Imatges de pàgina
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stopped his hand; yet Epiphanius says, that he had beard that his "followers went farther, and gave more than three, if any one desired it."

He that writes The Present State of Muscovy says their way is, that * “ persons of age who change their religion, and embrace the Muscovite faith; nay, even Muscovites, who, having changed their religion in another country, are willing to return to their own communion, must first be re-baptized." He speaks also of some vagabond people among them, called Chaldeans, who do customarily, and by a sort of licence, practise great extravagances from the 18th of December to Epiphany; during which time they are excluded the church: but " on Twelfth Day, when their licence is expired, they are re-baptized (some of them having been baptized ten or twelve times) and looked upon as good Christians." But Brerewood, ch. 23, says (and quotes Passevin for it) that they use not this baptism on Twelfth Day, as a sacrament, or as any purification of themselves, but only as a memorial of Christ's baptism received on that day in Jordan; and that the Abassens do the same thing upon the same day, upon the same account; so that it is to be hoped that Dr. Crull may be mistaken in the reason of their practice; for what he says here of their rebaptizing all that came over to their religion, I have occasion to note something on it, at chap. ix.

Mr. Thevenot also tells a story † of some people called Sabeans, living at Bassora in Arabia, that are, as he there says, improperly called Christians, that do reiterate the baptism which they use; but it is not the Christian baptism, nor given in that form. They have, he says, no knowledge of Jesus Christ, but that he was a servant to John Baptist, and baptized by him; and of the books of the Gospel, no knowledge at all. But however it be with any late sects, in ancient times there were, as I said, no sects that did this but the Marcionites.

* Dr. Crull, ch. 11.

+ Voyage, tom. 2, pag. 331.

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I know that the name of Anabaptists, or Rebaptizers, was then by the Catholics imputed to several heretics, and by some churches of the Catholics to other Catholic churches. But they that were so censured, did none of them own, as the Marcionites did, that what they did was rebaptizing; they all pleaded that the baptism which the party had received before was null and void, as being administered in a corrupt church, or by heretical bishops, &c.

The Antipædobaptists now hold the same plea; but the ground of the plea is very different; for I never read, and I believe they cannot produce, any instance of any one that pleaded baptism to be void because it was given in infancy; and as they disown the name of Anabaptists, or rebaptizers, so I have nowhere given it to them; as, on the contrary, I do not give them the name of Baptists, nor of the baptized people; for that is to cast a reproach upon their adversaries, as concluding that they are not so. Every party, while the matter continues in dispute, ought to give and take such names as cast no reproach on themselves nor their opponents, but such as each of them own; and such áre the names that I use.

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The dispute about rebaptizing, or the imputation thereof, was one that troubled the church in former times as much as any. Many sects of heretics and schismatics were so bitter against the Catholics, that they said all things were so corrupt among them, that baptism, or any other office done by them, was null and void; and therefore they baptized afresh all that came over from the church to them; and many churches of the Catholics were even with them, and observed the same course with all that came over from them. But others would not, but said that baptism, though given by the schismatics, was valid; and this came at last to be a bone of contention between the Catholics themselves, each party finding fault with the other's way of receiving schismatics into the church.

In St. Cyprian's time [150], the Christian world was divided into halves on this point; for he, and all

the churches of Africa, some of Egypt, and many in Asia, received not heretics into the church without a new baptism; and one of the apostolic canons (c 37, als. 46.) orders that they be not otherwise received. But the Christians at Rome, and most in Europe, used only to give them a new confirmation, or laying on of hands, and so admit them,

Afterward [200], this came to be a rule, that "they that came to the Catholic church from such sects as used not the right form of baptism, [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit] must be baptized at their admission; but they that in any sect had been baptized with those words, should be adjudged to have already true baptism.

Yet the Paulianists were excepted from this general rule; though they, as Athanasius informs †, used the said form of baptizing; yet the Council of Nice [225] expressly decreed †, "That they must be baptized anew, if they would come into the Catholic church." The reason seems to be, that they, though using the same words, of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, yet meant by them so different a thing (for they took the Son to be a mere man) that they were judged not to baptize into the same faith, nor in the name of the same God, that the Catholics and others did.

This shews the abhorrence that the Christians at that time [224] had of an opinion that would now grow fashionable. Photinus, a little after, in the time of Constantius, did no sooner make an attempt to revive this heresy, but that both the Catholics and Arians (though they could hardly agree in any thing else) agreed in condemning him and his opinion "which act of theirs (says Socrates the historian §) was approved of all men, both at that time present, and also in times following." He means that all of the most differing parties and opinions agreed that such a doctrine was abominable. Theodoret, who lived at

* Basil. de Spiritu Sancto, c. 1. + Can. 19.

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+ Orat. 3. contra Arianos. § Lib. 2, c. 24.

the same time with Socrates, having reckoned up in one book all the sects that had attributed to our Sa viour no other nature than humani, says in the last chapter thereof, "That they were at that time all extinet and forgotten [330]; so that the names of them were known to but few." And so they have continued till of very late years; unless the modern abettors of them will plead that the succession of their doctrine has been preserved from the year 600 in the churches of Mecca and Medina.

It appears how conscious these men are, that all antiquity is against them, by their setting themselves sö bitterly against it. There is no sect of men now in the world that do use such endeavours, and some of them very unfair ones, to bring all the ancient Christians and their writings into a general disrepute; they employ and encourage some persons to read the fathers, only to weed and cull out of their some sayings, which, taken by themselves, may be represented either ridiculous, insipid, or heterodox. They also collect out of history all the faults or miscarriages that any ancient writer has been charged with; and making a bundle of this stuff, partly true, and partly false, they present it to their proselytes, and even to the world, as the life of such a father, of as a specimen of such a father's works. They give a great many reasons why it is not worth the while to read, study, or translate, the discourses of these antients; that time is much better spent in reading the modern criticisms upon the text of Scripture, which do often give the sense thereof such a turn, as to make our religion to be a very different thing from that which has been all along the religion of Christians. If they can gain this point, to alienate people from any regard to the doctrine and faith of the primitive times, they make a good step, not only for their own turn to overthrow the doctrine of the Trinity, but also for the advantage of their next successors the Deists, who can with a much better

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grace argue against a religion that has been altered in its most fundamental points, than against one that has continued the same since the time that it was once delivered to the Saints.

But among all the reproaches cast on the fathers, there is none so scandalous and destructive of the credit both of the fathers and of Christianity itself, as is one that they have lately set abroad; viz. that the doctrine of the Trinity, or of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in whom we believe, and in whose Name we are baptized, is (as it is understood, explained, and held by the said fathers) a doctrine of Tritheism, or of believing in three Gods. I may repeat their sayings; for they are industriously handed about in the English tongue. One of them says thus *

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"They [the fathers] thought the three hypostases [or, Persons in the Trinity] to be three equal Gods, as we should now express it." And again :-†" Not to recur to the fathers, whose opinion was quite different from that which is now received; as who, properly speaking, affirmed that there were three consubstantial Gods, as hath been shewn by Petavius, Curcellæus, Cudworth, and others." And again: Who, to speak the truth, were Tritheists, rather than assertors of the present opinion; for they believed the unity of substance, not the singularity of number, as Tertullian speaks; that is, that the substance of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, was specifically one, but numerically three; as the learned men I before mentioned have clearly shewn, and might more largely be demonstrated."

This spittle of an outlandish author, our English Socinians greedily licked up; and to any thing that was offered out of the fathers they have in their late books + opposed this:-That "the fathers held only a specifical

* Supplement to Dr. Hammond's Annot. on 1 John v. 6. +Ibid. Preface...

Defence of Hist. of Unitarians, p. 5. Answer to La Moh. Letter to Universit. p. 13.

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