place, it signifies to become a new man, and it is an exhortation to those who had lived wickedly, now to live holily and according to the intentions of Christianity. But to take two metaphors from two several books, and to concentre them into one signification, and to make them up into one syllogism, is fallacia quatuor terminorum; they prove nothing but the craft of the men, or the weakness of the cause. For the words to the Ephesians were spoken to them who already had been baptized, who had before that in some sense put on Christ, but yet he calls upon them to put on the new man; therefore, this is something else; and it means that they should verify what they had undertaken in baptism: which also can concern children, but is seasonable to urge it to them, as St. Paul does to the Ephesians, after their baptism.

But yet after all, let the argument press as far as it is intended, yet infants, even in the sense of the apostle, "do put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness" for so are they; they are a new creation,' they are 'born again,' they are efformed after the image of Christ, by the designation and adoption of the Holy Spirit: but as they cannot do acts of reason, and yet are created in a reasonable nature; so they are anew created in righteousness, even before they can do acts spiritual; that is, they are designati sanctitatis,' as Tertullian's expression is; they are in the second birth as in the first instructed with the beginnings and principles of life, not with inherent qualities, but with titles and relations to promises, and estates of blessing, and assistances of holiness; which principles of life, if they be nourished, will express themselves in perfect and symbolical actions. The thing is easy to be understood by them who observe the manner of speaking usual in Scripture. are begotten to a lively hope,' so St. Paul: the very consignation and designing us to that hope, which is laid up for the saints, is a new birth, a regeneration, the beginnings of a new life and of this infants are as capable as any.

We

The other thing is this, that the infants' vow is invalid. till it be after confirmed in the days of reason; and, therefore, it were as good to be let alone, till it can be made with effect. I answer, that if there were nothing in the sacrament but the making of a vow, I confess I could see no necessity in it, nor any convenience, but that it engages

VOL. VIII.

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children to an early piety, and their parents and guardians by their care to prevent the follies of their youth: but then when we consider that infants receive great blessings from God in this holy ministry, that what is done to them on God's part, is of great effect before the ratification of their vow, this prudential consideration of theirs is light and airy.

And after all this it will be easy to determine which is the surer way. For certainly to baptize infants is hugely agreeable to that charity which Christ loved in those who brought them to him; and if infants die before the use of reason, it can do them no hurt that they were given to God in a holy designation; it cannot any way be supposed, and is not pretended by any one to prejudice their eternity: but if they die without baptism, it is then highly questioned whether they have not an intolerable loss. And if it be questioned by wise men whether the want of it do not occasion their eternal loss, and it is not questioned whether baptism does them any hurt or no, then certainly to baptize them is the surer way without all peradventure.

Ad 33. The last number sums up many words of affrightment together, but no argument, nothing but bold and unjustifiable assertions; against which I only oppose their direct contradictories. But instead of them the effect of the former discourse is this, that whoever shall pertinaciously deny or carelessly neglect the baptism of infants, does uncharitably expose his babes to the danger of an eternal loss, from which there is no way to recover but an extraordinary way, which God hath not revealed to us; he shuts them out of the Church, and keeps them out who are more fit to enter than himself; he, as much as lies in him, robs the children of the gifts of the Holy Ghost, and a title to the promises evangelical; he supposes that they cannot receive God's gifts unless they do in some sense or other deserve them, and that a negative disposition is not sufficient preparation to a new creation, and an obediential capacity is nothing, and yet it was all that we could have in our first creation; he supposes that we must do something before the first grace, that is, that God does not love us first, but we first love him; that we seek him, and he does not seek us; that we are beforehand with him, and, therefore, can do something without him; that nature can alone bring us to God. For if he did not suppose

all this, his great pretence of the necessity of faith and repentance would come to nothing: for infants might without such dispositions receive the grace of baptism, which is always the first; unless by the superinducing of actual sins upon our nature, we make it necessary to do something to remove the hinderances of God's Spirit, and that some grace be accidentally necessary before that which ordinarily and regularly is the first grace. He, I say, that denies baptism to infants, does disobey Christ's commandment, which being in general and indefinite terms, must include all that can be saved, or can come to Christ; and he excepts from Christ's commandment whom he pleases, without any exception made by Christ; he makes himself lord of the sacrament, and takes what portions he pleases from his fellow-servants, like an evil and an unjust steward; he denies to bring little children to Christ, although our dearest Lord commanded them to be brought; he upbraids the practice and charity of the holy catholic Church, and keeps infants from the communion of saints, from a participation of the promises, from their part of the covenant, from the laver of regeneration, from being rescued from the portion of Adam's inheritance, from a new creation, from the kingdom of God, which belongs to them and such as are like them. And he that is guilty of so many evils, and sees such horrid effects springing from his doctrine, must quit his error, or else openly profess love to a serpent, and direct enmity to the most innocent part of mankind.

I do not think the anabaptists perceive or think these things to follow from their doctrine: but yet they do so really. And, therefore, the effect of this is, that their doctrine is wholly to be reproved and disavowed, but the men are to be treated with the usages of a Christian: strike them not as an enemy, but exhort them as brethren. They are with all means Christian and human to be redargued or instructed but if they cannot be persuaded, they must be left to God, who knows every degree of every man's understanding, all his weaknesses and strengths, what impress every argument makes upon his spirit, and how uncharitable every reason is, and he alone judges of his ignorance or his malice, his innocence or his avoidable deception. We have great reason to be confident as to our own part of the question;

but it were also well if our knowledge would make us thankful to God, and humble in ourselves, and charitable to our brother. It is pride that makes contention, but humility is the way of peace and truth.

SECTION XIX.

That there may be no Toleration of Doctrines inconsistent with Piety or the public Good.

1. BUT then for their other capital opinion, with all its branches, that it is not lawful for princes to put malefactors to death, nor to take up defensive arms, nor to minister an oath, nor to contend in judgment, it is not to be disputed with such liberty as the former. For although it be part of that doctrine which Clemens Alexandrinus says was delivered " per secretam traditionem apostolorum, non licere Christianis contendere in judicio, nec coram gentibus nec coram sanctis; et perfectum non debere jurare;" and the other part seems to be warranted by the eleventh canon of the Nicene Council, which enjoins penance to them that take arms after their conversion to Christianity; yet either these authorities are to be slighted, or be made receptive of any interpretation, rather than the commonwealth be disarmed of its necessary supports, and all laws made ineffectual and impertinent. For the interest of the republic and the wellbeing of bodies politic, is not to depend upon the nicety of our imaginations, or the fancies of any peevish or mistaken priests; and there is no reason a prince should ask John-a-Brunck whether his understanding would give him leave to reign, and be a king. Nay, suppose there were divers places of Scripture which did seemingly restrain the political use of the sword; yet since the avoiding a personal inconvenience hath by all men been accounted sufficient reason to expound Scripture to any sense rather than the literal, which infers an unreasonable inconvenience (and, therefore, the pulling out an eye,' and the cutting off a hand,' is expounded by mortifying a vice, and killing a criminal habit), much rather must the allegations against the

P Lib. vii. Strom.

power of the sword endure any sense rather than it should be thought that Christianity should destroy that which is the only instrument of justice, the restraint of vice and support of bodies politic. It is certain that Christ, and his apostles, and Christian religion, did comply with the most absolute government, and the most imperial that was then in the world, and it could not have been at all endured in the world if it had not; for indeed the world itself could not last in regular and orderly communities of men, but be a perpetual confusion, if princes and the supreme power in bodies politic were not armed with a coercive power to punish malefactors: the public necessity and universal experience of all the world convince those men of being most unreasonable that make such pretences which destroy all laws, and all communities, and the bands of civil societies, and leave it arbitrary to every vain or vicious person, whether men shall be safe, or laws be established, or a murderer hanged, or princes rule. So that in this case men are not so much to dispute with particular arguments, as to consider the interest and concernment of kingdoms and public societies. For the religion of Jesus Christ is the best establisher of the felicity of private persons, and of public communities: it is a religion that is prudent and innocent, humane and reasonable, and brought infinite advantages to mankind, but no inconvenience, nothing that is unnatural, or unsociable, or unjust. And if it be certain that this world cannot be governed without laws, and laws without a compulsory signify nothing; then it is certain that it is no good religion that teaches doctrine whose consequents will destroy all government: and therefore it is as much to be rooted out as any thing that is the greatest pest and nuisance to the public interest. And that we may guess at the purposes of the men, and the inconvenience of such doctrine, these men that did first intend by their doctrine to disarm all princes and bodies politic, did themselves take up arms to establish their wild and impious fancy. And indeed that prince or commonwealth that should be persuaded by them, would be exposed to all the insolences of foreigners, and all mutinies of the teachers themselves, and the governors of the people could not do that duty they owe to their people, of protecting them from the rapine and malice, which will be in the world as long as