the apostles. CHAP. I. taken out of some of Mr. Baxter's works, wherein Year after he, speaking of the terms of the baptismal covenant, had shewn the necessity of a justifying faith in order to baptism; though in the same books he had declared he spoke in reference to adult persons only. On which occasion Mr. Baxter says, 'the men that 'cite authors at this rate, cite me against myself, 'with the like confidence.' 이 Indeed, Mr. Tombes wrote a piece against Mr. Baxter, called, Felo de sed, or, The Self-destroyer: in which he endeavoured to shew, that though Mr. Baxter intended these proofs of the necessity of faith, only in the case of the baptism of adult persons; yet his arguments prove more: and that the 'middle terms of his arguments do beat down his ' own tenet of infant-baptism.' If the antipædobaptists had dealt only thus in their quotations out of the ancients; and had declared their purpose to be, to improve these sayings of the Fathers to confute the opinion and practice of the said Fathers themselves; none could deny them the liberty of making their best of such a course. And they may, if they think fit, indict the Fathers of being Felones de se. But it is common with them to cite such passages, as evidences that the authors were against infant-baptism; or, that there was no baptism of infants practised in those ages, or those churches, because they find such passages concerning the baptizing of grown persons, and concerning the qualifications required in them. Such places as these I have left out, inasmuch as d [Felo de se; or Baxter's Self-destroying, in twenty arguments against Infant-baptism, gathered out of his own writing 4o. London, 1659.] writing Λ they only prove that there were frequent baptisms CHAP. I. of adult persons in those times; which nobody Year after denies. Yet I shall here set down for instance two of them, which do in appearance, the most of any that I have met with, make for the purpose of the antipædobaptists. 6 Basil. contra Eunomium, lib. iii.e Πιστεῦσαι γὰρ δεῖ πρότερον· εἶτα τῷ βαπτίσματι ἐπι φραγίσασθαι. 6 For one must believe first: and then be sealed with baptism.' Hieronym. in Matt. xxviii. 19. • Primum docent omnes gentes, deinde doctas intingunt aqua: non enim potest fieri ut corpus baptismi recipiat sacramentum, nisi ante anima 'fidei susceperit veritatem.' 6 They first teach all the nations, then when they are taught they baptize them with water; for it 'cannot be that the body should receive the sacrament of baptism, unless the soul have before re'ceived the true faith. f St. Hierome here commenting on the commission given by our Saviour to the apostles of carrying the gospel to the nations that were heathens, explains the method they were to use, viz. first, to teach those nations the Christian religion, and then to baptize them; which all pædobaptists grant to be the method that ought ever to be used. For if there be any nation of Indians to be converted nowadays, they use the same: and yet, when they have e [Sect. 5. Op. tom. i. p. 276. ed. Benedict. 1721.] the apo stles. CHAP. I. converted and baptized the parents, they do also, at the apo- And it is of such heathen people or nations that St. Hierome here speaks, that their minds must be instructed before their bodies be baptized. St. Basil is there proving, against the heretic Eunomius, the divinity of the San and of the Holy Spirit, by this argument; that we are baptized in the name of them as well as of the Father, and consequently are to believe in them; for that baptism supposes faith in that Deity in whose name the baptism is. And applying this to the case of one that learns the faith of the Christians, shews that he must be taught to believe in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, (viz. that each of these persons is God,) or else ought not to be baptized with those words; and that consequently the Eunomians did in effect renounce their baptism by renouncing this faith. As there was no dispute between the catholics and Eunomians, about infant-baptism; so St. Basil will appear to any one that reads him, not to have had any thought pro or contra, at that place, about it. But it happens very unluckily for the purpose of those that produce these sayings, that both of these Fathers are known by other passages to have owned infant-baptism; as I have shewn plainly in the First Part of this work g. III. Thirdly, some quotations that are brought, are wrested and altered by those that bring them to another sense than that which they carry in the authors themselves. g Chap. 12. 15. 19. the apo As for example: Danversh cites out of Eusebiusi, CHAP. I. that Dionysius Alexandrinus writing to Sextus, Year after bishop of Rome, testifies,' that it was their custom stles. 'to baptize upon profession of faith; and that one 154. .who had been baptized by heretics, not upon pro'fession of faith, did desire to be so baptized, accounting his former for no baptism.' This, as it is here by Mr. Danvers brought in and worded, would seem to be an instance of a man that having been baptized in infancy, desired now to be baptized again. But that which Dionysius does there write, is in these words, and no other k: 'The man being present when some were bap'tized, and hearing the interrogatories and answers, "came to me weeping; and falling down at my feet, 'confessed and declared, that the baptism where'with he had been baptized by the heretics, was 'not this [or this sort of] baptism, nor had any likeness to this of ours, but was full of impieties ' and blasphemies. He said, he was sore troubled ' in conscience, and durst not presume to lift up his ' eyes to God, for that he was baptized with those ' profane words and ceremonies.' Now this is clearly the case of a man that had been baptized by the Valentinians, (or some such heretics,) who, as Irenæus tells us', did not baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit ; but with strange and profane forms of words which he there recites, and some of which I do hereafter recite ". All which is nothing relating to the case h Treatise of Baptism, p. 50, second edit. Hist. Eccl. lib. vii. cap. 9. k Apud Eusebium, loc citat. Lib. i. cap. 18. [cap. 21. edit. Benedict.] m Chap. 5, §. 1. CHAP. I. of infant-baptism: and he that compares the words, Year after the apo- 278. › IV. Fourthly, some quotations are yet more un- Thus Danvers, in the foresaid treatise" says, that Now if one read over that epistle of St. Hierome's to Pammachius, against the errors of John bishop of Jerusalem, and all the other epistles of his to Pammachius, (for such work one has with quotations set down after such a blundering manner,) there is no such thing. But this there is: the said bishop having said, that in a certain sermon of his he had fully dis'coursed of the faith and all the doctrines of the church: St. Hierome takes occasion to reprove this as a confident saying, that he should pretend to do all that in one sermon: and then adds, 'We have a custom to discourse for forty days together, n Treatise of Baptism, p. 56. • Epist. 61. ad Pammachium de erroribus, &c. prope medium. [Rather see St. Jerome's treatise, 'Liber contra Joannem Jerosolymitanum,”§. 11, 12, 13.-Op. tom. ii. p. 419. ed. Valalrs. la + |