A47535:538
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.
Object. If we have no Scripture-Example to baptize Infants: no more have you for the baptizing such Persons as you do baptize, viz. those of Age, whose Parents were baptized and educated from their Youth in the Christian Religion; for evident it is, those we read of in the New Testament who were baptized, were such who were newly Converted either from Judaism, or Paganism, to Christianity.
Answ. What tho we have no Example in the Scripture of any besides such you speak of that were baptized, (that •eing the very beginning of that Gospel-Admini•••ation) yet is not the Commission a perfect Rule to succeeding Ages, as well as it was to that present Age? Evident it is that by virtue of the Commission, none were ⟨p. 163⟩to be baptized but such as are discipled, or first taught, before admitted to that Ordinance. If the person be a Believer, we have no ground to refuse him, because his Parents were Jews or Heathens; so we have no reason to receive others at all the more, because their Parents were Christians.
2. Can you prove that difference as to the state of the Parents (in respect of what you speak of) doth give you a warrantable ground to act contrary to the order and nature of the great Commission? Matth. 28. 19, 20. By the authority of which, the Apostles did baptize (and all Ministers ought to administer the same Ordinance to the end of the World.) The nature and order of the Commission cuts this Objection to pieces: For if the person be a Disciple, a Believer, he is to be baptized, let his Parents be Jews, Heathens, or Christians, 'tis all one. If you had the like grounds to baptize Infants, we should contend no longer with you.