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

§. 3. And if Parents and Owners will not consent that their children be in Covenant with God and be baptized, I am not yet satisfied what remedy we have, nor who can do it for them to as good effect. For if any one may do it, as some plead, then all Heathens children may be so used and saved: And he that persuadeth me that there is extant such a Covenant or promise of God that he will save every Heathens child that is but by any one brought to baptism, 1. He must show me that text where this promise is. 2. And when he hath done, he will leave me persuaded that God will save all Heathens Infants whether baptized or not. 1. Because I and ten thousand more Christians would sit in our closets and offer to God all the Infants in the world; that is, consent that he be their reconciled God, and they his children and in Covenant with him: what good man would not desire ⟨p. 200⟩their salvation? 2. And I should not easily believe that God will damn them all merely for want of a strangers consent to save them, were that wanting. 3. Much less that when we do consent a thousand or ten thousand miles off, that all the children e. g. in China or Siana shall be baptized and saved, that this shall not hinder their damnation merely because the Infants and we are so distant that we cannot in sight and presence offer them to God: surely if my consent that a Turks child be baptized and saved will do it if he were with me, it may do it a mile off: and if so, then ten thousand miles off. 4. And if I be empowered to consent, I shall never believe that the bare want of the water will damn him, who hath all things else that God hath made necessary to his salvation (as I said before.) I think they give too much to Baptism, who say that God will either save any one by it, who wanteth other things necessary to salvation, or that he will damn any for want of it (that is, of the washing of the body) who want nothing else which is necessary to salvation. And I doubt they that say otherwise will prove dishonourers of the Christian Religion, by feigning it to be too like to the Heathenish superstition, laying mens salvation on a ceremony as of absolute necessity: And I am confident it is contrary to Christs redoubled lesson, Go learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy and not sacrifice:

§. 3. And if Parents and Owners will not consent that their children be in Covenant with God and be baptized, I am not yet satisfied what remedy we have, nor who can do it for them to as good effect. For if any one may do it, as some plead, then all Heathens children may be so used and saved: And he that perswadeth me that there is extant such a Covenant or promise of God that he will save every Heathens child that is but by any one brought to baptism, 1. He must shew me that text where this promise is. 2. And when he hath done, he will leave me perswaded that God will save all Heathens Infants whether baptized or not. 1. Because I and ten thousand more Christians would sit in our closets and offer to God all the Infants in the world; that is, consent that he be their reconciled God, and they his children and in Covenant with him: what good man would not desire