A47535:56
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 1: Wherein the Baptism of Water is proved to be that intended in the Commission, and so a…
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.
No doubt had Water-Baptism ceased, or been abolished, we should have had some discovery of it as well as we have of the Ceasing of Circumcision and other Rites of the Mosaical Law; for the Apostles, we find, were as ready, and as careful ⟨p. 15⟩to make known the Cessation of such Rites, as Carnal Ordinances that were not to abide in the Church, as they were in establishing and confirming all those Precepts they knew were to continue to the end of the World.
If therefore, I say, Water-Baptism must not have remained, or if it were not, according to Christ's Will and Testament an inseparable Companion of his Doctrine, we should have had some hint or intimation of it, either by Christ's own Mouth, or by the Mouths of his Apostles, who were to deliver and command nothing to People, but what they had received of the Lord Jesus, or what was commanded them of the Lord as concerning the Cessation of that Service, or any Toleration of any one Person to omit it, but as we find it given forth by Christ, and practised by his Apostles and Primitive Saints, even from the beginning of it, which was in John's baptizing in Water. So we find it, ad jure, to continue as part of his Mind and Testament, amongst other things, not a tittle of which Testament is yet annihilated, nor shall, till he come to take an account of all Men in respect of their Obedience or Disobedience, as to the preceptory part of his Will contained therein.
But furthermore, whereas these Objectors seem to intimate, that Jesus Christ was not commanded, or commissionated from the Father to baptize with Water as John was, because 'tis said by John, I verily baptize you with Water, but he shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit; as if Christ had nothing to do to meddle with the Baptism of Water as any Ordinance of his, or to give any order about it, or had any more power to dispense or enjoin it, than John had power to meddle in, or take upon him to baptize with the Spirit,