the apostles. CHAP. II. dispute is raised concerning the Georgian Christians I Year after do mention hereafter k,) makes one take less notice of what he affirms concerning the ancient practice thereof. As he produces no proof at all of what he says of the late times, so what he urges for this indifferency of the elder times consists in these particulars. 214. He cites the canon of the council of Neocæsarea, mentioned above, and expounds it to make against infant-baptism. But this, if it proves any thing, proves too much : not a liberty, but an unlawfulness of infant-baptism 300. in the opinion of those seventeen bishops. He himself says, that it is plain that in St. Austin's time pædobaptism was received in all churches; because 'the Pelagians being pressed with that as an argu'ment never could deny it.' And was it not obvious likewise for him to observe, that the Pelagians being pressed with this argument, 'That no Chris'tian ever was against pædobaptism,' could not deny it, but expressly granted it m? And could Pelagius and St. Austin too have forgot, that a council 214. of seventeen bishops had determined against it but eighty years before, if they or any body else had at that time gathered any such meaning out of their words? The pædobaptists say, that this meaning lay hid for 1300 years after the men were dead, till he picked it out. But of this, and of the use that he makes of the words of Balsamon and Zonaras thereupon, was discoursed before". He observes also, that k Ch. 8. §. 2. m See part i. ch. 19. §. 30. in the councils one shall 1 Part i. ch. 8. §. 1. * the council of Carthage. From whence he would CHAP. II. infer, that it did not universally obtain, but was year after * more frequent in Africa than any where else." sties. the apo And St. Austin, as was above cited °, proves that 318. it must have been instituted by the apostles; because it did and ever had universally obtained, and yet was not instituted by any council. Mentioned it was by a council under St. Cyprian P, which did not enset it, but take it for granted. I mentioned before 4 his other argument, which is 150. nothing else but the perverting of the sense of a few words of Gregory Nazianzen, (where he, speaking of several sorts of persons that die without baptism, names among the rest those that are not • baptized dià mziótyra, by reason of infancy,') as if Nazianzen had thereby intimated his opinion to be, that infancy did incapacitate one for baptism. Whereas if the reader please to turn back to part 1. ch. 11. §. 6. where I have cited the place at large, be will see that Nazianzen there reckons those • who are not baptized or have missed of baptism] • by reason of their infancy,' among those whose own fault it is not, that they are not baptized; and therefore their punishment shall be less in the world to come. The most material thing that he brings, is the instance of Gregory Nazianzen and St. Chrysostom, born, as he takes it, of Christian parents, and yet not baptized till of age. Which shall be discussed in the next chapter. He concludes, that all that he has brought is * of no force to prove that infant-baptism should be * Cypriani Epist. ad Fidum. •Part i. ch. 15. sect. 4. §. 3 Parti, ch. 11. §. 9. 6 CHAP. II. denied; but only to shew libertatem, vetustatem, Year after et consuetudinis differentiam, the liberty, antiquity, ' and difference of the custom.' the apostles. X. I said before, that bishop Taylor is to be reckoned in this rank; if one knows where to reckon him, or can reconcile what I have quoted from him, with that which I am going to quote. He, in his Dissuasive from Popery,' one of his latest works, being busy in defending the protestant doctrine against the papists, who plead the necessity of tradition to prove infant-baptism; and having answered, that it is proved enough from scripture as to the lawfulness of it, goes on to shew that tradition does not do so much service in the matter; for that it delivers it to us as the custom of 'some Christians in all times, but not of all.' His words are these: At the first they did, or they did not, according as they pleased; for there is no pretence of tradi'tion, that the church in all ages did baptize all the 'infants of Christian parents. It is more certain that they did not do it always, than that they did it in the first age. St. Ambrose, St. Hierome, and St. Austin, were born of Christian parents, and ' yet not baptized until the full age of a man, and 6 more ".' And a little after, That it was the custom so to do in some churches, and at some times, is without 'all question; but that there is a tradition from the apostles so to do, relies but upon two witnesses, 110. Origen and St. Austin: and the latter having received it from the former, it relies wholly upon 296. 6 6 Part ii. lib. i. sect. 3. p. 117. [edit. 4to. Lond. 1667: which was the earliest impression of the second part of this work.] stles. his single testimony; which is but a which is but a pitiful argu-CHAP. II. ment to prove a tradition apostolical. He is the year after ⚫ first that spoke it: but Tertullian, that was before the apo • him, seems to speak against it; which he would 100. not have done, if it had been a tradition apo⚫ stolical. And that it was not so, is but too cer*tain, if there be any truth in the words of Ludo-1422. * ricus Viress' And then he recites what was above cited out of Lud. Vires'. The most of this is what he said before", and on which I did before make what remarks are necessary: as I shall do in the next chapter, on what he says of Ambrose, Hierome, Austin, born of Christian parents, and yet not baptized in infancy. From the whole, one may here see some of the workings of that singular fancy that this bishop had about original sin. I forgot when I saw his • Dissuasive from Popery,' to look at the date of the edition of it, and to see if it were not a posthumous one which I suspect, because what he says in it of this indifferency, is contrary to what I quoted before (§.6.) out of his 'Great Exemplar' and Ductor Dubitantium; and is more agreeable to what he had said in his youth, but afterward recanted. XI. Mr. Thorndyke also, in the third book of his Epilogue,' (which is of the Laws of the * Page 118. + See §. 3. u See §. 6. Bishop Taylor died in 1667. The edition referred to was published in that year, but after the bishop's death.] An Epilogue to the Tragedy of the Church of England; being a necessary consideration and brief resolution of the chief ecctroversies in Religion that divide the Western Church: occasioned by the present calamity of the Church of England. In three books: by Herbert Thorndyke, folio. London, 1659.] the apo stles. 6 CHAP. II. Church,) yields, that the eastern church, (though Year after they held infant-baptism necessary in case of the danger of death,) yet did sometimes defer it when there was no such danger. But that the western church enjoined it, as the present church does, to be given presently. He, as well as Grotius, Taylor, &c., seems to be moved to this concession by the instances of Nazianzen, Nectarius, &c., baptized at man's age; of which I shall speak in the next chapter, and shew the most of them to be mistakes. XII. Monsieur Daillé has also something to this purpose. He says, 'In ancient times they often deferred the baptizing both of infants and of other people; as appears by the history of the ' emperors, Constantine the Great, of Constantius, ' of Theodosius, of Valentinian, and Gratian, out of St. Ambrose and also by the orations and homilies of Gregory Nazianzen, and also of St. Basil", on this subject. And some of the Fathers too have 'been of opinion that it is fit it should be deferred, as namely, Tertullian, as we have formerly noted ' out of him.' I shall have occasion, in the next chapter, to discourse concerning those instances of the emperors. And whereas he speaks of the delay of the baptism of infants and other people, it is fit for the reader to observe, that the orations which he cites, are indeed a proof that many grown people converted did put off their baptism a long time; because those z De Usu Patrum, lib. ii. c. 6. [p. 329, edit. Genev. 1656.] a Orat. 40. b Els Bañτioμòv прoтpentiký. [Op. tom. ii. p. 113. edit. Bene |