Ratio disciplinae fratrum Nov-Anglorum. A faithful account of the discipline professed and practised; in…

Some few, instead of this latter Prayer, do give the Parents a brief Admonition to bring up their Children in the Nurture and Admonition of the Lord. Be sure, if an Adult Person be baptised, an Admonition, has been sometimes, thought very agreeably to accompany the latter Prayer.

Some few, instead of this latter Prayer, do give the Parents a brief Admonition to bring up their Children in the Narture and Admonition of the Lord. Be sure, if an Adult Person be baptised, an Admonition, has been sometimes, thought very agreeably to accompany the latter Prayer.

§. 6. The Rite of Dipping or Plunging is not now used in the Baptisms of any Churches, except ⟨p. 77⟩some of the Antipaed•baptist Way: Though some have used the Dipping of the Face. They apprehend, that the Lord has required no more for the External Rite of Baptism, than a Sacred Washing in the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and that the Degree of this Washing is lest unto the Discretion and Conveniency of His People. In Hot Countries it might well enough be by Dipping; In Cold ones Affusion, or Aspersion may be enough; Dipping they fear would hardly keep in good Terms with the Sixth Commandment, in hazarding the Life of some Disciples; or the Third, in expecting of Miracles to keep them alive. The Proof of a Total Dipping in the scriptural Examples of Baptism, does not appear so plain and full, that they should lay the whole Stress of the Sacrament upon it. What we read of our Saviour at His Baptism, is only, that He went up from the Water. There must be a Descent unto the side of a River; And like Solomon crowned by the side of a River, our Lord might there have the Water poured upon Him, without a complete Immersion. All that can be proved of what passed between the Evangelist and the Ethiopian, for the Baptism of the latter, is that they came to the Bank of a Brook, which both Jerome and Sandys represent as a very unlikely one for an Immersion to be performed there. Indeed, the Baptisms of John did require much Water; For, while the Rites of Purification were continued among the Jews it would have been thought a Scandal for one Vessel of Water to have served successively for the baptizing of diverse Persons. If it were so, there were occasion