we to view this declaration: "He that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved, but he that believeth not, shall be damned." Surely this applies to adults, and not to infants. Apply it to infants, and they are damned; for they cannot believe, therefore must be damned.

How plain this text when properly and liberally viewed! We saw, in the course of our remarks on this subject, that when a Gentile father or mother believed in the God of Israel, and desired to enter into the Jewish state of the church, he or she, and all the children, were baptized. Faith was only a qualification to the adult, while the innocency of years was a qualification to every child. A Jew* clearly understood this matter; and in a similar way we are to comprehend the above text, and its application to adults and children now. Just as a whole family went into the Jewish state of the church, faith qualifying the adults, and the innocency of years recommending children, so whole families went into the Christian state of the church, with the above text bearing on them. The passage must now appear as plain in its meaning, with the preceding facts and comments before us, and as perfectly in keeping with the idea of infant baptism as any other passage in the Scriptures.

Having said enough, as we conceive, on law, right, custom, and the Scriptures, to satisfy reason that infant baptism has for its basis divine authority, we shall now hear the history of the Christian state of the church on it.

Justin Martyr, who wrote about forty years after the apostolic age, says: "We have not received the carnal, but the spiritual circumcision by baptism, and it is enjoined to all persons to receive it in the same way." Again he says: "Several persons among us, of sixty and seventy years old, who were made disciples to Christ from their childhood,

do continue uncorrupt." (See Dr. Wardlow on Infant Baptism, p. 106.)

Here we not only have proof of circumcision being regarded as giving place to baptism, but that Justin Martyr. and others were made diseiples by baptism in childhood. We shall here observe, by way of adding force to this testimony, that Justin lived only about ninety years after Matthew wrote his gospel.

Irenæus says:

"Christ came to save all persons by himself; all I mean, who are baptized unto God; infants, and little ones, and children." This personage wrote some sixty-seven years after the apostolic age. Dodwell thinks he must have been born before the death of John. How could infant baptism have imposed itself on the mind of this man, so circumstanced, if it had not been practiced by the apostles themselves? This testimony is as. satisfactory, in some respects, as if John or Paul had given it to the world, above his own signature; for Irenæus was personally acquainted with Polycarp, who was a disciple of John, and heard him preach. (See Wall's History of Infant Baptism, vol. 1, chap. 3.)

Origen says: "Infants by the usage of the church are baptized. The church had a tradition or command from the apostles to give baptism to infants.” This personage was born some eighty-five years after the apostolic age. He was the prince of the fathers. His testimony is fully vindicated in Wall's Defense of Infant Baptism, pp. 372-383. The church had a command or tradition from the apostles to baptize infants. This is quite satisfactory, coming from such a source.

Fidus, an African bishop, applied to Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, to know whether the baptism of infants ought to take place before the eighth day after their birth. This question was duly con

sidered in an African Synod, held A. D. 254, and composed of sixty-six bishops. The result was: "It was unanimously decreed that it was not necessary to defer baptism to that day; and that the grace of God, or baptism, should be given to all, and especially to infants." This decision was sent in a letter from Cyprian to Fidus. Fidus, of course, looked on baptism in its application to infants as taking the place of circumcision, and so made the inquiry. The decision embraced the same thought, but regarded the time as being unimportant, that it might be administered on the day of the birth of the child. What a number of bishops so believing, so near the apostles!

Jerome says: "If infants are not baptized, the sin of omitting their baptism is laid to their parents' charge." This personage wrote about 256.

Ambrose says: "The baptism of infants was the practice of the apostles, and has been in the church until this time." This distinguished personage wrote some 274 years after the apostles.

Augustine says: "Infant baptism the whole church practices; it was not instituted by councils, but was ever in use. The whole church of Christ has constantly held that infants were baptized." Again he says: "I have never read or heard of any Christian, whether Catholic or sectary who held otherwise." This great man wrote so near the age of the apostles as 280.

Pelagius says: "Men slander me, as if I denied the sacrament of baptism to infants. I never heard of any, not even the most impious heretic, who denied baptism to infants." This very man, on account of his peculiar faith, would have been glad if he could have found a flaw in the history of infant baptism, or any set of men that had opposed it. Against the interest of his own faith, however, he made the above honest declaration,

namely, "I never heard of any who denied baptism to infants." We are tempted to ask here, where were immersionists then, such as we have now, that they could not even be heard of? Truly there was not one of them!

Augustine tells us that the baptism of infants was not instituted by councils, that it was ever in use; and Pelagius informs us that he never heard of any that denied baptism to infants. This is al⚫ mighty proof. Our pity to him who will wantonly reject it. The far famed Pelagius flourished some 300 years subsequent to the apostles.

At the commencement of the 5th century, the council of Meletas decreed thus: "The Catholic Church every where diffused, always understood and asserted, that this [infant baptism] was an apostolic practice." (See J. P. Campbell's Discourse on Baptism, p. 47.)

In Wall, vol. 2, chap. 10, p. 501, we find the following, which we deem highly worthy of a place here: "Lastly, as these evidences are for the first four hundred years, in which there appears one man, Tertullian, that advised the delay of infant baptism in some cases; and one Gregory that did, perhaps, practice such delay in the case of his children, but no society of men so thinking, or so practicing; nor no one man saying it was unlawful to baptize; so in the next seven hundred years, there is not so much as one man to be found that either spoke for or practiced any such delay. But all the contrary. And when, about the year 1130, one sect among the Albigenses declared against the baptizing of infants, as being incapable of salvation, the main body of that people rejected their opinion; and they of them that held that opinion quickly dwindled away and disappeared; there being no more heard of holding that tenet, till the rising of the German Anti-Pedobaptists, anno,

1522."

N

The learned Milner speaks thus: "We have never had such a custom as that of confining baptism to adults, nor the churches of God."

The classic Brown deposeth thus: "None can, without the most affronted imposition, allege that infant baptism was not commonly allowed in the primitive ages of Christianity."

The plain spoken Calvin says: "Whereas certain persons spread abroad among simple people that there passed a long series of years, after the resurrection of Christ, in which infant baptism was unknown, therein they do lie most abominably; for there is no writer so ancient that doth not certainly refer the beginning thereof to the age of the apostles." (See his Inst. Christ. Relig., book 4, chap. 16, sect. 8.)

Comment here, after all we have said, and the mass of testimony adduced, we think, would be equal to wholesale superfluity.

We find one person in 1100 years advising a delay of infant baptism, unless in case of sickness, tending to death; and one practicing on the thought in his own family. Just two that acted so in 1100 years. What a thought for Anti-Pedobaptists to look at!

But we shall press the question, was there a regular branch of any church or society of men on the face of the whole earth that opposed infant baptism for 1130 years? We emphatically say there was not. If there be an Anti-Pedobaptist within the range of our reaching that can prove there was, let him speak, giving us the history of its origin and life, and we shall acknowledge a debt for the information.