the
yery last Argument us'd by the first opponent at this Ashsord
Disputation, whereby to prove infants to have the
spirit, who having urg'd the example of Iohn Baptist, (whose
example is also hinted in your Review p. 16. of your
Pamphlet) just before to this effect. viz. Iohn had the holy
spirit from the womb, therefore children have it, and being
answered to that thus, viz. Ex puris negativis, et parti∣cularibus nihil
sequitur universale, claps in this consequence to close up his dis∣course
with, viz. It doth not appear to you that children have not the spirit
(as much as to say they may for ought you know have the holy spirit)
therefore they have it. To whom 'twas repli'd, that it would not follow
that I was at Canterbury such a day, because it did not appear to him
that I was not: and this as I re∣member (though your Account doth very
freely forget all this, but I hope you will remember to be asham'd on't) was
the very period of that mans Disputation with me, saving what he added
after in his recapitulatory moderation, and after that in other
emergent conferences with me and others, to whose non-sequiturs, as I
have in faithfulness set down what I returned then, so (pace vestrâ)
I say thus much more now, viz. that if I should go about to prove
from the Possibility of things to be so or so, or from their
non-appearance to be not so, though not yet appearing to be so, that
therefore they are so, viz. more worlds then one, or another world of
men in the moon, or, as he from the particular case of Iohn Bap∣tist
to other infants, so I should syllogize from the particular
and extraordinary case of Balaams Ass to other creatures of that kind,
viz. Balaams Ass, by a special power of God upon him, did speak and
reprove the mad•…•…ess of the
Prophet, therefore very Asses can speak plain enough to
reprove the madness of the Priests, though I have learn'd Christ
better then to record him as such a one for the like deduction, yet I know who
have so well learn'd the Featlaean language, that in their
Account I should have been an Ass for my labor. Secondly, and
this I told you then too, but your Account had no mind to
mention what makes against you, Tum d•…•…mum i. e. proprie et quoàd nos dicuntur
res fieri cum incipiunt patefieri, then things as to us are when they
appear and not before, and to talk de non entibus, et non
apparentibus, is one as frivolous as the other: yet such lazy
learning and lowzy logick is at Rome with the infatuated
Pope, and such of his Creatures, as trouble themselves so
much about Tyth, that they have no time to study Truth, nor
understand either sense or reason, that whilst wise men indeed, whose
wisdome is not as theirs is already turn'd into foolishnese,
do argue from the Appearings of things to be to their being;
from the evidence that they are to their existence, they
magisterially impose things to be received as truth, because Ipse
Dixit, and both assert them to be, and make men believe they
appear plain enough so to be, when their say so shews them,
though no inquisitive sincere self-denying Christian can in the word
find either how or where: of but a very lit∣tle better stamp
is your way of arguing here, who being hous'd by custom under a cloudy
confidence that insants have the holy spirit, will needs have
it appear whe∣ther it doth or no: but for my part it appears
not yet to me; yea, I reply Se∣condly; to this part of your
Report, that I did indeed then say as you have here truly
related, that it could not be made appear that Infants have the holy spirit
to the making of them subjects of baptism; yea, I testifie the
same still that it can∣not, notwithstanding all your undertakings,
which of what little force they are to such a purpose I shall try more
at large when I handle your Account over a∣gain, not as an
Account, but as your Argumentation for Infants
having the holy spirit, and so right to baptism.
Nevertheless, Thirdly, that I acknowledged any such thing as this in
the least, that the Scriptures above named, did seem so much
as to intimate such a matter as that infants might have the
holy spirit, as it had been most contradictory to that which
here you say I said immediately after it, and is most contrary to my
Judgement to this present, so I deny it, disclaim it, and testifie again it, as
another of your abominable abuses of your selves, my self