A47591:1193
Light broke forth in Wales, expelling darkness, or, The Englishman's love to the ancient…Light broke forth in Wales, expelling darkness, or, The Englishman's love to the antient…
Light broke forth in Wales, expelling darkness, or, The Englishman's love to the ancient Britons [sic] being an answer to a book, intituled [sic] Children's baptism from Heaven, published in the Welsh tongue by Mr. James Owen / by Benjamin Keach.Light broke forth in Wales, expelling darkness, or, The Englishman's love to the antient Britains [sic] being an answer to a book, iutituled [sic] Children's baptism from Heaven, published in the Welsh tongue by Mr. James Owen / by Benjamin Keach.
London: printed by William Marshall, 1696
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 whereas some Fathers, viz. Ireneus, Justin, Clement, Tertullian, held that the Law of Nature had power to save the Gentiles without Christ. And again he saith, The Fathers have Errors, yea and sometimes gross ones. Doth not History tell us the Fathers used other Rites also, and that in Baptism? See Perkins, p. 549. The Fathers, saith he, used some other Rites and Ceremonies which are now omitted, as Kissing of the Child, which was baptized, in Cyprian, l. 3. ep. 8. use of Milk and Honey, use of Milk and Wine, Hierom in Is. c. 55.
It was an use for the Baptizer to blow in the Face of the Baptized; and the Party baptized used to Exuffiate the Devil, whom he renounced. What Credit is to be given to such Fathers?
Mr. Owen saith, That Infant-Baptism was so generally in the Church of God, that the Pelagians could not deny it, tho they denied Original Sin, against the which it was a Medicine. And that Bernard, who lived between the Year 1091, and the Year 1153, declareth it was the Practice of the Church in those Ages.
Answ. We deny not, but readily grant, that the Baptism of Infants was in the Church long before that time: And remarkable 'tis, that about 1091 or 1100, Popish Darkness was at its greatest height. And was it any wonder those Fathers gave Baptism to Infants when it was the Practice of those times before Bernard, to give Infants the Lord's Supper also, as well as Baptism? Which Mr. Owen knows well enough, if he hath read any thing of History.