The church-membership of children, and their right to baptism according to that holy and…The church-membership of children, and their right to baptisme according to that holy and…

and first it is to be observed, that the Apostle speaking of the Children, doth not (as you do) apply one word of them to both, saying that they are Sanctified, but saith that they are holy; which is more then he had spoken before of the infidel party: for although our meat, and drink be Sanctified unto us, and that the use of them is holy to those which are holy, yet the meats, and drinks themselves are not holy: if therefore you were short in the interpretation ⟨image 7⟩of Sanctified, you fail much more, in giving the same exposition unto the holiness of the children; for if the holiness here spoken of, be not in the children when they are begotten, and born of the Parents, but come unto them afterward by Baptism and Faith; there groweth no sufficient comfort unto the faithful party to continue in marriage with the Infidel, considering that occasion of holiness might come otherwise then by marriage: For that which is able to uphold the faithful in comfort, and strength to abide in marriage with the infidel, is the knowledge that the Children begotten in that Marriage are in Covenant, and are Children of Gods favour, and grace, washed in Christs Blood, and Sanctified by his Spirit: and if you will know what this Holiness of Children new-born is; the Apostle telleth you, Gal. 2.15. That it is [through the Covenant] to be a Jew by nature, or birth, and if you will yet further understand what the Holiness of Children is, the Apostle, in the same place, telleth you; that it is, not to be Sinners by Nature as those which are born of the Heathen, for as much as their sins who are in Covenant, are by Christ not reckoned unto them. And this Doctrine of the Holiness of the Children which are born of the Faithful, if you could not attain unto, it is so sensibly s•t forth unto you, that unless together with the knowledge of the Truth, you are also bereaved of your common sense, you cannot be ignorant of it: for how can you but understand, that if the root be holy, the branch is holy, Rom. 11.16. and if the first fruits be holy, the whole crop is holy All which privileges of Children new-born, sometime being proper to the Jews, are now our privileges, as well as theirs; sithence we are grown into one body w•th them,