We find it to be so in the examining, preparing, and catechizing of children, in order to their being confirmed by the bishop: that office is, God be thanked, used with more care and frequency than formerly; but the bishops find a necessity of giving directions that none be ad-mitted under eleven (as some do order, or twelve or thirteen as others) except some particular children of extraordinary forwardness; and (as I shewed in the Introduction) the rules of the Jews, in receiving the children of any proselyte to baptism was, if they were males, and under age of thirteen years and a day, - or females, under twelve years and a day, to baptize them as infants; because such an one was not yet the son of Assent, i. e. not capable to give assent for himself; and indeed we find few that are capable to be confirmed so soon as eleven or twelve. They may be able to repeat the words of a Catechism, or summary of the faith, and to make the answers to questions put to them with a ready and pregnant forwardness; and fond parents, that are conceited of their children's capacities, are sometimes importunate, and proud of the credit, to have them admitted to the ordinance; but they really do their children a prejudice, in making them receive it so young, when it has little effect on their consciences, and thereby disabling them from ever receiving it afterward; which might else have been done to great spiritual benefit, being received with a due degree of serious consideration. A child of that age may have memory and words ready; but seldom can have due sense and conscience of the weight and concern of the thing to his soul.

It must be noted, that Irenæus does not here speak of the case of some particular child, who by some extraordinary forwardness was baptized in infancy; but mentioning infants generally and indefinitely, speaks of them as ordinarily regenerated or baptized; so that Mr. Whiston is forced by the tenor of the argument to grant, that at that time children were commonly by ten years old baptized; which tenor of the argument Mr. Gale not perceiving, brings in at his page 503, a story of

་

some that he has known admitted to baptism at about fourteen; and heard of some much younger;" which is impertinent and to no purpose here, to explain the sense of Irenæus, who speaks of the general case of infants baptized; but I hope to make it appear, in my answer to Mr. Gale, that we have no reason to suppose that Irenæus used the word in any other sense than all people do.

Mr. Gale had invented this notion of infant boys of ten years, to evade this place in Irenæus. He was not so absurd as to pretend that the sayings of Tertullian, Origen, &c. could be so evaded, because they (beside the word infants) do express such circumstances as do denote mere infants in the common sense of the word; but Mr. Whiston having this hint given, fell so in love with it as to venture (against common sense) to apply it to the passages of other fathers which I had cited, who do as plainly describe the infants they speak of to be children newly born, or not yet come to the use of reason, as it is possible in words to describe them.

The quotations out of Tertullian, he recites just as I had done, at page 36, 37, 38. Now, the infants that Tertullian speaks of (whom there was then a custom to baptize, but he would have had it omitted, except in danger of death) were infants in our sense of the word; for he speaks of them as such as, when they were brought to baptism," did not understand whither it was that they came, did not know Christ, whose guiltless age had no need (as he thought) of the forgiveness of sins."

But the foulest work which he makes with my quotations, is at his pages 38 and 39, with those out of Origen. He pretends that Origen's words, as well as Irenæus's, are capable of being taken for infants of ten years; but see how he defends this pretence.

I had cited the Hom. viii. in Levit. c. 12:- of that he takes a part out of my translation; but leaves out the other part, where Origen cites, as a reason for baptizing infants, the Septuagint (Job xiv. 4, 5) None is clean from pollution, though his life be but of the length of one day; which shews what sort of infants,

he meant; but was not for Mr. Whiston's turn to set down..

He deals yet worse with the passage cited from the Comment. in Epist. ad Romanos, lib. 5. He recites the latter part of this out of my translation, but leaves out the beginning; which (to shew Mr. Whiston's readers how he deals with them and with me). I must here recite:

"In the law it is commanded that a sacrifice be offer

ed for every child that is born, - A pair of turtle-doves, or two young pigeons; of which one for a sin-offering, the other for a burnt-offering; for what sin is this one pigeon offered? Could the child new-born [nuper editus parvulus] have committed any sin?" He answers, "It has even then sin," &c. After which follows, that which Mr. Whiston sets down, of the apostle's ordering baptism even to infants, as knowing that there is in all persons the natural pollution of sin, which must be done away by water and the Spirit.

I would willingly (if the reader will consent to it) impute this way of quoting, not to insincerity, but to the haste in which Mr. Whiston wrote this little piece. If he will have patience to read it over again, he will see that the infants Origen speaks of are infants new-born,

He

I gave an instance before, in answering Mr. Emlin, that in other books of Origen the Greek words which are there preserved, have the same argument and the same phrase [apri yeyevvnμévoi] which St. Hierom and Rufinus do here translate, Nuper editi parvuli, concerning new-born infants not being clean from sin; and indeed Mr. Whiston does not insist on the exception, that these books are but translations by the two said men. gives his judgment concerning them, that though they are of less authority than those that remain in Greek, yet, he thinks, "we may allow them in the main to be genuine" (which is fairer than Mr. Gale, who shuffles off the argument, as if so many several places in several books, by several translators could all be interpolated); but he adds, That this account of Origen, where he speaks of such infants baptized as did not want it for

the pardon of "actual sins done at years of discretion," is near to his own account, or his sense of the word. If so, if a new-born infant, such as is spoken of in Levit. xii, be near in the same case as one that is to be baptized upon his own faith; or if a youth that is not of years of discretion to have actual sin imputed to him, be of disIcretion to be baptized upon his own repentance, Mr. Whiston need never fear the reconciling of any thing to any thing...

Therefore, in the next words, being conscious, I suppose, that this would appear inconsistent, he adds further, "Though, if it implies more (i. e. if Origen must be understood of mere infants) it will only shew how early this corruption of Christian baptism began to creep into the Church of Alexandria, as well as we have seen [from Tertullian, I suppose, he means] it began to creep into that of Africa, and no more."

He here yields up the times of Tertullian and Cyprian for the Churches of Africa; and in a manner yields the time of Origen for the Church of Alexandria; and at page 42, having owned infant baptism used at Alexandria in the time of Didymus, he adds, " Possibly, even in the days of Origen, as we have already observed."

It were better for the Antipædubaptists at once to yield, that it began in the apostles' time; and help all by styling it, as Mr. Whiston here does, a corruption creeping in. This would save a great deal of vain struggle; and it seems probable that they must at last come to this. Mr. Whiston (who is much more conversant in the books of those times than any of them) gives up the times of Tertullian and Origen (within 100 years of the apostles (as using this corrupt practice (as he calls it) of baptizing mere, or new-born infants; and cannot deny that Irenæus himself (born in, or very near, the apostles' times) speaks of infants baptized, saving himself only upon Mr. Gale's device of another sense of the word infant, as used by Irenæus; which I think by and by to evince to Mr. Gale, or at least to any impartial reader, to be a groundless notion.

Yet this same Mr. Whiston, who not long ago, in his Essay on the Revelations, had spoken of the times, not only of St. Cyprian, but 200 years lower down, as continuing in Christian purity, and being above the date of Antichristian corruptions, so that what doctrines and practices of the church we find to have been then generally received, we may depend upon as sound (among which he reckons by name the divinity of Christ and the baptism of infants) having since fallen first from the belief of one of these, and now of the other, tells us (page 45) that the baptism of infants [meaning infants in the common sense of the word] is one of those practices, doctrines, and customs" which appear to have begun in the west, near Rome, and particularly in Africa; and are to be looked upon as a part of the Roman, western, or antichristian corruptions; and to be accordingly rejected by every Christian."

1

As, on one side, by yielding the times of Tertullian and Cyprian (for those he means by the evidence of the African Churches corruption) and in a manner giving up Origen and the Church of Alexandria (as I shewed before) he leaves but a very small space after the apostles for the Antipædobaptists to pretend any claim to; so, on the other side, by calling these doctrines and practices of the church (and some other from which he has revolted) Romish and Antichristian Corruptions, and yet owning them to have taken place so early, he gives a scandalous encouragement to the Deists and enemies of Christianity. By confessing it to have been generally corrupted in its doctrines so far up, he gives them a handle to say It was never otherwise. These do apparently hug and value him and other heterodox men, for such sayings as these. Whatever serves to weaken the credit or the authority of Christ's church, helps forward the designs which they are now carrying on.

But to make Origen an evidence only for the Church of Alexandria, is a great oversight in the history of his life. He was indeed born there; and if his father held the same doctrine (as we have not the least reason to