both the practice of the Church, and the reason of it together infants were baptized, because they were born in original sin, and needed baptism to cleanse them from the guilt and pollution of it. To this we may add another place of Cyprian, where, describing the great wickedness of those that lapsed in time of persecution, he thus aggravates their crime: "That nothing might be wanting to fill up the measure of their wickedness,' their little infants were either led or carried in their parents arms, and lost that which they had obtained at their first coming into the world," meaning the benefits of their baptism: and therefore he brings them in thus pleading against their parents in an elegant strain at the day of Judgment; "This was no fault of ours, we did not of our own accord forsake the meat and cup of the Lord, to run and partake of those profane pollutions; 'twas the unfaithfulness of others that ruined us; we had our parents for our murderers; they denied us God for our father, and the Church for our mother: for whilst we were little, and unable to take care of ourselves, and ignorant of so great a wickedness, we were ensnared by the treachery of others, and by them drawn into a partnership of their impieties." Here we may observe, that children were made partakers of the eucharist, which Cyprian calls, "the meat and drink of the Lord.” And this is evident from other passages in the same author: which is a further evidence for the practice of infantbaptism; for it is certain, that none but baptized persons were ordinarily allowed to partake of the eucharist at the Lord's table. I think it needless to clog this discourse with any more authorities from the council of Eliberis, Optatus, Gregory Nazianzen, Basil, Ambrose, Chrysostom, Paulinus, the councils of Carthage, St. Austin, or St. Jerom, or other writers of the fourth age, which the reader may find collected together by Mr. Wall, with suitable observations on them. It is sufficient to my design, against Salmasius and Suicerus, to have proved that infant-baptism was not

1 Cypr. de Lapsis, p. 125. Ac nequid deesset ad criminis cumulum, infantes quoque parentum manibus vel impositi vel attracti, amiserunt parvuli, quod in primo statim nativitatis exordio fuerant consecuti, &c.

owing to any new doctrine begun in the third century, but was derived from more ancient principles, and handed down through the two first ages from apostolical practice.

SECT. 13. Infant-Baptism not to be delayed to the Eighth Day after the Example of Circumcision. Nor till Three Years, as Gregory Nazianzen would have had it.

I shall now proceed to remark a few other things relating to the baptism of infants, among those who allowed them to be capable of it from their birth. Some there were in the African Church, as we have heard out of the last-mentioned citations from Cyprian, who were strictly for confining baptism to the eighth day, because such was the rule in the case of circumcision: but Cyprian and the council of Carthage answer all the arguments that were brought in favour of this novelty, which seems only to have been a question in theory, and scarce ever reduced to practice. The abettors of it pleaded, that an infant in the first days after its birth is unclean, so that any one of us abhors to kiss it. To which Cyprian answers, "we judge not1 this to be any reason to hinder the giving to it the heavenly grace: for it is written, To the clean all things are clean:' nor ought any of us to abhor that which God has vouchsafed to make." To the other pretence, that the eighth day was observed in the Jewish circumcision, he answers, "that this was only a type going before a shadow and resemblance, but upon Christ's coming it was fulfilled in the substance; for because the eighth day, that is, the next to the Sabbath-day, was to be the day on which the Lord was to rise from the dead, and quicken us, and give us the spiritual circumcision; this eighth day, that is, the next day to the Sabbath, or Lord's day, was signified in the type before, which type ceased, when the substance came, and the spiritual circumcision was given to us. So that we judge that no person is to be hindered from obtaining the grace, by the law that is now appointed: and that the spiritual circumcision ought not to be restrained by the circumcision that was according to the

Cypr. Ep. 59. al. 64. ad Fidum, p. 160.

flesh; but that all are to be admitted to the grace of Christ;
forasmuch as Peter says, in the Acts of the Apostles,
'the Lord hath showed me, that no person is to be called
common or unclean."" This is the only place wherever we
read that this question was made, and after the resolution
here given, we never find that it was proposed again: so
that this circumstance of time seems never to have prevailed
in the practice of the Church. Gregory Nazianzen had
also a singular opinion in relation to the time of baptizing
children when there was no danger of death: for in that
case he thought it better to defer it till they were about
three years old, but in case of danger to give it immer
diately after they were born, for fear they should die un-
baptized. His words are these: "What say you' to those
that are as yet infants, and are not in a capacity to be sen-
sible either of the grace, or of the loss of it? shall we bap-
tize them too? yes, by all means, if any danger so require
it: for it is better that they should be sanctified without
their own sense of it, than that they should die unsealed
and uninitiated. And the ground of this is circumcision,
which was given on the eighth day, and was a typical seal,
and was given to those who had not the use of reason: as
also the anointing of the door-posts, which preserved the
first-born by things that have no sense. As for others, I
give my opinion that they should stay three years or there-
abouts, till they can hear the mystical words, and make
answers to them; and though they do not perfectly under-
stand them, yet they can then frame to speak them: and
then you may sanctify them in soul and body with the great
sacrament of initiation." But this was a singular opinion
of Nazianzen, taken up upon some particular reasons,
which the Church never assented to: and therefore I join
this with that other of Fidus, the African, as peculiar fancies
of private men, which never gained any esteem or credit
in the public or avowed practice of the Church.

SECT. 14. Yet in some Churches it was deferred to the Time of an
approaching Festival.

Yet in some Churches a custom had prevailed to defer

1 Naz. Orat. 40. de Baptismo, tom. ii. p. 658.

the baptism of infants, as well as adult persons, where there was no apparent danger of death, to the time of some of the more eminent and noted festivals, which were more peculiarly designed and set apart for the solemn administration of baptism. Socrates says, in Thessaly they only baptized at Easter: upon which account a great many in those parts died without baptism. He does not say expressly, that this was the case of children: but there are some reasons to incline one to believe, that it related to them as well as others; for both in the French and Spanish councils there are canons which order the baptism of children to be administered only at Easter, except in case of necessity and imminent danger of death. In the council of Auxerre it was decreed for the French Churches," that no children should be baptized at any other time, save on the solemn festival of Easter, except such as were near death," whom they called Grabatarii, because they were baptized on a sick-bed: and “if any one contumaciously in contempt of this decree offered their children to baptism in any of their churches, they should not be received:" and "if any presbyter presumed to receive them against this order, he should be suspended three months from the communion of the Church." The second council of Bracara3 also speaks of the like practice in the Spanish Churches, ordering "that in the middle of Lent, such infants as were to be baptized at Easter, should be presented twenty days before to undergo the purgation, or preparation of exorcism." St. Austin also speaks of children, infants, little ones, suck

1 Socrat. lib. v. c. 22. Ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις το Πάσχα μόνον βαπτίζεσι. διὸ σφόδρα πλὴν ὀλίγων οἱ λοιποὶ μὴ βαπτισθέντες ἀποθνήσκεσι. 2 Con. Autissiodor. can. 18. Non licet absque Pascha solennitate ullo tempore baptizare, nisi illos quibus mors vicina est, quos Grabatarios dicunt. Quod si quis in alio pago, contumaciâ faciente, post interdictum hoc infantes suos ad baptismum detulerit in ecclesias nostras, non recipiantur. Et quicunque presbyter ipsos extra nostrum præceptum recipere præsumpserit, tribus mensibus à communione ecclesiæ sequestratus sit. 3 Con. Bracar. 2. can. 9. Mediante Quadragesimâ, ex viginti diebus baptizandos infantes, ad exorcismi purgationem offerre præcipiant. Vid. Con. Matiscon. 2. can. 3. 4 Aug. Serm. 160. de Tempore. tom. x. p. 331. Hodiè Octavæ dicuntur Infantium.—Illi pueri, infantes, parvuli, lactentes, maternis uberibus inhærentes, et quantum in eos gratiæ referatur nescientes, ut ipsi videtis, quia infantes vocantur, et ipsi habent Octavas hodiè. Et isti senes, juvenes, adolescentuli, omnes infantes, &c.

lings hanging on their mothers' breasts, coming at Easter to be baptized among adult persons: whence Palm-Sunday, or the Sunday before Easter had the name of Octave Infantium, the octave of infants, upon their account. St. Ambrose also speaks of great numbers of infants coming at Easter to be baptized: "This," says he, "is the Paschal gift: pious fathers and holy mothers bring their new-born progeny in great multitudes by faith to the holy font, from whose womb being regenerated under the tree of faith, they shine with the innocent ornament of lights and tapers." These are abundant proofs, that though in cases of extremity children might receive baptism at any time, yet in other cases, where there was no visible appearance or danger of death, their baptism in many places was deferred till the Easter festival, as well as that of adult persons.

SECT. 15.-A Resolution of some Questions. Whether Children might be baptized, when only one Parent was Christian?

Whilst I am upon the subject of infant-baptism, it will not be improper to resolve certain cases and questions, that may be put concerning it, so far as they are capable of being resolved from the practice of the Church, or judgment of the ancient writers. One is concerning such children, as had only one parent Christian, and the other a Jew or a Heathen. These were reckoned capable of baptism upon the right of one parent being Christian: for so it was resolved in the fourth council of Toledo, in the case of such women as had Jews for their husbands, that the children that were born of them should follow the faith and condition of the mother: and so on the other hand, they who had unbelieving mothers, and believing fathers, should follow the Christian religion, and not the Jewish superstition.

1 Ambros. de Mysterio Paschæ, c. 5. Hoc Paschæ donum.-Hinc casti patres, pudicæ etiam matres, novellam per fidem stirpem prosequuntur innumeram. Hinc sub fidei arbore ab utero fontis innocui cereorum splendet ornatus, &c. 2 Con. Tolet. 4. can. 62. Filii autem qui ex talibus (Judæis) nati existunt, fidem atque conditionem matris sequantur. Similiter et hi qui procreati sunt de infidelibus mulieribus, et fidelibus viris, Christia ham religionem sequantur, non Judaicam superstitionem.