A26959:406
More proofs of infants church-membership and consequently their right to baptism, or, A second…
More proofs of infants church-membership and consequently their right to baptism, or, A second defence of our infant rights and mercies in three parts ... / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed for N. Simmons and J. Robinson, 1675
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
SECT. CVII, CVIII.
R. B. And now I have gone thus far with you, in an enquiry into the truth, I entreat you be not too much offended with me, if I conclude with a few applicatory questions to your self. Quest. 1. Is it not an undertaking as palpably absurd as most ever any learned sober Divine in the world was guilty of, to maintain that [Infants were visible Church-members not by any promise or precept, but by a transeunt fact, and that there was no law or ordinance determining it should be so, but only a fact of God, ⟨p. 151⟩which is a transeunt thing not repealable?]
R. B. ANd now I have gone thus far with you, in an enquiry into the truth, I entreat you be not too much offended with me, if I conclude with a few applicatory questions to your self. Quest. 1. Is it not an undertaking as palpably absurd as most ever any learned sober Divine in the world was guilty of, to maintain that [Infants were visible Church-members not by any promise or precept, but by a transeunt fact, and that there was no law or ordinance determining it should be so, but only a fact of God, ⟨p. 151⟩which is a transeunt thing not repealable?]
But either by this fact you mean Legislation and Covenant-making, or not: if you do, what a saying is it that Infants were made Church-members not by Covenant, but by a Covenant-making, not by a Law, but by a Law-making? If not, either you must say, that God makes duty without any law, and gives right to the benefit without any promise, or Covenant-grant as the cause; or else, that it is no benefit to have right to Church-membership, and no duty to enter into that relation, and to accept of that benefit, and to be devoted to God. Which ever of these ways you choose (and one you must choose, or change your opinion) hath the world heard of any more unreasonable and ridiculous, or else more unbeseeming a Divine, from a learned sober man of that profession? Pardon the high charge: Let the indifferent judge.