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

1. If notoriously ungodly Parents have no right themselves to the Benefits of the Covenant, nor to be Baptized if it were now to do: then cannot their children have a right upon the account of any interest of theirs. But the Antecedent is true: Therefore the validity of the consequence is evident; in that no man can give that he hath none to give, nor can we derive any Interest from him that hath none himself. If any say, he may have an Interest for his child that hath none for himself; ⟨p. 257⟩I Reply. 1. Then the child hath not his interest in and with the Parent, nor as reputed a member of him. 2. That Interest must be produced and proved. I have not yet heard what it should be save what the next Objection intimates.

1. If notoriously ungodly Parents have no right themselves to the Benefits of the Covenant, nor to be Baptized if it were now to do: then cannot their children have a right upon the account of any interest of theirs. But the Antecedent is true: Therefore the validity of the consequence is evident; in that no man can give that he hath none to give, nor can we derive any Interest from him that hath none himself. If any say, he may have an Interest for his child that hath none for himself; ⟨p. 257⟩I Reply. 1. Then the childe hath not his interest in and with the Parent, nor as reputed a member of him. 2. That Interest must be produced and proved. I have not yet heard what it should be save what the next Objection intimates.

Why then may not the same be said of an Infidel, that he may have a right for his child, though none for himself? It is objected, that being himself baptized, he once had right to Church-membership for himself and his child; and though he hath lost this by Apostasy himself, yet there is no reason why his child should be a loser by his fall. Answ. 1. According to this objection the children of all Infidels, Jews, Turks, and Heathens should have right for their Parents sake, supposing those Parents to have been once baptized, and now to be Apostates. 2. But those children were either born before their Parents Apostasy, or after. If before, then I grant the Parent loseth not the child's right by Apostasy, because that right was fixed upon the child himself, upon the account of the Parents interest. And we may suppose him baptized thereupon, and so there is no cause for a doubt: For as the case is rare for a man that before was rightfully a Church-member to the outward appearance, to Apostatize between the Birth and Baptism; so I will purposely shun that Controversy, Whether the child by such Apostasy loseth his right, or whether a Baptized Infant be supposed excommunicate in the Fathers excommunication? For my part, I affirm no such thing: But if the child be born after the Parents Apostasy from faith or a godly life, then no man can say the child loseth any right by the Parents sin; for how can he los that which he never had. If you say the Parent had it for himself and his child; I answer, true, had he been sincere on supposition he had children; but not for those children he had not, though if he continue in the faith till he have them, he then hath hose Privileges for himself and them; they can be no subjects of right that had no existence; I grant he may have a grant of such right to him and his seed, as a Prince may grant to a faithful subject to him and to his heirs: But 1. This is on supposition that he will have heirs. 2. That he forfeits no his right before he hath heirs: otherwise as he apparently sth it to himself, so doth he to them: