For a Conclusion: If the Practice of the purest Churches, together with the Authority of the most Pious, Zealous, Learned and judicious Divines, might avail any thing in this consideration, it were easy to present many things to the view of the Reader, from the Writings ofa Perkins, bParker, cCalvinus, dBucanus, with many other of the Learnedst Non-Conformists, who always disclaimed both the Principles and Practices of the Rigid Separation, and all such as renounced Communion with other Churches, upon the account of some Impurities about Order and Discipline: However it came to be the fate of these Churches in America, to verge too near them in their Primitive Administrations. ⟨image 32⟩But we shall only content our selves with the mentioning the Judgement of two, not the least eminent and famous Lights in the Church of God, about this point. No Church can be said to be alienated from God, and from his Covenant, although it may become very sick and adulterous, until God shall have taken away from it his Matrimonial Covenant, casting it quite off as defiled with Adultery, according to Isa. 50 1. which will not be, so long as it retains the Head, and the Head retains it, by a public declaration of his grace that calleth, Col. 2.19. Jun. Thes. Theolog. Thes 36. pag. 2099. But Ames more fully about the Subject of Baptism: 1. Expositious Infants are to be baptized, whose Parents are unknown, if they be born among Christians: out of charity they are to be looked at as the sons of Christians, if there be not just cause to presume the contrary. 2. They that in some way by their Profession belong unto the Church, yet notwithstanding do openly violate the Covenant of God, their Infants ought to be baptized, though with some distinction; sc. so that what the Covenant requires, and is wanting in them, be supplied by others. 3. Infants illegitimate ought so to be baptized, that either their Parents profess their Repentance, or that their Education be undertaken by other godly persons. 4. Children of contumacious Excommunicates are not conveniently baptizable, unless by the interposition of meet Sureties. 5. Infants of Papists, and such like, who are Semi-Christians, may be baptized, if they find a meet surety, under whose power may be their Education. Ames. Cas. Consc. Lib. 4. Cap. 27.
For a Conclusion: If the Practice of the purest Churches, together with the Authority of the most Pious, Zealous, Learned and judicious Divines, might avail any thing in this consideration, it were easie to present many things to the view of the Reader, from the Writings ofa Perkins, bParker, cCalvinus, dBucanus, with many other of the Learnedst Non-Conformists, who alwayes disclaimed both the Principles and Practices of the Rigid Separation, and all such as renounced Communion with other Churches, upon the account of some Impurities about Order and Discipline: However it came to be the fate of these Churches in America, to verge too near them in their Primitive Administrations. ⟨image 32⟩But we shall onely content our selves with the mentioning the Judgement of two, not the least eminent and famous Lights in the Church of God, about this point. No Church can be said to be alienated from God, and from his Covenant, although it may become very sick and adulterous, until God shall have taken away from it his Matrimonial Covenant, casting it quite off as defiled with Adultery, according to Isa. 50 1. which will not be, so long as it retaines the Head, and the Head retaines it, by a publick declaration of his grace that calleth, Col. 2.19. Jun. Thes. Theolog. Thes 36. pag. 2099. But Ames more fully about the Subject of Baptism: 1. Expositious Infants are to be baptized, whose Parents are unknown, if they be born among Christians: out of charity they are to be looked at as the sons of Christians, if there be not just cause to presume the contrary. 2. They that in some way by their Profeision belong unto the Church, yet notwithstanding do openly violate the Covenant of God, their Infants ought to be baptized, though with some distinction; sc. so that what the Covenant requires, and is wanting in them, be supplied by others. 3. Infants illegittimate ought so to be baptized, that either their Parents profess their Repentance, or that their Education be undertaken by other godly persons. 4. Children of contumacious Excommunicates are not conveniently baptizable, unless by the interposition of meet Sureties. 5. Infants of Papists, and such like, who are Semi-Christians, may be baptized, if they finde a meet surety, under whose power may be their Education. Ames. Cas. Consc. Lib. 4. Cap. 27.
- aCas. Consc Ep 9. qu. 3. Come. Gal 5.27.Cas. Consc Ep 9. qu. 3. Com. Gal 5.27.
- bDe Pol lib. 1. cap. 13, 14, 33.
- cEpist. 149. & 103.
- dLocus 47. thes. 33, 34.
