makes his address to them in these words: "Art thou a young man? then secure thy youth by the bridle of baptism. Art thou past the flower of thy age? then beware thou lose not thy Viaticum, thy phylactery, which should keep and preserve thee in thy way to eternal life." In allusion to which name, Gregory Nazianzen, speaking of the minister's act in baptizing, terms it podiálεiv, giving to men their Viaticum, or provision for their journey to another world. In reference to its making men complete members of Christ's body, the Church, it had the name of Τελείωσις and Τελετή, the consecration and consummation; because it gave men the perfection of Christians, and a right to partake of the To Téλov, which was the eucharist, or the Lord's-supper. It had the name of Μύησις, and Μυταγωγία, the initiation, because it was the admittance of men to all the sacred rites and mysteries of the Christian religion. And as the eucharist, from its representing the death of Christ by the outward elements of bread and wine, was called the sacred symbols, so baptism sometimes had the same name, as we find in Isidore of Pelusium, and the author of the dispute with Arius in the council of Nice, under the name of Athanasius. "Though the priest be an ill liver," says Isidore" the person initiated, receives no harm by the symbols of salvation, but only the priest himself." And the other thus argues for the divinity of the Holy Ghost: " If the Holy Spirit be not of the substance of the Father and the Son, why then did the Son of God join him together with them in the symbol of sanctification, when he said to his disciples, "Go teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." In both which places, it is plain, the symbols of sanctification and salvation, can mean no other than baptism. And hence it appears, that the same honourable titles were given to the waters of baptism, as to the elements of bread and wine in

3

4

Basil. de Bapt. p. 413. Μὴ ζημιωθῇς τὰ ἐφόδια, μὴ ἀπολέσῃς τὸ φυλακτήριον. 2 Naz. Orat. 40. de Bapt. p. 644. 8 Isidor. ib. ii. Ep. 37. Ὁ τελέμενος ἐδὲν παραβλάπτεται εἰς τὰ σωτηριώδῆ σύμβολα, εἰ ὁ ἱερεὺς μὴ εὖ βιος εἴη, αλλ' αὐτὸς μὲν πάντως. 4 Athanas.

Disp. contra Arium, in Con. Nic. tom. i. p. 141. Tivog vekev ovvypíðμnoev αὐτὸ ὁ Υἱὸς τῷ θεᾶ ἐν τῷ συμβόλῳ τέ ἁγιασμό, &c.

the Lord's-supper; and whatever change was supposed to be wrought in the one by the invocation of the Holy Spirit, was equally ascribed to the other also; and as noble effects derived from the font as the Lord's-table, whilst the death of Christ was equally represented, and the benefits of it alike communicated to all worthy receivers in baptism and the Lord's-supper. For which reason I have been a little the more curious in examining and explaining the several.titles of honour which the Ancients gave to baptism, that under these eminent characters we might see what apprehensions and ideas the Church of Christ always had of this venerable mystery, which some now by way of contempt call water-baptism, as if the Spirit had no concern in it; whose doctrines may easily be perceived not to proceed from the general sense of the ancient Catholic Church, but from particular sects and heresies broken off from it, of which it will not be amiss to give a short account in the following Chapter.

CHAP. II.

Of the Matter of Baptism, with an Account of such Heretics, as rejected or corrupted Baptism by Water.

SECT. 1.-Baptism wholly rejected by the Heretics called Ascodrute, and Marcosians, and Valentinians, and Quintillians.

THOUGH the Church always maintained an honourable opinion of baptism, as a divine and heavenly institution, yet there wanted not sects and heresies, who in the earliest ages spake very diminutively and contemptibly of it; and either in whole or in part upon various reasons rejected or corrupted it. The Ascodrutæ, who were a sort of Gnostics, placed all religion in knowledge, and under pretence of spiritual worship, would admit of no external or coporeal symbols whatsoever. They asserted, as Theodoret describes them, "that divine mysteries, being the images of invisible things, were not to be performed by visible things;

1 Theodor. Hæret. Fabul. lib. i. e. 10.

nor incorporeal things by sensible and corporeal things.' Therefore they never baptized any that were of their sect, nor celebrated any part of the mystery of baptism among them: for they said, the knowledge of all things was their redemption. Irenæus and Epiphanius observe the same thing to be practised, upon the same principle of spiritual redemption by knowledge alone, among some of those who were called Marcosian heretics, whilst others of them, who retained a sort of baptism, invented strange forms of their own to corrupt it, of which I shall give an account in the following Chapter, s. 8. Irenæus gives a like account of the Valentinians, some of whom wholly rejected baptism, and others corrupted it with strange forms of their own inventing, as the Marcosians did, who seem to have been branches of the same heresy under different leaders. Tertullian brings a like charge against one Quintilla, a womanpreacher at Carthage, a little before his time, who set up to decry water-baptism as useless; pleading, that faith alone was sufficient to save men, as it did Abraham, who pleased God without any other sacrament, but the sacrament of faith. Against this heresy Tertullian wrote his Book of Baptism, to establish the necessity of it from our Saviour's institution, and to answer the little sophisms, whereby the Libertines of this new sect pretended to destroy it.

SECT. 2.-And by the Archontici.

The Archontici rejected baptism for another reason, as Epiphanius* and Theodoret inform us. They had entertained a very monstrous and blasphemous opinion, that the world was not created by the Supreme God of all things, but by certain powers, whom they called "Apxovτes, rulers, whence they themselves had the denomination of Archontici: these rulers, seven or eight in number, they imagined to be in so many several orbs of the heavens, one above

2 Iren. lib. iii. c. 2.

'Iren. lib. i. c. 18. 3 Tertul. de Bapt. c. 1. Nuper conversata istic quædam de Caianâ hæresi vipera venenatissima, doctrinâ suâ plerosque rapuit imprimis baptismum destruens, &c. It. cap. 13. Adeò dicunt, baptismus non est necessarius, quibus fides satis est, &c. Epiphan. Hær. 40. de Archonticis, n.2. Theodor. Hær. Fab. lib. i.

c. ll.

another, with orders of angels and ministries under them; and to the chief of these they gave the name of Sabaoth. Now they also pretended that baptism was only administered in the name of Sabaoth, and not in the name of the Supreme God, and therefore they rejected both it and the eucharist as foreign institutions, given by Sabaoth, the god of the Jews and the giver of the Law, whom they blasphemously distinguished from the Supreme God.

2

SECT. 3.-And by the Seleucians and Hermians.

The Seleucians and Hermians refused the use of baptism by water, as St. Austin describes them.' And the ground of their refusal, was a pretence, that baptism by water was not the baptism instituted by Christ, because St. John Baptist, comparing his own baptism, with the baptism of Christ, says, "I baptize you with water, but he that cometh after me, shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire:" they thought the souls of men consisted of fire and spirit, and therefore a baptism by fire was more suitable to their nature. But what kind of baptism that was, none of the Ancients have told us: unless perhaps we may conjecture from what Clemens Alexandrinus tells us out of Heracleon, of some, who when they had baptized men in water, also made a mark upon their ears with fire; so joining water-baptism, and, as they imagined, baptism by fire, together. Though this was far enough from the fiery baptism St. John speaks of, which some of the Ancients understand of the ordinary operations of the Spirit, which consumes our sins; and others, of that extraordinary effusion of the Spirit in the form of fiery tongues upon the Apostles at the day of Pentecost: and others of the fire of the last judgA particular account of which interpretation the

ment.

Aug. de Hæres. c. 59. Seleuciani et Hermiani baptismum in aquâ non accipiunt. 2 Philastr. de Hæres. n. 8. Seleucus et Hermius hæretici animas hominum de igne et spiritu esse existimantes, isto baptismo non utuntur propter verbum hoc quod dixit Johannes Baptista; Ipse vos baptizabit in spiritu et igne.' 3 Clem. Alex. Electa ex Scriptura, ap. Combefis Auctarium, tom. i. p. 202. "Ενιοι δὲ, ὥς φησιν Ἡρακλέων, πυρὶ τὰ ὦτα τῶν σφραγιζομενων κατεσημήναντο. Irenæus, lib. i. c. 24. has something like this, of the

Carpocratians.

reader that is curious, may find in Suicerus upon this subject.' I only note further out of the anonymous writer about heretical baptism, published by Rigaltius and Bp. Fell at the end of St. Cyprian, that there were a sort of heretics, who pretended, that baptism by water alone was of itself imperfect, because St. John had said, we were to be baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire. Therefore they boasted, that theirs was the only complete and perfect baptism, and all others curtailed, and given only by halves, because when they went down into the water to baptize, either by some curious art in philosophy, like that of Anaxilaus, or by some magical art, they made fire to appear upon the surface of the water, and this they called baptism by fire. Which they confirmed from an apocryphal writing of their own inventing, called the preaching of Peter or Paul, wherein it was said, that when Christ was baptized, fire so appeared upon the water. The censure which this author passes upon this kind of baptism, is that it is adulterate, pernicious, and wholly evacuating the true baptism of Christ.

SECT. 4.-And by the Manichees and Paulicians.

Another sect which rejected water-baptism, were the Manichees, who among many other prodigious errors, maintained, that baptizing in water was of no efficacy to salvation, and therefore they despised it, and never baptized 3 any that entered into their society, as St. Austin and the author of the Prædestinatus, published by Sirmondus, inform us. But whether they admitted any other kind of baptism, or upon what ground they rejected this, we are not told: only we may probably conjecture, that it was upon that general vile principle of theirs, that material things were the work of an evil god, and therefore to be abhorred as polluted and

Suicer. Thesaur. Eccles. tom. i. p. 630. 2 Anonym. de Baptismo Hæreticorum, ad calcem Cypriani, p. 30. Tentant nonnulli iterum tractare se solos integrum atque perfectum, non sicuti nos, mutilatum et decurtatum baptisma tradere. Quod taliter dicantur adsignare, ut quam mox in aquam descenderunt statim super aquam ignis appareat, &c. 3 Aug. de

+ Præ

Hæres. cap. 46. Baptismum in aquà nihil cuiquam perhibent salutis adferre: nec quenquam eorum, quos decipiunt, baptizandum putant. destinatorum Hæresis, c. 46.