Volume Iii Part 37 (1/2)

Ib. s. ix. p. 153.

'Judge not, that ye be not judged'. The dread of these words is, I fear, more influential on my spirit than either the duty of charity or my sense of Taylor's high merits, in enabling me to struggle against the strong inclination to pa.s.s the sentence of dishonesty on the reasoning in this paragraph. Had I met the pa.s.sage in Richard Baxter or in Bishop Hall, it would have made no such unfavourable impression. But Taylor was so acute a logician, and had made himself so completely master of the subject, that it is hard to conceive him blind to sophistry so glaring.

I am myself friendly to Infant Baptism, but for that reason feel more impatience of any unfairness in its defenders.

Ib. Ad. iii. and xiii. p. 178.

But then, that G.o.d is not as much before hand with Christian as with Jewish infants is a thing which can never be believed by them who understand that in the Gospel G.o.d opened all his treasures of mercies, and unsealed the fountain itself; whereas, before, he poured forth only rivulets of mercy and comfort.

This is mere sophistry; and I doubt whether Taylor himself believed it a sufficient reply to his own argument. There is no doubt that the primary purpose of Circ.u.mcision was to peculiarize the Jews by an indelible visible sign; and it was as necessary that Jewish infants should be known to be Jews as Jewish men. Then humanity and mere safety determined that the b.l.o.o.d.y rite should be performed in earliest infancy, as soon as the babe might be supposed to have gotten over the fever of his birth.

This is clear; for women had no correspondent rite, but the same result was obtained by the various severe laws concerning their marriage with aliens and other actions.

Ib. p. 180.

And as those persons who could not be circ.u.mcised (I mean the females), yet were baptized, as is notorious in the Jews' books and story.

Yes, but by no command of G.o.d, but only their own fancies.

Ib. Ad. iv. p. 181.

'Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of G.o.d as a little child, shall not enter therein': receive it as a little child receives it, that is, with innocence, and without any let or hinderance.

Is it not evident that Christ here converted negatives into positives?

As a babe is without malice negatively, so you must be positively and by actuation, that is, full of love and meekness; as the babe is unresisting, so must you be docile, and so on.

Ib. Ad. v.

And yet, notwithstanding this terrible paragraph, Taylor believed that infants were not a whit the worse off for not being baptized. Strange contradiction! They are born in sin, and Baptism is the only way of deliverance; and yet it is not. For the infant is 'de se' of the kingdom of heaven. Christ blessed them, not in order to make them so, but because they already were so. So that this argument seems more than all others demonstrative for the Anabaptist, and to prove that Baptism derives all its force if it be celestial magic, or all its meaning if it be only a sacrament and symbol, from the presumption of actual sin in the person baptized.

Ib. Ad. xv. p. 186.

And he that hath without difference commanded that all nations should be baptized, hath without difference commanded all sorts of persons.

Even so our Lord commanded all men to repent, did he therefore include babes of a month old? [8] Yes, when they became capable of repentance.

And even so babes are included in the general command of Baptism, that is, as soon as they are baptizable. But Baptism supposed both repentance and a promise; babes are not capable of either, and therefore not of Baptism. For the physical element was surely only the sign and seal of a promise by a counter promise and covenant. The rite of Circ.u.mcision is wholly inapplicable; for there a covenant was between Abraham and G.o.d, not between G.o.d and the infant. ”Do so and so to all your male children, and I will favor them. Mark them before the world as a peculiar and separate race, and I will then consider them as my chosen people.” But Baptism is personal, and the baptized a subject not an object; not a thing, but a person; that is, having reason, or actually and not merely potentially. Besides, Jeremy Taylor was too sound a student of Erasmus and Grotius not to know the danger of s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up St. Paul's accommodations of Jewish rites, meant doubtless as inducements of rhetoric and innocent compliances with innocent and invincible prejudices, into articles of faith. The conclusions are always true; but all the arguments are not and were never intended to be reducible into syllogisms demonstrative.

Ib. Ad. xviii. p. 191.

But let us hear the answer. First, it is said, that Baptism and the Spirit signify the same thing; for by water is meant the effect of the Spirit.

By the 'effect,' the Anabaptist clearly means the 'causa causans', the 'act of the Spirit.' As well might Taylor say that a thought is not thinking, because it is the effect of thinking. Had Taylor been right, the water to be an apt sign ought to have been dirty water; for that would be the 'res effecta'. But it is pure water, therefore 'res agens'.

Ib. p. 192.