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Title:  The baptizing of infants revievved and defended from the exceptions of Mr. Tombes in his three last chapters of his book intituled Antipedobaptisme / by H. Hammond ...
Author: Hammond, Henry, 1605-1660.
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The children of believers, I willingly grant, are presumed to be by them intended to be bred up to the faith, but it that inten∣tion of theirs bring forth no present effect, if they do not bring them thus early, and enter them into the Church by baptisme, why should that bare intention of the parents give them the style of holy or sanctified, or how should these infant children, which may dy before they come to those years, receive any present priviledge or benefit, by that which is thus farre removed from them? Now for the 2d part of this suggestion, that what I say from Tertullian, that they were holy, i. e. baptized in seminis praero∣gativâ, is a mistake, I must answer by viewing of the proofs of his assertion, First, saith he, the holynesse was not onely by pre∣rogative of birth, but ex institutionis disciplinâ. This sure is a strange proof, It is not so, because it is not onely so, Tis certain that Tertullian saith they are holy ex institutionis disciplina, and as certain that they are as much so by prerogative of their birth, the words are most clear, tam ex seminis praerogativâ quàm ex in∣stitutionis disciplina, and I that never denyed the second, could not be mistaken in affirming the first. Some difficulty I suppose there may be, what Tertullian (who did not excell in perspicuity of expressions) meant by institutionis disciplina. My opinion (gathered from the observation of his language in other places) is, that he meant the doctrine of bap∣tisme instituted by Christ in his Church; for by this it is that baptisme was allowed to those that were ex alterutro sexu sancti∣ficato procreati, born of parents of which either of them was Chri∣stian. Thus in his Book De Bapt. c. 12. he uses a like phrase tingi disciplinâ religionis, to be sprinkled with the discipline of religion, meaning evidently being baptized. By this interpretation of that phrase, the whole place will be most clear, in reference to the antecedents, thus, The birth of all men by nature brings impurity into the world with them; the children of heathens have this mightily inhansed to them by the Superstitions that are used before and at, and soon after their birth, inviting the devil to come and take possession of them (who is himself very ready to catch them) and so making them as soon 0