Note 111 — A REPLY TO THE AFORESAID ANSWER OF MR. COTTON, IN A CONFERENCE BETWEEN TRUTH AND PEACE.

[“1. Did not Christ preach and sow the seed of the word to all those four sorts of hearers? And yet he was the minister of the circumcision, and preached seldom to any, but to church members, members of the church of Israel.... 2. If the children of church members be in the church, and of the church, till they give occasion of rejection, then they growing up to years become some of them like the highway side, others like the stony, &c.... 3. It is the work of the church to seek the changing of the bad into the good ground. For is it not the proper work of the church, to bring on the children to become the sincere people of God?... 4. There is not such resemblance between highway-side ground and good ground, as is between tares and wheat. Nor would the servants ever ask the question, whether they should pluck up weeds out of the highway-side, &c.” Cotton’s Reply, pp. 44, 45.]