Richard Baxters Answer.
Sir, I mean to see more said against what I have already written, before I will write any more about Infant Baptism, without a more pressing call than I yet discern. I have discharged my Conscience, and shall leave you and yours to take your course. And indeed I do not understand the sense of your Letter, because you so join two questions in one, that I know not which of the two it is that you would have me answer to. Whether ⟨p. 6⟩there were any Ordinances or Law of God that Infants should be Church-members? is one question: Whether this be repealed? is another: you join both into one. For the first, that Infants were Church-members, as you have not yet denied that I know of, so will I not be so uncharitable as to imagine that you are now about it: And much less that you should have the least doubt whether it were by Gods Ordination. There are two things considerable in the matter. First, the benefit of Church-membership, with all the consequent privileges. It is the work of a grant or promise to confer these, and not directly of a precept. Secondly, the duty of devoting and dedicating the child to God, and entering it into the Covenant which confers the benefit; and this is the work of a Law or Precept to constitute this duty. I am past doubt that you doubt not of either of these: For you cannot imagine, that any Infant had the blessing without a grant or promise, (that's impossible;) nor that any Parents lay under a duty without an obliging law, (for that is as impossible.) Taking it therefore for granted that you are resolved in both these, and so yield that such a grant and precept there was, there remains no question but whether it be repealed: which I have long expected that you should prove. For citing the particular Texts in which the ordination is contained, though more may be said than is said, yet I shall think it needless, till I see the ordination contained in those Texts which I have already mentioned to you, proved to be reversed. Nor do I know that it is of so great use ⟨p. 7⟩to stand to cite the particular Texts, while you confess in general, that such a promise and precept there is, by virtue of which, Infants were till Christs time duly members of Christs Church (for Christs Church it was) even his universal visible Church.
Richard Baxters Answer.
Sir, I mean to see more said against what I have already written, before I will write any more about Infant Baptism, without a more pressing call than I yet discern. I have discharged my Conscience, and shall leave you and yours to take your course. And indeed I do not understand the sense of your Letter, because you so joyn two questions in one, that I know not which of the two it is that you would have me answer to. Whether ⟨p. 6⟩there were any Ordinances or Law of God that Infants should be Church-members? is one question: Whether this be repealed? is another: you joyn both into one. For the first, that Infants were Church-members, as you have not yet denied that I know of, so will I not be so uncharitable as to imagine that you are now about it: And much less that you should have the least doubt whether it were by Gods Ordination. There are two things considerable in the matter. First, the benefit of Church-membership, with all the consequent priviledges. It is the work of a grant or promise to confer these, and not directly of a precept. Secondly, the duty of devoting and dedicating the child to God, and entring it into the Covenant which confers the benefit; and this is the work of a Law or Precept to constitute this duty. I am past doubt that you doubt not of either of these: For you cannot imagine, that any Infant had the blessing without a grant or promise, (that's impossible;) nor that any Parents lay under a duty without an obliging law, (for that is as impossible.) Taking it therefore for granted that you are resolved in both these, and so yield that such a grant and precept there was, there remains no question but whether it be repealed: which I have long expected that you should prove. For citing the particular Texts in which the ordination is contained, though more may be said than is said, yet I shall think it needless, till I see the ordination contained in those Texts which I have already mentioned to you, proved to be reversed. Nor do I know that it is of so great use ⟨p. 7⟩to stand to cite the particular Texts, while you confess in general, that such a promise and precept there is, by vertue of which, Infants were till Christs time duly members of Christs Church (for Christs Church it was) even his universal visible Church.
