CHAP. II. taken by the present bishop of Carlisle of the Year after inscription, and of those which Camden calls images the apo stles. on the said font-stone, that the contrary to what Dr. Holland thought is proved from them. For he, in a letter to sir William Dugdale, (printed in the additions to the last edition of that book,) explains both the inscription and the images: by which latter he says, 'We have there fairly represented a person in a long sacerdotal habit, dipping a child ' into the water; and a dove (the emblem, no doubt, ' of the Holy Ghost) hovering over the infant,' &c. 6 XV. Of the professed antipædobaptists, (for all that I have yet mentioned were pædobaptists, notwithstanding some of their sayings concerning the ancient use,) Mr. Tombes was a man of the best parts in our nation, and perhaps in any; but his talent did not lie much in ancient history or reading. All that I have seen of his of this nature has been considered, in speaking of the authors to whom he refersk. Mr. Danvers has heaped together a vast rhapsody of quotations; but having seldom consulted the authors themselves, but taken them at second hand, and out of any sort of writers, such as he calls by the names of Twiskm, Frank", &c., and a book called i [Dr. W. Nicholson. See above, at vol. i. chap. 3. §. 9. p. 86. and the note there.] k Part i. ch. 4. §. 8. ch. 5. §. 7. ch. 6. §. 1, 2, &c. ch. 21. §. 5, &c. 1 Treatise of Baptism. m [Mr. Danvers frequently cites as authority Twisk Chronic. 'p. &c.' What book that is, I have not yet been able to ascertain.] n [Sebastian Frank, a fanatical author of the sixteenth century; who, among sundry strange and paradoxical works, published Dutch Martyrology, &c., books of no kind of credit, CHAP. II. he has for the most part. strangely misrepresented year after them. He was publicly accused by Mr. Baxter, and Mr. Wills, for a wilful forger of quotations; and the book would tempt one to think so. But upon second thoughts, I hope it was partly his authors, and partly want of good heed or skill that misled him. Mr. Wills went so far as to put in an appeal to his own party against him, that they ought to renounce him: and he printed it. But he and they answered as well as they could, and made the best of a bad matter. And indeed Mr. Wills in that appeal (for want of books I suppose) made not his best advantage of the charge that might have been brought against him: for he instanced in some of his false quotations that were of the least consequence; omitting those of greater, and such as it had been impossible for him or them to reconcile : and also in some of them was mistaken himself. Most of the rest of them do, as much as may be, avoid speaking of the practice of the primitive church, and do except against any argument brought from thence as a human authority. A method, which, if they be resolved to continue in their a Chronicle, Annals, and History of the Bible,' first printed in 1531, and reprinted in 1536, 1538, 1543, 1585.] • Confutation of the strange Forgeries of H. Danvers, [being the second part of his More Proofs of Infants,' &c. 8o. 1675.] P [See Infant-baptism asserted and vindicated by Scripture ' and Antiquity; in answer to a treatise of baptism lately pub⚫lished by Mr. Henry Danvers: together with a full detection of 'his misrepresentations, &c. by Obed. Wills, M. A.' So. 1674. Also, Vindicia Vindiciarum,' &c. and An Appeal to the · Baptists, against Mr. Danvers, &c. by the same.' 8o. 1675.] the apo stles. CHAP. II. opinion, is much for their purpose; provided they meet with adversaries so weak as to let it so pass Year after the apo stles. over. XVI. I have produced all the modern learned men that I know of, that have thought that infantbaptism either was not from the beginning, or was not universal. And though I proposed to manage impartially, yet I hope no reader that is a pædobaptist will expect that I should do the like with those learned men that give their verdict for it. Instead of that, I must declare that all the rest that I have seen, that have occasion to speak of this matter, are of opinion, that the sayings of the Fathers are a sufficient evidence that it was always in use, and that as the general practice of the church of Christ. Indeed they will many of them say thus: that there may perhaps be produced here and there a singular instance of a person, that did omit it through carelessness, or some accident, &c., and that Tertullian also is an instance of one man that advised the delay of it till the age of reason, in case there appeared no danger of death in the meantime: and that this is ordinary in all customs, however allowed and established, that some one in an age happens to speak or act against them: and that a few such straggling instances are not to be esteemed of force sufficient to weaken the authority of a general rule. But it seems to me that the instances which the antipædobaptists give, of persons not baptized in infancy, though born of Christians, are not (if the matter of fact be true) so inconsiderable as this last plea would represent. stles. On the contrary, the persons they mention are SO CHAP. II. many, and such noted persons; that, (if they be all allowed.) it is an argument that leaving children unbaptized was no unusual, but a frequent and ordinary thing. For it is obvious to conclude, that if we can in so remote an age trace the practice of so many that did this; it is probable that a great many more, of whose birth and baptism we do not read, did the like. This I will own, that it seems to me the argument of greatest weight of any that is brought on the antipedobaptists' side in this dispute about antiquity. And I believe the reader has observed in the places I have last quoted, that it is that which has most prevailed, both with Strabo and Vives, to think it was once the general practice to leave infants unbaptized; and with Grotius, bishop Taylor, and the others, to think it was once counted indifferent. It deserves therefore not to be so slightly passed over; but if one had time and opportunity, to be thoroughly examined. The worst is, it is a business of a great deal of dust and tediousness, to search after the birth and parentage of so many men, (who, though they were eenspicuous persons, yet many of them sprang from obscure originals,) and not to be well done by any who has not a good library at hand. I have in my reading taken some observations of this matter, which I shall communicate in the next chapter. the apo stles. CHAP. III. Of those who are said to have been born of Christian Parents and yet not baptized till of Man's Age. Sect. I. An account of the Persons, and state of their Case. CHAP.III. I. THE instances of this that are commonl Year after given, are the five emperors mentioned before by Mr. Daillé, viz. Constantine, Constantius, Gratian Valentinian the Second, and Theodosius the First and also four noted persons of the Greek church, viz St. Basil, St. Gregory Nazianzen, Nectarius, and St. Chrysostom; and three of the Latin, St. Ambrose, St. Hierome, and St. Austin. Mr. Tombes mentions also Alypius and Adeodatus; one the friend, and the other the base son, of St. Austin and both baptized at the same time with him. Many of the pædobaptists make but weak answers to the argument that is drawn from the example of these men. They content themselves to say, that it was from some erroneous or corrupt principles, that many in those times thought fit to defer baptism a great while; and some till just before death either that they might gain a longer time for their lusts, or because they thought that wilful sins committed after baptism could not be forgiven. That many new converts did do this, is too plain; and is a thing grievously complained of by the preachers of those times: and the granting of it to be true does not at all affect the question in hand; which is not, whether adult persons did defer their own baptism: but whether such adult persons as were come to a full resolution of being Christians, |