A47605:120
The rector rectified and corrected, or, Infant-baptism unlawful being a sober answer to a…
The rector rectified and corrected, or, Infant-baptism unlawful being a sober answer to a late pamphlet entitled An argumentative and practical discourse of infant-baptism, published by Mr. William Burkit, rector of Mildin in Suffolk : wherein all his arguments for pedo-baptism are refuted and the necessity of immersion, i.e. dipping, is evidenced, and the people falsely called Anabaptists are cleared from those unjust reproaches and calumnies cast upon them : together with a reply to the Athenian gazette added to their 5th volume about infant-baptism : with some remarks upon Mr. John Flavel's last book in answer to Mr. Philip Cary / by Benjamin Keach.The rector rectified and corrected, or, Infant-baptism unlawful being a sober answer to a late pamphlet entituled An argumentative and practical discourse of infant-baptism, published by Mr. William Burkit, rector of Mildin in Suffolk : wherein all his arguments for pedo-baptism are refuted and the necessity of immersion, i.e. dipping, is evidenced, and the people falsly called Anabaptists are cleared from those unjust reproaches and calumnies cast upon them : together with a reply to the Athenian gazette added to their 5th volume about infant-baptism : with some remarks upon Mr. John Flavel's last book in answer to Mr. Philip Cary / by Benjamin Keach.
London: printed by John Harris, 1692
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
Suppose a Man should make his Will, and bequeath such or such Legacies to such and such Persons; and yet afterwards he abrogates that Will, and makes another, which is his last Will and Testament, in which he leaves out the Names of those Persons, and doth not bequeath those Legacies to them; Can they recover those Legacies by virtue of the old abrogated Will? The case is the same here; If Infants have right to Baptism and visible Church-Membership, it ⟨p. 29⟩must be found in Christ's Gospel, which is his last Will and Testament, or they have no such Right you may be sure, nor ought to be baptized; He took away the first, that he might establish the second, Heb. 10.2.
Your second Answer to this Objection, viz. That Infants are no where commanded to be baptized, is this, viz. Although they are not, say you, particularly named, yet are they necessarily included in the Commission, Mat. 28.19, 20. Infants being a very considerable part of all Nations; surely the universal (all Nations) does include the Individuals, tho our Saviour does not particularly name them. To clear this, you make use of a Similitude. Suppose, say you, the King should grant his Royal Charter to make this your Market-Town a Corporation, and all the Inhabitants of it Free-Men, would any be so idle as to suppose that this Royal Grant doth not include your Children, because it doth not particularly name them? Is not the Son of a Free-man a Free-man as well as his Father? Thus in the Sacred Charter and Royal Patent of the Covenant of Grace, which is sealed by Baptism; all the Privileges and Promises of that Covenant granted to Believers, concern their Children as well as themselves, Acts 2.38. The Promise is to you and to your Children; the Promise of the Covenant belongs to you and to yours. The Infants then of Believers are included together with themselves, tho not particularly named.