The infants advocate of circumcision on Jewish and baptisme on Christian children. By Thomas Fuller, B.D.

CHAP. XIII. The Fift Reason drawn from the Ma∣lady of Original Corruption. (Book 13)

THe Fift Reason out of Scripture may thus be contrived; They who are subject to the malady of sin, ought to partake of the remedy against it; But Infants are subject to the malady of sin; therfore they ought to partake of baptism the remedy against it. For the proof of the major or first part thereof, I appeal a∣mongst Christians, only to the married; amongst the married, only to the parents of children. These cannot deny it, but that against their wills, as the unhappy in∣struments, they have derived corruption to their infants, as conveyed in the same charter of their being unto them.

If any should be so sensless as to deny In∣fants infected with Original Corruption, the contrary will be sadly demonstrated by those several diseases, and death it self, to which they are subject, before they

have or can commit actual sin. All will confesse no suffering can follow but where sin hath gone before, and that In∣fants deeply share in sufferings, daily ex∣perience approveth. Some of them whilest they lie in the Cradle, how lie they on the rack? Such sighes, such sobs, such gripes, such groans, such convulsions, such distortions, enough almost to kill the hearts of the beholders, relating unto them, if all pitty be not dead in them before: Nor can all the rending of the fathers hair, abate the aching of the childs head, nor all the rain of the mothers tears, allay the wind in the babes body. Quid teneri infantes in te committere tan∣tum? quid pueri potuere. But these little Lambs wherein have they offended? Their hands did never hurt others, which could not help themselves: Their tongues did never lie, swear, &c. which cannot speak; Their feet were never swift to shed bloud which cannot go. All these miseries, and death at last, fals often, on Infants un∣capable of actual sin, because of the cor∣ruption of their nature wherein they were born and conceived.

Seeing therefore Infants are subject to the malady of sin, what a cruelty were it for parents to leave them in this pittiful case neglecting the remedy for the same? By the Levitical Law, Exod. 21. 33. If a man shall open a pit, and not cover it, he was to pay the owner for the losse of those his cattel which fell into it: Parents ha∣ving opened a pit of original corruption by the sinfulnesse of their nature, if they labour not to cover it again, as much as in them lies, by using the ordinance God hath appointed for the same, shall not the souls of their children, if finally falling in∣to that pit, be heavily required at their hands? Yea, shall man be carelesse and cruel, where God hath been so kind and careful in his instituting of Baptism? Rom. 6. 3. That we may be Baptized into Jesus Christ his death, as it followeth vers. 6. that the body of sin may be destroyed, To conclude, Infants having the body of sin as well as adult persons, and Baptism being appointed for the destruction there∣of, such parents are wanting to their own duty, undervalue Gods ordinance, and are cruel to the souls of the flesh of their

body that deny Baptism unto Infants.