constant opinion of the antients; none ever having maintained the contrary in those times, nor a great while after, except that Vincentius Victor [319] mentioned in the 20th chapter of the First Part, who also quickly recanted. St. Austin, in a letter to St. Hierom, says, * "Whoever should affirm that infants which die without partaking of this sacrament shall be quickened in Christ, would both go against the apostles' preaching, and also would condemn the whole church, - uni versam ecclesiam." And of the Pelagians, who believ ing no original sin, had therefore the most favourable opinion of any that was then held, of the natural state of infants, he says † that even "they, being awed by the authority of the Gospel, or rather, Christianorum populorum concordissima fidei conspiratione perfracti, being overswayed by the agreeing consent in the faith of all Christian people, sine ulla excusatione concedunt quod nullus parvulus, nisi, &c.—do without any tergiversation own, that no infant that is not born again of water and of the Spirit, does enter into the kingdom of God.” Tertullian himself, who at one place advises to keep children unbaptized till the age of reason, is thought by the Pædǝbaptists, and confessed by some of the other side, to mean "when there is no danger of death be fore;" because he owns it for a standing rule, that "without baptism there is no salvation for any person."+ Nazianzen, who advises to defer their baptism till they are three years old, or thereabouts, expresses bimself with this limitation [if there be no danger of death.] And if there be any danger, advises it to be given out of hand, as a thing without which they will, he says, "not be glorified." Except these two, none speak of any delay of it at all. But that party that believed no middle state, and thought that the Scripture obliges us to confess that * Epist. 28. + Epist. 105. ad Sixtum, prope finem, $ See Part 1, ch. 11. infants are under some degree of condemnation, and that they are by nature children of that wrath, mentioned in Eph. ii. 3, yet believed that it is a very moderate and mild punishment which they shall suffer, if they die unbaptized. This I speak of the times of our period of the four first centuries; for afterward the opinion grew more rigid, as we shall see. St. Austin does very often assert this mild degree of their condemnation, because the Pelagians did not fail to represent the doctrine of original sin odious, upon the account of such infants as missed of bap. tism, sometimes not by their parents' fault, but by some unavoidable accident. He thinks it necessary to maintain against these men the doctrine itself, though it be severe; but he takes care not to represent it more severe than he thought the plain words of Scripture enforced. Therefore, as in one place * of his book De Peccat. Merit. he says, "Let us not therefore of our own head promise any eternal salvation to infants without the baptism of Christ, which the Holy Scripture, that is to be preferred to all human wit, does not promise." So in another chapter of that book † he has these words: "It may well be said that infants departing this life without baptism, will be under the mildest condemnation of all; but he that affirms that they will not be under condemnation, does much deceive us, and is deceived himself; when, as the apostle says, Judgment came on all men to condemnation," &c. To the same purpose he speaks in his Enchiridion, c. 93. In another book of his it appears how mild he thought this condemnation might be; even so mild, that to be in that state might be better than to have no being at all. For Julian the Pelagian had objected, that if the doctrine of original sin were true, it were a cruel and wicked thing to beget children who would be born in a state of condemnation, and consequently in such a state as that it were to be wished they had + Cap. 15, Cap. 23. never been born, citing that of our Saviour, Well were it for that man that he had never been born. To this St. Austin answers, that God is the Author of being to all men, many of whom, as Julian must confess, will be eternally condemned; and yet God is not to be accused of cruelty for creating them. And farther, that all godly parents will take all care possible for baptizing their children, which will take off that original guilt, and make them heirs of a glorious kingdom; and as to those infants that yet die unbaptized, answers thus: "I do not say that infants dying without the baptism of Christ will be punished with so great pain, as that it were better for them not to have been born; since our Lord spoke this, not of all sinners, but of the most profligate and impious ones. For if in the Day of Judgment soine shall be punished in a more tolerable degree than others, as he said of the men of Sodom, and would be understood not of them only, who can doubt but that infants unbaptized, who have only original sin, and are not loaded with any sins of their own, will be in the gentlest condemnation of all?—— which, as I am not able to define what or how great it will be, so I dare not say that it would be better for them not to be at all, than to be in that state. "And you yourselves, who contend that they are free from all condemnation, are not willing to consider to what condemnation you make them subject, when you separate from the life of God and the kingdom of God so many images of God: and also when you separate them from their pious parents, whom you expressly encourage to the begetting of them. If they have no original sin, it is unjust that they should suffer so much as that; or if they suffer that justly, then they have original sin." 1 He shews that the future state in which the Pelagians thought such infants would be, is not so different Lib. 5, contra Julianum, e. 8. from that in which he judged they would be, as they did invidiously represent; for they confessed that without baptism they could not come to the kingdom of God, but must eternally be separated from God and from their parents; but they would not call this condemnation; he judged that they were under condemna← tion, but so gentle, that probably that state would be better than no being at all; and consequently that they or their parents would have no reason to wish that they had never been born. 1 St. Austin does so generally observe this rule of speaking with great caution and tenderness of the degree of their condemnation, that when Erasmus came to revise his works, he quickly found that the book De Fide ad Petrum was none of his *; for this reason, among others, because the author (who is since known to be Fulgentius) [410] does express the condemnation of infants that die unbaptized in such rigid terms, as that "whether they die in their mother's womb, or after they are born, one must hold for certain and undoubted, that they are ignis æterni sempiterno supplicio puniendi, to be tormented with the everlasting. punishment of eternal fire." And again: "Interminabilia gehennæ sustinere supplicia; ubi Diabolus, &c. to suffer the endless torments of Hell; where the "Devil with his angels is to burn for evermore." "This (says Erasmus) I never read anywhere else in St. Austin; though he does frequently use the words punishment, condemnation, perishing." Erasmus's observation is true for the general; yet it must be confessed, that in one sermon of his, where he is eagerly declaiming against the Pelagians, who taught that infants were baptized not for eternal life, but for the kingdom of Heaven; and that if they die unbaptized, they will miss of the kingdom of Heaven indeed, but have eternal life in some other good place, *Erasmi Censura ad istum librum. -he confutes their opinion thus:" Our Lord will come to judge the quick and the dead; and he will make two sides, the right and the left. To those on the left hand he will say, Depart into everlasting fire, &c. To those on the right,- Come, receive the kingdom, &c. He calls one the Kingdom; the other Condemnation with the Devil. There is no middle place left, where you can put infants. And afterward, Thus I have explained to you what is the kingdom, and what everlasting fire; so that when you confess the infant will not be in the kingdom, you must acknowledge he will be in everlasting fire." But these words came from him in the midst of a de clamatory dispute. He would, if he had been to explain himself, have said, as in other places, that this fire would be to them the most moderate of all. Though he speaks of this matter 1000 or 2000 times, yet he never, as I know of, mentions the words eternal fire in their case but here; so that we must either conclude that the heat of controversy carried him in that extempore sermon beyond his usual thought, or else we must conclude by Erasmus's rule, that that sermon is none of his. It was the aforesaid book of Fulgentius (which asserts this dogmatically, and over and over) being commonly joined with his works, and taken for his, that fixed on him in after-ages the title of Durus infantum Pater, The Father that is so hard to Infants.' It was Fulgentius that lived 100 [410] years after, and not he, that most deserved that name. Whereas Grotius observes that St. Austin never expressed any thing at all of their condemnation, not even to those lesser pains, till after he had been heated by the Pelagian disputes; seeming to intimate that he was not of that opinion before, but took it up then in opposition to the Pelagians. I have shewed before t what St. Austin himself says to that imputation; for it was objected by some in his life-time. I shall here make a short excursion beyond my limits *Annot. in Matt. xix. 14. + Part 1, ch. 15.. |