A47591:1324
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.
1. I answer, this quite overthrows your Infant Baptism, unless you Presbyterians do believe as the Church of England doth, or at leastwise, what they affirm, viz. ⟨p. 236⟩that Baptism doth regenerate the Child, is Baptism an Ordinance or Sacrament of Regeneration, i. e. to regenerate Persons, or to hold forth that regeneration, or the New Birth is wrought in such that are baptized, why then do you baptize Infants, who are not the Subjects of Regeneration? Can they die to Sin, and are they raised up out of the Water new Born Creatures, to walk in newness of Life.
2. If your Infants are new born, or born again by Baptism, no doubt the Food of the new Creature, viz. the Lord's Supper ought to be given to them. The first Sacrament holds forth, 'tis clear, a Person born again, or a Babe of Grace; the other is Food, fit and proper for that New born or Regenerated Person, that he may grow thereby, therefore they belong both to one and the same Subjects, and neither of them it appears from hence do belong to Infants, but
3. Are all the Infants that you baptize, let in as Members of your Church, are they absolutely Members of your Congregations, as having the Ordinance of Admission, is the Door of God's House opened to them? How can you then (say I) deny them the privilege of true and lawful Members, shall your little Members, your Lambs in Christ's Fold being New Born be starved, what shall the regenerated Babe not be fed with the Food of their Fathers House?
3. Are all the Infants that you baptize, let in as Members of your Church, are they absolutely Members of your Congregations, as having the Ordinance of Admission, is the Door of God's House opened to them? How can you then (say I) deny them the priviledge of true and lawful Members, shall your little Members, your Lambs in Christ's Fold being New Born be starved, what shall the regenerated Babe not be fed with the Food of their Fathers House?