to their seed; but such are openly wicked Christian parents: Ergo, Who
the promise is to you, therefore repent and be baptized; he argues from their privilege to their duty. Again, the promise is said to be to such "as are afar off, even to as many as God shall call," meaning the Gentiles, Eph. 2:13. "Ye who sometimes were afar off." The call here spoken of, is the outward and external call, which puts the Gentiles into the same case with those Jews who surely were not savingly called, so that the promise is to their seed also, as well as to the Jews' seed. Hence I form a twofold argument.
1. If the promise be to the born Israelites and their seed even antecedently to their repenting, then the promise is unto persons within the Christian church and to their seed, antecedently to true repentance in them: but the former is true: Ergo, and if the promise be so to them, the seal of it must be so likewise.
2. The promise is to the Gentiles, whom the Lord externally calleth, and to their seed; but such are openly wicked Christian parents: Ergo, Who can forbid water to their infants?
ARGUMENT. V. John Baptist and the apostles admitted all to baptism that offered themselves, Matt. 3:5, 6. "Then went out to him Jerusalem and all Judea, and were baptized of him." He debarred none; no not the Pharisees, whom yet he called "a generation of vipers," ver. 7. That he did baptize them, is clear from his own express testimony, ver. 11. where, speaking to the Pharisees and Sadducees, he saith, "I indeed baptize you with water." Luke 3:21, it is expressly said, "When all the people were baptized." Now the practice of John plainly holds forth, that they had a right to that ordinance, and that they were in covenant: Ergo, a majori the infants of wicked Christian parents are to be baptized. Now, if we look to the practice of the apostles, we shall find, that notwithstanding of all that John baptized, yet Christ by his disciples baptized more than he; as the evangelist expressly testifies, John 4:1. Philip, on a bare profession of faith, baptized the eunuch; and so in other examples. Now, it is certain, that they would never have refused baptism to the infants of the parents whom they baptized; but so it is, that those children whose title to this ordinance is questioned, are the children of such parents as profess their faith in Christ; why then should not their right to the ordinance be acknowledged?
ARGUMENT VI. Those children whom God acknowledged to be born to him, and to be his children, have a right to the first seal of the covenant; for what children have right to it, if God's children, such as are born to him, have it not? but so it is that God owneth the children of the Jewish wicked parents to be born unto him, and to be his children: Ergo, Ezek. 16:20, 21. "Moreover, thou hast taken thy sons, and thy daughters, whom thou hast born unto me, and these thou hast sacrificed unto them to be devoured. Thou hast slain my children, and delivered them to cause them to pass through the fire unto them." Here is most gross and open wickedness of the parents, yet the Lord will not have it to prejudge the church state of the children.
ARGUMENT VII. If none but the infants of visible believers have right to baptism, and ought to be baptized; then, 1. Families, parishes, and whole countries, might come in a short time to be paganized; seeing in many places there are so very few visible believers. 2. Through the rigidity and indiscretion of church officers, many poor infants who are the children of believing parents should be deprived of that ordinance: for people may go to heaven while we hear not the sound of their feet; and it is Well known saving grace may lie hid under the ashes of much ignorance and corruption. 3. Then ministers should have no certain rule to walk by in baptizing any infants. All that is left to them, is their opinion: They think such a one to be a believer, and such a one to be an unbeliever; and therefore they will baptize the infants of the one, not of the other: and they may be mistaken as to both; they may take a sheep for a goat, and a goat for a sheep. Is this sure standing? or can we suppose that God bangs such a weighty matter as this upon the opinion and fallible judgment of men? One possibly thinks such a measure of knowledge, and such a walk, to be sufficient ground whereon he may judge a man a believer; another will think so little will not serve the turn: Where shall we fasten? Surely these things hang not on such uncertainties.
ARGUMENT VIII. The children of baptized church members ought to be baptized; but the children of many openly scandalous and wicked parents are the children of baptized church members: therefore such children ought to be baptized. This argument is Mr. Fulwood's, and is the result of a large discourse concerning the visible church.* And so much for the
proof of this point.
Notwithstanding of all that is said for the right of the infants of such Christians, some are of opinion, that one of the parents must needs be a visible believer, or have a serious credible or probable profession, or else the child hath no right before the church to baptism. And truly, though I have not willfully dissembled any thing that might add more force to these arguments, but have represented them to the best advantage so far as it occurred to me, yet I still doubt of the truth of that position: and therefore I will now propose some arguments that make me to doubt the truth of it, and incline me to the latter opinion, that I may at least ease my mind a little, by casting forth these my doubts into this paper.
In the first place, We must consider, whether infants may derive their right from their mediate and remote parents, or only from their immediate parents; for to bury this in silence, were to beat the air in arguing for the last position. And if I understand ought of this controversy, this is one of the main hinges of it. Some learned men, distrusting the right of infants from such immediate parents as are openly wicked, who declare by their impure life they are not of the church, do derive the right of such infants from their mediate or remote parents, who lived a godly and holy life. I find two Scriptures adduced for proof of this. The one is, Rom. 11:16. "If the root be holy, so are the branches." "By the root" says Zanchius* "he understands not their nearest parents, who perhaps were wicked; but those first fathers of the Jewish people, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to whom was made and confirmed the promise and covenant, that God would be their God, and the God of their whole seed, by a perpetual covenant. Therefore all their posterity, who had not altogether apostatized to the gods of the Gentiles, were, I say they all were, in the covenant, and they were judged holy by reason of covenant holiness, fœderis sanctitate sancti judicabantur." Hence the promise is said to be "to them and their seed," (Acts 2:39.), many generations after Abraham. Another Scripture is that, Exod. 20:6. "Shewing mercy to thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments," while he visits iniquity only to the third and fourth generation. The truth is, if this were satisfyingly explained, and convincingly proven, the difficulty of the case would be in great measure
removed. But it seems to me to come short of both. Against it let these few reasons be considered.
I. I observe, that the learned men who plead this, must needs disown the necessity of the baptism of one of the parents; and so they shall be judged holy, and within the covenant, and to have right to baptism, whose immediate parents were never so much as baptized; besides, that they are openly wicked in their lives: for it is plain, that godly progenitors may have such come of them as are unbaptized. But notwithstanding, according to this opinion, the children of such unbaptized parents may have right to baptism, and ought to be baptized; which will not be granted, as we heard before, even by such as agree with them in the main point: and I suppose, there are few that will be satisfied with less than the baptism of one of the immediate parents.
II. Are there not many infants born in such places where God has a church, whose immediate and mediate parents, so far as any man now living knoweth or can remember, have been brutishly ignorant, profane, or both; so that the God in whose name the infant is to be baptized, is a God whom neither they nor their fathers have known? As to these we may crave leave to enquire, Quomodo constat? what evidence is there that their mediate parents have lived a godly and holy life? I think no man that considers for how many generations God hath left some nations without the knowledge of his will concerning man's salvation, will obtain of himself to build his charity in this point upon that, that God "visits the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation" only.
III. If it be sufficient to give an infant a right to baptism, that it is come of godly progenitors, then the children of some pagans and Mahommedans have a right to baptism, though born and to be bred up in a pagan and Mahommedan country, and having nothing common with the church of God; but that is absurd, Eph. 2:12. "At that time ye were without God, strangers to the covenant of promise." And the apostle gives us to know, that the children of pagans are unclean, 1 Cor. 7:14. The consequence holds good, in regard the children of some pagans have had godly ancestors, and some of them lively baptized members of the Christian church, as is manifest in the case of those of Smyrna, Thyatira, Laodicea,
and the rest of Asia (for the most part), which are now unchurched. But you will say, these infants are unchurched. It is so, but how do we know that but by their parents being unchurched? What if a godly woman with child should be cast out into a pagan country and there bring forth her child; is the poor infant therefore a stranger to the covenant, and no church member, because born in a pagan country? No, sure: "the earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof," and the place of the child's birth can never prejudge it of the right it has by the promise and covenant of God. Wherefore it is plain, that the place of the nativity of the pagan's children can never evince their being unchurched; for quatenus ad omne valet consequentia. So that it is by the unchurched state of the parents that we know these infants to be unchurched. Let us consider the infants of the first unchurched generation, we find they have no right to the seal of the covenant, yet, ex hypothesi, they are come of godly progenitors. Wherefore it doth inevitably follow, that mediate parents their being in covenant with God, is not sufficient to give to their remote seed a right to baptism.
IV. If infants may derive their right before the church, or the evidence of their right before the Lord, to baptism, from their remote parents; than either from any of them whatsoever, or from some of them only—I know no mids. If from any of them whatsoever, then there is no infant under heaven that hath not a right to baptism; which is absurd. The reason of the consequence is, because there is not an infant in the world that is not come of parents that were godly; which will hold true, so long as it remains undoubted that all the world is come of Noah and of Adam. If from some of them only, then, 1, They that will have this believed, must tell us how far we may go back to seek mediate parents from whom the infant may derive its right. 2. They must afford us some probable evidence that such mediate parents were godly. 3. They must give us some reason, why we may go so far back, and no further. These demands seem truly as reasonable as the answering of them is dfficult, to say no more.
Now, let us consider the Scriptures adduced for infants deriving their right to baptism before the church, from their remote parents. The first whereof is that Rom. 11:16, "If the root be holy, so are the branches." I am
satisfied, that by the root the apostle doth not mean Christ, as some think; nor yet the covenant, as others; but Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, or rather Abraham alone. And it is clear, that the apostle is speaking here of the Israelites, to whom only Abraham was a root in respect of carnal generation; so that whatever advantage the Israelites may have of this, we Gentiles can have none, seeing he was none of our remote parents. It is true, the Gentiles may be the spiritual seed of Abraham: but this quite alters the case, if we would plead it in this matter; for now we speak of parents from whom infants descend by carnal generation. And the way how we come to be Abraham's seed, the apostle plainly tells us, Gal. 3:29. "And if ye be Christ's then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." If any shall say, that this is a general maxim, and may be applied to the Gentiles as well as the Jews; then unless the immediate parents be the root, by virtue of which their children are holy, as was argued before; so now, we crave 1. That it be shown how far we may go up to seek the root. 2. That it be manifest such infants are branches of a holy root. Yea, and it is reasonable in this case, such a remote parent be condescended on as had such a privilege as Abraham had, that he should be a root, whose remote seed should be holy: for however every godly parent is, by the covenant of God in which be enters, so privileged, that God is his God, and the God of his seed; yet I think none will make every believing parent equally privileged, in this matter, with Abraham; the Scripture holding forth Abraham's special privilege in the holiness of his seed, by any other person in the world. Now, where can we fix for such a one in the case of us Gentiles? But to speak plainly to the point, I am of opinion, that unless we be swayed with authority of men, there is nothing in this Scripture that appears for evidencing the right of the branches to the seals of the covenant; so that it hits not the point in hand. My reason for this is, That the branches the apostle speaks of here, was the body of the people of Israel, the offspring of Abraham, and natural branches of this holy root; which branches were already actually broken off and unchurched: so that whatever he said of them, they could have no right to the sacraments, unless you will make them common to them that are without the church, as well as those that are within. That the body of the Israelites was now broken off, is plain; so that it were in vain to prove it, while the apostle is treating so expressly of their reingraffing. And that they were the branches spoken of here, is evident to me from the scope
and design of the apostle, which is, to prove the calling again of the Israelites, and their reingraffing. For one proof of which he adduceth this argument, "If the root be holy, so are the branches;" but the root is holy: Ergo, the branches also. But holy branches, though cut off, shall be grafted in again. It is true, some of these branches were not broken off, viz. the believing Jews; for there were still some, amongst whom the Gentiles were grafted in, ver. 17. But the apostle needed not prove, that the believing Jews were holy; neither would it contribute ought to his purpose, so far as I can see; neither did the Gentiles boast against those branches that were not broken off, but against those that were broken off, ver. 18, 19, 20. "Boast not against the branches. Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off. Well; because of unbelief they were broken off." The only difficulty here is this, How branches broken off, or an unchurched people, can be said to be holy? I find one* arguing from this text for infant baptism, brings in this objection, "But what kind of consequence is this, If the root be holy, so are the branches?" which he solves, and senseth the text thus. "The apostle in the former verse speaks of a receiving in again of the Jewish nation, and brings in this as a ground to hope for it: There is yet a holy root which hath an influence on the branches; and argues, that if the root be holy, when the branches broken off shall be reingraffed, they shall be holy likewise." If this interpretation be received, the difficulty is removed; but I know none else that puts this sense on the text. It is true, no time is defined in the text, neither the present nor the future; for the words are ei he riza hagia, kai hoi kladoi. But if we read that of the branches in the future tense, why not also that of the root? But that which stumbles me mainly as to this interpretation, is, that it is utterly alien from the scope of the apostle, makes his arguing very jejune, and fathers on him a most palpable petitio principii: for thus says the apostle, according to him, The Jewish nation shall be received again; for when they shall be reingraffed, they shall be holy; which evidently supposeth the thing in question. But the learned man supports the cause with better arguments than this. Only by the by I cannot but notice, that Mr. Baxter upon that subject, adducing several arguments out of that chapter, makes no mention of any argument from the text under consideration. In whatever sense those branches broken off are said to be holy, it seems plain they are called holy. And, in my opinion, the branches of this root, or the body of that people which was now broken off, are said
to be holy; holiness being attributed unto them not universally, but indefinitely; and that not only in respect of particular persons, but particular generations of them. Abraham being the root, all that come or shall come of him, from the first child begotten of his own body, to the last of his race that shall be born in the world, are accounted the branches of this root, make up one collective body of branches, one seed, and one people; which, by virtue of the holiness of the root, is said to be holy. Thus we find the apostle speaks of them, ver. 15. "For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world; what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?" Where it is evident, the apostle understands not this receiving again of the particular generation, or the particular persons that were then broke off, as the event hath proven; yea, many generations have passed since, and they are not as yet received; but of this collective body of branches, which is said to be received again, when some of them are received. So ver. 24. "How much more shall these which be the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive?" Ver. 31. "Even so also these have now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy." Now, this holiness is in respect of separation to God by the decree of election; God hating so cast the lot of electing love, that it runs most eminently in that vein, or amongst the natural branches of the root; though it is, by the unsearchable judgments of God, like unto some rivers, that having run above ground a good space, get under the earth, and run there, (as Gnadiana in Spain, running under ground fifteen miles), and afterwards brake forth again, to run above the ground, till they empty themselves into the sea; as Ovid says of Lycus, a river in Lycaonia,
Sic ubi terreno Lycus est epotus hiatu,
Existit procul hinc, alioque renascitur ore.
So under the Old Testament dispensation, "Happy wast thou, O Israel; who was like unto thee?" Now their sun is overclouded, but we look for the day when all Israel shall be saved, Rom. 11:26. Or, if you please, call it a separation by virtue of the covenant with Abraham; all comes to one thing. Only this holiness of the branches, you see, can give no right to sealing ordinances. The apostle right clearly favours this interpretation, ver. 28. As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as
touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sakes." Why not holy, as well as beloved of God? not that every individual branch has share, either before God or the church, of the special love of God; but that that people, and collective body of branches, is so beloved of God by others, that out of them he will yet choose many to himself, having in a special manner pitched on that seed for vessels of glory. Thus God is said to have "so loved the world, [in opposition to fallen angels], that he gave his Son, that whosoever should believe on him, should have everlasting life." Even as a king may be said to love a particular family, when he takes one or two of that family, and prefers them, while he takes not any notice of other families, though he do not prefer every individual person among them. This is plainly confirmed by the apostle's reason, ver. 29. "For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance." Yea, and they are still called the natural branches, and the olive, their own olive, notwithstanding that they are broken off, ver. 24. And thus we see how the branches broken off are said to be holy. As to that Scripture, Acts 2:39. brought for confirmation of the point foresaid, it is plain, that notwithstanding they were Abraham's seed, and the promise was to them, and to their children, (in what sense we shall afterwards inquire), yet the apostle expressly pre-requires repentance to their admission unto baptism.
As to that other Scripture, Exod. 20:5, 6. "Shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me;" whence some learned men would prove infants' right to baptism from their remote parents: I suppose no such thing can be proven from hence. This promise doth not respect the children of wicked immediate parents, though the remote seed of the godly, as those learned men would have it; but only the children of immediate godly parents, to whom the Lord will shew mercy for their parents' sake, and that unto thousands, viz. successively godly; the Lord will still remember those their progenitors, in doing them good, and the longer the godly race has continued, one after another, in the love of God, the better shall it be for the children. Now, these few reasons incline me to understand it so.
I. If by the event we may judge of this promise, as doubtless we may, we shall find, that it cannot be understood as those that differ would have it. Take we an instance in the seed of Abraham. From Abraham to Christ, as
Matthew reckons, there are reckoned only thrice fourteen generations. However we understand the evangelist, it is certain, there were but a few generations in comparison of the thousand in the text; and yet a very little after, the Jews are broken off, and unchurched, and had no right to the seals of the covenant; and long before, the ten tribes, all the seed of godly Abraham, were rejected. Yet no doubt the promise of God remained sure; his truth failed not, though the wicked seed of Abraham was cast off, yea, and "wrath came on them to the uttermost," as the apostle speaks, 1 Thess. 2:16. I know, that to ward off this, it is said, the promise is only to be understood of those that are within the church. But, in my opinion, those who will be satisfied with this answer, are fixed before in the point in question, on some better grounds, or else they are easily satisfied: for it seems strange, to plead from this text in favour of the children of openly wicked immediate parents, for their right to the seals of the covenant, and yet to yield, that God may so far take away his mercy from them, notwithstanding of this promise, as to break them off utterly, and put them in the same case with pagans, while they, poor souls, were not capable to unchurch themselves; so that, notwithstanding of the piety of their remote parents, they are ruined by their nearest parents. I would think, that if this promise made over church privileges to such children, it should, in the first place, secure them from breaking off, and being cast out of the church; in regard it is made to go over the immediate wicked parents, and the mercy is to be shown to their children, being the remote seed of the godly. If any shall say, that, by virtue of this promise, the rejected Jews shall be received again, it is gratis dictum: for there is nothing here peculiar to the Jews, nothing which may not be applied, and belongs to the godly Gentiles, and their seed, as well as the Jews; and so ye may as well argue for the receiving in again of the Laodiceans, Thyatirians, &c. But however it be, notwithstanding of this promise, they are broken off for the time, and have no right to church privileges.*
II. Unless our interpretation be admitted, the promise and the threatening will be found inconsistent. For suppose the second generation of a wicked man be godly, and also the third, the promise and the threat both should belong to that third generation; the promise, because such a one is the immediate seed of the godly, and the Lord will shew mercy to thousands of them that love him; the threatening, because
he is the remote seed of the wicked, even the third generation; and the threat is, that he will visit the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation. And that such cases may and do fall out, who can deny? An instance of it take in the case of Rehoboam, whose son was like himself, 1 Kings 15:3. "He walked in all the sins of his father, and his heart was not perfect with the Lord." Yet Asa, the second from Rehoboam, did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, as did David his father, ver. 11. And the third, Jehoshaphat, was a godly man. See then, according to the interpretation of those that differ, if both the promise and threat belong not to Jehoshaphat?
III. Unless we expound it of the immediate seed of the godly, there are none, or at least very few in the world, not comprehended in this promise: for I think it will be hard to find any in the world that are a thousand generations removed from godly parents. And truly, if it be so very good and profitable to be come of godly parents so far remote, genealogies are no more vain under the New Testament than under the Old.
Thus it would seem, that children derive their church right to baptism from their immediate, and not from their remote parents. But I will add yet some more for proof of that point; and will try whether those texts alleged on the contrary, have led us to any thing that may be helpful to our purpose.
ARGUMENT I. The child stands coram ecclesia for church privileges by the same person or persons by whom he falls. This proposition, I think, cannot be denied in the matter of moral standing, and right to privileges, whether civil or religious; and of no other standing do we speak here. But so it is, that infants fall from church privileges by their immediate parents: Ergo, they stand by them. The minor is clear from the case of the Jewish infants at the rejection of that people. That their infants fell from all right before the church to the seal of the covenant, is clear; and I think none will doubt it: for they were the natural branches as well as others, and were capable of reingraffing; and the believing Gentile comes with his seed in the room of the unbelieving Jew and his. Well, then, the apostle tells us, it was "for unbelief they were broken off," Rom. 11:20. If so, then either because of their own, or their parents! unbelief; not
because of their own, for they were not capable of rejecting Christ in their own persons, if because of their parents' unbelief, then either of their remote or immediate parents; not because of the unbelief of their remote parents, for their root was holy, ver. 16: therefore because of the unbelief of their next parents. I think none will quarrel our reasoning from the ease of the Jewish children to those of Christians, but Anabaptists and Socinians. I see not what exception any would enter against this argument, unless it be, that these Jews who professedly rejected Christ; but the openly wicked Christians, of whom we speak, do not. But let the difference be what it will; though these Jews had turned professed Atheists, still it remains true, that unless their children had stood by them, they could not have fallen by them. I find Fulwood* brings in this as an objection against his doctrine, "That children stand in the visible church in their parents' right:" And answers, "That the infant's right is seated in itself, though it be derived from its parents." And this he proves by four arguments. But, in my opinion, he needed not have been at the pains; for I doubt if there be any that say the child's right is seated in the parent, whether it be understood of his right before God or the church. But sure it is, the child can have no visible right to the seals of the covenant, but as he is the child of such mediate or immediate parents, that have right to the same, and are members of the church; and his visible right stands or falls with theirs. So that it may well enough be said, that they stand in their parents' right, or that they stand before the church by their parents.
ARGUMENT II. If the repentance of immediate parents be necessarily pre-requisite unto their infants' right to baptism, (I mean the visible repentance of the parents to the visible right of infants), notwithstanding that such infants are the remote seed of undoubtedly godly parents; then infants derive their right to baptism from their immediate, not their mediate parents; but the antecedent is true: Ergo, the consequent also. The sequel is manifest. The assumption I prove from Acts 2:38. 39. "Repent, and be baptized for the remission," &c. Here are two sorts of persons spoken off, viz. adult persons, who were personally guilty of the murder of the Son of God; and their seed, or little ones. Both were Abraham's seed, at least most of them were so: for however these words, "and to as many as are afar off," &c. be explained; yet none can doubt but