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

The 3d. Argument is drawn from the Interest of the Church: They say, Those that are born within the Church, though of unworthy Parents, the Church may take them and present them to baptism. Answ. How are those born within the Church, whose Parents are no Members of the Church? (Of which more anon.) If the Parent be utterly unworthy, and the child can have no Right upon his account, then certainly he is not to be reckoned in the Church. And if you mean, that all those that are born among the members of the Church, or where they have Civil Rule, may by them be presented to Baptism; then the argument must be the same with that before, or so vain as to need no confutation: Unless the Church will accept the Children as their Own, according to the sense of the fourth fore-mentioned Title; and then any one Member may better do it than the whole Church.

Having spoken to the five pretended Titles distinctly, and showed you how far they are any of them allowable, and how far not; I shall proceed to the second Question in the beginning propounded, viz. [Whether that the Eventual Disposal of God by a Physical Act of Providence, do give any Right to the children of notoriously ungodly Parents to be baptized?] And I need not say much to this: 1. Because I know of none that plead this Right. 2. Because it is but a non-injustum, and I think scarcely so much as a Justum much less a Debitum, that is here grounded. 3. But especially, because it is unquestionably evident, that if this give any kind of Right, it is but to a Possession ad libitum Donatoris, after the reception; and not at all to the first Reception. And therefore it cannot with the least show of Reason be pleaded before-hand to enable any mans claim to Baptism, nor to enable a Minister to baptize any, nor yet ex post facto to justify the Act of the Baptizer or of the Baptized.

Having spoken to the five pretended Titles distinctly, and shewed you how far they are any of them allowable, and how far not; I shall proceed to the second Question in the begining propounded, viz. [Whether that the Eventual Disposal of God by a Physical Act of Providence, do give any Right to the children of notoriously ungodly Parents to be baptized?] And I need not say much to this: 1. Because I know of none that plead this Right. 2. Because it is but a non-injustum, and I think scarcely so much as a Justum much less a Debitum, that is here grounded. 3. But especially, because it is unquestionably evident, that if this give any kind of Right, it is but to a Possession ad libitum Donatoris, after the reception; and not at all to the first Reception. And therefore it cannot with the least shew of Reason be pleaded before-hand to enable any mans claim to Baptism, nor to enable a Minister to baptize any, nor yet ex post facto to justifie the Act of the Baptizer or of the Baptized.