Baxter - BX5202 B29 1689

( 62) M. If he de troy Infants for Adam's fin, do you think that Juftice is fo much more extenfive then Mercy, that he will íhew no mercy for Parents fake? But the cafe is this, Chrift the Second Adamhathmeritedpardonand..falvation tobegiven - conditionally to all : Not abfolutely, for then all would be faved : What thecondition is to the adult, we are agreed, vit. Faith and Repentance and Dedication to Chrift byco- venant confent : And do you think that Infants pardon and falvation bath no condition ? If none, than all Infants are Paved ; ifany condition, what is it ? i,ls it barely that they be baptized without any right but what all have. This is an injurious fiction, God never faid it : And its an unreafonable imputation on God, as if he would fave thoufands mearly for water and words, and conademn thoufands that had not the opportunity of thefe. And it is certain that Chriftians ne- ver dream'dof this abfurd opinion, or elfe godly Emperours would have forced Baptifm on the children of all theirHea- thenSubjects, and wouldwhere their còñquering Armies came in Charity havecatcht up their children and baptized them.And Bithops and Doctors would have taught and in treated them fo to do. To make meer baptifing alone the condition of In- fant falvation , is to lay Heaven on fuch a ceremony quite out of the Infants power, as would but tempt the rational Infidels to deride Chciítianity. No fober men lay a childs Eflate or Life on fuch a thing. 2.. If there muft be force condition of Right to Baptifm antecedent to it, what is it. t. It is not actual faith in that infant, that underítands' not ? 2. It muft then be forme o- thers aCt or nothing ? If anothers, whofe thäuld it be fo likely as the parents from whom the Children have their ellence ? Whom nature bath taught to take them as almoft parts of themfelves ; and fo hath the cuftom of all Nati- ons ; and who are obliged above all other to provide for them, and whofe will in their Infancy difpofeth of them till they come to have a rational will of their own (in as :) And Scripture from end to end confirmeth this. But betides this you know not whither to look for a title- conditione, unlefs to forane Pro -parents whofe the child is, upon

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