is of gaining [or converting] him and partly, be- CHAP.III. cause the unbelieving party is seldom so obstinate year after or averse to Christianity, but that the children are stles. allowed to be made holy [or baptized] into it. Which I shewed to be the sense which the most ancient writers give to his words. But still this must be understood to hold for the most part, not always. There has been seldom known any husband that would yield so little to the desires or petitions of a wife as this man would, while he was a heathen. He used her not as a companion, but as an absolute servant; even by the account which the son gives of the father after his death.

In a word, St. Austin's case was the same with that of Timothy, whose mother was a Jewess; and yet his father being a Greek, i. e. a heathen, and probably a hater of the Jewish religion, as St. Austin's father was of the Christian, he had not been circumcised: as appears, Acts xvi. 1, 3. Him Paul took and circumcised him, because of the Jews that were in those quarters: for they knew all that his father was a Greek: and therefore probably would be inquisitive whether he had been circumcised or not.

Indeed when St. Austin was a child not yet big enough to go to school, but capable to express his mind, and it happened that he fell ill of a sudden pain in his stomach, so violent that he was like to die: and he had, as he tells himself, the motion of mind, and the faith to beg earnestly of his mother to get him baptized: she in that case would have ventured to do it, and did in great haste Part i. ch. 19. §. 19. item ch. 11. §. 11.

Lib. i. cap. 11.

CHAP.III. bestir herself in providing for it. And it had been Year after done, if he had not quickly mended of his pain.

the apo

stles.

But there are several things considerable in this case. 1. It was a case of great extremity: it must be done now or never. 2. It was at his own desire, so that his father could not blame his mother. 3. In that case a private and clinical baptism was sufficient. 4. It is probable that his father was now mollified in that averseness that he had for the Christian religion, in which he himself, in a few years after, thought fit to become a catechumen, or hearer.

III. Afterward the scene altered in the family of 271. Patritius, St. Austin's father. For when he began to believe in Christ, and to fear God; his son Austin began to be estranged from religion, and all good inclinations, by the heat of lust and fornication). And when his father now joined with his mother in persuading him to associate himself with the Christians, and of all the sorts of them to join with the catholic church; this advice had no effect upon 273. him at that time. For he quickly after ran into the blasphemous sect of the Manicheesk, who derided all baptism and the scriptures, and were no more Christians than the Mahometans are now.

Yet it had its effect afterward. For twelve or thirteen years after, when his father had now been dead a good while, and he disliking the Manichees, turned a sceptic, or seeker, or (as they now call them) a deist, not knowing what religion to be of; he remembered the advice of his parents, which he had formerly despised: and I resolved,' says he, to be a catechumen in the catholic church, which k Lib. iii. cap. 6.

j Lib. ii. cap. 1, 2, &c.

had been recommended to me by my parents, so CHAP. III. long till some certainty should shew itself to my year after mind which way I were best to take'.' And this the apoproved an occasion of his final conversion.

I the rather recite these words here, their meaning being explained by the circumstances: because taken by themselves they might strengthen that opinion, (which has been proved a mistake,) that his father was a Christian when this his son was born.

Sect. 12. Of Monica, Adeodatus, Alypius, and some others.

They do none of them make instauces for this

purpose.

I. Some (I think one or two) have named Monica, St. Austin's mother, among their instances; but without any kind of ground: since there is no knowing whether she were born of Christian parents, and baptized in infancy; or of heathens, and baptized at years of discretion. She had never been known if she had not been mother to St. Austin. Nobody mentions her, but he: and he says nothing, that I remember, of the state of her parents; but a great deal of her goodness and her care of him.

stles.

287.

II. Adeodatus, St. Austin's son, begotten in fornication, who being fifteen years old, was baptized together with him, is likewise mentioned without any reason. St. Austin was a Manichee when this son was born to him: and they condemned all 273. Christian baptism of infants or others, as I shall shew by and by", concerning them and some other

1 Lib. v. c. ult. item lib. vi. c. 11. n Chap. 5. §. 3.

m Confess. lib. ix. c. 6.

the apo

stles.

CHAP.III. sects. It were absurd to expect, that he should Year after have procured him to be baptized before he himself had renounced that opinion, and thought fit to be baptized himself. He says of him°; We [I and Alypius] joined him with us of the same age of 'ourselves in thy grace, [the grace of baptism,] to 'be educated in thy discipline, and were baptized,' &c. As Ishmael was circumcised, so this youth was baptized, the same day with his father: which was at Easter, anno 388.

288.

III. When I have spoken of Alypius, whom St. Austin mentions as baptized together with him; I hope I have done. It is only in compliance to Mr. Tombes, that he need be mentioned at all. He had observed that he was baptized when he was adult, and so makes him an instance for this purpose, without giving any proof or pretence of it, that his parents were Christians. He might in a week's time have collected a hundred such instances of persons baptized at man's age, whose parents are utterly unknown, as Alypius' are: only people have generally concluded that they were heathens, because they did not baptize their children.

And there happen to be also some more particular proofs in his case. As that, before his conversion, he abhorred or scorned the name of Christ: as St. Austin gives us to understand, when after having given God thanks for his grace in recovering him himself, he adds; Thou didst also subdue Alypius the brother of my soul, to the name of

• Confess. lib. ix. cap. 6.

P Exercitation [about Infant-baptism, 4to. 1646. p. 28. also an Examen of Marshall's sermon, 4to. 1645.] p. 14.

thy only-begotten, our Lord and Saviour Jesus CHAP. III. Christ, which he before took in disdain to have year after

⚫ inserted in our letters,'

And also that he was so ignorant of what the Christians believed or held concerning the person of Jesus Christ. For having heard some Christians maintain that he as man had no soul, but that his divinity was in the stead of a soul to his body; and thinking this to be the common opinion of the Christians, and judging it to be absurd; he was,' as St. Austin says, the more hardly brought over to the Christian religion. But afterwards understanding this to be the mistake of the Apolli'narian heretics, he congratulated the Catholic faith,' &c. So improbable is it that he had Christian parents.

IV. There is one Den an antipædobaptist writer, and Danvers from him', that mentions a great many more names yet, viz. Pancratius, Pontius, Nazarius, Thecla, Luigerus, Erasma Tusca, the three sons of Leonilla. But they do but just mention them: and if the reader would know who they are, and upon what grounds they are brought in here; he must look to that himself.

For Thecla if they mean the famous Thecla that is said to be baptized by St. Paul, there is no doubt that she was baptized in her adult age: but there is as much probability of St. Paul's parents having been Christians, as of hers. For the rest, nobody

4 Confess, lib. ix. cap. 4.

r Ibid. lib. vii. c. 19.

the apo

$ [A treatise of Baptism; wherein that of Believers and that of Infants is examined by the Scriptures; with the history of both out of Antiquity, &c., by John Denne ]

Treatise of Baptism, part i. c. 7. [Cent. iv. p. 63.]

stles.