2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that we affirme of this the same things which our divine officers of the Church being instructed by divine tradition have brought down unto us and again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our divine guides i. e. the Apostles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Maximus considering this appointed that infants should thus be admitted according to the sacred manner nothing can be more clear then that the Apostolical tradition is by this antient and elegant writer vouched for the baptizing of infants as a sufficient account of that matter against the reproaches and scoffes of profane or heathen men who deemed it unreasonable And so there is a most convincing testimonie for that time wherein that author wrote which must needs be in the fourth Century before Theodorus Presbyters debating the question concerning him but most probably more antient and so to be placed in this third age In the midst of this third age An. Chr. 248. was S. Cyprian made Bishop of Carthage and ten years after he suffered martyrdome i. e. 158 years after the age of the Apostles In the year 257 he sat in Councell with 66 Bishops see Justellus in his Preface to the African Canons p. 21. and their decrees by way of Synodical Epistle are to be seen in his Ep. 58. ad Fidum fratrem which is now among his works Pamel Edit p. 80. The Councell was in answer to some questions about baptisme and accordingly he there sets down his own opinion together with the decrees of that Councell of 66 Bishops which were assembled with him And so this as it is an antient so it is more then a single testimonie that of a whole Councell added to it and yet farther to increase the authority of it S. Augustine cites this Epistle more then once and sets it down almost intire as a testimony of great weight against heretikes and so t is cited by S. Hierome also l. 3. dial contr Pelag. In this Epistle the question being proposed by Fidus whether infants might be baptized the 2d or 3d day or whether as in circumcision the 8th day were not to be expected he answers in the name of the Councel Vniversi judicavimus t was the resolution or sentence of all nulli hominum nato misericordiam Dei gratiam denegandam that the mercy and grace of God was not to be denyed to any humane birth to my child though never so young by that phrase mercy and grace of God evidently meaning baptisme the rite of conveighing them to the baptized adding that t is not to be thought that this grace which is given to the baptized pro atate accipientium vel minor vel major tribuitur is given to them in a greater or lesse degree in respect of the age of the receivers and that God as he accepts not the person so nor the age of any confirming this by the words of S. Peter Act. 10. that none was to be called common or unclean and that if any were to be kept from baptisme it should rather be those of full age who have committed the greater sins and that seeing those when they come to the faith are not prohibited baptisme quanto magis prohiberi non debet infans qui recens natus nihil peccavit nisi quòd secundum Adam carnaliter natus contagium mortis antiqua primâ nativitate contraxit qui ad remissam peccatorum accipiendam hoc ipso faciliùs accedit quòd illi remittuntur non propria sed aliena peccata how much more ought not the infant to be forbidden who being new born hath no sin upon him but that which by his birth from Adam he hath contracted as soon as he was born who therefore should more easily be admitted to pardon because they are not his own but others sins which are then remitted to him Concluding that as none were by the decree of that Councel to be refused baptisme tum magis circa infantes ipsot recens natus observandum atque retinendum so this was the rather to be observed and retained about infants and new born children Thus much and more was the sentence of that antient Father and that Councel and as the occasion of that determination was not any antipaedobaptist doctrine there had no such then so much as lookt into the Church that we can hear of but a conceit of one that it should be deferr'd to the 8th day which was as much infancy as the first and so both parties were equally contrary to the Antipaedobaptists interests the condemned as well as the Judges so that it was no new doctrine that was then decreed or peculiar to S. Cyprian who had one singular opinion in the matter of baptisme appears also both by the concurrence of the whole Councel that convened with him and by the expresse words of Saint Augustine Ep. 28. ad Hieronym Beatus Cyprianus non aliquod decretum condens novum sed ecclesiae fidem firmissimam servans mox natum rite baptizari posse cum suis quibusdam coepiscopis censuit Blessed Cyprian saith he not making any new decree but keeping the faith of the Church most firme decreed with a set number of his fellow Bishops that a child new-born might fitly be baptized Which shewes it the resolution of that Father also that baptizing of Infants was the faith of the Church before Cyprians time not onely the opinion but the Faith which gives it the authority of Christ and his Apostles In the next or fourth Century about the year of Christ 370. flourished Gregorie Nazianzen and dyed in the year 389. who though he be by Mr. T. affirmed to dissuade from it but in case of necessity by reason of apparent danger of death will yet give an evident testimonie of the doctrin of the Church of that age in this matter In the 4th oration written on this subject of Baptisme having gone through all the ages of man to demonstrate a proposition premised by him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it belongs to every age and sort of life he at length comes to the consideration of infancy in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If thou hast an infant let not iniquity get time let it be sanctified certainly baptized in infancy let it in the tender age be consecrated to Gods spirit and whereas the heathens use amulets and charmes to secure their children 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do you give it the Trinity the Fathers the Sonne and the Holy Ghost in baptisme that great and good phylacterie or preservative A plain testimonie of the Churches doctrine at that time Afterwards in the same oration he returns to this matter again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what saith he will you say concerning those that are yet children and neither know the losse nor are sensible of the grace of baptisme shall we also baptize them And his answer is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Yes by all means if any danger presse t is
by their affirmations If he be I wonder why the uniforme consent of them that infants are to be baptized should not prevaile with him If he be not why doth he mention this as usefull in this matter But then 2dly It must be adverted that this one containing two quaestions in it 1. Whether this of initiating into the Covenant by baptisme were a Jewish custome 2. Whether from thence Christ derived this rite of baptizing of Christians The former of these was that which alone required proving the latter being of it self evident without farther probation supposing onely that the Fathers testified that to be Christ's institution of baptisme which we find to have been thus agreeable to the practice customary among the Jews As for example if it were made matter of doubt or question whether Christ derived the Censures of his Church from the Jews It will sure be a sufficient answer to the question if wee shall first find in the Jewish writers their customes of Excommunication and then from the Christian writers find the like records of the Christian custome from the institution of Christ and the practice of his Apostles 〈◊〉 down unto us For those two things being done what need we any Father's assistance or guidance to secure us that Christ derived and lightly changed this custome of Ecclesiasticall censures in his Church from what he found in the Jewish Sanhedrim In this matter 't is easy and obvious to object as M. T. here doth about baptisme that excommunication was a custome among other nations as well as the Jews the description of it among the Druids in Cesar's Commentaries being so famous and notorious to every man which yet will not sure prevaile with any reasonable man or make it necessary to produce the testimonies whether of Scriptures or Fathers that Christ took it not from the Druids but the Jewes The like might be instanced again in the institution of the Sacrament of the Lords Supper in the Jews postcoenium from which it is by light change deduced And so it is in this matter of baptisme the Jewish custome of baptizing not onely proselytes and their children but the Jewish natives I thought necessary to clear from the most competent witnesses of their customes the Talmud Gemara and Maimonides the soberest of their writers And so likewise in the second place the practice of the Christian Church as it is from Christ and his Apostles deduced and applied particularly to the Resolution of our Quaere to the baptizing of Infants I have cleared also from some footsteps of it in the Scripture it self and from the concordant testimony of the Fathers of the Church And having cleared these two particulars wherein all the difficulty consisted I need not sure inquire of the opinion of antiquity for the dependence betwixt these two or the derivation of one of them from the other the very lineaments and features acknowledging and owning this progenie to have come forth from that stock this stream to have been derived from that fountain without any testimonials to certifie it And yet 3dly After all this I demand whether Christ's words to Nicodemus Joh. 3. mentioned § 18. be not an evidence from Scripture it self of this very matter the derivation of the Christian from the Jewish baptisme when upon Christs discourse on that subject that except a man be regenerate of water and of the spirit he cannot enter into the kingdome of God and on occasion of Nicodemus's objection against this v. 9. Iesus answered Art thou a master in Israel and knowest not these things discernibly intimating that this his institution of baptisme was so agreeable to the Iewish customes of initiating and receiving into the Covenant by baptisme that a Rabbi among the Iews could not reasonably be imagined to be ignorant of it And if the baptisme of the Iews had as Mr. T. cites it out of Grotius its first original from the memorie of the deluge purging away the sins of the world then sure that place of S. Peter which affirms the Christian baptisme to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the antitype or transcript of Noah's deluge is an express testimony of it also And this I hope might be a competent account of this matter And yet after all this it is also clear that the Fathers in their discourses of baptisme do ordinarily lay the foundation of it in Moses or the baptisme of the Iews witness Gregory Nazianzen Or. 39. Seeing saith he it is the feast of Christ's baptisme let us philosophize discourse exactly of the difference of baptismes then after this preface entring on the discourse he thus begins 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Moses saith he baptized but in water and before this in the cloud and in the sea And then making that with S. Paul a type of the Christian baptisme he proceeds to Iohn's baptisme which saith he differed from the Mosaical in that it added Repentance to water 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Iohn also baptized but not Iudaically So before him Macarius Hom. 32. having mentioned the circumcision which was under the Law foresignifying the true circumcision of the heart annexes thereto 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the baptisme of the Law which saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a figure of true things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for there that washed the body but here the baptisme of the holy Ghost and of fire purgeth and washeth the polluted mind and so goes on to the parallel betwixt the legall Priest and Christ making the same accord betwixt the one and the other pair So Hom. 47. p. 509. speaking of things under the Law he first mentions the glory of Moses face a type of the true glory under the Gospel 2. Circumcision a type of that of the heart 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among them there is baptisme cleansing or sanctifying the flesh but with us the baptisme of the holy Spirit and of fire that which John preached The same is intimated again but not so explicitely set down Hom. 26. p. 349. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Peter succeeded Moses having the New Church of Christ and the true Priesthood committed to him for now is the baptisme of fire and the Spirit and a kind of circumcision placed in the heart where it seems the Iewish baptisme was the figure of the Christian as the Jâ—wish priesthood of the Christian and the Jewish circumcision of the circumcision in the heart So in Athanasius's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 qu 103. numbring up seven sorts of Baptisme the first even now mentioned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that of the flood for the cutting off of sin the second that of Moses in passing the Red sea which he calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 figurative the third is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the legall baptisme 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Hebrews had whereby every unclean person so is every one by nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was baptized in water had his
better they should be sanctified baptized when they have no sense of it then that they should dy unsealed uninitiated adding for proof of this the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 circumcision on the eighth day which was saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an initial seal and yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 used to those that had no use of reason and in a lower degree the anointing of the posts which were insensible also was yet a means of saving the first-born After this t is true that he proceeds to consider those children that are not in any danger of death and of them he gives his opinion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the style which S. Paul useth when he speaks his own sense as that is other from the revealed will of Christ that staying about three years at which time they may be taught to answer somewhat though they understand it not perfectly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by this means they may be baptized souls and bodies by this great Sacrament of initiation But of this 1. It is is clear that it no way prejudges the doctrine and practice of the Church formerly set down and approved by him that infant children indefinitely considered might be baptized and if danger approched must how young soever they were which is as contrary to the Antipaedobaptist and so to Mr. T. as any thing 2dly That it is but his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or private opinion pretending not so much as to any part of the Church of that or former ages to authorize it 3dly That the state of children being so weak and uncertain that t is hard to affirme of any that they are not for the first three years in any danger his counesl for deferring will hardly be ever practicable to any 4thly That the deferring of which Nazianzen speaks is most probably to be understood of those whose parents are newly converted and themselves doubt whether they shall be yet baptized or no for to such he speaks in that place from p. 654. A. Lastly That the deferring till three years old if it were allowed would no way satisfie the Antipaedobaptists praetensions and so still the former passages ought be of force with all and no heed given to the whispers of Mr. T. and others as if this holy Father dissuaded baptisme in any age unlesse in case of danger when he clearly saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let him in the tenderest age be baptized and consecrated to the Spirit In the same Century S. Ambrose must be placed being a writer about the year 380. he in his 10th Book Ep. 84. ad Demetriad Virg. speaking of those that made Adams sin no otherwise hurtfull to posterity then by the example exemplo non transitu noâ—uisse he presseth it with this principal absurdity Hinc evacuatio baptismatis parvulorum this evacuates the baptisme of infants which should then be capable of adoption onely but not of pardon And in like manner on Luke by Jordans being driven back saith he are signified the mysteries of baptisme per quae in primordia naturae suae qui baptizati fuerint parvuli à malitia reformantur by which the little ones that are baptized are reformed from their malignity to the first state of their nature In the beginning of the next or fift age flourished S. Chrysostome that famous Bishop of Constantinople whose death is placed in the year of Christ 407. he in his homilie to the Neophyti hath these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for this cause i. e. because there be so many benefits of baptisme there recited ten in number we baptize children though they have not sins Which words are the more worth remembring because they had the hap to be made use of by the Pelagians and consequently vindicated by S. Augustine The Pelagians urged them in this forme Hac de causa etiam infantes baptizâ—mus cum non sint coinquinati peccato for this cause we baptize infants when they are not polluted with sin understanding it of original sin but S. Augustine appealing to the Greek shewed that the right rendring was quamvis peccata non habentes although they had not sins i. e. propria their own or actual sins of which these infants were not supposed to have any So in his 4th Homilie on Genesis speaking of baptisme as of the Christian circumcision among other things he affirmes of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it hath no determinate time but 't is lawful both in the first age the childhood so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies with him else where applied to the time of circumcision on the 8th day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in the middle and in old age it self to receive this circumcision made without hands In the same Centurie very few years after if not before Chrysostome S. Hierome must be placed born in the year 342. and deceased in the year 420. And he in Ep. 7. to Laeta telling her that whilest the child was yong and not come to Pythagoras's Y. the bivium or two wayes the knowledge of good and evil tam bona ejus quà m mala parentibus imputantur his good or evil deeds are imputed to the parents addes that this must needs be acknowledged nisi forte existimas Christianorum filios si baptisma non receperint ipsos tantùm reos esse peccati non etiam scelus referri ad eos qui dare noluerint maximè illo tempore quo contradicere non poterant qui accepturi erant sicut è regione salus infantum majorum lucrum est Vnlesse saith he you believe that Christians children if they receive not baptisme are the onely persons that are guilty of the sin and that the offence is not charged on them which would not bring them to baptisme at that time especially wherein they that were to receive could not contradict as on the other side the salvation of infants is the gain of the elder adding that the parent which was thus to prepare his child for the Kings i. e. Christs embraces si negligens fuerit punietur shall if he be negligent therein be punished Words of no very conformable aboad to the opposers of Paedobaptisme I wish Mr. T. who thinks fit to make use of S. Hieromes name it now appears how luckily would be at leisure to consider them So lib. 3. contr Pelag. the question being asked by Crito Quare infantuli baptizentur why infants are baptized the answer is made by Atticus Vt eis peccata in baptismate dimittantur that their sins may be pardoned in baptisme and again qui parvulus est parentis in baptismo vinculo solvitur the infant is freed in baptisme from the band of Adams sin Paulinus we know was his Contemporarie and from him we have this testimonie Ep. 12. Inde parens sacro ducens de fontâ— sacerdos Infantes niveos corpore corde habitu The Priest brings the infants out of the font white as snow in body in heart