A just vindication of the covenant and church-estate of children of church-members as also of their right unto bastisme : wherein such things as have been brought by divers to the contrary, especially by Ioh. Spilsbury, A.R. Ch. Blackwood, and H. Den are revised and answered : hereunto is annexed a refutation of a certain pamphlet styled The plain and wel-grounded treatise touching baptism / by Thomas Cobbet.

SECT. IIII.

Object. NO such example in the opposers of Paedobaptisme; Yes, (you will say) Berengarius about a 1050. and afterwards Peter de Brucis, and the Albingenses and so the Walden∣ses, (for they had such diverse names according to places and countries in which they were scattered, &c.) they denied it, and some of them appealed to the Scriptures, and to the Greeke Church for warrant.

Answ. I deny not but that the Popish writers (as their manner is) use to brand the servants of God with some odious tenents, for which all would hate them, when that they never held the same; but that old accuser of the Brethren casteth on by his in∣struments that dirt, wash it off who can. Plateolus, Abbas Clu∣viacensis and others traded this way, concerning Berengarius and his followers. Dr. Ʋsher de successione & statu Ecclesiarum Christia∣narum, Cap. 7. pa. 207. quoteth Tbuanus accusing him and them thereof, but evinceth the contrary both in that: In all the Sum∣mons of Berengarius before the Synod wee never read hee was charged with Anabaptisme, and that hee rather denyed baptisme to profit Infants to salvation, ex opere operato, for which hee quo∣teth Alanus in his first booke against the Heretiques of his times; as saying: that baptisme had no efficacy either in Infant or grown persons, &c. and in p. 195. citeth Serarius in Triharesio — as

saying, qui hodie sunt Calvinisti, olim dicti fuerunt Berengariani, & qui hodie Protestantes dicuntur, Johanni Wendelstino (praefat. in Cod. Canonum,) novi sunt Waldenses. They then acknowledge their and our doctrine to bee the same, and therefore no Antipaedobaptists, and Gretzer prolegom. in Script. edit. contra Waldenses cap. 1. citeth this as one of their Articles of confession, credimus etiam qu••d non salvatur quis nisi qui baptizatur, viz. ordinarily, and parvulos salva∣ri per baptismum, and wee beleeve that little children are saved by baptisme, and so in the same cap. 8. doth Dr. Ʋsher cleare Peter de Brucis, and his followers from all such aspersions. They were accused too for rejecting the Old-Testament, and Evangelists, yet by Gretzer and others they are cleared as those that translated; and taught the same; and Reiner the Inquisitour said, they were so well acquainted with the old and new Testament, as that they could say much thereof by heart: the history of the Waldenses men∣tioneth this accusation of them, as if denying Paedobaptisme, but citeth a booke of the Waldenses intituled the spirituall Alma∣nack, fol. 45. to the contrary, ordering that though no time or day bee set, yet the charitie, and edification of the Church must serve for a rule therein, and therefore they to whom the children were nearest allied brought their Infants to bee baptized as their parents, or any other whom God had made charitable in that kind. True it is saith the Author of that story (scil. John Paul Peruin. of Lyons, l. 1. c. 4.) they being forced by the Popish Priest to bring their children, would delay their baptisme out of detesta∣tion of the superstitious addition: and their owne Ministers (cald Barbes) being very often (and sometimes very long) upon the Churches service, they would deferre their childrens baptisme to their returne; which delayes of theirs being observed by the Popish Priests they thence raised that report, and charged them with that imposture: they appealed to the Greeke Church, not as denying Paedobaptisme, for they held and practised it as before was shewed, but as to a Church that was not so corrupt in di∣spensing it, as not using Chrisme, crossing and exorcising; as the Latin Church did in baptizing any: See Flaccus Illiricus Catalo∣go testium veritatis, pag. 434. Waldenses semper baptizarunt Infantes, &c. the Waldenses ever used to baptize their Infants: nor doe they now hold against it; they spake not against baptisme of Infants simply, but as not administred by those of Rome in the vulgar tongue; nor doth Aeveas Sylvius in his Bohemian Story of the

Waldensian tenents, although hee bee an exact sifter into the suppo∣sed errours of the Waldenses, charge them with Antipaedobaptisme.