Anti-Paedobaptism Part 3

Mr. B. adds▪ I am next to prove the consequence, that [this right was coferred by some grant, promise, or Covenant of God.] And this is as easy as to prove that the world was made by God's power and efficiency or will; or to prove that God is the owner of all things, and no man can receive them but by his gift. 1. If there be no other way possible for right to be conveyed from God to us, but only by his grant, promise, or Covenamt, (which we call donation, and is a moral civil action,) then it is by this means that it is conveyed. But there is no other possible way of such conveyance: Ergo. We have no right till God give us right. His will signified createth our right No man can have right to that which is wholly and absolutely another's, but by his consent or will. This will is no way known▪ but by some signs of it. These signs of such a will for conveyance of right to a benefit, are a civil moral action, called a donation or gift simply. If the sign be in writing, we commonly call it a Deed of gift. If it be by word of mouth, conferring a present right, we call it a verbal grant or gift. If it confer only a future right▪ we call it a promise, and sometimes a Covenant; and sometimes the word Covenant signifieth both, that act which gives a present right, and promiseth the continuance of it. Right being a moral or civil thing, can be no way conveyed but by a moral or civil action. A gift that was never given, is a contradiction. So that this part of our controversy is as easy as whether two and two be four.

Answ. Visible Church membership is not a right, but a state of being; as to be healthy, strong, rich, &c. which are not given by a civil moral action, but by providence of God acting physically, as the sovereign disposer of all. It is certain, that it is by God's will, as all things are; but this will is no otherways signified then by the event, as conversion and many other gifts of God are. My meaning is, though these things are by virtue of God's will, and are signified in the general by some Declaration of God's purpose and order by which he acts, which may b • called his Covenant; yet in the particulars, I mean for the persons, time, &c. there is not any Covenant that assures these persons conversion or visible Church membership, or that estates infants in either of those benefits as their right by virtue of God's promise as the sole efficient of it, upon that condition Mr. B. asserts, that is, the parents faith, as I have proved before, Sect. 52. I deny therefore that there is such a promise of God as conferred infants visible Church membership upon • he parents faith. And to Mr. Bs. argument I say, that though it be easy to prove that visible Church membership is by God's donation, or grant; yet to argue therefore it must be by a promise, such as Mr. B. asserts, follows not, it being no good argument which is drawn affirmatively from the genus to the species, it must be by God's gift or grant, ergo b • promise. Yea, according to Mr. B. here a promise confers only a future right, and therefore it doth not make actually visible Church-members without some further act, and therefore not the promise or Covenant of God is the next adequate cause of it, but some other act of God, and consequently there is another poss • ble yea manifest way, without the promise of it upon condition of parents faith, which Mr. B. asserts.

But Mr. B. saith. 2. God hath expressly called that act a Covenant or promise by which he conveyeth this right: which we shall more fully manifest anon when we come to it.

Answ. These a • e but words, as will appear by that which follows.

Answ. Mr. B. undertook to explain the terms, and he only, and that unnecessarily and tediously, explains one term, to wit [law,] which was not the term in my Letter, to which his Proposition was to be opposed, but the word [precept;] whereas he should have explained what he meant by the parents entering their children into Covenant and Church membership, and what offer he meant they were to accept, and how, and how they were to engage them to God, and how this entering, accepting, re-engaging did confer the benefit of visible Church membership to their children, and what precept it is that is unrepealed distinct from the precept of Circvmcision, which I presume he doth not hold unrepealed. All these were necessary to have been distinctly set down, that I might have known his meaning, and thereby have known whether his assertion opposeth my position, and whether he prove it or not. But that the Reader may the better perceive where the point to be proved lies, I shall set down distinctly what I conceive Mr. B. means, and then what I assert, and what Mr. B. should prove in opposition to my assertion.

1. I conceive he imagines an offer of God to parents, which he calls a promise or Covenant, that upon their taking him to be their God, he would be a God to their children, even their infants. 2. That parents are and were bound to accept of this offer for their children. 3. That by it they do enter them into Covenant, that is, they do Covenant for them that they shall be God's people, and consequently they partake of the Covenant that God is their God. 4. That by virtue of this entering into Covenant, accepting, and re-engaging them to God, they are visible Churchmenbers.

I assert 1. There is no such offer, promise, or Covenant. 2. That though there are precepts for parents to pray for their children, to breed them up for God by example, teaching, &c. yet they are not bound to believe this; that upon their own faith God will take their infant children to be his, and he will be a God to them, nor to accept of this pretended offer, since there is no such promise or offer. 3. That though parents may enter into Covenant for their children, that is, they may do it as those, Deut. 29.12. either by charge and adjuration, or by wishing a curse to them if they did not cleave to God, as Nehem. 10.29. Josh. 6.25. and this may have an obligation on them beyond the precept, and influence on them as a motive, as the Oath to the Gibeonites, Josh. 9.16. yet by this their entering into Covenant for them, they do not make them partakers of the Covenant or promise that God will be their God. 4. That if there were such a promise, and such a duty of accepting the pretended offer, and re-engaging; yet this neither did then, nor doth now make infants visible Church members. So that the point between us is, Whether there be such a precept to parents besides Circumcision, of entering into Covenant, accepting an offer of God to be their God for their children according to a promise that he will be so, and re-engaging them to God, whereby they become actually visible Church members? This Mr. B. affirms, I deny. He speaks thus.

Answ. This tedious unnecessary discourse I have set together, lest it should be said I omitted it because I could not answer it, though I might have well done it, and granted him his conclusion without any revocation of what I had written to him. For his conclusion is, that there was a law or precept to the Israelites to accept of God's offered mercy for their children to engage and devote them to him in Covenant, which I never denied, only I denied that this was any other then Circumcision, or that this conferred the benefit, that is, made them visible Church-members, or that this mercy, as he calls it, was offered by a Covenant to be a God to believers and their seed, or that parents did by their act enter the children into Covenant, that is, God's Covenant to be their God, or Covenant to God, in proper speech whereby they covenanted to be his people. And for the first, it seems to me, 1. That Mr. B. can produce no other law or precept binding the Israelites to this duty besides that of Circumcision, because he neither here nor elsewhere that I know of produceth any other. 2. That he means no other by two passages in this discourse; 1. because he saith there was a most terrible penalty annexed to this law obliging Israelites for non-performance (as shall be anon particularly shown) even to be cut off from his people, to be put to death, &c. which he neither shows to be any other, nor do I think he could mean any other then that of Circumcision: 2. He saith, the omission of entering infants into Covenant with God before Christ's incarnation, would have been a sin imputed ; his limiting it to the time before Christ's incarnation, intimates he meant it of Circumcision. 3. That he deals like as if he meant deceitfully, in putting off the naming the law or precept to another place, which it had been requisite for the Answerer and Reader to have found here, that it might be discerned what law he meant. And for the 2d. I say, if he could prove or produce that or any other law or precept; yet if he did not prove that thereby the infants were made visible Church members, he proves not the contradictory to my writing. The other two points belong to the two foregoing and following questions. As for his confession, though his injurious insinuations of me are so frequent and so frivolous, that I could pass by them as the hissing of a Goose, or the snarling of a Curr; yet because his speeches do much wrong the truth and way of God through my sides, I judge it fit to reply, 1. That I see not reason to be ashamed of my assertion, but Mr. B. hath cause to be ashamed of his own heedlessness, and misrepresentation of my assertion, and roving from the point he should prove. 2. That I gather no Disciples to myself; but endeavor to reform the abuse of Infant Baptism, and to restore the right use of Christian Baptism, according to the plain appointment of Christ in Scripture, and practice of his Apostles. 3. That he that will be persuaded by Mr. B. that infants are Disciples meant Matth. 28.19. and that in Gen. 1.26. & 3.15. is a law or ordinance of God for infants visible Church membership, will believe anything that he saith. 4. That were it not for the opinion he hath obtained of godliness by his Book of Rest, the esteem he hath gained by his writings for the Ministry, and the advantage they have by his Book of Baptism to maintain their practice and station, it were not likely so vain a Book would be esteemed among Scholars. 5. That were it not for the affrightments of Mr. B. through his calumnies and slanders, as if Ranters, Quakers, and all sorts of errors and sects sprang from Antipaedobaptism, godly tender conscienc'd persons durst not maintain as they do so gross a corruption as their Baby sprinkling is, nor neglect so great and fundamental a duty as Baptism is according to the Scripture. But the Lord will judge between us. I proceed.

The 5 th Qu. saith Mr. B. requireth me to lay down this assertion, that [there is no law or precept of God which doth not oblige to duty; and no actual promise or donation, which doth not confer the benefit.] This I aver on occasion of your last Letter, where in contradiction to the former, you confess [the promises to the na • ural posterity of Abraham, Gen. 17. and the Covenants made with Israel at Mount Sinai, and Deut. 29. and a precept of C • rcumcision, and precepts of God by Moses, of calli • g the people, and requiring them to enter into Covenant, Exod. 19. Deut. 29.] Yet you [do not conceive that the infants of Israel were made visible Churchmemb • rs by the promises in the Covenants, o • the precepts forenamed.] If so, then either you imagine that among all those precepts and promises there was yet no promise or Covenant that gave them the benefit of Church membership, or precept concerning their entrance into that state; or else you imagine that such promises were made, but did not actually confer the benefit, and such precepts were made, but did not actually oblige. Your words are so ambiguous in this, that they signify nothing of your mind to any that knows it not some other way. For when you say [there is no such particular promise concerning in • an • s visible Church membership, or precept, &c. besides Circumcision, as in my Book of Baptism I assert,] who knows whether that exception of [Circumcision] be a concession of such a precept or promise in the case of Circumcision? or if not, what sense it hath? and what you imagine that precept or promise to be which I assert? and before the sense of y • ur one syllable [such] is discerned by trying it by a whole volume, I doubt you will make what your list of it. However, if you should mean, that such precepts there are as have for their subject [the avouching God to be their God, the entering into Covenant Circumcision] of infants, but not their Church membership; then 1. I have proved the contrary to the negative before ; 2. and more shall do anon ; 3. and it's a palpable contradiction to the precedent affirmative. But if you mean that Church membership of infants as well as others is the subject or part of the subject of those promises or precepts and yet that infants were not made or confirmed thereby; it is the contrary that I am asserting, and I have no further need to prove, then by showing the contradiction of your opinion to itself For an actual Covenant or promise that doth not give right to the benefit promised (according to it • s tenor and terms,) is like a cause that hath no effect, a father that did never generate, and it's all one as to say, A gift or Covenant which is no gift or Covenant, seeing the name is denied, when the thing named and defined is granted. So a precept or law to enter infants solemnly into Church membership, which yet obligeth none so to enter them, is as gross a contradiction as to say, the Sun hath not heat or light, and yet is truly a Sun.

Answ. I grant his assertion, that there is no precept of God which doth not oblige to duty, nor donation which doth not confer the benefit ; though sundry things which have the title of God's laws oblige not to duty, and an actual promise doth not put the thing promised in present being as the next cause, but the thing promised is thereby only made future, yea a promise that it shall be doth suppose it not to be, and that there is something else the next and immediate cause of its actual being. The imagined contradiction in my later to my former Letter, is before cleared not to be so Sect. 53. Though I have said enough before in this and other fore going Sections, yet to take away all color of charging me with ambiguity, 1. I acknowledge that the Covenant at Mount Sinai ▪ and the Covenant Deut. 29. did declare the people of the Jews to be God's people, or his visible Church, in that the Covenant was mutual, and open between them and God. 2. That they were God's visible Church not barely by God's promise to them to be their God, but by their promise to God: God's call of them made them his Church, their promise to God with o • her acts made them visibly so. 3. The promises of God Gen. 17. did not of themselves make the house of Abraham God's visible Church. 4. The call of God, and such acts as whereby he separated them from others to be his (which were many) made the house of Abraham God's Church 5. The infants were members of that Church, in that they were part of that peop • e. 6. Such things as whereby they were visibly of that people, their birth, cohabitation, &c. did make them visible Church members. 7. Circumcision was one sign not by its • lf but with other things, whereby the male infants and adult were known to be of God's visible Church. 8. No promise of God, nor duty of parents did make the infants actually visible Church members, as the next cause in act either formal or efficient. If Mr. B. or any Reader will heed these passages, with what goes before, he may easily discern my mind, and acquit me from self-contradiction, if not I think it in vain for me to use more words. I pass on to that which follows.

SECT. LVI. That the People, and thereby the Infants of the Hebrews, were made visible Church members by a transeunt fact, is made good against Mr: Bs. exceptions.

Answ. I make not the Jews infants visible Church members by bare legislation or promise-making, but by the transeunt fact described in my Letters, which was without promise or precept, that is promise of it on condition of the parents faith, or precept of accepting that offered mercy, entering into Covenant, and re-engaging them to God, which are the promise and precept Mr. B, derives their visible Church membership from. Infants were visible Church members among the Jews, in that they were visibly a part of that people, who were God's Church. So that to visible Church membership was requisite, 1. that God should make that people h • s Church, this he did by the transeunt fact described. 2. That the infants should be visibly a part of that people, this he did by their bringing into the world, ranking them among his people, so as that they were discernible by their birth, nursing, circumcision, habitation, genealogy, and such other signs, to be part of that Church. Their visible Church membership imports a state of visibility in the relations, 1. of a part to the whole, 2. of a people that are God's, that is 1. separated from other people, 2. called and taken or brought to God. These things are done by various acts, which I conceive I did fitly call a transeunt fact. A physical and moral cause are thus described by Scheibler, Metaphys. lib. 1. c. 22. tit. 13. Topic. c. 3. tit. 14. Stierius part. Gen Metaph. c. 12. A Physical or natural Cause, is that which truly flows into the effect, and nextly reacheth it by its activity. A Moral Cause, is that which doth not flow into the effect so as to reach to it, yet so behaves himself, that the effect may be imputed to him to praise or dispraise, reward or punishment. Such are causes applying the agent to the patient, counseling, commanding, persuading exhorting, instigating, meriting, permitting when they might and should binder, &c. Visible Church membership is not as Mr. B. conceives it, formally a right to a benefit, or a benefit, though it may be so consecutively, or they may follow on it. But it is a complex term, noting a state with a dou • le relation and imports a natural effect or term of action, as well, if not more then a moral, and is from physical as well as moral causes; and in infants visible Church membership, I judge it altogether an effect of a physical cause, as not knowing any moral action of God or man that makes them such; though to the visible Church membership of the people or body of which they are a part acts physical and moral do concur: which I shall clear in answering Mr. Bs. exceptions to my last Letter to him. As for his outcries of grossest absurdities, incoherent dreams, unreasonable even much below the rates of ordinary rational people's discourse, contemptible arguing, obtuse subtility, contradictions, palpable forsaking and delivering up my Cause, generating a man by spitting or blowing my nose, with the rest of his Canine Scoptical Rhetoric, I pass by it as being of ill savor, hoping Mr. B. will in time come to better consideration of his writings, and either show me my error, or discern his own.

Mr. B. goes on thus. In consideration of the 7th. Qu. I shall consider the nature and effect of the transient fact which you here describe. And first of the reason of that name. You say that you call it [transeunt] [because done in time and so not eternal, and past and so not in congruous sense repealeable as a law, ordinance, statute, decree, which determines such a thing shall be for the future.] And do you think this the common sense of the word? or a fit reason of your application of it to the thing in hand. Answ. I do.

1. Saith Mr. B. I think your intellection and volition are immanent acts, and yet not eternal.

Answ. Yet all God's immanent acts (of whom I spake) are eternal.

We use, saith he, to contradistinguish transient acts from immanent, and that because they do transire in subjectum extraneum. Answ. So do I.

But it seems you take them here as distinct from permanent.

Answ. Yea and immanent too.

But use your sense as long as we understand it.

Answ. With your good leave then I may use this term, if you understand it, if not I must alter it.

2. Saith Mr. B. If it be only [past] actions which you call [transeunt] it seems your long fact which was so many hundred years in doing, was no transeunt fact till the end of all those years▪ and so did not (by your own doctrine) make any Church members till the end of those years.

Answ. It doth but seem so: the truth is, in this long fact each particular act was a transeunt fact in each year, and in each age and space of time in which those acts were done, Church members were made by one or more of those and other acts used by God to that end, and yet the transeunt fact not so fully accomplished, but that there was an addition till that people came to thei • 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , or full stature, in which respect I comprehended all those many acts which I set down under the name of a transeunt fact, which I hope when he understands it, Mr. B. will give me leave to do.

3. Saith he▪ But Sir the question is not, Whether it were a transeunt fact that laid the foundation by legislation or promise making; but Whether the effect were trasient, or the act as it is in patien • e: Whether the law were transeunt which was made by a transeunt fact? and whether the moral action of that law were permanent or transient? it being most certainly such a moral act that must produce a title, or constitute a duty. God's writing the ten Commandments in stone was a fact soon past, but the law was not soon past, nor the moral act of that law, viz. obligation. There are verbal laws, that have no real permanent sign: and yet the law may be permanent, and the obligation permanent, because the sign may have a permanency in esse cognito, and so the signifying virtue may remain by the help of memory, though the word did vanish in the speaking.

Answ. The question between us is, Whether the infants of the Jews were made visible Church members by a promise of God to be the God of believers and their seed, and a precept obliging the parents to accept of this mercy offered for their children, and to enter them into Covenant; or by the transeunt fact I describe. The questions which Mr. B. here sets down, so far as I understand them, are no questions between us: and therefore this exception is but roving from the matter in hand.

2. Saith he, When you come to point out this transient fact individually, you say [it is God's taking the whole people of the Jews for his people,] which you term [fact] as conceiving it most comprehensive of the many particular acts in many generations whereby he did accomplish it.] 1. I did not well understand before that [a fact] did so vastly differ from on [Act,] as to contain the acts (rather then the facts) of many generations.

Answ. Though I think in use there is some difference, that act is applied to the particular actions, fact to them as they amount to something brought to pass by them; yet if there were no such difference, me thinks if Mr. B. had not been minded to multiply exceptions unnecessarily, he might have allowed me to use a term (which in Disputes is frequent) for my purpose especially since he understands it.

2. Saith he, This is a long fact according to your measure, even from Abraham's call out of Ur: but how long it seems you are not well agreed with yourself. For in the first part of your Letter you enumerate to the other acts that compose this fact [the bringing them into the bond of the Covenant at Mount Sinai, giving them Laws, settling their Priesthood, Tabernacle, Army, Government inheritance:] But before you end, you change yo • r mind, and say [the Church membership of the Israelites began as I conceive with Abraham's call, and was completed when they were brought out of Egypt to God. Exod. 10.4.] But sure that was long before the settling their inheritance. Your fact according to your last account was about 430 years in doing; but according to your first opinion, it was about 470 years long.

Answ. In my first and last account there is no change of my mind. I did conceive, that the taking the whole people of the Jews for his people was completed when they were brought out of Egypt to God, Exod. 19.4. as Christ said It is finished, John 19.30. and yet more was to be done, because the chief or hardest thing then was done which would draw after it all the rest. As after the great battle at Arbella, Alexanders conquest might be said to be finished, though more were after to be done. I never meant to limit the fact to the time of their bringing out of Egypt to God, but included all other additionals, though it were the main, and which brought along with it the rest.

3. Saith Mr. B. If it were one individual fact of about 470 years long that made infants Church members, then they could not be Church members till that fact was past: For the effect is not before the cause, or causality of the efficient; the relation cannot be before the fundamentum be laid: and it seems this long fact was the laying of the fundamentum: But the consequent is certainly false; for infants were Church members before the end or completing of your long fact: For they were Church members (you will grant) when Ishmael and Isaac were circumcised. Ergo, it was not this long fact that made them Church members.

Answ. I said I termed God's taking the people of the Jews a fact, as a collective term, comprehensive of the many particular acts in many generations whereby he did accomplish it. By which it may easily be perceived, that I did not make the fact an individual action, for I called it many acts, nor did mean that the Church membership was not till all the acts were past, but that it was accomplished by them, that is, they were brought to full stature and growth as a formed people and Commonwealth: As we say a child is a man accomplished when he is brought to the years of a man, and yet he is a man before. And I answer to Mr. Bs. argument taken from my words; that when I drew out the fact so long, and said, by it the infants were visible Church members as a part of the Congregation of Israel, my meaning was, that respectively as the Congregation of Israel were made a Church by that fact, so were the infants members. By the call out of Ur, whereby God separated Abraham and his house from other people, the Congregation of Israel began to be God's Church, and if there had been infants they had been visible Church members; but they were not a completed Church till they were brought out of Egypt to God, Exod. 19.4. nor infants members of a Church completed till then when they were become a great nation, and were formed into a Theocratical Commonwealth. And being thus rightly understood (as my words imported) I said nothing which infers the absurdity of putting the effect afore the case, nor the putting off infants visible Church membership till the end of 470 years.

4. Saith he, If you mean that it was not the whole, but some part of this long fact that actually made infants Church members, then you would have assigned that part, when that was the thing desired, and which you pretended exactly to perform; or at least you would not have told us it comprehended all these acts.

Answ. I did exactly tell Mr. B. in my Letter, it began with the call of Abraham out of Ur ; and when I told him that the fact comprehended all those acts, yet I added for explication, [whereby it was accomplished or completed.]

5. Saith he, And if each particular act did make infants Church-members, or lay a sufficient ground of it, then it seems that it was done before the institution of Circumcision. For God's calling Abraham out of Ur was before it. So that the children born in his house must be Church members upon that; and a sufficient ground laid for his own to have been such, if he had then had a natural issue: And it seems then that Ishmael was born a Church member many years before Circumcision.

Answ. I grant all this,

6. Saith he, If this be your meaning, I pray you be so just and impartial as to accept of the proof which I shall give you of infants Church membership before Abraham's days, if I make it appear to be as strong as this call of Abraham from Ur.

Answ. I shall.

7. Saith he, If you should mean that someone of these comprehended acts should of itself make any infants Church members, then it must be any one; for you no more assign it to one of them then to another, (only say [chiefly the bringing them from Egypt:] But surely some of these acts particularly • annot do it, As the leading to Padan Aram, the removal to Canaan, to Egypt, placing, preserving there • , settling their Army, &c. Did any one of these make infants to become Church members?

Answ. No: But I did assign it to one of them more then to another, to wit, the beginning to Abram's call, the accomplishing to the bringing of them out of Egypt to God, Exod. 19.4

8. Saith he, Nay, suppose you mean that all these acts must concur to make them members, (and so that they were no members till many hundred years after the institution of Circumcision,) yet could not your Doctrine hold good: For some of these acts are of an alien nature, and no more apt to cause infant Church membership, then a bull to generate a bird▪ What aptitude hath the settling of an Army to be any part of the causation of infants Church membership? None, I think; at least if it be such an Army as ours: For surely the settling of ours caused no such thing, as you well know. What aptitude hath the leading to Padan Aram, or removal to Egypt, to make infants Church members? Nay, how strange is it, that the removing of Church members, and such as had been infant Church members, as Ishmael, Keturahs children, Esau, must cause infant Church membership? Sure it was no cause of their own. Keturahs children were Church members in infancy: I inquire of you by what act they were made such? You say [by God's fact of taking the whole people of the Jews for his people] whereof the act of removing Keturahs children was a part. Very good. It seems then that removing from the Congregation of Israel a people of the Jews, is a taking of the removed to be of that people: or else it is not only the taking that people, but also the removal from that people that maketh Church members, even the removed as well as the taken, both which are alike absurd.

Answ. 1. I mean not as Mr. B. supposeth I might. 2. The settling of the Army had remotely causation of infants Church membership, for by it the Israelites were a well formed Congregation, Church, or Commonwealth, and by which the infants were a part, which is their Church membership. 3. I know that our Army hath done so much for the settling of the Church, as that the Antiprelatists congregations had been either none, or much oppressed, i • they had not broken the force of the opposite party. Nor dare I be so unthankful to God, or them, as not to acknowledge the great mercy and benefit we at this day enjoy thereby, however Mr. B. fret at our liberty, and jibe at the instruments. 4. The leading to Padan Aram, removal to Egypt, were acts of providence whereby Jacob's house were increased and preserved, which I conceive were some of those acts whereby he made them a people to himself. 5. Ishmael's, Keturahs children's, Esau 's removal, were some acts whereby the congregation of Israel became God's severed, or a peculiar people. 6. Keturahs children were visible Church members while they were part of Abraham's house, called after the people of the Jews, by God's taking of the people of the Jews, and consequently them as a part; and yet the removal of them was after one act whereby the people of the Jews were made to God a severed people from them; and consequently their infants Church members. Distinguish the times and the different state of things and intentions of God in his providences, and these seeming incoherences will be found consistent.

9. Saith he,

Answ. The infants of Israel were Church members in that they were a part of the congregation or people af Israel, which was a fluent body, and was taken to be God's Church by a succession of acts, whereof some were causes which began, some continued, some completed, and the several acts made the Church members of that age, yet all by virtue of the first call of Abraham, whereby God declared his intention to make his house a Nation, and his Church, first more obscurely, then more clearly. The bringing out of Egypt tended to make the Israelites a severed people, and consequently all that were Church members were by that act such; the settling of the Army, inheritance, Covenant at Mount Sinai, tended to make them a well formed people, and to the accomplishment of the taking the Jews to be God's people, and consequently the infan • s to be Church members which came after them. Which if so understood, there is nothing in my conceit which infers the making that a cause which is after the effect.

10. Saith Mr. B.

Answ. 1. These acts are knit together into one fact by the unity of end designed and work accomplished, as the many acts of several ages did make one fact, of which the Poet speaks, Tantae molis erat Romanam condere gentem, to raise the Roman Empire. 2. You might, if God had so contrived it, and brought the thing to pass in that time which he did in a longer. 3. I may make all the acts from Abraham's call till Christ's towards the Hebrews, one fact of making the Jews his people, and assign it to this office rightly, only using the word fact or making, as it comprehends not only the beginning, and increasing, and completing of that people; but also the continuation, recovery from captivity, and preservation of that people.

11. Saith Mr. B.

Answ. I call the whole transeunt fact past, because it consists of many transeunt acts, which are past being done: But I do not limit the being of Church members to the entire transeunt fact, as if none were Church members till each act was past which I set down; but the accomplishing or completing the Congregation of Israel to either all or the chief of the later acts. That which made Isaac and Jacob Church members, was the transeunt fact or acts of God's providence in their age, whereby they became to be part of Abraham's house, which God by his call of Abram, setting up his worship in it, and other ways had made his Church. The same transeunt fact in kind, though not individual, which made Isaac and Jacob Church members in their age, made infants visible Church members in the several ages till Christ's time; to wit, the continuance of the Jews to be God's people, in the continuing his ordinances, laws, worship, &c. among them: And each infant was made a visible Church member by such transeunt fact in each age renewed and repeated, by which the infant was made and known to be a part of that people, which what it is hath been often before said, and shown not to be by such Covenant and precept as Mr. B. asserts. All which was plainly expressed in my Letter, (and is such work as I need not be ashamed of,) without any new political Doctrine or Law, as Mr. B. imagines, it being cleared by the History of the Bible, and other Histories which set down this fact of God: And if Mr. B. or any Lawyer gainsay this, they gainsay the plain narration of the Bible. His foolish exclamations I let pass, as showing nothing but his own inconsiderateness and vanity. That many of my opinion are against the Lawyers, is more then I know; they know well that I honor their profession and study, though I do no whit flatter them in their injurious and covetous practices: Nor do I doubt but conscionable and understanding Lawyers will be for me upon my grounds, as soon as other men, if they peruse my writings with love to the truth; and so would all godly learned Divines also, if it were not for prejudice, and some other partial affection. But I must attend on Mr. B.

12. Saith he,

Answ. All before being but a velitation or light skirmish, I looked here for some great battle: But I find it nothing but a rallying together the forces scattered before, there being not one thing I know of in this passage, but what was set down before, and is answered. I have distinctly shown how moral and physical acts concur to the visible Church membership of the people, of which infants are a part, and natural to that visible Church membership which the Jews infants had, and what they were, both in my Letter, and in this answer. What M. B. replies, is vain. 1. It is not true that the effect in question is a moral, it is at least in infants merely a physical effect; their Church membership is not by any act which reacheth not to the effect. 2. The taking is of individual p • rsons existent. 3. By many particular acts, yet in a good sense before given, summed up into one transeunt fact. 4. The physical acts are none of those M. B. frivolously imagines, but such as are mentioned in the Scripture, and declared in my Letter 5. It is not true that a mere physical taking cannot produce a moral effect: For supposing the Spirit should inspire faith immediately without any preaching, the eff • ct would be moral, though produced by a mere physical taking or act. 6. The transeunt fact I set down doth not exclude, but did expressly include in my Letter both Covenants single and mutual, and laws, and precepts; yet (as I have said before) it doth exclude that promise of Mr. Bs. of God's being a God to believers and their seed, and a precept of believing or accepting this for their children, which confer the benefit of visible Church membership. Yea, it is fully proved before, that if there were such a promise and precept, yet these would not actually make infants visible Church members. 7. It is not true that the relation of visible Church membership essentially containeth a right to the great benefit of God's sovereignty over men, Christ's headship, and that favor, protection, provision, and other blessings, which are due from such a powerful and gracious Sovereign to such subjects, and from such a head to his members. For (to omit the unfi • ness of the expression of [right to the great benefits of God's sovereignty over men] which contains these two fond conceits. 1. That great benefits are included in God's sovereignty over men, whereas the sovereignty of God includes not any benefit but his own greatness, he is sovereign over the reprobate men and Angels as well as the elect, and yet they have no benefit, yea his sovereignty is shown in their reprobation as well as the election of the other. 2. That visible Church members have a right to the great benefit of God's sovereignty over men, whereas what benefit soever it be yet right is not to us by visible Church membership) it is most false that that relation either constitutive or consecutive, doth essentially contain that right. For neither doth the term formally import any right at all, but a manner of being or state with relation as I have before distinctly declared; nor doth that right inseparably accrue to such visible Church members. There are and may be visible Church members, who have not that right; and there are who have that right, and are not visible Church members. 8. Nor is it true that the relation essentially includeth a right to the members station, and to the inseparable benefits thereof. For though the station in the body be included, yet not a right to it, yea the actual station is oft times without right, which I think is sufficiently proved by Mr. B. himself in his dispute against Mr. Blake Sect. 39. asserting a dogmatical faith entitling to baptism. 9. That though visible membership be by God's gift, and this is to be by signification of God's will, yet it is not necessary it should be by any promise or declaration which may be termed moral or political, since the event itself is a signification of God's will and of his gift. 10. That if Church membership be contracted by a mutual consent and covenant as Mr. B. sets down, 1. only the elect can be visible Church members, for to them only God hath covenanted to be their God, or Christ their Savior. 2. Infants are not visible Church members, for they neither Covenant, nor by any intimation in Scripture is it shown or can be, that the parents or others obedience to God in Christ acknowledged or promised, is virtually or reputatively by any law of God taken for the infants Covenant or consent. Lastly, this law which Mr. B. here sets down concerning the duty of the parents, is not that law or ordinance of infants visible Church membership, which Mr. B. asserts to be unrepealed For the law and ordinance of infants visible Church membership is not a precept of what another shall do, but what they shall have, not of what in duty a person is bound to, but of what God doth give and grant. And therefore all this tedious discourse of Mr. B. is but delusory, since instead of a law and ordinance determining that infants shall be visible Church members, he assigns another thing a precept of a duty, and thinks if I prove not it repealed▪ I prove not the law and ordinance of another thing repealed.

Mr B. adds. As for the texts you cite, Deut. 4.34. & Levite. 20.24, 26. 1 King. 8.53. Isai. 43.1. In Deut. 4. is mentioned not the moral act of God by which he made them his people or took them for his own, and founded the relation: but the natural a •• ions whereby he rescued them from the Egyptian bondage and took them to himself or for his use, service, and honor out of that land. But I think sure they were his people, and all their infants were Church members before that taking by virtue of a former Covenant-taking.

Answ. The text expresseth that act of God whereby he took the Jews for his people, and consequently whereby he founded the relation of Church members, and if this act were a natural act, then it follows (contrary to Mr. Bs. conceits) that a natural act may be it by which God takes a people to him, which is the Scripture phrase whereby is signified his making them his Church. If they were his people before, and all their infants Church members, yet they might be made his people by repeated, continued, or new acts making or taking, noting a beginning or continuance or completing of the estate they had formerly. If they were by virtue of a former Covenant-taking, yet I think Mr. B. cannot show before that time a mutual Covenant-taking, such as he said before the relation of Church membership is contracted by.

He adds. As to Levite. 20. God did perform a twofold work of separation for Israel. 1. By his Covenant and their entering Covenant with him. 2. By local separation of their bodies from others. It was the first that made them his people, and Church members, and not the last: the last was only a favorable dealing with them as his beloved. The same I say to the other two texts. Sure you cannot think that corporal separation makes a Church-member. What if an Egyptian that had no part in the Covenant had past out with the Israelites, and got with them through the Red Sea, do you think he had been therefore a Church member? Suppose God had made no promise or Covenant with Abraham or his seed, but only taken them out of Chaldea into Canaan, and thence into Egypt, and thence into the Wilderness, and thence into Canaan again: Do you think this much had made them Church-members? Then if the Turks conquer Greece, or the Tartarians conquer China, they are become Church members, because this seems as great a temporal prosperity at least. And I think it • s past doubt, that Lot was a Church-member in the midst of Sodom, and the Israelites in Egypt before they were brought out, as truly as after.

Answ. I grant that they were, though not so completed, when they had not liberty to sacrifice to God, nor to keep any feast, and perform other worship to God as when they were brought out, unto which the texts refer the severing of the Israelites from other people that they should be God's, although I did not in my Letter restrain it to that local separation (which yet the Scripture with me chiefly refers it to) but also to the bringing them into the bond of the Covenant at Mount Sinai, giving them Laws, settling their Priesthood, Tabernacle, Army, Government, inheritance. If the Turks or Tartars had such a local separation as I describe, they had been Church members. The Egyptians that came out of Egypt with the Israelites, were Church members with the Israelites they becoming Proselytes. If God had made no promise or Covenant with Abraham or his seed, but only taken them out of Chaldea into Canaan, and withal made known his will concerning his grace in Christ, given them Laws, and set up his worship among them, they had been Church members. According to Mr. Bs. own arguings, the promise or Covenant with Abraham and his seed made them not Church members, for they were Church members before. The Covenant Gen. 17. was not a mutual Covenant, which is that by which according to Mr. B. visible Church membership is contracted. The texts that I allege, do sufficiently prove the people of Israel were taken to be God's people by such a transeunt fact as I describe, and consequently the infants visible Church-members, as part of that people, without the promise to believers and their seed to be their God, on condition of the parents accepting the mercy offered, and re-engaging them to God, which Mr. B makes the sole efficient of their holiness or visible Church membership, as is shown before. He proceeds.

As to Gen. 12.1. Acts 7.2. Nehem. 9.7. which you also cite, as there is not one of them that gives the least intimation that Infant-Church membership then began, so I shall farther inquire anon, whether they contain any Covenant or promise.

Answ. They do each of them plainly show the beginning of the taking of the Hebrews for God's people, by severing them from Idolaters, and forming them into a Church, and consequently of the Church membership which infants had in that people or nation. For the texts do all expressly tell how God severed Abram from the Chaldees, how he made his house his Church, promising to increase and to settle it, and neither Moses, nor the Levites, nor Stephan, do go higher in the narration of God's calling of the Hebrews to be his people And I think it safest to go no higher then the Scripture. What Mr. B. adds after, shall have answer in its place.

He adds. So Exod. 19.4, 5. hath no word that gives the least intimation that God by that act of taking them out of Egypt, did make Israel a Church, or the infants or any others, members of it: But only that by fulfilling a former promise in the deliverance of a people formerly his own, he layeth further obligations to duty on them by redoubling his mercies. The same I say of Levite. 11.45. Nehem. 1.10. I will not believe yet, but that you believe yourself, that the Israelites and their infants were as truly Church members before, as after their deliverance out of Egypt. And me thinks the texts you cite might put it out of doubt. What if God say, Hos. 11.1. [When Israel was a child I loved him, and called my Son out of Egypt.] Is it easy hence to prove, that calling him out of Egypt did make him his son that was none before: or to prove that Israel was God's son before he called him out of Egypt. If you should maintain the former, I might expect that you should say the like of Christ himself, to whom the Evangelist applieth this text, and so you may prove as fairly, That Christ was none of God's son till he was called out of Egypt, but was made his son by that call. Certainly the Text termeth him God's son that was called, as being so before that call. By this time I am well content that any waking man do compare your doctrine and mine, and try whether it be a Transeunt fact, or a Law and Covenant, that made infants and all others Church members: and if they do not admire, that ever a learned man should harbor such a conceit as yours, and that ever a godly man should build such a weight on it, and go so far on such a ground, yea and that ever ordinary godly people should be so blinded with such palpable non sense or absurdities, then let them still follow you in the dark; for I expect not that reason should recover them.

Answ. My conceits were and are still, that infants were only visible Church members in the Church of the Hebrews or Congregation of Israel, and that they were such not apart by themselves, but as they were a part of that people which God took for his Church, which made a peculiar Commonwealth and Chureh to God consisting of the same persons. This God did not by a promise to be God to the faithful and their seed as the sole efficient, and a precept of the parents to accept of this offered mercy, and to dedicate them, and re-engage them to God, as Mr. B. conceives, but by a transeunt fact containing many acts of God's providence whereby they were severed from other people, and appropriate to God. The prime act of God's providence whereby God brought this to pass, was God's calling of Abram out of U • , whereby he severed them from idolaters, and by degrees establ • shed his worship in Abraham's house, upon which followed a long tract of providences, which I mentioned as tending to the same end: And this calling of Abram I refer the beginning of that people and Church to, and I think I follow therein the Scriptures. The other chief act of providence was God's calling of Israel out of Egypt, wherein I comprehend all the acts mentioned by me in my Letter which followed, by which I said it was completed, and to that end I alleged many (as I conc • i • e) express texts, not to prove that they then began to be God's people (as Mr. B. contrary to my plain words insinuates) but to prove that then they were completed, that is, completely severed from other people▪ and formed into a Church or Commonwealth, with Laws, distribution of Offices, order, and other things requisite thereunto, which they had not before. And thus I interpret their bringing to God, Exod. 19.4. the bringing them up out of the land of Egypt to be their God Levite. 11.45. their redeeming to be his people Nehem. 1.10. their calling out of Egypt Hos. 11.1. That is, from a miserable state among idolatrous oppressors, to be a people of themselves in a complete state of liberty under God's rule, which I conceive described by Ezech. ch. 16. under the similitude of a child cast out, relieved and educated. If Mr. B. can show any non-sense, or absurdity herein, it is surely that which the plain Scripture affords, or else I am in a dream; and if Mr. B. be awake, I think he may espy non-sense and absurdity manifold in his conceit of visible Church membership as a right to a benefit, of such a Covenant, and Condition, and Precept, which he imagines to confer it. I am willing Mr. Bs. Doctrine and mine be compared, though I lay so little weight on this point, that I think if I be mistaken, neither is Mr. Bs. cause gained, nor mine lost. I would have none follow me in the dark, nor would I have men befooled by Mr. Bs. misrepresentations of me, and others, much less by his frivolous Rhetoric, in which he discovers a great deal of prejudice, rashness, confidence, and intemperate zeal, with which I think him so drunken, that I doubt whether reason will recover him, till some providence of God bring him to see his folly; which I think will much appear in that which follows, on which nevertheless I conceive he builds the main or whole of his Cause of Infants visible Church membership.

SECT. LVII. Mr. Bs. Law of Infants visible Church membership unrepealed, is not proved from Gen. 1.26, 27, 28. or Gen. 3.15.

I Come now, saith Mr. B. to the 8 th. Qu. that is to speak to the point which you propounded. You urge me to cite to you the particular texts that contain this Law, Ordinance, Precept, or Covenant. To which I answer thus. 1. There are two sorts of Laws; one which fir •• make a duty; the other which suppose it so made, and do only call for obedience▪ and excite thereto, or prescribe somewhat as a means in order thereunto. If I could she • you no written law or promise as first constituting the duty, or granting the privilege of Church membership, it were no • the least disparagement to my cause, as long as I can show you those following laws which presuppose this. You know the Church of God did live about 2000. years without any written law that we know of: Where then was God's will manif • stead about such things as this, but in tradition and nature? If Moses then at the end of this 2000. years did find this tradition and find all the infants of Church-members in possession of this benefit, then what need he make a new law about it? or why should God pr •• ise it as a new thing? I confess if I should find by any new law or promise that it did begin but in Moses days, I should think it some abatement of the strength of my cause (though yet I think there would enough remain.) 2. There are (yet higher) two sorts of laws: the one for the constitution of the Commonwealth itself, the other for the administration or government of it when it is so constituted. The former are called by some, Fundamental Laws as laying the frame and form of the Commonwealth, and the quality of the materials, &c. I think indeed, that as constitutive of the form of the Commonwealth, these are scarce preperly called Laws; though as they look forward, obliging to duty, and prohibiting alteration, they may. But if they be not laws, they are somewhat higher, and lay the ground of all laws and obedience, and so are laws eminenter & vi •• ualiter, though not actually and formally: And in our case, as this constitution did subject us to God, making it our duty ever after to obey him; so doth it oblige us to acknowledge that subjection. And the very constitution of the Church is an act of high beneficence, and performed by the fundamental grant or Covenant▪ Now if this Covenant and constitution could not expressly be shown in writing, it were no diminution of the authority of it, seeing among men Fundamentals are seldom written, and when they are, it is only as laws obliging the subject to maintain and adhere to the first constitution. As long therefore as we can prove that it is God's will that successively infants should be Church members, it no whit invalidates the cause if we could not show the original constitution in writing. Yet somewhat we shall attempt. 3. We have full proof of infants Church membership by laws and Covenants concerning it, ever since the time that there was a written word of God: and that is sufficient, if we could fetch it no higher. Having premised this, I come nearer to the Question.

Answ. Had Mr. B. meant fairly, and not either to prepossess the Reader with prejudice against me, or weary him afore he should come to the point, he had begun with this question: In the entrance to which he tediously sets down some postulata, which do show, that we are not to expect any plain Scripture proof of a Law or Ordinance of Infants visible Church membership unrepealed, which he so cracks of as to entitle his Book as if he would bring such. But I shall let pass his postulata, and attend to his proofs.

Answ. 1. If this prove their Church membership, it proves not their visible Church membership, of which only is the question. 2. If it prove a law or ordinance, yet it proves not such a law or ordinance as is in question, which is not a law or ordinance de jure, but de eventu, that so it shall be, or they shall be so accounted. For such a law or ordinance of their visible Church membership only can infer their admission as visible Church members, they being to be actually visible Church members afore admission, according to Mr. Bs. own dictates, and therefore not de jure only▪ such. 3. If it did prove such a law or ordinance, yet it proves it not to be by such a promise and precept as Mr. B ▪ asserts. 4. If it did, yet it only proves it of the Church by nature, which hath a great difference from the Church by grace, this being only by election and calling, not by birth. 5. If this law or ordinance be unrepealed, then it is in force, and according to the law of nature invariable that man be born without sin. For man is born according to the law of procreation, Gen. 1.28. and if this were the law of nature, that the first blessing that God pronounceth on mankind, is, that they propagate children in their own estate to be as the parents were, even in God's image ; then still the law of nature continues, and so there is no original sin; or it is repealed, and so it is not such a law as Mr. B. asserts. 6. The words [ God created, blessed, ] do note only a transeunt fact; and therefore, what ever Divines imagine about God's Covenant with man, this passage only tells what God did, but mentions no such law or ordinance by promise or precept as Mr. B. conceives, and therefore it is manifestly impertinent to his purpose. Let's view the next and main Text.

Answ. The thing to be proved by Mr. B. is that there is a law or ordinance of God unrepealed, that not only in the Church Jewish, but in the Christian properly so called, the infants of believers, by virtue of God's promise to be the God of the faithful and their seed, and a precept to parents to accept of the mercy offered and re-engage them to God, should be, and be taken to be visible members. But that he takes upon him to prove, is, that it is the will of God that infants should be Church members, that he doth not exclude now that age from the redeemed Church, that he excluded not the infant state from the visible Church, that it is his mind that he will have infant members ; all which we might grant, and yet Mr. Bs. law and ordinance not thereby proved. For infants may be Church members of the redeemed Church, and yet not of the visible Church; and the infant state may be not excluded from the visible Church, and yet there may be no law or ordinance for the inclusion of them; yea, there may be a law or ordinance for inclusion of them, and yet none for including them in the visible Church Christian. Nor is his proof of any validity: For the conse • uence holds not, Christ was by God's promise Head of the Church in infancy, therefore infants were by God's will to be Church members, or the infant state is not excluded from the visible Church. It must rest upon some such positions as these▪ In what age God promised Christ to be Head of the Church, in that age his will was that persons should be visible Church members; the ordering of Christ's age is an exemplar to the Church, or rather rule for the being and accounting of visible Church members. Which are manifestly false, 1. Because there is no such thing declared in Scripture, and therefore it is to be taken as a mere fancy. 2. Because if these positions were true, 1. then an infant in the mothers womb should be a visible Church member, because then Christ was head of the Church▪ and as Mr▪ B. saith, The Lord Jesus is promised to do this work as the woman's seed, and so as conceived of her : 2. Then an old man sho • ld not be a member of the visible Church, because Christ in the days of his flesh was not an old man; which are both absurd. And for the antecedent of Mr. Bs. enthymeme, though I deny not that Christ in infancy was Head of the Church, nor that he was the Prophet of his Church in infancy, understanding it of his being the Prophet habitually and by designation, nor that he in some respect, to wit, of rule and protection, the Head of the visible Church, even of that part which is not elect: Yet 1. I deny that in respect of that union which makes any members of his body in the Scripture acception, which is by his spirit, he is head of that part of the visible Church which is not elect; nor can he be said in this respect and after the Scripture speech to be Head of the visible Church as visible, but only in respect of that part which is invisible, to wit, the true believers▪ or elect p • rsons, who alone are univocally members of Christ the Head, as the Doctrine of Protestant writers a voweth. Dr. Reynold, thes. 4. §. 26. Mali nulla corporis Christi pars sunt. Dr. Field, of the Church, book 1. ch 2. The wicked are neither parts nor members of the mystical body of Christ. Bellarmine himself de Eccl milit. c. 9. makes them members not living, nor true according to the essence of members, but dead, and as ill humors in the body, and in respect of some outward use Christ makes of them. 2. Nor do I well know how to make a construction of this speech of Mr. B. [that the Lord Jesus is promised, Gen 3.15. to do this work of bruising the Serpents head, or conquering the Devil as the woman's seed, and so as conceived of her, and born by her, and so as an infant first before he comes to ripeness of age;] according to which it may be true. For though I grant the man Christ Jesus who did this work to have been an infant first, yet I do not think it true that he did it as the woman's seed, according to human nature only, but also according to his Divine, Heb 9.14. nor what he did was done in infancy, but at ripe age: For he bruised the Serpents head and conquered the Devil by his death, Heb. 2.14 which was not in infancy, but at ripe age. 3. Nor do I understand how it is true that [ by Christ's birth and infancy God doth sanctify the human birth and the infant state :] For though I grant children born and infants are sanctified by God through Christ, who was born and an infant; yet that the human birth and the infant state should be sanctified thereby, seems not true▪ for then human birth and infancy should be holy in any infants o • persons born, and so the birth of a bastard should be holy, and his infancy holy, which I need not show how absurd it is. 4. Nor do I conceive any truth, but gross falsehood in that speech, [ Had God excluded the infant state from the visible Church, he would not have made the head first an infant :] For this doth suppose, that either this was the only end or chief end without which God had not made Christ an infant, and consequently this was more in God's eye then the saving of sinners for which Christ came into the world, or the fulfilling of his promise, that a child should be born, a son should be given to us; and would infer, that they which hold infants not visible Church members, must deny Christ to have been an infant. 5. Nor do I know that to be true, [ that in things which Christ was capable of, he did that first in his own body, which he would after do in the bodies of his Church :] For he would and did innumerable things in the bodies of his Church, as to marry, beget children, &c. which he did not in his own body first, though he was capable of them. 6. I deny that Christ as man was in infancy the Prophet of his Church visibly, and in actu exercito. Let Mr. B. when he will assault it, there will appear in his contradiction vileness and manifold falsehood, none in this opinion. And for his inference, if an infant may be the chief Prophet of the Church then no doubt but infants may be Disciples, I grant both, and yet deny that Christ was visibly, audibly, in actu exercito in his infancy in his human nature the Prophet of his Church, or that any infants are actually Disciples visibly, till they hear the Gospel and profess the faith; nor am I ashamed to aver, that he is no Prophet that prophesieth not, that they are no Disciples that learn not. But Mr. B. proceeds.

4. Saith he,

Answ. This tedious discourse of Mr. B. is indeed serpenti • e with winding in and out, wrigling and wresting the Text; one while it is a promise, another while a precept; sometimes meant of one sort of enmity, sometimes of another; sometimes the woman under one consideration, sometimes under another; sometimes the seed of the woman comprehend▪ all the natural seed, sometime only one kind: with so many ambiguous speeches, and unproved dictates, and inconsequent inferences, that I know not what better to term it then the way of a serpent on a rock, which the Wise man said was too wonderful for him, and one of the things he knew not, Prov. 30.20, 21. And sure when I yield to acknowledge this discourse as a convincing proof of the law and ordinance of infants visible Church membership unrepealed, which Mr. B. asserts, I shall deliver myself as a Pupil to him, take him for an infallible Oracle, and profess blind obedience. But let me see what I can make of this Ridd • e. The sum of it, so far as I can collect, is this: Here is an enmity proclaimed legally, against the Devils pravity, malignity, and works; h • reby all the seed natural of the woman are obliged to list themselves in Christ's Army, or the woman as a believer is to list all her infant progeny in the Redeemers Army; infants being part of her seed, and no exception put in against infants, or any age of all her seed, this fundamental promise extends to them, and all duly listed are visible Church members: Ergo, here is the fundamental law or ordinance for infants visible Church membership by promise and precept unrepealed. To discern how silly and insipid these arguings are (if I may use • r. Bs. own phrase) let us grant him here is a promise and precept implied, and inquire what listing is here enjoined, of whom, by whom, and how far this makes the listed visible Church members. The listing is not here expressed, but in his book of Baptism, p. 14. he saith, They are first made Disciples, and then solemnly admitted, e • tread, or listed by baptism. P. 24 As everyone that must be admitted solemnly into the Army, must be admitted by listing, as the solemn engaging s • gne; so everyone that hath right to be solemly admitted into the visible Church, must ordinarily be admitted by baptism, Christ's listing engaging sign. The persons to be listed, are according to Mr. B. mankind, the woman and her seed, even infants, no exception being put in against infants, or any age of her seed. The persons that are to list are each man, for he saith, It is the duty of mankind to list themselves, infants being at the parents dispose it is they that are to list them in Christ's army, and this listing (which he counts duly done) makes infants visible Church members. Concerning which, I grant that God doth proclaim here an enmity against the Diabolical pravi • y, malignity and works, and that it is the duty of mankind to fight against Satan, to join with Christ: For this is no more but that God forbids sin, and it's our duty to resist • t, and to believe and follow Christ, and here is a fundamen • all promise, that they who do so shall bruise the serpents head, or prevail against Satan. Nor do I deny that it is the duty of parents, yea of all men to do what lies in them to engage persons, even i • fants to this war, provided they do it by ways allowed and appointed, as by their prayers, vows to God, or the like. But it is utterly false, 1. that there is any precept of listing by baptism here, for baptism is a mere positive rite of the New Testament, not enjoined here. 2. That it is the duty of all mankind to list themselves▪ For then it is their duty to baptize themselves. 3. That it is the duty of the woman to list herself and all her seed, For then she had been bound to baptize herself, and the children of unbelievers as well as believers, Cain's seed as well as Abel's, and if it were supposed that she had lived to this day, she had been bound to list all the infants at least of the professed Infidels at this day; For if it were a precept unrepealed, it must have bound her still. 4. That such a listing as Mr. Bs. words import, is either duly done, or that the listed in that manner are all visible Church members. 5. That here is any fundamental promise made to persons so listed. 6. That as listed in Christ's army in the manner Mr. B conceives, infants have the privilege of Christ's soldiers. None of these things denied by me, have a word of proof in all this p • olix discourse, nor do I imagine any proof for them can be from this text, and therefore conceive his discourse without proof, and like the dream of a sick man, or the dotage of a fantastic. He adds.

11. Some learned men do use contemptible arguments to prove further, That the sanctifying enmity is here promised▪ to the seed of the woman as her seed (I mean those that go the way of Dr. Ward, Mr. Bedford, &c.) that is, that as the two former sorts of enmity are put into all the seed of the woman (as is explained) so the spiritual holy enmity promised to her seed as she is a believer. 12. And some learned men do accordingly conclude, That the impiety of parents may do much to hinder their children from that blessing more then by original sin they were hindered, and therefore their faith may further them. Of which though much may be said, I shall say no more, because I will not stand on things so much questioned.

Answ. I might then well have omitted this as of no validity, but to show the multiplicity of Paedobaptists errors.

He g • es on thus. I come next to prove from other parts of Scripture, That the fundamental promise of Grace is thus to • e interpreted as including infants. 1. If the same Covenant of grace when it is more fully and clearly opened, do expressly comprehend infants as to be Church members, then is this fundamental promise so to be understood (or then doth this also comprehend them.) But the antecedent is certain, therefore so is the consequent. The antecedent I prove from the Covenant of grace made to Abraham the father of the faithful, which comprehended infants for Church members: The Covenant made with Abraham comprehending infants, was the same with this in Gen. 3. but in some things clearlier opened. Which is proved thus: Both these were the Covenant of grace and free justification by faith in the Redeemer, therefore they were the same. For there is but one such. If Abraham had some special promises additional to the main Covenant, that makes not the Covenant of free justification by faith to be divers. That this in Gen. 3. is the promise or Covenant of grace and free justification is not denied, that I know of. That the promise to Abraham was the same, is evident from Rom. 4.10, 11, 12, 13, 14. 1. It is there expressly manifest, that the Covenant whereof Circumcision was to Abraham the seal, was the Covenant of free justification by faith; Circumcision itself being a seal of the righteousness of Faith which Abraham had, yet being uncircumcised, that he might be the Father of believers, &c. 2. Yea the promise that he should be heir of the world was not made to Abraham or to his seed through the Law, bu • through the righteousness of faith. Now it's certain that this Covenant sealed by Circumcision and made to Abraham and his seed▪ did comprehend infants▪ The consequence of the m • jor then i • evident, that the same promise expressed more concisely, is to be expounded by the same expressed more fully: And it's acknowledged that the Gospel light and grace was to be manifest by certain degrees.

Answ. That the fundamental promise of grace, Gen. 3.15. did include infants, was never denied by me, and therefore Mr. B. doth but waste paper, and abuse me and his Readers by going about to prove it. This I deny, that it includes all infants, or all infants of believers, and that any infant is made a visible Church member by that promise as the next cause, or the sole efficient, which is Mr. Bs. term: neither of these is proved by him. I grant that the Covenant to Abraham was the Covenant of Evangelical grace, though mixed, as I have often shown, and that it did include infants, and that they were Church members, to wit, of the invisible Church of the elect, I mean so many as the Covenant of Evangelical grace was made to. I grant also that Abraham's infants in his house were visible Church members, but not by virtue of the Covenant barely as Evangelical▪ but by virtue of the transeunt fact before asserted by me; and if in any respect by virtue of the Covenant▪ it was by it as containing household or civil promises, rather th • n Evangelical. So that although I deny that from Rom. 4.10, 11, 12, 13, 14. it is proved that Circumcision was a seal of the Covenant, Gen 17. and that the promises, Gen. 17.4.5, 6, 8. were additional to the main Covenant, and not as well the main Covenant as v. 7 yet I grant Mr. Bs. conclusions which he here infers, that the promises, Gen. 3.15. & 17.7. did comprehend infants, that there is but one Covenant of free justification by faith in both places, that the one may explain the other that infants were from the beginning Church members, that is, members of the invisible Church of the • lect▪ But this I deny, that this is true of all, or perha • s only of the infants of believers, or that because they are of the invisible therefore they are members of the visible Church, there being more required to make visible Church members, then election, the Covenant of grace, and parents faith. But Mr. B. adds.

• . That the first fundamental promise is thus to be interpreted, I further prove by God's constant administration in the performance of it. Concerning which I do make this challenge to you (with modesty and submission,) to prove if you can, that there was ever one Church member that had infants born to him while he was in that estate, from the beginning of the world to this day, whose infants also were not Church members? Except only the Anabaptists, who refuse or deny the mercy, and so refuse to dedicate their infants in Baptism unto Christ. And whether their infants be Church members, I will not determine affirmatively or negatively at this time. I do again urge you to it, that you may not forget it; to prove to me, that ever there was one infant of a Church member in the world, since the creation to this day, that was not a Church member, (except the Anabaptists that refuse the mercy or deny it.)

Answ. Mr. B. undertakes to prove God's constant administration, but instead of proving sends me a challenge, and ho • lie urgeth me to answer it; which course indeed is ridiculous to the intelligent, yet subdolous, as taking much with shallow heads who know not the laws of Dispute, as if he got the better of me if I did not answer it. But let such know, 1 That it is Mr. Bs. part now to prove, mine only to answer. 2. That if I could not answer, either through def • ct of reading, memory, histories in such matters, or such like cause; yet this is no proof of Mr. Bs. assertion. 3. That I have no reason to answer Mr. Bs. questions and challenges, but his arguments: 1. Because I find a mere captious spirit in him, seeking advantage to himself from my words (which he very seldom doth rightly represent to the Reader) when he wants proof of his assertions; as appears most evidently in this his answer to my Letter, in which he hath gathered almost half his answer (besides the business propounded) from my writing to him. 2. That the understandings of men, even of Scholiers and Learned men are so superficial, or so partial, that without ever examining, yea or reading my writings, upon Mr. Bs. exclamations, and vile suggestions of me and mine answers, they do most unrighteously, and like men that seek not the truth, conclude on his side, scorn and speak evil of me and the cause I assert (which is indeed the cause of Christ) of which I have much experience. 4. Nevertheless I answer his challenge categorically thus▪ 1. No infant born of a Church member was a visible Church member in the Christian Church, or any other besides that of the Nation of the Hebrews, as I have proved before: And if we must needs take up a fashion of disputing by challenges, I challenge Mr. B. to show me one infant who was a visible Church member out of the Nation of the Hebrews. • . I conceive from Acts. 16.1. 2 Tim. 1.5. that Timothy was born of a Church member, yet no Church member visible in infancy. Anabaptists refuse not the mercy of visible Church membership, if God had offered it to their infants; nor would they refuse to dedicate their infants in Baptism, if God had commanded it: But they dare not challenge what God hath not granted, nor profane the Ordinance of Christ, by their altering it into that which he hath not appointed. Mr. B. goes on thus.

SECT. LVIII. Infants visible Church membership is not proved by the Law of Nature

BEfore I proceed to anymore Texts of Scripture, I will a little inquire into the light or Law of Nature itself, and see what that • aith to the point in hand. And first we shall consider of the duty of dedicating infants to God in Christ, and next of God's acceptance of them, and entertaining them into that estate. And the first is most evidently contained in the Law of Nature itself (at least upon supposition that there be any hopes of God's entertaining them;) which I prove thus. 1. The law of Nature bindeth us to give to everyone his own due: But infants are God's own due ; Ergo, the law of Nature bindeth parents to give them up to God. By [giving] here I mean not an alienation of propriety, to make that to be God's that was not so before; but an acknowledgement of his right, with a free res • gnation and dedication of the infant to God, as his own; for his use and service, when he is capable there • f. If you say, infants being not capable of doing service, should not be devoted to it till they can do it; I answer, they are capable at present of a legal obligation to future duty, and also of the relation which followeth that obligation, together with the honor of a Church member (as the child of a Noble man is of his honors and title to his inheritance) and many other mercies of the Covenant. And though Christ according to his humanity was not capable of doing the works of a Mediator or head of the Church in his infancy, yet for all that he must be head of the Church then, and not (according to this arguing) stay till he were capable of doing those works. And so is it with his members.

Answ. It is a bold attempt to undertake to prove a law or ordinance of infants visible Church membership unrepealed from the law of Nature, when Churches are only instituted, not by any law of Nature, and consequently there can be no direction in the law of Nature who shall be visible Church members, who not. Nor could both those things Mr. B. considers be proved, to wit, the duty of dedicating infants to God in Christ, and God's acceptance of them, and entertaining of them into that estate, i. e. of dedicated persons, prove them visible Church members: there's more required thereto, to wit, something discernible by sense, by which they may be said to be part of God's people. Yet I shall examine his proofs The conclusion may be understood of giving up, devoting, dedicating to God by prayer or vow; or else by an outward sign, such as Circumcision or Baptism. This latter is not of the law of nature, being mere instituted worship; the former may be granted, without any hurt to my cause. Nevertheless I shall say something to the argument: Which hath at least four terms, and so is faulty in the form; and for the matter of it, the major is not true without limitation. For the law of nature doth not bind every man to give to everyone his own due, except it be that due which is due from the giver, or it belongs to him to give. A private man is bound to pay his own debt, not to pay every other man's debt to him to whom it is due. Now infants may be said to be God's due, either in respect of their persons, or their service. Infants in infancy can do no service, nor doth God require any service of them, and therefore there is none due, and therefore no parents do or are bound by any act of theirs for their infants service to give God his due of their infants service. And for their persons, they are God's due in that he may of right dispose of them as he will, in life and death, health or sickness; and in this respect parents have no way of giving God his due, but by acknowledging his Sovereignty, and submitting to his will. Dedication to God for the future i • • o giving of God his due from infants; it is neither the giving of God the due of their persons, or their service: they are bound themselves when they come to understanding to do it by themselves; and if they do it not, the parents dedication cannot do it. I object not, that infants should not be devoted to to God till they can do service; but that what ever it be, it is not the giving God his own due from infants, nor doth make them visible Churchmakers.

Mr. B. adds. 2. The law of nature bindeth all parents to do their best to secure God's right, and their children's good, and to prevent their sin and misery: But to engage them betimes to God by such a dedication, doth tend to secure God's right, and their children's good, and to prevent their sin and misery: For they are under a double obligation, which they may be minded of betimes, and which may hold them the more strongly to their duty, and disadvantage the tempter that would draw them off from God.

Answ. To dedicate them by prayer, and thanksgiving, and vows to God, may tend to these end • : But to do it by Baptism not required of God, secures not God's right, but abuseth his name; nor doth it tend to the children's good, or prevent their sin and misery. For neither is there promise of God that the parents dedicating the child by Baptism shall have these effects, nor do these effects follow ex opere operato, nor is there any obligation real put by infant-baptism on the person, though there may be a putative obligation thereby: But really infant-baptism is a disadvantage, 1. In that it is the occasion whereby they take themselves to be Christians afore they know what Christianity is, by which means they are kept in vain presumption of their safe condition; and this constant experience, and the acknowledgement of observing men doth witness. 2. They are kept back thereby from the true Baptism of Christ, which hath had, and would have a strong tie on men's consciences, if it were solemnly and in a right manner performed as it should be. Surely a man's own engagement by himself, in all probability must have a stronger operation then an engagement by another for him, notwithstanding the fond conceits of Mr. Simon Ford, and Mr. John Goodwin, of edification by infant baptism. He is a very rare bird that makes any fruitful use of infant baptism, which neither hath institution from God, nor promise of blessing, and was never known by the infant, nor perhaps any person living can tell him there was any such thing. Nor is there in this respect the same reason of it and Circumcision, for Circumcision makes such an impression on the body as keeps the memory of it, but by Baptism there is no print on the body by which it and the obligation by it may be remembered.

3. Saith he, The law of nature bindeth parents in love to their children to enter them into the most honorable and profitable society, if they have but leave so to do: But here parents have leave to enter them into the Church, which i • the most honorable and profitable society ▪ Ergo. That they have leave, is proved, 1. God never forbad any man in the world to do this sincerely, (the wicked and unbelievers cannot do it sincerely▪) and a not forbidding is to be interpreted as leave in case of such partic • pation of benefits: As all laws of men in doubtful cases are to be interpreted 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , in the most favorable sense. So hath Christ taught us to interpret his own: when they speak of duty to God, they m • st be interpreted in the strictest sense: When they speak of benefits to man, they must be interpreted in the most favorable sense that they will hear.

Answ. Entering into the Church invisible is God's only woe • k: Entering into the Church visible Christian is by Bapti • m, Plain Scripture proof, &c. pag. 24. • e have neither precept nor example in Scripture, since Christ ordained Baptism, of any other way of admitting visible members, but only by Baptism. Mr. Bs. minor then here is this, that parents have leave to enter (which is all one with admission) their children into the visible Church by Baptism, that is, to baptize them. But this is false. For God hath forbidden parents to bring their infants to baptism, in that he hath not appointed baptism for th • m (as is proved at large in the 2d. part of this Review ) much more to baptize them in their own persons, according to Mr. Bs. hypotheses, plain Scrip proof, &c. pag. 2 • 1. except they be Ministers. A not forbidding is not to be interpreted as leave in this case: but a not commanding is a plain forbidding. Mr. Collings, provoc. prov. ch. 5. No thing is lawful in the worship of God, but what we have precept or president for; which who so denies, opens a door to all Idolatry, and superstition, and will worship in the world. If the law of nature bind parents to enter their children into the Church, then it is a law that speaks of duty to God, not of benefit to man; for such laws contain grants of something from God, not of what man is to do: Now if it be a law of duty, it must according to Mr. Bs. own rule be interpreted in the strictest sense, which is the right sense; they are bound to it as God appoints, and no otherwise. So Mr. B. against Mr. Bl. pag. 80. I take God's precept to be the ground of Baptism, as it is officium, a duty, both as to the baptizer; and the baptized. Mr. Ball reply ab • ut nine positions, p. 68. The Sacraments are of God, and we must learn of God for what end and use they were ordained. But by the institution of, Baptism recorded in Scripture, we have learned it belongeth to the faithful, to Disciples, to them that are called. Mr. B. mistakes when he conceives of baptism as a benefit to which a man hath right by promise or Covenant grant: For though a benefit do follow to them that rightly do it, yet itself is only a duty; and such a one as is only by institution, not by the law of nature, nor belongs to pa • ents for children, but to each person for himself. But Mr. B. goes on.

2.

Answ. 1. Infant baptism tends not to the preservation, good, welfare, real happiness of them; but to their hurt. 2. It requires a positive command, since it is not of the law of nature. 3. It is forbidden, in that it is not commanded. 4. There can be expected no blessing of God on it, since he hath promised none to it.

3. Saith he,

Answ. The point to be proved was, that parents have leave to enter their children into the Church; but a leave of infa • ts Church membership vouchsafed of God (if there be good sense in the expression) is another thing. Infants Church membership is the infants state, not the parents act, and leave of it intimates a willingness in the infant to be a Church member, to which God vouchsafes leave. But whether there be sense or not in the expression, it is not true that in the forementioned fundamental promise, explained more fully in after times, God signified his will that infants should be visible Church members ; nor is it true, that upon hope given in the first promise that they are not excluded, is it the duty of parents (without a positive command) by the law of nature to enter their infants into the Covenant, and into that society that partake of those hopes, and to list them (by baptism) into the Army of Christ. Hopes of what may be, is not a sufficient reason of baptizing a person. Nor by these hopes is anymore duty put on the parent, then another, who hath the same hopes and may do it, as viz. a Midwife: Yea, by this argument Midwives should be bound to baptize not only believe • s infants, but also all infants, if it be so much for their good, welfare, preservation, real happiness, and the law of nature ties them as well as parents to do what lies in them to do them good upon such hopes and encouragement; and since they are in their power as well as parents, yea before them, and they may list them into Christ's army, enter them into Covenant and the Church, they are bound to do it. Yea, considering that Mr. B. of Baptism part 2. ch 8. holds, that by Christ's commission, Mat. 28.19. Disciples should immediately without delay be baptized as soon as they are Disciples, and believers infants are Disciples as soon as they are born, and none can do it so soon as Midwives, they ought to do it, according to Mr. Bs. hypotheses, immediately upon their birth. Which will go very far in justifying the Papists about their hasty baptism by Midwives.

Yet again saith Mr. B. 4. It is the duty of Parents by the Law of Nature, to accept of any allowed or offered benefit for their children. But the relation of a member of Christ's Church or Army, is an allowed or offered benefit to them, Ergo, &c. For the major, these principles in the law of nature do contain it. 1. That the infant is not sui juris, but is at his parents dispose in all things that are for his good. That the parents have power to oblige their children to any future duty or suffering, that is certainly to their own good: and so may enter them into covenants accordingly: And so far the will of the Father is as it were the will of the child. 2. That it is unnaturally sinful for a parent to refuse to do such a thing, when it is to the great benefit of his own child. As if a Prince would offer Honors, and Lordships, and Immunities to him and his heirs: if he will not accept this for his heirs, but only for himself it is unnatural. Yea, if he will not oblige his heirs to some small and reasonable conditions for the enjoying such benefits. For the minor, that this relation is an allowed or offered benefit to infants is manifested already, and more shall be.

Answ. I meant of visible members in the Christian Church properly so called, this last speech is denied.

He goes on thus.

Answ. 1. All these considerations, if they were yielded to be true, would as well prove that by the light of Nature infants should be invisible Church members as visible (which would contradict the Scripture, Rom 9.6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13.) yea rather, since the 4th. consideration upon which the inference rests chiefly, is from the state in which persons were put by creation and redemption, which is into the invisible rather then the visible. Now then if these considerations are not sufficient to assure parents who are in the invisible Church that their infants are in the same society, neither are they sufficient to assure them they are visible Church members. 2. It is a calumny of Mr. B. which is insinuated as if I held that all the seed of believers shall be turned out of the society whereof the parents were members. 3. It is a gross conceit, and contrary to the plain doctrine of the Scripture, concerning election and reprobation of Jacob and Esau, which is intimated, as if the design of redemption under the Gospel to the members of Christ should be, that as the members or seed of Adam, so all the seed should partake of the same blessings with the righteous parents. 4. What he saith he hath largely proved in one of the private disputes at Kidderminster among the associate Ministers in Worcestershire (as I conjecture) I do not contradict peremptorily, as not knowing how he stated the question, nor what his proofs were, Yet it seems to me to be an error, nor am I very apt to give assent to Mr. Bs. determinations, however the associate Ministers may perhaps take him for a Pythagoras, whose ipse dixit must not be gainsaid.

Once more saith he,

Answ. They are (as I conceive Mr. B. ) willing to be God's people in a natural sense, who do in their own persons actually will this; in a law sense, who having not use of reason themselves, do will by another who hath the dispose of them, as v. g. a parent. That some acts of a parent are legally taken for the child's, it's not denied. But in this argument of Mr. B. I deny the major. And whereas Mr. B. saith, it is unquestionable, I say, it is manifestly false, there is no such thing in the tenor of the Covenant of grace; yea, God did refuse Ishmael, and Esau, though Abraham and Isaac prayed for them, and dedicated them (in Mr. Bs. sense) to God. What Mr. B. dictates by way of proof, whether of the major or minor (which I think he did not well heed) is not true▪ Infants cannot will of themselves, therefore the reason and will of another must be theirs in law sense. For it follows n • t, unless the Law-giver do ordain it so. Nor doth it follow, that if the infants cannot will, and another's will must be theirs in law sense, it must in Church matters be the will of the natural parents. For in such things it may be as well conceived that the will of the mother the Church (as it is termed,) the Church-governors, or as some will the Gossips should be their will in the law sense, and that they have the power to dispose of them, and are warranted by the law of nature to choose for them (for their good) as the natural parents. The speeches [ the parents by the • ight and law of nature choosing the better part for their children, and offering them, and devoting them to God by the obligation of his own natural law, he cannot in consistency with the free grace revealed in the Gospel, refuse those that are so offered,] is false, the Gospel nowhere • ssuring grace to those that are offered by another's will, but to those who repent and believe themselves. The speech [ And those that thus come to him in the way that nature itself prescribeth, he will in no wise cast out, Joh. . .] is false, it being certain God hath cast out many so coming, as Esau, Ishmael, &c. and hath a tincture of P •• agianism ; and the Text, Joh. 6.37. to which Mr. B. alludes, is grossly abused by him, since it speaks only of th • se that come to Christ by their own faith, and of not casting out from the invisible Church, and everlasting life, as v. 39, 40. show, not merely from the visible Church. And the speech [ and he will be offended with those that would keep them from him that are offered by those who have the power to do it, though they cannot offer themselves, ] being meant of not baptizing them, is also false; and the contrary is true, that he will be offended with those who baptize infants which he never appointed, but profane the ordinance, being appointed only for them who are themselves disciples and believers. And thus Mr. Bs. fundamental title to infants visible Church membership is blown up.

Mr. B. adds. You must now in reason expect, that infants Church membership being thus established, partly in the law of nature, and partly in the fundamental promise, what is after this spoken of it should not be any new establishment, but confirmations and intimations of what was before done, rather giving us the proof that such a law and promise there is that did so establish it, then being such first establishing laws or promises themselves. And from hence I may well add this further argument. If there be certain proof in Scripture of infants Church membership, but none except this before alleged that makes any mention of the beginning of it, but all speaking of it as no new thing, then we have great reason upon the forementioned evidence, to assign this beginning which from Gen. 3. we have expressed. But the former is true, ergo the later. You confess that infant • s were Church members once. You only conceive it began when Abraham was called out of Ur. Your con •• t hath not a word to support it in the Text. The right to such a blessing was then new to Abraham's seed, when Ab • aham first believed: But when it began to belong to infants of believers in general, no Text except this before cited doth mention. Nor doth that promise to Abraham intimate any inception then as to the Church membership of infants, but only an application of a privilege to him that in the general was no new thing.

Answ. Mr. B. mistakes in conceiving visible Church membership to belong to infants of believers in general, and therefore it must be derived from Gen. 3.15. I retort his argument. If there be certain proof in Scripture of infants Church membership, but none except in the nation of the Hebrews, and that had its beginning at the call of Abraham out of Ur, and ended at the rejection of the Jews, then infants visible Church membership began with Abraham's call, and now ceaseth. But the antecedent is true. Ergo, also the consequent. The consequence is in effect Mr. Bs. In the minor the first and third propositions are proved by the dispute before: For the second [that the nation of the Hebrews began with Abraham, ] besides the allegation before of Nehem 9.6. Acts 7.2. where he is called their Father, and the story of the Hebrews begun from Abraham's call, the words of the Prophet, Isa. 51.1, 2. are express to this purpose; calling Abraham and Sarah the rock whence they were hewn, and the hole of the pit whence they were digged, Abraham their father and Sarah that bare them, and mentioning God's calling him alone, blessing him and increasing him as the cause of it (which doth prove that it was by the transeunt fact which I described, not by Mr. Bs promise and precept that they were Church members) and this as a new thing, God having chosen no other people of the earth as he did the Jews, Deut. 7.6. And therefore I deny Mr. Bs. minor, and conclude, that visible Church membership of infants was only in the nation of the Hebrews ; not by a promise to be a God to believers and their seed, and a precept to parents to dedicate them to God, and list them in Christ's Army; but by the transeunt fact of calling Abraham, blessing, multiplying him, bringing them out of Egypt to himself, which was to be demonstrated. L • t • s yet view Mr Bs. confirmations, whether they be any better then his primitive establishments.

SECT. LIX. The sayings of Adam, Eve, Noah, concerning Cain, Seth, Shem, the term sons of God, Gen. 6.2. prove not Mr. Bs. law of infants visible Church membership unrepealed.

NOw for the Texts, saith he, that further intimate such a foregoing establishment. 1. There seems to be some believing intimation of this in Adams naming his wife the mother of the living: For it is to be noted what Bp, Usher saith, Annal vol. 1. p. 2. Unde tum primum (post semen promissum) mulieri Evae nomen a marito est impositum, Gen. 3.20. quod mater esset omnium viventium non naturalem tantum vitam, sed illud quoque quod est per fidem in semen ipsius, Messiam promissum: quomodo & post eam Sara fidelium mater est habita. 1 Pet. 3.6. Gal. 4.31.] He put this name on her after the promise, because she was to be the mother of all the living, not only that live the life of nature, but that which is by faith in the Messiah her seed. So that as she was the root of our nature, we are her natural seed; and as she was a believer, and we the seed of her a believer, so is she the mother of a holy seed, and we that are her seed are holy, as a people visibly dedicated to God.

Answ. Though the exposition were allowed, and the inference thereon, that we that are her seed, that is by faith in the Messiah, are holy ; yet it follows not that we are so as a people visibly dedicated to God, much less that our infants are so without their own faith by virtue of their parents dedication: And therefore this Text, according to Mr. Bs. exposition (which yet may be questioned) yields no confirmation of infants visible Church membership unrepealed.

2. Saith he,

Answ. Eve doth not say, that she possessed a son of God, member of the Church from the Lord, but a man, by virtue of the power given to the parents for procreation, Gen. 1.28. notwithstanding the curse, Gen. 3.16. which was from the Lord, Psal 127.3. Gen. 30.2. that is, by his providence, and in some respect with his favor and good will, considering her desert, and danger it was that she possessed him when both their lives were in so great hazard. That Cain was a Church member visible from his infancy hath no probability, there being no hint of it in that Text, or any other. The proofs that infant visible Church membership was only in the Hebrew Nation, have been shown before.

Answ. Nor should I, meaning as Mr. Ainsworth, seed] that is another son: that as Abraham's seed was called in Isaac (Ishmael being excluded) Gen. 21.12. so Eves seed should be in Seth, tha • is the elect seed, and so he a member of the invisible Church in infancy; and yet there's no in • imation that • e was an infant member of the visible Church, from which Ishmael was not excluded. In which though I p • ace not Seth, yet I do not thereby excommunicate Seth, or say that he was without the Church in his infancy.

Mr. B. adds.

Answ. 1. There is not sufficient evidence in the text to prove it, that the sons of God were of Seth’s, and the daughters of men of Cain's posterity: they might be some of the daughters of men of Seth’s, and some of the sons of God of Cain's progeny, notwithstanding what is in the text. And there is this reason against it, that since Gen. 4.16. it is said, that Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwell • in the land of Nod on the East of Eden, and that he built a City called Enoch, that the posterity of Cain and Seth dwelt so far one from another, that they had not occasion to see one another so as to fall in love with their beauty. And whereas it is clear that Adam after he begat Seth begat sons and daughters Gen. 5 4. living 800 years, and that the great change in religion was about the time of Enos birth Gen. 4.26. the sons of God and daughters of men might be of other races then Cain and Seth. But I shall not contend about this. 2. Nor is it manifest that either sort of persons are ca • led so from their descent, or Church-state by birth. For the one are not called the sons of God from their birth, but practice or profession, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , saith Chrysostom hom 22. on Genes. Because until then they did imitate their progenitors virtue, Piscat. analys. Gen. 6 Per filios Dei intelligendi sunt i • qui re • igionem puram profitebantur, praesertim ex Sethi & Enoskhi posteris▪ Gatak. adv. p • ochen. c. 13. Apud quos religions verae professio hactenus perstiterat. Usher Annal. Vol. 1. p. 3. ad an. M. 235. Sethus annos 105 natus filium genuit cui Enoshi nomen imposuit: quod conditionis humanae deplorandam denotat miseriam, Tunc enim a Camitis cultus Divinus misere corruptus fuit: unde ea inter homines distinctio fa •• a; ut qui in vero Dei cultu permanserunt fil • i Dei; qui autem ab eo desciverunt filii hominum sint appellati. Gen, 4.26. cum 6.1, 2. Christoph. Cartwright annot▪ ad Gen. 6.2. At ex textu apparet hosce Dei filios profession po • iùs quàm reipsa s • nctos fuisse. The new Annot. on Gen. 6.2. Sons of God] rational creatures and of human kind; yet in this place distinguished from the daughters of men, not only by their sex, but by their qualities or relati • ns; by their qualities, as persons of some eminent endowments or estimation above others as (what is excellent is in the Scripture phrase especially entitled unto God, as the Garden of Eden, Ezek. 28.13. & ch. 31. v. 8, 9. the hill of God, Ps. 68.15.) or by their relations, as such as descending from Seth and Enoch professed the true worship of the true God, and so became capable of the title of the sons of God, Deut. 14.1. 2 Cor. 6.18. Whence I infer, that in the judgment of these Authors they are termed the sons of God not from their Church membership by bi • th, but their profession and practice. On the other side, the parents of the daughters are termed men not from their descent by birth, or exclusion out of the Church by birth, but as the term [ man ] is taken for corrupt unregenerate men as Ainsworth, so Paul 1 Cor. 3.3. Piscat. sch. in Gen. 6.2. Nisi potius est ut nomine 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Adam hîc intelligatur primus ill generis humani parens: ut significetur illas ge •• isse imaginem illam secundùm quam Adamus genuit liberos, non autem • uisse regineratos spiritu Dei. Which exposition is very likely that they are termed daughters of Adam, not daughters of men, because they were corrupt as Adam, a • Gen. 5.3. Adam is said to beget a son in his own image corruptus corruptum, as Pisc. sch. in locum, in opposition to God's image. v. 1. So Hos. 6.7. and then daughters of Adam doth not note their descent but qualities and practice, as daughters of Sara 1 Pet. 3.7. that is, that they revolted from the true worship of God, as Adam from God. Which things premised, I deny 1. that it is true that the women are not themselves denominated wicked, but the children of men, as being a generation separated from the Church from the birth. For there is nothing in the text that proves the men were the posterity of Cain, nor that all the posterity of Cain were out of the Church, nor that these men were out of the Church, though they were corrupt persons or degenerate members, and therefore nothing to prove they were excluded from the Church from the birth, by reason of their descent. And it may be well conceived that the term [ daughters of Adam ] doth note th • ir wickedness as treacherously departing from God as he did 2. I deny they are termed [ sons of God ] who chose the daughters of Adam for their beauty, as being the seed of the Saints, &c. but as being at least in appearance holy and true worshippers and chosen by God, they are so denominated no • from their descent from the godly, for then they had been called the sons of the Saints rather then of God, but from their profession and pract • se, if the interpretation of Ibn Ezra that they were the sons Elohim of the Judges or mighty or that other that they were eminent persons, hold not. 3. I deny that it can be proved that these sons of • od were not truly godly, or that that they were so wicked that God repen • ed that he made them, and destroyed them in the flood. For neither doth their love of women prove they were not truly godly, Solomon is judged truly godly Nehem. 13.26. though he fell perhaps more deeply into the same sin. Sampson was a believer Heb. 11.32. yet sinned this way. Nor doth that which is said Gen. 6.11, 12, 13. prove it, for that is rather to be understood of the Nephilim or Giants, or the posterity of the the sons of God mentioned v. 4. rather then of the sons of God themse • ves▪ v. 2. And therefore it is not proved that it was not their own godliness that made them called the sons of God, but their Church state. Nor is the • e anything Deut. 14.1. that proves the sons of God Gen. 6.2. were such from their infancy as born of Church members For they are the sons of God's there either by profession or special choice v. • . not from their parentage. Much less is there anything 2 Cor. 6.18. to that purpose, for the promise of son-ship there is not from birth but obedience v. 17. And as Gen. 6.2. their being made sons of God is not expressed to be by calling, so neither is it said to be by human generation, nor doth it follow if the daughters of men were such from their birth, the sons of God must be so from their birth, no not though sons of God noted a generation or stock, as it doth not follow that because that which is born of the flesh is flesh from the birth, that that which is born of the spirit is spirit from the birth, Joh. • .6.

Answ. This is granted, but proves not their visible Church membership from their birth.

He adds▪

Answ That the Ark was a type of the Church is not said in Scripture, it is rather made a type of Baptism 1 Pet. 3.21. But let it be granted the Ark was a type of the Church, and that Cham was in the Ark for his fathers sake and a memb • r of the Church, yet it follows not he was so in infancy, he might be so as a worshipper of the true God, though himself in other things corrupt.

Again saith Mr. B.

Answ. Though the Covenant Gen. 9.9. should import a special favor to Noah and his seed more then to the beasts (which yet the text expresseth not) yet that this should be infants visible Church membership follows not, nor is it likely, since then all the infant posterity▪ yea all the seed of Noah, and consequently all the men of the world since then should be visible Church members. Nor was th • blessing of multiplying sad to Noah, reduced to such a paucity, though his infant posterity were not of the visible Church, nor were they anymore common and unclean thereby, then they should have been if so taken, nor had this been to increase and multiply the Kingdom of the Devil, they that are not visible Church members may be of the Kingdom of Christ and not of the Kingdom of the Devil. I say not all Noah's issue was out of the Church, yet the leaving out infants from the visible Church, shown no change in God from what he was to them when he housed the sons of Noah in the Ark, nor doth it any whit lessen the blessing expressed Gen. 9.1. nor doth it infer that all that seed must be thrust from God and dealt with as the seed of cursed Cain. These are but frivolous inferences fit only to scare weak heads.

Answ. I grant that not only the person of Shem, but his posterity were blessed; nor do I deny God was their God, nor that their infant seed was in God's Church: But this doth not prove their visible Church membership in infancy, but rather their invisible Churchmemship, for that is imported by the phrase of being their God, as Mr. Ainsworth's exposition intimates. God was God to Jacob in his mothers womb, yet he was not then a visible, but an invisible Church member.

Answ. That the tents of Sem note the Jewish people, is not improbable: But then it is as certain that they are so called, not from what they were in Shem days, at least not what they were when Noah prophesied, but what they were to be afterwards when they were formed to be a peculiar people; and they are Shem tents, because they descended from him. And this is clear even from what Mr. B. and all grant, that what is here said was accomplished in the posterity of Sem, Japheth and Cham. And therefore it follows not that if the Jewish people had infants Church members visible, it must be so in Shem days, because they are termed Shem tents, since they are so termed from their descent, not from the state of the Church in Shem time. Nevertheless if it be granted that Shem tents are the Church of God in Shem family in his days, it will rather prove it to note the invisible Church then the visible. For the dwelling in the tents of Sem in Mr. Bs. and their sense whom he follows, is by faith, and so the tents of Sem must note the invisible Church of true believers, of whom God is God as he was of Sem, the Israel of God, as they are termed Gal. 6.16. not the Jewish Church visible, and they were joined by persuasion, and therefore not infants, who were to dwell in Shem tents, and consequently infants visible Church membership is not hence proved. And to Mr. Bs. argument I answer by granting the conclusion, if by Shem tents be meant the invisible Church, if the Jewish people, the minor is denied. He goes on thus.

Answ. For my part, for ought I yet discern, Mr. Nicholas Fuller his exposition in his • d. Book of his Miscellanies Theological ch. 4. seems more right then that which Mr. B. and many other Expositors follow, to wit thus, God shall enla • ge the coasts of the posterity of Japheth in Asia, Europe, and America, and God shall dwell in the tents of Sem, that is, Christ or God manifested in the flesh, shall dwell in the tents of Sem; that is among the Jews, being of their stock, as it is John 1.14. and Canaan shall be servant to the Israelites, and the posterity of Japheth, as the Canaanites, Egyptians, Carthaginians and other people of Cham have been, being conquered by Joshua, Alexander the great, the Romans, and other people. Nor do I see how Mr. Bs. interpretation can be right, since when Japheth was persuaded to dwell in Shem tents, Chams posterity also were persuaded, and Canaan was no more a servant in a spiritual sense, no nor so much as Shem tents the Jewish people; nor were the Gentiles persuaded to dwell in Shem tents, that is, in the Jewish Church visible; but it was quite dissolved, and they a separate Church from them. And therefore it is most manifestly false, that the children of Japheth must dwell in Shem tents, that is, the same visible Church Jewish, and therefore the inference is wrong, there are infant visible members in the Gentile Church Christian: yea since according to Mr. Bs. own exposition, the Gentiles were by the persuasion of the Gospel, as it is Ephes. 3.6. of the same body, none of the Gentiles were of the same body but those who were persuaded by the Gospel, which cannot be said of infants, and therefore the contrary follow, from Mr. Bs. own exposition, that infants were not to be visible Christian Church members.

SECT. LX. Mr. Bs. Law of Infants visible Church membership unrepealed, is not proved from Gen. 12. or 17. or 22.

Answ. 1. I confess a promise to Abraham, but not that Abraham or his infants were visible Church members by it, as the so • e or next efficient cause. 2. What word is in the text for the beginning of the Jewish people to be God's Church at Abraham's call out of Ur, is shown above, from Isai 51.1, 2. Nehem. 9.7. Acts 7.1, 2. 3. Lot came along with Abram to Canaan, but was there parted from him, and all along they were severed, and therefore Lot though a righteous man, yet was not of the same Church with Abram's house, nor his infants if he had any, visible Church members, because God intended not to make his house and posterity his Church visible.

3. Saith Mr. B.

Answ. I neither make Abraham's passage out of Ur, nor the promise in Haran (or rather in Ur. Gen. 12.2, 3.) to be that which made infants visible Church members in the Hebrew nation, but God's special call, or taking the house of Abraham entirely to be his people, which Mr. B hath not nor can show to have been done to any other people.

Answ. I grant visible Church membership was before Circumcision in Abraham's house, but not that Abraham was circumcised under this formal consideration, as a member of Christ's Church by faith, but as one to whom it was commanded by God.

Mr. B. goes on.

Answ. 1. I deny not the promise Gen. 17.7. to include infants Church membership, but that I confess that it doth manifestly imply and include infants visible Church membership Mr. B. cannot show. 2. The promise that God will be their God, doth not expressly contain the visible Church membership of infants. For God may be God to them who are not visible Church members, and he may not be God to them who are. 3. If in the promises Gen. 12.2, 3. Gen. 17.7. and the precept Gen. 17.9, 10. there be no institution de novo, nor foundation of infants Church membership, then in ants Church membership visible (which was not before Abraham's days) hath not foundation in the promises and precept, but the transeunt fact I have mentioned. 4. Though I conceive that a transeunt fact may create a permanent title, as a gift, a delivery into our hands without a promise for future, may create a permanent title, nor do I deny that the Covenant Gen. 17.7. did leave a permanent title behind it; yet I deny that the visible Church membership of infants in Abraham's house was by a title to be legally claimed, or by the Covenant Gen. 17.7. as the causa procreans of it, though it might be the causa conservans of it, in that it assured some of those acts whereby it was continued. 5. I deny that the Apostle Rom. 4.10, 11, 12, 13. doth at all, much less fully manifest to us, that the promise Gen. 17.7. was made to Abraham as a believer, though I grant what Mr. B. infers from it in his 7th. note. The Apostle doth plainly manifest, that in the Gospel sense it was made to Abraham as father of believers. 6. It is denied as most certainly false, that one of the blessings of the promise Gen. 17.7. to the faithful Gentiles was, that their infants should be comprehended in the same Church and Covenant, yea the Apostle concludes, and proves Rom. 9.6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13. That all the posterity of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, were not comprehended in that promise, and therefore the visible Church membership Christian of infants of Gentile believers, c • n have no show of proof from the promise Gen. 17.7. and precept v. 9.10.

9. Saith Mr. B.

Answ. The blessing Gen. 12.3. is not visible Church membership (which may be without justification) but justification, as the Apostle expressly expounds it, Gal. 3.8. (which may be without visible Church membership:) Nations there doth not comprehend every member of a nation, nor everyone of a tribe or kindred, as it is Acts 3.25. but the elect, and believers of each nation, tribe, or kindred, as the Apostle doth both v. 7. & 9. show, terming them that are blessed those that are of faith. Therefore though the Scripture be not to be made light of, yet Mr. Bs. inference from thence is most vain, the promise being not of visible Church membership, nor to nations, families, kindreds entirely, nor to infants of unbelievers or believers as such; but to so many of all nations, kindreds, and families, as are believers or elect. Whereby Mr. B. may see how infants can be excluded these families, and this promise, without apparent violence to the Text.

10. Saith he, Note that as infant Church membership is here clearly implied in infant Circumcision, so they are two distinct things; and as the sign is here commanded de novo, so the thing signified (I mean the duty of engaging and devoting to God as their God in Covenant) is commanded with it, though not de novo, as a thing now beginning as the sign did. So that here is in Circumcision not only a command to do the circumcising outward act, but also to do it as a sign of the Covenant, and so withal for the parents to engage their children to God in Covenant as their God, and devote them to him as his separated peculiar people. So that here are two distinct duties concurrent. • he one external newly instituted, the other internal not newly instituted. And therefore the former may cease, and yet the later stand: and it's no proof that the later (Covenant engagement of infants to God) is ceased, because the sign of Circumcision is ceased; no more then it proves that such Covenant engagement did then begin when Circumcision did begin; or that women were not Church members separated, engaged, dedicated to God in infancy, because they were not circumcised. And no more then you can prove that all Israel was unchurched in the wilderness when they were uncircumcised for 40 years. So that here you have a a command for entering infants as Church members. And so you see both promise and precept in Gen. 12.3 & Gen. 17.

Answ. I do indeed, but not such as Mr. B. should produce, a promise of infants visible Church membership, and a precept of their entering unrepealed; there being no such promise of believers infants visible Church membership, or precept of admission as visible Church members besides Circumcision, which Mr. B. will not sure say is unrepealed. As for his discourse of a duty of engaging, separating to God, and dedicating, which is internal, and not instituted de novo, it is neither in Gen. 12. nor Gen. 17. nor if it were, is it anything to the purpose. For neither doth such an internal duty make or admit or enter an infant into the visible Church, either Jewish or Christian. According to Mr. B. himself, infants are visible Church members afore it, yea without it; nor is the admission or entering into the Church visible by it, but by an outward sign, as he himself determines, part. 1. ch. 4. of Baptism : And this sure is now Baptism, which Mr. B. I presume will not now allow to parents, for then they should be Ministers of the Seals, which he counts one of my six errors. I never denied an internal duty of faith, prayer, vowing, &c. for the engaging and dedicating infants to God, prayer for them is practiced by me in public, but I deny that this makes them visible Church members, or admissable by Baptism.

He adds. And when I consider the parents, breeding, and manners of Rebe • kah, I think it far more probable that she was a Church member from her infancy, then that she was entered afterwards at age, or that she was a heathen or infidel when Isaac married her.

Answ. What in the parents; breeding, and manners of Rebe • kah Mr. B. observes, which should make it in any degree probable that she was a Church member from her infancy, I know not: There are such things related Gen. 31. of Laban her brother, and Rachel his daughters Idols, as me thinks should move Mr. B. to conceive, that either in that house there was no Church of God, or at best a very impure one, though it is likely their idolatry and wickedness was not so great as that of the the Canaanites, which made them more desirable and eligible wives for Isaac and Jacob, then the daughters of the Canaanites, whom Esau chose.

Mr. B. adds. And as here are before mentioned standing Covenants, so it is to be noted how God intimateth the extent of the main blessing of them to be further then to Abraham's natural seed, not only in the express promise of the blessing to all the nations or families on earth (of which before) but in the assigned reason of the blessing which is common to Abraham with other true believers. For Gen. 22.16, 17, 18. it's thus alleged [because thou hast done this thing, &c. And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice.] And Gen. 26.3, 4, 5. the Covenant is renewed with Isaac, and the same reason assigned, [because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes and my laws.] How man's obedience is said to be a cause of God's blessing, I am not determining; but taking the words as I find them in general, I may conclude, that they are here given as a cause or reason of it some way or other. And though a special mercy may be given on a common ground or reason, yet where there is no apparent proof of the restriction, we are to judge the blessing common where the reason is common: At least, if a special blessing be superadded to Abraham's seed (upon the freeness of God's grace, or the eminency of Abraham's obedience,) yet there goes with it a mercy common to all where the reason of the mercy is found It being therefore the case of every true believer to be faithful and obedient, yea, to prefer that before his own life, and not a son only, it may be hence gathered, that God who blessed Abraham's seed on that account, will bless theirs on the same, with the same blessings in the main (as to his favor and acceptance of them) though not with the same in the variable superadditionals or overplus of external things.

Answ. Mr. B. like another Procrustes (though in vain) would fain rack the Texts Gen 22.16, 17, 18. & 26.3, 4, 5. to his purpose. Though I deny not but a common mercy may be granted on a special reas • n, and a special mercy on a common reason, God being a free agent; yet in this business, the reason of Abraham's mercy and the mercy itself are both so special and proper, that it is extreme violence to the Texts, to apply Abraham's singular obedience in offering his son, so signally eminent, Heb 11.17. Jam. 2.21. to every believers obedience; and the blessing granted to his seed, that it should be as the stars of heaven, as the sand on the sea shore, that in it all nations should bless themselves or be blessed, to every believers natural seed, and their visible Church membership. This kind of arguing is too ridiculous to deserve a serious refutation. Yet he hath not done.

In Exod. 12.48. saith he, there is a law for the circumcising of all the males of strangers that sojourn in the land, that will keep the passover: which comprehendeth their Church membership, as is shown.

Answ. I grant there is, but not a law unrepealed.

SECT. LXI. Covenants, promises, and speeches in the Old Testament, of Israel, the righteous, prove not Mr. Bs. law of infants visible Church membership unrepealed.

Answ. I never denied promises to be to the whole people of Israel ; but deny that they were by a promise, as the sole efficient cause, God's visible Church, and their infants members. The promise Exod. 19.5, 6. presupposed their Church membership, and promiseth continuance of it in an eminent manner. The Israelites were Church members without the condition of obedience before the Law was given; yea, Ahaz, Manasseh, &c. were visible Church members though they were Idolaters, but they lost that peculiarity, holiness, priesthood, upon their disobedience, which was there promised; and so did the people, they lost the dominion, temple, priesthood, Urim, and Thummim, and other privileges which are meant thereby, and should have been continued if they had not broken God's Covenant by Idolatry. Yet no other nation could have had that state though they had been obedient and kept the Laws, God having given those laws peculiarly to that nation, and confined that honor to that people till the Messiah came. And though Peter, 1 Pet. 2.5, 9. apply these to believers, yet not in the same manner as they are meant Exod. 19.5, 6. nor is any infant now of a believer a visible Church member by virtue of that promise.

Answ. Be it so, yet this is not ascribed to a promise or precept, but to God's choice of them.

Answ. There is a promise of God to them, but that did not make their infants visible Church members, though I deny not their avouching the Lord for their God (which was a transeunt fact) did show them to be visible Church members, nor do I anywhere deny that our Covenant or promise to God doth make us visible Church members, but God's Covenant or promise to infants upon the parents faith, as Mr. B. asserts.

Mr. B. adds.

Answ. It doth, but the benefit promised v. 4. is not infants visible Church membership, but increase, health, strength, such a blessing as they had in their cattle as well as their children, as Psal. 127.3, 4, 5. & 144.12, 13, 14, 15. and many more places is expressed. And v. 9. though their Church membership was established according to God's Covenant and oath, yet the establishing was not the Covenant, oath, or promise of God, but a transeunt fact of providence in preserving, teaching them, continuing his worship among them, and such like acts.

And, saith Mr. B. Ezra 9.2. They are called the holy seed.

Answ. Not all the seed of Israel are called the holy seed, but those only who were legitimate, that is, begotten by lawful marriage according to Moses law: the rest were termed the mixed multitude, Neh. 13.3. whom they separated from the rest, Ezra 10.3. as being no Church members, that is, part of the congregation of Israel according to the law, Neh. 13.1. Deut. 23.3. & 7.3. Exod. 23.32. of which more is to be seen in the first Part of this Review, sect. 25. So that those Ezr. 9.2. are termed the holy seed, not barely by Covenant upon the parents faith, nor as all visible professors, as Dr. Hammond, in his Defense of Infant Baptism, pag. 78. but as begotten by an • sraelite on an allowed wife by the law of Moses.

Mr. B. proceeds▪ Of that in Deut. 29. I have formerly spoke enough. It is called a Covenant. All Israel with their little ones did enter the Covenant and the oath with God, and which he made to them. It was a Covenant [to establish them for a people to himself, and that he may be to them a God, as he had before said and sworn.] It is a Covenant made even with them that stood not there, whether it be meant only of the successive Israelites (and then it's not a transeunt Covenant) or of all people whoever that will accept of the same terms (and then it's not proper to Israel.) It's a Covenant not made to them as mere Israelites: but as obedient to the Covenant terms, and Covenant breaking would cut them off, v. 19, 20, 21, 23, 25, 26. Is not Church membership contained in [God's being their God, and taking them for his people thus in Covenant?] Doth not the promise give them an established right in this blessing? Is all this then no promise, but a transeunt fact?

Answ. What hath been spoken of Deut. 29. by Mr. B. in the Dispute at Bewdley, and in his Book of Baptism, part 1. ch. 14 & 17. and his Corrective, sect. 5. will be examined in that which follows. For present, 1. it is sufficient to show the impertinency of this Text, to prove that there the Covenant or promise of God upon condition of parents faith is the sole efficient of infants visible Church membership, in that the Covenant being then put, even with the children unborn, v. 15. yea and the parents then believing, yet the children unborn could not be then visible Church members, as Mr. B. himself grants of Baptism, pag. 250. They that were not, could not be members visible or invisible. For the sole efficient cause being actually put (as the Covenant and the parents believing are, Deut. 29. even according to Mr. B. ) the effect must be in act: but it is not so in the unborn, therefore the Covenant and parents faith are not the sole efficient. 2. The Oath or Covenant of God is a distinct act from his establishing them for a people unto himself, and being a God to them, which are the consequent upon it, and are by transeunt acts consequent upon the Covenant. So that though the Covenant give a right to a blessing, yet it doth not make actually visible Church members without some other transeunt fact consequent upon it. The Covenant assures a future existence, but suppposeth a present absence of the thing covenanted, and consequently without a further act consequent on it makes not any in present being visible Church-members. So that as yet I find no Text of Scripture setting down the law and ordinance of infants visible Church membership by God's promise upon parents faith or dedication commanded as the sole efficient unrepealed. L • tos view the rest.

Deut. 30.19. saith he, there is a law and promise [choose life, that thou and thy seed may live.] This is the same Covenant which Asa caused the people to enter, 2 Chron. 15. and if there had been no law for it, there would have been no penalty, and then he would not have made it death to withdraw. It is the same Covenant which Josiah caused the people to enter, 2 Kin. 23.2, 3. 2 Chron. 34.31, 32. Of Levite. 25.41, 54, 55. I have spoken elsewhere, and of some other Texts.

Answ. 1. There is a law and promise Deut. 30 19. but not such as Mr. B. asserts as the sole efficient of infants visible Church membership. The life there is not visible Church membership, but a prosperous being in Canaan, v. 20. And the distinction between [ thou and thy seed ] proves that Deut. 29.12. [ thou ] notes the Captains, Elders, Officers, men of Israel, v. 10. distinct from the little ones, wives, strangers, v. 11. though represented by them, and that my speech so much exagitated by Mr. B. of Baptism, p. 57, 249. was justifiable. 2. The Covenants, 2 Chron. 15. & 34.31, 32. 2 Kin. 23.2, 3. of Asa and Josiah were Covenants of Israel to God, there's no mention of God's promise or Covenant to them as then made, and therefore it is not that whereby infants are made visible Church members according to Mr. B. and so is impertinent to the point in hand. 3. The futility of Mr. Bs. argument from Levite. 25.41, 54, 55. is shown in the 2d. part of this Review, sect 14. It follows in Mr. B.

The second Commandment, Exod. 20.5, 6. Deut. 5.9, 10. I think is a law, and containeth a promise or praemiant part, wherein he promiseth to show mercy to the generations or children of them that love him and keep his Commandments: of which I have also spoken elsewhere, to which I refer you. I see no reason to doubt but here is a standing promise, and discovery of God's resolution, concerning the children of all that love him, whether Jews or Gentiles, to whom this Commandment belongs: nor to doubt whether this mercy imply Church membership: And that this is fetched from the very gracious nature of God, I find in his proclaiming his Name to Moses, Exod. 34.6, 7.

Answ. If this mercy here imply Church membership to the infants of them that love him to a thousand generations, then it implies it to all the infants in the world, which cannot be true without such limitations as take away the certainty of any infants Church membership existent. But there is nothing to prove that this mercy must be Church membership, or that it must be to all the children of them that love God, and are obedient, or that it must be to them in infancy, since it may be true of other mercies, as preservation, provision, &c. to some only, since the speech is indefinite in a matter not necessary, and those persons at age, and loving God as their ancestors, without which the promise is not made good; and therefore Mr. B. had occasion enough to doubt whether this mercy implies visible Church membership of all infants of visible professors or true believers, yea, he had cause to assure himself that it doth not, since then it were not true in thousands of Noah's, Abraham's, and other holy men's posterity. Wherefore all things considered, I incline to conceive this a promise of temporal blessings, chiefly to the Israelites, to whom God entailed mercies more then to other people; and if it be extended to higher mercies, and to other people, yet with reservation to himself of his free election, not without conditions and limitations as the event and other Scriptures make necessary to be included, which will make it unserviceable for Mr. Bs. purpose.

He adds. In Psal. 102.28. It is a general promise [the children of thy servants shall continue, and their seed shall be established before thee▪] Its usual in the Old Testament to express God's favor by temporal blessings, more then in the Gospel; but yet still they secure us of his favor. As [I will not sail thee, nor forsake thee,] might secure Joshua more then us of temporal successes, and yet not more of God's never failing favor.

Answ. The words are not a promise of God, for they are directed to God, as the expressions [ thy servants, before thee, ] besides what is said before, v. 24, 25, 26, 27. show, and therefore are not of the same rank with God's words to Joshua, Josh. 1.5. yet they express such assurance as came either from a promise or a prophe • ical instinct. But whether the promise were general, or particular to some; whether of temporal, or eternal blessings, is uncertain. The occasion seems to intimate this sense, From thy continuance, though we be now very low, yet we assure ourselves that thou wilt not utterly cut off our children, but that thou wilt raise them up, notwithstanding our present desolations and captivity, or thou wilt re-engraff them (if meant of the conversion of the Jews to Christ, as hath been conceived) and they shall continue either here as thy people a long time, or be thine forever upon their calling again. Either way, though they may intimate God's favor, yet not general to all his servants children, but to the Jews; nor to them do they intimate infant visible Church membership, or to any other, but such a stability of their posterity in God's favor, and their obedience as is quite different from mere infant visible Church membership, and may be without it.

Yet again saith Mr. B. There is a stable promise to all God's people in general that have children, Psal. 103.17. [ But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children's children.] And to be secured by promise of God's mercy and righteousness is the state of none without the Church.

Answ. The promise must be understood of so many a • d such mercy and righteousness as that it may be true. But it is not true of all the children of them that fears God, that they are visible Church members, surely not of abortives and still-born children; nor that they are partakers of saving mercy and righteousness, for