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…

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 ^[r]Bu•er for changing his Judgement in that Controversy about Consubstan••a•ion. Yea, Leather, ^[s]notwithstanding all that he had said and written for that […]. yet saw cause before his death to be of another mind, albeit he was slow to publish it [but left it to Melancthon's wisdom] lest his Doctrine in other matters of a higher Concern, should be called into Question. And great Zvinglius was once a little inclined to Antipaedo-Baptism, yet the Lord in mercy gave him not only to see the evil of that error, but also to do special Service for the Church, in vindicating the Truth against the Anabaptists of that Age. It is a great honour to Mr. Robinsons name, that he was by means of Doctor Ames writings, brought off from his Rigidity of Separation in that point of refusing to hear in Church Assemblies in England, and that he left written [propria manu] in his study, Convincing Reasons, to manifest the lawfulness of that practice, which sometimes himself had publicly declared against. And it is both a wise and a witty Return which Doctor Owen maketh to Mr.