A41329:189
The plea of the children of believing-parents for their interest in Abraham's covenant, their…
The plea of the children of believing-parents for their interest in Abraham's covenant, their right to church-member-ship with their parents, and consequently their title to baptism. The cause of publishing this discourse after so many learned men have laboured in this province, is declared in the preface to the reader. By Giles Firmin.
London: printed for Tho. Simons, 1683
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.
This is true what Mr. Baxter saith, I prove what he saith, the believing Jew shall say, though God hath repealed his Covenant with my Seed, and cast them out of the Church, yet he hath given my Seed a better mercy, both my self and my children, if they could speak, would say, We would not be under Abraham's Covenant with our Parents, nor Church-Members with our Parents, as we were before Christ came, for Christ hath left us Infants a better Blessing in the room. As it was a great favour to the Israelites, that God gave his Oracles to them, Psalm 147.19, 28. That God was in Covenant with them, Ephes. 2.12. But God will null that Covenant, Heb. 8.13. It shall vanish away: But God will make another Covenant, new, a better Covenant, having better Promises in the room of that old vanishing Covenant: So that if Israels eyes be opened, they would say, they would by no ⟨p. 59⟩means be under the old Covenant, this new is so much better. Thus let the Anabaptists tell us what God hath left better for the Infant-Seed of a Jew now believing in Christ, that now it would not be Church-member with the Parents, nor under Abraham's Covenant, nor would now be baptized, as before Christ they were circumcised: For my part I can conceive nothing; keep to the state of the Question.
9. There is so much evil in this Doctrine and Practice of the Anabaptists, that we must have clearer Scriptures than ever were produced as yet to prove it, and clear it from that evil.
As 1. For the blessed God; How doth […] dishonour him in straitening his Love and Grace now under the Gospel, over it was under the Law. Moses tells the Jews,