A26959:604
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
Chapter 2: More of my Judgement of the Anabaptists and their Cause, with a motion to them for peace.
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.
§. 8. Nor do I think that there is so much malignity ⟨p. 220⟩in the bare opinion which denieth Infant Baptism, as that all the Anabaptists miscarriages should arise from the nature of that opinion. But I am past doubt that they arise from the diseased minds of many that hold it. When injudicious persons lay hold upon an opinion which is not common, their singularity kindleth a proud selfish zeal, and they take that opinion as more peculiarly their own, than the common Articles which all Christians hold: And therefore they grow fond of it, and are puffed up thereby with a conceit of their extraordinary knowledge: And then they seem to themselves more religious than others, and greater friends to the truth: And so Pride and Ignorance engage them in singularity and separation: And thus they would do, were it any other opinion, which they thought as highly of as this: So that it is not an Anabaptist as such, but the proud Church-divider, or Separatist that I am most offended at.
§. 8. Nor do I think that there is so much malignity ⟨p. 220⟩in the bare opinion which denieth Infant Baptism, as that all the Anabaptists miscarriages should arise from the nature of that opinion. But I am past doubt that they arise from the diseased minds of many that hold it. When injudicious persons lay hold upon an opinion which is not common, their singularity kindleth a proud selfish zeal, and they take that opinion as more peculiarly their own, than the common Articles which all Christians hold: And therefore they grow fond of it, and are puft up thereby with a conceit of their extraordinary knowledge: And then they seem to themselves more religious than others, and greater friends to the truth: And so Pride and Ignorance engage them in singularity and separation: And thus they would do, were it any other opinion, which they thought as highly of as this: So that it is not an Anabaptist as such, but the proud Church-divider, or Separatist that I am most offended at.