More proofs of infants church-membership and consequently their right to baptism, or, A second…

SECT. XXVII.

R. B. THE fifth Question requireth me to lay down this assertion, that [there is no Law or Precept of God which doth not oblige to duty; and no actual promise or donation, which doth not confer the benefit.] This I aver on occasion of your last Letter, where in contradiction to the former, you confess [the promises to the natural posterity of Abraham, Gen. 17. and the Covenants made with Israel at Mount Sinai, and Deut. 29. and a precept of Circumcision, and precepts of God by Moses, of calling the people, and requiring them to enter into Covenant, Exod. 19. Deut. 29.] Yet you [do not conceive that the Infants of Israel were made visible Church-members by the promises in the Covenants, or the precepts forenamed.] If so, then either you imagine that among all those precepts and promises there was yet no promise or Covenant that gave them the benefit of Church-membership, or precept concerning their entrance into that state; or else you imagine that such promises were made, but did not actually confer the benefit, and such precepts were made, but did not actually oblige. Your words are so ambiguous in this, that they signify nothing of your mind to any that knows it not some other way. For when you say [there is no such particular promise concerning Infants visible ⟨p. 55⟩Church-membership, or precept, &c. besides Circumcision, as in my Book of Baptism I assert,] who knows whether that exception of [Circumcision] be a concession of such a precept or promise in the case of Circumcision? or if not, what sense it hath? and what you imagine that precept or promise to be which I assert? and before the sense of your one syllable [such] is discerned by trying it by a whole volume, I doubt you will make what you list of it. However if you should mean, that such precepts there are as have for their subject [the avouching God to be their God, the entering into Covenant Circumcision] of Infants, but not their Church-membership; then, 1. I have proved the contrary to the negative before; 2. And more shall do anon; 3. And it's a palpable contradiction to the precedent affirmative. But if you mean that Church-membership of Infants as well as others is the subject or part of the subject of those promises or precepts, and yet that Infants were not made or confirmed thereby;