N00149:103
A discourse concerning the subject of baptism wherein the present controversies, that are agitated…A discourse concerning the subject of baptisme wherein the present controversies, that are agitated…
A discourse concerning the subject of baptism wherein the present controversies, that are agitated in the New English churches are from Scripture and reason modestly enquired into / by Increase Mather, teacher of a church in Boston in New-England. ; [Sixteen lines of quotations]A discourse concerning the subject of baptisme wherein the present controversies, that are agitated in the New English churches are from Scripture and reason modestly enquired into / by Increase Mather, teacher of a church in Boston in New-England. ; [Sixteen lines of quotations]
printed by Samuel Green, 1675
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.
CHAP. VIII.
The Author formerly Concurred with those that are for a greater strictness, as to the Subject of Baptism then it by the synod asserted. This change of Apprehension Justified. Many Learned and worthy men have seen cause to change their Conceptions about greater matters then this. The first Objection removed. By this extent of Baptism, the Blood of Christ is not profaned.
THe Author formerly Concurred with those that are for a greater strictness, as to the Subject of Baptisme then it by the synod asserted. This change of Apprehension Iustified. Many Learned and worthy men have seen cause to change their Conceptions about greater matters then this. The first Objection removed. By this extent of Baptisme, the Blood of Christ is not prophaned.
Enough [I Suppose] hath been said for the evincing of the Affirmative Part of the Question propounded. Nevertheless, it must needs be owned, that there are weighty Objections, which seem to propend towards the Negative in this Controversy. And in that respect I am far from Censuring those that do not concur with my present persuasion in this matter, yea, I do Confess that I was my self twelve years ago dissenting from that, which now upon much study and enquiry after the mind of Christ, I see, and cannot but profess to be the Truth. Nor do I think it a disparagement to me (who am a man full of Ignorances and Infirmities) openly to declare that the Lord hath graciously given me to see further into His Truth, then once I did. All men acknowledge that when Bellarmine wrote his Book of Recognitions, It was the greatest Testimony of Ingenuity that ⟨p. 39⟩ever was given by him. And there have been many Learned men, who […] me in light more then the Moon doth the least […], who have in far greater matters then this is, ern Cause upon second thoughts to alter their Apprehensions. Is not Austin famous for his humility manifested in his Book of Retractations? And