the apo these because I believe that was not his steady CHAP. II. opinion, which may seem to be the most obvious Year after sense of an expression of his in his commentary on stles. the nineteenth oration of Gregory Nazianzen; where there is an account of the baptism of the said Gregory's father, which was after his marriage. And Bilius there speaking of the danger of sinning after baptism, says; says; I mention this, because in 6 6 6 those times persons came later to baptism than ' nowadays; when by a commendable custom they ' are baptized in infancy, lest delay should bring danger with it.' - What a word did that learned abbot suffer to escape the hedge of his lips? Was not that Gregory the Father a heathen till that time, and his parents before him? I believe if one were to look over Bilius' writings, one should find that this was not his settled opinion. But I have not time to do that at present. Since the first edition of this book, one Antony van Dale, a Dutch minnist or antipædobaptist, has written a tract called, The History of Baptisms. Wherein he has one chapter against infant-baptism: and in that [at p. 375] a quotation of a letter of Salmasius, written to Justus Pacius under the name of Simplicius Verinus. Where Salmasius says; 'In 'the first two centuries none received baptism, but 'such as being instructed in the faith, and made acquainted with the doctrine of Christ, could declare their belief of it; because of those words, 6 The note, or scholion, referred to in the text, may be found at p. 129. of the edition of 1570. No. 14.] 2 C [See Antonii Van Dale dissertatio super Aristea de lxx Interpretibus: additur Historia Baptismorum. 4to. Amstel. 1705.] M CHAP. 11. He that believeth and is baptized: so that believYear afterí ing is to be the first. Thence was the order of ' catechumens in the church. There was then also the apostles. ' a constant custom, that to those catechumens, pre 6 6 sently after their baptism, the eucharist should be given. Afterward there came in an opinion, that 'none could be saved that was not baptized. And so there grew a custom of giving baptism to in'fants. And because the adult catechumens, as soon as they were baptized, had the eucharist 'given them, without any space of time passing 11 between; it was, after that infant baptism was 6 brought in, ordered that this should be done also ' with infants.' 6 Having not any copy of Salmasius' letters, I can judge nothing of the authenticalness of this quotation; nor can give any guess (if Salmasius did write such a letter) what age he might be of when he wrote it, or whether he published it himself. I know that many learned men have suffered much in their memory by having all their letters and posthumous pieces printed after their death: some d [The letter alluded to in the text was published under the following title, 'De transubstantiatione liber, Simplicio Verino Auctore. Ad Justum Pacium contra H. Grotium. Hagiopoli, '1646.' 8vo. Salmasius was then fifty-eight years of age, having been born in 1588. The passage quoted occurs at p. 494, and is fairly given by Van Dale. It should be remarked, that there are two distinct works by Salmasius, both published under the same feigned name, both in the same year, both directed against Grotius, and both addressed ad Justum Pacium:' but the earlier of the two calls itself epistola, and the latter liber: (in this particular Van Dale has mistaken, and might lead an inquirer astray:) and that it is the second work which Dr. Wall here recites.] the apo whereof were such, as being written in their youth, CHAP. II. they themselves would have been ashamed of after- Year after ward, and would, upon better information and read-stles. ing, have recanted: an instance whereof I gave just now, in one that in his youth wrote a letter so like this, that one may seem to be drawn from the other. And I have also known several persons who have owned, that before their reading the ancient books, they have been inclined to such an opinion against the antiquity of infant-baptism, as is expressed in these two letters; but afterward found their own mistake. And this is the more probable in the case of Salmasius, for that he never did in his conversation or books (that I ever heard of) shew any inclination to antipædobaptism. But if this were his steady opinion concerning the beginning of pædobaptism; then we must add him to those three or four men that have said this without giving any proof from antiquity of their saying. I find this very passage quoted by Mr. Stennet [Answer to Russen, p. 86] as from Suicerus' Thesaurus, sub voce Σύναξι Σύναξιλ Who it seems took it from Salmasius. IX. There is, as I said, another sort of learned men, who, though they think with the rest of the world, that infant-baptism was ever practised in the church of Christ, yet think that it was not general or universal; but that in the elder times some Christian parents baptized their children in infancy, and others not: and that it was counted indifferent. I take Grotius to be the author of this opinion. For though some before him did observe that many e [See col. 1136, tom. ii. edit. 1728.] of CHAP. II. persons of note in the primitive times were bap- the apo stles. born of Christian parents, (which last, whether they 6 So though Dr. Field, in his treatise Of the Church, do say, that besides those who were converted from paganism, many that were born of Christian parents, put off their baptism a long 'time' an instance of which he makes St. Ambrose: yet these (whom he calls many) he takes to be so few in comparison, that he still speaks of the other as a continued practice' or tradition. As where he treats purposely of tradition 5, he says: The fourth kind of tradition is the continued practice of such things, as neither are contained in the scripture expressly, nor the example of such practice expressly there delivered; though 'the grounds, reasons, and causes of the necessity of such practice be there contained; and the benefit 6 6 or good that followeth of it. Of this sort is the But Grotius from this and some other arguments f Page 719. g Lib. iv. cap. 20. i Apology. [8vo. Lugd. Bat. 1643. and in vol. iii. of Rí eti Opera Theologica, p. 1076.] the apo tists with all his might: and I see,' says Rivet, CHAP. II. that he has brought over Hugo Grotius :-Yet I Year after count it proper to reckon Grotius as the author, stles." because what the dardinal had said was very probably not from his real opinion, but from a design to embroil the protestants, by giving strength to the schism of the antipædobaptists, who then began to grow rife in Holland and other places. A design which the papists have since earnestly promoted; industriously putting it into their books, that infant-baptism cannot be proved from scripture, but only from the practice of the church: and as some of them will have it, not from any evidence of the practice of the ancient church neither, but only from the authority of the present church. I am not willing to think that Grotius had so ill a design. But he being naturally inclined to trim all controversies in religion that came in his way, and using that vast stock of learning which he had (as princes that would hold the balance do their power) to help the weakest side, he maintains (not that there was ever any church or any time in which infant-baptism was not used, but) that in the Greek churches, many persons, from the beginning to this day, do observe the custom of delaying the baptism of their infants till they are able to make 'confession of their own faith'.' The mistake that he is here guilty of in reference to the modern practice of the Greek churches; in which (as all men are now sure) there neither is, nor lately has been, any such thing known as the delay of infants' baptism, (especially if he mean the Greek churches properly so called; for what disi Annot. in Matt. xix. WALL, VOL. II. |