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persons are now all dead, and the written memorandum is lost.

I shall mention but one case more, and that is one which is not taken notice of by the foresaid collectors; all that I understand of it is from a pamphlet printed by one Everard, in the year 1664; by which it appears that he, in Cromwell's time, had been a captain of horse, and a not d preacher against infant baptism: he speaks as if he had had a great many converts. This time at which he printed his pamphlet, was a time in which it was impossible for him to carry on that trade in a disguise any longer; so he faces about, and endeavours to decoy them over with him to the Church of Rome. To this purpose he pretends that it had pleased God to bring him to an opportunity of dis coursing concerning religion with a very grave and judicious gentleman, who, " examining every thing from the bottom, and laying the axe to the root of the tree, &c. asked him, in the first place, whether he was sure and certain that the Christian Religion in general was more true than the religion of the Turks, Jews," &c. In short, this man had by degrees, made him see that there is no firm reliance tor one's faith either on the Scripture, or on the doctrine of the Spirit, or on rea son, but only on the authority of the Catholic Church; by which he all along means the Church of Rome. So he gives to his pamphlet this title:-"An Epistle to the several Congregations of the Nonconformists, by Capt. Robert Everard, now, by God's Grace, a Member of the Holy Catholic Church of Christ; shewing the Rea sons of his Conversion, and Submission to the said Catholic Church." Printed 1664.

But the reasons therein given are so exactly the sane with the ordinary sophisms which the Jesuits commonly use to amaze and confound the minds of ignorant people; and the writer of them sets them forth with so much of the same sort of art, that he that reads the book will easily discern that Everard was not now converted, but was a Papist before..

We must think that the instances of this nature that have been discovered, are probably but few in com

parison with those that never have been so. We oftener find where these men have been, than where they are; and it were happy for England if they had some mark whereby they might be known.

There is one tenet of the Antipædobaptists in which the Jesuits concur with them, not only when they are in this disguise, but also in their late books to which they set their names; that is, "That infant baptism cannot be proved from Scripture" The old books of the Papists, and even of soine Jesuits do, as well as the books of Protestants, prove it by arguments from Scripture, as Archbishop Laud and Vossius have largely shewn; but the late Jesuits have given a politic turn to that point of the Romish doctrine; and say, that it can be proved only by the custom and trad tion of the church. They serve two designs by this device; one is, to puzzle the Protestants in general, who maintain that the Scripture is a sufficient rule; the other is to encourage the Antipædobaptists that are among the Protestants, in their opinion and separation; to which purpose they do in their books f rnish them with answers to all the arguments brought from Scripture.

Col. Danvers says *"A great Papist, lately in London, going to a dispute about infant baptism, told his friend he was going to hear a miracle, viz. infant baptism proved from Scripture."

And one E. P. an Antipædobaptist preacher, formerly of Deptford, now I think about Dover in Kent, in a pamphlet which he intitles A Threepenny Answer, &c. has this remark (pag. 25)" A Popish priest confest to a minister of the baptized way, that there is no Scripture for baptizing infants; but yet it ought to be done, because the church has commanded it. This was a true and ingenuous confession." There is no doubt but this priest would, if Mr P. had given leave, have preached the same in his congregation; and if he might have preached in a vizor, would have said it ought not to be done at all.

But I do not so much wonder at these two, as I do

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at Mr. Stennet, who, in his late answer to Mr. Russen, has thought fit to strengthen his cause not only by quoting Cardinal Perron, Fisher the Jesuit, &c. but has spent eleven whole pages in giving us an harangue of Mr. Bossuet, a late Popish author, written in favour of the Antipædobaptists. Is it news to Mr. Stennet too, that the Papists, for these eighty years past, do this against their own consciences, and out of a design against the Protestants in general? If it be, let him consult and compare the Popish writers, and he will find, that before that time they do themselves all of them prove infant baptism by Scripture, and that it is only the later ones that have altered their tale. There seems to have been about that time a consultation of the Jesuits, wherein it was resolved to give this cue to the writers of their side. Cardinal Perron began this course, and the learned Rivet even then smelt the design, and gave the world notice of it, as I shewed, ch. 2; yet even still the Papists carry it on in new writings every day; and it takes it seems (not only as Saffold's bills do with the new folks that come to town every year, but) even with some of the wiser sort. If the discourse that he recites so at length had any thing of new argument in it, it might be used, come it from whom it would; but there is nothing of that but what is common, and even trivial, and has been answered a hundred times; it affirms that infant baptism depends solely on the tradition of the church but this is said dictator like.

And for the complying answer that is there given, and fills four or five pages more, which was written it seems by Mr. de la Roque, I thought at first it had been a sham; it looks as if the author himself, or some other Papist or Antipædobaptist, had framed an answer under the name of a Protestant, such as they would have. But Mr. de la Roque was, it seems, a learned man in other points, and has well refuted the main of his adversary's book, which is of communion in one kind; but having occasion to speak of this matter only by the by, and having not studied it, but depending on Grotius; and having not well minded what Grotius

says neither, he has yielded even more than his oppor nent pretended to. The opponent had said that infant baptism depends solely on the tradition of the church. The answerer throws away even this grant; and says, "The primitive church did not baptize infants (p. 188) and proves it by nothing but an allegation that is quite mistaken in matter of fact. He says, the learned Grotius proves it in his Annotations on the Gospel. Let any one read the Annotations, and he will see that Grotius (how much soever he acts the prevaricator at that place) so far from proving, does not pretend that there ever was a time in which the church did not baptize infants; but only Libertatem & consuetudinis differentiam: The liberty and difference

of the custom; viz. that some in the church did, and some did not and how groundless his pretence even of that is, I have endeavoured to shew at the foresaid Chap. II.

One would think that even the weakest among the Antipædobaptists should apprehend that this new favour and loving-kindness which the priests and Jesuits. shew to their side, is all of the same stamp and design, as was that which the late King James, by council of the same men, shewed to the dissenters in general, viz. that by furthering the division, they might weaken us all. And as all the honest men among the dissenters then did scorn and refuse those favours, when they saw whither they tended, so ought the Antipædobaptists in this case-but if they will not be dissuaded from tampering with the deceitful gifts of the enemy, then their best way is, to do as some have done before them, viz. to borrow the arguments of the Jesuits, without saying where they have them; for people will be never the more persuaded that infant baptism cannot be proved from Scripture, because a Papist says so.

The English Antipædobaptists are as careful as men in their circumstances can well be, against this intrusion of Papists in disguise, by requiring an account of any new preacher coming to them; but it is a thing that can hardly be ever totally prevented without

draught of articles of religion, to which every preacher should subscribe.

Of the Antipædobaptists in Poland I have not much to say, save that they were formerly there in great numbers. Lælius Socinus, about the year 1550, and after him his nephew Faustus, broached there a most desperate opinion against the divinity of our Saviour Christ; Who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen. [1450] Some heretics of old (but yet none within 1000 years of that time) had held that Jesus was a mere man; and that the Word, or Aoyos, did only come upon him, or inhabit in him. But these men taught, that even the Word himself, of whom St. John speaks, was a creature which was a heresy perfectly new, and surpassing in impiety almost all that ever were. So they renounced the doctrine of the Trinity: the form of words by which the Christians are baptized, In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, stood in their way. Socinus therefore expressed a very slighting opinion of all water baptism; he would have it be accounted needless in a nation that is settled in the profession of Christianity. He said the Apostles practised it; but they had no command so to do: and so other Christians might use it, as an indifferent thing. That they may baptize, if they will; or let it alone, if they will; and if they will give baptism, they may give it in infancy or in adult age; it is muchwhat one. His followers, many of them, took him at this last proposal. They would baptize, but not in infancy.

There were also some other Antipedobaptists that were not Socinians; but they were so generally mixed, that the ordinary name given to all the Socinians was Anabaptists. [1550] About the Year 1650, they were by public edicts expelled that kingdom; as the Protestants in general have since been.

*Rom. ix. 5.

+ Disp. de Baptismo, Epist. de Baptismo ad Virum nobilem. Epist. altera de Bapt.

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