17 Object. 3. But you are the first man, for aught we know, that ever opposed it. Answ. One single mean man with the word, may very justly and lawfully contradict the whole world without it: truth is not to be judged by multitudes, or an unity, but by the word. Object. 4. But Christ himself was baptized with water, and surely that perpetuates it in the church. Answ. Christ’s being baptized with water under John, no more perpetuates water baptism in the Christian church, than his being circumcised under Moses, perpetuates circumcision in the Christian church ; or his submitting to other Mosaical ceremonies, perpetuates them : Christ brings no temporal or carnal thing into his everlasting or spiritual kingdom, though himself submitted to them under their several dispensations in the season of them, he being under the law as well as John. Object. 5. But Christ justifies and commands water baptism in John iii. “ Except a man be born of water, Sec.” And Mat. xxviii. “Teach and baptize.” Answ. I confess these are places that many have mistaken, to justify the practice of water baptism ; but I shall shew you that they do indeed misunderstand them. For that first place, John iii. 5. “ Except a man be born sk voxlos K, of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God ;” I confess many of the ancients have by water here understood material water, and have interpreted the place of external baptism, which was John’s only: and hereupon divers of them 'have exceedingly magnified water, and ascribed to it the washing of souls, and the regeneration of Christians in some measure; they not considering in the mean time, what Christ saith in the very next verse, “ That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit;” by which they might have learned, that outward and corporeal water can do nothing but outward and corporeal things, and can contribute nothing to the cleansing of souls and consciences from sin. So that this place cannot be understood of corporeal water; and I could produce the testimonies of many 3
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