Imatges de pàgina
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CHAPTER II.

OPINIONS OF MODERN LEARNED MEN CONCERNING ANCIENT PRACTICE, OR OMISSION OF PÆDOBAPTISM.

As for what latter authors have said concerning the practice of these primitive times, it would be a voJuminous work to collect all their opinions of verdicts.. Neither would it answer so much pains to have the account of the modern writers, as to what they judge may be collected from the ancient writings themselves to recur to; yet it may be worth the while to spend a few words on that matter in general.

1. And, first, it is notorious that almost all the learned men in the world that had occasion to mention this matter, do conclude from what they read, that it has been the general practice of the Christian church from the beginning to baptize infants. To name any particulars were endless and frivolous.

2. Some few (as it happens in all matters) are of a different opinion concerning the ancient practice; and they are of two sorts.

Some have thought that there was a time in the Christian church when no infants were baptized; but that Pædobaptism was brought in after a certain term of years.

Others, That baptism of infants was practised from the beginning, but not universally; but that some Christians would baptize their infant children, and others would not; and that it was counted indifferent.

Of the first sort, viz. of those that have thought that there was a time when no baptism of infants was used, I know of none (beside Mr. Tombs himself) but Walafridus, Strabo, and Ludovicus Vives, unless we are to add to them Curcellæus and Rigaltius.

Strabo has some favour shewed him [750] when he is reckoned among learned men. He lived in a very igno rant age; and for those times might past for a learned man. He had read St. Austin's book of Confessions; and finding it mentioned there that St. Austin was bap tized when he was of man's age, he seems to have concluded from thence, that it was in old times the general use for Christians to defer their childrens' baptism till they were grown up, though he might, with a little more advertency, have found, by the same book, that St. Austin's father was a Heathen when St. Austin was born, and for many years after; and did not turn Christian, nor was baptized himself, till a little before he died.

Of that instance of St. Austin, and some others, I shall speak in the next chapter. Strabo's words are these: Libro de exordiis et incrementis rerum ecclesiasticarum. Cap. 26.

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"It is to be noted, that in the primitive times the grace of baptism was wont to be given to those only who arrived to that maturity of body and mind, that they could know and understand what were the benefits of baptism, what was to be confessed and believed, - and, in a word, was to be observed of those that are regenerated in Christ; for the reverend father Austin relates of himself, in his book of Confessions, that he continued a catechumen til he was almost 25 years old [288]; which he did with that intention, that during that space, being instructed in all particulars, he might be led by his own free-will to chuse what he thought fit; and that the heat of his youth being now abated, he might better observe that which he had purposed.

"But when the diligence about our divine religion increased, the Christians understanding that the original sin of Adam did involve in guilt, not only those who had added to it by their own wicked works, but those also who having done no wickedness themselves, yet because, as the Psalmist says, They were conceived and born in iniquity, cannot be free from sin, since they spring from a polluted root; so that the Apostle had reason to say concerning all persons, All have sinned,

and have need of the glory of God, being justified freely by his grace; and to say of Adam, In whom all have sinned. The orthodox Christians, I say, understanding this, lest children should perish if they died without the remedy of the grace of regeneration, appointed them to be baptized for the forgiveness of sins. "Not as some heretics, enemies of God's free grace, maintained, that there was no necessity for infants baptism, because they had never sinned. If that doctrine were true, either they would not be baptized at all, or, if they were baptized without having any need of it, the sacrament of baptism would be imperfect in them, and not the true baptism which we, in the Creed, confess to be given for the forgiveness of sins.

"Therefore, since all persons do perish by original sin whom the grace of God does not free (even such as have added no increase of their own wickedness) infants are of necessity to be baptized; which both St. Austin shews in his book de Baptismo Parvulorum, and the African Councils testify, and is manifested by a great many other proofs from the other fathers."

This man [315] with his little reading, seems to have supposed that both the doctrine of Pædobaptism, and that of Original Sin, had their beginning but about St. Austin's time. His mistake in the first may appear by the quotations here produced; and in the other, by those mentioned by Vossius in his Pelagian History. He also invents a reason for St. Austin's delay of his baptism after he was grown up, which is utterly contrary to St. Austin's own account, who relates at large in his book of Confessions, that it was because he was in suspense whether he should be a Christian or a Manichee. He miserably mistakes the doctrine of the Pelagians, as if they had denied infants baptism to be necessary. He himself owns it to be necessary; and yet says that the antients used it not.

Indeed, there appears through all his book an affectation to shew how all the doctrines and mysteries of the Christian religion have come to more and more perfec tion by process of time; as he makes the title of his

book to be," Of the Beginning and Advancement of Ecclesiastical Matters ;" and he was willing to say some such thing of baptism, that this chapter might be like the rest.

What Ludovicus Vives says of this matter [1422], is in his Commentaries upon St.Austin's book, de Civitate Dei, lib. 1, c. 27.

"In former times no person was admitted to the holy font till he were of age, and did understand what that mystical water meant, and did himself desire to be washed with it, and express this desire niore than once. A resemblance of which custom we see still in our baptism of infants; for an infant born that day, or the day before, is asked the question, Whether he will be bap tized? And that question they asked three times over. In whose name the godfathers answer, That he does desire it. I hear that, in some cities of Italy, the old custom is still, in a great measure, preserved."

Since this Vives lived so little while ago, and produces no proof out of any author to confirm his opinion, his affirming any thing concerning any old custom is of no more authority than if any one now living should say the same without producing his proof; especially, since he was but a young man when he wrote these Commentaries, and though learned in philology and secular history, yet confesses himself, in his Preface to them, that as for divinity, which was none of his profession, he minded it only so far as his other studies would give him leave.

It is certain that the occasion given him from St. Austin's words, on which he there comments, to say any such thing, is very slender; for St. Austin is only speaking of some baptized at the age of understanding, without the least intimation that they were children of Christian parents; and for the cities of Italy that he mentions, I think no body ever heard of them before, nor since; unless we will suppose that some remainders of the Petrobrusians, who are said, about 400 years before Vives's time [1050], to have been Antipædobaptists, and of whom I shall by and by give some ac

count, * might continue that practice in some of the valleys of Piedmont; but if it were so, these men were too late for any opinion concerning the ancient practice to be founded on what they did.

Curcellæus says the same thing as Vives does [1550]; and there is to be said of him not only what was said of Vives, that affirming a thing of antiquity, he produces no quotation for proof; but also that he brings it in to maintain another tenet as paradoxical as this itself is. He has a Dissertation concerning Original Sin. He depies that there is any such thing; as most that are inclined to Socinianism do ;- he brings, as an objection against his own doctrine, the custom of baptizing infants for forgiveness of sin; he answers, "That the cus→ tom of baptizing infants did not begin before the third century after Christ's birth; that, in the two first, there appear no footsteps of it."

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Whether that be true or no, will be partly judged by what I have here produced. It is best for any one that cannot prove what he says, to affirm it, dictator like.

It is doubtful in which of the two forementioned sorts [1578], of those that thought the practice of infant baptism to have either not from the beginning, or not universal, one is to place Rigaltius; he, in his Annotations on those places of St. Cyprian, which I recited in the former part of this work, seems willing to have it believed, that, in the apostles time, there was no Pædobaptism; but not willing to speak this plainly.

His discourse of this matter from texts of Scripture is too large to repeat here: he uses 10 arguments but those that are common, and have their answers as

common.

But what he speaks plainly of the matter of fact, as he takes it to have been, is this:-"From the age of the apostles to the time of Tertullian [100], thẹ matter continued in ambiguo, doubtful [or various]; and there were some, who, on occasion of our Lord's

* Chap. 7.
t Sect. 56.
Annot. in Cypriani Epistolam ad Fidum.

Part 1, ch. 6,

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