A47535:439
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 11: Wherein many other pretended Scripture-Poofs and Arguments for the baptizing of Infants…
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 none does the business better than the Learned Bishop Taylor; For,1 saith he, the Water and Spirit in this place, signifies the same thing; and by Water is meant the Effects of the Spirit cleansing and purifying the Soul, as it appears in its parallel place, Christ's ⟨p. 130⟩baptizing with the Holy Ghost and with Fire: for although this was literally fulfilled in the day of Pentecost; yet morally there is more in it; for it is the sign of the Effect of the holy Spirit, and his Productions upon the Soul: And you may as well conclude, that Infants must also pass through the Fire, as through the Water. And that we may not think this a trick to elude the pressure of this place, Peter saith the same thing: For where he saith that Baptism saves us, he adds by way of Explication (not the washing away of the Filth of the Flesh, but the Answer of a good Conscience towards God) plainly saying that it is not Water, or the purifying of the Body, but cleansing of the Spirit that doth that which is supposed to be the Effect of Baptism. But to suppose it meant of external Baptism, yet this no more infers a necessity of Infant-Baptism, than the other words of Christ infer a necessity to give them the holy Communion, Joh. 6. 53. Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his Blood, ye have no Life in you; and yet we do not think these words a sufficient Argument to communicate with them: if any Man therefore will do us Justice, either let them give both Sacraments to Infants, as some Ages of the Church did, or neither: for the Wit of Man is not able to show a disparity in the Sanction, or in the Energy of its Expressions. And therefore they were honest that understood the Obligation to be parallel, and performed it accordingly; and yet because we say they were deceived in one Instance, and yet the Obligation (all the World cannot reasonably say but) is the same they are honest and reasonable that do ⟨p. 131⟩neither: and sure the Ancient Church did with an equal Opinion of necessity give them the Communion, and yet now adays Men do not; Why should Men be more burdened with a Prejudice and a name of Obliquity for not giving Infants one Sacrament, more than you are disliked for not affording them the other? Thus far Dr. Taylor. If what these great Men say is not sufficient utterly to invalidate this pretended Proof of Infant-Baptism, we know not what to say.