IT is presumed that quite enough has been said on the main pillars of infant baptism--its antiquity and generality. On the same foundation, stand five of the seven sacraments of Roman Catholicism, together with a bachelor priesthood, and the paramount virtues and powers of celibacy and the monastic life. We have also shown, I hope, to the entire satisfaction of every honest mind--of every inquirer after truth--that there has always been, even in the most degenerate days, a valiant band of saints and martyrs bearing testimony against these encroachments of "THE MAN OF SIN" upon the institutions of the Law-giver and King of the Christian people. From all of which documentary argument and proof, we learn how little credit is due to those most reputable "Doctors of modern Divinity" who endeavour to produce the impression that the "German Anabaptists" of the 16th century were the first people in the would that either opposed infant baptism, or assumed the ground on which the present Immersionists, commonly called Baptists, raise their banners and collect a community for the Lord.

      Still, that no point in this controversy may be wholly over-looked or disparaged through apparent ignorance or neglect, I think it expedient to say a few words upon the ancient, though not primitive, institution of the CATECHUMENS. By the catechumens we mean those children admitted into the schools of the ancient church for the purpose of being prepared to make an intelligent profession of Christianity. That all our readers may have an impartial history of them, I quote the whole article concerning them from Buck's Theological Dictionary, which I find generally quoted in Dictionaries and Encyclopedias of more modern date:--

      "CATECHUMENS, the lowest order of Christians in the primitive church. They had some title to the common name of Christians, being a degree above pagans and heretics, though not consummated by baptism. They were admitted to the state of catechumens by the imposition of hands and the sign of the cross. The children of believing parents were admitted catechumens as soon as ever they were capable of instruction; but at what [365] age those of heathen parents might be admitted is not so clear. As to the time of their continuance in this state, there were no general rules fixed about it; but the practice varied according to the difference of times and places, and the readiness and proficiency of the catechumens themselves. There were four orders or degrees of catechumens. The first were those instructed privately without the church, and kept at a distance, for some time, from the privilege of entering the church, to make them the more eager and desirous of it. The next degree were the candidates, so called for their being admitted to hear sermons and the Scriptures read in the church, but were not allowed to partake of the prayers. The third sort of catechumens were the genuflectentes, so called because they received imposition of hands kneeling. The fourth order was the competentes et electi; denoting the immediate candidates for baptism, or such as were appointed to be baptized the next approaching festival; before which, strict examination was made into their proficiency, under the several stages of catechetical exercises.

      "After examination, they were exercised for twenty days together, and were obliged to fasting and confession. Some days before baptism they went veiled; and it was customary to touch their ears, saying Ephphatha,--i. e., Be opened; as also to anoint their eyes with clay: both ceremonies being in imitation of our Saviour's practice, and intended to signify to the catechumens their condition both before and after their admission into the Christian church."

      If, then, infant baptism had been the custom of the primitive church, I ask these hoary doctors of modern divinity, how could it have happened that schools were so early, even in their "ancient church," established for preparing children for baptism by inducting them into the knowledge of the facts, precepts, and promises of Christianity? Can any one of these defenders of the high antiquity of infant baptism give a good reason for such schools? Yes, says one of the most ingenious of them, they were instituted for heathen children! Whether to ascribe this dogma to his temerity or to his intractability, I know not; but this I know, that he has read ecclesiastical history to little account who assumes this attitude on this question. Surely every mere tyro in ecclesiastic learning remembers the case of the celebrated St. Augustine, born in Tagasta, 354; who, by "his Christian mother Monica, was placed among the catechumens; " so that, says Du Pin, "falling dangerously sick, he earnestly desired to be baptized;" but was not then, till better educated!! For, according to the rule of the church, "catechumens were not to be prayed for who died without baptism." [366]

      Dr. Mosheim assigns to these catechumens a place in the institutions of the first century. His words are:--

      "Whoever acknowledged Christ as the Saviour of mankind, and made a solemn profession of his confidence in him, was immediately baptized and received into the church. But, in process of time, when the church began to flourish, and its members to increase, it was thought prudent and necessary to divide Christians into two orders, distinguished by the names of believers and catechumens. The former were those who had been solemnly admitted into the church by baptism, and in consequence thereof were instructed in all the mysteries of religion, had access to all the parts of divine worship, and were authorized to vote in the ecclesiastical assemblies. The latter were such as had not been dedicated to God and Christ by baptism; and were, therefore, admitted neither to the public prayers, nor to the holy communion, nor to the ecclesiastical assemblies."

      Again he says--

      "In the earliest times of the church, all who professed firmly to believe that Jesus was the only Redeemer of the world, and who, in consequence of this profession, promised to live in a manner conformable to the purity of his holy religion, were immediately received among the disciples of Christ. This was all the preparation for baptism then required; and a more accurate instruction in the doctrines of Christianity was to be administered, to them after their receiving that sacrament."

      Again--"The methods of instructing the catechumens differed according to their various capacities. Those in whom the natural force of reason was small, were taught no more than the fundamental principles and truths, which are, as it were, the basis of Christianity. Those, on the contrary, whom their instructors judged capable of comprehending, in some measure, the whole system of Divine truth, were furnished with superior degrees of knowledge; and nothing was concealed from them which could have any tendency to render them firm in their profession and to assist them in arriving at Christian perfection. The care of instructing such was committed to persons who were distinguished by their gravity and wisdom, and also by their learning and judgment. And from hence it comes that the ancient doctors generally divide their flock into two classes; the one comprehending such as were solidly and thoroughly instructed; the other, those who were acquainted with little more than the first principles of religion; nor do they deny that the methods of instruction applied to these two sorts of persons were extremely different.

      "The Christians took all possible care to accustom their children to the study of the Scriptures, and to instruct them is the doctrines [367] of their holy religion: and schools were everywhere erected for this purpose, even from the very commencement of the Christian church."

      Is it not clear, then, Pedobaptist historians being witness, that pains were taken by Christian parents, even before the first century, to prepare their children for baptism? Were there, in their judgment, two baptisms--one for speechless babes, and one for educated children and adults? Or does any one assume the absurd position that the catechumens were the young or old children of unbelieving Jews and pagans? This they must assume, or admit that the children of Christian parents were taught before they were baptized.

      Speaking of the third and fourth centuries, as respects the growing custom of baptizing infants, the learned historian J. C. J. Giesler says, "The custom of considering certain doctrines and rites as mysteries would naturally have some effect on the mode of admission to the church. Baptism was preceded by a long preparatory course, during which the catechumens (catechoumenoi) were gradually led from general religious and moral truths to the peculiar doctrines of Christianity, by teachers appointed for the purpose, (catechistes,) and must pass through various grades (audientes, genuflectentes, competentes) before they were deemed fit to be actually admitted. This course usually occupied several years, and often the catechumens voluntarily deferred their baptism as long as possible, on account of the remission of sins by which it was accompanied. Hence, it was often necessary to baptize the sick, and in that case, sprinkling (baptismus clinicorum, ton klinikon) was substituted for the usual rite. The baptism of infants became now more common. The use of exorcism is distinctly mentioned, and all who had been baptized, even the children, partook of the eucharist." We might quote Waddington and other ecclesiastical historians on our shelves, to the same effect; but this would be more for display than for edification. It is, we think, already proved, from this institution alone, that infant baptism was not from the beginning.

      From all the premises before us, may we not, then, safely affirm that there is no divine precept, no approved example, no authority for infant baptism in the Holy Oracles or in the history of the primitive church? On the contrary, there are--1st. the faith and repentance often required; 2d, in the import of [368] the institution itself; 3d, in the schools and discipline established in and by the ancient church for the instruction and preparation of children for the proper understanding and believing reception of the ordinance--the clearest indications that there is no more divine authority for baptizing an infant than for giving it the consecrated wafer, the holy oil of Romanism, or the sacred memorials of a Saviour's dying love?

      With these premises before the candid reader, we ask him whether he can repose with a full acquiescence in the tenth and last argument of Dr. Miller, and that of his still more learned predecessor, Dr. Wall--viz. that "the history of the Christian church from the apostolic age furnishes an argument of irresistible force in favour of the Divine authority of infant baptism!" Great must be the implicit confidence of any man, we think, or great must be his ignorance of church history, who can lend his assent to an assumption as gratuitous and unwarrantable as the plea for auricular confession, transubstantiation, or extreme unction.

      I am now, and have been long of the opinion that these reverend gentlemen who talk so easily and so positively of church history and its faithful records, are much better read in Roman Catholic church history than in Christian antiquity or the true history of the hosts of remonstrants that never gave their assent to the haughty, imperious, and baseless assumptions of "THE MAN OF SIN," whose church history is but that of his own lofty pretensions to a regular, hereditary, ecclesiastical descent from St. Peter and that church in the imperial city, of which they say he was the first prelate as well as the chief founder; the whole of which story, though gravely told a million of times, and fully believed by a thousand million of human kind, during twelve successive centuries, is as grand a legend or as magniloquent a tale as that of the Arabian Nights, or that of the more plausible Robinson Crusoe.

      But that my readers may hear Dr. Miller in his own grave conclusions, and that I may give him the last word, and lest any one should think that I have done him any injustice, I shall quote directly his own epitome of the strength of his own evidence. It is in the words following, to wit:--

      "Such is an epitome of the direct evidence in favour of infant baptism. To me, I acknowledge, it appears nothing short of demonstration. The invariable character of all Jehovah's dealings and covenants with the children of men; his express [369] appointment, acted upon for two thousand years by the ancient church; the total silence of the New Testament as to any retractation or repeal of this privilege; the evident and repeated examples of family baptism in the apostolic a the indubitable testimony of the practice of the whole church on the Pedobaptist plan, from the time of the Apostles to the sixteenth century, including the most respectable witnesses for the truth in the dark ages; all conspire to establish on the firmest foundation the membership, and the consequent right to baptism, of the infant seed of believers, If here be no divine warrant, we may despair of finding it for any institution in the church of God."

      I do not think it necessary to proceed to an examination of all the alleged authorities for infant baptism adduced from the last half of the third century, and from the fourth and fifth centuries. These are all too far off from the apostolic age. Besides, in the same period I find almost all the errors of the ancient church appearing in well defined outlines, explicit enough for the humblest intellect.

      It may, however, be useful to some minds, easily influenced by even a spurious antiquity, to state a few undeniable facts, and to make a few observations on the testimonies pressed upon our attention by Dr. Wall and his too credulous and sanguine admirers. I shall begin with the celebrated Council of Carthage, A. D. 253, and its presiding genius, St. Cyprian, with his sixty-six bishops. H. Danverse, in his book on Baptism, 1674, alleges, that he "would rather believe that these things" (touching the baptism of infants eight days old) "had been foisted into his writings by that villainous, cursed generation, that so horribly abused the writings of most of the ancients, than to suppose Cyprian and his bishops so ignorant as to decide in favour of baptizing on the eighth day." I see no need for such a solution of the case: for other sayings and decisions of this Council of Carthage were equally childish. For example "We judge," says he, "that no person is to be hindered from obtaining the grace of remission, because they are not his own, but others' sins, that are forgiven him"--that is, original sin or the sins of his parents are forgiven him. A sage argument, truly, for infant baptism!

      But the learned Grotius takes other ground, and denies that there is any authority from any council for infant baptism previous to the Council of Carthage, held in the year 418. He [370] argues against the universality of infant baptism even in the third century. Besides, Dr. Wall himself admits that some of the reasons given by these "Fathers," in support of the alleged decrees of the African Council, "are weak and frivolous."

      Were I challenged to the task, as a matter of consequence, to take the whole collation and authors of the third, fourth, and fifth centuries, adduced by Dr. Wall, and to argue from them against the assumption that infant baptism was from the beginning, I would, with much confidence of a successful issue, very cheerfully undertake it. Nothing in the form of circumstantial reasoning could, to my mind, be more conclusive against him than his own authorities, in the hand of a skilful and competent reasoner. I will give only a sample or two of his authorities, and of the logical application of them to this effect. He quotes the letter of the Council of Carthage, A. D. 253, addressed to Fidus, in response to the interrogatory, "Whether an infant, before it was eight days old, might be baptized, if need required!" Fidus was, it seems, against this practice. The Council are in favour of it: for what reasons? 1st. "Because the Son of Man came not to destroy men's lives, but to save them." 2d. "Because, as far as lies in us, no soul is to be lost." "For it is written, To the clean all things are clean." 4th. "Because the eighth day, that is 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." 5th. "Because Peter. said, The Lord has shown me that no person is to be called common or unclean." 6th. "Because they are not his own, but others' sins, that are forgiven him." "Therefore, it is not for us to hinder any person from baptism and the grace of God, who is merciful and kind and affectionate to all."¹ So reason St. Cyprian and his sixty-six bishops. Not one scripture is quoted by way of authority. No appeal is made to scripture precept, precedent, or even to the history of the church. Now, can any one, free from prejudice, imagine that if infant baptism had been, from the beginning a primitive, apostolic usage, such a superannuated, dotardly affair as this Carthage decision could possibly have occurred, or that such a question should have been debated as late as the last half of the third century? I wonder not that such men as "the great Grotius" should have [371] argued against the universal prevalence of infant baptism even so late as the fourth century, from the very authorities which are urged in proof of its apostolic origin and authority.

      Concerning the sixth canon of the Council of Neocesarea, passed A. D. 314, which saith, "A woman with child may be baptized when she pleases. For the mother in this matter communicates nothing to the child: because, in the profession, every one's own [or peculiar] resolution is declared, [or because every one's resolution is declared to be peculiar to himself.]" I am of the same opinion with Grotius, who says of it, "How much soever the commentators draw it to another sense, it is plain that the doubt concerning the baptizing women great with child, was for that reason because the child might seem to be baptized together with the mother, and a child was not wont to be baptized but upon its own will and profession." Grotius quotes Balsamon and Zonaras, of the twelfth century, as interpreting this canon as he does, for which he has good authority. But on these matters I lay no stress whatever. They only show that learned and very distinguished men, not Baptists either, concur with us in repudiating the decrees of councils as evidence that infant baptism was fully established in their days, or that it was from the beginning.

      After describing the preparation for receiving baptism, as respects the state of mind of the recipient of it, St. Gregory Nazianzen says, "Some may suppose this to hold in the case of those who can desire baptism. What say you to those that are as yet infants, and are not in a capacity to be sensible either of the grace or the miss of it? Shall we baptize them too? Yes, by all means, if danger make it requisite. For it is better that they be sanctified without their own sense of it, than that they should die unsealed and uninitiated. And a ground of this to us is circumcision, given on the eighth day, which was a typical seal, or baptism, and was practised on those that had no use of reason, as also the anointing of the doorposts, which preserved the first-born by things that had no sense." "As for us," (whom danger of death does not threaten,) "I give my opinion that they should stay three years or thereabouts, when they are capable to hear and answer some of the holy words, and though they do not perfectly understand the words, yet they form them, and that you then sanctify them in soul and body [372] with the great sacrament of initiation."² This needs no comment.

      At this period, A. D. 360, it is very evident that infant baptism was still in debate; and no one as yet presumes to appeal to the history of the church from the beginning. This may be made still more evident from the words of the great Basil, his contemporary. He says, "There is a time for sleep, a time for watching, a time of war, a time of peace; but any time of one's life is proper for baptism; yet the most proper time is Easter." Again, he says, "Do you demur, and put it off, when you have been from a child catechised in the word? Are you not got acquainted with the truth? Having been always learning it, are you not come to the knowledge of it? A seeker all your life long; a considerer till you are old. When will you be made a Christian? When shall we see you become one of us? You do not know what change to-morrow may bring." This is a very striking passage; and, notwithstanding the assertion of Dr. Well, that these were the children, not of Christians, but of unbaptized pagans, I must think that amongst these were the children of Christians; else, I ask, how could he say, "You have been from a child catechised in the word!" Did pagans so bring up their children? Did they teach them that the Bible was the book of God? Did they introduce them to a Saviour in whom they did not believe? This passage from Basil is alone sufficient to show that, in the fourth century, infant baptism was any thing but universal.

      To Basil, we shall add a quotation from St. Chrysostom: "The catechumens being of this mind," (having an aversion to a godly life,) "to take no care of a godly life; and those that are baptized, some of them, forasmuch as they were children when they received it, and some, for that they received it in a fit of sickness, having put it off to that time, and having no mind to live godly, show no good inclination. And they that received it in their health show but very little; having been for the present zealously affected, afterward, even they let their fire of zeal go out." So spoke Chrysostom, A. D. 380.

      We are now brought down to the era of the Pelagian [373] controversy, to the commencement of the fifth century, and till this time we have no decree of any council, nor declaration of any distinguished author that, fairly construed, could induce us to think that infant baptism was practised from the beginning, or that it had become universal. No one appears even disposed to trace it up to the apostolic age; but to assign for it some other reason or authority, doctrinal or inferential. It seems, indeed, all the while struggling against objections, and finding in circumcision, or expediency, or in the opinion of some distinguished persons, a support for itself--evidently wanting the seal and the authority of apostolic sanction, either in the form of precept or example.

      We know no good reason for either listening to, or examining, the conflicts of St. Austin and St. Jerome against Pelagius and Cælestius, on original sin, and their respective allusions to baptism for remission of sins; or the reasons urged for and against its application to infants according to their respective theories and hypotheses. They but reiterate the dogmas and decrees of their own times--the decisions of fathers and councils, with their own assertions and opinions.

      As a matter of curiosity, however, we will quote a passage or two from Dr. Wall's History of Infant Baptism, setting forth the views of the most orthodox of all the great fathers, the defenders of the faith and traditions of the true church, as opposed to the equally distinguished heterodox and heretical Pelagius, who is quoted as affirming that "men slander me, as if I denied the sacrament of baptism to infants, or did promise the kingdom of heaven to some persons without the redemption of Christ; which is a thing that I never heard, no, not even any wicked heretic say."³ "Who is there so ignorant--who can be so impious as to hinder infants from being baptized and born again in Christ, and to make them miss of the kingdom of heaven; since our Saviour has said that none can enter into the kingdom of heaven that is not born again of water and the Holy Spirit? Who is there so impious as to refuse to an infant, of what age soever, the common redemption of mankind, and to hinder him that is born to an uncertain life from being born again to an everlasting and certain life?"⁴

      Pelagius, in all this, was verbally most orthodox: for all the [374] church, with the great St. Austin, believed and taught infant baptism for the remission of sin original. Austin said of the Pelagians, "Beset both with the authority of God's word, and with the usage of the church that was of old delivered to it, and has been since kept by it in the baptizing of children, that they dare not deny that infants are baptized for forgiveness of sins, and that it must not be supposed that the church does this in any trickish or deceitful meaning; but since what is acted is acted seriously, that which is spoken must be supposed to be really done."

      But adds St. Austin, although Pelagius in this speaks according to the true church, "The Pelagians do not yield that infants are baptized for the remission of sins in such a sense as that any sins are forgiven to them who, they say, have none,"--namely, infants; "but that they, though they be without sin," (i. e. original sin,) "yet are baptized with that baptism by which is granted forgiveness of sins to all that have any."⁵ Concerning this concession of Pelagius to the orthodox St. Austin, Dr. Wall says, "There will ever be this difference between a man of sense and a thick-skulled man--that the former, if he find himself gravelled, will, at least, have the modesty to give over talking. Pelagius, after he was brought to this contradiction, kept silence, and we hear no more of him."⁶

      So, then, it appears that Pelagius, St. Austin, and Dr. Wall agree, first, in infant baptism; and secondly, in pretence the first, and in sincerity the last two, believed in the baptism of infants for the remission of original sin; and that without either faith or repentance on their part. This, no doubt, was the mystic charm of infant baptism, and its passport into the Catholic faith of all that taught or believed infant damnation for original sin, or because of simple descent from a fallen and condemned progenitor.

      Indeed, Dr. Wall strongly affirms that St. Austin, and the orthodox with him, "held as certain that children which are baptized, dying before they commit actual sin, are undoubtedly saved;" "for," continues Dr. Wall, "St. Austin says in there last words that 'he that does not believe this'--that baptized children dying in infancy are undoubtedly saved--'is an infidel."' "Austin plainly supposes," says Dr. Wall, "that without [375] baptism they would be liable to eternal damnation because of original Sin."⁷

      "Austin did not think," says Dr. Wall, "nor pretend that infants that are baptized have, in any proper sense, faith or repentance, or conversion of heart, &c. How much soever he is here pressed with the difficulty of explaining the reasons why godfathers answer in the child's name--'He does believe'--he does not, for all that, fly to the justifying of so great a paradox as to say that the child does indeed, in a proper sense, understand, believe, or disbelieve any thing. He shows the words are true in a sacramental sense, but does not maintain that they are so in a proper one. Nay, he plainly yields that they are not: he grants that infants cannot as yet either believe with the heart or confess with the mouth. And when, at other times, he argues that infants, after they are baptized, are no longer to be counted either among the infidels or catechumens, but the fideles or credentes, (believers;) yet still he means and explains himself as he does here--'that they are constituted fideles, not by that faith which consists in the will of believers, but by the sacrament of faith.' He holds, indeed, that the Holy Spirit does do offices for the infant and is in the infant. You see here his words: the regenerating spirit is one in these that bring the child, and in the child that is brought: and in that part of the epistle which I left out because of the length, he says, 'The water affording outwardly the sacrament of the grace, and the Spirit operating inwardly the benefit of the grace, loosing the bond of guilt, &c., do regenerate.' But he supposes the infants to be merely passive, and not to know, understand, or co-operate any thing themselves." "We affirm, therefore, that the Holy Spirit dwells in baptized infants, though they know it not: for after the same manner they know him not, though he be in them, as they know not their own soul: the reason whereof, which they cannot yet make use of, is in them, as a spark raked up, which will kindle as they grow in years." Dr. Wall, pp. 276, 277, 278.

      Thus believed, wrote, and taught the revered and admired Saint Austin, the beau ideal and prototype of the justly celebrated John Calvin. I have given Dr. Wall's translation of the original Latin, lying before me, that I might not be supposed to [376] have given a single tint or shade to the views of the great patron of infant baptism. With such views of baptism as these here delineated, professed by orthodox and heterodox, by catholics and heretics, no one need wonder at the popularity of the rite, its wide diffusion, or the tenacity of its hold on the minds and affections of a too credulous and servile people.

      We have considered every thing extant, appealed to by its advocates, in Old Testament and New--every thing alleged from church history, in the form of "Apostolic Fathers," Greek Fathers, distinguished writers, "decrees of Synods and Councils," &c. &c., down to the period when "THE MAN OF SIN" arrives at full maturity, and, with his crown and mitre, his shepherd's crook, his crosier and sword spiritual, proclaims himself PONTIFEX MAXIMUS, "the PRINCE OF THE APOSTLES," "the VICAR OF CHRIST," and "the HEAD OF THE CHURCH."

      From this period down, we can find, as we have already shown, a host of distinguished men in every age, with their scattered communities--Mountaineers or Piedmontese--bearing witness for the Apostolic Institutions, and against the haughty and insolent assumptions of the Roman Pontiff, exalting himself above all the gods of earth and objects of human fear, sitting in the temple of God, assuming to be his Vicegerent, claiming for himself a reverence and an adoration due to God alone. He, indeed, has even aimed, and successfully, "to change times and laws" and usages inimical to his own claims and pretensions. Leaving the youth of the Christian profession to the necessity of making a personal application and a personal profession of the faith before initiation by baptism, was by no means so favourable to the rapid growth and worldly aggrandizement of his church, as the universal baptism of infants as soon as born. The Roman hierarchy never was in favour of much thinking or examination on the part of its population. The clergy will think for them, if the people will only faithfully believe and serve them. I need not, then, trace through the sixth century the still more rapid progress of this rite. It never was, however, catholic--that is, universal. To pursue it farther in this direction would be but waste of time and prodigality of life. [377]

[CBAC 365-377]