A39697:204
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
A REPLY TO Mr. Philip Cary's Solemn Call. › Section 3 › Argument 5: Argument V.
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.
Reply. Here you grant all that Mr. Allen objects, viz. That you are altogether without Example or President for your Practice; And object to him and us what neither he nor we ever scrupled or denied, viz. The Baptizing of some adult Persons upon the personal Profession of their Faith. I have done it my self, and in like Circumstances am ready to do it again. Once you clearly yield it, that you have no President nor Example for your Practice in the Gospel. That's all that he seeks, and what he seeks you plainly grant. As to the Precept and Examples of Baptizing adult Believers, whose Parents were Unbelievers, and themselves never baptized in Infancy; that's not the Point you are now to speak to: Nor have we any Controversy about it. Certainly you are none of the fittest Persons in the World, to clamour so loudly against us for want of express Presidents for Infant Baptism, whilst your self confesses you want even one President in the New Testament to legitimate your own Practice; and in the mean time are found in the sinful neglect of a sweet and heavenly Gospel-Ordinance, viz. the singing of Psalms, for which ⟨p. 85⟩you have both Precept and President in the Gospel, Col. 3. 16. James 5. 13. 1 Cor. 14. 26.
Reply. Here you grant all that Mr. Allen objects, viz. That you are altogether without Example or President for your Practice; And object to him and us what neither he nor we ever scrupled or denied, viz. The Baptizing of some adult Persons upon the personal Profession of their Faith. I have done it my self, and in like Circumstances am ready to do it again. Once you clearly yield it, that you have no President nor Example for your Practice in the Gospel. That's all that he seeks, and what he seeks you plainly grant. As to the Precept and Examples of Baptizing adult Believers, whose Parents were Unbelievers, and themselves never baptized in Infancy; that's not the Point you are now to speak to: Nor have we any Controversie about it. Certainly you are none of the fittest Persons in the World, to clamour so loudly against us for want of express Presidents for Infant Baptism, whilst your self confesses you want even one President in the New Testament to legitimate your own Practice; and in the mean time are found in the sinful neglect of a sweet and heavenly Gospel-Ordinance, viz. the singing of Psalms, for which