Christianismus redivivus Christndom both un-christ'ned and new-christ'ned, or, that good old way of dipping and in-churching of men and women after faith and repentance professed, commonly (but not properly) called Anabaptism, vindicated ... : in five or six several systems containing a general answer ... : not onely a publick disputation for infant baptism managed by many ministers before thousands of people against this author ... : but also Mr. Baxters Scripture proofs are proved Scriptureless ... / by Samuel Fisher ...

Baptist.

I shall very freely speak to any thing which hath not yet been spoken to in par∣ticular, and to Mr. Baxters exceptions in that particular rather then any other, because he is most noted in those parts were he lives, and also in the examination of his Exceptions, I shall have the more hint to take notice of such reliques, and broken pieces as remain yet unspoken to, as the gainsayings of the rest in this point, for he seems to me to have gathered them up there, and to have epitomized those mens matter as i•• were into a fardel of fewer words: excepting the two last grand Arguments of Mr. Cook against dipping, one of which Doctor Featley affronts us with in the title page, and both of which are more sparingly spoke to yet, covert∣ly touched, and tacitly touched upon by Mr. Cook, and those Mr. Baxter ra∣ther comments on at large, and makes (I cannot say a fairer, but a fouler, a falser, and far more miserable improvement of then any of the rest do: This he professes to be the businesse of his book p. 13. viz.

To use the proofs that others make use of in some newer kind of way, confess∣ing that few have improved their Arguments as they might have done, nor man∣naged them in the most forcible way, and not to medle much with those arguments that others have fully mannaged.

Yet (by his leave) he meddles so much with the Arguments that others almost every one makes use of, that he makes some of them the worse again, he mars ma∣ny a one with his mendall Mannagement.

It is not to use many Arguments (saith he) but to drive home a few.

Yet he uses many more then any one else, viz. three capital ones to prove infants to be disciples, twenty cardinal ones, to prove them members, to which (Nos numeri sumus) a number of others are subservient, and subordinate two more in proof of babisme, besides eight in proof of no body knows what, all these in his Disputative piece of book, so that for ought I find Et sinon prosint singula, multa juvant, his genius stood more to numerositie, than dextery in handling a few, unlesse by few he mean only the three main Mediums as Capital, and Cardinal to the rest, the first of which, but especially the second, in tot ramos, ra∣mulos & ramusculos se ipsum Rantizavit, hath stragled it self into so many small branches, that indeed it hangs not handsomly together within it self, and indeed the whole is but a certain three legged stool, which he hath made for people to sit at rest upon in their vain Worships, and se••vings of God, after the Precepts of men, which if they never be broken by any hand, writing responsibly to them, yet are so rotten, that they will wear out within a while of themselves: but be they few or many he might well say he would drive home a few, for verily above all the rest, those two I speak of, viz. wherein dipping is called Murther, and adul∣tery, he drives on beyond the bounds of modesty, truth, sense and reason. as far, I dare say to the full, as God would suffer the Devill to direct, and drive him.

For my part I never saw Mr. Baxters face that I know of, but I see too much

of his spirit in his latest labor, in which, if the spirit of God had been his leader, he would not have led him into that confident utterance of such utter untruths, not onely in point of doctrine, but matter of fact too now and then: let his parts, let his piety you talk on, be more then his parts if it will, God once left as honest as holy, as worthy a one as he can be, in punishment of a people whom he had a mind to plague for their dotage on him, to be stirred up by Satan to do things inconvenient, and unseemly 1 Chron. 21.1. and so it seemes to me he hath left Mr. Baxter, as Godly as he is, or else there could never have issued from him such inconsiderate crudities, such rank venomous, viperous, ulcerous fluxes of folly, flesh, fierceness, fiction, falseness, firery invectives, to the madding of the very magistracy, if it would be any longer blinded by the baw∣lings of a mistaken ministry, against many a dear Saint of God, against a people precious to God, though base in his eyes, against thousands that are as intimate with God, and more privy to his will in point of baptism then himself, that thus he does shall appear by and by, at present see what little verity and less validity is in that first viz. that it is not yet proved by any that dipping was the primitive custome, when yet its proved, if not by many, yet at least by two of our way viz. A. R. and Mr. Blackwood, and that so sufficiently that if Dr. Featley, and Mr. Baxter, Mr. Cook, and Mr. Blake did not decline them, and if they had been minded to mark and seriously to search the Scriptures, and not to dazle mens eyes with all the fiddle-faddles they could find to fling before them, and to satisfie themselves at slender rates in the present custome, rather then cry out for a change, sith it is the present custome, the Scriptures they hint on are so plain, taking the words thereof, not in feigned, forced, figurative and forreign, but in their own prime, direct, native, ordinary, proper, and rational sense and signifi∣cation, that he who runs may read no lesse then this, that dipping, yea total, was the way wherein baptism was then dispensed: but if we had not such proof of it extant from our own party, yet tis so clear of it self that men famous, even of your own way that have not thrust their fingers too far into the fire of this controversie, concerning the primitive form of baptizing (as these men have done, and there∣fore will on in what they have once asserted, and get thorow by hook or crook, rather then recede with that shame (I should say honour) which is the right of every recantant, when he sees he hath misreckoned) do not onely confesse, but al∣so teach us the very same that we stand for.

Witnesse Tilenus, who tells us that Immersio usitatior olim fuerit praesertim in Iudea et aliis regionibus &c. p. 886. dipping, yea totall dipping (for in the very line before he defines the right of baptism to be tripple, Immersio in aquam, mora sub aqua, emersio ex aqua, plunging into the water, abode under it, resurrection out of it) was rather used heretofore specially in Judea, and other warmer countries then sprinkling.

Yea Dr. Featley, that is as it were the fronteer or fileleader in doing all the disgrace he could to dipping, did yet find occasion to acknowledge little lesse p. 69. notwithstanding saith he, I grant that Christ and the Eunuch were bap∣tized in the River, and that such baptism of men, i. e. in rivers, specially in the hotter climates, hath been, is and may lawfully be used: though I confesse he gives this a pull in again, and very cleanly contradicts himself in the very next words, saying that there is no proof at all of dipping or plunging, but onely of washing in the River.

O grosse, First, as if the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 did signifie onely to wash in some other way, and not at all to wash by dipping.

Secondly, as if ever any things, or persons, that are washed in Rivers are wash∣ed ordinarily otherwise then by dipping or plunging.

Thirdly, as if he could properly be said to be washed in a river that was never in it, but was onely scrubd a little by the side of it.

Or Fourthly as if wise persons would go into a river for no more then a little fourbishing their faces.