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

Answ. As if the Question had been about divesting a child of a Right which he had before, and not rather of the conveying of a Right which he had not. We suppose the child born after the Parents are excommunicate: And had that child a Right be•ore he had a Being? and so before it could be any subject of Right, you talk of unclothing him that was born naked and never clothed. We rather suppose that the new-born child must then receive a Right from the excommunicate Parent, or have none: and therefore conclude it hath none, unless on some other Interest then theirs.

Answ. As if the Question had been about divesting a child of a Right which he had before, and not rather of the conveying of a Right which he had not. We suppose the child born after the Parents are excommunicate: And had that child a Right be•ore he had a Be•ng? and so before it could be any subject of Right, you talk of uncloathing him that was born naked and never cloathed. We rather suppose that the new-born child must then receive a Right from the excommunicate Parent, or have none: and therefore conclude it hath none, unless on some other Interest then theirs.

It is further objected as to the Censure, [I never read that Church-Censures were like that plague laid on Gehazi, to cleave to him and his seed: See Deut. 24 16.]

Answ. Church censures deprive not the child of any Right that it had; for we suppose it unborn: but they show the Father to be in an incapacity of conveying it that Right which it never had. I say therefore to your Argument, The sin of the Parent preventeth the child's Right; and the Church censure declareth and judgeth it so prevented And on your grounds and arguing, why may not you say that the child of every Turk and Indian on earth hath Right? for their Parents