Fox, and the other authors that have wrote since Fabian, recite the matter as Bede does. This argument, taken from Fabian, is endeavoured to be confirmed by some other collateral ones; of which none is worth the mentioning, but that from Constantine's being born among the Britons, and yet not baptized in infancy; and that is not worth it neither, considering that very few now-a-days believe that he was born in Britain; and none at all, but this author and one more, that his father was a Christian t. Pelagius was certainly born in Britian; and since he owns (as I have produced his words) that be "never heard of any Christian, Catholic, or Sectary, that denied infant baptism," it is certain his own countrymen did not. The man brings this for one of his arguments, to prove that the British church must have opposed the baptiz-. ing of infants," because they so fully prized and adhered to the Scriptures, and rejected human traditions, especially all Romish innovations," &c. If this be any, argument, then for certain the Pædobaptists cause is in a bad case. The Novatians and Donatists are also brought in by the same writer, as adversaries of Pædobaptism. Though both these parties of men were schismatics, and forsook the communion of the established churches in those times, yet their differences having been rather in points of discipline than of faith, and they having been at some times of the church very numerous, and the time of their flourishing within our limited period of 400 years, an argument from their practice of keeping infants unbaptized would be considerable; but it would be withal a very strange discovery, since there are so many books extant, written at the same time by Cyprian, Eusebius, Optatus, Austin, &c. containing a ventilation of all the disputes between the Catholics and these men, in which nothing has ever been observed that should intimate that they had any such practice or opinion; for among all the reasons that the Donatists (who rebaptized such as having been baptized by the Catholics came afterwards over to them) gave, why the baptism of the Catholics was null, there is none that lays any blame on their giving it in infancy; but, on the contrary, St. Austin does often make use of the instance of infant baptism, as granted by them, to overthrow some other errors that they had about baptism. * It would, I say, be a strange discovery to make now but the proofs brought for it do fail one's expectation; for as for those out of St. Austin against the Donatists, Osiander, Fuller, Bullinger, &c. they are all by Mr. Baxter and Mr. Wills †, shewn plainly to be nothing" to the purpose; and what he would prove of Austin de Anima, and Waldensis, that the dispute between Vincentius Victor and St. Austin was, Whether infants ought to be baptized? will appear a great mistake, by reading what I have produced of the opinion of Vincentius in this collection ; for it was only whether infants that happened to die unbaptized, might ever enter into the kingdom of Heaven. ད Yet he quotes some writers that do indeed say the thing that he would prove; but they are only Sebastian Frank, and one Twisk. It is an artifice that may take with some very ignorant people, but I believe not approved by the more knowing or candid of his own opinion, to quote for some matter of ancient history an' author that is but of yesterday, and of no note or crèdit. When a vulgar reader sees such a quotation, he thinks it as good as the best, because he knows not the author: but one of any reading slights it for that reason, because he knows him not. It is this man's way, through" all his book, to quote for the principal things that are in dispute concerning antiquity, such books as the aforesaid Frank and Twisk, and one Merning, and a book that he calls Dutch' Martyrology; they are all, as it seems, J. * More Proofs for Infant Bapt. Pt. 2. § 2. ch. 4. Pt. 1, ch. 20. Dutch writers of late. years, of the Antipædobaptists. way; and if they say all that he quotes them for, they say things without any regard whether they be true or false. It is a known rule, that any modern writer affirming any thing of ancient history, without referring to some ancient author, is not at all to be heeded. These men might as well have quoted him as he them; and it had been a like authority. One shall not see Mr. Baxter in such a passion as he is in this place; to premise to the answers that he gives to the several quotations about these Novatians and Donatists, such sayings as "Utterly false; - false again, This is something, were it true; but it is such a kind of falsehood as I must not name in its due epithets. Not a word of truth; - no such matter in that chapter, or the whole book. Blush, reader, for such a man: Mr. Bagshaw is now quite overdone in the quality of untruths," &c. I produced in the collection † a canon of a Council of Carthage, wherein they decree what is to be done in reference to that question, Whether they should admit to any office of the clergy those who, in their infancy, before they could judge of the error, had been baptized by the Donatists, and afterwards came over to the church. Cassander and Mr. Cobbet had brought this as a proof, that the Donatists, as well as Catholics, baptized infants. This writer says, "That is but a supposition at best that they might do so;" but I doubt any one else will take it for a plain supposition that they ordinarily did so. That challenge of St. Austin, and confession of Pelagius, produced before §, that they never knew nor heard of any heretics or schismatics that were against the baptizing of infants, must be an undeniable proof that neither of these two sects were so; since a considerable body of each of them were remaining in those parts. where these two men lived [300]; and all their particu *Pag. 249, &c. 241, &c. + Pt. 1, ch. 6. § Pt. 1, ch. 19. A cular opinions were the subject of every day's disputations [300]; and St. Austin, in his Book of Sects, wrote a particular of their tenets, as well as of all the rest; and yet since my last edition, an Antipædobaptist. writer, Mr. Davve, has printed over again what Danvers had said of the Britons, the Novatians, the Donatists, denying infant baptism, without having a word to say to the confutation of that pretence by Baxter, Wills, &c. or in my book, which yet he had seen; and hunting further for some Antipædobaptists among the schismatics of those times, has laid a claim to the Pelagians, who, when they were expiring, left behind them (as I have shewn in Part I. ch. 19, and a little more fully in a Defence of this book) an eternal anathema against any that should deny infant baptism, or say that they denied it. The Arians are by some Catholic writers styled Anabaptists; these also made a considerable body of men in some part of our period of time, viz. of the first 300 years after the apostles [240], especially in the time of the emperors Constantius and Valens [270], who took almost the same methods to force their subjects to turn Arians, or at least to hold communion with the Arians, as the French king does at this day to force his subjects to turn Papists, or go to mass. If the writer whom we have been following for some time, had ever heard of or lighted on those places where the Arians are called Anabaptists, I am persuaded he would have increased the catalogue of his friends with one sect more; I would not have the Antipædobaptists claim any acquaintance with so ill company, and therefore do give them an account of the reason why they had that name: It was not for that they had any thing to say against infant baptism, but because they, as well as the Donatists before them, did use to baptize over again such as cane from the Catholic church to them; not for that they had been baptized in infancy (for if they had been baptized at man's age, it was all one) but for that *De Hæres. c. 49. they had received baptism from the Catholics, whom the Arians did so hate, that they would not own any baptism given by them to be good. This is evident. both from St. Austin, who recites their tenets*, and also from an oration of St. Ambrose, which I mentioned before, against Auxentius the Arian, where he says Cur igitur rebaptizandos, &c. 'Why does Auxentius say, that the faithful people who have 'been baptized in the name of the Trinity, must be baptized again? This is all that the word Anabaptist signifies: "One that baptizes over again those that have been baptized already." Therefore, those of the Antipædobaptists that know the signification of the word, do not own the name; they denying theirs to be re-baptizing. The instance of the emperor Valens, that I gave before † (whom St. Basil exhorted to have his child baptized by the Catholic bishops, but he chose to have it done by the Arians) is a clear proof that Arians as well as Catholics baptized infants. CHAPTER V. OF HERETICS THAT DENIED WATER - BAPTISM; OF OTHERS THAT BAPTIZED THE PERSON SEVERAL TIMES. DISPUTE CONCERNING RE-BAPTIZING. OF THE PAULIANISTS, &c. WHAT St. Austin and Pelagius said of all heretics (that they had ever heard of) allowing infant baptism, must be understood of such as allowed any baptism at all; for otherwise they knew there were some sects that renounced all use of it to any persons, infants or others; and St. Austin had himself been of one of them and he does indeed express a limitation that is of the same effect, when he says "All that do receive + Part I. ch. 12. De Hæres. c. 49. |