A47605:211
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.
THE Rector Rectified, and Corrected: OR, Infant-Baptism Unlawful. › Chapter 2
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 indeed in this very respect the Gospel-Covenant is not according to the old, as the Lord said it should not be, as well as in divers other cases; for many of those who were in the old Covenant (to which Circumcision did appertain) were Infants, tho all of them were ⟨p. 51⟩not taken in by Circumcision: for Female Infants were received into that old Covenant without it. Now these Children who were taken into that Covenant, did not know the Lord. Infants having no Understanding, know not their right Hand from their left, it is therefore impossible they should know the Lord;1 and therefore also there was a necessity after they were in that Covenant, that they should be taught to know the Lord: First, that God is, and what a God he is, and so to know him, as to fear him and serve him in Sincerity.
- 1A necessity that Infants be taught to know the Lord.
But in the Gospel-Covenant God promised it should be otherwise; all who were received into that Covenant, should be Adult Persons, or such who did know the Lord, which plainly implies no ignorant Infant should be taken into that Covenant, and be a Member of that Church-State; for if so, then it would follow, such would have the like need to be taught to know the Lord, as they had in the old Covenant Church-State. And remarkable it is, that this Text doth clearly intimate, that all who should be taken into the Gospel-Covenant, or Gospel-Church, should be discipled or taught, first to know God: for to be taught or discipled, is all one and the same thing, which agrees with Christ's great Commission, Matth. 28.19, 20. where he gave Directions who, or what kind of Persons they were to be, that he would have his Apostles receive into his Gospel-Church: and that they should be all of them first taught or made Disciples, and as such be baptized, is clearly declared. Now that this Text in