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Catechism: Why then are infants baptized, when, by reason of their tender age, they cannot perform [repentance and faith?] Because they promise them both by their sureties,' and so on." He adds; "And truly they seem by this method to betray the cause of infants to the Anabaptists. For if an express and actual profession of repentance and faith is necessarily to be required of every one before he is baptized, infant baptism can never be defended; since a vicarious profession is not founded upon any text in the whole Bible.”*—To the latter part of this quotation a Conformist might reply: "We acknowledge, Sir, that there is an air of puerility attending those questions and answers which you have recited; but notwithstanding this we insist, that there is a more plain reference to primitive practice than can be perceived in your mode of proceeding.† In the administration of baptism according to our Liturgy, a profession of repentance and faith makes a signal appearance; not so in your procedure. We baptize on the professed faith of sponsors; you, on the presumed faith of parents. Show us your warrant for baptizing a child on the latter, and you shall not wait long for ours on behalf of the former. Produce your text from the Bible for baptizing one or another, without a personal profession made by the subject; and you shall soon have ours for administering baptism upon the declared creed of proxy.

Once more: Cattenburgh informs us, that in the former part of the sixth century many opposed infant baptism. The Petrobrussians in the twelfth century maintained, as Venema shows, "That Pædobaptism cannot save infants, nor the faith of another be profitable to them :" § and Mosheim assures us, that "Peter

* Vindicat. of Dissent. part iii. p. 166, 167.

† Matt. iii. 6—10; Acts viii. 36, 37; 1 Pet. iii. 21.
Spicileg. Theol. Christ. 1. iv. c. lxiv. sect. ii. § 4.

§ Hist. Eccles. tom. vi. p. 129.

de Bruys, who made the most laudable attempts to reform the abuses and to remove the superstitions that disfigured the beautiful simplicity of the gospel,"-insisted, "That no persons whatever were to be baptized before they came to the full use of their reason. -Hence

J. A. Fabricius calls the Petrobrussians, "the Anabaptists of that age."t-In the same century, according to Venema, there was another sect of professing Christians, denominated Publicans, who asserted, "That infants are not to be baptized, till they arrive at years of understanding." The same historian mentions another denomination of Christians in that age, called Arnoldists; who, he says, "considered Pædobaptism in a different light from that of the Romish church-Concerning which sect, Bernard exclaims, Utinam tam sana esset doctrinæ, quam districtæ vitæ!"-I will conclude this chapter with the following concession of a Roman Catholic writer, the principle of which will here apply. "No true believer now doubts of purgatory; whereof, notwithstanding, among the ancients there is very little or no mention at all." §

* Eccles. Hist. cent. xii. part. ii. chap. v. § 7.
† Bibliographia Antiq. p. 388. Hamb. 1716.

Ut supra, p. 130, 131, 132. See Dupin, cent. xii. p. 88. 89. § In Morning Exercise against Popery, p. 251.

CHAPTER III.

The high Opinion of the Fathers, concerning the Utility of Baptism, and the Grounds on which they proceeded in administering that Ordinance to Infants, when Pædobaptism became a prevailing Practice.

VITRINGA." The ancient Christian church, from the highest antiquity after the apostolic times, appears generally to have thought, that baptism is absolutely necessary for all that would be saved by the grace of Jesus Christ. It was therefore customary in the ancient church, if infants were greatly afflicted and in danger of death; or if parents were affected with a singular concern about the salvation of their children, to present their infants, or children in their minority, to the bishop to be baptized. But if these reasons did not urge them, they thought it better, and more for the interest of minors, that their baptism should be deferred till they arrived at a more advanced age; which custom was not yet abolished in the time of Austin, though he vehemently urged the necessity of baptism, while with all his might he defended the doctrines of grace against Pelagius." Observat. Sac. tom. i. l. ii. c. vi. § 9.

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2. Venema." The ancients connected a regenerating power, and a communication of the Spirit, with baptism. Justin Martyr (Apol. ii. 79,) asserts it in express words; and to baptism he applies that saying of our Lord, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.' Besides, (Contra Tryph. p. 231,) he asserts, 'that baptism only can cleanse and purify a penitent;' where it is also called, the water of life'.... Irenæus (Advers. Hæres. iii. 17,) says, ' That Christ gave to his disciples the power of regenerating to God, when he sent them to baptize.'

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And Clemens Alexandrinus (Pædag. i. 6,) says; 'Being dipped, or baptized, we are illuminated; being illuminated, we are adopted for sons; being adopted, we are perfected; being perfected, we are rendered immortal: whence baptism is called grace, illumination, and the perfect laver,' which words he there explains.-The doctrine of Tertullian is of a similar kind. Thus he speaks, (De Pænit. c. vi.) A divine benefit, that is, the abolition of offences, is ascertained to those that are about to enter the water;' yet only in respect of such as repent. In his book concerning baptism, he explains his opinion more at large, and there attributes to the water, by an union with the divine virtue, a sanctifying power....That baptism is connected with the remission of antecedent sins, and confers a sanctifying power on the person baptized, is the undoubted opinion of Cyprian, which he every where inculcates, so that there is hardly any need to produce the particular passages. In his first epistle to Donatus he declares, that before his conversion it seemed impossible to him, 'that a person should all on a sudden put off sin, in the laver of the salutary water,' which he himself had experienced; saying, 'Afterward, by the help of the generating water, the spots of the former time are cleansed away; a serene and a pure light from above, infuses itself into the peaceful breast; afterward a second birth, the Spirit being drawn from heaven, restored me into a new man.'-In his lxiiid epistle, to Cæcilius, he expressly says, 'By baptism the Holy Spirit is received.' In his lxxth epistle, to Januarius, he says, 'It is necessary, therefore, that the water should be first purified and sanctified by the priest, that he may be able, by the baptism which he administers, to wash away the sins of a man who is baptized;' where also many other things of a similar kind occur. In his lxxist epistle, to Quintus, he says; 'There is one water in the holy church, which maketh sheep.' In his lxxii epistle, to Stephanus, he applies what our Lord

says (John iii.) concerning the necessity of regeneration, to baptism. In his lxxiiia epistle, to Jubaianus, these remarkable words occur: 'Thence begins the origin of all faith, the saving entrance to a hope of eternal life, and a divine grant to purify and quicken the servants of God:' soon after he also attributes the remission of sin, and sanctification, to baptism, and applies to it John iii. 5. In his lxxivth epistle, to Pompeius, he says, ‘We are born, in Christ, by the laver of generation. Water only cannot purge away sins and sanctify a man, unless it have also the Holy Spirit. It is baptism, in which the old man dies and the new man is born.' Firmilianus also, in the lxxvth epistle, to Cyprian, among the effects of baptism, particularly mentions, washing away the filth of the old man, forgiving of old sins, that were deserving of death; making persons, by a heavenly regeneration, the sons of God; and a restoration to life eternal, by the sanctification of the divine laver’.......... Gregory Nazianzen declares, (Orat. xl. p. 653,) That they who die unbaptized, without their own fault, go neither to heaven nor hell; but, if they have lived piously, to a middle place." Hist. Eccles. tom. iii. secul. ii. 124; sec. iii. § 61; tom. iv. sec. iv. § 115.

3. Salmasius." An opinion prevailed, that no one could be saved without being baptized; and for that reason the custom arose of baptizing infants." Epist. ad Justum Pacium, apud Van Dale Hist. Baptism.

4. Hospinianus.-" Austin, when writing against the Pelagians, too inconsiderately consigns over the infants of Christians to damnation that died without baptism. There is nothing that he more zealously urges, nor any thing on which he more firmly depends, than those words of Christ, 'Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."" Hist. Sacram. 1. ii. c. ii. p. 52.

5. Suicerus." We cannot deny, that many of the ancients maintained the absolute necessity of baptism.

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