A39697:17
Vindiciæ legis & fœderis
Vindiciæ legis & fœderis: or, A reply to Mr. Philip Cary's Solemn call Wherein he pretends to answer all the arguments of Mr. Allen, Mr. Baxter, Mr. Sydenham, Mr. Sedgwick, Mr. Roberts, and Dr. Burthogge, for the right of believers infants to baptism, by proving the law at Sinai, and the covenant of circumcision with Abraham, were the very same with Adam's covenant of works, and that because the gospel-covenant is absolute. By John Flavel minister of the gospel in Dartmouth
London: printed for M. Wolton, 1690
Preface: A Friendly Preface to the Author of the SOLEMN CALL, and the more discreet and charitab…
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.
Other points there are of greater moment, ⟨image 4⟩about which good men contend; and yet these oftentimes are magnified much above their true intrinsical value. So I am sure it is in the Controversy before us. Mr. Cary tells us, that these things will be found at length to be of highest concernment unto us, and must therefore be our most serious practice, pa. 243. If so, then the proper subject of Baptism must be one of those that is of greatest weight, and the profession thereof, the very Shibboleth to distinguish one person from another in matters of Religion. No wonder therefore the fires of contention are blown up to such a vehement heat, even in such an improper season: much like the contentions among the English Fugitives at Frankfurt, when their brethren were frying in the flames at Smithfield. Just so must we be scuffling, whilst thousands of our Brethren are bleeding in Ireland. Had we a true sense of the quality of the Subject, or the unseasonableness of the ⟨image 5⟩Time, it would certainly allay these heats among us. Did we see who stand by, and look with pleasure upon our follies, it would quickly allay our heats. Tertullian tells the Christians of his time, that they were like the Funambulones, or men that walk upon Ropes; the least tread awry might be their ruin; so narrowly did their enemies watch them.
Other points there are of greater moment, ⟨image 4⟩about which good men contend; and yet these oftentimes are magnified much above their true intrinsecal value. So I am sure it is in the Controversie before us. Mr. Cary tells us, that these things will be found at length to be of highest concernment unto us, and must therefore be our most serious practice, pa. 243. If so, then the proper subject of Baptism must be one of those that is of greatest weight, and the profession thereof, the very Schibboleth to distinguish one person from another in matters of Religion. No wonder therefore the fires of contention are blown up to such a vehement heat, even in such an improper season: much like the contentions among the English Fugitives at Francfort, when their brethren were frying in the flames at Smithfield. Just so must we be scuffling, whilst thousands of our Brethren are bleeding in Ireland. Had we a true sense of the quality of the Subject, or the unseasonableness of the