CHAP. seems to have little hope of his reaching heaven, whatVIII. ever his character may be ;-"For unless any one be born again of water and of the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.'-You see he excepts no person, not an infant, not one that is hindered by an unavoidable accident; but, suppose that such have that freedom from punishment, which is not clear, yet I question whether they shall have the honour of the kingdom."

affirms the

Another of the Fathers, after lamenting the irregularity of many ministers baptizing at other times besides Easter, with its pentecost, adds:

"As, therefore, I affirm that the respect due to the feast of Easter ought by no means to be diminished; so my meaning is, that, as for infants, who by reason of their age are not yet able to speak, and others that are, in any case of necessity, they ought to be received, with all respect possible, lest it turn to the perdition of our own souls, if we deny the water of salvation to every one that stands in need; and they departing this life do lose their kingdom and their life.”5

St. Augus- St. Augustine at length comes out boldly with his hortine boldly rible doctrine. In a letter to St. Jerome he says, Whodamnation ever should affirm that infants which die without parof unbaptaking of this sacrament shall be quickened in Christ, would both go against the Apostle's preaching, and also would condemn the whole church (universam ecclesiam.)

tized infants.

I do not say that infants dying without the baptism of Christ will be punished with so great pain, so that it were better for them not to have been born; since our Lord spoke this, not of all sinners, but of the most

f Ambrosius lib. ii. de Abraham Patriarch c. 11.

* Siricii Episcopi Decretales. Epistola Prima. Cap. ii.

↳ Epist. 28.

• Our Lord will SECT.

profligate and impious ones.'
come to judge the quick and the dead; and he will make
two sides, the right and the left. To those on the left
hand he will say, Depart into everlasting fire, &c. To
those on the right, Come, and receive the kingdom, &c.
He calls one the kingdom; the other condemnation with
the devil. There is no middle place left, where you can
put infants.' Thus I have explained to you what is the
kingdom, and what everlasting fire; so that when you
confess the infant will not be in the kingdom, you must
acknowledge he will be in everlasting fire."

6

V.

tions of
Dr. Wiggers

"This inference is of such a kind," observes Dr. ObservaWiggers in his Treatise already referred to, "that every other part of his whole system ought to have been given up, simply to avoid a consequence so strikingly severe, and so injurious to the justice of God. But Augustine was, on the one hand, far too obstinate to renounce his position of the absolute necessity of baptism to salvation, and on the other, far too consistent to deny any conclusion which necessarily flowed from that position. For example, he says: We may justly conclude, that infants dying without baptism, will be in the mildest punishment (in mitissima damnatione ;) and they will be punished more lightly (tolerabilius) than those who have committed sins of their own.' Still, he says, in opposition to the eternal life of the Pelagians: There is no middle place, so that he who is not with Christ, must be with the devil.' He says: As nothing else is done for children in baptism, but their being incorporated into the church, that is, connected with the body and members of Christ, it follows, that when this is not done for them, they belong to perdition. If the child,' he further says, 'is not delivered

6

Epist. 77. ad Hugonem de Sancto Victore.

CHAP. from the power of the devil, but remains under it, why VIII. dost thou wonder, O Julian, that he, who is not allowed to enter the kingdom of God, should be with the devil in eternal fire?" "k

Infants baptized before they are

born.

Here is the grand support, both of infant baptism and of sprinkling. If the sins of the adult cannot be pardoned without baptism, he must be baptized in some way; and if children go to "eternal fire," if they die unbaptized, they should certainly be baptized as soon as they are born, or even before, if necessary, as is very consistently maintained by the Roman catholic doctors.'

Quotations from the Fathers, on this point, might be multiplied to any extent; but those already presented are amply sufficient to prove, that as soon as infant baptism appears on the page of history, it is manifestly grounded on the presumed regenerating effect of the ordinance itself, and subsequently urged on the necessity of baptism to prevent the eternal damnation of infants on account of Adam's sin. The former sentiment is

Wiggers' Augustinism and Pelaganism, p. 73, 74.

1 "Les enfans étant des sujets capable de recevoir le baptême, il s'ensuit qu'on doit les baptiser, dans le cas de necessité, aussitôt qu'ils laissent paraître quelque partie du corps sur laquelle on peut appliquer l'eau physiquement; mais non auparavant, et quand ils demeurent entièrement cachés dans le sien de leurs mères. C'est le sentiment commun. Il y a cependant des théologiens qu croient qu'il n'est pas nécessaire qu'un enfant paraisse, et qu'il suffit qu'on puisse faire parvenir l'eau jusqu'a lui par le moyen de quelque instrument; et c'est l'avis de la Sarbonne et la pratique de l'Hotel Dieu de Paris, dit l'auteur de la 'Conduite des Ames dans la Voie du Salut,' imprimée a Paris, 1653, p. 3 et 4. . . . . En ne doit baptiser des monstres qui n'ont point de figure humaine. Quand on doubte s'ils sont hommes, il faut les baptiser avec cette condition; 'Si tu es homo ego te baptiso,'" &c.-Bibliotheque Sacrée, ou Dictionnaire Universelle, &c. Par les Rev. Pêres Richard et Giraud, Dominiciens. Paris, 1822. Tom. xiv. p. 39.

....

perpetuated not only in the Greek and Roman churches, SECT. but even in the reformed church of England; and that III. in a manner which has extremely embarrassed the evangelical clergy comprised within her pale.

Another doctrine by which infant baptism was sustained and propagated, was that of the connection between the Christian church and the Judaic economy, and the assertion that baptism came in the place of circumcision. This invention of Cyprian and Augustine is still the stronghold of this error, the introduction of which was speedily followed by the national establishment of Christianity; exhibiting infant baptism as the fruit of these Judaizing doctrines, and as the seed of national establishments, and of popery. This doctrine has been fully refuted in Chap. V. sect. i.

27*

CHAPTER IX.

CEREMONIES ASSOCIATED WITH INFANT BAP.
TISM.-INFANT COMMUNION.

SECTION I.

CEREMONIES USED IN THE BAPTISMAL SERVICE OF

THE ANCIENT CHURCH.

СНАР.
IX.

PRESBYTERIANS and congregationalists are accus

tomed to use a form in baptizing infants: is it an unreaForms for sonable or impertinent question to ask, where did that baptism of adults used form come from? and when is it first to be traced out in for infants. ecclesiastical history? Can any of them trace it fur

ther back than the "form of administration of John Calvin?" What an overwhelming fact is it that till the time of Calvin no form for the baptism of infants had ever been devised. Some of my readers will be incredulous: "How then," they will ask, "were infants baptized for many centuries?" With the forms used by the ancient church for adult believers!

In the next chapter, the entire contrast between the baptism of the Reformers and that of the Fathers will be clearly exhibited. This point is only noticed at present to account for my giving as the ceremonies associated with infant baptism, identically those which are used in the baptism of adults-there was no separate formula in the ancient church.