laws upon pretence of having weak consciences, if in hearty expression you had told them so to their heads, they would have spit in your face, and were so far from confessing themselves weak, that they thought themselves able to give laws to Christendom, to instruct the greatest clerks, and to catechise the church herself. And, which is the worst of all, they who were perpetually clamorous that the severity of the laws should slacken as to their particular, and in matter adiaphorous (in which, if the church hath any authority, she hath power to make laws) to indulge a leave to them to do as they list,-yet were the most imperious amongst men, most decretory in their sentences, and most impatient of any disagreeing from them, though in the least minute and particular: whereas, by all the justice of the world, they who persuade such a compliance in matters of fact, and of so little question, should not deny to tolerate persons, that differ in questions of great difficulty and contestation.

7. Fourthly but yet since all things almost in the world have been made matters of dispute, and the will of some men, and the malice of others, and the infinite industry and pertinacy of contesting, and resolution to conquer, hath abused some persons innocently into a persuasion that even the laws themselves, though never so prudently constituted, are superstitious, or impious ;-such persons, who are otherwise pious, humble, and religious, are not to be destroyed for such matters, which in themselves are not of concernment to salvation, and neither are so accidentally to such men and in such cases where they are innocently abused, and they err without purpose and design. And therefore, if there be a public disposition in some persons to dislike laws of a certain quality, if it be foreseen, it is to be considered in lege dicenda;' and whatever inconvenience or particular offence is foreseen, is either to be directly avoided in the law, or else a compensation in the excellency of the law, and certain advantages made to outweigh their pretensions. But in lege jam dicta,' because there may be a necessity some persons should have a liberty indulged them, it is necessary that the governors of the church should be intrusted with a power to consider the particular case, and indulge a liberty to the person, and grant personal dispensations. This, I say, is to be done at several times, upon particular instance, upon singular consideration, and new emergencies.

But that a whole kind of men, such a kind to which all men, without possibility of being confuted, may pretend, should, at once, in the very frame of the law, be permitted to disobey, is to nullify the law, to destroy discipline, and to hallow disobedience; it takes away the obliging part of the law, and makes that the thing enacted shall not be enjoined, but tolerated only; it destroys unity and uniformity, which to preserve was the very end of such laws of discipline; it bends the rule to the thing which is to be ruled, so that the law obeys the subject, not the subject the law; it is to make a law for particulars, not upon general reason and congruity, against the prudence and design of all laws in the world, and absolutely without the example of any church in Christendom; it prevents no scandal, for some will be scandalized at the authority itself, some at the complying and remissness of discipline, and several men at matters and upon ends contradictory all which cannot, some ought not, to be complied withal.

8. Sixthly: the sum is this, The end of the laws of discipline are in an immediate order to the conservation and ornament of the public; and therefore the laws must not so tolerate, as by conserving persons to destroy themselves and the public benefit: but if there be cause for it, they must be cassated; or if there be no sufficient cause, the complyings must be so as may best preserve the particulars in conjunction with the public end, which, because it is primarily intended, is of greatest consideration. But the particulars, whether of case or person, are to be considered occasionally and emergently by the judges, but cannot antecedently and regularly be determined by a law.

9. But this sort of men is of so general pretence, that all laws and all judges may easily be abused by them. Those sects which are signified by a name, which have a system of articles, a body of profession, may be more clearly determined in their question concerning the lawfulness of permitting their professions and assemblies.

I shall instance in two, which are most troublesome and most disliked, and by an account made of these, we may make judgment what may be done towards others whose errors are not apprehended of so great malignity. The men mean, are the anabaptists, and the papists.

I

SECTION XVIII.

A particular Consideration of the Opinions of the Anabaptists.

1. In the anabaptists, I consider only their two capital opinions, the one against the baptism of infants, the other against magistracy: and because they produce different judgments and various effects, all their other fancies, which vary as the moon does, may stand or fall in their proportion and likeness to these.

2. And first I consider their denying baptism to infants. Although it be a doctrine justly condemned by the most sorts of Christians upon great grounds of reason, yet possibly their defence may be so great as to take off much, and rebate the edge of their adversaries' assault. It will be neither unpleasant nor unprofitable to draw a short scheme of plea for each party; the result of which possibly may be, that though they be deceived, yet they have so great excuse on their side, that their error is not impudent or vincible. The baptism of infants rests principally and usually upon this discourse.

3. When God made a covenant with Abraham for himself and his posterity, into which the Gentiles were reckoned by spiritual adoption, he did, for the present, consign that covenant with the sacrament of circumcision. The extent of which rite was to all his family, from the major-domo' to theproselytus domicilio,' and to infants of eight days old. Now the very nature of this covenant being a covenant of faith for its formality, and with all faithful people for the object, and circumcision being a seal of this covenant, if ever any rite do supervene to consign the same covenant, that rite must acknowledge circumcision for its type and precedent. And this the apostle tells us in express doctrine. Now the nature of a type is, to give some proportions to its successor the antitype; and they both being seals of the same righteousness of faith, it will not easily be found where these two seals have any such distinction in their nature or purposes, as to appertain to persons of differing capacity, and not equally concern all. And this argument was thought of so much force by some of those excellent men, which

were bishops in the primitive church, that a good bishop writ an epistle to St. Cyprian, to know of him, whether or no it were lawful to baptize infants before the eighth day, because the type of baptism was ministered in that circumcision; he, in his discourse, supposing that the first rite was a direction to the second, which prevailed with him o far as to believe it to limit every circumstance.

4. And not only this type, but the acts of Christ which were previous to the institution of baptism, did prepare our understanding by such impresses as were sufficient to produce such persuasions in us, that Christ intended this ministry for the actual advantage of infants as well as of persons of understanding. For Christ commanded that children. should be brought unto him; he took them in his arms, he imposed hands on them and blessed them;' and without question did, by such acts of favour, consign his love to them, and them to a capacity of an eternal participation of it. And possibly the invitation which Christ made to all to come to him, all them that are heavy laden, did, in its proportion, concern infants, as much as others, if they be guilty of original sin, and if that sin be a burden, and presses them to any spiritual danger or inconvenience. And if they be not, yet Christ, who was (as Tertullian's phrase is) 'nullius pœnitentiæ debitor,' guilty of no sin, " obliged to no repentance," needing no purification and no pardon, was baptized by St. John's baptism, which was the baptism of repentance. And it is all the reason in the world, that since the grace of Christ is as large as the prevarication of Adam, all they who are made guilty by the first Adam, should be cleansed by the second. But as they are guilty by another man's act, so they should be brought to the font to be purified by others; there being the same proportion of reason, that by others' acts they should be relieved, who were in danger of perishing by the acts of others. And therefore St. Austin argues excellently to this purpose; "Accommodat illis mater ecclesia aliorum pedes, ut veniant; aliorum cor, ut credant; aliorum linguam, ut fateantur: ut quoniam, quòd ægri sunt, alio peccante prægravantur, sic, cùm sani fiant, alio confitente salventura." And Justin Martyr ; Αξιοῦνται δὲ τῶν διὰ τοῦ βαπτίσματος ἀγαθῶν τὰ βρέφη τῇ πίστει τῶν προσφερόντων αὐτὰ τῷ βαπτίσματι”. 5. But whether they have original sin or no, yet, take

a Serm. 10. de verb. Apost.

b Resp. ad Orthodoxos.

them in puris naturalibus,' they cannot go to God, or attain to eternity, to which they were intended in their first being and creation; and therefore much less since their naturals are impaired by the curse on human nature, procured by Adam's prevarication. And if a natural agent cannot 'in paris naturalibus' attain to heaven, which is a supernatural end, much less when it is loaden with accidental and grievous impediments. Now then since the only way revealed to us of acquiring heaven is by Jesus Christ; and the first inlet into Christianity and access to him is by baptism, as appears by the perpetual analogy of the New Testament; either infants are not persons capable of that end which is the perfection of human nature, and to which the soul of man in its being made immortal was essentially designed, and so are miserable and deficient from the very end of humanity, if they die before the use of reason; or else they must be brought to Christ by the church-doors, that is, by the font and waters of baptism.

6. And in reason it seems more pregnant and plausible, that infants rather than men of understanding should be baptized. For since the efficacy of the sacraments depends upon divine institution and immediate benediction, and that they produce their effects, independently upon man, in them that do not hinder their operation; since infants cannot, by any acts of their own, promote the hope of their own salvation, which men of reason and choice may, by acts of virtue and election; it is more agreeable to the goodness of God, the honour and excellency of the sacrament, and the necessity of its institution, that it should in infants supply the want of human acts and free obedience: which the very thing itself seems to say it does, because its effect is from God, and requires nothing on man's part, but that its efficacy be not hindered. And then in infants the disposition is equal, and the necessity more; they cannot 'ponere obicem,' and by the same reason cannot do other acts, which without the sacraments do advantages towards our hopes of heaven, and therefore have more need to be supplied by an act and an institution divine and supernatural.

7. And this is not only necessary in respect of the condition of infants' incapacity to do acts of grace, but also in obedience to divine precept. For Christ made a law whose sanction is with an exclusive negative to them that are no