15. This was no other but the covenant of the gospel, though afterwards otherwise consigned: for so the apostle expressly affirms, that Abraham was the father of circumcision, (viz. by virtue of this covenant,) "not only to them that are circumcised, but to all that believe: for this promise was not through the law" of works, or of circumcision, " but of faith." And therefore, as St. Paul observes, God promised that Abraham should be a father, not of that nation only, but " of many nations, and the heir of the world; that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christd," that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. "And if ye be Christ's, then ye are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." Since then the covenant of the gospel is the covenant of faith, and not of works; and the promises are spiritual, not secular; and Abraham, the father of the faithful Gentiles as well as the circumcised Jews; and the heir of the world, not by himself, but by his seed, or the Son of Man, our Lord Jesus: it follows, that the promises which circumcision did seal, were the same promises which are consigned in baptism; the covenant is the same, only that God's people are not impaled in Palestine, and the veil is taken away, and the temporal is passed into spiritual; and the result will be this, "That to as many persons, and in as many capacities, and in the same dispositions as the promises were applied and did relate in circumcision, to the same they do belong and may be applied in baptisme." And let it be remembered, that the covenant which circumcision did sign, was a covenant of grace and faith; the promises were of the Spirit, or spiritual; it was made before the law, and could not be rescinded by the legal covenant; nothing could be added to it, or taken from it; and we that are partakers of this grace, are therefore partakers of it by being Christ's servants, united to Christ, and so are become Abraham's seed, as the apostle at large and professedly proves in divers places, but especially in the fourth to the Romans, and the third to the Galatians. And, therefore, if infants were then admitted to it, and consigned to it by a sacrament, which they understood not any more than ours do, there is not any reason why ours should not enter in at the ordinary gate and door of grace as well as they. Their children were circumcised the eighth day, but were instructed afterwards, when they could inquire what these things meant. Indeed their proselytes were first taught, then circumcised; so are ours baptized: but their infants were consigned first; and so

must ours.

16. Thirdly: In baptism we are born again; and this infants need in the present circumstances, and for the same great reason that men of age and reason do. For our natural birth is either of itself insufficient, or is made so by the fall of Adam, and the consequent evils, that nature alone, or our first birth, cannot bring us to heaven, which is a supernatural end, that is, an end above all the power of our nature as now it is. So that if nature cannot bring us to heaven, grace must, or we can never get thither; if the first birth cannot, a second must: but the second birth spoken of in Scripture is baptism; " a man must be born of water and the Spirit." And therefore baptism is λουτρὸν παλιγγενεσίας, " the laver of a new birth." Either then infants cannot go to heaven any way that we know of, or they must be baptized. To say they are to be left to God, is an excuse, and no answer: for when God hath opened the door, and calls that the " entrance into heaven," we do not leave them to God, when we will not carry them to him in the way which he hath described, and at the door which himself hath opened: we leave them indeed, but it is but helpless and destitute: and though God is better than man, yet that is no warrant to us; what it will be to the children, that we cannot warrant or conjecture. And if it be objected, that to the new birth are required dispositions of our own, which are to be wrought by and in them, that have the use of reason: besides that this is wholly against the analogy of a new birth, in which the person' to be born is wholly a passive, and hath put into him the principle, that in time will produce its proper actions; it is certain that they, that can receive the new birth, are capable of it. The

Tit. iii. 5.

effect of it is a possibility of being saved, and arriving to a supernatural felicity. If infants can receive this effect, then also the new birth, without which they cannot receive the effect. And if they can receive salvation, the effect of the new birth, what hinders them but they may receive that, that is in order to that effect, and ordained only for it, and which is nothing of itself, but in its institution and relation, and which may be received by the same capacity, in which one may be created, that is, a passivity, or a capacity obe

diential?

17. Fourthly: Concerning pardon of sins, which is one great effect of baptism, it is certain that infants have not that benefit, which men of sin and age may receive. He that hath a sickly stomach, drinks wine, and it not only refreshes his spirits, but cures his stomach: he that drinks wine, and hath not that disease, receives good by his wine, though it does not minister to so many needs; it refreshes, though it does not cure him: and when oil is poured upon a man's head, it does not always heal a wound, but sometimes makes him a cheerful countenance, sometimes it consigns him to be a king, or a priest. So it is in baptism: it does not heal the wounds of actual sins, because they have not committed them; but it takes off the evil of original sin: whatsoever is imputed to us by Adam's prevarication, is washed off by the death of the second Adam, into which we are baptized. But concerning original sin, because there are so many disputes which may intricate the question, I shall make use only of that, which is confessed on both sides, and material to our purpose. Death came upon all men by Adam's sin, and the necessity of it remains upon us, as an evil consequent of the disobedience. For though death is natural, yet it was kept off from man by God's favour; which, when he lost, the banks were broken, and the water reverted to its natural course, and our nature became a curse, and death a punishment. Now, that this also relates to infants so far, is certain, because they are sick, and die. This the Pelagians denied noth. But to whomsoever this evil descended, for them also a remedy is provided by the second Adam; "That as, in Adam, all die, even so, in Christ, shall all be made alive;" that is, at the day of judgment: then death shall be destroyed. In the mean time, death hath a sting and a bitterness, a curse it is, and an express of the Divine anger: and if this sting be not taken away here, we shall have no participation of the final victory over death. Either, therefore, infants must be for ever without remedy in this evil consequent of their father's sin, or they must be adopted into the participation of Christ's death, which is the remedy. Now, how can they partake of Christ's death, but by baptism into his death? For if there be any spiritual way fancied, it will, by a stronger argument, admit them to baptism: for if they can receive spiritual effects, they can also receive the outward sacrament; this being denied only upon pretence they cannot have the other. If there be no spiritual way extraordinary, then the ordinary way is only left for them. If there be an extraordinary, let it be shown, and Christians will be at rest concerning their children. One thing only I desire to be observed, that Pelagius denied original sin, but yet denied not the necessity of infants' baptism; and being accused of it, in an espistle to Pope Innocent the First, he purged himself of the suspicion, and allowed the practice, but denied the inducement of it: which shows, that their arts are weak, that think baptism to be useless to infants, if they be not formally guilty of the prevarication of Adam, By which I also gather, that it was so universal, so primitive a practice, to baptize infants, that it was greater than all pretences to the contrary: for it would much have conduced to the introducing his opinion against grace and original sin, if he had destroyed that practice, which seemed so very much to have its greatest necessity from the doctrine he denied. But against Pelagius, and against all that follow the parts of his opinion, it is of good use which St. Austin, Prosperi, and Fulgentius argue; if infants are punished for Adam's sin, then they are also guilty of it in some sense. " Nimis enim impium est hoc de Dei sentire justitia, quòd à prævaricatione liberos cum reis voluerit esse damnatos:" So Prosper. "Dispendia quæ flentes nascendo testantur, dicito,

Prosper contra Collatorem, c. 20.

quo merito sub justissimo et omnipotentissimo judice eis, si nullum peccatum attrahant, arrogentur," said St. Austin. For the guilt of it signifies nothing but the obligation to the punishment; and he that feels the evil consequent, to him the sin is imputed; not as to all the same dishonour, or moral accounts, but to the more material, to the natural account: and, in holy Scripture, the taking off the punishment is the pardon of the sin; and in the same degree the punishment is abolished, in the same God is appeased, and then the person stands upright, being reconciled to God by his grace. Since, therefore, infants have the punishment of sin, it is certain the sin is imputed to them; and, therefore, they need being reconciled to God by Christ: and if so, then, when they are baptized into Christ's death, and into his resurrection, their sins are pardoned, because the punishment is taken off, the sting of natural death is taken away, because God's anger is removed, and they shall partake of Christ's resurrection; which because baptism does signify and consign, they also are to be baptized. To which also add this appendant consideration, that whatsoever the sacraments do consign, that also they do convey and minister: they do it, that is, God by them does it, lest we should think the sacraments to be mere illusions, and abusing us by deceitful ineffective signs: and, therefore, to infants the grace of a title to a resurrection and reconciliation to God, by the death of Christ, is conveyed, because it signifies and consigns this to them more to the life and analogy of resemblance, than circumcision to the infant sons of Israel. I end this consideration with the words of Nazianzen : Ἡ γέννησις ἐκ βαπτίσματος πᾶν ἀπὸ γενέσεως κάλυμμα περιτέμνει, καὶ πρὸς τὴν ἄνω ζωὴν ἐπανάγει "Our birth, by baptism, does cut off every unclean appendage of our natural birth, and leads us to a celestial life*." And this, in children, is therefore more necessary, because the evil came upon them without their own act of reason and choice, and, therefore, the grace and remedy ought not to stay the leisure of dull nature, and the formalities of the civil law.

18. Fifthly: The baptism of infants does to them the greatest part of that benefit, which belongs to the remission

Orat. 40. de Baptis.