A39697:262
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.
Alas poor Infants, to what hard terms are they here tied up! Very much harder than the terms any of your one Society are tied to; and if Baptism must be suspended till this point can be cleared, that the person to be Baptized be first in Christ, and in the Covenant of free grace, as to the saving benefits thereof; Then farewell to all Baptism both of Infants, and adult professors too. For how can you prove that the persons you Baptiz• are all or any of them really in Christ? May they not deceive you as Simon Magus did Peter? I did not think you had proceeded ⟨p. 119⟩in this matter upon a Certainty, but a Probability; and if you proceed with yours upon the grounds of Probability, how come you to tie up the Children of Believers to a certainty of their Interest in Christ, as the antecedent suspending condition of their Baptism? We need dispute no more about the proper Subjects of Baptism, for by this account we have lost the Ordinance of Baptism it self.
Alas poor Infants, to what hard terms are they here tyed up! Very much harder than the terms any of your one Society are tyed to; and if Baptism must be suspended till this point can be clear'd, that the person to be Baptized be first in Christ, and in the Covenant of free grace, as to the saving benefits thereof; Then farewel to all Baptism both of Infants, and adult prof•ssours too. For how can you prove that the persons you Baptiz• are all or any of them really in Christ? May they not deceive you as Simon Magus did Peter? I did not think you had proceeded ⟨p. 119⟩in this matter upon a Certainty, but a Probability; and if you proceed with yours upon the grounds of Probability, how come you to tie up the Children of Believers to a certainty of their Interest in Christ, as the antecedent suspending condition of their Baptism? We need dispute no more about the proper Subjects of Baptism, for by this account we have lost the Ordinance of Baptism it self.