A27008:13
Rich. Baxter's review of the state of Christian's infants whether they should be entered…
Rich. Baxter's review of the state of Christian's infants whether they should be entered in covenant with God by baptism ... or whether Christ, the Saviour of the world, hath shut all mankind out of his visible kingdom ... 'till they come of age? : occasioned by the importunity of Mr. E. Hutchinson (and of Mr. Danvers and Mr. Tombs) who called him to this review in order to his retractation [sic] ...Rich. Baxter's review of the state of Christian's infants whether they should be entered in covenant with God by baptism ... or whether Christ, the Saviour of the world, hath shut all mankind out of his visible kingdom ... 'till they come of age? : occasioned by the importunity of Mr. E. Hutchinson (and of Mr. Danvers and Mr. Tombes) who called him to this review in order to his retractation [sic] ...
London: printed for Nevil Simons, 1676
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.
But 1. If men will deny and scorn our Infant-Right in the Covenant of Grace, and in Christ, Pardon and Salvation; and Visible Church-Relation, and will so far deny the Kingdom and Grace of Christ, as to maintain that he excludeth all mankind from any Visible Right, or Hope of Salvation till Adult, and hath given such Right no more to Christian's Children than to Heathens! And if they will make this Opinion the measure of their Communion, and will divide the Church, and Unchristen, or Unchurch all that are not as unthankful and injurious to Christ, and to the Holy Seed as themselves, it is not I that separate from these men, but they from me, and all sober Christians.
And I will here add but these two or three Notes to the Reader; 1. If he will peruse two short Disputations which I have lately published of ORIGINAL SIN, (the Primary and Secondary) he will see it fully proved, that both Naturally, and by Supernatural Revelation God hath declared such an Interest of Parents and Children ⟨image 4⟩in each other, as is much of the Reason of all that I here plead for: And he that will accurately observe the whole current of the Scripture herein, shall find this Conjunct-Interest asserted from end to end.
2. I am past doubt that it is a principal design of Satan to mortify our Christendom it self, by keeping Parents from that intelligent and serious Covenanting with God, in their solemn dedication of their Children to him, which the greatness of the work and case requireth; and to turn our very Christening into a Ceremony, or lifeless Formality: And it is not the least part of my Non-conformity, that I dare not deliberately profess my Assent and Consent, that no Parent shall be suffered in the Church to enter his own Child into the Covenant of God, nor to speak one Covenanting, Promising, Undertaking, nor Dedicating word; (nor must be urged to be so much as present) But that Godfathers and Godmothers; who never give us any cause to believe that one of many thousands of them take the Child for their own, nor ever purpose to Educate him, or do what there they Vow and Covenant to do, must be the only Covenanting Undertakers; and so that so much notorious false Vowing to God, or Perfidiousness, must defile our Baptism: And now come these Anabaptists, and instead of