CHAP.IIL knows whom they mean for as some of those Year after names have had several persons called by them, so some have had none at all that I know of.

the apo

stles.

What I have to add in this second edition to this and the foregoing chapter is, that whereas one Mr. Delaune" an antipædobaptist, in a 'Plea for Non'conformists,' written in king Charles II.'s time, had heaped together a great number of quotations out of modern authors, who had reported the ancient opinions or usages to be, in any respect whatsoever, different from the tenets or usages of the church of England; and among the rest had brought in at p. 11. all that he could rake together against infantbaptism, (taking them, I suppose, out of Danvers,) viz. the sayings of bishop Taylor, Grotius, Lud. Vives, Daillé, Dr. Field, Mr. Baxter, Walafrid Strabo, Boemus; which among several others I recited in the last chapter: and whereas there were none of these quotations about infant-baptism, or the other subjects, but had been considered and answered by learned men of the church, (though not in any particular answer to Delaune's pamphlet, but on other occasions,) and consequently, unless the nonconformists could produce some new matter, there seemed to have been said all that was necessary to restore peace and union: now the other day, a certain busy writer, for dissension, instead of offering any new thing, reprinted Delaune's" book, with a

"De Laune's Plea for the Nonconformists; shewing the true state of their case, &c., in a letter to Dr. B. Calamy, upon his sermon called Scrupulous Conscience:' to which is added a parallel scheme of the Pagan, Papal, and Christian rites and ceremonies. With a narrative of the remarkable tryal and sufferings underwent for writing, printing, and publishing here

pompous preface, as a piece that never was an- CHAP.III. swered, a finished piece,' &c., which called for answer from the churchmen,

an year after

As for infant-baptism; there is not one word or quotation in it, but what had been fully answered: nor, as I think, on any other subject. Now at this rate, we must never be at quiet; if after objections fully proposed, and all of them publicly answered, the method be, instead of a fair reply, to reprint in a challenging way the very same objections again.

The reason I have to think that he took all the quotations he has against infant-baptism, out of Danvers, is, because where Danvers has mixed any forgery of his own with the quotation, there Delaune has done the like. As they do both quote Grotius in Matt. xix. 14. in the same words, but forged ones: where they make him say, Infantbaptism for many hundred years was not ordinary in the Greek church;' and where they make him speak of Constantine as an instance against infantbaptism; which he was never ignorant enough to do.

of; by Thomas Delaune, who died in Newgate during his imprisonment for this book. Printed twenty years ago; but being seized by the messenger of the press, was afterwards burnt by the common hangman: and is now reprinted from the author's original copy; and published by a protestant dissenter, who was the author's fellow-prisoner at the time of his death, for the cause of Non-conformity.-4to. London, 1704. p. 66. There appears to be a second reprint, 12m0. 1712.]

the apo

stles.

CHAP.IV.

the apo

stles.

CHAP. IV.

Of the Church of the ancient Britons.

And of some ancient Sects, viz. the Novatians and the Donatists; which are by some thought to have been Antipedobaptists. And of the Arians.

§. I. ABOUT twenty-six years ago, a certain anYear after tipædobaptist writer lighted upon an argument to prove, as he thought, the ancient Christians in Britain, before the coming in of the English, to have been against infant-baptism. It is an evidence how great mistakes may arise from the misprinting of two or three words in a book; and that, in a book of so little regard as Fabian's Chronicle. The account of the matter is this:

631.

Venerable Bede wrote, in the year 731, the Church History of the English nation:' and tells 500. how Austin the Monk, after having made some progress in planting Christianity among the English, made a proposal to the Britons, desiring them to join in communion with him and his new converts, and to assist in converting the English to the Christian faith. But whereas the Britons held and practised rites and traditions, in many things different from those that he then brought from the church of Rome, he insisted that they should leave off their own, and comply with his ceremonies and customs. This they refused. And, after many alterations, he at last made them this final proposal; You practise in many things contrary to our cus'tom, and indeed contrary to the custom of the universal church. And yet if you will comply with 'me in these three things; that you keep Easter at

x Danvers, Treatise of Baptism, part ii. ch. 7.

stles.

'the right time: that you perform the office of bap- CHAP.IV. tizing (by which we are regenerated unto God) Year after according to the custom of the holy Roman church the apo and the apostolic church; and that you together with us do preach the word of the Lord to the nation of the English: we will bear patiently, with all the other things which you practise contrary to our customs. But they answered, that they would do none of these things, nor own him for their archbishop,' &c.

This same passage is related by several others of our English historians in the after-ages, who taking it from Bede relate it to the same sense.

And among the rest, one Fabian (a sheriff or alderman of London in king Henry the Seventh's time, as I take it) wrote a Chronicle of the English history, in English. There are two editions of his 1400. book, which I have seen in the Oxford library. There may be more: in one of them (which is the first, I know not: I think the titlepage in one was torn) his words are to the same sense as Bede's, being these; at fol. 56. b. Then he sayde to them,

Sen ye woll not assent to my hestes generally, assent ye to me specially in thre thynges: the firste is, that ye kepe Esterday in due fourme and tyme as it is ordeygned. The seconde that ye give

y Bedæ Eccl. Hist. lib. ii. c. 2.

2

[The editions of Fabian's Chronicle are as follows:

1. Printed by Pynson, in 1516. fol.

The passage quoted is found at part i, ch. 119. It is read in full, as given by Wall, in the first and second editions: in the fourth it is curtailed. The third I have not met with.]

CHAP.IV. Cristendome to the children in the manner that is

Year after

the apostles.

used in the chyrche of Rome. And the thyrde, that ye preche unto the Anglis the worde of 'God,' &c.

6

But in the other, these words in the manner that is used in the chyrche of Rome' are omitted: so that the condition stands thus, that ye give Chris6 tendom to the children.' And this last mentioned edition our author having lighted on, concluded that the British church before these times had not been used to give Christendom to, or baptize children.

But he should have considered, that the account of such a thing should be taken from Bede and the other ancient historians; and not from Fabian: especially since Fabian in his preface acknowledges, (as Mr. Wills says a, for I did not read that,) that what he relates of the ancient affairs, he has from Bede and consequently his meaning must be to express Bede's sense: and so that edition first mentioned must be as he meant it, and the omission in the other must have been by mistake, of himself, or the printer.

Fox, and other authors that have wrote since Fabian, recite the matter as Bede does.

This argument taken from Fabian is endeavoured to be confirmed by some other collateral ones: of which none is worth the mentioning, but that from Constantine's being born among the Britons, and yet not baptized in infancy. And that is not worth

a Infant-Baptism asserted, p. 124. [As Wills' book has the paging misplaced in a singular manner; the numbers running thus, 1-96; 1-40; 97-288: 89-96; 37-159; observe that the passage referred to occurs on signature Iii 2.]

b Martyrology, at the year 600.