mean capacities; only his son indeed does, as duty required, speak honourably of him.

If he had been a man much spoken of, it would have made a better argument (than his practice now does). that leaving children unbaptized was no unusual thing, because his doing so is not mentioned with any censure or wonder by any author of that time. But as ho was a man little regarded, and placed in an obscure and remote corner, and never mentioned but only by the writers of his son's life (who lived 600 years after) this cannot be expected. There is, in elder times, no mention of his name at all, but what we have from his Son; and had it not have been for him, it would not have been known that such a place as Nazianzum, or such a bishop of it as this Elder Gregory had ever been; and it was not for the son to reflect on any faults or neglects of his father; he does do that as far as could be seemly for him, when he admonishes his people against any such neglect; of which admonitions of his I give several instances in part 1, chap. 11. In one of them, indeed, he does perhaps (out of some compliance to his father's practice) advise, that if there appear no danger of the child's death, the baptism should be delayed till he be about three years old; but that helps this cause but little, both because a child at three years old, is as incapable of receiving baptism upon his personal profession as a mere infant; and also, because he, at other places, urges the speedy administering of it in general, and so he does at this place, if any danger of death do appear

This evidence, therefore, of Gregory's father, as I would not omit it (let it have what weight it will bear) so I cannot reckon it to have any great force, being but one man's practice, and that of a man of little judg ment or credit.

5. That argument for the universal consent of antiquity in baptizing infants, which is taken from the declaration of St. Austin (that he never read or heard of any Christian, Catholic, or Sectary, that denied that infants are baptized for forgiveness of sin) and from

the grant of Pelagius [316] "that he also never heard of any that denied that they are to be baptized," that argument, I say, is somewhat weakened by this, that Tertullian, 200 [100] years before their time, is found to have spoken against it, at least as ordinarily prac tised: so that, from hence forward, that rule must proceed with an exception of one man, viz. Tertullian. 6. The Petrobrusians, one of those societies of men called Albigenses, withdrawing themselves about the year 1100, [1000] from the communion of the Church of Rome, which was then very corrupt, did reckon infant baptism as one of the corruptions, and accordingly renounced it, and practised only adult baptism (part 2, chap. 7).

An exception that abates in great measure the force of the evidence from these mens' practice is this: That (besides that they were very late and very few) they did what they did on this principle, that no infant, baptized or not, can come to Heaven; which is by both the parties now acknowledged to be a great and an uncharitable error.

These evidences, how much or how little soever they weigh, or avail towards the determining the point, are however to be reckoned among true ones; that is, they are true, and not mistaken matters of fact.

But there is, as I said, another sort of evidences and reasons against infant baptism, which are apt to weigh much with one that understands not the state of the times spoken of, and can read only the vulgar translation of the Scripture; and such a man cannot much be blamed for taking them as good reason or evidence; but they lose their force with any one that is not under those disadvantages: and such I reckon these following.

1. There are several ancient books that say nothing at all about infant baptism, neither for it nor against it; and it is wonder, say some Antipædobaptists, if it were common in those times, that these as well as others should not mention it.

A pompous recital of the names of these, makes an

unlearned: Antipædobaptist think that they are so many authors on his side. But any one that understands, how the ancient Christian writers were mostly employed, viz. in defending the truth and innocence of their religion against the objections and slanders of Heathens and Jews; in encouraging the persecuted people to bear with faith and patience the obloquy and sufferings they lay under, &c.—such a man, instead of wondering that there are no more, will wonder there are so many that do happen, in such their writings, to mention so particular a thing as the baptizing of children; especially, since, in the primitive times, there was no controversy started about that point. Now that it is become a controversy, yet let any man go into a bookseller's snop, and take down ten books at all adventures, and he will find above half of them to be such as have no mention pro nor contra about infant baptism, because they are written on such subjects as give no occasion for it. It is the nature of a man, whose head is hot with controversy, to wonder he does not find something about that in every book and chapter he reads.

*

1

Mr. Tombs made a plea of this; but he was too candid a disputant to lay much stress on it. He takes notice of five authors that have nothing about it. Mr. Stennet takes two of his, and reckons up six more, who, he says, have nothing of it. I gave reasons, I hope, satisfactory enough, why, in Mr. Tombs's authors, no mention of such a thing could be expected (part 1, chap. 21); and the same are applicable to those produced by Mr. Stennet, save that he reckons Irenæus for one, who, as I shew (part 2, chap. 3) speaks plainly enough of it. And also I have shewn (part 1, chap. 1, 2) that three more of them, Clemens Romanus, Hermas, and Justin Martyr, though not speaking dircetly of it, do mention things from whence inferences may be drawn for the proof of it; and have

Answer to Russen, p. 68.1

now also produced one from another of them, viz. Clem. Alex.

The very same remark, I think, ought to be made upon that objection against infant baptism which the Antipædobaptists do much insist on, viz. that St. Luke, in reciting the Lives and Acts of the Apostles, does not mention any infants baptized by them. Whoever ob

serves the tenor of that history, and considers the state of those times, will perceive that St Luke's aim is to give a summary account of the main and principal passages of their lives, and of those passages especially, in which they found the greatest opposition. And in such a history (which is but short in all) who can look for an account of what children they baptized? Suppose the life and actions of some renowned and laborious modern bishop or doctor were to be written (say of Bishop Usher, Stillingfleet, &c.) and that, in a volume ten times as long as the book of the Acts of the Apostles, Who will expect to find there an account of what children they christened? And yet there is no doubt but they did christen hundreds, or (if we take in what was done by ministers deputed by them) thousands. The main business of an apostle was to preach, convert, attest the truth of Christ's résurrection, miracles, &c. and not to baptize. as St. Paul says, 1 Cor. i. 17. The baptizing of such as the apostles had convinced, and especially of their children, would of course be left to deputies. Yet of the six baptisms (which are all that St. Paul is mentioned to have been concerned in) three were the baptisms of whole 'households (Acts xvi. 15, 35; 1 Cor. i. 16): such a one and all his; and that this is as much as can reasonably be expected of so minute a circumstance.

2. Irenæus, [67] who is the eldest of the fathers in whom the Pædobaptists have as yet found any positive mention of infants as baptized, does not at that place use the word itself, baptized, but the word regenerated, or born again (part 1, chap. 3).

This may invalidate his testimony with one that knows of no other sense of that word than what is com

mon in modern English books; but any man that has been at all conversant in the fathers, or that has read but those passages of them that are in this my Collection, or but even those to which I referred just now, at note 3, and at note 5, of the Evidences for Infant Baptism, will be satisfied that they as constantly meant baptized, by the word regenerated, or born again, as we do mean the same by the word christened.

To be satisfied of this (and I do assure any one that will search, that he shall not miss of satisfaction) is very well worth a Pædobaptist's while. For the testimonies of Irenæus and of Justin Martyr, so near the times of the Apostles, are preferable, for their antiquity, to the testimony of any three or four others.

3. St. Basil, [260] in a certain sermon, speaks so, as plainly to suppose that a great part of his auditory was made up of such as had been instructed in the Christian Religion from their infancy, and yet not baptized (part 1, chap. 12).

I have reason to reckon this among the evidences that may appear to people of little reading, and to such as have but a shallow and superficial knowledge of the state of the ancient times, to have a great weight against the belief of any general practice of infant baptism at that time, because it had such an effect upon myself. I thought, upon the first reading of this place, nothing could be a plainer proof that the Christians then did not commonly baptize their children in infancy, than this evidence of a church full of people, a considerable part of whom had been catechized from their infancy, and were not yet baptized. Such a number of Heathen converts had been easily to be accounted for; but these seemed born of Christian parents, because he says "From a child catechized in the word."

But all this argument lost its force with me, when, by farther reading, I perceived (and wondered at myself afterward, as is common, why I had not perceived before) that which I shew in the same chapter, and also part 2, chap 3, to have been the state of the world as to religion at that time, viz. that beside those that