A26959:747
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.
§. 55. And if Cyprian was Antichristian, where then was the Church of Christ? It will be hard to answer Papist or Seeker about its visibility, or Infidel about its reality: And what a King do ⟨p. 278⟩they make Christ that make him to have no Kingdom, that they can prove to have been existent —
§. 56. We will easily grant him that Cyprian de unit. Eccl. is abused by the Papists, and the very words thrust in are proved so to be by many Copies that have them not: Yea, Jeremy Stephens saith that there are eight Copies in England which omit twenty three of the Epistles which are commonly received (and it's most credible by other Copies are Genuine:) And yet none of these leave out the Epistle to Fidus about Infant-baptism.
§. 57. And whereas he saith that Cyprian urged not Tradition, I answer, there was no cause: For the question was not whether Infants should be baptized; much less whether they were to be dedicated in Covenant to God, and to be Church-members; but only whether they should be baptized before the eighth day: For Fidus thought that at one two or three days old they were so unclean as made them unmeet for baptism, and that the eighth day was the time of their purification; which Cyprian and the sixty six Bishops confuted, and showed that Gods mercy accepteth them from the beginning without respect to legal days. And what use was here for a plea from Tradition for Infant-baptism, which was not denied?
§. 57. And whereas he saith that Cyprian urged not Tradition, I answer, there was no cause: For the question was not whether Infants should be baptized; much less whether they were to be dedicated in Covenant to God, and to be Church-members; but only whether they should be baptized before the eighth day: For Fidus thought that at one two or three days old they were so unclean as made them unmeet for baptism, and that the eighth day was the time of their purification; which Cyprian and the sixty six Bishops confuted, and shewed that Gods mercy accepteth them from the beginning without respect to legal days. And what use was here for a plea from Tradition for Infant-baptism, which was not denied?