A47535:463
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.
Neither ought any Man to infer Federal Holiness to be intended here, unless he can prove from some other Text in the New Testament any such Holiness to be in Children, i. e. because Parents are Believers and in the Covenant of Grace, their natural Seed must therefore be so esteemed, and have the like Right to Gospel-Baptism as the Children under the Law had to Circumcision, which is no where to be found in all the New-Testament, but the quite contrary, as has been proved; and therefore this Interpretation ought not to be admitted,1 but utterly to be rejected in regard of what the Apostle Peter asserts.
Neither ought any Man to infer Federal Holiness to be intended here, unless he can prove from some other Text in the New Testament any such Holiness to be in Children, i. e. because Parents are Believers and in the Covenant of Grace, their natural Seed must therefore be so esteemed, and have the like Right to Gospel-Baptism as the Children under the Law had to Circumcision, which is no where to be found in all the New-Testament, but the quite contrary, as has been proved; and therefore this Interpretation ought not to be admitted,1 but utterly to be rejected in regard of what the Apostle Peter asseres.
How false and ridiculous therefore is that which Mr.1 Smithies hath lately affirmed: Whensoever, saith he, God enters into Covenant with the Parent, he enters into Covenant with the Children of that Parent; that is, the Children were included in the Covenant, and the Blessings of that Covenant belonged to the Children as well as to the Parent. They that will build their Faith upon such kind of Men deserve to be deceived, who speak what they please, and prove nothing; as if this was so because Mr. Smithies says it. I must charge it upon him as false Doctrine, (1.) As being quite contrary to the Nature of the Gospel-Dispensation and Constitution of the New Testament-Church, wherein the Fleshly Seed are rejected and cast out in respect of Church-Privileges and Ordinances. (2.) What is this but to entail Grace to Nature, and Regeneration to Generation? in opposition to what our Saviour saith,