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Title:  The due right of presbyteries, or, A peaceable plea for the government of the Church of Scotland ... by Samuel Rutherfurd ...
Author: Rutherford, Samuel, 1600?-1661.
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onely, then is this to be conceived either to bee true and saving faith, in the nearest parents, or onely faith in profession: if you say the former, then 1. The seed of the excommunicated pa∣rents, in whom is faith, or the seed thereof is to be baptized, the contrary, of which you affirme.2. Then the seed and Infants of no Parents, but of such only as are members of the invisible Church of the first borne, are to be baptized, the contrary whereof you teach, while you say, The Sacraments are not given to the invisible Church, and the members thereof, but to the visible particular Churches.3. The Infants of the unbeleeving parents, though mem∣bers of the visible Church, have no right to baptisme, and the Covenant, though they be the elect of God, and borne with∣in the visible Church, which is admirable to us, now it is knowne that Hypocrites and unbeleeving parents have often such a luster of a greene and fairelike profession, as that they goe for visible members of the Church, so as their children are by Christs warrant and right baptized. I come to the other point, if the faith of nearest parents, onely true in profession and show before men, give right to their Infants to bee sealed with the seales of the Covenant: Then 1. apparent and by∣pocriticall faith conferreth true right to the seales to Infants, and there is not required (as the author saith Chap. 3. Sect. 3.) that the members of the visible Church be the called of God, the sonnes and daughters of the Lord God Almighty, not onely in externallChap. 3. Sect. 3.profession, but also in some measure of sinceritie and truth.2. God hath warranted his Church to put his seale upon a falsehood, and to conferre the seales upon Infants, for the ex∣ternall profession of faith, where there is no faith at all, this your writers thinke inconvenient and absurd.Also it is objected by us, that excommunicates children are in no better case by this doctrine, then the children of Turkes and Infidels.The Author answereth. We willingly (saith he) put a diffe∣rence; excommunicates are nearer to helpes, and meanes of salvation and conversion, then Turkes, 1 Cor. 5. 5. because excommunication it selfe is a meane that the spirit may be saved: and Turkes are nearer then Apostates, who turne enemies to the truth, for better never have0