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…

1. That there is a specific difference between the Membership of an Infant and of one that is Adult; this notion cannot hold water: Do but ask any Logical Tyro, of what sort the distribution is, when Church-members (or any other Members) are distinguished into Infants and Adult; he will answer you, that it is a distribution of the Subject from its Adjuncts, and therefore it cannot be a distribution of the Genus into its Species. Besides things that do Specifically differ can never be the same: as a Man and Brute can never be the same; Take a young Brute and keep it an hundred years, he will never be a Man, but keep a young Child so long, and he will become an aged Man, the reason is because there is a Specific difference between a Man and a Brute, but not between an old Man and a Child; So he that is now an Infant-member will hereafter be an Adult-Member, which could not be if these did Specifically differ. Again, things that are of the same nature do not Specifically differ for we do not in this Dispute take Species in the notion that Individual are Species but for the same with Genus) but so is the Membership of an Infant, and of a person Adult, Root and Branch are of the ⟨p. 63⟩same nature, as common experience proveth, James 1. 12. But the membership of the Child is as the Branches and the Parent is the Root; witness Rom. 11. 16. Therefore they are of surely the same nature, Ergo, not specifically different: Is it usual for men that hold an Error to cut the throat of their own Principles; so doth (as it seemeth to me) the Author of this Notion, when he professeth that the Holiness and membership of Parent and Child are of the same nature, yea, one and the very same; How can that be, if they specifically differ, Furthermore, those things which have the same essential causes, even the same matter and form, do not specifically differ, but this is true concerning the membership of an Infant and of an Adult person, there are the same essential causes of both, for Saintship is the matter, and Confederation the form, both of the one and the other; But whereas for the countenancing of this conceit it is said, that there is something required as an essential condition ( viz. works and fruits) of the Parents in order to membership which is not required of the child, therefore they do specifically differ;