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

But what need we make any further enquiry, or dispute ⟨p. 173⟩against a man that professedly yields the cause? Hear his foregoing words, pag. 147. [His two first Arguments drawn from authority, the first of the Assembly of Divines, and others of a number of Fathers, are brought to prove that the profession of a justifying faith is required to Baptism: And what is that to me, who never denied it, but in plain words have often affirmed it? It sufficiently implied where I require a Dogmatical faith to Baptism. A Dogmatical faith assents to that of Apollo's, Jesus is the Christ; and when I say that this entitles, I cannot mean concealed or denied, but openly professed:] Reader canst thou tell what to make of this? is not here a plain concession, that a profession of justifying faith is requisite to Baptism? and doth he not aver that he never denied it? Perhaps we have disputed all this while without an adversary; as to Mr. Blake let it be so: and let us see the truth prevail, and I shall not be industrious to prove to Mr. Blake that he hath said the contrary. But yet me thinks its a marvellous thing that a man should so frequently express his mind against the necessity of the presence & profession of a justifying faith, as to Baptism, and for the sufficiency of a faith short of justifying, and the profession thereof, as a title to that Ordinance,¹ and now say that he never denied the Profession of a justifying faith to Baptism, but in plain words hath oft affirmed it. Read the words that I before cited out of him: read both his books and see how much of the scope of them is this way. And let the Reader when he hath done, tell us if he can, what Mr. Blake talked for. By the words an English man would think that he had at large argued for the sufficiency of a faith short of justifying, in re & profession, as to entitle to Baptism. But here he seems most expressly to deny it. I say, he seems: for I must profess that I dare not presume that I understand him here neither. For the rest of his book which I thought I understood, seemed as plain as this. I began once of think that a fraud lay under these words, and that it is here necessity of Precept only which he means when he saith that [a Profession of saving faith is necessary to Baptism] and not a necessity to means, or that it is sine qua non.

But what need we make any further enquiry, or dispute ⟨p. 173⟩