The divine right of infant-baptism asserted and proved from Scripture and antiquity. By Increase…The divine right of infant-baptisme asserted and proved from Scripture and antiquity. By Increase…

That this Error of the Anabaptists hath been a great Troubler of the Church and Disturber of the peace and Order thereof, to the extreme disparagement and obstruction of the work of Reformation, is well known to those that are acquainted with the History of the last Age. Nor doth the Lord ordinarily bless the world with the discovery of any momentous Truth in Religion, by the hand of Persons of such a Complexion, as the Fathers of this Opinion were in the last Century, whose horrible Immoralities, and almost unexampled Outrages (too notorious and demonstrable to be denied with any great hope of Belief) were enough to turn the spirits, and inflame the Zeal of all sober and conscientious persons against them and their Sentiments. If it might be supposed after such undeniable Demonstration of the Error of it, that the Opinion of Anabaptists is the Truth; I must say, It is the unhappiest truth that ever yet appeared on the Stage, in respect of the trouble it hath given the Church of God, ⟨image ?⟩and the prodigious enormities of the first Discoverers and Followers of it. Though some Errors are mere infirmities of the Understanding, where there is an honest Heart, but a weak and injudicious Head: yet most Errors are occasioned by a corrupt Bias in the will and affections: and so was this manifestly in those that unhappily started it in the infancy of the Reformation, to the great Scandal of the World, and weakening the hands of the first Reformers. I know there are some quick and pungent Expressions of the Author of this Treatise, in the management of his last Argument, which those (I doubt not) against whom their edge and point is turned, will quickly feel and complain of: but let him not become their enemy for telling them the Truth. There is one sure and good way to help themselves in this case: Let them quit their Error and they are unconcerned. It is necessary to remind the World of the Truth of those Historical Passages, when there are some of late that have confidence and Forehead enough to face down the world, if it were possible, in those matters of Fact, which were acted but yesterday in comparison, and not done in a corner, attested by very many witnesses of unquestionable Reputation.

That this Error of the Anabaptists hath been a great Troubler of the Church and Disturber of the peace and Order thereof, to the extream disparagement and obstruction of the work of Reformation, is well known to those that are acquainted with the History of the last Age. Nor doth the Lord ordinarily bless the world with the discovery of any momentous Truth in Religion, by the hand of Persons of such a Complexion, as the Fathers of this Opinion were in the last Century, whose horrible Immoralities, and almost unexampled Outrages (too notorious and demonstrable to be denied with any great hope of Belief) were enough to turn the spirits, and enflame the Zeal of all sober and conscientious persons against them and their Sentiments. If it might be supposed after such undeniable Demonstration of the Error of it, that the Opinion of Anabaptists is the Truth; I must say, It is the unhappiest truth that ever yet appeared on the Stage, in respect of the trouble it hath given the Church of God,