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A26959 More proofs of infants church-membership and consequently their right to baptism, or, A second defence of our infant rights and mercies in three parts ... / by Richard Baxter. Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691. 1675 (1675) Wing B1312; ESTC R17239 210,005 430

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to collect the Printers Errata though I see divers and therefore must leave the discerning of them to your selves And I again admonish and intreat you that the detection of the extraordinary falshoods and blind temerarious audacity of Mr. D. be not imputed to the whole Rebaptizing party to whose Practice Gregor Magn. paralleleth Reordaining and that his crimes abate not your Christian Love and tenderness to others there being truly Godly wise and peaceable persons worthy of our Communion and willing of it of that party as well as of others Hearken not to them that would render the Party of Anabaptists odious or intolerable no more than to those Anabaptists who would perswade those of their opinion to renounce Communion with all others as unbaptized It is against this dividing spirit on all sides that I Write and Preach PART I. My private Letters to Mr. Tombes proving the Church-membership of Infants in all ages vindicated from his unsatisfactory exceptions The PREFACE § 1. THE occasion and time of these Letters is long ago published by Mr. Tombes himself in the third Part of his Anti-Paedobaptism page 353. and forward where he printeth the said Letters without my consent Had I found his Answers satisfactory I had changed my judgement and retracted that and other such writings long ago But I thought so much otherwise of them that I judged it not necessary nor worth my diverting from better employment to write an answer to them § 2. And whatever the singular judgement of that learned and excellent Professor of Theology mentioned in his Preface was or is concerning the arguments that I and many before and since have used for Infant Baptism and notwithstanding his opinion that it was introduced in the second Century c. yet so many wiser and better men than I think otherwise both of the cause and of Mr. T 's writings that I hope the modest will allow me the honour of having very good company if I should prove mistaken § 3. No sober Christian will deny but that Godly men of both opinions may be saved And then I think no such Christian that is acquainted with the History of the Church can choose but think that there are now in Heaven many thousands if not hundred thousands that were not against Infant Baptism for one that was against it And while we differ de jure yet without great ignorance of the state of the world we must needs agree that de facto the number in the Church of Christ in all Nations and Ages that have been against Infant Baptism hath been so small as that they make up but a very little part of the Church triumphant which though I take for no proof of the truth of our opinion yet I judge it a great reason to make me and others very fearful of turning rashly and without cogent proof to the other side I know the Churches have still had their blemishes but that they should all universally so err in the subject of Baptism and Christianity it self is not to be believed till it be proved § 4. Though Christ be not the Author of any of our errors he is the healer of them and he is the Effector as well as the Director of his Churches faith and holiness And yet to say that though thousands or hundred thousands are in Heaven that were for Infant Baptism for one that was against it yet Christ was against even such a constitutive part of his Church as accounted is not to be received without good proof § 5. For my part I must still say that after all that I have read for the Anabaptists and much more than such Catalogues as Mr. Danvers I do not at present remember that I have read of any one Christian that held the baptizing of Infants unlawful in many and many hundred years after Christ at least not any that denied not Original sin Though indeed the Pelagians themselves that did deny it much yet denied not Infant Baptism § 6. But of this enough heretofore I lay not my faith on the number of Consenters but in a doubtful case I think the way that almost all went that are in Heaven and took it as the very entrance of the door of life is safer caeteris paribus than that which few in Heaven did own And though on earth I have more approvers than Mr. T. I think mans approbation so poor a comfort as that I am sorry to read in his Preface and elsewhere how much he layeth upon it Alas were it not more for the good of others than our selves how inconsiderable a matter were it whether men value and honour or despise us and what we are thought or said of by each other when we are all on the borders of eternity where the honour of this world is of no signification § 7. In the answer which I must give to Mr. Tombes should I transcribe all his words and answer every impertinent passage I should needlesly weary the Reader and my self I will therefore suppose the Reader to have his Book at hand and to take his words as he hath given him them that I may not be blamed as concealing any of them And I shall answer to nothing but what seemeth to me to need an answer And for all the rest I am content that the impartial Reader judge of them as he findeth them For I write not for such as need an answer to every word that is written how frivolous soever against plain truth Mr. Tombes his first Letter SIR NOt finding yet that Law or Ordinance of Infants visible Church-membership which you assert in your book of Baptism to be unrepealed I do request you to set down the particular Text or Texts of Holy Scripture where you conceive that Law or Ordinance is written and to transmit it to me by this bearer that your allegations may be considered by him who is April 3. 1655. Yours as is meet John Tombes Richard Baxters Answer Sir I mean to see more said against what I have already written before I will write any more about Infant Baptism without a more pressing call than I yet discern I have discharged my Conscience and shall leave you and yours to take your course And indeed I do not understand the sense of your Letter because you so joyn two questions in one that I know not which of the two it is that you would have me answer to Whether there were any Ordinances or Law of God that Infants should be Church-members is one question Whether this be repealed is another you joyn both into one For the first that Infants were Church-members as you have not yet denied that I know of so will I not be so uncharitable as to imagine that you are now about it And much less that you should have the least doubt whether it were by Gods Ordination There are two things considerable in the matter First the benefit of Church-membership with all the consequent priviledges It is the
16. It is a foolish pretence of peaceableness and quietness to stand by in silence for fear of our own or others trouble and see well-meaning people seduced Christ and his truth and name abused and God dishonoured and his Churches shaken and made a scorn and scandal to the world and all for fear of being accounted contentious If it be lukewarm as they say themselves to hear dayly swearers cursers scorners and such other prophane sinners and not give them a close reproof or admonition so much more is it to see or hear hurtful falshoods published as the precious truths of God and not to contradict it nor endeavour to save mens souls from the infection If Satans work must be done without resistance as oft as a mistaken well-meaning man will do it there will be little safety for the flocks § 17. When Paul fore-told the Ephesians of two sorts that would assault them viz. Grievous devouring wolves and men arising among themselves that would speak perverse things to draw away disciples after them his conclusion is Therefore watch And what that watching is he tells Timothy The mouths of such deceivers must be stopped not by force for that Timothy had no power to do but by evident truth And Truth hath a power in its evidence if it be but rightly opened and managed And were it not that God in all ages had enabled some of his servants faithfully and clearly to vindicate truth and defend sound doctrine and hold fast the form of wholesome words and stop the mouth of ignorant pride that wrangleth against them what had become of us long agoe And though ill disputes have done much mischief and too often disputing succedeth more according to the Parts interests or advantages of the Disputers than according to the evidence of truth Yet for all such abuses Truth must be defended and it findeth something even in nature as bad as man is to befriend it few love a plain falshood unless where interest greatly bribeth them And upon tryal Truth will at last prevail where sin doth not provoke God in judgement to leave men to the delusions which they chuse § 18. If then the way be to Teach and Learn and quietly open the evidence of truth and in meekness to instruct those that oppose themselves and to avoid contentions as we avoid wars till other mens ass●ults do make them unavoidably necessary and yet not to be cowardly betrayers of the Truth and Church of God nor suffer Satan to deceive men unresisted but earnestly to contend for the faith once delivered to the Saints It must be considered I. To whom this earnest contending may be used II. And by whom § 19. I. We must not be over sharp or earnest 1. With those that are yet strangers to Religion of whose conversion there is hope and who are liker to be won by a gentler way which more demonstrateth love and tenderness 2 Tim. 2.25 26. § 20. 2. Nor with Godly Christians who fall into such sins of infirmity as we are lyable to and whose tenderness maketh compassionate tender dealing fittest to their recovery Gal. 6.1 2 3. § 21. 3. Nor with humbled dejected Christians who are apter than we to aggravate their own faults and have need of comfort to restrain their sorrows and keep them from despair 2 Cor. 2.7 § 22. 4. Nor with sinners that under conversion and repentance are humbling themselves by confession to God and man Luk. 15. Philem. 10 16 17. § 23. 5. Nor with Christians that differ from us in tolerable matters and manage their differences but with tolerable infirmities not hazarding the safety of the Church or mens souls § 24. But in these cases we must use plainness sharpness and earnestness 1. When in secret where mens honour with others is not concerned it is necessary to mens convict●on and repentance 1. Because of the Greatness of the sin or error which will not be known if it be not truly opened and aggravated 2. Or by reason of the hard-heartedness or obstinacy of the sinner that will not be convinced or humbled by easier means § 25. 2. And when we are called so to admonish a publick sinner for his crimes or heresies which must be opened as they are before he will be convinced and humbled openly before the Church § 26. 3. And when the people or Church is in danger of being infected by the sin or error if the evil of it be not fully and plainly opened and the sinner rebuked before all that others may beware § 27. 4. When the offender or heretick sheweth us by his obstinacy that we have no cause to expect his cure and conviction but are only to defend Gods truth and mens souls against him then he must be used as Christ did the Pharisees and as Rulers execute malefactors not for their own good but for the warning of others and preservation of the innocent § 28. 5. And when our gentle speeches tend to scandalize those without and make them think that we prevaricate and favour Christians in their sins § 29. All these cases you may see proved 1. In Nathans dealing with David and Christs with Peter Matth. 16. and Pauls Gal. 2. c. 2. In Pauls dealing with the incestuous man 1 Cor. 5. and Peters with Ananias and his wife 1 Tim. 5.20 Them that sin rebuke before all c. 2 Tim. 4.2 Tit. 1.13 Rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith cuttingly Tit. 2.15 Rebuke with all authority especially when we deal with Inferiors who must be humbled Tit. 3.10 11. Mat. 23. throughout And Eli's gentleness or remisness is our warning § 30. II. And as to the persons who must use this sharpness and earnestness against errors and sinners in contending for the faith 1. It is not those who overvalue their own conceptions and grow fond of all that is peculiarly their own and insolently take all men to be enemies to truth and faith and godliness who are adversaries to their odd opinions 2. Nor must inferiors rise up with insolency against superiors or the young against their elders and the ignorant against the wife on pretence of a zealous standing for the truth Though they may humbly and modestly defend that which is truth indeed 3. Nor should unstudyed Christians presently think hardly of any party and backbite them and inveigh against them because their Leaders call them hereticks or reproach them as erroneous dangerous men as almost all parties do against each other 4. Nor should those Ministers who have not a through insight into a Controversie meddle much with it nor be too forward to reprove and reproach where they do not understand nor to undertake disputes which they cannot manage 5. But as God doth indow men with various gifts if each man were imployed according to his talent all would have their honour and comfort and the Church the benefit of them all § 31. We have notoriously all these sorts of Ministers in the
not receive them though we approve not of their way § 30. And were it in my power as a Pastor of the Church I would give satisfaction by such an answerable profession as this Though it be our judgement that Infants have ever been members of Gods visible Church since he had a Church and there were Infants in the world and do believe that Christ hath signified in the Gospel that it is his gracious will that they should still be so And that he that commanded Mat. 28.19 Go ye and Disciple all Nations Baptizing them would have his Ministers endeavour accordingly to do it and hath hereby made Baptism the regular orderly way of solemn entrance into a visible Church state and therefore we devote this child to God in the Baptismal Covenant Yet we do also hold that when he cometh to age it will be his duty as seriously and devoutly to make this Covenant with God understandingly himself and to dedicate himself to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as those must do that never were Baptized in Infancie And we promise to endeavour faithfully as we have opportunity to instruct and perswade him so to do hoping that this his early Baptismal dedication and obligation to God will rather much prepare him for it than hinder it § 31. Me thinks these Professions should put off the chief matter of offence and exception against each other as to the ill consequents of our opinions And if sober good men would by such a mutual approach be the more disposed to live together in love and holy peace how easily should I bear the scorns of those Formalists that will reproach me for so much as motioning a Peace with the Anabaptists even in the same Communion Who by making it a reproach will but perswade me that such as they are less worthy of Christian Communion than sober pious and peaceable Anabaptists § 32. And if with the partial sort of themselves such motions of Peace be turned into matter of contempt and they proceed in their clamours and reviling of me as an enemy of the truth for being against their way I shall account it no wonder nor matter of much provocation finding in all Sects as well as theirs that the injudicious sort are apt to be abusively censorious and the more mens Pride Ignorance and uncharitableness remain the more they will swell into self-conceit and trouble the Church with a mistaking wrangling hurtful sort of zeal § 33. And as I must needs believe as ill of some sort of Zeal as St. James hath spoken of it Jam. 3. and experience hath too long told the world of it yet I take it for truly amiable in men that they have a love and Zeal for Truth in general and a hatred to that which they think to be against it and that their bitterness against the truth and me is upon a supposition that both are against the truth and God for this beareth them witness that they have a zeal of God though it be not according to Knowledge and if they knew truth indeed they would be zealous for it § 34. I conclude with this notice to the contrary minded that the evidence for Infants Church-membership seemeth to me so clear both in nature and in Scripture that I bid them despair of ever perswading me against it But if they will have any hope of changing my judgement it must be by confessing the visible Church-membership of Infants and proving that yet they are not to be baptized and that Baptism was appointed for initiating none but adult converts and not to be the common entrance into the Church which yet I think they can never do while the plain Law of Christ Mat. 29.19 and the exposition of the universal Church doth stand on record to confute such an opinion But here they have more room for a dispute § 35. But though I expect to be censured for it I will say once because truth is truth that though Rebaptizing and Reordaining are justly both condemned by the ancient Churches and pronounced alike ridiculous by Gregory Mag. Lib. 2. Ep. Indict 11. c. 46. and many others yet were men Rebaptized but for Certainty to themselves or to the Church and to quiet their consciences and on such terms as in my Christian Directory I have shewed that a seeming Reordination might in some cases be tolerated and would not wrong Infants nor make it an occasion of division or alienation I know not by any Scripture or reason that such Rebaptizing is so heinous a sin as should warrant us to contemn our brethren No though it were as faulty as the oft commemorative baptizing used by the Abassines CHAP. III. A General View of Mr. Danvers book § 1. MR. Danvers book is entitled a Treatise of Baptism in which he giveth us the History of Infant and Adult Baptism out of Antiquity as making it appear that Infant Baptism was not practised for 300 years in his second edit it is near 300. And in his Append ed. 2. I cannot find that it was practised upon any till the fourth Century And he giveth us a Catalogue of witnesses against it By which those that hold their Religion on the belief of such mens words will conclude that all this is true and that Infant Baptism is a Novelty and those that are against it do go the old and Catholick way § 2. Having perused his testimonies on both sides I am humbled and ashamed for the dulness of my heart that doth not with floods of compassionate tears lament the pittiful condition of the seduced that must be thus deceived in the dark and of the Churches of Christ that must be thus assaulted and shaken and distracted by such inhumane horrid means The book being composed in that part of history which the stress of the cause lyeth on of such UNTRUTHS in fact and history as I profess it one of my greatest difficulties to know how to call them Should I say that they are so notorious and shameless as that I say not only a Papist but any sober Turk or Pagan should blush to have been guilty but of some page or line● of them and much more a man of any tenderness of conscience the Readers would think that the language were harsh were it never so true and some would say Let us have soft words and hard arguments And should I not tell the Reader the truth of the case I might help to betray him into too much fearlesness of his bait and snare and I doubt I may be guilty of untruth by concealing the quality of his untruths And it is not matter of Argument but fact that I am speaking of § 3. But it pleaseth that God whose counsels are unsearchable as to permit five parts of the Earth to remain yet strangers unto Christ so to permit his Church to be so tryed and distracted between Church Tyranny and dividing separations Sects and parties as that in many ages it hath not been easie to
eight Copies in England which omit twenty three of the Epistles which are commonly received and it 's most credible by other Copies are Genuine And yet none of these leave out the Epistle to Fidus about Infant-baptism § 57. And whereas he saith that Cyprian urged not Tradition I answer there was no cause For the question was not whether Infants should be baptized much less whether they were to be dedicated in Covenant to God and to be Church-members but only whether they should be baptized before the eighth day For Fidus thought that at one two or three days old they were so unclean as made them unmeet for baptism and that the eighth day was the time of their purification which Cyprian and the sixty six Bishops confuted and shewed that Gods mercy accepteth them from the beginning without respect to legal days And what use was here for a plea from Tradition for Infant-baptism which was not denied § 58. And it seems to me to be a great evidence that the Tradition of the Church was then for it in that this Council of Bishops before true Popery was born so unanimously determine of the day or time and not one of them no nor Fidus himself that raised the doubt did so much as raise any scruple or question about Infant-baptism it self at all which sure they would have done on such an occasion if any or many Christians or any Churches had denied it No wonder therefore if Augustin so long after say that no Christian taketh it to be in vain § 59. Yet again I will confess that the words of Tertullian and Nazianzen shew that it was long before all were agreed of the very time or of the necessity of baptizing Infants before any use of Reason in case they were like to live to maturity For I am perswaded that the Apostles and first Ministers were so taken up with the Converting of Infidels Jews and Gentiles that the case of Infant-baptism was so postponed and taken but as an Appendix to the baptism of the adult as that it was thought less needful to give it a particular express mention in the Records and History of the Church The Churches made no question of Infants Church-membership as being undoubtedly in the promise and devoted to God by all faithful parents And they took not baptism at first for their first Covenanting or Consent but for the solemnization of it and so not for Infants first real state of relation to Christ and right to life which was before it as it was to believers before baptism but for the solemn investiture in those rights And so Greg. Nazian Or. 40. giveth this brief definition of baptism that it is nothing else but a Covenant made with God for a new and purer kind of life And hereupon many who thought Infants Church-members visible and safe upon their Parents Covenant consent thought that the time of solemnization was so far left to prudence as that as the Israelites did Circumcision in the wilderness it might be delayed a few years by such Parents as desired it till children could somewhat answer for themselves § 60. Yet after my review of this controversie upon their urgencie I find no proof brought by any of these men that ever one Church in the world was without Infant-members that had Infants nor one person in the Church against Infant Church-membership and baptism from Christs days till the Waldenses about eleven hundred or a thousand years except that Tertullian who took them for Innocent and therefore Church-members did in some case advise the delay I say I find not one Christian or Heretick against it unless you will impute it to them that were against all baptism which Infidels also are And though I verily believe that the Waldenses were not against Infant-baptism nor is there full proof that any in their time were yet because I am loth to judge the Papists utterly impudent lyars I think it most probable that in the Waldenses days and Country there was a sort of odious Hereticks that denied Infant-baptism and the Resurrection and held community of Wives and other abominations reported all together by their opposers in those times CHAP. V. Mr. Danvers's great Calumnie of my self refuted § 1. MR. D. pag. 134. Ed. 1. saith thus Yet is not Mr. Baxter ashamed to fix such an abhominable slander upon the Baptists of this our age of baptizing naked which it seems was so long the real practice of the paedobaptists and about which he spends three whole pages to aggravate the heynousness of their custom which he is pleased to father on them And though I am perswaded he cannot but be convinced that the thing is most notoriously false and brought forth by him rather out of prejudice not to say malice rather than any proof or good testimony he ever received thereof yet have I never heard that he hath done himself his injured neighbours and the abused world that right as to own his great weakness and sinful shortness therein in any of the many Editions of that piece which I humbly conceive as well deserved a recantation as some other things he has judged worthy thereof § 2. Answ To live and die impenitently in so unprofitable a sin and unpleasing to any but diabolical natures as is the belying of others is a very dreadful kind of folly I would heartily wish that Mr. Danvers and I might meet and help to bring each other to repentance by a willing impartial examination of each of our guiltinesses herein § 3. I never look to speak to them thus more nor long to any man on earth and in this station and with these thoughts I must profess not thinking it lawful to belie my self that in the year 1647. or 1648. or both when Anabaptistry began suddenly to be obtruded with more successful fervency than before I lived near Mr. Tombes in a Country where some were and within the hearing of their practice in other parts of the land And that in that beginning the common frame of Ministers and people was that in divers places some baptized naked and some did not And that I never to my best remembrance heard man or woman contradict that report till this man did it in this writing And that no Anabaptist contradicted it to me that I then or since conversed with And that thereupon in 1659. I wrote against both sorts those that baptized naked and those that did not And after all this when Mr. Tombes answered my book and those very passages he never denied the truth of the thing though he did not so baptize himself unless he have any where else since said any thing of it which I never saw or heard of And I appeal to impartial reason whether he would not then at the time have denied it had it been deniable And whether this man now twenty five or six years after be fitter to be believed in a matter of fact than common consent at the present time And
know which of them was the more pernicious § 4. And it must grieve every conscionable and discerning lover of Truth and Peace to observe how these two Church-disturbing parties do by their extremities of opposition increase as well as exasperate each other As the Ithacian Prelates did by the Priscillianists and the Priscillianists by them The Pride covetousness dead formality and cruel violence of Clergie Tyrants maketh the poor Sectaries think that they must go so far from them till they have lost themselves and know not where they are and as Mr. Danvers musters up a catalogue of my sayings in his mode and dress which seem ugly to the poor man that thinks he seeth Antichristianity in such Gospel and natural truths which he understandeth not Like that melancholy person who thinks she seeth Spiders upon every one that comes near her and they must brush them off before she can converse with them though she be caetera sana so those on the other extream think them so fanatick and almost mad that they are apt to suspect every word almost that they say of madness and sometimes thereby injure the truths of the Gospel and soberer people that partake not of their guilt and so say of such as agree with them but in aliquo tertio They are all alike § 5. This was the main cause which made St Martin separate from his neighbour Bishops and deny communion with them to the death Because their persecution of the Priscillianists had so animated the looser sort against strict Religious people that they had brought men under the suspicion of Priscillianism if they did but fast and pray and read and talk of the Scripture It 's easie to see of late who they are that have done the like § 6. When this sort of men see the weakness of the Sectaries and the bold-faced falshood which such as Mr. Danvers obtrude on the world and hear them furiously revile what they understand not it maketh them think that they are fitter for Bedlam than for humane societie And their consciences justifie them for all the cruelties that they use against either them or more innocent persons whom in their ignorance and uncharitableness they number with them § 7. And on the like account when they read and hear their erroneous Doctrines and hear their incongruous words in prayer they think they can never be too strict in shackling them and all others in prescribed forms And nothing quieteth their Consciences in all this so much as the undeniable errors and follies and miscarriages of those that thus provoke them § 8. But in this the Church in Augustines days did not think that way the wisest cure when he saith Afferat ut fieri solet aliquam precem in qua loquatur contra regulam fidei multi quippe irruunt in preces non solum ab imperitis loquacibus sed etiam ab haereticis compositas per ignorantiae simplicitatem non eas valentes discernere utuntur iis arbitrantes quod bonae sint Nec tamen quod in eis perversum est evacuat illa quae ibi recta sunt sed ab eis potius evacuatur Aug. de bapt cont Donat. as I remember about lib. 5. c. 11. O truly charitable and peaceable Doctrine And he that will separate from other for every difference or real error in Doctrine or Prayers shall have enow to separate from him § 9. I know nothing that so much multiplieth Sectaries as the notorious miscarriages of Church-Tyrants that oppose them And I know nothing next carnal interest it self that so much multiplieth and confirmeth Papists and Church-Tyrants as the madness of the Sectaries· The wildeness but especially the diversity of their opinions hath done more to increase the number of Papists among us than any thing that ever the Papists themselves could otherwise say for their cause For people see so many giddy with turning round and see so many Sects among us that they are confounded and know not which to be of but they must lay hold of somewhat that is more stable or be wheel-sick § 10. O what a confirmation is it to a Papist to find such a one as Mr. Danvers calling Gods Truths and Ordinances Antichristian Yea our very Baptismal Covenant and dedication to Christ is Antichristian and the chief Fathers and Martyrs of the Church are Antichristian no wonder if I be so And I doubt almost all the Church of Christ for 900 years at least in this mans reckoning And what will the Papists desire more With what scorn will they deride such men Wo be to him by whom offence cometh The chief Quakers are charged by Mr. Faldo and others even some of their own name of denying the person and office of Christ himself It is worth the enquiring whether they reject him not as Antichrist and call not Christianity by the name of Antichristianity CHAP. IV. Of Mr. Danvers's his Witnesses against Infant-Baptism § 1. WHen he hath told you that In his small search shamefully small he cannot find there is any authentick testimony that it was practised on any till the fourth Century he in the next words saith that it is granted that Tertullian spake against it in Africa which is clear evidence that some had been speaking for it in that corner of the world This is no contradiction with him And did they only speak for it and not practise it Speak once like a man And was not that till the fourth Century § 2. His Catalogue containeth three Columns The first of the Baptism of the Adult And what Christian ever denied this And what meaneth the man in labouring to prove it The second is of the Instituting and asserting of Infant-Baptism of which more anon The third is of his Witnesses against Infant-Baptism And the first of these mentioned in the Catalogue is Tertullian in the third Century By which he seemeth to confess that till the third Century he hath no witness against it But I have said so much elsewhere and others more to prove 1. That Tertullians words prove that Infant-Baptism de facto was then in use 2. That he only telleth his opinion of the point of convenience but concludeth not against Infant-Baptism as unlawful 3. That it is most probable he speaketh of the Infants of Heathens 4. That he speaketh from that strict singularity which made him plead also for the Montanists Fanaticism and against second marriages and for his inordinate fastings c. as a man differing from the Churches and numbered with the Hereticks though I think him a learned Godly man And I refer it to the Readers judgement whether in my book of Infant-Baptism I have not proved by many other words in Tertullian that he was not against all Infant-Baptism but for it among Christians § 3. His next and great Witness is the Donatists together This is something were it true but it is such a kind of falshood as I must not name in its due epithets lest you think