A47535:401
Gold refined, or, Baptism in its primitive purity proving baptism in water an holy…Gold refin'd, or, Baptism in its primitive purity proving baptism in water an holy…
Gold refined, or, Baptism in its primitive purity proving baptism in water an holy institution of Jesus Christ ... : wherein it is clearly evinced that baptism ... is immersion, or dipping the whole body, &c : also that believers are only the true subjects (and not infants) of that holy sacrament : likewise Mr. Smithies arguments for infant-baptism in his late book entitled, The non-communicant ... fully answered / by Benj. Keach ...Gold refin'd, or, Baptism in its primitive purity proving baptism in water an holy institution of Jesus Christ ... : wherein it is clearly evinced that baptism ... is immersion, or dipping the whole body, &c : also that believers are only the true subjects (and not infants) of that holy sacrament : likewise Mr. Smythies arguments for infant-baptism in his late book entitled, The non-communicant ... fully answered / by Benj. Keach ...
London : Printed for the author, and are to be sold by Nathaniel Crouch ..., 1689
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Chapter 10: Wherein the great Arguments, and pretended Scripture-Proofs for Infant-Baptism, concern…
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.
there was an old Law wherein Infants were admitted to the Privileges of being Members of the National Church of the Jews, and so also it was in the old or former Will and Testament; but that Law was to continue but till Christ came, and now he has made a new Law wherein Infant-Church-membership is quite left out, and the Lord Jesus has made another Will, his last Will and Testament, wherein the old Privilege is not be queathed to Infants: Now is it not folly in you to plead for that old Privilege that was in the former Testament? you must find your Infant-Church-membership in the New Testament, as must also the Seventh-day-Sabbath-Men the old Jewish Sabbath*, or else they and you too say nothing, but render your selves weak and strangely be-clouded: and certain I am, there is now no Institution, no Law, no Prescription, no Rule, no Example for keeping the Seventh-day-Sabbath in the new Law, in the new and last Will and Testament of Jesus Christ; nor no Institution, no Law, no Precept, no Example contained therein for Infant-Church-membership, no not the least hint or intimation that Infants should be fellow-Citizens with the Saints, and of the Household, of God, neither are they so to be ⟨p. 115⟩accounted till they believe, and are to do Service in the House: for though we account our Children of our Family notwithstanding they can't do any Service therein, yet that is no Argument they may be Members of God's Church, unless by any Law or Institution God has made them so to be. The Household of God is called the Household of Faith, or a Family that consisteth of Believers; therefore unless you can prove Infants to be Believers, they are not of this House; for all that are to have admission there must be Believers, or profess themselves so to be,2 as Mr. Baxter acknowledges, or else no place for them there, which Infants cannot do.
there was an old Law wherein Infants were admitted to the Priviledges of being Members of the National Church of the Jews, and so also it was in the old or former Will and Testament; but that Law was to continue but till Christ came, and now he has made a new Law wherein Infant-Church-membership is quite left out, and the Lord Jesus has made another Will, his last Will and Testament, wherein the old Priviledg is not be queathed to Infants: Now is it not folly in you to plead for that old Priviledg that was in the former Testament? you must find your Infant-Church-membership in the New Testament, as must also the Seventh-day-Sabbath-Men the old Jewish Sabbath