IT is not our purpose to entertain yee with the Narra­tive of the manner of our receiving the truths of Christ in which we stand, or of the preparations of Spirit, the Lord hath given in order to this work and by the help of this attire to allure your pious minds to our Cause and Persons. These vails have somtimes (it may be) obtained their ends, but being grown the common vi­zour of every il-favored cause; we judge them not only impertinent to the matter in question, but also unfit for us to publish of our selves; and no less unmeet to be imposed on you whom we write unto as ignorant and simple; but [...] as such who can discern the things that differ in their own qualities.

Richard Bellamy, since he was cast out of Comunion with us at Tiverton, (or whoever he be personated by him) hath printed his book against us▪ Called, The Leper Cleansed. The title page tels you, of what the book is comprehensive. Therein amongst severall laudable matters spoken of himself, he pretends to lay open the A­nabaptists, and their unchristian wayes, and wiles to deceive; and seemeth desirous to be thought a person able to make great discove­ries and conquests, as having been througly versed in the Doctrine and Practises of the whole body of that party by his nigh two yeers converse with them in society amongst our Brethren in Tiverton. But all these terrible flourishes notwithstanding, we herewith tender this man and his writings against us to your examination, and the true state of our Doctrine, Way, and Practise, as it stands accused and judged by him. And if indeed we be convicted for cunning de­ceivers, lyers in wait, hypocrites, enemies to Godliness, enemies to Magistracy and Ministery, as he hath informed the world, then in­deed [Page 2]leave us, as he hath perswaded you: But if these appear to be the unrighteous accusations of a person puffed up, at best, with the heat of his own passions, then take heed and beware of that spirit which hath acted this man, and led him aside according to the pride of his own heart, to play both the unrighteous Judge, and false Ac­cuser, against the way of God wherein we stand.

Friends, We intend not in this defence to justify any evil person, or matter for our advantage; we are assured we have in hand, a cause of God that needeth not, save to be stated in its own simplicity: wherein we shall endeavour to be faithfull with you, being made willing by the grace of God to stand and fall with it. The persons of men we shall not care to overvalue, or presume to detract, but as men stand approved or disapproved of the truth to give them their due: and particularly for this our Judge and Accuser, we shall cast behind us the filth of his invectives without retaliation; his impertinencies and absurdities, as much as may be, we shall passe o­ver with silence, that what may be found in him to bear upon the mayn cause, may be dealt withal.

Accuser.

It may seem strange to all that know me, to see me in print: and if any that see me thus appear, judge that it is my mayn business to vindicate my self, they are mistaken; I am partly driven to this by the irregular proceedings of those who have judged me at an offender, and yet would not give me liberty to speak for my self: so that I am enforced to speak this way, or to justify them by my silence: but that which most of all prevails with me, is, First to give glory to God-in acknowledging his mercy, who hath opened my eyes, and shewed me the error of my way. 2. I judge it my duty to labor to undeceive all the simple and plain hearted. 3. I think it as necessary to discover the hypocrisie of some that ly in wait to deceive, and by cunning insinuations and pretences to draw aside many souls, to their own loss, if not to their destru­ction.

Answer.

It is not much that we should think needfull to speak to this pa­ragraph: only whereas he begins, It may seem strange to all that know me, to see me in print; In this the Accuser speaketh right, for we have ground to judge, he doth but personate the contrivance of o­ther men.

Who have judged me as an offender, and yet would not give [Page 3]me liberty to speak for my self. We shall hereafter meet our Ac­cuser in this his false allegation in its due place.

I think it as necessary to discover the hypocrisie of some that ly in wait to deceive, &c. Whom he intends under these expressions; as hypocrites, lyers in wait, &c. he manifests in the title page; how well he proves us to be such, appeareth by the sequele of his book, where we shall have full opportunity to examine it. He proceeds.

Accuser.

It is notoriously known to all the Inhabitants of Tyverton, that I was deeply ingaged in that way, which is commonly known by the name of Anabaptists; yea so far as that I thought I was bound to oppose all that dissented from that way as being antichristian: & so zealous was I to promote that interest, that I forsook my rela­tions, and left my fathers house, not caring for any society, but such as were for that way; refusing to joyn in prayer with such as differed from me in that, though otherwise godly: thus I continu­ed for the space of nigh two yeers, but at last God was pleased to cause me to reflect upon my self and wayes, and by some speciall providences (of which by and by I shall give an accompt) he made me willing to stand upon the ways and see, and enquire for the way of the Lord; for untill this time I was so filled with pre­judice against the publick Ministery, that I refused all confe­rences and debates, with any (though offered with never so much mildness) concerning the way in which I was; or if I did at any time admit of any, it was to defend, and not to examine it.

Answer.

All this rash and uneven walking while under this profession, that this man makes discovery of himself in (for we should not have judged it worth the while to have given such a character of him) it easily appeareth to have sprung from the youthfull vanity and lightness of his own spirit, not from any priaciple owned a­mong us; nor was the observation of it any comfort to us, in that he was severall times reproved for sundry of those very things.

Accuser.

But now God having put some check upon my spirit, I began to lay things in the balance; and observing another people in this place, walking under Ordinances, and joyned with the pub­lick Ministery: such thoughts as these would come in some­times; [Page 4]We say we are in the way of God and they say they are in the way of God: may not I all this while be mistaken? Though I often opposed such thoughts as these, yet they returned upon me by my observation, for I could not but take notice▪ that those I walked withall, were looser, both in their Principles and Pra­ctises, then those I dissented from.

Answer.

Then I began to lay things in the balance, &c. Those unstea­dy revolutions of thoughts, always learning, never coming to the acknowledgment of the truth; argue a minde unstable as water and therefore cannot excell. I could not but take notice that those I walked with, were looser both in their Principles and Practi­ses then those I dissented from. We shall not in this place insist on the weakness of the Argument, urged from the practises of some per­sons, to the error of their profession. But to the generall charge, we say: That, if to state the everlasting Covenant, made and given by the Lord himself for the redemption of sinners, and the efficacy of the Ministration thereof upon the free grace of God in Christ alone; and so stated, to minister the same, for the calling and gathering of the elect, the true seed in that Covenant given unto Christ, for the bringing them into visible communion with Christ their head, and each with other: If to require a proof of the truth of this work be­fore admission into such visible communion and fellowship, with an pen profession upon such admission to take up the cross of Christ, and follow him, in doing and suffering his whole will, as himself requireth: Mat. 16.24. Luk. 14.26. If to administer such Gospel. Ordinances, as import the peculiar priviledges of the children and family of the Son of God, to persons so approved, and no others: If to acknowledge and be­lieve the everlasting Kingdom and Priesthood of Jesus Christ, in pro­viding for, governing and perfecting his people, although a feeble flock; and therefore set at nought by them that are full and at ease: If while these principles and the like unto them, are in our eye, the mark we contend to reach unto (yet through the infirmity of our flesh, finding our selves to our grief often beneath them) by the grace of God in his Ordinances, in bearing one anothers burdens, in admonition and exhortation with patience, whiles there is hope, and other spirituall proceedings, as the cause requireth; our manifold weaknesses notwithstanding, such indulgence and grace we obtain with and from our God, that not only support is ministred, but al­so [Page 5](to the praise of his admired goodness be it said) a progress is made among us from faith to faith: and this further token of his presence we find among us: That usually the most carnall, worldly, and unruly, are soonest offended: but the sober and humble hearted rejoyce with us. If these principles and practises, and the just consequences attending them, commonly avowed by us, be loo­ser then what the accuser doth imbrace, and in his own person fol­low, the day of tryal wil make evident.

Accuser.

I found them slight in their thoughts of the Sabbath, and that they observed that day rather out of policy, then out of conscience; not so much to sanctifie the name of God, as to keep their hearers from attending the publick Ministery. They spake slightly of those that walked strictly and closely with God in duty, saying, that all the Religion of such lay in duties but theirs was spiritual. I further observed that their families were without prayer generally their chil­dren without instruction: and surely their constant neglect of duties in their families, made me grow very careless of mine in private. The consideration of these things made me begin to enquire, whether this were the truth I professed: from henceforth I resolved to consider what was objected against the way I was in, and to weigh the Ar­guments I had slighted, because I saw many serious godly people did live in the profession and practise of that which I opposed, &c.

Answer.

I found them slight in their thoughts of the Sabbath, &c. What wormwood and gall hath he mingled to us in this desperate and bold accusation and judgment, it being full well known to all ob­servers, that both in preaching, printing and practise, all the Bapti­sed congregations with whom we have communion in England, Scot­land and Ireland, do hold out a constant profession, that in consci­ence to the Lord, we do hold our selves bound to keep the first day of the week, called the Lords day, holy to the Lord; and that the right celebration of this day consisteth in a spiritual communion with God, our own souls, and each with other in all gospel-Ordinances, and other Christian offices, of goodness and mercy to man and beast, as opportunity and Christian prudence shall require. And this yong man wel knoweth, that this very congregation in Tiverton procee­ded with a member as worthy of just censure, only for that his ser­vant, though without his knowledge, took a cloth upon this day out [Page 6]of the rack where it was on drying; and moreover, himself was present when the Church appointed it as their judgment to meet to­gether constantly about six of the clock in the morning, to the end that the day might be spent more intirely for the Lord.

They speak slightly of those that walked strictly and closely with God in duties saying, that all the Religion of such lay in du­ties; bus theirs was spiritual. That there is a Pharisaical strict­ness in polishing the outward-man by the traditions and inventions of men, and not of Christ; and a formal strictness in the letter of a command, and both these desperate enemies to the Gospel of Christ, we affirme; but we loath, abhor, and detest, the application of these expressions, to the flighting of any duties, or exercises of godliness, or any persons that in faith and a good conscience, walk closely with God in them. That our selves might be built up, and be help­ful each to build up other in the faithful exercise thereof without di­straction, hath been one main motive to draw us into the union and communion in which by the grace of God we stand, and is a part of that promise, which we through the Lords assistance (the God in Covenant with us) doe declare and undertake when we receive the right-hand of visible fellowship together. As for the ground of this mans report in this particular, after the most diligent search that could be made, we can finde out no just colour he hath for such an accusation, but that himself hath used the like expressions of some, as hypocrites and formalists, &c. whom he now clea­veth unto: for which he was then faithfully reproved.

Their families without prayer generally their children with­out instruction, &c. What shall we reply to this bold man? the Lord knoweth we condemn, abhor and detest the guilt of this ac­cusation, we faithfully exhort unto these Christian duties, we reprove their neglect; and are in a readiness to pass publick censures upon the careless and wilfull transgressours of them, as persons offending against plain precepts: The Lord knoweth we long and labour to have our houses as churches of Christ, and our children in sub­mission with all gravity, brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord; yet being jealous that several in Tiverton, and elswhere, may not have been so careful in the performance of their duty in these things, as the law of the Lord requireth of them, we shall take occasion, even from the reproach cast upon us by the accuser, to make a more strict enquiry after all neglects of that kinde, trusting [Page 7]the Lord will help us to beare yet a more effectual testimony against them, and help them and us unto a more thorow reformation.

Because I saw many serious godly people did live in the pro­fession and practice of that which I opposed. We acknowledg this passage to have more resemblance of grace in it, then most we can finde in all the book besides. As for his tossing and running from place to place upon matter of disputes, and one while railing on this party, and then as fiercely reviling others, it is the common badg of the drunken spirit of this perverse generation; but to pon­der the paths of the truly Godly upon well-digested and clear evi­dences of the grace of God dwelling in their hearts, we cannot but commend, and put a due estimate upon: and we know that this very consideration, hath been an introductive to a farther work of God, which hath not left some precious soules till they have taken up the visible profession of the Gospel in which we stand. But let us beware that while we be tender to the Godly, we prove not cruel to Christ and to our own soules: the godly in all ages have been liable to said mistakes, and stiffly persisted in them, notwithstan­ding they wanted not such as have admonished them of their mis­carriages: we can hardly be strangers to this truth, while the pres­ses and the pulpits in the three nations, breath out such sharp con­tentions among our opposites themselves, in sundry points of great moment; and therefore let us follow the godly as they follow Christ, and no farther; and withal, take heed of making out a judgment while we are prejudiced with personal infirmities, or en­tangled, with wordly advantages or disadvantages, but draw our selves and the matter in question, into a naked simplicity before the Lord, to receive the pure impressions of Scripture-authority, as the supream judg of all controversies, and no other. But mark the condition of the person, our judg and accuser, before and since his defection, as his own pen hath painted him forth, that notwithstan­ding his pretensions of seeking and finding God, you will finde the man not so much in the joy and love of a spirit bettered by his change, as in the old gall of a deadly bitterness from first to last.

Accuser.

And upon serious inquiring into the word, and earnest seeking of God, it pleased the Lord to satisfie me in the truth, and in parti­cular touching these two controverted truths. (1.) That the Cove­nant of grace stands now in force to the children of beleevers under [Page 8]the Gospel. (2.) That this is a sufficient ground by Gods appoint­ment why the children of believers should be baptized. This is evident from many Scriptures in the New Testament, which the Anabaptists have endeavoured often to obscure. I shall onely mention one which was useful to me, Acts 2.34. The promise is to you, and to your children. The Anabaptists have laboured to darken this truth by perswading the world to believe that chil­dren have no right to the promise till they are actually called, which they would infer from the last clause of the fore mentioned Text. But by considering, I saw their mistake in the Text [call] hath no re­lation to children, but to them afar off.

Answer.

We account it not our concernment, nor worth our while, to in­form the Reader, with what might be truely said to discover the falshood of the accusers plausible insinuation, by what direct meanes, and with what mature consideration he digested those grounds of satisfaction: but letting him pass with his desired ap­plause, shall only crave the exercise of Christian patience while we follow him, laying down in plainness our perswasions about the seve­rals by him hinted at in this point of Baptisme; he first gives you two propositions as the ground of his satisfaction.

First, that the Covenant of grace stands now in force to the children of believers under the Gospel. Secondly, that this is a sufficient ground by Gods appointment why they should be bap­tised. Many mistakes usually perplex the point in question for want of a right understanding of the termes made use of: which inconvenience we shall endeavour to remove out of the way, be­fore we goe farther: and the terme or expression that comes first to hand to be explained is [the Covenant of Grace.] This terme is applyed to signifie,

1. The Covenant of Grace in its own nature, singly, and uni­versally considered.

2. It's applied to singifie the manner of its administration, ac­cording to divine institution.

As to the first signification the Covenant of Grace signifieth. That great mystery of the mercy of God in Christ, wherein the Fa­ther hath established Jesus Christ his Son, the head of all things, and given unto him a blessed seed of the Sons of Men, to be by him, and with him heires of the glorious inheritance of the [Page 9]grace of God, and the blessed consequences thereof, against all possibilities of miscarriage, according to his eternal purpose. This Covenant was by the Lord himself first published to man in Paradice, Gen. 3.15. I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed: it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heele. This Covenant is spoken by the Prophet David, Psal. 2.7. I will declare the de­cree, the Lord hath said unto me; Thou art my Son, this day have 1 begotten thee. Vers. 8. Aske of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thins inheritance, and the utmost parts of the earth for thy possession. Vers. 9. Thou shalt break them mith a rod of iron, thou shalt dash them in pieces as a potters vessel. This Covenant, is it which Isaiah publisheth and preacheth, Chap. 42. and 49. and elswere frequently. This Co­venant God calls his everlasting Covenant, being still one and the same immutable from everlasting to everlasting. This Covenant was it which at sundry times, and after divers manners, under di­vers signes, figures, and types, by promises and prophecies was renewed and ratified with the blessed Patriarches, Abel, Seth, Enoch, Noah, Sem, Melchisedeck, and with the Fathers Abra­ham, Isaac, and Jacob; with Moses, with David the king, and with the Prophets, before the comming of Christ: and it is the same Covenant, which openly and plainly was brough: to light, and revealed in all the mysteries of it by John the Baptist, the Lord Jesus, and his Apostles, which still continueth to be mini­stred in the Church, and shall continue without change to the worlds end. This Covenant hath one Spiritual Father, which is Christ, Isaiah 9.6. The mighty Ged, the everlasting Father; and one spiritual seed, Psal, 22.30. A seed shall serve him, it shall be accounted to the Lord for a Generation.

The Covenant of grace as it signifieth the manner of administra­tion, according to divine appointment, may be thus described. 2 The Covenant ministring. It doth contain the whole and every part of that instituted worship, whereby God doth ordinarily bring about, the purposes of the everlasting Covenant, that is, to set Christ upon his throne, and to gather to him the seed given him by his Father: And the Cove­nant of grace under this acceptation is not one and the same al­wayes, but hath passed under many great alterations and changes: the Lord hating his ordinances and appointmens, to the persons, [Page 10]seasons, and workes, which he had to doe, as it seemed good to his heavenly wisdom: and therefore all the force and authority of the Covenant of grace, considered under this head, to wit, ac­cording to the administration of it, dependeth intirely upon the law of its institution, and is in force as that law directeth, and not otherwise.

And the Covenant of grace in this sence stands distinguished in Scripture, under two known heads, respecting two seasons, the season before the ascention of the Son of God, and the season which followed after.

The administration of the Covenant of grace, The ministring before Christ. before the coming of the Son of God, passed under very great alterations and changes, for the first two thousand years from Adam to Abraham, the ordinances and forme of worship then in practise, and other occa­sional figures, having respect unto the mystery of the everlasting Covenant, and the chosen and rejected seeds therein considered, was a ministry dignified, with as eminent and glorious saints, as any the book of God recordeth: and although this ministry were also for the nature of it, the same with the law of Moses, and proportioned to it, and afterward fell in with it, yet in all this long track of time, there was no distinguishing ordinance to be ad­ministred to infants of believers, or any known doctrine to that pur­pose, notwithstanding the far-fetcht notions, which some have wandered after, to finde it out from that passage of the Sons of God and daughters of men, Gen. 6.2. Which very probably was found in the family of holy Seth, in that time of universal cor­ruption of all man-kinde. Nor in that other of the saving of Noah, and his family, in the Arke; neither of which nor any other thing, was, or was deemed to be an ordinance established in the Church, to be administred in infancy.

True it is, at circumcision it began, and by the law of Moses circumcision was taken in with the other institutions which went be­fore it, and there it received its full enstalment, and became the head-ordinance of the Levitical ministry. This administration of the Covenant of grace is usually called in Scripture the old Cove­nant, or the first Covenant. Heb. 8.7. For if that first Covenant had been faultlesse, &c. Ver. 13. In that he saith a new Cove­nant, he hath made the first old. It is also usually called the law, Rom. 4.13, 14, For the promise that he should be the heir of [Page 11]the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith: for if they which are of the law, (to wit, the people of the old Covenant) be heirs, faith is made void. (to wit, the people of the new Covenant,) And Heb. 10.1. The law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, &c. Gal. 4.21. Ye that desire to be under the law, doe ye not hear the law?

This Covenant, while it stood, although it were very glorious, yet the Spirit of God never exalted it in dignity above the degree of an Handmaid, appointed for the time being to minister to the everlasting Covenant, and then to be utterly cast out of the Church, together with her seed according to the flesh, whom the Apostle calleth servants, and not sons, Gal. 4.7. All which we have prophetically, yet plainly and fully instanced in the family of Abra­hans, under the type of the Gospel-Church, under the persons of Hagar and Ishmael, Gen. 21.10, 11, 12. Cast out this bond­woman, and her sen; for the son of this bond woman shall not be heir with my son, with Isaac, &c. The mystery of this Scrip­ture the Apostle unvaileth at large, Gal. 4.22,—31. Where he sheweth that the two women, vers. 24. under an allegory, are the two Covenants, the bondage Covenant, and the free Covenant, vers. 25, 26. that is, the law and the Gospel; and that the Isaacs were the true seed of the Gospel-administration, ver s. 28. called the children of the promise: and saith the Apostle, such was him­self, and all the Churches of Galatia, to whom he wrote, vers. 31. Not borne after the flesh as was Ishmael, vers. 23. but borne where there were no possibilities of nature, to bring forth a seed: even by the power of God, and spirit of adoption, vers. 5, 6, 7. By a mother which in the other respect was altogether barren and deso­late. vers. 27. Rejoyce thou barren that bearest not, &c. that is, shee was in no such mariage-Covenant, whereby children should be brought forth unto her, as were the children of the former mar­riage-Covenant; but in that respect being left absolutely destitute, should yet have many more children, then that Covenant had which brought forth children by fleshly generation.

Again, this old administration, the Spirit of God. Heb. 8.5. Termed a service unto the example and shadow of heavenly things. And Chap. 9. vers 9. a figure for the time then present. And in Chap. 7. v. 19. and cha. 10. v. 1. That it made nothing [Page 12]perfect. And that it was by the Lord Jesus blotted out as an hand­writing of ordinances, that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his Cross, Col. 2, 24. There ended that Covenant; there expired the law, the force and authority upon which that administration stood. And there was the prophesie, Gen. 21.10. of casting out the seed according to the flesh (never more to claime a priviledge upon that account) ab­solutely accomplished and fulfilled. And thenceforth the children of the promise are counted for the seed, Rom. 9.8.

Two hard shifts are made use of by some to avoid the evidence of these, and the like scriptures against infaint-baptisme, which might be alleged to the same effect.

First, Obj. 1 they say, that what hath been alledged from Gen. 24. and Gal. 4. Tendeth only to prove, that the legal Covenant and carnal seed, as it stood priviledged by that Covenant, was to give way to the free Gospel-Covenant.

To this we say, Rep. 1 That the Covenant of the law, and the cove­nant made with Abraham, in the letter of circumcision, had with them an eminent renovation, and ratification of the everlasting co­venant; yet were both of one and the same nature, authority, and use, John 7.23. Acts 15.5. Although not given together; as neither were the ordinances of sacrificing; and all alike signified, and served unto the same heavenly mystery of the grace of God in Jesus Christ.

We close with them herein, 2 and crave no more from these Scrip­tures then the total abolishing of the legal covenant, with all its apputtenances, of which circumcision was a chief, as hath been proved.

We say that the exclusion of the seed, 3 according to the flesh, upon the account of the exclusion of that covenant, excludes the seed according to the flesh for ever, because it can claime a standing by no other right.

It is also suggested, Obj. 2 that the Scriptures alledged unto the point of the two covenants, and the two seeds in them respectively priviled­ged, is not to be understood of any others intended by the seed of the free woman, then of real or invisible saints, and not of the vi­sible subjects of the Gospel Church.

To which we say, Rep. That if the Spirit of God hath made use of these discoveries as a standard and rule, to reforme and conforme [Page 13]visible Churches unto, both in their doctrine and practise: and that also upon occasion of the corruptions, which by the imposing of the legal covenant and natural seed had invaded them, as is most evident to have been the case, Acts 15.5.—10. If no such matter at all concerning invisible faints, any otherwayes considered then in visible Church-order, be to be found in the scope and in­tention of the Apostle; which also is evident: Then let no person give up their reason and understanding to such impertinent and in­coherent interpretations, against the plain drift of the Spirit of God, and the work of reformation therein pursued. And thus much of the Covenant of Grace, before the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh: wherein we would not be understood, in what hath been said touching the abrogation of the legal covenant, to teach the abro­gation of any moral Doctrine or Precept.

The last administration of the covenant of grace, The ministry by Christ. usually called the new covenant, is that which was established by Jesus Christ at his coming, which was altogether of another nature to that which went before it. This was not a covenant ministring or serving to any doctrine above or beyond it self, as was the other, Heb. 10.1. But this was the mystery of the grace of God it self plainly admini­stred: a mystery hid from ages and generations, Golos. 1.26. Ephes. 3.8, 9. It was under a vaile or behind a curtain till Christ himself came to reveale it; and the whole scope of the doctrine prea­ched by Christ and his Apostles, runs quite beside the pretented priveledg of the seed after the flesh, and is placed upon the seed af­ter the spirit, as being indeed the true seed, who were really stated by God in the priviledg of the everlasting covenant through their new-birth, and not otherwise. Mark the preaching and practise of John the Baptist, Matth. 3.8, 9. Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance, and think not to say within your selves, We have Abraham to our father. Observe the doctrine of Christ, upon what foundation he builds the Gospel-Church, Matth. 16.18. Upon the profession of actual faith in the Son of God. The birth-priviledg cannot be squared by this rule, to have a place in this building. Again, Isaiah 54.13. Prophesying of the Gospel-Church, sayeth, And all thy children shall be taught of God, is applyed by Christ, John 6.44, 45. with this intro­duction, No man can come to me except the father which sent me draw him, &c. There is no coming unto Christ, nor sonship [Page 14]in the Church upon birth-priviledge any longer. Again, Luke 14.26. If any man come to me, and hate not his father, &c. he can­not be my disciple; here is no roome for birth-priviledg to make disciples to Christ, or upon that title to come unto him. Gospel­priviledges are a part of the Gospel-inheritance, and follow Gospel­sonship. If sous, then heires. Gal. 4.7. Rom. 8.17. Now Gospel-sons are not born such, of the will of the flesh, but of the will of God; Of his own will begat he us, James 1.18. And therefore the visible profession hereof must be the common principle to constitute visible children of the Gospel-covenant, under the ad­ministration of Jesus Christ, by whom grace and truth was admi­nistred, not flesh and figure.

Thus much of the first terme, that came to hand in our opponents first proposition [the Covenant of Grace.] The next expression to be explained, is [stands now in force.] It seemeth to us an hard kinde of expression, to say, That the Covenant of Grace stands now in force: as if it were capable of being or not being in force, with respect to seasons: but thus we understand our opponents meaning by this terme, that it signifieth a person to be comprised, and stated in the covenant of grace by God.

Another expression craving explanation, is, [the children of be­leevers under the Gospel] which in our opponents intention, we take not to be such children as were begotten unto the faith by beleevers, and in that respect came under that appellation, of which we read, 1 Cor. 4.15. 3 Epist. Joh. ver. 4. But we understand it of the children begotten of the bodies of beleevers; and in the same sence and no other, we our selves crave to be understood throughout this Reply, by the terms of carnal, or natural seed, seed after the flesh, seed of the birth-priviledge: which caution we premise, that these terms made use of by us be not applyed to signify some evil quali­fication.

The second proposition needoth not to have any thing farther said unto, it being dependant upon the first, and must stand and fall with it.

These things premised, we return answer to these his two propo­sitions, viz. (1) that the Covenant of grace stands now in force to the children of beleevers under the Gospel. (2) That this is a sufficient ground by Gods appointment, why children of beleevers should be baptized.

And first, We say, If by this term [the Covenant of Grace] in his first proposition, be meant the Covenant of Grace in our first acceptation of it; and by [the children of beleevers under the Go­spel] be meant their natural seed, as before explained: Then we de­ny the first Proposition, because the Covenant of grace in that sence, is not in force to any, upon any other consideration, then as they are in Christ. Then also is the second Proposition to be denyed; be­cause God hath made no such appointment, that Baptism should be administred to persons upon the single ground of election.

If the Covenant of grace be meant of the covenant of grace mi­nistring, according to our second acceptation: then, if it be also meant to be in force &c. by vertue of some institution, appoint­ed of God before the coming of Christ; we deny the second propo­sition, that that is any sufficient ground by Gods appointment of Baptizing infants now; such institutions being vanished with the o­ther shadows.

If by the Covenant of Grace, be meant the Covenant of grace as it is now ministred since the coming of Christ; we also deny the same proposition in this particular, that there can be found no such appointment instituted by Christ, or any of his Apostles, for the bap­tising of the children of beleevers.

Last of all, we say, That the Covenant of Grace is always in force to the elect as such, called or uncalled, infants or aged; it is also in force to all sorts of persons, as it is a doctrine by Gods ap­pointment to be published, for the calling of sinners to repentance: but we utterly deny that there is any thing at all in force by the co­venant of grace, or by any appointment of God, for the baptizing of infants.

The ordinance of Baptism, is a part of the instituted worship of the Gospel, and all the force and authority that it hath upon the Conscience in point of practise, is to be derived from the plain and express law and word of God, by which it is made an Ordinance of the gospel: and that in point of practise must be the Rule not to be swerved from. God hath been very jealous of all his Ordinances, to keep them exactly to his own methods and manner, in the practise of them: and the nature of man is very presumptuous to be interpo­sing and medling. Let us not forget that of Heb. 8.5. Exod. 25.9.—40. See that thou make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount: all instituted worship, must be con­formed [Page 16]to the heavenly pattern.

But to follow our opponent in the proof of his propositions. This is evident (saith he) from many Scriptures in the New Testa­ment, and so gives you an instance in that one, Acts 2.39. and then fairly leaves you to make the application as you please, without managing his authority to prove any one point or term, in either of his propositions. But the next work we find him upon, is an imper­tinent, confused accusation, that the Anabattists obscure and dar­ken Scripture, and perswade the world, that children have no right to the promise, till they are actually called. Wherein we shall use some patience, to bear his abuses, and frothy traverses, to give an answer as God shall inable.

Our sence of the Scripture alleadged is this: That ver, 39. hath a necessary and plain coherence, with verses 37, 38. wherein we have an inquiry of the Jew wounded in conscience for sin, and the A­postles full and comfortable resolution of the case, to this effect; that God hath made his precious promise in Christ, to Jew and Centile, of pardoning repenting sinners, and of giving to them the holy spi­rit; and that in this grace and promise, the Jew and his children had a precedency, and priority to all other people: and therefore they repenting and being baptised, should receive the mercy promi­sed. This resolution of this Scripture, is not only pertinent to the case, but also very coherent with it self, and consonant to other Scriptures. It was a pertinent point for comfort to the Jew, that grace was tendred to all, that all scruple from personal incapacity, might be removed by such rich mercy: and it was an additional comfort, that the tender of this grace was specially reserved, to be made to the Jew and his children, before any others; as is elsewhere also declared, Rom. 2.10. Acts 13.26, 46. But withal it was profitable to inform the Jew (who boasted much of his birth-pri­viledg) that although he had a priority in the tender, yet as to the grace it self, he was but in a parity and likeness with all others; that a right frame of spirit, might keep him from being puffed up, under a mistake of that wherein his Interest lay: and this also we have elsewhere frequently instanced, Gal. 3.28. Rom. 3.29, 30. Eph. 4.5, 6, 7. And that therefore the same common requisite, of Faith and Repentance, in order to Baptism, must be found alike in all per­sons, that would partake in the benefit of this grace indeed, Mar. 16.15, 16. He that beleeveth and is baptised, &c. this is the [Page 17]Doctrine that Christ comanded to be preached to every creature for salvation, and this is the order by which it should inure to every creature, first that they repent, and then that they be baptised. And let not your mindes be shifted aside from this truth, by a pretence that the Spirit of God, in these and such-like places of Scri­pture, is onely to be understood of an invisible work of grace, in the hearts of the saints, and not of the principle upon which the Gospel-Church was to have its constitution. (Of which you have formerly in like case been warned.) (1.) Jesus Christ came to gather the true seed into his granary the Church, and not the chaff; Mat. 3.12. and his sanne, the Gospel-administration, was fitted as a fanne to doe the thing according to the doctrine held forth; he came not to set up a Church after the Jewish principle, Mat. 16.18. of a natural generation of the sons of men, but by spiritual regeneration to be made the Sons of God, and therefore tells Peter, that he will build his new Church upon the rock of personal profession. And (2.) who shall presume to lay a right in natural generation, as a principle to give an enterance into the visibility of the Church, of which there is not one titlte to be found in all the New Testament, from Christ or any A­postle? while in the mean time the Scriptures of the Prophets, and all the New Testament, doe everywhere abound with evidences that run upon a supposition of a real profession of a work of grace, as the state of the Gospel-Church: and many passages against the principle of a seed according to the flesh, the principle of the bon­dage covenant, as hath been promised.

2. Whereas he chargeth us with perswading the world to be­lieve that children have no right to the promise, till they are actually called. It is a very odious and false suggestion, the man was ill instructed to publish it; this we say, that a right to the pro­mise, doth not conclude a right to be baptised. We affirme that children have a right to the promise as well as the aged; but to have a right to be baptised, is not given to old or young, till the rule of the word be complied with according to which baptisme is to be administred. As for his discovery of our mistake which he thus re­ctifieth:

Accuser.

[Call] hath no relation to children, but to them that are afar est (1.) Because the children are joyned with their parents in the promise, which is an intire proposition in the Text.

Answer.

We say, that his affirmation, and his reason, are of the like worth, both made up of a meer trinkling about words; his reason supposeth, that in a continued discourse, a word in one proposition can have no relation to words without the same; which is sensless: or that there may not be more then one logical proposition, in the same coherence of matter; which is also as vain as the other.

We have not yet ended with this Scripture, Acts 2.39. We lay our claime to it, as eminently justifying our practise of bap­tisme; and that it speakes not in favour of our opposites at all; al­though alledged as a chief evidence against us, The promise is to you, and to your children, therefore repent, and be baptised. This is part of the Apostles argument to the Jew, which plainly in­fers this, 1

That the reason upon which the title of the Jew, and their child­ren to the promise was to inure, was repentance, and baptisme thereupon, otherwise there lay no force at all in the Apostles argu­ment, if the promise would inure, where there was not found, in the person the prescribed qualification of repentance, 2 antecedent to baptisme.

If the children should be admitted to baptisme before repentance, then the promise carries more to the children, then it would afford to the parents, although the parents title to the promise, be reckon­ed antecedent to the childs, and the childs title, through the parent. 3

If [call] in the close of the 39. vers. is to be restrained to them afar off, and to have no relation to children, as is alledged, what a disproportion would it have produced in the converts to the Church, that the Gentiles, and their children, being comprised under [them afar off] must first be called, and then baptised; but on the part of the Jewes, the effectuall calling of the parents, and their baptism, sufficed to justifie the baptisme of the children without calling.

Our Accuser proceeds with a long train of arguments: we can­not pick out the coherence they have, with what had been before al­ledged: we shall therefore take them in their course, (as the Lord shall give assistance) and make our answers to them severally, with­out taking advantage from their inconsequential application, either to his propositions or alledged Text.

Accuser.

If children should be excluded from the promise, Arg. 2 this could not have comforted the patents, but have sadned them, that their chil­dren should be the same with heathens, but here the scope of the Text is urged by the Apostle for consolation.

Answer.

This Argument supposeth our denyal of the promise to the chil­dren: 1 wherein the man runs after his own mistakes: denyal of bap­tisme, is no exclusion from the promise. As to the odious compari­son, of children of believers, to heathens (falsly charged on us) we reject. Heathens differ as much from the children of believers in our account, as open Apostates doe from hopeful expectants of the Church. As to the point of consolation, our denyal of the baptisme of infants, withdraweth from the parent no real ground of conso­lation, founded in the covenant of grace, and applyed by the A­postle in this Scripture; but we say that the application thereof to particular persons, if it be not according to Scripture- [...]ule, will prove a groundless fiction, and no consolation. And as to the infants of believers, we farther say, that besides our assurance, that the grace of election, because it is bestowed without respect of persons, doth reach infants as well as others, and it's likely more frequently the infants of the godly then others. That the infants of believers have also a nearness not only to the promise, but also to the fruition of the grace promised, by reason of many high advantages, which others enjoy not, and among the rest, that the godly to whom they stand related and are committed, have promises of being heard of God in their faithful prayers, even to the pardon of sin, Job 1.5. James 5.15, 16. 1 John 5.16. And that therefore there is great ground given to such parents of an holy hope, that God doth hear their prayers for the salvation of their infants, seeing they are not under that sin unto death, that is not to be prayed for. And we could never finde our soberest opposites, to ascribe a greater ground for a believer to conclude the salvation of his infant if he died after he was baptised, then if he did before. Besides which great advantages, there being also reserved to the children, the same tenders of grace, for their full investure into the real fruition of the promises, we remain yet to be informed what discouragement was put upon the parent, labouring under the sence of guilt, to receive a dectrine thus tendered, bringing with it the same grace upon the [Page 20]like termes, to be bestowed upon his posterity, together with these high advantages premised.

We also say, Whatever benefit may be justly said to accrue to the infant by virtue of the promise through the baptisme of the pa­rent, all that would be more effectually and certainly made out to the comfort of them both, by baptisme upon faith, then can be by baptisine in infancie; by how much baptisme upon faith, more certainly declares the parent by whom the benefit doth accrue, to be really in the covenant, then baptisme in infancie can be said to doe.

Accuser.

Arg. 3. If so, then this could not encourage the Parents to submit to Christ under this administration; but would have hindred them, that their children should be excluded from the Promise, who stood in it two thousand yeers before, under the other administration.

Answer.

This Argument runs upon the same supposition with the former, (whither we refer the Reader for an Answer in part) only there it pretended to saddening, here to discouragement; here also we have the old common mistake, that an incapacity to Baptism excludes from the Promise. But to pass by these faul [...]s, we come to what may be further found a colour for an Objection.

Object. Infants stood visible members of the Church for two thousand yeers in the administration: this administration excludes them.

Answ. They stood excluded altogether, as much above two thousand yeers before Circumcision, as they do now; so that an Ordinance for their Church-membership, was not so from the be­ginning; but came in by special institution long since.

2. The other administration in which they stood, was established with a seed to be propagated by natural generation, according to ex­press command, Gen. 17.9. Thou shalt keep my covenant there­fore, thou and thy seed after thee in their generations this is my co­venant which ye shall keep, &c. Every man-child among you shall be circumcised. But where have we command for the like in this administration? That administration was a typical, temporary, bondage-covenant; and in a sigure it ministred unto the ends of the everlasting covenant; and therefore it sufficed as unto that admini­stration, if the people, the children of that covenant, were of the [Page 21]seed of Abraham, because by that shadowy covenant, young and old, good and bad were all alike Covenanters, and all alike in a ca­pacity to be subjects of an administration, which was to serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, till the seed should come to whom the Promise was made, Gal. 3.19. as hath been for­merly proved, whereunto we reser the Reader.

But the Gospel-administration, that brings Christ, and all the my­stery of his grace, in the truth and reality, and not in the figure and example; is not receptive of children, as to the Principle upon which it stands, any other way then upon some visible demonstration of Faith, whereby Christ comes to be received, who are therefore called the sons of God, John 1.12, 13. As many as received him, to them gave he power, right or priviledg to become the sons of God, to them that believe in his name, borne not of blood &c. Thus the Apostle, Gal. 4, 28. calls the saints of the Churches of Galatia, children of the promise, in opposition to the seed accor­ding to the flesh, vers. 23. And their mother the free Gospel-co­venant, v. 26. And the same Apostle declareth, Rom. 9, 8, that the children of the promise are counted for the seed, in opposition to the seed according to the fl [...]sh, v.7. Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, &c. Whereunto many other scriptures might be ad­ded. Yea, the whole stream of the New Testament, witnesseth to a seed according to calling, and (as to the principle of their ad­mission) all living stones, for the constitution of the Church of God, and not one word in favour of a seed according to the flesh, as to admission into the Church, upon that principle of birth-pri­viledge.

3. Though the Gospel-Church may not be built by such a seed, nor can be receptive of it upon that account; yet would there arise no ground of discouragement or sadness to the Jew thereby; his sha­dowy glory was now to cease, but real glory was set up in the place of it: and the same specially prepared, and held forth to him and his seed, as amphe as ever, and by a better and more lasting covenant, to be made good upon better promises. But this glory must be received as it is tendered; it is tendered to faith, and by faith alone can it be enjoyed and partaken in, and profession the vi­sible title thereunto. And against this change, the Jew had nothing to except, but his unbelieving minde which God determined should break him off, Rom. 11.20. The change of the administration [Page 22]from the carnal seed to the seed by adoption, did not at all abridge the interest of the Jew to the grace of God in Christ, or any privi­ledges thereof, but unbeleef.

We consent thus far to the truth of the objection, 4 that it could not be avaided, but that the Gospel should become a sore offence to the carnal Jew, that could not discerne the mystery which was beyond his typical state; which exalted his nation so much above other people; and consequently his children of the flesh, who were to succeed in the like pre-eminence: and all this to cease, and the Gentiles to be admitted into the same grace with the seed of Abra­ham; was doubtless that stumbling block which offended many of them, as the Lord had foretold by Isaiah 8.14. applied by the Apostle, 1 Pet. 2.5, — 9. But what of all this? must the mystery of grace, for the gathering of the elect to Christ, be still cumbred and clouded with the pretensions of a carnal seed, which could by no meanes be brought to the standard of so high a mystery as Christ was come to call men up unto ( viz, faith, repentance, laying down of life and all for Christ in or to the glory promised) rather then the Jew must take offence? we therefore deny that the argument from saddening and offending the carnal Jew, is of any worth at all.

Accuser.

Arg. 4, If so, then children would be superfluous in the Text, and so the Spirit of God would be charged with tautologies, which would be blasphemie to affirme.

Answer.

It seemes superfluity and tautologie must all be one. But we say that our denyal of baptisme to infants, doth not render the declara­tion of the right of the children of the Jew, in this Scripture super­fluous, because the children of the Jew may have many great rights in the promise held forth, and yet through present personal incapa­city, may not have a right to be baptised. Baptisme is a part of instituted worship, and must be administred just as the law of its institution directeth, and not otherwayes: and it had well become our Accuser to have found one little place, within some of his ar­guments, to have convinced us of errour from a rule of the word, whereby this forme of infant-baptisme came to be a Gospel-ordi­nance; or at least some example of its practise in the manner he pre­tends unto, and to have passed by these empty notions.

Accuser.

Arg. 5. The tense is changed: The promise is to you and your children, in the present tense; but when he speakes of the call, he speakes in the future tense, as many as God shall call, which must needs be applied to them afar off, and not to children.

Answer.

Must it needs be applied to them afar off, and not to children? 1 Then it must needs be, that the Gentiles and their children must be all called before baptised, for all these are meant by them afar off, being opposed in the Text to you and your children, that is, the Jew. So that infant-baptisme can have no place in the Gentile-Church by this interpretation, but must remaine with the Jewes by virtue of the promise to them and their children before calling.

This absurd disproportion cannot be shifted aside by replying that [them afar off] must be limited to the first called Gentiles: 2 because then there could be no difference at all in the case, whether call be applied to the people of the present tense, the Jew and his children, or to the people of the future tense, them afar off; because it is con­sented that the first Fathers of the Jewish people themselves must be called before baptised.

This trifling dispute from the change of the tense is very absurd, as well as frothie, 3 as supposing that the same qualification of calling may not also be requisite to the present time, because it is here set down; as required in the future not considering that calling must reeds be found in the first Jewes themselves. The like absurdity is in his argument of the change of the tense, by his change of the subject, from promise to call; the promise is, the call shall be: what is all this to ground an argument upon?

Accuser.

Arg. 6. If their interpretation hold good, there would be a very great change in the extent of the Covenant, narrower under the Gospel then it was under the Law, and no notice in all the book of God given of such a change.

Answer.

Passing by the unexpressed interpretation, we shall apply an answer to this argument, as it stands opposed to our practise of baptisme, as the Lord shall give ability.

1. We say, That the Covenant hath one and the same extent be­fore, under, and since the Law, considered singly in it self: 1 the admi­nistration [Page 24]is changeable, and was often changed; yet whatever pas­seth from the Believer to his Childe, by vertue of the intrinsecal Na­ture of the Covenant of Grace, that also admits of no change; but being so made out, we say, That all that will be more evidently and cleerly ratified, both to Parent and Childe, for the comfort of both, by Baptism after Faith, then by Baptism in Infancy.

2. Neither is the administration under the Gospel, narrower then that under the Law, because it admits not Infant-baptisin. This administration under the Law, was circumscribed to a little Land, and a small People: the bounds of the other are stretched from Sea to Sea; and from the Flood to the Worlds end. This was restrain­ed to the seed and family of Abraham; the other extended to the seed and family of Christ. This had its existence but two thou­sand yeers, upon an occasional temporary principle, the other is suit­ed to answer a principle existing from everlasting to everlasting. This administration was the shadow, figure, and example; the other the substance. This was the Handmaid; the other the Mistris. And if the case be thus between these two administrations, will any presume to charge the Gospel-adminstration with more narrowness, then the Law; because of the dis-continuance of the Birth-Privi­ledge?

3. Although the Grace of the Gospel be extended far beyond the Grace under the Law; yet as to Persons, the Children of the Go­spel are formed to so strict and refined a qualification, that in that respect we allow the Law, a latitude beyond the Gospel; but yet with this mark. That that indulgence of the Law was one of the great imperfections, which the Gospel came to reform, Mat. 3.10, 11, 12. And of this change the Book of God doth give abundant no­tice, although the Accuser be informed to the contrary, Gen. 21.10. Cast out the bond-woman, and her son, &c. Shortly after the institution of the Ordinance of Circumcision, for the Priviledge of the Seed according to the flesh, the Lord brings forth a Prophe­tical instance in the very Family of Abraham, (the type of the true Church) wherein this great change of Church-Priviledge was re­vealed to be taken from the carnal Seed, that it should be given to the Seed according to Grace, under the Gospel-administration. And to put that matter out of question, we have the unvailing of this Prophetical instance to the very same purpose, in Gal. 4.30. so also, Isa. 54.1. Sing O barren thou that bearest not. What she [Page 25]was, the Apostle tells you, Gal. 4.26, 27. next consider her husband, vers. 5. Thy Maker is thy Husband, the Lord of hosts is his Name; and thy Redeemer the holy One of Israel: at vers. 13. you have the refined qualification of her Children and People, And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord. Here you have a Prophetical description of the Gospel-Church-state, which the Peo­ple of a fleshly extraction from the most sanctified Saints, cannot possibly compare unto, it must therefore necessarily be under­stood of another Seed, even of a Seed begotten of God by the Word of Truth, James 1.18. the Gospel-People. And this was a fair notice given of the change in question, to wit, narrower, as to the qualification of the Persons, but more extended in Grace. To the like effect is Isa. 60.1. Arise, and shine, &c. at vers. 21. Thy people also shall be all righteous. Another fair warning for the fleshly Seed, is Isa. 65.15. For the Lord God shall slay thee, and call his people by another name. What think you of this warning? Hear the Prophet Jer. 31.31. The days come that I will make a new covenant &c. vers. 34. They shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest of them. Here is a plain notice of the change of the old administration, which gloried in the Seed of Abraham, after the flesh, and as plainly foretelling the cessation of that propagation, to give place to the new administra­tion, and the true Seed of Abraham, the Seed according to the Spirit; and indeed the change of the administration necessarily re­moves the fleshly Seed, because it hath a standing by no other right then what it had under that Covenant. We shall not make use of the New Testament to prosecute this point, it everywhere abounds with evidence to it.

4. And because the Accuser placeth the force of an Argument upon the supposition of not giving notice of the change of the prin­ciple of visible admission into the Church; we also shall take the same liberty of reasoning, and say, That seeing the common way of ad­mission to baptism in the Primitive Church, was after personal Profession of Faith; and also seeing the error of circumcising ba­ptized Disciples, had generally overspread the Churches, and might be interpreted very much in favour of the fleshly seed, Act. 15. it is very strange, that notwithstanding the common practice of Ba­ptism upon Profession, and notwithstanding the severe Confutation of this, and the like error, by Arguments plainly in dis-favour of [Page 26]the carnal Seed, as may appear Mat. 3.10, 11, 12. Rom. 4.13, 14. Rom. 9.7, 8. Gal. 4.30. yet that in neither case, there should be found anywhere in all the New Testament, a qualification for the saving of the right of Infants of Believers to Baptism, if it had been a right, especially upon that pertinent occasion about circumcision: we there­fore conclude, that there was not such right.

Accuser.

Arg. 7. If their interpretation be true, then the believing Jews, should have loss by their repentance, if their children should be excluded from the Promise, as soon as the Parents had repented.

Answer.

1. Very true, and a greater loss then that would befal the chil­dren, if the Parents repentance should exclude them from the Pro­mise. But where did the Accuser learn that Interpretation and Opi­on? we utterly disown it, and do place it among the other calum­nies unjustly thrust upon the Profession of the Truth wherein we stand. We say, That the Children have a right in the Promise with the Parent; and that the Parents Repentance and Baptism, brings great advantages to the Childe: but we deny that a right to the Promise infers a right to be baptized. The Scripture alledged, declares a right unto the Promise in these Jews, when they had no right to be baptized; the right to be baptized, ariseth from the in­stituted Rule prescribed by God's word for the administration of Ba­ptism, and the Persons conformity thereunto. Among all the Di­sputes in this Question, when shall we be pressed with a rule pre­scribing Infant-Baptism, as a part of the instituted worship of the Gospel-administration?

2. We consear, that in some sense, a Jew converted to the Gospel should have loss, and particularly in that point of sealing his fleshly Seed by an Ordinance, together with the fall of all the glory of their Sanctuary, and pompous Priesthood, so much and so long the joy and boasting of that Nation: which the Spirit of God fore-saw and foretold, by Isa. 8.14. and hence it come to pass, that Christ became so great an Offence, and the Gospel so sore a Stone of stum­bling and Rock of offence to them all; yea, even to many of them after they had submitted to the Gospel: yea, the Gentile Churches were scarce, if at all, preserved from stumbling hereat with the Jew. But all this loss well considered, would amount to no more then what [Page 27]befalls a man, who from the Priviledges of a Servant, is invested into the Priviledges of a Son. And this was the very case, Gal. 4.4. God sent forth his Son, &c. Vers. 5. To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of Sons. Vers. 7. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son. And the reason of this change, the Apostle plainly sheweth us, vers. 23. He that was after the bond-woman, was born after the flesh; but he of the free-woman, was by promise. There was an infinite dif­ference in the propagation of the Seed of the former Church­state, and of the Seed of the Gospel-state; no less then between Nature, and the Power of God, as was in the Types, Ishmael and Isaac.

3. Neither hath this change brought any other loss unto the child, but, 1. The Interest which it had in the everlasting Covenant, under the former administration, it still retains. 2. The benefits and ad­vantages which it had by the Parent, are so much bettered, by how much the spiritual state of the Parent under the Gospel, by Ba­ptism after Faith, is better ratified then under the Law. 3. All o­ther and further benefits from the Covenant, are more freely and ful­ly tendered, and with many enforcing advantages, brought neer to be had and enjoyed. 4. It is an advantage, that as a token of the expiration of the bondage Church-state, their signing upon the na­tural birth, is also at an end; and their sealing into all these Privi­ledges, transferred to an Ordinance upon the visible Title of their New-birth; without which, no word of God can be found to raise them into the visible Dignity and Prerogative of the Sons and Heirs of Sarah, the Gospel-Covenant or administration. And it is cleer to us, that such a loss as this, was not obscurely pointed at, in the preaching of Christ, although we do not strain it here, Luke 14.26. a loss of natural and carnal Ordinances, to enjoy spi­ritual.

4. There is no colour of warrant from the Word of God, That Jesus Christ, in the day of his appearing, did establish a­ny one Ordinance in the Church, which did import a Commu­nion in his Intercession, to be practicable duely by a person in an un­regenerate state.

Accuser.

Arg. Then they could have no hope of their children; for hope without a promise, is presumption.

Auswer.

1. If the hope of the Parent for his child's salvation be grounded upon the administration of an Ordinance in Infancy, then neither had the Patriarks for above two thousand yeers hope of their children: which we finde false by Noah's Prophesie, Gen. 29.26, 27.

2. We demand what hopes the Accuser intendeth? and by what Scriptures the same are annexed to the administration of an Ordinance in Infancy?

3. VVe justifie an holy hope in Believers, in behalf of their Children; which is grounded upon plain Scriptures, without Infant-Baptism.

4. VVe say. That this Argument seemeth to carry in it this con­clusion. That Christian People, by Infants Baptism, are by Scripture-grounds assured, according to Gospel-hope, of the Salvation of their Children: there wants a proof for it; and we suppose, it is not received as a Truth by many that oppose us in this Point.

5. His Argument supposeth, That to be without Infants Ba­ptism, will infer a being without the Promise; but that hath been often disclaimed.

Accuser.

Arg. 9. If children should be excluded from the Promise, let any man breathing shew me what priviledge the Children of repenting Parents have above others? Now it is cleer the A­postle adds children in the Text, to shew that they had some spe­cial priviledge above those that were uncalled.

Answer.

1. The supposition of this Argument is, That the denial of Ba­ptism to the Infants of repenting Parents, deprives them of all Pri­viledges above the Infants of Persons uncalled: but this suggestion hath been formerly replied unto, in our Answer to the Accuser's se­cond Argument; where also, many high Priviledges of the Infants of the Godly, are expresly mentioned.

2. The Accuser doth not shew us how the Apostles words, [the pro­mise is to you and to your children] being made use of to win an unwilling People to the Faith, do prove the Baptism of the Infants of those that are actually in the Faith, seeing it will not be granted, that a right to the Promise, and a right to be baptized, are converti­ble terms.

3. VVe have already set down many Priviledges of the Infants of believers, above others; although we admit them not to bap­tisme, [Page 29]or visible-Church membership. If we detract from them any spiritual participation in the grace of the covenant, we believe we had not been so long left under a general charge, without some particular allegation against us. But we are well assured, that no such thing in particular can be justly found against us. Besides we know that our opposites among themselves are so puzled about the finding out more priviledges to the infants of believers, then we al­low (save in the single point of admission to baptisme) that although there have been sufficient demands of it, we doe not know that the same hath hitherto been done: and yet still the cry is up in general words, for the priviledges of the infants of believers, as if we de­nyed their possibility of salvation.

Accuser.

Arg. 10. Then how could the blessing of Abraham come to the Gentiles, according to Gal. 3.14. which blessing of Abraham was, I will be a God to thee and to thy seed, Gen. 17.7.

Answer.

1. The supposition of this argument being not exprest we take to be this: If the infants of believing Gentiles be not to be baptised, then could not the blessing of Abraham, mentioned Gal. 3.14. come to the Gentiles; I am a God to thee and to thy seed, &c. To this argument we reply:

Two places we have in this third to the Galatians, in which the blessing of God to Ahraham is intimated. (1.) In the close of vers. 8. In thee shall all Nations be blessed. (2.) And at v. 16. To Abraham and to his seed were the promises made. As to the first place, vers. 8. it is taken out of Gen. 12.3. And because there is a necessary coherence of this authority with vers. 7. for the proof of what is here affirmed viz. That they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham; and because the same pro­position is also affirmed by this Apostle, Rom. 4.11. That he might be the father of all them that believe, and at vers. 16. to the same effect. Who is the father of us all: And is also confit­med at vers. 17. by a place alledged out of Gen. 17.5. I have made thee a father of many nations; We therefore say, That these two places, Gen. 12.3. and Gen. 17.5. have an agreement between themselves, because they both agree in the proof of the same position; viz. that they which are of the faith, are the children of Abraham. But although this blessing of Abraham to come on [Page 30]the Gentiles through Jesus Christ (as is expressed, Gal. 3.14. by a continued and necessary coherence of the matter there treated of, falleth in with that which went before, quite against the title of the birth-priviledg, established by the law, and giveth it to believers the only sons of Abraham in the Gospel-day, vers. 7. They which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham. This bold opposite hath pleased to lay aside that blessing, and to call upon another Scripture managed by the Apostle in another argument, and to annex it with this vers. 14. to serve his turne, but with as little advantage as if he had stayed where he was. In the interim, we deny that there is any colour of truth in this allegation, that the denyal of infants-baptisme bars the blessing of Abraham from the Gentiles, or can be justly supposed so to doe.

2. But admitting his application, of vers. 16. drawn from Gen. 17.7. I will be a God to thee, and thy seed after thee, to be pertinent: Yet it makes not a jot to his purpose, to wit, that be­cause the carnal-seed of Abraham had a day, wherein as the natu­ral sons of Abraham they were priviledged under circumcision; that therefore the carnal-seed of every believer should in the Gospel-day, be admitted into the visible priviledges of sons and heirs of Christ. It is a very froward supposition, that the proportion between A­braham in the flesh and his carnall seed, in the time when circumci­sion was in date, should be the same to Abraham in the spirit, (who is Christ) and the carnal seed of every believer in that season when circumcision is out of date.

3. What is this seed of Abraham to whom God doeth here promise to be a God? or what hath blinded the man, that hath considered the 16 vers. and cannot see what interpretation the spi­rit makes of his own words in Gen. 17.7. He sayeth not, Unto seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ? Not the natural children of all believers, unless men will turne Qua­kers, and say that Christ is given with every natural procreation. For Christ, even that ONE is that seed, to whom or in whom the promise is made, Gen. 17.7.

Object. But this must be Christ mystical, and that will serve to take in the natural seed of believers.

Answer. No, it is not Christ mystical: at vers. 17. the cove­nant is confirmed of God in this Christ, the Christ who is given for a covenant of the people. Although by adoption believers are joynt-heires [Page 31]with Christ, yet are they not (and much less are their natural seed) joynt-mediators with him in the covenant. That Christ was the sole Mediator in the everlasting covenant, confirmed to Abra­ham by the covenant of circumcision; that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe, is the plain use and improvement of this Scripture in this place. But what if Christ my­stical be also taken in to helpe the matter? when will it be proved that God hath made the birth-priviledg a way under the Gospel-ad­ministration, to be ingrafted into Christ mystical?

4. Take this distinction concerning the blessing of Abraham.

• 1. The blessing of Abraham in the letter and according to the Law.
• 2. The blessing of Abraham in the mystery and according to the Gospel.

1. According to the letter, Abraham obtained the blessings and priviledges of the whole inheritance, which came by the Law to be the peculiar inheritance of himself, his fleshly-seed and family, to­gether with all the singular advantages which thereby were mini­stred among them for the calling and gathering of a seed to Christ, in an everlasting covenant, whereunto that covenant in which they stood under circumcision, with the prerogatives of the inheritance thereof, did minister, as an example, figure and shadow. The sum of the covenant of circumcision, see Gen, 17.10. This is my co­venant which ye shall keep between me and you, and thy seed after thee: every man-childe among you shall be circumcised, unto vers. 15. That circumcision was of the same nature with the Law, see Lev. 12.2, 3. John 7.23, That the Law was a co­venant ministring as an example, figure and shadow of heavenly things, to wit, of the sanctuary and of the true Tabernacle whereof Christ alone was the high-priest and minister, See Heb. 8.1, 2, 5. Chap. 9. vers. 1. and 9. Chap. 10 vers. 1. That the cove­nant of circumcision fell with the Law, see Acts 15.24. Subver­ting your soules, saying, ye must be circumcised, and keep the Law, Col. 2.14. In this sence, the blessing of Abraham was not to come to the Gentiles, neither consequently the birth-priviledg, which had its institution from that covenant only, and was a prin­cipal part of the blessing thereby given.

2. The blessing of Abraham in the mystery and according to the Gospel, is the manifestation of Jesus Christ, with all the blessings and [Page 32]priviledges of the everlasting covenant to be the peculiar priviledge, inheritance & right of every believer, who therefore are called the children of Abraham, that the type and the substance having a mu­tual and respective application each to other, the minde of God might be clearly seen in them both, for the distinguishing of shadows and figures, which were to be done away, from the substance that was not capable of any change: which we are manifestly instructed in by the Apostle, Gal. 3.26. Ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ, Jew, Greek, bond, free, male, female: mark how the Apostle resolves the point in question, at vers. 29. And if ye be Christs, then are ye Abrahams seed, and heires according to the promise. Not, if ye be the seed of believers, then are ye Abrahams seed, as the Accuser would insinuate to the Reader by his half-faced argument. And this is the blessing of Abraham, which was to come to the Gentiles, even this, that Christ with all his benefits should be given to the believing Gentiles for a covenant.

Accuser.

Arg. 11. Then how can believers be heires according to the pro­mise, Gal. 3.29. if their children should be excluded from the promise? for the childrens right to the promise is a part of the fa­thers inheritance (for) the promise is to thee and thy seed.

Answer.

1. We shall not be perswaded to entertain that position, that the children of believers are excluded from the promise. We say, that as the denyal of infant-baptismes imports no exclusion from the pro­mise, so neither doth every right to the promise instate a person into the inheritance.

The Jew had a right to the promise uncalled. (1.) As God had his remnant among them according to election. (2.) He had a right to the promise, as God gave him a priority and precedencie in the tenders of the promise, above and before all other people. (3.) They had a right to the promise, as they were lost sinners whom Christ came to seeke and save. But in neither of these respects was the Jew an heire in the promise: such an interest and right to the promise, declares the person to be made a son by adoption; and if sons, then heires of God through Christ, Gal. 4.7. a priviledge which no title of the natural father can prefer a creature unto in the Gospel-administration.

2. The Scripture made use of for infant-baptisme in this argument [Page 33]is this, If ye be Christ's, then are ye Abram's seed, and heirs, according to the promise: and the application of this Authority, is made by way of question: If Infants of believers may not be baptized, then how can believers be heirs? And hath the per­son this Scripture in his eye, and yet pretends himself unprovided of an answer? How plainly doth this Scripture lay the Title of the Heir upon this conditional qualification, of being Christs? He that is Christs, is an heir by this Text, be his Children never so great ali­eas and stangers.

3. But saith he, The childrens right to the promise, is part of the fathers inheritance: for the promise is to thee, and to thy seed. His meaning seemeth to be this: If the Father be Christ's, and so cometh to be an Heir, then the promise carrieth the same Title to the Inheritance, down to the children: which is all one, as if he had said, That if the Father be a Son of Abraham, (which in Gospel-construction is a believer) then the childe must be a Son of Abraham, and a believer also; even by his Birth-Priviledge, and not by Faith: directly confronting many Scriptures, which re­strain the blessing of Sonship to Abraham, and the Inheritance in all manner of persons to Faith in Christ, Gal. 3.9. They which are of faith, are blessed with faithful Abraham: not, they which are the Children of Believers. And in the Text al­ledged, If ye be Christs, then are ye Abrahams: not, if ye be children of believers.

4. As to the interpretation of that passage, taken from vers. 16. The promise is to Abraham, and to his seed; besides what hath been said in answer to the tenth Argument, we say, that the appli­cation of this Scripture must be made between competent persons, and under their proper qualifications and respects, respectively con­sidered. The promise was made to Abraham, as a common An­cestor; and he had a noble seed, to whom the blessing, as an Inhe­ritance did inure; but under this qualification, as they were his na­tural seed, priviledged under the typical administration: by which this Prerogative was so setled. Now to improve this Scripture a­right, the heavenly mystery vailed in this dispensation, must be sought out: and first we must finde the common Ancestor, and him the Apostle discovers to us to be Christ; if Christ's, then Abra­ham's seed, vers. 29. So then, although Abraham stood a Father of many Nations, under the Law, yet Christ is the onely Father, the [Page 34]everlasting Father under the Gospel-administration: and this Ance­stor hath also his Seed more nobly descended, then the Seed of A­braham: they are all the Sons of God by faith in Christ, vers. 26. Yea, it is impossible, that by any other qualification, men can come to be the Sons of this Ancestor; then by being made one with him in the participation of the everlasting Grace of the unchangeable Co­venant. Now then, it is an incompetent application of persons, to compare every particular believer and his children to Abraham, the common Ancestor of a whole administration, and the Seed privi­ledged thereby: and no less incompetent, is the application of the qualification requisite in persons to be accounted heirs, that because it sufficed to Abraham's heirs, that they were the sons of his natu­ral Generation, and thereby made capable of an Inheritance in the figure, and in the letter; that therefore it sufficeth, by being the child according to natural generation of any believer, to be upon that ac­count an heir of God, and joynt-heir with Christ, in the very sub­stance and mystery, which the former administration did prefigure. We therefore shall deny the Argument raked up out of these two abused Scriptures: and we say, That it is an absurd, as well as a presumptuous reasoning from the promise to Abraham, and his seed, to infer or suppose, that the Infants of believers are joynt-heirs with Christ and their godly Parents, under the administration of Grace, because of the Birth-Priviledge given to Abraham, and his Seed by the Law.

Accuser.

Arg. 12. Lastly, If children be excluded from the promise, it seems the Apostle went about rather to deceive his hearers, then to inform them: it's very unlikely, the Apostle would use the same dialect of the Covenant, that was formerly used to Abra­ham, (I am thy God, and the God of thy seed: the promise is to you and your children) if it had been his minde that children should be excluded. I wish that men would with unbyassed hearts weigh these things, and you shall see, that the children of be­lievers are in the promise.

Answer.

1. We say, That the Apostle in plain terms tells them, That the promise is to you, and to your children: and in the strength of that gracious promise, perswades them to Repentance and Baptism: but [Page 35]what if Children be not excluded from the promise? where comes in Infant-Baptism upon that account? and this should have been the very first thing, if he had intended ingenuously to have proceeded; and there was a fair occasion for it in the first Proposition, That the Covenant of Grace stands now in force to the children of Believers under the Gospel. But in stead of a fair proof, as well there, as all along, we have a parcel of doubtful and equivocal terms, made use of, without any discovery in what sense they are applied: of which artifice, we have frequent experience. And we have some grounds to judge, by the management of what hath passed, That the Opponent durst not open that door, lest the light thereby entring, would have manifested these, and the like inconsequential and con­fused reasonings: and that therefore it was thought best, silently to trust the credit of that Point, with the good disposition of the credulous Reader, having to deal with us, whom in a jeer he scorns, with the Title of a learned company, meaning a company of silly follows.

2. What an odious and audacious inference, he here imposeth upon the Spirit of God, That if Infant-baptism may not be con­cluded from the words alledged, The promise is to you, and to your children; then the Apostles use of them is in a deceit: we have already made known, That the use made of these words, was to induce poor grieved sinners to Repentance, as containing a Do­ctrine full of comfort for such, that repenting, and being baptized, they and theirs, in all generations, had Promises of Christ, and all his benefits. And what is the deceit herein? Indeed, to promise an Inheritance in Christ to poor Creatures; and to affix a Seal of God to that Promise, without any colour of authority by any Rule of the Word, may perhaps be in time charged as a noto­rious deceit: the good Lord draw all his faithful Servants out of it.

3. That the Apostle useth the like (Dialect, as he pleaseth to set it out) phrase of speech to these Infants, that God was pleased to use to Abraham at the confirmation of the Covenant, [viz. I am thy God and the God of thy seed; the promise is to you and to your children] is no help to Infant-baptism at all: forasmuch as the al­legation of the Apostle, is to perswade the People to Repentance and Baptism; without which, the Promise contributed nothing at all to justifie a persons Baptism.

[Page 36]4. These words spoken by God to Abraham, [ I am thy God, &c.] did Prophetically and mainly refer to Christ, and Gospel-times, to have their accomplishment for the gathering in of the Seed of God to Christ, scattered abroad amongst the Jews and Gentiles; especi­cally, and first of the Jews; it was therefore necessary, that the Ar­gument of the Apostle should be formed to the likeness of the autho­rity from whence it is drawn; but still the intepretation suited to the minde of the Spirit, to wit, the gathering of a spiritual, not a carnal Seed to Abraham, that is, Christ.

Accuser.

Further, I observe, that the promise is to be considered two ways: 1. As it is invisibly made, so it is alone to the elect. 2. As it is visibly made, so it is with visible professors and their children: whoever is in covenant in the first sense, can never fall away; but many may be in covenant in the later sense, who may afterwards degenerate and fall away. Here let the impar­tial Reader take notice, that the Covenant, as it is visibly exhi­bited is the ground for baptism, seeing the subjects of the Co­venant internally are known to God alone. This distinction of the Covenant is clear, from Rom. 9.4. where the Apostle saith, The Covenant pertains to them: and yet the Apostle was in great heaviness for them, vers. 2. It's clear from Act. 3.25. where the Jews are called the children of the Covenant, and yet but few of them internally in the Covenant. It's clear, from John 1.11. where they are called God's own: which could not be by Creation; for so, all are his own: neither could it be by special Grace; For, saith the Text they rejected Christ: then it must needs follow, that there was a visible Church-Covenant, or Co­venant of Grace, visibly exhibited, that gave them a claim to God.

Answer.

He calls upon the impartial Reader to take notice, &c. so also do we; and shall take it for the point in issue between us and our Op­ponent, viz. whether the visible exhibition of the Covenant, the ground of Baptism, will justifie the baptizing of Infants, or the ba­ptism of Believers: and let the Reader consider the evidence, and pass a righteous sentence. The visible exhibition of the Covenant, is not that which the fancy and pleasure of men calleth so; but it is the visible way of worship, which standeth and must stand by special [Page 37]institution and appointment of God himself, under known or­dinances, and laws reveased in the word of God: a descripti­on whereof we have Ezek. 43.11, 12. Shew them the form of the house, and the fashion thereof, and the goings out thereof, and the comings in thereof, and all the forms thereof, and all the Ordinances thereof, and all the forms thereof, and all the Laws thereof, and write them in their sight, that they may keep the whole form thereof, and all the Ordinancas thereof, and doe them: this is the Law of the house, upon the top of the mountain, the whole limit thereof round a­bout shall be most holy; behold, this is the Law of the house.

Here we have a compleat description of a visible exhibition of the covenant, where we may see the Lords exactness to give his people an unquestionable plain written rule, for all visible worship, with this caution, that the whole limit thereof round a­bout shall be most holy: nothing to be taken from it, or added to it. So did heat first by Moses, Exod. 25.9,—40. Now we say, if such exactness were to be kept in the figure; and a sutable faithfulness was found in the servant, what exactness may we ex­pect from Christ the Lord! see Hob. 3.5, 6. Moses verily was faithful in all his house as a servant, for a TESTIMONY of those things that were to be spoken after; but Christ as a Son over his own house, which house we are. And that Christ was not wanting to us in this matter, see Mat. 28.19, 20. but the administration of baptism is a very main ordinance of the insti­tuted worship of the New Testament; and that form of it which is practised among us, to wit, to baptise upon faith and repen­tance, being an undoubted form instituted, and practised, by Christ and his Apostles, and no institution or practise for bap­tizing infants being produced: We therefore say, that allow­ing this distinction of the promise or covenant, invisibly and visibly made, and that the visible exhibition is the ground of baptism; we require the proof of this, that infant-baptism is a part of the visible exhibition of the Covenant in the New Te­stament days, institured by Christ or his Apostles; and it is no small comfort to us, that in a day of so much contradiction, en­vy and detraction, wherein this truth becoms a word of pati­ence to us all, hitherto we have never been pressed by any one argument, which doth pretend to an institution of Christ, or a­ny Apostle, but by certain far-fetcht reasons from Abrahams [Page 38]carnal seed, and from circumcision, and suppositions of strange inconveniences imagined by men, to follow the denyal of in­fant-baptism, and such like matters; and indeed being tryed, are found suppositions, and nothing else.

Accuser.

In a word, this must be acknowledged by the Anabaptists them­selves, else how can they call themselves a visible Church of Christ, if there be no visible exhibition of the Covenant, to give men such a visible relation? for there is no claym to God but by Cove­nant.

Answer.

You have heard us affirm a visible exhibition of the everlast­ing covenant; and that in Gospel-times, the same is of another nature then it was under the Law: that now it consisteth in a clear unvailed discovery of the doctrine of salvation by Christ, and an orderly disposition of all matters relating to the same, by the rule of the written word of God, instituting the New Te­stament-administration: all which we thus particularly set down once more.

1. The exhibition is the only instituted worship which God accepteth; and in performing the same according to rule, we are said to do that which is right in the eyes of God, and not otherwise: Exod. 23.13. Deut. 12.28.

2. All the force and authority which it hath upon the consci­ence, lyeth in the rule by which it is commanded, and binds ac­cording to it, and no farther. Esa. 8.20. To the Law and to the Testimony, &c.

3. God so greatly detesteth all services which himself hath not commanded, that in this respect he declareth, that he is a jealous God, who will not indure a provocation: Exod. 20.4, 5. and because mans nature is prone to be inventing and medling, God hath therefore never left his Church without certain plain and positive rules for all manner of duties, which he requireth. And this provision being as needful in the Gospel as under the Law, Christ therefore was not wanting to the Church therein, Mat. 28.19, 20. And amongst other the Lords Ordinances, we find a plain rule and institution, for the baptising of beleevers and penitents; but for the baptising of infants, we have not a word: and because we do not read it neither in precept nor president, we dare not to practise the same.

Accuser.

In this sence we are to understand the children of beleevers in the promise, according to the meaning of the Apostle, in Acts 2.39.

Answer.

That is to say, these words of the Apostle, The promise is to you, and to your children, by him preached to the Jew, to bring them to Christ by repentance and baptism, do import, that the children of beleevers are in the covenant visibly exhibited such wretched abuses of Scripture this bold person dares to affirm. That the interest of the Jew and his children before repentance and baptism is here expressed to be in the promise of Christ, is plain: but from these words to conclude an interest; yea, an actual being in the visible Church, would also conclude, that the Jew in his rankest opposition, was already in that state, which the Apostle laboured by the tenders of this grace to bring him into.

Accuser.

Now this covenant-right, is a ground, which God himself lays down, why any should be baptised, Acts 2.38. he requires bap­tism, v. 39. shews the reason, for the promise is to you. Here I desire the reader to take notice, how the word of command, depends up­on the word of promise, and what an inseparable union and connexion there is between the command and the promise.

Answer.

It is a most false and sensless inference: the right to the promise we grant to be the ground of the Apostles perswasion to repen­tance and baptism; but it is no ground of a persons being bap­tized without repentance, neither is it so layd down by the Lord, or by the Apostle.

But observe the dealing of this man, he requires baptism (saith he) v. 38. and what next? shews the reason, v. 39. the promise is to you, and to your children: and then on he runs, that the word of command depends upon the word of promise with an insepara­ble union and connexion, without taking notice of the conditio­nal qualification of repentance, no less in the command (as he hath devised to call it) then baptism, yea antecedent to it. What wonder, if a corrupt mind drive a person headlong to maintain a justification of smaller, by greater evils? Having first found out in the Apostles declaration of a right to the promise [Page 40]in persons, in order to conversion; that the same imports a right in a visible Church-state; That here again, he also hath found out a command for baptism (disjoyned from a comand to re­pent) with an inseparable union and connexion, directly a­gainst the letter of the text?

Accuser.

The same reason alleadged by the Apostle, why the parent should be baptised, is rendred by the same Apostle, as a reason why the children should be baptised, (for the promise is to you and to your children.)

Answer.

Let the accuser, whoever he be, enjoy what he demands: we consent to him herein, that the reason of the baptism of the parent, is the reason of the baptism of the child: but the rea­son of the baptism of the parent, by vertue of this right in the promise, cannot take effect at all, or for ever, without the qua­lification of repentance: and if the reason rendred by the Apo­stle, be the same for the baptising of the child, then it must bring repentance with it to the water, as the Eunuch did faith to Philip, or it can receive no baptism, if the Apostles reason be rightly alleadged.

Accuser.

Nay, the very same command expressed to baptise the one, is im­plyed to baptise the other: for if some, or any, to whom the promise is made, may not be baptised, there can be no force in the Apostles ar­gument.

Answer.

We are not willing to contend with our opponent, about small matters, to wit, how the Apostles counsel or exhortati­on, Repent and be baptized, may pass by the name of a command. But having layd down a truth for the substance, in what he first affirmeth, we shall joyn issue with him in it. (1) we consent, that the command to be baptized to parent and child is one. Then what saith the comand? Repent and be baptized: We an­swer, What God hath joyned together, let no man put asunder. The accuser was telling but now, of an inseparable connexion: he might have better observed it here, then where he sought it. But (2) Though we approve our accuser in the first part of what he affirms, yet we must leave him to himself to make good [Page 41]his reason, viz. If any to whom the promise is made, may not be baptized, then there is no force in the Apostles argu­ment. We make no question, but that, notwithstanding the mul­titude of Converts at this Sermon, yet there were very many Jews, to whom this promise was made, equally with those that were convert­ed, who persisted in their obstinacy; and thereby rendred themselves and their children incapable of baptism, upon the Accusers own Prin­ciples: nevertheless, the Argument the Apostle made use of, was not therefore without force, because they might not be baptized.

The Accuser having put an end to the cruel torture, with which he hath racked the Scripture beyond all bounds of sobriety, he leads you to see his fair fruits of better information; where, we believe, you will finde enough to discover the person's very great want of a sober Spirit, to say no more.

Accuser.

Thus the Lord satisfied me about Infant-baptism: being thus sa­tisfied, I went to hear the publick Ministery; but this coming to the ears of the Anabaptists, there came three of their Society the nex: day to me, to have an account concerning this thing: I told them, If they would be pleased to come at a time appointed, I would give them the Reasons of my withdrawing from them: and accordingly they came, the Preachers, and Principalest among them; where I gave them an account of my withdrawing from them, as many of my Friends can bear me witness: which was as followeth: 1. Their denying the Children of Believers a right to the Covenant. 2. Liv­ing in constant neglect of an Ordinance of Christ, viz. singing of Psalms.

Answer.

Thus the Lord satisfied me, &c. and in his entrance on this of Baptism, he saith, And upon serious enquiring into the Word, and earnest seeking of the Lord, it pleased him to satissie me; and a little after, but by considering, I saw their mistakes &c. If the Accuser deserves the praise which seems desired by him, and al­lowed to him, of having, with much search of the Scripture, consi­deration and Prayer, sound out and set in order these Grounds, wherein his satisfaction lay, before he departed from us: would it not seem somewhat unhandsome dealing, and beneath a learned Mi­nister, that above a month after our Accusels departure from us, these, our accusers meditations, should be publickly preached in that [Page 42]Town, in matter and form, well-nigh verbatim, as he here hath written them; without acknowledging whose Collections they were? but we leave them to agree, whether the one's claim to them in the Pulpit, or the other's in the Press, shall carry away the applause desired: and go on to consider, what he Reports of that Meeting, in which he gives account of his with-drawing. The first Ground whereof, as he presents it, we have already tendered to examination. The second is our living in constant neglect of an Ordinance of Christ, viz. singing of Psalms. At this Meeting, he charged us, with denying singing of Psalms: now he calls it, living in con­stant neglect of it. About which, what our Light and Practice is (and as then in effect was said) you may take thus: We do fully and cordially own, speaking to our selyes; teaching and admonish­ing one another in Psalms, Hymns, [...]; singing and making Melody with Grace in out heart to the Lord, to be the will of Christ; according to which wholy men of God are bound in all generations to sound forth his high Praises in the Church by Jesus Christ: which ought to be performed by them, being merry in the Lord, with Melody in their hearts, and a distinct and chearful voice, expressed either in the Songs of Moses, David; or otherwise, as the Spirit bringeth things to their remembrance, and gives them utterance, to the edification of themselves and others, that they standing by may say Amen or Hallelujah at such giving of thanks. Unto the performance of which work, although under the shadowy dispensation, there were added Musical Instruments, and Singers specially appointed to attend that service; which are done away in Christ: And although in the beginning of the Gospels confirmati­on, some extraordinary gifs of the Spirit adorned it, which are now ceased; yet the substance of it abides as a duty still in force: to the which, we are not convinced, that the common artificial Rhymes, Measures, and Tunes are essential. In the practice hereof, according to the measure of the Light and Grace of Christ, the Churches and Christians accused (we trust) endeavour to be found faithful to the Lord. Although whatever imperfections or defects of this kinde, were apprehended among us by our Accuser; yet in pretending this neglect of ours, as a just ground of his withdraw­ment from us, he shews himself to have been a very unfaithful member, while he walked with us, in that he never declared any of­fence or scruple about this matter, until he had thus left us; nor yet [Page 43]of the next thing of which he chargeth us, Thus,

Accuser.

Thirdly, For neglecting of Family-duty, maintaining it to be a mans liberty, not his duty, to pray in his family.

Answer.

What our Principles and Practises are in this matter, we have hinted before. Touching the later clause, which is here told you (but very falsly) to have been then presented by him, as the ground of his departure: as there is not the least colour, why he should lay it upon the whole Church from whom he withdrew, (much less, upon the whole of that people, whom he stileth Anabaptists;) so neither seems it so honestly charged on the person, where all the pre­tension that we can learn of it, is: the passages appear to have been thus: At the time he mentioneth, when some Members came to confer with him about the Reasons of his departure; among o­thers, he gave this for one; because we denied Family-duties. It was replied to this effect: We do not deny it; but do own, and af­firm. That it is the Duty of Parents and Masters fearing God, to be frequent in calling their Families together, instructing them in the Principles of Religion; endeavouring by all means possible, their Conversion and Salvation, and in their presence to spread their condition before the Lord; praying for them, that God would set home such instructions and endeavours with power, &c. But afterward, several things being debated, a Case was put: What and if the Master had an ungodly Family, in which he could not judge any one did fear the Lord, with whom he could joyn, as with one Spirit, in Prayer; whether he was bound twice a day, viz. Morning and Evening, to joyn in Prayer with them? It was replied by a Brother, That if he saw advantage might come to them thereby; and found the Lord making his Spirit free, he might so do; it was his liberty: but as to any positive command, that did binde him in such cases, the party thus speaking, said, he knew none. Upon which, one in the company drew this conclusion from these words, That we made it a mans liberty, not his duty, to pray in his Family. How fairly this is inferred from what was said; and how righteously fathered upon the whole; and how certainly this instance was a ground of his leaving us (which himself saith, was afore this conference) is left to the sober Christian to judge.

Accuser.

Fourthly, For denying the power of the Magistrate for punishing evil-doers, (to wit, Quakers.)

Answer.

What the Principles of the people, whom he in the general accus­eth are in this point, is full well known to the world, by their con­fessions of Faith, particularly that of the Congregations in Lon­don, Art. 47. the words are these, A civil Magistrate is an Ordinance of God set up by him for the punishment of evil-doers, and for the praise of them that do well, and that in all lawful things commanded by them, subjection ought to be given by us in the Lord, not only for wrath, but for con­science sake; and that we are to make supplication for Kings, and all that are in authority, that under them we may live a quiet and peaceable life, in all godliness and honesty, Rom. 13. 1 Pet. 2. 1 Tim. 2.

As for this particular Congregation, they have not onely explicitely testified their Fellowship, with these Churches in this Profession of Faith: but it is well known to the Accuser, that se­veral Members have, and as occasion offers, still do address them­selves to the Magistracy in that place, for their punishment and reformation of such disorders as fall under their Observation. Onely they say, They are not perswaded, that the sword of the Magistrate is a mean appointed by Christ in the Go­spel-ministration for the punishing or reclaiming of an erring or mis-guided Conscience, in matters that do depend upon the reve­lation of the Spirit. As for the people mentioned as an in­stance, (to wit, the Quakers,) it was affirmed by those Brethren at that Meeting, and still is, that wherein the Quakers should be found to commit any Offence against the Rules of good manners, the Magistrate hath power as fully to proceed with them, as with any other men.

Accuser.

5. For slighting the publick ministry.

Answer.

This charge is left exceeding raw; whether it relate to all the people by him called Anabaptists? or to this society in Tiverton? or to those members only in particular? whether it be slighting a [Page 45]publick ministry, as not being the ordinance of Christ? or whether it being some kinde of testifying against that which is usually called publick ministry? If the latter, then whether it be only that pub­lick ministry in T [...]rton, or else universally? whether it be their persons, their gift or standing that is slghted? here is latitude for the Reader to make construction as he pleaseth. Our understanding in this matter, is, we doe own and honour as an ordinance of Christ, a publick spiritual ministry or service, to be performed to him and his people in the things of the Gospel, by persons qualified in some good measure from the Lord, and called and set apart ac­cording to Christs laws in his Church; both as to that ministry of the word of reconciliation, and edification, and to that of serving tables. And though this be not as yet fully brought forth and esta­blished in that congregation (it being a falshood in scorne castion them, that Willtam Facie is their Pastor, if by it be understood a man chosen and ordained to that office) as through grace it is with some Churches with whom we have communion in the Lord; yet is it that mercy in order to which they are waiting on the Lord for more of his light and spirit, in making proof and tryal of the spi­rits of such among them as they have best ground to judg the Lord hath bestowed most of his gifts and graces on for that work. As for the ministry of the nation, we have this to say. We own and honour many of the men, not only as holy, but as such that have received gifts and graces from the Lord, which he hath blessed in the exer­cise of them. But as for the forme of their standing, as ministers in office in the Church of Christ, we judg it not to be according to the rule of the Scripture. Neverthelesse we doe not own nor wil­lingly allow, that in this case any should take up railing accusations, or unsound and unsavoury expressions, such as gender to strife ra­ther then to godly edifying; but doe pray for, exhort to, and la­bour after this, that our speech might be alwayes with grace, sea­soned with salt, that we may know how to answer every man. If the Accuser had the knowledg of, and was grieved with any such hard speeches either from the whole or any members, his faithful­ness would have been in exercise to have testified against it in his place, while he had communion with us: his utter silence in bea­ring any witness of this kinde till now, was it seemes from hence, that he knew he was second to none in any language of that nature.

Accuser.

I offered to give them a farther account of my withdrawing from the hypocrisy and wickedness of one William Facy, who is their present Pastor: but they refused to heare, and desired I would not cast dirt to their face; I desired that they would please to give an account, what they had against me, but I could get nothing but this from them, viz. you are withdrawn from us, and have ne­glected your place among us.

Answer.

In this passage is all the colour the Accuser hath for what he pre­tends to be one main occasion of publishing his booke (viz.) that he could not have liberty to speake for himself: which was thus: at this conserence, wherein his five unrighteous grounds were at large debated, he several times began to insist on what he calls the wick­edness and hypocrisy of William Facy, which now (being at liberty in printing) he displays at large. Of which the Reader may in it's place expect an examination.

The matters he maketh so large an outcry of, came to pass while the Accuser walked as a member there, who as he was acquainted with the mans sin and fall, so also declared himself fully satisfied with his being humbled in the sence of it to the dust, and publickly in the Church, praised the Lord for his repentance and recovery. But now beginning to make a narrative of all those matters in the presence of his other friends, with the same rancour of spirit, as may be perceived running through his book (it being six moneths afore, that he had so soemnly witnessed his satisfaction in the others repentance) he was desired to desist from so doing, unless he had any thing to lay to his charge, either before or since those acts, of which the Church had took such publick cognisance, and had proceeded a­gainst him with such severe censure; but there was nothing of any other kinde could be produced. In that he sayeth, I could get nothing but this from them, You are withdrawn from us, and have neglected your place among us. These brethren came to him not as from the Church, but upon his motion to speake with him; neither was the place or company judged expedient to open what was to be laid to his charge, (besides, this manifest withdrawing of his) it followeth not, that therefore the Church had nothing else to charge him with.

By this time he hath made his report (how righteously, let the impartial judg) what principles he found among us. That which remaineth (except here and there a repetition of what hath been said before) is only what carriages and miscarriages he met with among us, with his observations on them, and in­structions to young Christians, &c. from them. All which dis­covery of personal failings and infirmities (should it be admit­ted that they are truth) would not be of that weight upon the deliberated thoughts of the grave and spiritually judging man, as that he should hence condemn the profession and way we walk in; unless there appeared in the nature thereof, somthing of a cause producing necessarily such effects. To such a one therefore it might suffice, besides the stating of our principles, to declare in simplicity of heart, as in the presence of the Lord, that our soul loatheth such abominations, in our selves and o­thers. But because this remaining part of the engine may do ex­ecution upon the simple and harmless ones, toward whom it is professedly directed, and our God having not left us without boldness of appeal to him, & righteous matter for the clearing our selves to men, in divers things falsly presented touching us, we presume on the readers patience to proceed.

Accuser.

Then they sollicited me again to return to them: but seeing they could not prevail, they summoned me to appear before them such a day. I told them, that if I might have the liberty to bring some friends of mine with me, I would meet with them: this being granted, and the day assigned, I desired Mr. Fortescue Lowman, Minister of the word in Cadlie, with some other friends to be present: whom I found very ready, and accordingly at the sams time appointed, came with me to their meeting where were present some of the ablest of that party in these parts, both from Plymouth, Dartmouth, Tornes, Boveytracy, Bampton, and severall other parts, whom they had invited to assist them; and it is remarkable to behold, the just hand of the Lord, who will not bear with sin, nor suffer his truth to fall to the ground: as soon as we came into their meeting, it pleased the Lord to strike such a damp upon their spirits, and cast them into such a hurry, that not a man among them would ingage to justifie their pro­ceedings, but one Thomas Glass, ( who was not of that society, but a teacher of a company of them at Boveytracy) in the name of the [Page 48]rest of the Anabaptists, desired, that all such as were not members of their society would withdraw. I told them, if my friends should not be present with me, according to appointment, I would withdraw also (knowing the inconveniency of being with them alone, when there was no one to testify the playn truth of things.) He told me, if I would deny the authority of Christ and his Church, I might: un­to whom I replyed, That the authority of Christ, I did own; but your authority I did deny. William Facy not willing to be laid o­pen, joyned with this motion, and desired my friends to withdraw. Then Mr. Lowman told them, he had somthing to propose to them before he did withdraw, if they pleased: Thomas Glass replyed, Pray withdraw, for you have nothing to doe here. So we withdrew, and one of my friends said, Report no more that we resuse to give you a meeting; which false report they have often spread to deceive the sim­ple, and to carry on their design, by perswading the ignorant into an opinion, that such as differ from them have nothing to say from Gods word, to justifie their practise. The same night came Thom [...]s Glass (it is worth inquiring why they sent not their Pastor William Fa­cy, if they were not ashamed of him, or he to look on me) and one of his brethren to my house, with a message from the rest of the Ana­baptists, to declare that they had rejected me. Mr. Lowman be­ing present, desired to know, by what rules they walked, to reject a man, for withdrawing upon such just and reasonable grounds, as I had before urged. But Thomas Glass refused to entertain any con­ference with him for his satisfaction; and told him they had nothing to doe with him. And being asked why they denyed my friends li­berty to be present in their meeting, according to appointment, and refused to give Mr. Lowman liberty to propose what he had to offer them: Thomas Glass brake out in a pettish fit, saying, that we had attempted to disturb them in the worship of God; and charged us with abusing the Name of God, and his people, with incivility, dis­honesty, and want of knowledge; and withall affirmed, that he was imployed by the rest of his brethren to tell us so: Unto which Mr. Lowman replyed, If you are imployed by your brethren to give us such language, pray be pleased to returne this message again, that I humbly conceive, they have done us the wrong, to appoint such a meeting with us; and when we came, to deny us our liberty to be pre­sent; and now to send such language after us.

1. We did not disturb you in your worship of God, for we did nei­ther [Page 49]see nor heare you about any religious exercise when we came, neither did we speake a word till you bid us depart, neither were uncivil with you, for we withdrew according to your desire. Tho­mas Glass being desired to shew some reason, for giving such slan­derous words, replyed, That he was not come to dispute, but declare in the name of their Church, that he had rejected me, the partiou­lars of my charge, were as followeth. (1) That I had withdrawn from their society, and neglected my place amongst them. (2.) That I had vilified some of their brethren, whom I had forgiven. (3.) That I had vilisied some of their brethren for denying Magistracy, neglect of Family duties, singing of Psalmes. (4) That I had a­bused my Father in Law. These things put together, Thomas Glass, and one more of his brethren, did in the name of the Church, declare me guilty of blasphemy (you may judge this was a learned assembly, that brought this charge to such a conclusion) and they were sent to tell me they had rejected me.

Answer.

Here you have at large his story of the Churches proceedings with him (for hitherto was onely the private advice and en­deavors of particular brethren) in which he layes before his ignorant young Christian, several things, though with such re­servations, as may, if need be, afford him some retreat; yet in such a way, as may easily beget a perswasion, and hath done so in many, that he intendeth they should beleeve these things in it.

1. That the Church had granted a meeting, and assigned a day, wherein Mr. Lowman, and others should propose in way of discourse, what they had to say in examination of our proceeedings; which when they came to doe, was denyed them.

2. That in order to this, the Church had invited to assist them, some great number of the ablest of our party that could be got in the several quarters of Country, far and neer, who were then present.

3. That at Mr. Lowmans approach, they all were stricken in such a damp and burry by a just hand of God, that no one durst engage to justifie their proceedings.

4. That the Accuser was judged an offender, and we would not give him liberty to speak for himself.

[Page 50]5. That this learned assembly (as he cals them) brought his charge to this conclusion, that he was guilty of blas­phemy.

6. That this assembly imployed messengers to charge him, Mr. Lowman and others, with abusing the name of God and his people, with incivility, dishonesty, and want of knowledge, &c.

At most of this affair, our selves (that publish this) being pre­sent, we can upon knowledge testifie the falshood of these things suggested. All we shall do, to manisest the abuse imposed on the unwary Reader, will be, to give this true, brief account of the thing.

The accuser having dealt so unworthily with those that had endeavoured more particularly his conviction; the Church at length sent some messengers to signifie, that they expected him at their meeting such a day: To whom he replyed, he would not come, unless he might bring some friends with him. That these messengers withstood not his declared resolution, but ra­ther gave way to it, as their particular opinion that it might be granted him, this is not denyed; but that the Church gave a­ny such instruction, or allowance, is not so. At that time there were four brethren of other congregations (and not one more) having agreed among themselves several dayes before, to be about that Country, and to give that Church a visit, who by providence were brought thither, not knowing any thing more or less of their expecting the Accuser that day before them, much less of Mr. Lowmans coming to propose a­ny thing; nor were they sent for by the Church, nor did the Church as we suppose, know any thing of the intended visit, till after the day that he was summoned (as he cals it) and had took hold of the seeming concession, and given out, he would bring Mr. Lowman, &c. We being present, the Congregation desired us to assist them that day, being the usual day of the week that they met on, which we were ready to do according­ly; and having spent some hours together in prayer and exhor­tation, about noon-time took the Accusers case into considera­tion, with the rumor that was spread in the Town of a dispute that was to proceed, &c. Upon which enquiring, and it be­ing evident, that the Church gave them that had been their [Page 51]messengers no such allowance, as they had given way unto; as also weighing how little it could be hoped that we should administer conviction to the Accuser, when such a rabble of people as were at the door, would thrust in about us and him; and withal, having other matters to charge him with, that were not convenient to be declared before them.

Moreover, that a true taste could not be had of the mans spirit; and what himself might be conscientiously perswaded of, and upon what grounds, if the matter should be taken up, and the time spent by any others on his half: on these and some other grounds it was agreed, we would desire any that should come in with him, not being members, to withdraw; and withal, the members wereexhor­ted, that in case the rude concourse of people should throng in with him (which indeed proved so) to abide in their places in the feare of the Lord, and not make themselves accessarie to any confusion, though tempted and provoked so to be, by the multitude. Our Brother Glass also was pitcht upon to speake the sence of the whole; first, to the multitude, in case they should throng in, desiring we might enjoy our liberty to be private by our selves, there being nothing to be debated that concerned them: and then to the Accu­ser, to lay before him those evils which he was to be charged with, to­gether with the proofs we had of them, and to heare what he had to offer touching it, &c. Then was he sent for, who brought in with him, and after him, such a multitude as hath been declared, who rushing in with no small incivility, as is usual where-ever such contentions are expected, the members generally sate silent as was desired, though grieved to see such provoking demeanour: which the Accuser calleth a just hand of the Lord, striking a dampe on our spirits, but we take to be a mercy, and token of love, to be kept serious and silent under such incivilities. Then did our Brother Glass desire such as were not members to withdraw, &c. whereat, those he calls his friends appearing to be troubled at the disappointment of their designe (which it seemes was, as some of that party have given our, mainly to have thrown in our faces the passages about William Facy) many discontented words dropt from several of them; to whom the answer was, Our continued desires were, they would not deale uncivilly with us, but afford us our liberty, being we had no business in hand that concerned them. It is like that if Mr. Lowman made any motion to speak among the rest, he had [Page 52]the same answer. The Accuser, to shew his valour in refelling any manner of advise or admonition, refused to abide, though again and again exhorted to it, except the company he brought with him might remaine; speaking reprochfully of any authority of Christ among us, and with much derisiont at length he with them withdrew. (At this time then, he being so often admonished to remaine, was not de­barred his liberty to speake for himself. The Church then considered what was their duty farther concerning him, resolved to send mes­sengers again to him, of whom they thought good our Brother Glass should be one, he being acquainted with him, and might best work on him; who in much meekness and bowels desired him to come to the Church, and heare what they had to offer to him, promising him what liberty he could desire toward the clearing himself; but he utterly refused to come, going on to speak contemptuously, as his usual manner of late had been, not only of the Church, but of the way it self, &c. This answer was returned to us (and may it not be worth noting by the way, that he makes no mention of this message wherein he was again offered liberty to speake for himself, but still refused it) the Church then considering again the nature of the evils they had in charge against him (of which hereafter) as also the irreconcileable enmity that he manifested towards us, and the way we walke in; that we were out of any capacity to endeavour farther his recovery, or to deliver him from those iniquities that he boasted in as his glory, concluded it our duty to cut him off, and reject him from the fellowship of this body. But there was not (that we remember) the least mention made of the word blaspemie, much less was his charge summed up under that denomination, or or brought to that conclusion by that learned assembly, as he is pleased in derision to call us.

As to the occurreaces about the delivering the knowledge of our proceedings to him, however we are satisfied, and could make it out upon good demonstration, that it holds proportion with the rest of his book, both for the forging lies, and misrepresenting what hath any colour of truth in it; yet we judge it not worth the while to cumber our present work, or the Reader withal, it appearing at best, but an envious paraphrast on the weakness of a particular man, thereby to asperse the way he walketh in, and the whole people he walketh with. The slanders therein may be more conveniently disproved and reproved if need be face to face. Onely the Reader [Page 53]may know, that what passages were betwixt our Brother Glass, and them, about their uncivility &c. it appears, that as they were not any part of our Message, so neither were they affirmed by him to have been; but delivered by him in the midst of much discourse, as his own observation: at the sight whereof, as he had cause to be grieved, so having such an opportunity, might justly complain of. As for that also about Blasphemy, as we are abused by them in it, so is our Brothers the occasion pretended to give colour to it being only thus: Our Brother Glass, being come to him with the Message a­bovesaid, began in some freeness of speech, (as far as the Accuser's and Mr. Lowman 's interpositions [...] and interruptions would give leave) to set before the young man his state, manifesting; with what tenderness we had demeaned our selves from time to time toward him, being alwayes ready to counsel and admonish him: but he had persisted, notwithstanding all means used, slighting our coun­sels, despising our reproofs, still opposing, contradicting, and blas­pheming. At this word, Mr. Lowman, as was his manner, inter­posed, Will you tharge him with blasphemy? yea, you charge him with blasphemy: how will you make good your charge of blasphemy? &c. though it was answered, as both the brethren testifie, That this Expression was not the Churches, but out bro­threr's own Affirontion of him, which he was ready to make good, &c.

And whereas a [...]rward the conser saith [He had made sad shifts te mince the matter] surely, needed not to be so put to it, be­ing an ear-witness to those unparasleld reproaches, that by him, and by means of him, were cast upon the way and people of the Lord, which the Spirit of the Lord doth not unusually call by that very name, 1 Cor. 4.13. Rev. 13.6. 1 Pet. 4.4. though rendered in our Translation, d [...]aming, evil speaking, slanderously reperting.

Accuser.

Now that you may see the irregular Proceedings of such as pretend to Religion, and under that pretence draw away many poor souls from those means which God hath blessed for their con­version and edification; to the end, such may be warned to take heed, Give me leave to answer to my Charge, and I shall speak nothing but the plain truth; and let the moderate judge, where the guilt lies. For the first particular of my Charge for withdrawing [Page 54]from them: I judge it a great blessing, that the Lord hath so far opened my eyes, as to bring me out from among them: which will easily appear, if you remember the grounds I have already alledged, and shall yet urge, as well from their wickedness of Practice, as Principles, that I found among them; insomuch, that I wonder how the sober among them, could walk with them hitherto.

Answer.

Here he takes on him to answer to the particulars of his Charge, as himself shapes them, after a sharp invective, of which his Book is full; and from which our God, to whom we have committed our Cause. will deliver us: [ For the first particular of my Charge for withdrawing from them, I judge it a great blessing, &c.] This indeed was one thing, which, had he abode, we should have laid the evil of before him, that notwithstanding when he crept in among us, under a profession, that in the fear of the Lord, in conscience and judgement, he did put on Christ; and lifted up his hand to the most High God, that he would walk among us, according to Grace re­ceived, as a Member in the Body of Christs that he did yet, contrary to the Law of his Relation, without any endeavours to make the Church sensible of any evil, either in Principles or Practice, or to help on their reformation; wholly desert them, and withdraw from them: this he counteth his great blessing on the grounds al­ledged: to which we say, That this our Defence considered, toge­ther with the true taste of his Spirit from first to last, the Moderate to whom he appeals, may easily judge the greater Blessing to be on our hand, that we are delivered from such a one.

Accuser.

But this I shall shew you in answer to the second Branch of my Charge, which is a vilifying some members, which they say, I have forgiven.

Answer.

This was also an evil which we should have laid before him, That he (as all the Members did one by one) explicitely witnessed his be­ing satisfied in the repentance of a sinner under censure; and withal, solemnly gave publick thanks to the Lord, for having thus humbled and healed him, as also forgiving him freely, in the Name of the Lord; and joyning in the receiving him into Fellow­ship, as a Member of the Body again; he yet should at length, after above half a yee [...]s silence, and declared satisfaction, display all the [Page 55]repented-of evils of this person with wherever aggravations and addi­tions he could, to render him, and the people he walked with, odious to persons opposite to the way of the Lord we walk in both prophane and professors.

Accusers.

The occasion of this charge they bring against me, is as follow­eth: William Facy, their present Pastor walked so disorderly, his wickedness was so great, that they could do no less then suspend him; but so slightly did they deal in the business that his suspensi­on pretended repentance, and admission again, was all within one week. Shortly after, he feigned himself mad, and began to play pranks with his wife: called a for bason to let out his blood; pre­tending that he would cut his Throat: goes to cast his child into the fire, which child shortly after sickned and died. Much of this, I was both an eye and ear-witness unto: for his wife came crying unto me that she was afraid to abide with him in the house: gave me a relation of those things; desiring me to come with her to her husband. When I came, I found him on the bed: I asked him how he did; but he gave me no answer. After some time I had been there, he arose, and goes from his house. This wickedness com­mitted by him was deemed then by the Anabaptists (as was after­ward by himself acknowledged) to be out of a design to get some mony from his wife, having married a widow, which kept certain Bills or Bonds of Debt in some Friends hands, lest he should con­sume it: for which the Anabaptists suspended him again; and in a little time received him again; wherein I was never satis­fied to this day: and in testimony of my dissatisfaction, I refused to sit down with them at the Lords Table ever since. Now they charge me for vilifying some of their members, when I spake no­thing but the plain truth, in declaring against their sin; and they say, I have forgiven him, when I was thus unsatisfied in his re­pentance, and now judge it but feigned: for he that could so ar­tificially counterfeit madness, could easily counterfeit sadness.

Answer.

Here he begins to entertain the Reader, with whatsoever new or old, before or since his rejection, he can invent and vent against this William Facy; all which, lest it should seem no otherways in the Readers eye, then the personal failings of a poor frail man, and not to be reasonably imputed to the cause or people he walks with, and therefore no just ground for his reproaching and forsaking them; he [Page 56]pins it upon the whole, by inculcating several times a falshood, as the running verse of his distinct Paragraphs, [yet they continue him to be their Pastor,] and at length, closeth up the whole with this, [—whether I have cause to withdraw, where such iniquity is indulged.] In this the Accuser, as in his former story, about the Churches rejecting him, exposeth the Reader to a tempta­tion of supposing these things to be a very truth.

1. That the Church dealt slightly, and short of their duty with William Facy, on his first evil.

2. That the Accuser himself was an eye and ear-witness to the pranks he played (to use his own words) when he feigned himself mad, called for a bason, &c.

3. That the Anabaptists judged, and himself confessed after­ward, that he feigned himself mad, out of a design to get some mo­ny, &c.

4. That the Church indulged this iniquity, and so they had done the former, onely suspending, and in a very little time receiving him again.

5. That this Accuser was all along unsatisfied with his repentance, as being artificially counterfeited.

6. That upon the whole, himself is not to be accounted one that vilifieth his brethren, in that he spake nothing but plain truth in de­claring against the others sin.

To free such as desire to know the truth of things from the Ac­cuser's snare, we shall only present this short account.

This poor Creature now under accusation having walked blameles­ly (as far as we could judge) several yeers among this people, in the faithful and diligent improvement of a good gift of Grace, to preach Christ's Gospel, that the Lord had blessed him with, and blessed in his hand, both to conversion and edification, was at length over­come by the power of temptation arising from some more then or­dinary crosses, in a state of Marriage, whereinto he was newly en­tered; wherein he (as also his yoke-fellow) was attended with tri­als exceeding bitter to be born: which yet, for honor of Truths sake, he greatly concealed. On a time, being overwhelmed with grief and impatience, he rent a Garment that was in his hand; and used some expressions to his VVife, that savoured of a very disturbed and passionate frame of Spirit: of which she complain­ing to some Members, and it coming to the knowledge of the [Page 57]Church, they required the cessation of his exercising his gift publick­ly, till they might be satisfied of his repentance for such iniquity; which he tendring the knowledg of abundantly, within a short time (as the Accuser sayes) they accepted of his ministring to them again as formerly.

Some time after which, the cause of his griefe remaining unre­moved, exceeding bitter and little hopes appearing to him that it could be taken away, that also which the Accuser mentioneth about writings being some aggravation of his trouble; It pleased the Lord to let out the Tempter, to tempt him to that extreamity, that upon a fresh onset of the enemy of his peace, he brake out in his wives presence (none but shee being with him) into a condition as a man for the time beteaved of the use of his reason, in words not unlike his, Job 7.15, 16. As if he had chos [...]n present death, ra­ther then life, and could have helped it on with his own hands; and had desired the same for his little one, which had been maimed and sickly before, and was now weake in the sickness of which it short­ly after died, being an imposthumation that brake within it.

Of all which, together with the aggravations of it, what breakings it hath been to his bones, to the enfeebling his very outward man; what teares, what wounds it hath begotten in him and all that were round about him, That the Lord should be thus dishonour­ed, and the fear of God should no more rule in his heart, it is not unknown to the Accusers conscience, but our comfort is, that our God knoweth how loathsom the thoughts of the iniquity were to us, and with what impartiality, detestation, and severity we have borne our protest against it, and with what heart-bleedings we doe think of it to this very day. In testimony whereof, he himself was sometime since drawing, and was taking advice with several (long before this pamphlet was out) about the publishing a narrative of the whole; shewing the inward declensions that at first secretly took hold of him in point of his communion with God, the various temptations that then attended him, the great iniquities that at length got victory ever him, with their aggravations, the Churches faithful and thorow dealing with him, and the foorsteps of God rebuking, ab [...]sing, yea breaking him to peeces; and yet the sweet a [...]d kindely operation of his hand, sustaining him in distresses from sinking in dispaire, and at length bringing him forth to see the light of his countenance in the face of Jesus Christ. But the publishing [Page 58]this (intended for a warning to them that think they stand) was not by some at that time thought expedient.

The Accusers pretended knowledg of these passages as an eye and ear-witness was no otherwise then thus, as himself declareth; that when the sury of the temptation was over, he came in at his wifes desire, and found him silent upon his bed, from whence after some time he arose, and went out of doors, which was all the iniquity that he saw, only he heard his wife make relation of the things to him, but that also shee did to others afterward; (might not they then be sayd with as much truth to be eye and eare-witnesses as he?) When this was spread before the Church, in all the particu­lars of it, both when they were alone, and when they had obtai­ned the assistance of other congregations for advice, which was very suddenly upon it: The Lord knoweth, and the conscience of this Accuser knoweth, what dayes of anguish and sorrow they were to us all, who forthwith not only suspended him again (as he calls it) from the publick exercise of his gift, but withdrew our communion from him in all the ordinances of Christ, that hold out the peculiar fellowship of the Saints, notwithstanding he then testified, how the very morning after his iniquity the Lord had broken him for it, and with many meltings he declared it: insomuch as though the whole could not but have compassion on his misery, knowing the unspeakable distresse of spirit he was under while the temptation was upon him (and therefore were far from judging that he feigned him­self mad, but rather that suffering such terrours, he was even distra­cted, Psal. 88.15.) yet knowing how the name of the Lord was blasphemed, and seeing that Scripture Jer. 20.10. verified in some from whom better things were expected, and considering how grie­vously such impatient turnings from the Lord were aggravated in him, who had spoken so long and openly in his name; The Church judged they were bound to wait on the Lord in separating him from the congregation for some considerable time, to see what fruite would farther demonstrate his repentance to be such as was not to be repented off. And therefore though during this censure he several times addressed himself to the Church, tendering still the knowledg of the Lords going on to humble and abase him for his iniquity to the dust, and many feared he would be swallowed up with over-much heaviness, yet held they him under that exclusion from membership, from the third day of the twelfth month, 1655. [Page 59](when he was withdrawn from) till the 12 day of the 4 month 1656. and from thence till the 28 day of the 10 month following, they imployed him not fully to minister in all the ordinances of Christ as formerly. At that time mentioned, the 12 of the 4 month, the Church received him again as a member, when each member, (and the Accuser particularly for himself, as hath been said) wit­nessed full satisfaction in the truth of his repentance, and renewed their love to him. And whereas the Accuser saith, that in testimony of dissatisfaction at him, he never sate down with them afterward at the Lords table; it is not denyed, but that about that time, and on­ward, the Accuser grew remisse and negligent in that, as he did in all other acts of visible fellowship with God; confessing but a little before his departure, that the world and relations had drawn him aside; but that he did abstaine from the Lords table as a testimony against any counterfeiting either madness or repentance; he never spake in the least, as can be found, to any member.

Whether therefore the Accuser was not justly chargeable with evill, for running up and down, displaying all that he could finde against this member, himself having testified so amply his satisfa­ction in his repentance, after the Church had witnessed so faithfully against his sin, and this on purpose to render him and the Church odious, as indulging such iniquity, let the sincere judge.

Accuser.

1. He cryes down the publick ministry for taking of Tythes, when as shortly after that his brethren had admitted him to their communion and fellowship, he tells them, that unless they would en­gage to him 30 pounds by the year, he would leave them.

Answer.

Two things the ignorant young Christian is invited to take up from this short accusation for truth. First, that this man did at least essay to indent with his brethren for 30 l. per an. or else would leave them. Secondly, that his so doing doeth justifie the national ministry in their taking Tythes, or at least condemneth him for testifying against it. The whole truth of the former appeareth to have been thus; that a member speaking to him, at a time, about his being fully set apart from other imployment to the work of the ministry by the Church; he replyed to this effect, that he thought he should not yeild to it, for that he should expect a greater main­tenance, then that Church could well provide for him (as the case [Page 60]stood with them) which, said he, cannot be less then 30 l. per annum: but spake nothing of his leaving them.

This Member having occasion to speak something concerning him to the Church, related this passage, which he (being present) ac­knowledged was from a temptation. But put the case he had made this reasonable Proposal, it had in the whole amounted to thus much: A Pastor of a Church (as he is called) having a family, de­mands of the flock of Christ, to whose service he is called, 30 l. per annum, as that, short of which he cannot, with his family sub­sist among them. If this motion be justifiable, then the Ministery of this Nation must not be testified against, for compelling by Law their Tythes and large Revenues, from persons whom they judge were never fitted by the Lord for Communion as a Church in all the Or­dinances of the Gospel: this is one of the Accuser's rational infe­rences.

Accuser.

1. He is a notorious lyer, that makes little conscience of his word, and hath reported many untruths touching the publick Ministers of Tiverton; nay, justifieth himself in lyes when re­proved. There was a young man who wrote notes after Mr. Lowman preaching upon the Doctrine of the Covenant in Tiver­ton: which notes this young man delivered to one of the Ana­baptists, who gave them to William Facy. Within three or four days after, this young man came to William Facy, and demanded these Notes: which he plainly and presumptuously denies, saying, he had them not: but William Facy withdrawing the room the young man espies these Notes on the Table and takes them into his hand: VVilliam Facy comes in; and perceiving the Notes in his hand, takes the Notes by force out of his hand. When the young man reported this to some of his Friends, VVilliam Facy comes to this young man, and calls him Lyer, before his Master, (the young man being then a Servant:) but the young man produced another to testifie the truth of this matter, who was with him at William Facy 's House, and heard him de­ny the Sermon-Notes. Afterward Mr. Lowman, meeting with William Facy, reproved him for lying: William Fa­cy, to justifie himself, tells Mr. Lowman, That the young man had cleared him in this matter, before his Master: which be­ing examined was found a Lye. So here were three lyes: 1. he [Page 61]denies the Notes: 2. he denies that he did deny them: 3. he affirms that the young man had cleared him: which were all false. Several untruths hath William Facy reported, which upon ex­amination hath plainly and clearly appeared so to be: yet they continue him to be their Pastor.

Answer.

Who would not think by what is said, but, 1. That the Accuser had from hence a very good ground to leave us, or at least a very good evidence to clear himself from our second head of matter in charge against him, could he have obtained liberty to speak for him­self? 2. That this William Facy hath very many times, been had upon examination, about notorious lyes, touching the Ministers in Tiverton, and otherwise; and justifies himself, when convicted. 3. That he was unquestionably found in three in one matter. The deceit of the former insinuation appears by this, That whatever is pretended to made out in this his ample story, was all transacted since the time that the Accuser left us, and was rejected by us; and therefore came too late for his just vindication, in the matter for which the Church proceeded with him: but still shews him to be as the raging Sea that cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. For the second thing suggested, if the single affirmations of such a slanderous person, without any particular instances or further proof, shall have any weight with the sober to fasten such charges, then how can the very generation of the Just stand, in man's day, be­fore envy? Reason will prompt the indifferent Reader to suppose, that were there indeed at hand, proofs so cleer upon examination of those horrible impieties and injuries done the Ministers of Tiver­ton, we should have had them inserted, as more pregnant to his business, and notorious then this of the Lad's; that the Reader is at large informed in: which upon the best light we can obtain, a­mounts to no more then this: There was a Sermon it seems preach'd in Tiverton, about Infants right to the Covenant, which had a very great similitude to, and agreement (to say no more) both in matter and form with the Accusers formerly digested and much studied me­ditations on the same subject above examined. The Notes of this Sermon, were by a Member (with Mr. Lowman's consent) delivered to the person accused, and he engaged to deliver them into that Members hand again, as purposing to give some Animadversions on them.

Very shortly there came two youths to his house, neither of them known to him by face; one of which demanded such notes from him, as being his. William Facy denyed the giving them to him, told him he could not have them; the lads importuni­ty grew so great upon him, as would admit neither of denyal or delay: at length, not remembring where he had layd them, and (as the lad sayth) saying, he had them not at present: while he went into a chamber to seek them, the lad found them among other papers on the table: when the youths were gone, they reported, that he had said, he had them not in his house at present: about which when the youth that claimed them, was examined before his Mr. after he was in two or twree tales, as his Mr. still acknowledgeth, and wit­nessed it lately in one of our hearing (who publish this) as well as before other witnesses. The sum is, put case William Fa­cy, as the lad reporteth, did say, he had them not at present, therby intending, he had them not at hand, nor remembred where to finde them at present; and the Lad understood, he meant by the words, that he had them not in the house at present: If there be not left in the reason of men, or love of Christ, a way for the serious reader to reconcile these things, without our farther en­larging, or to accommodate them to a more charitable constru­ction and conclusion, then the Accuser doth, the business shal be left to his censure. Only let it be understood, to be far from us to excuse or plead for a willing use of such equivocal terms in any cases, as may leave the party to whom we express our minds un­der a temptation, to suppose otherwise then in the plainest sence seems to be intended: and we have good ground to be­leeve, our accused friend was not at this time under this temptation.

Accuser.

Yet they themselves have given it under their hands, that he is not fit to manage a discourse to vindicate their practise and way, in which they now walk; for there was a dispute appointed betwixt Mr. Lowman, and Mr. William Facy, which was occasioned by some opposition from the Anabaptists in Bampton, where William Facy and his followers came and opposed Mr. Lowman in the Pulpit, who entertained some discourse with him before the congregation, and [Page 63]then referred it to a day of publick dispute. The Question to be de­bated, was; Whether the infants of beleevers were in covenant: But Mr. William Facy being desirous to new state the question, came to Mr. Lowmans house, and in the presence of several, swore upon the faith of a Christian, that the question to be discoursed, was not whether infants were in Covenant, but, whether infants were to be baptized: where you may see, that such as make little conscience what they say, will make little conscience what they swear. Mr. Lowman reproving him for swearing told him, that the questi­on to be discoursed, should be given under each others hand, and if he desired to have the question so stated, it should be done; the time and place was appointed, the question stated, given in writing; the Anabaptists willing to wave the business, imployed a modest man of their own party, one Mr. Nathaniel Strange, with some others of their brethren, of which Thomas Glass was one, to come and treat with Mr. Lowman, in order to wave the dispute: Mr. Lowman desired to know the reason of their retreat: they told him, because William Facy was uncapable to manage such an undertaking. Mr. Low­man asked, if they would give it under their hands: which accor­dingly they did, and subscribed it in the name of the rest of their bre­thren, upon which the dispute was prevented, yet notwithstanding Mr. William Facy is their Pastor.

Answer.

Being led back again to a story in 1655. by it his ignorant young Christian is exposed, if he be disposed, to beleeve,

1. That though the Anabaptists hold this William Facy fit enough to be their Pastor, yet they have given under their hand, that he is not fit to manage a discourse to vindicate their pra­ctise and way.

2. That he is an open swearer, and further discovered to be a lyar.

3. That the Anabaptists (a feeble flock) were sorely put to a very shamefull retreat from an appointed disputation with Mr. Lowman, and so a great advantage on Mr. Lowmans side was prevented.

This publick examination of Mr. Lowman at Bampton, occa­sioned by some very terrible flourishes he had made a little be­fore in his preaching upon the point of infant-baptism, drew on the appointing a further day for a publick dispute: in which [Page 64]hurry, the question was not so clearly and distinctly stated, to the apprehension of either, but that each (while he thought he took, it seems) mistook the others meaning, and reported va­riously; hence was the meeting at Mr. Lowmans house, to find out and rectifie the mistake; where the conference was mana­ged with much confidence and seeming assurance, that the one, and that the other was in the right, though in this variety; so that meekness and moderation was not called for, between them; neither could ordinarily, yea and nay, goe but a little way: being both in this heat, its possible William Facy averred it, in the faith of a Christian. Of this, they that are quick at the observation of our failings, give testimony, and that Mr. Low­man reproved it: undoubtedly if this were done vainly and rashly, and not in judgment, truth and righteousness, it was an evil worthy to be reproved, and the Lord will humble him in the sence of it; but the Accusers Paraphrast on it must pass as an inference of his own violence, which we leave with his other re­proaches to the Lord. Well, the question was agreed unto in writing [...] in the interval (for there was some long time set till the dispute should be) it pleased the Lord, for our and his hum­bling, to let that forementioned great iniquity of his to break out upon him, whereupon the Church, as hath been said, pro­ceeded against him, suspended him from the exercise of his gift in any publick service, denying him also communion in the bo­dy; by means whereof they were (and well might be) at a loss about the manner of carrying on the appointed disputation, which either he must be left to manage alone without any countenance or conjunction of theirs, or else some other by Mr. Lowmans consent must supply his place in that appointment, or otherwise some way of treaty for the cessation of it for the time. The former could not be thought any way expedient, and therefore two or three brethen were desired to confer with Mr. Lowman, either about exchanging his antagonist, or wa­ving the dispute for the time: the result of which modest con­ference, was the mutual subscription of the inwritten paper.

From which at first sight, things rightly considered, the serious will judge, (1.) That that fall of his which then disabled him from being judged a sutable disputant with Mr. Lowman, did beforehand disable him from standing as a member in com­munion, much more as a Pastor in that Church. (2) And that it doth not now follow, but that the grace that hath re­stored him to be a member, and enabled him again to improve his gift of grace to edification, may also sufficiently enable him to answer to Mr. Lowmans desires, if need be, and they yet re­main with him, to vindicate the way and practise that we walk in. As also (3.) That though Mr. Lowman was treated with­all by us, yet had he reasons also of his own, leading him to a willingness to lay that disputation aside.

Accuser.

I wish that the plain hearted among them, would but seriously consider, whether they can possibly expect a blessing from heaven, under such amans ministery, whose course I have a little hinted to you: and judge you, whether I have not cause to withdraw, where such iniquity is indulged.

Answer.

Here you have his conclusion with William Facy, and now up­on the whole of what is said, either in defiance or defence of [Page 66]him (though we might say much more in the words of truth and soberness) it would appear that the man is a poor sinner, that stands in dayly need of his Saviour, compassed about with weaknesses, temptations, and tribulations of all kindes: with­out are fightings, within are fears: whose footsteps are watch­ed, and the iniquity of them written in his forehead, who was left for a season under the power of the Tempter, fell in a grie­vous manner; was sharply rebuked of God, severely censured by the Church, to the breaking of his bones; so that he hath neither the perfection of the flesh, nor the honor of the world left him to glory in. And yet being gratiously delivered by Love, and upheld by Divine power from perishing by sin, or sinking, is at length brought out to declare the Lords praise in the middest of his Church, who being a poor plain despised peo­ple, abhorring the indulgence of iniquity, and not judging as­ter outward appearance, but righteous judgment; finding that God hath humbled him to the dust, remembring that they also themselves are compassed with infirmities, and liable to be tempted; have renewed their love toward him, and can comfortably wait upon the Lord, and their waiting is not in vain in the Lord, for a blessing on the faithfull la­bours of him and others (despised) like unto him; though yet they have not clearness to appoint him to Pastorship in a way of office, as the Accuser falsly repeateth often as if they had done.

Accuser.

The third particular of my charge is, for charging some of the A­nabaptists with denying Magistrates, and the neglecting of Family­duties, and singing of Psalms; let me tell you I do not charge you with­out a cause, for these things abound in you at that rate, that seeing you and sin will not part, you and I must part; and though some of you are dear to me, whom I trust the Lord will convince in his due time: yet the Lord Iesus is neerer and dearer, whose communi­on I must, and through grace do prize before yours: had you and I continued, its to be feared, the Lord and I should have parted; for while I sat under your ministery, I could never find that blessing which I have found from that Ministery you despise. That tenderness which the Lord wrought upon my spirit by the publick Ministery be­fore I came among you, did much decay, while I continued with you, and therefore it is no small mercy, that the Lord hath brought me from you.

Answer.

That which he calls the third particular of our Charge, for charging some of the Anabaptists, &c. was thus far worthy to be laid before him in the iniquity of it, that he had openly and very slan­derously affirmed concerning us in the general, that we denied Ma­gistrates, denied family-duties, denied singing of Psalms. &c. and on this ground had left us. The introduction to his Defence, is fil­led with such flourishes and invectives, as either we meet with, and speak unto elsewhere, or will be best answered by commit­ting our Cause to him that judgeth righteously. VVe come therefore to consider what he saith in the particulars, for him­self.

Accuser.

1. For denying the power of Magistrates, it's notoriously known to many good people in Tiverton, how you have carped at the Magistracy there, for executing their power upon Sabbath­breakers and Quakers; yea, you confessed it, and pleaded it a­gainst me as many of my Friends can testifie, when I charged you with it, affirming, that Magistrates had nothing to do with Quakers.

Answer.

He publickly and falsly accuseth us, that we deny the power of Magistrates, or (as he also phraseth it) we deny Magistrates: his proof is, It's notoriously known, we have carped at them for exe­cuting their power on Sabbath breakers and Quakers. We have in great part declared above, and still do. That we abhor the imputation of denying the power of Magistrates in punishing evil­doers: though withal we say, That it will be an hard task to un­dertake the justification of all the actions of persons in Magistracy, who may presume to smite and imprison, in execution of passion and lust, and not of Law: and that such things, and so acted, whe­ther against Quakers, or any other People, are not onely lament­able, but most abominable. As to matters relating to the Con­science, and what Power the Magistrate may exercise in that re­spect, we leave the Accuser for answer to the publick Edicts of the Magistracy it self; without which, the Sect to which the Accuser is joyned, can claim no more Priviledge in England, Scotland, and Ireland, then any other Sect or party of People professing [Page 68]Religion by the Magistrate allowed.

We utterly reject what he suggests about Sabbath-breakers, as not having the least colour of Truth; of which, had there been the least pretence to have fastned it upon any, somewhat would have been said, to tender us odious and liable to punishment in this Pamphlet, or at the Meeting abovesaid, proceeding his rejection, where he was not backward to load us with whatever ignominy he could bring, to bear on us, or the way wherein we be.

Touching the Quakers, what testimony we hold up against their principles is very well known to this Accuser, and divers good people in Tiverton, and elswere: what measure they have found in that town, and by whose violent importunity and instigation it hath been executed; whether to the satisfaction in point of conscience of some that did it, or whether even constrained to doe it beyond a voluntary inclination; what compassions and complaints it occa­sioned in many good people in that place (that are neither Anabap­tists nor Quakers) are not things unknown there. The day may soon enough declare it in other places, we judging it not now our work to say any thing unto it.

Accuser.

2. For neglecting family-duties, you cannot without blushing say that I wrong you in charging the neglect of it upon you, being conscious to your selves that many of your families call not upon God, which I can confidently affirme upon my own personal knowledg, when I walked with you; besides when I charged you with it, you affirmed that it was a mans liberty, not his duty to pray in his family, as my friends can testifie who were then present.

Answer.

What his false accusation about this matter was, and our defence therein, are manifested above, to which we refer the Reader.

Accuser.

3. For neglecting to sing Psalmos, an ordinance of Christ, you never performed this duty in your assemblies: but when I charged you with this, you affirmed it to be no better then bal­lads, as my friends can testifie.

Answer.

How wrongfully our denying this (as he presented it at first) was [Page 69]layed to our charge, may appeare by what hath been said already to that point. Touching the uncomly comparison that one of our friends it seems made between the translation of Davids Psalmes, by Sternhold and Hopkins, (considering the many additions to, and substractions from the word to make it speak in rythme and meter) and the Ballads of the Book of Job; whatever might be sayed touching the harmless use of the word heretofore, the Canti­cles being in some ancient translations of the Bible, entitled Ballad of Ballads, yet we utterly disapprove of the expression, and con­demne it, as being unsavory and offensive: nevertheless herein may be observed the accusers perfection in the art of slander, multiplying to calumaiate, something will stick, fathering the failings of any per­son upon the whole party and way, whether owned by them or dis­owned: being also afore-hand with invectives and falshoods of such a nature as will require time and other helps to remove; and in the interim the slander passeth for a truth, and the slanderer for a man that hath done notable good service in making discoveries to the en­quiring world.

Accuser.

I come to the fourth and last particular of my charge for abusing my father: but whether by word or deed, or in what manner, you gave me no account: but sure I am, If I were guil­ty of such a thing, you never reproved me. I must confess that when I walked with you, through your instigation I took up many hard thoughts both of my father and mother, because they laboured to convince me of mine errour, yea and I left my fathers house upon this very account, as I have hinted be­fore, but through mercy the Lord hath shewed me my evill in so doing, yet you were never the people that admonished me all the while I walked with you. But now you act as if you would rejoyce, if you could take up any thing to reproch me, and set variance betwixt the father and the son.

Answer.

Here to avoid the supposition of his being any way guilty farther then he might father it upon the Church, he imposeth upon the Reader these things:

(1.) That the many hard thoughts he had of his father and mo­ther [Page 70]labouring to convince him of his errour, were through this peo­ples instigation.

(2.) That upon this very account of their instigation, it was, that he left his fathers house.

(3.) That they never reproved or admonished him for any evill of this kinde.

(4.) That we rejoyce to forge and take up any thing that may reproach him, and set variance betwixt the father and the son.

That through our instigations he should have such thoughts, as it's but barely affirmed by him so it may suffice that the thing is de­nyed and abhorred by us, as that which is beneath civility, and much more beneath Christianity; that any occasion of our instigation brought him to forsake his fathers house, is an evident falshood, there having been former differences betwixt his father in Law (that married with his mother) and him. On a time, about his beginning to profess the truth we walk in, his said father in law, being greatly offended with him, required him to depart from his house: after which passion was over, he desired his father in law's leave to depart by consent; which he obtained accordingly; whiles he walked with us, indeed his deportment to his parents, was much as he reporteth, but it is ready to be made good by many witnessess, that his uncomly behaviour in this kinde, being a great grief to us, was often reproved by several, both brethren and sisters, as occasion presented. But in the case before us, which we had this time in charge against him, his revilings were of his wives father and mo­ther, who not complying with some desires of his about his mar­riage as he expected, reprochfully said of his father in law, that he was an old knave, and that his mother in law was a serpent that lay in his bosom: of which being reproved by a sister that heard it from him, he gave no other satisfaction, then this; he thought he should finde them such. He was afterward reproved for it by a brother, but then stood in the denyal of it: which being brought before the Church, with evidence of the truth thereof, they then by messengers did more solemnly exhort him to repent of such ini­quity; but he manifested not any, but rather a stubborn spirit. Then was both his railing and lying judged worthy with the rest to be layd before him, if peradventure the Lord would give him repentance. Our unwillingness to have these things made publick, that he might [Page 71]be brought to a sence of his evill, without such an occasion of dis­cord betwixt the father and the son, was one main reason, why we had a desire to have had him apart from the multitude in the time of our proceedings with him in the Church: and it is no small grief, that we are constrained to say thus much of him now; yet he hath compelled us to let all men know how far we are free from the hor­rible things he chargeth so malitiously on us.

Accuser.

But had I been guilty of every syllable of which you charge me with, how can you bring it to blasphemy? The Truth is: Thomas Glass made many sad shifts to mince the matter, when he was desired to make forth, wherein I had been guilty of blasphemy: but let all modest sober Christians judge, whether that which lies in the bottom be not my discover­ing their wickedness, and withdrawing from them: though I could not in Conscience continue longer with them, when God said, Come out from among them; which makes them to forge something against me; and let the Reader judge where lies the guilt.

Answer.

For answer to what he enquires about blasphemy, he is referred to what is said above: upon the whole, the modest sober Christian is called in by him, to give judgement: to whom also we gladly submit the consideration of the premises, Whether a person so abundantly discovering a rash, persecuting, revengeful Spirit; heaping up such falshoods and mis-representations, on the Way, on the whole Con­gregation, on the Member whom he had forgiven, (his own neer Relations not escaping him) under pretecsions of a just Ground to leave us, were not justly proceeded withal; and (after all due means, found obstinate and irreconcilable) cut off and rejected from the Congregation.

Accuser.

Thus have I given you a brief Narrative of the Principles and Practices of these Anabaptists, having walked with them and tried them: and likewise an account of God's gracious dealing, in bringing me from them, to attend the publick Mini­stery; and of their unjust proceedings against me in this mat­ter. If the good Lord make it useful for the good of any poor [Page 72]soul, to undeceive him, and bring him into the way of God, or to prevent any from departing out of God's way, I shall rejoyce, so that God may not lose his Glory, nor any of his people lose their comfort: which if you tender, be sure to prize those ways in which you received the first Conviction, lest you one day lie down in sorrow, for going away from God, and from the striving of his Spirit. Let me ask you that have with drawn from that Ministery, to whom ye can say, We are your work of the Lord; have you the same tenderness, the same affections to God, that you once had in former days? are not these much decayed? O re­turn from whence you are fallen, and repent! And now I shall conclude, by giving the Reader an account of the sad experi­ence that I have had, in two yeers digression from the publick Ministery in Tiverton, which God did at first bloss to the awake­ning of my soul.

Answer.

As he draws towards his Conclusion, you have the Application of his miserable Doctrines after he hath, with some flattering insinu­ations, bespoke the farther attention of his ignorant young Christian (as he calls him in his Title-page) That now he may give a testi­mony of his fixed enmity to the way he was in, and shew far­ther what Oracle he hath consulted with, and what Spirit he is of; he adventures on the house top, in the sight of the Sun (under the co­verts of his two yeers sad experience) to cast upon the way of the Lord, and them that walk therein, such horrible reproaches, as the thoughts of Temperance, Righteousness, and Judgement to come, would have made him tremble at; having, though seemingly, aimed at them in Tiverton therein, yet so shot, as may indifferently reach all them anywhere that serve the Lord Jesus Christ under that name of reproach.

Under all which, as a part of our Crown, we could quietly sit down, and pray, Lord lay it not to his charge: Father, forgive him, he knoweth not what he doth: appealing for our Vindication to the Consciences of all serious, unbyassed, and unprejudiced Christians, that have tasted our Doctrine, and ob­served our walkings in the three Nations, whether the things be so, or nay; and so leave it to the God and Father of the Spirits of all flesh, who is coming out to pass righteous judgement in all such [Page 73]cases for his poor people that wait for him. But yet for their sakes at whom he levels, who being ignorant of us, may be apt to be of­fended at such an impudent testimony; we present a few animad­versions on the two or three first things he saith; the rest being such wretched falshoods as we abhor the thoughts of; and delivered in such general termes, without any particular instance, wherein it is possible to trace him, we reckon not worthy any other answer then that, Psal. 120.2, 3, 4. and 52.1, — 4.

Accuser.

1. I do not remember that I have had one conviction, un­der all the sermons which I heard whilest I walked among them; but that sence of my condition which I had before, did abate, and by little and little fall away, after I turned my back upon the means, which God made use of in working upon me. Therefore I beg all those upon whose hearts God is working, to take heed of despising, or slighting those instruments with whom God is present.

Answer.

The Reader must suppose his meaning to be either, that he felt no such thing as motions, quicknings, soule-searchings, &c. while with us; or else, that whatever of that kinde he had, they are now to be accounted no other then delusions; and so not worthy the name of convictions, or of being remembred. If the former be imagined to be his meaning, we have abundant and pregnant testimonies, how that many times he hath declared his having met with God to admi­ration, while he hath with us been waiting on him; so that he would not have given such opportunities (as he hath reported) for the world. But if he mindes all these to have been the delusions of his own heart, we shall not contend about it; but that likely they were so, or that he dissembled those pretensions of enjoying God. Only it further shewes the mercy we have, of being delivered from such a deceitful m [...]mber, who either then belyed the spirit, while he owned such operations to him, as were none of his; or if they were the spirits works doth now in effect deny them. Nay, the mistake is very great, if it cannot be made good that he being (short­ly upon the publishing of this pamphlet in his name) demanded by a member, how he could date affirm such a thing, that he had no [Page 74]convictions, &c. replyed, that he never had sayd such a thing. If so, the Reader may guess what hand it's likely himself had in com­piling the book; which with other evidences, if we liked to produce them, would put that matter out of question.

Accuser.

2. I was drawn off by these men, when I was in the greatest probability of receiving good from the ministry that I ever was: for I doe remember still the impressions which were made upon my soule by those truths, which I heard from Mr. Chishul, a little before I was thus drawn aside, which did work mightily to conviction and to resolution in me: but the devill envying my prosperity, sent me this thorne in the flesh; and their insinua­tions and temptations did so prevaile with me that I left this ministry to attend on them, which was but a diversion from the work of my soule: and I finde that whereas before I had some things of weight upon my spirit, these were soon layed aside, and I had nothing to doe but to dispute about Baptisme, and to raile against ministers, so that my former awakenings were turned into drousiness and doting about questions.

Answer.

How unskilful this man is of judging about Convictions, appears in part by what is last said; How infaithful he is in reporting them; is no less evident by considering, that when he came at first to make out among us a profession of his faith in order to fellowship with us, he testified, that the first convictions that were wrought on his soule, were through the word of the Lord held forth in the Church, after which (as himself said) for worldly respects, he went again to at­tend on the publick ministry; but was there met with, by some word of Mr. Chishul, which put life again into his former convi­ctions begotten by the ministry with us: whereupon he returned again, and on a declaration of the work of faith was baptised and admitted. If this testimony of his was in truth, and a true work of grace was on him, then did the Lord witness to our ministry; if he deceived us in that profession, then hath the Lord witnessed to our rejecting him; he went out from us, because he was not of us. Whereas he lays the stress of his coming to us, upon our insi­nuating and tempting him, after the strictest search, it doth not ap­peare, that any were urgent with him at all, but that of his own [Page 75]voluntary inclinatition he proposed his desires of communion first to a particular member (now with the Lord) and then unto the whole.

Accuser.

3. As I found no profit my self by attending on their teaching, so I observed little to any other. Nay, it hath been not only mine, but the experience of others, who have con­stantly attended them as long as my self, that there was no­thing but deadness of spirit to be gained there, which hath at last caused them to desert them also.

Answer.

The Accuser doth not tell you, that those constant attenders that have deserted us were members with us (there being but his wise and one or two more since, that on that pretension have left that Church) as for usual hearers, if any of them are gone on this ground, as it's more then they have declared, so neither is it visible by any loss of number in that great concourse. But put case that (we lying under so great reproach as the Accuser hath pub­lickly and doeth dayly wait and labour with his new friends to cast upon us) both Members of the Church and Attenders on it should be offended, finding fault with Ministers, Administra­tions, &c. would this become a convincing Argument with a se­rious heart, that God is witnessing against the way? hath it not been the common tryal of Gods own people heretofore? and at this day is there not to be observed and lamented, a spirit of giddi­ness taking great hold of men and things; so that the whole se­ries of what of late dayes had on it the impression of Reformation, seeming as it were to labour and encline towards its ancient cor­ruption? In which house of temptation we are indeed in expecta­tion of greater tryals then these, and yet in the middest of them have this to be glad in our God for, that all along he hath not left us without several gratious testimonies of his converting and quickning presence, notwithstanding our Accuser, and such spirits as his is, may have tasted little of it, but have been filled with their own wayes.

Accuser.

4. They are very vigilant and watchful to finde out any that are convinced and awakened under the publick ministry: and when they begin to see things a little darkly and confused­ly, they take the advantage of this twilight, in which their soules are to put off their commadities: where their soules have some tenderness and yet a great deal of ignorance they are fit to wrought upon by them; for by reason of the first, they dare not neglect a command of God; and by reason of the second, it ap­peares to them that it is necessary to be dipt.

Answer.

This fourth Experiment comes to appearance very big into the world, and promising great discoveries, suddenly easeth it self of six monstrous births, conceived in the wombe of it: all which, for the substance of them, are no other then the old pulpit and press­worne-slanders that the dragon hath had ready in all generations as a flood to poure out upon the Lords people, who have labour­ed faithfully to beare their testimony and set their shoulders to the work of reformation, or to the recovery of any truth in Doctrine or practise from the pollutions of the man of sinne, against the in­terest and streame of the fleshly wisdome and glory of the times they have lived in. All which, as we might cast off at once, by testifying an holy detestation through grace in our hearts against the baseness of the things suggested; so need we, and shall we, say the less to them.

(1.) For that there are no particular persons instanced, who in the things layd to our charge may be made out demonstrably to be guilty; and it is our comfortable assurance, that on a faithful and impartial search they will not be found; but that the slander will return on the Accusers head, and none be stumbled at it; unless such as may judge, that this Accusers truth and faithfulness in this narrative examined, deserves for him that he be believed in a matter of this moment upon his own word.

(2.) In that our Accuser with his own pen freeth those that are Godly among us from these things, saying toward the close [ I speake [Page 77]not this of all: for as I have said, I believe there is a mix­ture of godly among them, &c.] our interest is not, (our cause needs not) that we should plead for any ungodly ones, or any un­godly deeds that they shall commit if any such shall be found guilty of the things charged, and persist in them, let them beare their judgment whoever they be: the Lord will we hope in due time discover them, and deliver us from them.

For what is said of our insinuations on the ignorant with preten­sions of love from us or peace from God, pressing them speedily to Baptisme, and having all our zeale for the practise of holiness running into that; we abhor and reject as base falshoods, as might appeare from our not accepting the tenders of many persons desi­ring baptisme and communion with us, when we cannot be satis­fied in some good measure of illumination in their understanding, and distinct knowledge of the work of conversion on their hearts; though we judge it our duty to be tender to the babes in Christ.

Touching our own ignorance, with which we are often bran­ded by this our Accuser, and our shunning the light; its true we are reputed, and know our selves to be a weak and darke people; yet we declare, that through the supporting mercy of God, whom we fear, and on whom in this day of rebuke and blasphemy, we rely for help, we shall not cease to witness be­before great and small, as the Lord shall minister ability, and clear up our way,

That the doctrine which we profess, and particularly that point of baptising only upon personal profession of saving faith, is a doctrine according to Godliness, and the same which was once delivered to the Saints (excepting nevertheless to our selves, and owning whatever miscarriages through personall de­fects, may accompany this profession of truth in this day of small things.) Neither shall we shun to testifie, that the imposing of the fleshly off spring upon the Gospel-Church, is a doctrine without Scripture, foundation. And we doe testifie, that in this faith we stand through grace, and have peace with God in it; withall, we desire the upright in heart to weigh and consider [Page 78]faithfully as for God, how much the said doctrine imposing the fleshly off-spring on the Gospel Church sperplexeth and obscu­reth the light, and order of the ministration of the everlasting covenant established by the Son of God: how it confoundeth the main distinction of the two Convenants in the different principle of their respective subjects, typified by Ishmael and Isaac, Gen. 21.10. and explained Gal 4.22-30. & Rom. 9.8. distinguished in plain terms by the children of the flesh, and the children of promise, with respect to the several seasons of Law and Gospel, Rom. 4.13, 14. How it also darkneth the honor and dignity which the Gospel. Ministration exalteth the Jew and his posterity unto, by confirming unto them the first ten­ders of divine Grace by a special institution of this Ministration, Mat. 10.5, 6. whereby from their former priviledge of ser­vants under the bondage-convenant, they by faith in the grace so tendred to them, obtain for ever the priviledge and dignity of Sons and heirs of God, a more noble descent then that of A­braham.

Neither can that suggestion, [That baptizing only upon per­sonall profession is a narrowing of the Covenant of grace] be of any weight, seeing no subject which the Covenant of grace, either in the nature or present exhibition thereof, declareth and judgeth competent in any degree, stands excluded by it, al­though we be thereof judged, because we dare not presume in point of practise in instituted worship, to depart from a plaine known rule, to follow uncertain suppositions. Notwithstan­ding also our Accuser be among others come forth to mock and reproach us for it; a man that hath been our companion in the counsels of the house of God: and as David found that an ag­gravation to his afflictions, Psal. 41.9. and 55.12, 13, 14. so is it with us this day in behalf of this poor man, who may doubt­less become a stumbling stone to credulous & incantious souls; but we are taught to cast our care in such a case upon God, seeing the case is particularly his to provide for; and we are perswa­ded, that though thousands should fall off, & be offended in this day of manifold temptations, through worldly disadvantages, yet that thereby the truth wherein we stand, should only re­ceive purgation from the blemishes that are brought upon it by [...]