The way to true happiness in a serious treatise /

Thus I have showed, that it is not enough to evidence a man to be regenerate, that he hath been baptized; effectual grace not necessarily accompanying baptism, as some have vainly asserted. But I must answer one Objection before I pass.

Thus I have shewed, that it is not enough to evidence a man to be regenerate, that he hath been baptized; effectual grace not necessarily accompanying baptism, as some have vainly asserted. But I must answer one Objection before I pass.

Obj. The Sacraments do certainly attain their ends, where man doth not ponere obicem, or lay some obstruction, which Infants do not.

Sol. I answer, it is not the end of Baptism to regenerate, 1. Because then there would be no reason, why it should be confined only to the seed of Believers: for both the law of God, and the nature of Charity, requires us to use the means of conversion for all, as far as we can have opportunity. Were this true, no such charity as to catch the children of Turks and Heathens, and baptize them, and dispatch them to Heaven out of hand; like the bloody Wretches, that made the poor Protestants (to save their lives) to swear they would come to Mass, and that they would never depart from it, and then put them forthwith to death, saying, They would hang them while in a good mind. 2. Because it presupposeth regeneration, and therefore cannot be intended to confer it. In all the express instances in Scripture, we find that baptism doth suppose their repenting, believing, receiving the Holy Ghost, Acts 8. 37. Acts 2. 38. Acts 10. 47.