Pietas in patriam the life of His Excellency Sir William Phips, Knt. late Captain…

and Thanks be to God, that we have so little of suffering in our Circumstances. But if any Man count himself grown too big to be a Knight of that Order, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, will one Day be ashamed of that Man! Upon this Excitation, Sir William Phips made his Address unto a Congregational-Church, and he had therein One Thing to propound unto himself, which few Persons of his Age, so well satisfied in Infant-Baptism as he was, have then to Ask for. Indeed, in the Primitive Times, although the Lawfulness of Infant-Baptism, or the Precept and Pattern of Scripture for it, was never so much as once made a Question, yet we find Baptism was frequently delayed by Persons, upon several superstitious ⟨p. 28⟩and unreasonable Accounts, against which we have such Fathers as Gregory Nazianzen, Gregory Nyssen, Basil, Chrysostom, Ambrose, and others, employing a variety of Argument. But Sir William Phips had hitherto delayed his Baptism, because the Years of his Child-hood were spent where there was no settled Minister, and therefore, he was now not only willing to attain a good Satisfaction of his own Internal and Practical Christianity, before his receiving that Mark thereof, but he was also willing to receive it among those Christians, that seemed most sensible of the Bonds which it laid them under. Offering himself therefore, first unto the Baptism, and then unto the Supper of the Lord, he presented unto the Pastor of the Church, with his own Handwriting, the following Instrument; which because of the Exemplary Devotion therein expressed, and the Remarkable History which it gives of several Occurrences in his Life, I will here Faithfully Transcribe it, without adding so much as one Word unto it.

and Thanks be to God, that we have so little of suffering in our Circumstances. But if any Man count himself grown too big to be a Knight of that Order, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, will one Day be ashamed of that Man! Upon this Excitation, Sir William Phips made his Address unto a Corgregational-Church, and he had therein One Thing to propound unto himself, which few Persons of his Age, so well satisfied in Infant-Baptism as he was, have then to Ask for. Indeed, in the Primitive Times, although the Lawfulness of Infant-Baptism, or the Precept and Pattern of Scripture for it, was never so much as once made a Question, yet we find Baptism was frequently delayed by Persons, upon several superstitious ⟨p. 28⟩