Certain disputations of right to sacraments, and the true nature of visible Christianity defending…

Argum. 6. My last Argument is, from the continued Custom of the Church of God (which with Paul was somewhat.) I confess, the Churches after the Apostles days did for divers ages prepare men long before they baptized them: True, they were Catechumeni before they were fideles, or baptized, But 1. That was not that they might have experience of the sanctity of their lives, as the necessary qualification of the persons to be baptized, but it was that they might instruct them in the Christian Faith, that they might know what they did, and be fit to make an acceptable Profession: and then, when they were prepared for such a Profession, they took the bare Profession it self as the evidence of the truth of the thing professed; still supposing, that it was such a Profession as is before described, and were not invalidate by contradiction, or the like: and therefore they did indeed expect, that those that lived in notorious scandalous sins should stop their course, and forbear the committing of them, as well as profess Repentance for them: because that it would have nullified their Profession, if they had committed the sin, even when they professed to repent of it. Therefore Austin in his Tractate de fide & operibus, on that subject, would have none baptized that were guilty of living with Concubines in fornication, unless they would actually put them away: and then promise to forsake them for ⟨p. 30⟩the time to come: but he did not advise, that they should after all this, delay yet longer, to see whether they would make good that promise by their performance. I conclude therefore, that the Apostles, and all the Church having so long accepted of a bare verbal Profession, we must do so too.

Argum. 6. My last Argument is, from the continued Custom of the Church of God (which with Paul was somewhat.) I confess, the Churches after the Apostles daies did for divers ages prepare men long before they baptized them: True, they were Catechumeni before they were fideles, or baptized, But 1. That was not that they might have experience of the sanctity of their lives, as the necessary qualification of the persons to be baptized, but it was that they might instruct them in the Christian Faith, that they might know what they did, and be fit to make an acceptable Profession: and then, when they were prepared for such a Profession, they took the bare Profession it self as the evidence of the truth of the thing professed; still supposing, that it was such a Profession as is before described, and were not invalidate by contradiction, or the like: and therefore they did indeed expect, that those that lived in notorious scandalous sins should stop their course, and forbear the committing of them, as well as profess Repentance for them: because that it would have nullified their Profession, if they had commited the sin, even when they professed to repent of it. Therefore Austin in his Tractate de fide & operibus, on that subject, would have none baptized that were guilty of living with Concubines in fornication, unless they would actually put them away: and then promise to forsake them for