If any yet urge the apostles' example, I will grant that it obligeth us when the case is the like (and I will not fly to any conceit of their heart-searching, or discerning men's sincerity). When you bring us to a people that before were the visible church of God, and were all their lifetime trained up in the knowledge of God, of sin, of duty, of the promised Messiah, according to all the law and prophets, and want nothing, but to know the Son and the Holy Ghost, that this Jesus is the Christ, who will reconcile us to God, and give us the sanctifying Spirit, then we will also baptize men the same day that they profess to believe in Jesus Christ, and in the Father as reconciled by him, and the Holy Ghost as given by him. But if we have those to deal with who know not God, or sin, or misery, or Scripture prophecies, no nor natural verities, we know no proof that the apostles so hastily baptized such.
Of this I have largely spoken in my "Treatise of Confirmation."
4. It is not necessary to a man's baptism and first church membership, that he give any testimony of an antecedent godly life; because it is repentance and future obedience professed that is his title; and we must not keep men from covenanting, till we first see whether they will keep the covenant which they are to make. For covenanting goeth before covenant keeping: and it is any, the most impious sinner, who repenteth, that is to be washed and justified as soon as he becometh a believer.
5. Yet if any that professeth faith and repentance, should commit whoredom, drunkenness, murder, blasphemy, or any mortal sin, before he is baptized, we have reason to make a stop of that man's baptism, because he contradicteth his own profession, and giveth us cause to take it for hypocritical, till he give us better evidence that he is penitent indeed.[249]
6. Heart covenanting maketh an invisible church member, and verbal covenanting and baptism make a visible church member. And he that maketh a profession of christianity, so far as to declare that he believeth all the articles of the creed particularly and understandingly, (with some tolerable understanding, though not distinct enough and full,) and that he openly devoteth himself to God the Father, Son, and Spirit, in the vow and covenant of baptism, doth produce a sufficient title to the relation of a christian and church member; and no minister may reject him, for want of telling when, and by what arguments, means, order, or degrees he was converted.
7. They that forsake these terms of church entrance, left us by Christ and his apostles, and used by all the churches in the world, and reject those that show the title of such a profession, for want of something more, and set up other, stricter terms of their own, as necessary to discover men's conversion and sincerity, are guilty of church tyranny against men, and usurpation against Christ; and of making engines to divide the churches, seeing there will never be agreement on any human devised terms, but some will be of one side, and some of another, when they forsake the terms of Christ.
8. Yet if the pastor shall see cause upon suspicion of hypocrisy, ad melius esse, to put divers questions to one man more than to another, and to desire further satisfaction, the catechumens ought in conscience to answer him, and endeavour his satisfaction. For a minister is not tied up to speak only such or such words to the penitent; and he that should say, I will answer you no further than to repeat the creed, doth give a man reason to suppose him either ignorant or proud, and to suspend the reception of him, though not to deny it. But still ad esse no terms must be imposed as necessary on the church, but what the Holy Ghost by the apostles hath established.
[247] John xiv. 6; 1 Tim. iii. 16; vi. 3, 11; 2 Pet. i. 3.
[248] Acts ii. 38, 39.
[249] Cor. vi. 9, 10; Tit. iii. 3-5; Eph. ii. 1-3; Acts ii. 37, 38.