this, whether their own mariage were lawfull? though I expressed my self plainly enough in these words, The doubt was only whether the believer might continue with the unbeliever in conjugall use, between which two there is an apparent difference, as I have often shewed. Now saith Mr. Marshall, if they were out of all doubt their children were not bastards, then it were not possible for them to doubt whether their mariage was lawfull. If Mr. Marshall had said they could not reasonably or probably doubt, it might have passed, but to say, they could not possibly doubt, is both against reason, sith that may be done that implies no contradiction, and against the experience of too Mr. Baxter the Saints everlasting rest edit. 1 page 409. they will acknowledge the Premises & yet deny the apparēt Cōclusion.many it may be acuter than the Corinthians were, that have granted the Premises, and denied the Conclusion in things of plain connexion, especially in doubts of conscience, when made by tender consciences, and by women, whom non persuaseris etiam si persuaseris, you shall not perswade them when you have perswaded, nor convince them when you have convinced, nor settle them when you have resolved. But I need no such exception, my answer plainly is, they might doubt whether they might continue still in conjugall use, by reason of the unbelief of one party, from some prohibition of the Apostles, though they doubted not of their former or later childrens legitimation; as a Papist may doubt whether she is to live with her Lutheran husband, though she neither doubts of her childrens legitimation, nor of their wedlock at first. So that what ever become of Mr. Marshals common sense, whether it were bound up by sleep or awake, his friends invited to laugh will find in these passages little matter ridiculous, unless it be to observe him striking at his own shadow.
SECT. XVII.
Mr. Marshals 4th argument that after my exposition the Apostles resolution had not taken away the doubt of the Corinthians from the fact in Ezra 9. & 10. is answered.
I Proceed. My fourth argument saith Mr. Marshall was, according to this interpretation, the Apostles answer could no way have reached to the quieting of their consciences; their doubt was, whether they were not to put away their wives and children as not belonging to God, as being a seed whom God would not own among his people, and this answer could never have quieted their consciences to tell them their mariage was lawful, and their children legitimate. To which you answer, this argument is grounded on a mistake, the question was not say you about putting away their wives and children as not belonging to God, but something else; I reply, but if it be not grounded upon a mistake, and that (as Beza saies) Paul is not here arguing about civil policy, but arguing a case of conscience, whether because of the idolatry of the wife or husband religion did not require that they should be put away, because God would not have his holy seed mingled with them, even by your own confession, the argument stands good: which whether it will not be made out shall (God willing) by and by appear.
Answ. Mr. Marshall keep stills his wont of leaving out the chief thing in my answer, which was that it was a mistake in Mr. Marshall, that the question was whether according to the example in Ezra they were not to put away their wives & children as not belonging to God. So that the chief strength of the objection then was that the doubt in the Corinthians did arise from the fact in Ezra, and according to my interpretation the answer could not take away the doubt. To which I answered 4. things, 1. That it is but a conjecture that they had any relation in this matter to the action mentioned in Ezra. 2. That some other occasion is as likely, as I shewed before. 3. That there was no doubt about putting away their children. 4. That I had shewed before what the doubt was, and how the Apostles answer fits it. Now Mr. Marshall in his repetition leaves out the chief words in this objection, [according to the example in Ezra] and all my reasons to the contrary, and sets down his reply as if the mistake I meant were, that he conceived amiss, that Paul is not here arguing about civil policy, but arguing a case of conscience: Whereas there is not a word about this in Mr. Marshals objection in his Sermon, nor in my answer to it. Nor will I own such mishapen expressions, which intimate by the opposition, that he that argues about civil policy argues not a case of conscience, as if no case of conscience were about civil policy. As for that which Mr. Marshall saies, if it be not grounded upon a mistake, then the argument stands good, I marvel Mr. Marshall hath so little regard to his conscience or reputation, as to say that is my own confession, of which there is not a word in my Examen, or any other writing of mine: nor can be gathered from them. But whether that which he saies, be made out (as his phrase is) by him, I shall consider in his answer to my first exception as he calls it, page 157.