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…

3. [Greek or Hebrew], perfecti, or Confirmed ones, i. e. such as were admitted to all Church Privileges. So then, the Christian Church of old did discipline such Children as our Question is about, although not presently admitted to the Lords Table. Furthermore, since the Anti Christian Apostasy, the Reformed Church hath ever owned this Truth. As for those pure Churches, which ⁽ⁿ⁾for a long time flourished in Bohemia, Commenius testifieth concerning them, that (disciplinoe subjacent omnes a sene ad •• fantem) even Children as well as others were under discipline. Thus also it was in that gathered Church which was in London in the days of Edward the sixth, as their famous Pastor ^[o]Johannes Alasco hath declared. And in one word, in Reformed Churches generally, yea, even in those of the Separation witness Mr. Robinson, in his Appendix to Mr. Perkins Catechism, and the Churches in Plymouth Colony (though some of them are not of the way of separation, but our Congregational Brethren) at this day extend discipline towards their Children, (as the matter doth require) and dismiss them also, (when by removal put upon it) to other Churches, although they were never in full Communion ⟨p. 30⟩with any Church. Now it is a saying of above thousand years old, and hath much of Truth in it, ^[p]That, that which the universal Church holds, and hath in all Ages been practised is […] esteemed as Apostolical. But this extending of discipline towards the Children of the Church which we plead for hath been the Catholic practice of the Churches of Christ in all places & in all Ages, which is a great Argument to prove that it hath the stamp of lus Divinum upon it. Although in Antipaedo-Baptistical Congregations [and some few other] there hath been no Church care about Children, yet some few inconsiderable exceptions are not enough to invalidate a general Rule, or to prove that the Church in general hath not walked according to this Rule. And albeit some now with us are apt to Conceive that only Parents, and not their Children are given up to the Elders and Brethren of the Church, yet the affirmative of this Question was so clear in former times amongst us, as that Children in their Catechism were taught thus to believe. Mr. Cotton in his Milk for babes hath again and again expressed this. See him also in his Book of the holiness of Church members, pag. 57. and of Infant Baptism, pag. 163.