If Hicks did never say so, he ought to have publicly disowned it and if he did, the Antipedobaptists ought to have disowned him from being a leader. Whether either of them were done, or whether Hicks be now living, I know not. God Almighty keep all sorts of people from such leaders, as will lead them in a way to which the Scripture expressly assigns damnation! But, however, there were but two men of the 20,000 that appeared then to have been guilty; and those two were among some of the first that made an ingenuous and voluntary confession; and besides, it is not credible that that party of men could at that time havé made up such a number, if they had been ever so unanimous in the wickedness.

P. S. I hear since, that Hicks is dead; but that he lived in London many years after this; and that the foresaid accusation was not made good against him; but that King Charles II. upon a hearing of his case in council, discharged him.

The number of them had been considerably abated upon the Restoration [1560], and the re-settling of the Church of England. Many at that time returned to the church, and brought the children which they had had in the mean time, to be baptized according to the order thereof and during the remainder of King Charles's reign, the number of them stood much at a stay, or rather decreased; but since the late times of general liberty and toleration [1587], they have increased again. In some of the counties of England they are the most numerous of any sort of men that do separate from the established church. This is chiefly in the eastern parts; Essex, Kent, Sussex, Surrey, &c. There are very few in those parts that make any separation from the church but they; which is the occasion that I, as I am placed in those parts, have the more minded what I have read in any ancient book relating to that question, from whence have sprung the notes that make the first part of this work. In other parts of England they are much over-numbered by the Quak

ers.

There are also great numbers of them in Lon

don and the suburbs; and it is observed, from some late passages, that the Presbyterians look as if they would court their friendship, and as if they aimed to add this stick also to the other two.

Their tenets are, besides the denying of infant baptism, these:

1. They do, many of them, hold it necessary, as I said, to renounce communion with all Christians that are not of their way. Many of them are so peremptory in this, that if they be in the chamber of a sick man, and any Pædobaptist, minister or other, come in to pray with him, they will go out of the rooin: and if they be invited to the funeral of any Pædobaptist, they will go to the house, and accompany the corpse with the rest of the people to the church-door; but there they retreat; they call it the Steeple- House. They seem to judge thus: Those that are not baptized, are no Christians; and none are baptized but themselves. So they make not only baptism itself, but also the time, or age, or way of receiving it, a fundamental.

It is strange to see how deeply this principle of division is rooted in some of them, by the care that many of their teachers take to cultivate it. If any one that has been one of them, be afterward prevailed on to go ordinarily to church, and hold communion in all things that he can, though he keep still his opinion of Antipædobaptism, they of thein that are of this principle bemoan him as a lost man, and speak of him as we should do of one that had turned an apostate from the Christian religion. If any man, being not satisfied with the baptism he received in infancy, do desire to be baptized again by them, but do at the same time declaré that he means to keep communion with the established church in all things that in conscience he can, there are (or, at least, have been) several of their elders that will not baptize such a man. To renounce the Devil and all his works, &c. has been always required of persons to be baptized into the Christian religion; but to require them to renounce communion with all Christians

that are not of their opinion, is to baptize into a sect. It is a clear case from Scripture, and particularly from Phil. iii. 15, 16, that the duty of Christian unity does require that they (and the same is to be said of all others that differ not in fundamentals) should hold communion as far as they can, even though they do still continue in their opinion for adult baptism:-of which I shall say something more in the last chapter.

I said before, that this scrupulous stiffness is not universal among them. Tombs, and several more had, and some of them still have, truer sentiments concerning the communion of saints in the catholic church: and I have received of late a credible account, that the most considerable men, and of chief repute among them, do more and more come over to these senti

ments.

2. They are more generally than the Antipædobaptists of other nations, possessed with an opinion of the absolute necessity of the immersion or dipping the baptized person over head and ears into the water, so far, as to allow of no clinical baptisin; i. e. if a man who is sick in a fever, &c. (so as that he cannot be put into the water without endangering his life) do desire baptism before he dies, they will let him die unbaptized, rather than baptize him by affusion of water on his face, &c.

They are contrary in this to the primitive Christians: they, though they did ordinarily put the person into the water, yet, in case of sickness, &c. would baptize him in his bed.

They bring three proofs of the necessity of immersion, or dipping.

1. The example of John baptizing Christ, of Philip baptizing the eunuch, and generally of the ancient Christians baptizing by immersion.

2. That baptism ought, as much as may be, to resemble the death, and burial, and rising again, of Christ.

5. That the word to baptize, does necessarily in

A

clude dipping in its signification; so that Christ, by commanding to baptize, has commanded to dip.

To which these answers are commonly given :

The first proves what was said before, That in Scripture tines, and in the times next succeeding, it was the custom in those hot countries to baptize ordinarily by immersion; but not that in cases of sickness, or other such extraordinary occasions, they never baptized otherwise. Of this I shall speak in the next chapter.

The second proves that dipping, where it may safely be used, is the most fitting manner. But our Saviour has taught us a rule (Mat. xii. 3, 4. 7) That what is needful to preserve life, is to be preferred before outward ceremonies.

The third, which would, if it were true, be more conclusive than the rest, is plainly a mistake. The word Bar in Scripture signifies to wash in general, without determining the sense to this or that sort of washing. The sense of a Scripture word is not to be taken from the use of it in secular authors, but from the use of it in the Scripture. What ẞantil signifies among Greek writers, and what interpretation critics and Lexicons do accordingly give it, is not much to the purpose in this case to dispute (though they also, as Mr. Walker in his Doctrine of Baptism has largely shewn, beside the signification immergo, do give that of lavo in general) when the sense in which it is used by the penmen of Scripture, may otherwise be plainly determined from Scripture itself. Now, in order to such a determination, these two things are plain :

First, That to baptize, is a word applied in Scripte ture not only to such washing as is by dipping into the water the thing or person washed, but also to such as is by pouring or rubbing water on the thing or person washed, or some part of it.

Secondly, That the sacramental washing is often in Scripture expressed by other words beside baptizing; which other words do signify washing in the ordinary and general sense.qat bi

For the first there are, besides others, these plain instances:

The Jews thought it a piece of religion to wash their hands before dinner; they blame the disciples (Mark vii. 5.) for eating with unwashen hands. The word here is vinto, an ordinary word for washing the hands. Their way of that washing was this:-They had servants to pour the water on their hands (2 Kings iii. 11, who poured water on the hands of Elijah; i. e. who waited on him as a servant) *. Now this washing of the hands is called by St. Luke the baptizing of a man; or, the man's being baptized, Luke xi. 38; for where. the English is, The Pharisee marvelled that he had not washed before dinner, St. Luke's own words are, ὅτι ἐ πρῶτον ἐβαπτίσθη πρὸ τὸ ἀρίστε, that he was not baptized before dinner; and so they are translated in the Latin: - a plain instance that they used the word to baptize for any ordinary washing, whether there were dipping in the case or not.

Also, that which is translated (Mark vii, 4) the washing of pots, cups, brazen vessels, tables, is in the original the baptizing of pots, &c. And what is there said, When they come from market, except they wash, they eat not; the words of St. Mark are, Except they be baptized, they eat not. And the divers washings of the Jews are called διάφοροι βαπτισμοί, divers baptisms, Heb. ix. 10; of which some were by bathing, others by sprinkling, Numb. viii. 7, and xix. 18, 19.

For the second there are these:

Baptism is styled λετρὸν τῷ ὕδατος, the washing of water, Eph. v. 26. ASTρov τns Tadıyyeveolas, the washing of regeneration. Tit. iii. 5; and to express this saying, having our bodies baptized with clean water; Apostle words it Asλsuivos to owμa, having our bodies washed; και ραντισμένοι τάς καρδίας, and our hearts

the

* Dr. Pocock has largely proved from Maimon and others, that this was the Jews' way. "Non lavant manus nisi è vase affuse aqua." Not. Mis. cap. 9.

Lavantes a foro totum corpus non

This was not dipping. morsabant. Pocok Not. Misc. c. 9.