That honour which was publicly done to my book by those learned men of the lower house of Convocation, and by some others of great worth and station, as I ought ever humbly to acknowledge it to have been greater than I could deserve, and as it was in itself extraordinary, so it was a mean of provoking the pen of somebody (I could never learn who it was) presently to find faults in it. He, in a pamphlet called An Account of the Proceedings in Convocation, 1705, said, that I had therein reflected on a certain bishop (and he spoke as if it had been a personal reflection on that bishop) who, he said, was not a favourite of the lower house; but was, it seems, a favourite of the writer, and of the enemies of that house; but that being written not so much against me (who had only opposed a tenet of that bishop) as in anger and party-quarrel with them, and I having, in the Preface to the second edition, answered what I thought needful, I have no more to say of that adversary's objections.

What I would do now is partly to own what I myself, before I was attacked by antagonists, had, upon a longer consideration and review, thought to be blameable in it; and partly to answer the objections which some writers, and especially Mr. Gale, have made against it. I myself had reflected on some passages as blameable (and happy is that writer who, upon a sedate review of what he has said, has not occasion so to do); and particularly such, wherein, animadverting on some mistakes or misrepresentations of things made by some authors, I had used a strain of language more censorious or satirical than should have been used toward men, who had been otherwise of great merit and worth.

When any one of great learning, judgment, and piety, has, by the use of those good qualities, and by great pains and study, done considerable service to Religion and the Church of God (which is the case of the learned Grotius) such a man is, even in the mention of his faults (when the defence of any truth makes it necessary to mention them) and in the confutation of his mistakes, to be treated with respect. He, in his Comment on

Matt. xxviii. 19, set himself to establish a doctrine which is perfectly new, of the indifferency (Libertas, as he calls it) of baptizing, or not baptizing infants; and to that purpose, heaped together several reasons and authorities, which, as he uses them, do make for the Antipadobaptists side of the question, that they might balance those which he knew were for the other side. The producing any of these testimonies that were true, and could fairly be applied to the purpose for which he used them, is a thing which I of all men must not have blamed him for; for it was that which I pretended to do myself; but he brings some, which I think I have shewn to be not so; as not to mention his saying that St.Austin, before" he was heated with the Pelagian disputes, never wrote any thing of the condemnation of unbaptized infants, not even to those lesser pains in the world to come;" which I have shewn from St. Austin's own words to be otherwise (Part 1, chap. xv); nor his finding an argument against infant baptism in the Council of Neocæsarea (can. 6) which, when duly considered, has nothing pro or contra about it; nor his quoting some words of Balsamon's Comment on that canon, which might represent him as understanding it against infant baptism, and leaving out other words in the same paragraph, which would have plainly discovered the mistake of such a representation; nor his saying that, in the Greek Churches, many persons," from the beginning to this day, have the custom of delaying the baptism of infants till they are able to make profession of their faith;" which account of the modern practice is certainly wrong, and of the ancient practice (which is the thing disputed) he brings no tolerable proofs; nor his saying, that "in the councils one shall find no earlier mention of Pædobaptism than in the Council of Carthage, anno 418;" whereas the Council under St. Cyprian, that speaks of it as absolutely necessary, was nigh 200 years before; he makes the most palpable mistake of all, in representing Gregory Nazianzen as speaking of infancy as a state incapable of baptism, in a sentence where Gregory only speaks of the mishap of those infants, who,

being dia vηwiórnτa,' by reason of their infancy,' incapaνηπιότητα, ble of procuring it to themselves, have no friends that will procure it for them; which children, as he judges, will by that means miss of Heaven; which is just as good arguing, as if from the history of the impotent man (John v) who for thirty-eight years had been unable himself to get into the pool time enough for cure, and had nobody to help him into it, one should conclude, that impotency is a reason why a man should not, or ought not to be cured.

This last mentioned perverting of the plain meaning of Gregory's words, to a directly contrary sense, I called a foul imposture. What I blame myself for is, that the consideration of the merit of so great a man, shewn in the other places of his comments, did not prevail with me to use expressions of more deference and a more modest censure, though, of the incongruity of the argument, my thoughts be as they were then.

I had occasion to recite a discourse of St. Chrysostom's, which I thought, and do think still, to be manifestly inconclusive; but expressed the censure of it in words, which shewed too plainly that I did not consider who he was, and who I am. These words were, upon the admonition of a superior (who had a large catalogue of such my faults presented to him, by some who, upon application, refused to let me see it) amended in the second edition.

Several other learned men (it would be too long to name all the cases) upon whose opinions or quotations my subject led me to make animadversions, did deserve to have been treated more respectfully.

The dispute that had of late been raised about the tenets of the Waldenses concerning infant baptism, led me into a short history of those people; which, I understand since, had been much more distinctly and skilfully handled by others. I did not sufficiently distinguish between the Waldenses, properly so called, and the Albigenses. The Petrobrusians, whom I mentioned (and I think they were so) as the first Antipædobaptists, were of the Albigenses. None of the Waldenses, I think, did deny infant baptism.

What I said of St. Ambrose, affirming that John the Baptist baptized infants, should have been expressed not so positively. The tenor of the quotation which I brought from his comment on Luke i, does, I think still, lead to that sense of his words; but it is better for a quoter, where the phrases have any ambiguity, to intimate what he takes to be the most obvious sense of them, and leave the more positive judgment of them to the reader. He that would pass a judgment, would do well to read all that he says there of the parallel between John and Elias.

These, and some more such reflections on some particular passages of my own book, I had made, before I was attacked by any adversary; and had drawn up a Breviary of them for my own use, and shewed it to some friends, and they to others. One of which having seen it, said, where I have heard of it again, that he had seen a recantation of my book under my own hand and this, perhaps, might give occasion to a report, which some have heard, that my opinion concerning Pædobaptism was altered. I must not use again any such sharp language, as I am now blaming myself for (for this also is a man of worth); but I wish him a better use of his faculty of distinguishing between a Review, wherein any one acknowledges the faultiness of some particular expressions, as being too censorious, too positive, &c. and a Recantation of a book, a doctrine, or a history. St. Austin wrote his Retractations of the former sort, but not of the latter; neither did I.

Of those who have written against me, I do not take Mr. Bernard, of Holland, to be one. On the contrary, I account it an honour done to me, that he thought my book one of those that it was worth his while to give an abstract of, in his Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres for the year 1708; but yet (as I think it always happens between writers) he thinks it necessary to differ from me in some things, and to give his censure of some passages; bit of none in my first part, as I remember, that are of moment, save that on reading the hard words, which I mentioned just now, on Grotius,

he says (p. 383) "Possibly Grotius might, without any design of imposture, cite that passage of Gregory Nazianzen, writing in too much haste or heedlessness: avec trop de precipitation;" and I am content it should

go so.

But he finds more faults in the second part. Upon my giving my opinion (chap. 10) that that one example of Gregory, the father of Gregory Nazianzen, letting his son, born to him after his own baptism, grow up unbaptized (which is the only instance that can be brought, and that not plainly to be proved) ought not to be accounted of any great weight, for reasons there given; he, at page 568, is of another opinion, "That my reasoning at that place is not solid, but warped. That this example shews, that at that time they did not take the baptizing of infants to be a law indispensable, since a priest was suffered to let his child go unbaptized." Now it seems to me no very solid conclusion, which he would draw from this one instance of a man, who is represented by the writers of his son's life (who are the only writers that mention him) to have been of little judgment or capacity, against all the examples and advices of the other ancient Christians, especially when of fourteen instances, which some Antipædobaptists had endeavoured to obtrude, of the children of Christians baptized at their adult age, I had, as he saw, there shewed the other thirteen to be mistakes in history; and indeed I question whether Mr. Bernard and others should not rather blame me for too much easiness in yielding this one, viz. That Gregory Nazianzen was born after the year 325, which was the year of his father's conversion from Heathenism to Christianity. It was only one sentence, and one word in that sentence (in the writing whereof there may possibly have been an error) that made me yield up all those many proofs and reasons in chronology to the contrary; for Suidas makes him to be born twenty-five years before, and so does Papebrochius, and so does Mr. Pagi, and Mr. Le Clerc; and Baronius himself sets his birth three years before. By any of these accounts, the wonder that he was