A47535:504
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.
Answ. Did any Man assert till now the Baptism of Christ to be a Legal Rite, or rather that it sprung from Human Tradition? for 'tis evident the Jews were not required to baptize ⟨p. 153⟩them by any Appointment of God: for Circumcision was the Rite by which Proselytes (who were Males) were added to the Jewish Church.
Besides, doth not our Saviour plainly intimate, that John's Baptism was directly from Heaven, and not of Men? And if Baptism had been so frequently practised amongst the Jews, wherefore did they say to John, Why dost thou baptize, if thou art not that Christ, nor Elijah? Joh. 1. 25. But doth not Christ say, that the Doctrine he taught, he received from the Father who sent him? not from Moses nor the Jews:1 I have not spoken (saith he) of my self; but the Father which sent me, gave me Commandment what I should say, and what I should speak. Now Baptism is positively called a Principle of his Doctrine,2 it was he that instituted it and gave it forth, Mat. 28. 19, 20. as a pure Gospel-Ordinance, as the alone Sovereign Lord and Lawgiver of his Church. Moreover, if all those divers Washings and carnal Ordinances amongst the Jews are abolished, as you heard before; how came this supposed Jewish Rite to escape? These things considered, we may perceive 'tis Ignorance through Tradition that makes a Pedobaptist, or rather a No-Baptist, and not Ignorance (as he affirms) through length of time that makes an Anabaptist (falsely so called) Pag. 91. But 'tis the knowledge of God's Word, through the help of the Spirit, by which they, whom he so calls, come to cast off that unwritten Tradition of Babes Rantism, and to own no Baptism but that which Christ hath commanded, and was practised in the Apostolical Church.