Strange! That the English nation, who glory in their constitution as a limited monarchy; who have always been extremely jealous of any encroachments on it, and who dethroned by force of arms and banished the son for less breaches of the constitution than were made by his unhappy father, should yet stigmatize that just war of the parliament with Charles I. with the odious name of a REBELLION: a war by which alone their expiring liberties were preserved, and their beloved CONSTITUTION snatched from the cruel arm of OPPRESSIVE and ARBITRARY power. If this war was a rebellion, so surely was that too which drove king James from his dominions, and made way for the REVOLUTION and the happy succession under which we are now placed. The war against Charles I. it is carefully to be noted, was waged by the PARLIAMENT of England, legally assembled; an original and essential part of the legislature, sharers in the supreme power together with the KING: but the war against James II. was waged by a foreign prince, encouraged and invited over only by particular subjects. If the former therefore was a great rebellion, the latter surely was a much greater. To call it therefore by this name is to reproach the REVOLUTION; to strike at the foundation of our present happy settlement; and to shake the right of his sacred majesty king George to his throne: whom GOD long preserve; a blessing to this, and a bright pattern of justice and tenderness of his people's rights, to distant future ages.—And of his illustrious house may there never want a branch to be a terror and a scourge to tyrants, and the support of our constitution, till time itself shall end! FINIS: THE BAPTISM OF INFANTS A REASONABLE SERVICE; FOUNDED UPON SCRIPTURE, AND UNDOUBTED APOSTOLIC TRADITION: IN WHICH ITS MORAL PURPOSES AND USE IN RELIGION ARE SHEWN. By MICAIAH TOWGOOD. SUFFER THE LITTLE CHILDREN TO COME UNTO ME, AND FORBID [THE SIXTH EDITION, PRINTED 1809.] PREFACE. THE undue and superstitious stress, which has been laid upon Baptising Infants, by some ill instructed Christians, has, doubtless, been the chief occasion of its being treated with such unreasonable opposition by others. When we hear Austin, Fulgentius, Gregory -and many others of a great name, amongst those called the holy fathers, with solemnity pronouncing," That infants can have no salvation, "if they die without baptism :"-" That we must "hold for certain and undoubted that they are "ignis eterni sempiterno supplicio puniendi-to "be tormented with the everlasting punishment of "eternal fire :"-" And, interminabilia gehennæ "sustinere supplicia, ubi diabolus &c. That they "suffer the endless torments of hell, where the "devil with his angels are to burn for evermore:" -Again: "As the unbaptised infant, cannot go "into the kingdom of heaven, you must acknow. ledge he will be in the everlasting fire"-Finally, "If infants have not had the sacrament of salva❝tion (i. e. baptism) for their deliverance from "original sin, they pass into perpetual torments :" -When we hear, I say, this ceremony of bap 66 |