A39697:58
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
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 if your meaning be (as I strongly suspect it is) that we must not expect to be owned by Christ, except we give up Infants Baptism; then I say it is the most uncharitable, as well as unwarrantable, and dangerous Censure that ever dropped from the Pen of a sober Christian, 'Tis certainly your great evil to lay Salvation ⟨p. 3⟩it self on such a point as the proper Subject of Baptism, and to make it Articulus Stantis, vel cadentis Religionis, the very Basis on which the whole Christian Religion, and its Professors Salvation must stand. I hope the rest of your Brethren are more charitable than your self; but however it be, I do openly profess, that I ever have, and still do own you, and many more of your Persuasion, for my Brethren in Christ, and am persuaded Christ will own you too, notwithstanding your many Errors and Mistakes about the lesser and lower matters of Religion. Nor need your Censure much to affect us, as long as we are satisfied you have neither a Faculty, nor Commission thus solemnly to pronounce it upon us.
But if your meaning be (as I strongly suspect it is) that we must not expect to be own'd by Christ, except we give up Infants Baptism; then I say it is the most uncharitable, as well as unwarrantable, and dangerous Censure that ever dropt from the Pen of a sober Christian, 'Tis certainly your great evil to lay Salvation ⟨p. 3⟩it self on such a point as the proper Subject of Baptism, and to make it Articulus Stantis, vel cadentis Religionis, the very Basis on which the whole Christian Religion, and its Professors Salvation must stand. I hope the rest of your Brethren are more charitable than your self; but however it be, I do openly profess, that I ever have, and still do own you, and many more of your Perswasion, for my Brethren in Christ, and am perswaded Christ will own you too, notwithstanding your many Errors and Mistakes about the lesser and lower matters of Religion. Nor need your Censure much to affect us, as long as we are satisfied you have neither a Faculty, nor Commission thus solemnly to pronounce it upon us.