Imatges de pàgina
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The same may be said of Bohemia and Moravia, and some other countries thereabouts. There were for about 100 years, many Antipædobaptists mixed with the Protestants in those countries; but both one and the other have since been, by popish persecutions, either perverted, or forced to seek new

seats.

They

In Hungary and Transylvania, but especially the latter, there are said to be still considerable numbers of them (some towns and villages consisting mostly of these men); but it is said withal *, that they are mostly Socinians. There were in Transylvania so long ago as the time of the latter Socinus before mentioned, viz. Faustus Socinus, some of these that were deeper in that heresy, if possible, than he himself was. held, as he tells us, "The doctrine of the Trinity and of infant baptism to be the chief errors of other churches; so that if any one would renounce these two, and would firmly hold that all that have been baptized in infancy must be baptized when they are grown up, they would own such an one for a brother in point of doctrine," &c. though he differed in some other things.

--

This is a gracious condescension. But yet I question whether, as the case stands, it will induce many to accept of the propos l; because all people thereabouts know, that by complying but a very little farther, they may be admitted for true Mussulnien, and allowed to wear white turbans in the city of Stambol: an honour which these gentlemen seem very ambitious of. But as for those that desire to keep the name of Christians, God preserve them from the folly of buying the brotherhood of these men at so dear a rate as the renouncing of their God!

* Osiander. Appendix Hist. * Epist. de Bapt. ad Virum nobilem.

CHAPTER IX.

OF THE MOST ANCIENT RITES OF BAPTISM.

THE rites and circumstances attending baptism have been largely handled by Josephus Vicecomes. I shall only briefly mention some of the most ancient.

It was the custom of every church of Christians to require adult persons that were to be baptized, to spend some time in prayer and fasting, before their entrance into that holy covenant, that they might come with greater seriousness and steadfastness of resolution to the sacrament thereof; and the church did use to fast and pray with them, and for them.

This fasting, although it be nowhere mentioned in Scripture, yet is expressly put among the customs of the Christians by Justin Martyr, [40] (who must have been born in the Scripture times) in that Apology which he makes to the Heathen Emperors concerning the tenets and practices of the Christians. The place I recited before *.

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And so it is also by Tertullian t. [100] "They (says he) that come to baptism must use the devotions of frequent prayers, fastings, kneelings, and watchings, and the confession of all their past sins, that they may at least do as much as was done in John's baptism: They were baptized, it is said, confessing their sins."

I said before, that it is probable that this was none of the least reasons for keeping the Lent fast; because the baptism of so many people that was to be at Easter. The Council of Laodicea do order § "That none be admitted to baptism that Easter, that does not give in his name before a fortnight of Lent be out;

*Part 1. ch. 11.
Part 1. ch. 17.

+ Lib. de Baptismo, c. 20.
§ Can. xly, 46, 47.

and that they must all be able to say the Creed by Thursday before Easter ;- and that if any be baptized in sickness, when they recover, they must learn and recite it.

Their general and ordinary way was to baptize by immersion, or dipping the person, whether it were an infant, or grown man or woman, into the water.

This

is so plain and clear by an infinite number of passages, that as one cannot but pity the weak endeavours of such Pædobaptists as would maintain the negative of it, so also we ought to disown and shew a dislike of the profane scoffs which some people give to the English Antipædobaptists, merely for their use of dipping. It is one thing to maintain that that circumstance is not absolutely necessary to the essence of baptism, and another, to go about to represent it as ridiculous and foolish, or as shameful and indecent; when it was in all probability the way by which our blessed Saviour, and for certain was the most usual and ordinary way by which the ancient Christians did receive their baptism. I shall not stay to produce the particular proofs of this; many of the quotations which I brought for other purposes, and shall bring, do evince it. It is a great want of prudence, as well as of honesty, to refuse to grant to an adversary what is certainly true, and may be proved so it creates a jealousy of all the rest that one says.

Before the Christian religion was so far encouraged as to have churches built for its service, they baptized in any river, pond, &c. So Tertullian says: "It is all one whether one be washed in the sea or in a pond, in a fountain or in a river, in a standing or in a running water; nor is there any difference between those that John baptized in Jordan, and those that Peter baptized in the river Tiber." But when they came to have churches, one part of the church, or place nigh the church, called the Baptistery, was employed to this use; and had a cistern, font, or pond, large enough for

* De Baptismo, c, 4.

several at once to go into the water; divided into two parts by a partition, one for the men, and the other for the women, for the ordinary baptisms.

On the other side, the Antipædobaptists will be as unfair in their turn, if they do not grant that in the case of sickness, weakliness, haste, want of quantity of water, or such like extraordinary occasions. Baptism by affusion of water on the face, was by the antients counted sufficient baptism. I shall, out of the many proofs for it, produce two or three of the most ancient. [151]

Anno Dom. 251, Novatian was by one party of the clergy and people of Rome, chosen bishop of that church, in a schismatical way, and in opposition to Cornelius, who had been before chosen by the major part, and was already ordained. Cornelius does, in a letter to Fabius, Bishop of Antioch, vindicate his right; and shews that Novatian came not canonically to his orders of priesthood; much less was he capable of being chosen bishop: for that all the clergy, and a great many of the laity, were against his being or dained Presbyter, "because it was not lawful (they said) for any that had been baptized in his bed, in time of sickness, [τόν εν κλίνη διὰ νόσον περιχυθέντα] as he had been, to be admitted to any office of the clergy.'

This shews, that at the time when Novatian turned Christian, which could not, by this account, be much above 100 years after the apostles [120], it was the custom for any one that, in time of sickness, desired baptism, to have it adininistered to him in his bed by affusion; as in another part of this letter is said of him, - ἐν αὐτῇ τῇ κλίνῃ ἢ ἔκειτο περιχυθείς. 4 Baptized by affusion in the bed as he lay.' It is true, the Christians had then a rule among themselves, that such an one, if he recovered, should never be preferred to any office in the church; which rule they made, not that they thought that maimer of baptisın to be less effectual than the other, but for the reason ex

* Euseb. H. E. lib. 6, cap. 43.

pressed by the Council of Neocæsarea [214], held about eighty years after this time; the twelfth canon whereof is," He that is baptized when he is sick, ought not to be made a priest (for his coming to the faith is not voluntary, but from necessity) unless his diligence and faith do afterward prove commendable, or the scarcity of men fit for the office do require it.”

Another instance, about the same time [155], is this: -One Magnus, a countryman, writes to St. Cyprian, desiring to be satisfed in some points relating to the schism of the Novatians; one was, Whether those that were baptized in that schism must be baptized again, if they come over from the schism to the church? This, St. Cyprian answers, must be, because all baptism given by such as are in a state of division from the church, is void; - the other was, Whether they that in the communion of the church are baptized in bed, as Novatian was, must likewise be baptized again, if they recover? To this, St. Cyprian answers as follows:

"You inquire also, dear son, what I think of such as obtain the grace in time of their sickness and infirmity, whether they are to be accounted lawful Christians, because they are not washed all over with the water of salvation, but have only some of it poured on them; in which matter I would use so much modesty and humility, as not to prescribe so positively, but that every one should have the freedom of his own thought, and do as he thinks best. I do, according to the best of my mean capacity, judge thus: That the divine favours are not maimed or weakened, so as that any thing less than the whole of them is conveyed, where the benefit of them is received with a full and complete faith both of the Giver and receiver.

"For the contagion of sin is not, in the sacrament of salvation, washed off by the same measures that the dirt of the skin and of the body is washed off in an

* Cypriani Epist. 69. Edit. Oxon.

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