A26959:651
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 4: Of Mr. Danvers's his Witnesses against Infant-Baptism.
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.
§. 3. His next and great Witness is the Donatists together. This is something, were it true: but it is such a kind of falsehood as I must not name in its due epithets, lest you think me over-sharp.
§. 3. His next and great Witness is the Donatists together. This is something, were it true: but it is such a kind of falshood as I must not name in its due epithets, lest you think me over-sharp.
§. 4. His words are [Donatus a learned man in Africa taught that they should baptize no Children but only that believed and desired it.]
Answ. Utterly false: And how doth he prove it? By Sebast. Frank. whom I will not search to see whether he say so or not. Reader, if the question be, what was done, said or held by thousands of men twelve hundred years ago, and the Writings of them and their Adversaries were extant, and the Histories written of them in that and the next Ages, would you have a man pass by all proof from these, and tell you what a fellow of his own opinion saith eleven hundred years after? ⟨p. 241⟩He brings us with great ostentation the Dutch Anabaptists Martyrology and such like Histories of a few years old, of fellows that knew little more than as he doth, what their Party or Companions told them, or what they ignorantly gathered from such Books as are yet to be seen by us as well as by them. If I should dispute what Augustine held, would Mr. D. fetch his proofs from the writings of James Nailor, or George Fox, or Isaac Pennington, yea or Mr. Tombs to prove his assertions, while Augustine's works are at hand to be seen?
Answ. Utterly false: And how doth he prove it? By Sebast. Frank. whom I will not search to see whether he say so or not. Reader, if the question be, what was done, said or held by thousands of men twelve hundred years ago, and the Writings of them and their Adversaries were extant, and the Histories written of them in that and the next Ages, would you have a man pass by all proof from these, and tell you what a fellow of his own opinion saith eleven hundred years after?