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

It hath been the constant practice of the Catholic Church since the Apostles days till now, to require that Profession of saving Faith and Repentance, as necessary before they would baptize, and not to baptize any upon the Profession of any lower kind of Faith: Therefore it must be our practice also.

It hath been the constant practice of the Catholike Church since the Apostles daies till now, to require that Profession of saving Faith and Repentance, as necessary before they would bapt•ze, and not to baptize any upon the Profession of any lower kind of Faith: Therefore it must be our practice also.

And here I must confess my self in as great an admiration at the words and dealings of Mr. Blake and some godly learned Divines that go with him in this Cause, as ever I was brought to by the groundless confidence of such men. He must shut his eyes against the fullest Evidence of History and Church-practice, that will deny that it hath been the practice of the Universal Church of Christ to baptize upon the profession of a ⟨p. 196⟩saving faith, and not otherwise: Insomuch that I must profess that I am not (for my own part) able to prove that ever any one person since the days of the Apostles, was baptized upon the profession of any other faith, by any save the gross Heretics, even those whose Baptism was accounted invalid. I desire Mr. Blake, or his Neighbours of his mind, to help me to an instance of any one approved Baptism since Christs time, or his Apostles upon the account of a faith that was short of justifying, and not upon the Profession of a justifying Faith. Hitherto this is not done by them, & the contrary is fully done by others: and yet (to my admiration) they as confidently affirm that all the Church of Christ hath gone their way, or that it hath been their constant practice, and that they should forsake the example of the Church, if they should do otherwise: and they except against my Opinion as novelty. I must confess that such Experience hath brought me to lower thoughts of the credit even of good men than formerly I have had, and to resolve to try before I trust. One would think that the matter of fact in such a point as Baptism, which we all pass through, should have been out of question before this day.