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

And our Divines commonly say, In Baptism we engage our selves to a holy Life: those therefore which live not holily are covenant-Breakers, and herefore have not Right to the benefits of the covenant. See Piscat. in Mat. 3. Obser. ex v. 6 8.10. & in Mat. 28. v. 19. & Davenane is Col. 2.12. Peter Martyr in Rom. 6.3. Zanch. in Ephes. 5. loc. de Bapt. cap. 3 Thes. 37. many more I omit.

3. The Doctrine of the Ancients I have given a touch of elsewhere, as to these points. All that I shall now say is to desire the learned Reader (that hath not done it) to peruse all over that book of Augustine de fide & operibus, which is wholly written on this subject. There were then some Christians, whose opinion was, that if a Heathen lived in whoredom, when he turned Christian, he was not to be refused Baptism till he would promise Reformation, and would put away his whore; but because that the Apostles baptized upon believing, and required obedience afterward, and works are to be the consequent fruit of Faith, therefore the Pastor should first baptize them on their profession of Faith, and then help them on to obedience afterward. Yet were these men so far from imagining that it was not Justifying faith that is required to Baptism that upon that ⟨p. 303⟩supposition, they run into another error, which Augustine takes to be their worst and the root of the rest; and that was, That this Belief in Christ was the foundation, (meaning a dogmatical faith) and that an evil life of such baptized believers was but hay and stubble built on the foundation, and such should be saved, though as by fire. Against all this Augustine wrote that Book, and proves that such may neither be saved nor baptized, and that Faith is another thing, and Obedience of another necessity than they imagined. The Reading of this Book I expect will do more in this present Argument, to persuade most dissenters, than the perusing of all my Arguments, because of the Authority of Augustine, and especially of the Church, whose Practice he discovereth.