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and were accordingly baptized themselves, did use CHAP.III. to baptize their children in infancy or not. And to Year after grant this latter, that they who were once baptized, the apodid frequently use to let their children grow up without baptism, is to weaken, in great measure, the argument for infant-baptism that is drawn from the practice of these ancients. For if many did omit it, though upon erroneous grounds, the argument from the general practice is lost.

But some others have attempted a better answer, by shewing these instances, or some of them, to be mistakes: and that not all the persons mentioned were born of Christian parents; particularly Constantine and Austin have been excepted; as it was indeed easy to shew that those two ought to be. I shall make some particular search concerning each of them.

And the thing to be inquired concerning each of them, is:

1st. Whether his baptism were delayed till years of age. And if so, then,

2dly, Whether his parents were baptized Christians at the time of his birth. I say, baptized: because it was, as I said before, a very common thing for men in those times to be Christians in their intention, and in their conscience, i. e. they were convinced that that was the truth, and did resolve some time or other to be baptized into it; and yet did put this off from time to time, (as lukewarm men do nowadays their repentance, or their receiving the other sacrament,) knowing that baptism would engage them to a very strict course of life. And in this state many lived for a long time after their conversion: being in some sense Christians, WALL, VOL. II.

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the apo

CHAP.III. i. e. they declared for that religion as the truth, Year after they favoured it, they spoke for it, and in many things lived according to the rules of it; but for all that, were not as yet baptized, and so not accounted, in the phrase of those times, fideles, faithful, or brethren.

stles.

These men, while they were in this state, had oftentimes children born to them: and for such, it cannot be expected that they should bring their children to baptism, before they could find in their heart to be baptized themselves.

Also many such children, (being not baptized in their infancy, because their parents, though believers, were not yet baptized,) when they grew up, delayed their baptism, as their fathers had done; and so the mischief was continued. To these it often happened that they were instructed from their youth in the Christian religion, and yet not baptized. Of such St. Basil speaks in the place cited, part i. ch. 12. §. 3, 4.

Therefore you see I had reason to say that our inquiry is of infants born of parents that were at that time baptized Christians. And that is all that any pædobaptist would have to be done now, viz. that when any man is baptized himself, he should baptize his infant children.

Mr. Walker, endeavouring to shew that the instances brought by the antipædobaptists do them no service, because the ancients that delayed their children's baptism, did it not on the same principles that they do now, viz. of the unlawfulness of it; reckons up several reasons which moved some formerly to delay the baptism of their children: whereof the first is doubtless a plain and true one, viz.

That some were as yet heathens themselves, when CHAP III. • their children were born; and no marvel if they year after • would not make their children Christians,' &c.) stles. And the same is the case of such as, though in heart and purpose Christians when their children were born, yet kept off from being baptized 9.' But he gives three reasons more, for which some that were baptized themselves might delay the baptizing of their children.

Any reader would, from what he says, conclude or suspect that many did this; at least that for these three reasons there were an account of three persons that had done it. But upon search, I believe, it will appear that there is no proof of so many as three; and that there is but one, viz. the father of Gregory Nazianzen, that makes an instance for this: and he not a plain one; for it depends on an obscure point in chronology, whether the son were born before his father's Christianity, or after?

In making this inquiry, I shall begin with empeOf whom it is proper to note, that whereas Mr. Daillé having, as I cited before, spoke of the frequent deferring the baptism of children and of other people, names the emperors; I suppose he means them among the other people, not among the children whose baptism was deferred. For all take him to be a man of another pitch of reading, than that he should think Constantine's father, for example, to have been a Christian. But the antipedobaptists take this from him; and they understand it so, and do very tenaciously maintain that it

was so.

4 Preface to Modest Plea for Infants' Baptism.

CHAP.III.

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§. 2. Of Constantine and Constantius his son; that they were not born of baptized parents. I. That Constantine was not baptized in infancy, but, on the contrary, in his old age, is a plain case. Eusebius, who was familiar with him, tells us when and how it was, viz. that when he thought himself near death, he went to Nicomedia, and having assembled the bishops in the suburbs of that city, he spoke thus to them;'

This is the time which I have long expected, ' with earnest desire and prayers, to obtain the sal⚫vation of God. It is time that I also should enjoy the badge of immortality; time that I should be 'made partaker of the seal of salvation. I purposed once to receive it in the waters of the river Jordan, in which our Saviour is recorded to have been baptized for our example. But God, who knows what is fittest for me, is pleased to grant it me now in this place. Therefore let me not be de'layed: for if he that is Lord both of life and death, be pleased to continue my life in this world, and if he have determined that I shall any longer hold assemblies with the people of God, and shall once in the church communicate in the prayers together with the congregation; I will hencefor'ward keep myself to such courses of life as become ' a servant of God.'

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This he spake. And they performing the cere*monies, put in execution the Divine ordinance, and made him partaker of the unspeakable gift, requiring of him the professions that are usual. And 'so Constantine, the only man of all the emperors 'that ever were, being regenerated by Christ's ordiDe Vita Constantini, lib. iv. c. 62.

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*nance, was initiated; and being made partaker of CHAP.III. the Divine seal, he rejoiced in spirit, and was year after * renewed and filled with the Divine light,' &c.

It is not material to mention the story which Nicephorus, a thousand years after, sets on foot; that he was baptized at Rome, by pope Sylvester, near the beginning of his reign: because it is all one to our purpose. Baronius greedily embraces this latter account; I suppose, because it makes for the credit of the church of Rome, and helps to dress up the fable of the donation. But Perron, Petavius and others forsake him in this, as being too improbable, since it was so lately invented.

II. But since both by the one and the other of these accounts he was not baptized in infancy; we must inquire of the religion of his parents; and first of his father Constantius Chlorus.

To think that Constantine, whose name all people, both learned and unlearned, remember by the token that he was the first Christian emperor, (at least of his race,) should have a Christian emperor to his father, does appear so great and so palpable a blunder; that any one would pass a severe censure on it, were it not that the learned Camden has let drop an expression sounding that way. He having occasion, in his account of the city of York, to speak of Constantius, the father of Constantine, calls him an excellent emperor, endowed with all moral and Christian virtues,--after his death ⚫ deified, as appears by the old coins"."

t Ad annum 324.

s Hist. Eccl. lib. vii. c. 33. [Camden's Britannia, by Gibson, p. 880, edit. 1722.-Vol. n. p. 99. edit. 1772.-Compare Gough's edition, fol. 1789, vol. i. p. 10.]

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