The defence of the nonconformists plea for peace, or, An account of the matter…

§ 2. If any say the Church doth not make it a Sacrament, I answer: 1. It is not the Name that we contend about, but the thing. 2. I have before proved it by the Constitutive parts which you answer not. 3. If Christ had Instituted the Cross as the Church doth, [as a Badge of our Christianity, dedicating the Child to God as a solemn Covenanting Figure, by which the Minister in God's Name, and in the Persons, pronounceth him Consecrated and engaged, as signifying both God's part or Grace of the Covenant, and Mans part or Duty.] I ask, Whether you would not have c••led this a Sacrament? And if it want but Divine Institution and Benediction, it wanteth indeed a due Efficient, but it is still a Humane Sacrament, though not a Divine; and therefore an unlawful Sacrament. I would but know whether Men may make New Sacraments of the Covenant of Grace, or not? If yea, how many? and Quo jure?

§ 2. If any say the Church doth not make it a Sacrament, I answer: 1. It is not the Name that we contend about, but the thing. 2. I have before proved it by the Constitutive parts which you answer not. 3. If Christ had Instituted the Cross as the Church doth, [as a Badg of our Christianity, dedicating the Child to God as a solemn Covenanting Figure, by which the Minister in God's Name, and in the Persons, pronounceth him Consecrated and engaged, as signifying both God's part or Grace of the Covenant, and Mans part or Duty.] I ask, Whether you would not have c••led this a Sacrament? And if it want but Divine Institution and Benediction, it wanteth indeed a due Efficient, but it is still a Humane Sacrament, though not a Divine; and therefore an unlawful Sacrament. I would but know whether Men may make New Sacraments of the Covenant of Grace, or not? If yea, how many? and Quo jure?

§ 3. And God's Prohibition, Deut. 12. of adding or diminishing, is not washed away so easily as your words would make Men believe. You say, It reacheth to the whole Duty of Man, and Government of the Church, &c. Ans. There be some things in the Duty of Man and Church-Matters, that God hath left to Man: To do those is no addition to God's Laws: But to do the like work that God by his Law hath done, which he never left to Man, seemeth to me the Addition there forbidden: e.g. If Men had made another Tabernacle, another Ark of the Covenant, another holy Vestment for Aaron, another Sacrament like Circumcision, or the Passover; he that so reproved their worshipping in the High Places, would have reproved these.