But this I say, according to my Knowledge, (and not out of any Command,) that if the Parents are wicked, and indeed in the Kingdom of the Devil, and that they have thus begotten their Fruit out of their false [or evil] Essences (in which [Parents] there is no Faith, but only a false Hypocrisy, and yet will in an apish Mockery be counted Christians; and as the Devil oftentimes changes himself into the Likeness of an Angel, so they also send their Children with the like trimmed false Angels before the Covenant of Christ;) such Doing is very dangerous, which also instantly shows itself in the Growing of the Tree; indeed the Covenant continues still, but there must be Earnestness in avoiding of the Devil. It may be, that very many are baptized in the Anger of God, because they do but contemn the Covenant; and many Times wicked drunken Priests use it, who even stick in Hell-fire over Head and Ears; and therefore the Covenant of Grace stands as a Testimony against the Congregations of the Wicked. And that which they see and know (and do not perform it with earnest Sincerity) that shall judge and condemn them.

Yet if a mother bears or bringeth forth a child of the devil, the fault is not God's, but the parents' wickedness.

As the old ones sing, So th' young learn to ring.

["Here is meant or understood out of or from a quite Godless seed, whereout there often grows a thistle; though yet there were a remedy, if the will...