ther unconnected with our present subject ;-that during the interval he has seen no reason to alter his opinion relative to Tertullian, Mr. R. and Mr. B., nor been sufficiently at leisure to add one to the little stock of his ideas on the subject of baptism. Perhaps, indeed, by suffering his thoughts to move in a different direction, he may have lost some of his original ideas, instead of adding to them: he is, however, now endeavouring to rally them, and to proceed, as nearly as he can, in the line of his former letter. Enough, then, of one poor word, norint; still it remains to shew, with respect to grossly misrepresenting and mistranslating Tertullian on the subject of baptism, with which your Correspondent charged Mr. Robinson, that if the latter gentleman made a slip, he has himself made a fall, indeed many falls, and, in my humble opinion, of greater consequence on the subject of baptism.

The primary and generally-received rule for translation, is, to express the true idea, where that is possible, of the original; and our practice, where conformity is required, is to be tried by the same rule. Now, without inquiring at present whether the word baptism, in its different modes, according to the practices of different Christians, by sprinkling, affusion and immersion, can express the original idea affixed to it in the New Testament, I beg leave to remind your readers, that with respect to Tertullian's, that may be correctly ascertained: many passages in continuation, translated, both on the subject and mode of bap. tism, having been given in a former Number of your Repository, and the more amply, that all readers might, in the proper place, have a rule for judging, whether Mr. R. or Mr. B. had delivered the true ideas of Tertullian on the subject; and to those passages the attention of your readers is now recalled. They shall be supposed then to have turned to such passages: and your Correspondent, it is hoped, will point out any misstatement or mistranslation on the subject of baptism, if any occur to him.

The subject of baptism (your Correspondent's phrase) embraces two ideas, the mode of baptism, and the person to be baptized. According to Mr. R.'s representation of Tertullian,

the mode was immersion, the person, one capable of being taught and of believing. According to Mr. B. the mode ought to have been sprinkling, and the subject a new-born babe. Now which of these best agrees with Tertullian's description? It is not meant to say here that Mr. B. insinuates Tertullian approved his notion; on the contrary, he maintains that the father disapproves Infant Baptism. He uniformly conuects Tertullian with Infant Baptism; and in one place (in his "Plea for Infant Baptism") he says, "that it is agreed on all hands, that Tertullian is the first ecclesiastical writer by whom the baptism of infants is expressly mentioned;" and then in a note, "it is very true," &c. of which more in the proper places. Now, here, if your learned Correspondent is not guilty of a misrepresentation, he is, I apprehend, of a mistake. For even his great friend Dr. Wall shall speak for the Pædobaptists, who, while explaining after his manner a passage in Hermas, asserts the contrary, "This being to the same effect (Dr. Wall's words) as our Saviour's embracing infants, and saying, of such is the kingdom of God: this is one of the reasons used (by Hermas) to prove that they are fit to be admitted into the covenant of God's grace and love by BAPTISM; and whereas the AntiPædobaptists expound our Saviour's words, not of children themselves, but of men that are of an innocent temper, like children; not only that is affirmed here, (in Hermas,) but it is, moreover, said of the infants themselves, that they are greatly valued and esteemed of God."-Nay, farther, notwithstanding this learned pleader's large way of talking concerning its being on all hands agreed concerning Tertullian and Infant Baptism, with all due deference to his authorities, I venture to affirm, that Tertullian, in the Treatise de Baptismo, never once speaks of Infant Baptism. Your

C. 29. It matters not that Dr. Wall has Hermas, Pastor. Lib. iii. Simil. ix. either misrepresented or mistaken the meaning of Hermas, (which indeed he has,) he says enough to prove what credit is to be given to Mr. B. about its being on all hands agreed, &c. See Wall's Hist. of Infant Baptism, I. 41. Edit. 1819.

learned Correspondent's universal testimony here, is like his universal practice in another case. And whether Hermas's PASTOR be a genuine book or no, it may be said, with more truth than what your Correspondent says, it is on all hands agreed, that it is an earlier book than Tertullian's Treatise de Baptismo.

It is unnecessary to produce further testimony from Pædobaptist writers, against what is so on all hands agreed, seeing we have your Correspondent's own declaration to the contrary (in his Letter in your Repository for April, 1818). Speaking of Justin Martyr's important testimony to Infant Baptism, οι εκ παίδων εμαθητεύθησαν TX, your Correspondent adds, amidst much more, the children who were thus discipled, were, no doubt, baptized. Now, according to your Correspondent's way of using the term expressly mentioned, Justin Martyr expressly mentions Infant Baptism. It is only necessary, according to him, that the thing should be strongly implied, so as to admit, in your author's judgment, of no doubt. His not introducing the term Infant Baptism into the text cannot, on your Correspondent's principles, affect the matter in the least. Hermas, Justin and Tertullian, being in the same predicament with respect to that; for neither one nor the other mentions the words Infant Baptism; notwithstanding what your author says, so confidently, yet, I conceive, so incorrectly, of Tertullian's expressly mentioning it in the Treatise so often referred to.

The opinion of Baptist writers on this matter may be gathered from what is said by Mr. Robinson: "Few writers," says he, "have been so often quoted on the controversy concerning Infant Baptism as Tertullian, and yet the subject is not so much as mentioned by this father." This is speaking more closely than I have done; for if the Baptists maintain that Tertullian never once mentions the subject, it is much if they will agree on all hands, that he is the first who expressly mentions it. They are boys and not babes," continues Mr. R., "of whose baptism he (Tertullian) writes.".*

Now I admit that some Baptist

Hist. of Bapt. p. 164.

writers speak of Pædobaptism, or the baptism of children, as being gradually at first introduced in Africa in the time of Tertullian⚫ But this is a different thing from saying he was the first who expressly mentions Infant Baptism. And if any writers, whether Pædobaptist or Baptist, have so spoken, they have spoken incorrectly, for the reason already givenhe never mentions it at all in the pas sages produced by them.

Such passages as that above quoted from Mr. R.'s History, must have been the mark in your Correspondent's eve, though his arrow falls, harmlessly enough, on the word norint: for however it may fare with that word, the subject of baptism stands untouched by it. That passage affects both the mode of baptism, and the person to be baptized, and your Correspondent must wish, no doubt, your readers to understand that Mr. R. has therein mistaken and misrepresented the subject. But I think I shall be able to shew that Mr. Robinson is perfectly correct, and if Mr. R. is right, your Correspondent himself must be wrong.

Now, according to your Correspondent's statement of baptism as a Christian rite, obligatory on Christian parents, in lieu of Jewish circumcision, to the uniform tenor of his Plea, and his own practice according to his Form for the Administration of Infant Baptism, his infant, we have said, is a new-born babe: but that was not Tertullian's parvulus, (the word used by him). According to Mr. B.'s practice, his baptism is sprinkling, affusion, or applying water to some part of a child's face; but that was not Tertullian's baptism: and if so, Mr. B.'s Infant Baptism was not Tertullian's, so that, as far as concerns the subject of baptism, Mr. R. appears to me to be perfectly correct: let us see, then.

1. Tertullian's parvulus was not a new-born babe.

It has already been observed that Tertullian, in his Treatise on Baptism, never uses the term Infant Baptism:

Antonio Van Dale. Hist. Baptismorum. "Audiamus, hic, quæso Tertailianum, cujus tempore ille Baptismus (Pedobaptismus) videtur introductus sensim, vel potius exortus,"

but further, no term introduced into it by him, can be applicable, in his adaptation of it, to a new-born babe. This, indeed, has already been shewn, in the passages introduced from that father, in a former letter, and I think they amount to a proof. I shall veuture here on arguments somewhat different.

Of the several ends aimed at in this Treatise, the principal was to establish the obligation of water-baptism, in opposition to those who entirely rejected it. For several pages, every syllable relates to that subject, as does considerably more than half the Treatise: all the other points which he speaks to, he mentions as comparatively inconsiderable; questiuncula quædam (his own expression). This circumstance I more distinctly notice, because it is too slightly considered by others; (there is not the slightest notice taken of this circum stance by Dr. Wall, in his chapter about Tertullian;) and because, from Tertullian's studious manner of discussing water-baptism, no less than from his positive assertion, it appears the party that rejected water-baptism was numerous. He, indeed, expressly says, plerosq. rapuit, and the followers of Montanus, who was a member of this church, became widely disseminated in the Christian world. Now among persons, of whom some set the rite entirely aside, while others, we know, practised it by immersion, and on adults, the presumption is, that none would lay such stress on it, as to be for hurrying it on to newborn babes.

Mr. R. remarks, that Tertullian, being a lawyer, had been consulted, before he became a Christian, as a

man eminent in his profession, and that in the contested passage about baptism he delivers his opinion somewhat as a lawyer; and it is more than probable, at least, considering the condition of children in this Roman province, Africa, that his opinion may at some time have been so taken, Tertullian being at the time not only an eminent lawyer, but of high character in the Catholic Church, an elder, distinguished by his talents and learning. And, if his advice had been asked about the baptism of these children, it is probable that the children alluded to were the first baptized

And

children of that party, perhaps, in all Africa; for it would have been inconsistent with the serious character of those who consulted Tertullian, to have practised the rite first, and ask advice afterwards, nor was a person of Tertullian's character to be so trifled with. Be this as it may, though Tertulliando es not expressly mention new-born babes nor infants, mere infants, as Dr. Waterland expresses it, yet he appears to be the first of the early Christian writers, who even alludes to any rising opinion relative to Padobaptism, or the baptism of children, though prior to him, there were several who do expressly men tion it, by describing the mode and the subject of baptism, in another form and under another character. the opinion of many learned men, just now alluded to, is highly probable, that Africa was the country, and the time of Tertullian the period, of the commencement of the baptism of children. At all events, it appears to me that the parvuli (the word used by Tertullian, not infantes), could not be according to that Father's own illustration, your Correspondent's new born babes. It is a vague word, and circumstances must determine its meaning and limit. Mr. Robinson gives examples of readers, (lectores,) who were martyrs and choristers, who, in Carthagenian language, being infantuli and parvuli, were taught to read and sing by Theucarius, the church schoolmaster.

Eugenio pastore jam in exilio constituto universus clerus Ecclesiæ Carthagenis cæde inediaque maceratur, fere quingenti vel amplius inter quos quamplurimi erant lectores infantuli, qui gaudentes in Domino procul exilio crudeli

truduntur. Victoris Velensis Hist. Persecut. Vandal.-Ibi et Infantuli fuere

quamplurimi, quos genetrices materno sequebantur affectu, aliæ gaudentes, aliæ tristes, aliæ retrahentes: aliæ gaudebaut se martyres peperisse. Dum iter ageremus, cum Dei exercitu comitantes, conspicimus mulierculain sacculum et alia vestimenta portantem, manu Infantulum unum tenentem, atq. his sermonibus consobenedicita, benedicita, et orate pro me et lantem, Curre, Domine meus ;-Respondit, pro isto Parvulo..... Respondit cum hoc Parvulo servo vestro ad exilium pergo, ne inveniat eum solum inimicus, et à via veritatis revocet ad mortem. Id. Lib. ii. Cap. ix.