X HE book I have undertaken to animadvert briefly upon, bears the title of a solemn call ; but I am not so much concerned with the solemnity, as I am with the authority of this call. Not how it is, but whose it is. If it be the call of God, it must be obeyed though it be to part not only with \\\q privileges, but lives of our dearest chil- dren ; but then we had need to be very well assured it is the call of God, else we are guilty at once of the highest folly, and basest treach- ery, to part with so rich an inheritance, conveyed by God's covenant with Abraham, to us believing Gentiles, and our seed, at Mr. Gary's call.
You direct your Solemn Call to all that would he oztmedas Chrisfs JmthJiU witnesses.
Here you are too obscure and general : do you mean, all that would be owned by you, or by Christ ? If you mean, that we must not ex- pect to be owned by you till we renounce infants baptism, you tell us no news, for you have long since turned your back upon our minis- try and assemblies: yet,methinks it is strange, that we who were lately owned as Christ's faithful witnesses, under our late sufferings, must now be disowned by you, when we liave liberty to amplify and con-
628 A REPLY TO MR. GARY S SOLEMN CALL.
firm our testimony in the peaceful improvement of our common liberty.
But if your meaning be, (as I strongly suspect it is) that we must not expect to be owned bv Christ, except we give up infants baptism ; then, I sav, it is the most uncharitable, as well as unwarrantable, and dangerous censure that ever dropt from the pen of a sober Christian. It is certainly your great evil to lay salvation itself on such a point as the proper subject of baptism, and to make it articulus stantis velca- dentis religion'is^ the very basis on which the whole Christian religion, audits professors salvation must stand. I hope the rest of your breth- ren are more charitable than yourself; but however it be, I do openly profess, that I ever have, and still do own you, and many more of your persuasion, for my brethren in Christ, and am persuaded Christ will own you too, notwithstanding your many errors and mistakes about the lesser and lower matters of religion. Nor need your censure much to afreet us, as long as we are satisfied you have neither a fa- culty nor commission thus solemnly to pronounce it upon us.
But what is the condition upon which this dreadful sentence de- pends ? wh}^, it is our attendance or non-attendance to the primitive purity of the gospel-doctnne.
Sir, I hope we do attend it, and, in some respects, better than some great pretenders to primitive purity, who have cast off not only the initiating sign of God's covenant, (this did not Abraham) but also that most comfortable and ancient ordinance o^ singing Psnlms : and what other primitive ordinance of God may be cashiered next, who can tell ?
AVe have a witness in our bosom, that the defence of Chrisfs pure icoj'ship and institution hath cost us something; and as for me, were I convinced by all that you have here said, or any of your friends, that in baptizing the infants of believers, we did really depart from the pri- mitive purity, I would renounce it, and turn Anabaptist the same day.
But really, sir, this discourse of yours hath very much convinced me of the weakness and sickliness of your cause, which is forced to seek a new foundation, and is here laid by you upon such a founda- tion as must inevitably ruin it, if your party, as well as yourself, have but resolution enough to venture it thereupon.
And it appears to me very probable, that they intend to fight us upon the new ground you have here chosen and marked out for them, bvthehigh encomiums they give your hook in their epistles to it, where- in they tell us, your notions are of so rare a nature, that you are not beholden to any other Jvr them ; and it is a wonder if you should, for I think it never entered into any sober Christian's head before you, that Abraham's covenant. Gen. xvii. was the very same with Adam's covenant made in paradise ; or that Moses, Abraham, and all the elect of God in those days were absolutely under the very rigour and tyranny of the covenant gfzvorl's, and at the same time under the covenant of grace, and all the blessings and privileges thereof; with
A RErLY TO MR. CARY's SOLEMN CALL. 3S9
•many otlier such rare notions, of which it is pity but you should have the sole propriety.
I am particularly concerned to detect your dangerous mistakes, both in love ioyoitr oicn soul, and care of itit/ people's, amongst whom you have dispersed them ; though I foresee by M. E's epistle to 9/our boolc, what measure I am like to have for my plain and faithful deahng with you : for if that gentleman, upon a mere surmise and pre- sumption that one or otlier would oppose your book, dare adventure to call your unknown answer, before he ever put pen to pa])er, a man-piease?; a quarreller at reformation, and rank him with the Pa- pists, which opposed the faithful for their non-conformity to their inventions ; what must I expect from such rash censurers, for my sober, plain, and rational confutation of your errors ?
As to the controversy betwixt us, you truly say, in your title page, and many parts of your boolc, and your brethren comprobate it in their epistles, that the main arguments made use of by the Pasdo-bap- tists, for the support of their practice, are taken from the covenant of God with Abraham, Gen. xvii. You call this the very hinge of the controversy ; and therefore if you can but prove this to be the very same covenant of works with that made with Adam m paradise, we shall then see what improvements you will quickly make of it.
Ay, sir, you are sensible of the advantage, no less than a complete victory you shall obtain by it : and therefore being a more hardy and adventurous man than others, put desperately upon it, (which never any before you durst attempt) to prove Abraham's covenant, which stands so much in the way of your cause, to be a mere covenant of works, and therefore now abolished.
My proper province is to discover here, that part of the foundation (I mean Abraham's coveiiant) whence our divines with great strength and evidence, deduce the right of believers infants to baptism now. Next, to evince the absurdity of your assertions, and arguments you bring to destroy it : And, lastly, to reflect, briefly upon the answers you give in the beginning of your book, to those several texts of scrip- ture pleaded by the learned and judicious divines you oppose, for the justification of infants baptism.
(1.) Those that plead God's covenant with Abraham, Gen. xvii. as a scripture-foundation for ba])tizing believers infants under the gos- pel, proceed generally upon these four grounds or principles.