A47535:487
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 12: Containing an Answer to several other Arguments brought for Infant-Baptism.
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.
and if you say, Bells are not capable of the use and end of Baptism; we have proved the like concerning Infants. If God had pleased, he could have made them by an Institution capable of some sacred usefulness, yea capable of Relative Holiness or Consecration, as Aaron's Bells; Nay, and since we read of Bells of the Horses that should be Holiness to the Lord, Zech. 14. 20. Why may not that Text be a Proof that Bells in Churches should be baptized, and so made holy likewise? There are those you know who plead for that Practice (and have baptized them for many Ages) and they say there is as much ground from Scripture to do ⟨p. 149⟩that, as there is to […] Children, both depending, as they will tell you, upon the Authority of the Church.
and if you say, Bells are not capable of the use and end of Baptism; we have proved the like concerning Infants. If God had pleased, he could have made them by an Institution capable of some sacred usefulness, yea capable of Relative Holiness or Consecration, as Aaron's Bells; Nay, and since we read of Bells of the Horses that should be Holiness to the Lord, Zech. 14. 20. Why may not that Text be a Proof that Bells in Churches should be baptized, and so made holy likewise? There are those you know who plead for that Practice (and have baptized them for many Ages) and they say there is as much ground from Scripture to do ⟨p. 149⟩that, as there is to 〈…〉 Children, both depending, as they will tell you, upon the Authority of the Church.
Sad it is that such a Gap as this should be opened to all or any Inventions or Traditions of Men: remember who it was that said, Add thou not to his Word. That God has in all Ages testified his Abhorrence of Will-worship, and that from this very reason, because he commanded them not: