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…

Argument 4. That Assertion which doth Contradict the great design of, and special thing which is signified in and by the Baptism of Infants is unsound, but so doth this Assertion concerning the non Continuance of Children's Relation to God when they become Adult, for what is the great Design of Infant Baptism, but that thereby the Children of the faithful might be for ever engaged to the true God in Christ? Is not this one thing thereby signified, that now this Child is become the Lords, not for fourteen or twenty years, but as long as he shall live, when as this notion of non-Continuance of membership holds forth the contrary, viz. that when Infants are become Adult, the Engagement that was between God and them is expired and null.

Argument 4. That Assertion which doth Contradict the great designe of, and special thing which is signifyed• in and by the Baptisme of Infants is unsound, but so doth this Assertion concerning the non Continuance of Childrens Relation to God when they become Adult, for what is the great Designe of Infant Baptisme, but that thereby the Children of the faithful might be for ever ingaged to the true God in Christ? Is not this one thing thereby signifyed, that now this Childe is become the Lords, not for fourteen or twenty years, but as long as he shall live, when as this notion of non-Continuance of membership holds forth the contrary, viz. that when Infants are become Adult, the Ingagement that was between God and them is expired and null.

Argument 5. That Assertion which runs cross to the Covenant of grace is not to be admitted; but so doth this▪ For in the Covenant God promiseth to be a God not only to the Parent, but also to the Child and that Everlastingly, Gen, 17. 13. Psal 48. Last. when as this Assertion brings in a new Covenant, wherein the Lord doth not promise to continue to be the Child's God, as he doth to be the Fathers God. We say of the Anabaptists, that sure their Tenet cannot be sound, because they make a Covenant which ⟨p. 60⟩God never made, even a Covenant which taketh in the Parent but leaveth out the Child; the like may we say of this Assertion, which teacheth that God doth Covenant to be the Parents God for ever, except he violate the Covenant by choosing another God, but that he covenants to be the Child's God, only twenty years or till he become Adult, and then though the Child never did choose any other but his Fathers God, yet his time is out, he is set at liberty from his Service to the true God, and what hath be to do with the Lord God of Israel,