A REPLY to Mr Philip Cary's solemn Call A friendly preface to the author,
ےک [ 158 ] Vindiciae Leg is et Foederis :
OR, A EP LY R To Mr. PHILIP CARY's Solemn Call ; Wherein he pretends to answer all the Arguments of
Mr. ALLEN,
Mr. BAXTER,
Mr. SEDGWICK,
Mr. ROBERTS , and BO For the Right of Believers Infants to BAPTISM.
By proving the Law at Sinai, and the Covenant ofCircumci-
sion with Abraham, were the very same with Adam's Covenant of Works, and that because the Gospel-covenant is absolute.
AfriendlyPREFACE to the AUTHOR of the Solemn Call, and the more discreet and charitable of the Party concerned with him in this Controversy.
Christian Friends, WH HEN we open our Bibles, and read that text, 1 Cor. i. 10. we have cause to deal with it as Origen once didbyanother scripture, even close the book and weep over it, in consideration of the weak and feeble influences such melting words, delivered with such a pathos, have upon the hearts of professors this day.
" Now, I beseech you, brethren, by the " name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the fame
" thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that " ye be perfectly joined together in the fame mind,and in the
" fame judgment."
1befeechyou] He dips the nail in oil,that itmaydrivethe easier.
I beseech you, brethren] A compellation breathing sweetness and affection, and should drop from our lips into each others ears with the fame effect that word once did upon
A friendly Preface to the Author.
the ears ofBenhadad's servants, My brother Benhadad.
Sirs, (faidMoses to the striving Ifraelites) yeare brethren. O when shall the church become a true Philadelphia !
I beseech you brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ] or as you love Jesus Christ, ut quantum ipfum am ant, tantumftudeat concordiae, faith Calvin : Be as studious ofconcord as you are free in professing love to Christ.
That there be no divisions] or rents among you : a Σχισμα, schism, or rent in the church, is much the fame, and altogether as dangerous as a Στασις, or sedition in the commonwealth, and harder to be cured.
For as the Lord Verulam truly observes,Differencesamongstperfecuting enemies and the church, are like the strivings of the Egyptian with the Ifraelite, which Moses quickly ended, by knocking down the Egyptian ; but diffentions in the church are like the strivingofoneIfraelitewith another ; and all that Moses can do to quiet and part these, is only by fair and gentle words, and reminding them that they are brethren.
Great is the mischief of divisions among Christians ; and the less the grounds and causes are,the greater always is the fin and mischief of them.
In the primitive church contentions grow fervent about meats lawful and unlawful, which did not profit, the meaning is, it greatly damnified them that were occupied therein, Heb. xiii. 9. Practical religion among them grew cold, as difputations about these trifles grew fervent.
The readiest way to cool such heats is, by discovering the trivial nature of the matter contended about ; as Demofthenes appeased the tumult among the people raised by a small occasion, by relating to them the story of a man that hired an ass to carry him a journey, but the fun shining fervent, he was forced to quit her back, and betake himself to her shadow ; the owner withstood him, all edging, that he had hired the body of the ass, but her shadow, was not in the bargain ; and so the contentionbetweenthem grew as hot as the fun. Many such trifles have raised great contentions in the world, witness the great contention betwixt the Eastern and Western church about keeping of Easter.
Other points there are of greater moment, about which good men contend, and yet these oftentimes are magnified much above their true intrinsical value.
So I am sure it is in the controversy before us. Mr. Cary tells us, that these things will be found at length to be of highest concernment unto us, and must therefore be our most serious practice, p. 243.
If fo, then the proper subject ofbaptifm must be one of those
A friendly Preface to the Author. that is of greatest weight, and the profession thereof the very
Schibboleth to distinguish one person from another in matters of religion.
No wonder therefore the fires of contention are blown up to such a vehement heat, even in such an improper season ; much like the contentionsamong theEnglishfugitiver at Frankfort, when their brethren were frying in the flames at Smithfield.
Just so must we be scuffling,whilst thousands of our brethren are bleeding inIreland. Had we a true sense of the quality of the subjects, or the unseasonableness of the time, it should certainly allay these heats among us. Did we see who stand by, and look with pleasure upon our follies, it would quickly allay our heats.
Tertullian tells the Christians of his time, that they were like the Funambulones, or men that walk upon ropes,the least tread awry might be their ruin, fo narrowly did their enemies watch them.
Sirs, the peace, safety and honourofthe dissenting interest are things of too great value to be hazarded amongst the hands of our common enemies. You may fancy they will neglect the advantage you give them; but if they do, the devil will call them fools for it. Mr. Herletells us of a king's fool, who wrote down the king himself in his table among his brother fools, because he had trusted an African stranger with four thousand pounds to buy Barbary horses. The king afkedhim how hewouldmake him amends, if the stranger should come again ? Why then (faidhe) I'll blot your name out of my tableoffools, and write down the African in your stead. Think not our enemies are such fools to neglect the advantage we cast into their hands.
It isa weighty note of Livy, Confilia non dant homines rebus,fed res hominibus ; Men do not counsel things, but time and things counsel men.
Methinks the poftures of times and affairs give us better counsels than we seem to be governed by in such work as this.
Divisions of forty years standing and more, about infants baptism,have eaten up the time, wasted the spirits, and alienated the hearts of En glish professors, divided them both in society and love ; by reason whereof God's pleasant plant in this resembles the bramble, which taking root at both ends,by reason of the rencounters of the sap,commonly withers in the middle.
Your brethren, in their Narrative from their General-Assembly, makeafad and sensible complaint of withering in the power of godliness. And truly we as well as they may complain with the church, We do all fade asa leaf: The Lord help us to discern the true cause, whether it be not the misplacing of our zeal, our being cold where we should be fervent, and fervent
A friendly Preface to the Author.
hotwhere it should be cold; and whether the eating up of fo much time and study about baptizing of infants, have not kept us these forty years in the infancy of our graces ?
I well remember that blessed time, when ours and yours were terms almost unknown amongst professors in England.
When their affections and prayers melted and mingledtogethersweetly in days of humiliation, and other duties of edifyingandheavenly communion ; and then churches began to flourish, and the graces of Christians every where flourished, and became fruitful: but no sooner did the saints divide in focietyandaffection, butthesepleasantblossoms were niptby it, as by a frosty morning; the church formed itself as it were,into two armies, set inbattalia against each other.
It was now with us much like as it is said of the amphisbena, that hath an head at either end, of which neither canwellmove without the consent of both; but, if each move a contrary way, the body tears in the middle.
I doubt not but many that differed from usbelongedtoChrist,the fame head with us ; and yet it is past doubt, that many who seemed to be of us were headedbySatan; and quickly discovered themselves to be so, by running farther than we first, or you next, imagined, even intoQuakerism, Socinianism,Ranterisin, and the foulest puddleandfinkofcomplicatederrors; of which animpartialftranger,underthename ofHonoriusReggius, αναγραμματικώς, GeorgiusHornius having heard the report in his own country, cameoveronpurpose into England for his particular and perfect information, and hath given the foreign churches a full andfad account thereof ina Latin narrative, which I have by me; whereby I find, that, if the Lord in mercy to us had not let inathirdpartywith the common calamity upon us all, we ourselves must in all probability have mutually ruined each other. But God saw other hands fitter for such dirty work than ours; and now it was time to reflect upon former follies, and tenewour ancient acquaintance in the common goals. And, through thegoodriefs of God;this did somewhat allaytheheats ofgoodmen,and gave us fresh hopes of an heartyandlasting
redintegration. We hoped the furnace might have purged our dross,andmeltedourhearts intounity, both by discovering the evils for which the Lord afflicted us, and the sincerity of the fufferershearts under those trials.
Christians, (faithMr. Jenkins) if we must die, let us die like men, by an unanimous holy contentionagainstthe common enemy; not like fools;
VOL. VIII:
A friendly Preface to the Author.
**by giving him our sword, and destroying one another by fchifms in our own bowels.'
Butalas ! alas ! no sooner is the rod off our backs, and a respite from sufferings given us, but we are presently founding an alarm to the battle again, and, to my for row, myself unavoidably engaged therein.
Friends, I have a witness in many of your bosoms, how peaceably and respectfully I have always carried it towards you, even to such a degree as began to bring me under the suspicion offome of your party, that I was inclining to their opinion, though I did not openly profess it.
But the true reasons of my moderation in this point were, (1.) That I ever did, and stilldolook upon many of you as Christians,found in the other great doctrines of the gospel. (2.)That there are difficulties in this controversy which may puzzle the minds of well-meaning Christians. (3.) I highly valued the peace of the church, anddurftdo nothing that tended to keep open the breaches upon a controversy of this nature,youbeingforpurity in doctrineandworship in most othercontroverted points, as well as we. (4.) I observed how rare athing it is for engaged parties to give ground.
Quivelit ingenio cedere, rarus erit .
• Mad difputants to reason seldom yield.'
(5.) My head, heart, and hands have been filled with better employments, from which I am extremely loth to be diverted.
IfBellarmine turned with loathing from school-divinity, because it wanted the sweet juice of piety, much more may I turn from such perverse disputes as these : Sure I may find as fair expofitions of scripture, and as accurate and legitimate distinctions among the school-men, as in Mr. Tombes's
Examen and Apology ; or (which for the most part is but a transcript of both) inMr. Cary'sSolemnCall. But I fee I must not be my own chufer ; I cannot now be both silent and innocent; fer in this Solemn Call I find the great doctrines of God's covenants abused bymyneighbonr ; the books dispersed intomanyfamilies related to me in this place, one of them delivered to me by the Author's own hands, with a pressingdefire togivemyjudgmentupon it: Several objections which I privately and seasonably sent him, to prevent the fin and folly of his attempt, pretended to be answered fromp. 164. adp . 183 .
Thus am I neceffarilybrought into the field of controversy : whither I come not a vohunteer, but a pressed man ; not out of choice,butneceffity. And now I am here, I resolve to be.onJyAdverfarius lit is, nonperfonæ, an adversary in the contro-