Imatges de pàgina
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St. Hierom here, commenting on the commission given by our Saviour to the apostles * of carrying the gospel to the nations that were Heathen, explains the method they were to use, viz. first, To teach those nations the Christian religion, and then to baptize them; which all Pædobaptists grant to be the method that ought ever to be used; for if there be any nation of Indians to be converted now-a-days, they use the same; and yet when they have converted and baptized the parents, they do also, at the parents desire, baptize what children they have; and it is of such Heathen people or nations that St. Hierom here speaks that their minds must be instructed before their bodies be baptized.

St. Basil is there proving against the heretic Eunomius, the divinity of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, by this argument, that we are baptized in the name of them as well as of the Father; and, consequently, are to believe in them; for that baptism supposes faith in that Deity in whose name the baptism is; and applying this to the case of one that learns the faith of the Christians, shews that he must be taught to believe in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (viz. that each of these persons is God) or else ought not to be baptized with those words; and that, consequently, the Eunomians did in effect renounce their baptism by renouncing this faith. As there was no dispute between the Catholics and Eunomians about infant baptism, so St. Basil will appear to any one that reads him, not to have had any thought, pro or contra, at that place about it.

It happens very unluckily, for the purpose of those that produce these sayings, that both of these fathers are known by other passages to have owned infant baptism; as I have shewn plainly in the First Part of this work t.

Thirdly, Some quotations that are brought, are wrested and altered by those that bring them to an

* Matt. xxviii. 19.

+ Chap. xii, xv, xix.

other sense than that which they carry in the authors themselves.

As for example [154]: Danvers* cites, out of Eusebius †, that Dionysius Alexandrinus, writing to Sextus, Bishop of Rome, testifies, "That it was their custom to baptize upon profession of faith; and that one, who had been baptized by heretics, not upon profession of faith, did desire to be so baptized, accounting his former for no baptism."

This, as it is here by Mr. Danvers brought in and worded, would seem to be an instance of a man that, having been baptized in infancy, desired now to be baptized again; but that which Dionysius does there write, is in these words, and no other ‡:

"The man being present when some were baptized, and hearing the interrogatories and answers, came to me weeping, and falling down at my feet, confessed and declared that the baptism wherewith he had been baptized by the heretics, was not this (or this sort of) baptism, nor had any likeness to this of ours; but was full of impieties and blasphemies. He said he was sore troubled in conscience, and durst not presume to lift up his eyes to God, for that he was baptized with those profane words and ceremonies."

Now, this is clearly the case of a man that had been baptized by the Valentinians, or some such heretics, who, as Irenæus tells us §, did not baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; but with strange and profane forms of words which he there recites, and some of which I do hereafter recite. All which is nothing relating to the case of infant baptism; and he that compares the words will observe how foully they are quoted.

Fourthly, Some quotations are yet more unfair; as, when the author cited does not say that for which he is cited; but he says something from whence the other

* Treatise of Baptism, p. 50, second edit.

+ Pr. E. lib. 7, e.

§ Lib. 1, c. 18.

Apud Eusebium loc. citat, || Chap. 5.

draws it as a consequence, and then sets down that consequence as if it were the author's own words.

*

Thus Danvers, in the foresaid treatise says, That St. Hierom, in his epistle against the errors of Jonn, Bishop of Jerusalem [278] says, "That, in the eastern churches, the adults were only baptized ;"and again, in his epistle to Pammachius, says, "That they are to be admitted to baptism to whom it does properly belong, vie. those only who have been instructed in the faith."

Now, if one read over that epistle of St. Hierom's to Pammachius, against the errors of John, bishop of Jerusalem, and all the other epistles of his to Pammachius (for such work one has with quotations set down after such a blundering manner) there is no such thing.

But this there is †; the said bishop having said that, "in a certain sermon of his, he had fully discoursed of the faith and all the doctrines of the church," St. Hie rom takes occasion to reprove this as a confident saying, that he should pretend to do all that in one sermon; and then adds, "We have a custom to discourse for forty days together, to those that are to be baptized, concerning the holy Trinity, &c. If you, on that text, could in one hour discourse of all the doctrinal points, what need is there to continue such discourses for forty days? But if you did recapitulate all that you used to preach in the whole Lent," &c.

There is another passage toward the end of the epistle, where he thus expostulates with the said bishop ;"Do we divide the church, who, but a few months ago, about Whitsuntide (when the sun being eclipsed, people thought the day of Judgment was coming) did present forty persons of both sexes, and several ages, to your Presbyters to be baptized? [293] And yet we had five Presbyters then in the monastery, who might have done it by their own right, but they would do nothing to anger you; or do you rather divide the

* Treatise of Bapt. page 56.

+ Epist. 61, ad Pammachium de erroribus, &c. prope medium.

church, who ordered your Presbyters at Bethlehem, that they should not give baptism to our candidates at Easter, whom we, therefore, sent to Diospolis, to Dionysius, to be baptized?"

Here is indeed a plain account of adult persons baptized in those times; and that they used to be catechized all the Lent before their baptism; but he that shall conclude from hence that they only were baptized, and then shall quote the place, and set it down as St. Hierom's words ["That in the eastern churches they only were admitted to baptism" is by no means to be trusted with the quoting of authors.

Fifthly, Some of the quotations brought in this case are absolutely false; and neither the words cited, nor any like them, are at all to be found in the books mentioned.

So Danvers [254] in his said treatise * cites St. Hilary for three several sayings. The first whereof is in the book mentioned; the second is not; but there is a sentence to the same purpose in another book. These two are not so material as to need reciting here. The third (which is very material, if it were true) is, that St. Hilary should say, "That all the Eastern Churches did only baptize the adult." The book he seems to refer to is St. Hilary's second book de Trinitate; for that only is mentioned: but neither there, nor, as I am very confident, anywhere else does St. Hilary say any such thing.

Both these last quotations out of St. Hierom and Hilary are amended in a Postscript by †Danvers; and for eastern, he says, we must read western.

This mends not the matter, but makes it worse; for there is no such thing said of either of them. Indeed, if either Hierom or Hilary, or any other author of those times, had said that it was the custom either of the eastern church, or western church, or any church at all, to

*Part 1, cent. 4.

+ Postscript to the Baptist's Answer to Wills's Appeal against Danvers.

baptize only the adult, and the places where they said so could be produced, it would be a quotation more for the purpose of the Antipædobaptists than any they have yet brought; and for Mr. Danvers (after that Mr. Baxter and Mr. Wills had so publicly challenged him for a forger of quotations, and Wills had put in an Appeal to his own party against him) to amend, in a Postscript to the Answer to the said Appeal these quotations by putting western for eastern, as if the authors had really said so of one of them. This, if joined with a great many other instances in the said book, was the boldest attempt upon the belief of a reader that ever I knew made.

It would have been a very tedious thing both to me and the reader to recite all such quotations, and then to shew the falseness or mistake of them; but, instead of doing that, I do declare that all that I have seen that seemed to be to the purpose, I have searched; and the search after such as have proved false, spurious, &c. has cost me as much pains as the collecting of these true ones; and of those that I have so seen or searched, I have left out none in this collection, that make for or against the baptism of infants, but such as are (and, I think plainly) of some of the five sorts before mentioned; and if any one that meets with any other which I have not met with, will be so kind as to inform me of it, by word or letter, I will (if I live to see any more editions of this mean work) add it to the rest, and that indifferently, as I said, whether it make for or against Pædobaptism, provided it be genuine and to the pur pose, and out of authors within the time limited.

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