Ans. Have I such an argument, in all my little book? Are not my words verbatim these? 'If we shall reject visible saints by calling, saints that have communion with God; that have received the law at the hand of Christ; that are of an holy conversation among men, they desiring to have communion with us; as much as in us lieth, we take from them their very privileges, and the blessings to which they were born of God.' This is mine argument: now confute it.

Paul saith, not only to the gathered church at Corinth, but to all scattered saints, that in every place call upon the name of the Lord (1 Cor 1:2). That if Jesus Christ is theirs; that Paul and Apollos, and Cephas, and the world, and all things else was theirs (3:22).

But you answer, 'We take from them nothing, but we keep them from a disorderly practice of gospel ordinances, we offer them their privileges, in the way of gospel order.'

Ans. Where have you one word of God, that forbiddeth a person, so qualified, as is signified in mine argument, the best communion of saints for want of water? There is not a syllable for this in all the book of God. So then, you in this your plausible defence, do make your scriptureless light, which in very deed is darkness (Isa 8:20), the rule of your brother's faith; and how well you will come off for this in the day of God, you might, were you not wedded to your wordless opinion, soon begin to conceive.

I know your reply, 'New Testament saints are all baptized first.'

Ans. Suppose it granted: Were they baptized, that thereby they might be qualified for their right to communion of saints, so that, without their submitting to water, they were to be denied the other? Further, suppose I should grant this groundless notion, Were not the Jews in Old Testament times to enter the church by circumcision? (Gen 17; Exo 12). For that, though water is not, was the very entering ordinance. Besides, as I said before, there was a full forbidding of all that were not circumcised from entering into fellowship, with a threatening to cut them off from the church if they entered in without it: yet more than six hundred thousand entered that church without it. But how now, if such an one as you had then stood up and objected, Sir Moses, What is the reason that you transgress the order of God, to receive members without circumcision? Is not that the very entering ordinance? Are not you commanded to keep out of the church all that are not circumcised? Yea, and for all those that you thus received, are you not commanded to cast them out again, to cut them off from among this people (Gen 17:13,14; Exo 12:44-46). I say, Would not this man have had a far better argument to have resisted Moses, than you, in your wordless notion, have to shut out men from the church, more holy than many of ourselves? But do you think that Moses and Joshua, and all the elders of Israel, would have thanked this fellow, or have concluded that he spake on God's behalf? Or, that they should then, for the sake of a better than what you call order, have set to the work that you would be doing, even to break the church in pieces for this?

But say you, 'If any will find or force another way into the sheep fold than by the footsteps of the flock, we have no such custom nor the churches of God.'

Ans. What was done of old I have shewed you, that Christ, not baptism, is the way to the sheep fold, is apparent: and that the person [who thus enters], in mine argument, is entitled to all these, to wit, Christ, grace, and all the things of the kingdom of Christ in the church, is, upon the scriptures urged, as evident.

But you add, 'That according to mine old confidence, I affirm, That drink ye all of this is entailed to faith, not baptism: a thing,' say you, 'soon said, but yet never proved.'

Ans. 1. That it is entailed to faith, must be confessed of all hands. 2. That it is the privilege of him that discerneth the Lord's body, and that no man is to deny him it, is also by the text as evident, 'and so let him eat,' because he is worthy. Wherefore he, and he only, that discerneth the Lord's body, he is the worthy receiver, the worthy receiver in God's estimation; but that none discern the Lord's body but the baptized [in water], is both fond and ridiculous once to surmise.