that the visible members thereof an only such as are apparently believers.
and another visible; but one church, that in one respect is visible, in another respect invisible: Christ is not a head with two bodies, but we are "all baptized into one body," and mystical "Christ is but one," 1 Cor. 12:12, 13. If then the true members of the church are only believers, it is plain that the visible members thereof an only such as are apparently believers. If we judge in thesi that believers only are true members of the church, when we come to judge in hypothesi as to this or that particular person, we cannot judge him a true member but as he appears to be such. As to the assumption, the body of Protestant divines will bear me out in it; whose constant doctrine against the Papists is, That the wicked, hypocrites, and reprobates, who outwardly profess the faith, are not true members of Christ's church; but only the godly and faithful, who not only profess faith, but indeed believe and are regenerate, are to be judged true members of the church.
ARGUMENT IX. If none but visible believers have right to baptism before the church, and infants derive their visible right thereto from their immediate parents; then none but the children of visible believers have right to baptism before the church. The antecedent hath been already proven in both its parts, and the consequence is too evident to be denied. The Scripture is so plain and full, in asserting, that no adult persons but such as are visible believers ought to be baptized, that I can see no evasion from the force of this argument, for those that do not derive the infant's right from the remote parents, but require evidence of the baptism of one of the immediate parents; whereby they plainly suspend the visible right of the infant on the visible state of the next parent; unless they say, either that one can give what he hath not to himself, or that the parent's baptism, notwithstanding of his gross ignorance of the fundamental points of religion, or of his openly vicious life, never having had so much as a form of godliness, be a sufficient evidence of his faith as to us: the absurdity whereof I will not stand to prove, being under no temptation to suspect the truth of it, but assured, by the Lord's word, that we ought to judge of the tree by its fruits.
ARGUMENT X. Lastly, I shall conclude with this, That the way we plead for seems to have the advantage of the other, in that it apparently hath a more direct tendency to the advancement of the great ends of the gospel;