stles. orations or sermons are made on purpose to con- CHAP. II. vince people of their sin and danger in so doing. Year after But there is nothing in them that gives any evi- the apodence, that those who were once baptized themselves, did ever delay the baptizing of their children: save that in one of them Gregory Nazianzen gives his opinion, that in case the children are in good health, and there be no fear of their death, one may do well to defer their baptism till they be about three years old; but otherwise, to baptize them out of hand. The place I have set down at large, part 1. ch. 11. 6. 7. XIII. Mr. Baxter also, who has shewn a great deal of zeal, and spent a great deal of pains in maintaining the cause of pædobaptism, yet when he is in a complying humour, allows thus much: That in the days of Tertullian, Nazianzen, and Augustine, men had liberty to be baptized, or to bring their children, when, and at what age they * pleased; and none were forced to go against their ⚫ consciences.' And that he knows not that our rule or religion is changed: or that we are grown any wiser or better than they' The days of Tertullian and Nazianzen are pitched on, I suppose, because of their sayings, which have been mentioned. The days of Austin have no reason to be brought in here; but only because Mr. Baxter thought that his parents were Christians, (a mistake common to him with many others,) and that, they not baptizing him in infancy, it was probable that many other Christians omitted it likewise. The same thing, as I hear, is maintained by those * Defence of the Principles of Love, p. 7. 8vo. 1671. CHAP. II. Remonstrants that are authors of Cens the apo stles. XIV. Since the writing of the rest, I Garnier the Jesuit is, or would seem to b opinion; by what he says in his notes up mon of Nestorius, published with Mercator In those old times baptism was not g 'sently after the birth, as it is now: but 'times deferred a great while; not onl 'adults, (who came to it at their own also by the parents of infants, till t 'grown up.' This race of men at first pretended to than this; that infant-baptism cannot from scripture, without having recours proof that is taken from the practice of t church. And this they did, that they m the protestants to own the traditions of t church to be necessary in determining religion; for that without them the p could not defend their cause against the baptists. But now that the protestants ha shewn that that recourse to the tradition ancient church does turn the scale on th ants' side against the papists; and that it necessary for their cause to decry both and the traditions of the ancient church, d[The book alluded to, but incorrectly named by is entitled, Apologia pro Confessione sive Declarati 'tentiæ eorum qui in foederato Belgio vocantur Ron 'contra Censuram quatuor professorum Leidensium loco) 1629. The passage referred to occurs at p bears out the statement of thxt.] e Part i. p. 79. edit. 1673 the apo both of them together insufficient; and that we CHAP. II. must throw ourselves on the authority of the pre- Year after sent church, i. e. the church of Rome: they do, in stles order to force this down, set their wits to maintain that infant-baptism cannot be proved, neither from scripture, nor from the primitive practice, but only by the infallibility of the present church. But, as such subtle men do sometimes forget themselves, especially if they be voluminous authors: this same Jesuit, in his notes on another book, says, When the apostle writes to the Romans, * of whom several had been baptized in infancy, and yet says. So many of us as have been baptized into · Christ Jesus, have been baptized into his death, &c., * under those general words he comprehends those * that were baptized before the use of reason. By making some that were grown men at the time of this epistle, viz. twenty-three years after Christ's death, to have been baptized at Rome in their infancy, he supposes infant-baptism there practised as soon as the gospel can be reckoned to have been preached there, and perhaps (if we compute the times) sooner. Mr. Danvers, book i. ch. 75, produces one Boemus, who should say, that in the Christian church, and Notes on the 9th chapter of Mercator's Subnotations, p. 63. part i. edit. 1673 Cent. xii. p. 73. edit. 1674. The author produced is JoDes Boemus Aubanus, calling himself Sacerdos Teutonicæ * militiæ devotus,' who published a work entitled, Omnium * gentium Mores, Leges, et Ritus, ex multis clarissimis rerum * scriptoribus collecti.' folio, Augustæ Vindel. 1520: (reprinted 1537, again in 1604.) The passage given (but not fairly) by Danvers occurs at chapter 12 of the second book, fol. 37 in the edition of 1520.) the apostles. CHAP. II. Mr. Stennet, 'Answer to Russen,' p. 85, one Macaire, Year after who should say, that in the church of Alexandria, no infants were in the first ages baptized. It is the unhappiness of vulgar readers, that if they see a strange name quoted, they think it a great authority but it is a very disingenuous thing to take advantage of this their weakness. It is like putting off bad wares upon ignorant chapmen. For Boemus, I could never hear who he was, nor when he lived. (P. S. I find, since the first edition, that he is a late author of no note or regard for 656. learning.) Macaire (as Mr. Stennet says) was bishop of Memphis in Egypt, anno 756. But we have no account from him, how or when this new-found book of his came to light, or how it appears to be genuine. This is certain, that at that time there was no such place as Memphis; and that the Saracens had above a hundred years before that overrun all Egypt, whose custom was to destroy all Christian books and learning. And can we think that this unknown man, in such a time of ignorance, is able to tell us any news of the primitive practice, which Origen (who lived in Alexandria five or six hundred years before that) and the other Fathers who had a clear light of history to their own times, had never heard of? Such authors serve only to fill up a crowd of names, and to put an abuse upon a plain honest reader: the prevention of which is my only excuse for mentioning these, who are by no means to be reckoned among learned men. h [And secretary to Cosmus III. the 58th patriarch of Alexandria: Mr. Stennet quotes from Vansleb's Histoire de l'Eglise d'Alexandrie,' part i. c. 23.] stles. There is also a passage in the former English CHAP. II. editions of Camden's Britannia,' which, if every Year after reader knew who is the author of it, would for the the aposame reason have no need of being mentioned here. But many readers take all that is there put into the text, for Camden's own: whereas Dr. Holland the translator has inserted abundance of his own. additions. And, among the rest, he has in Cumberland interpolated among Camden's words, a fancy of his own against the antiquity of infant-baptism. Camden is there speaking of the font at Bridekirk in that county, Which is,' he says, a large open ⚫ vessel of greenish stone, with several little images 'curiously engraven on it;' having also an inscription which he could not read. He guesses it to have been made originally for a font, (to which use it is still employed,) and (to account for the images engraven on it) he says, We read that the fonts were anciently adorned with the pictures of holy men, whose lives were proposed as a pattern to such as were baptized:' for which he quotes in the margin Paulinus. Then follows in the text this addition of Dr. Holland's. For in the first plantation * of Christianity amongst the Gentiles, such only as were of full age, after they were instructed in the principles of the Christian religion, were admitted ⚫ to baptism.' Camden's words, quoted from Paulinus, do intimate no more than this; that there were in ancient times many baptisms of adult persons; but that such only were admitted, is said only by Dr. Holland, who seems to have concluded it too hastily from what Camden quoted. But it appears since by a more accurate view |