this subject;" on Luther's difficulty in relieving himself "though he put down objections more by bold assertions than by arguments;" on his insisting that "his opponents could not prove that infant baptism was against Scripture," and, "who could tell whether God did not implant faith in early childhood;" on Melancthon's finally asserting "that the Holy Spirit was imparted to children by baptism, and produced according to their capacity a new tendency towards God;" and that finally "these arguments prevailed, and thus the necessity of Infant Baptism was established!" We may assuredly adopt Mr. Fletcher's words on Independency: "The testimony of the most learned and impartial of modern ecclesiastical historians is all but unanimous in reference to the fact" that baptism on a credible profession of faith, was the only baptism known in apostolic times and for "By a gradual transition to other principles as afterwards. ages by a sudden convulsion in the result of a series of innovations," not " the religious world," "apostolic institutions were ultimately subverted." -(His., pp. 113, 115).

As we can neither question the historical knowledge, the literary abilities, nor the freedom from all desire to sink the reputation of Pædobaptism, of most of the writers now quoted for testimony from early ecclesiastical antiquity, we cannot but condemn the writers whoever they be, who speak "as if the highest and purest ecclesiastical antiquity were quite against us, and as if no man of learning and of impartiality would risk a denial of it." It is a fact, however lamentable, that while many continental divines admit the non-existence of infant baptism in apostolic and immediately subsequent times, speaking of this period as the infancy of the Christian church, the time of its partial and imperfect developement, while the time when Pædobaptism was become prevalent was the time of manhood, of thorough developement, Nonconformist divines in our own country occupying the highest position in their respective denominations, do virtually, however unconsciously-falsify the truth of early ecclesiastical history by representing their own groundless inferences as veritable facts. In further reply to the hypothesis that notwithstanding admitted and continually increasing corruption in the early church, a clamour must have been made against the introduction of Pædobaptism, I will record the reasoning of a Conformist in favour of Episcopacy.

"I would ask a conscientious Dissenter," says Mr. Reeves, "whether in his heart he can believe that the primitive saints and martyrs would invade the episcopal power And if they did, whether it was possible for the invaders of their own heads? to prevail in so short a time over Christendom, and without opposition, or one word of complaint from the degraded presbyters against the usurping prelates? For usurpations of this sacred kind, we know with a witness, never come in without remarkable clamours and convulsions; are seldom perfectly forgotten, and the revolution skinned That bishops, therefore, should obtain wherever the gospel did, so over without a scar. soon and with such universal silence, cannot be accounted for any other way than that the gospel and the episcopate came in upon the same Divine title" (Apol., vol. i, Pref., pp. 31, 32). Also, says Chillingworth on corruption in the church of Rome, "If any man ask, How could it become universal in so short a time? Let him tell me how the-communicating of infants became so universal, and then he shall acknowledge, what was done in some was possible in others."

It is undeniable that many innovations took place in the second and third centuries, against which we read of no remonstrance at their first appearance. The papist argues for communion in one kind from the beginning on this hypothesis of no remonstrance:

"Seeing men, tenacious of religion, are easily disturbed by an alteration of things pertaining to it; if through a course of twelve hundred years the holy supper had been administered in the church under both kinds, without its being declared lawful to communicate under one only; immediately upon this custom being changed, the greatest disturbances and disputes would have arisen in the church about the alteration. Concerning which, whereas in history there is no mention, we receive it as an undoubted conjecture, that the practice was never considered as new, but always used from the beginning, and fixed in the minds of believers as lawful" (Salmero, in Booth's Pad. Ex., vol. i, pp. 392, 393). To this the learned Chamier replies: "That all changes in religious affairs excite commotions when they are made, may be safely denied. For long before the advent of Christ many changes were made in the Jewish religion and yet without any tumult."-Also, we can affirm that the baptism of very young children "excited inquiry" and "resistance," and this too is "registered" "in the controversies of the age."

TURRETINE, on the commotion of novelties, and knowing their time and author, says, "But you will say, If any alterations have taken place in the church of Rome since the apostolic age, the time when, and the persons by whom they were made should be pointed out. But no reason obliges us to this. As if various alterations did not frequently occur to our notice, of which neither the time nor the place, nor the first authors can be accurately known." "It is difficult, if not impossible to mark the first moments in which any corruption began, though the fact be so manifest that it cannot be denied. But what necessity is there to point out either the authors or the times, provided the facts be certain? In order to prove that you have the plague, is it necessary for me to shew in what moment the destructive disease began to rage?" De Nec. Sep., Dis. v, § 10.

We have neither evidence of commotion nor knowledge of the time when confirmation, bowing towards the altar, the custom of sponsors at baptism, the ceremony of exorcism, and a multitude of errors commenced.

Dr. OWEN says, It is not "agreed, nor, so far as I see, will it ever be agreed among learned men, when first a disparity among the ordinary officers of the church, in order, degree, or power, did first begin, nor by what means it was brought about." Moreover, says Bp. Stillingfleet: "As to the impossibility of innovations coming in without notorious opposition, I see no ground at all for it, where the alteration is not made at once, but proceeds gradually. He may as well prove it impossible for a man to fall into a dropsy, or a hectic fever, unless he can tell the punctual time when it began. And he may as well argue thus: Such a man fell into a fever upon a great debauch, and the physicians were presently sent for to advise about him; therefore the other man hath no chronical distemper, because he had no physicians when he was first sick: as because councils were called against some heresies, and great opposition made to them, therefore when there is not the like, there can be no innovation."-Pres. ag. Po., p. 310.

A. M'LEAN (Baptist), on the baptism of infants: "But granting that we had no account of any opposition being made to it, it does not follow that it must have been practised from the beginning. The communion of infants in the Lord's Supper was as early introduced, and as extensively practised for six hundred years, as their baptism was, and I may add, with as much reason; yet we read of no opposition made to it: was it therefore practised from the beginning ?"-Works, vol. vii, p. 100.

Dr. S. STENNETT (Ans. to Dr. A., pp. 231-245) maintains it "absurd to insist that unless we can fix with certainty the exact time when the first infant was baptized, point out with unquestionable precision the true motives and causes leading to it, and trace this practice through its gradual progress to the period when it generally obtained in the church; that unless we can do all this, it is to be presumed from its having prevailed in the third century, that it is no innovation, but of Divine original.” It is sufficient for the baptism as for the communion of infants, to say, There is no authority for the practice in Scripture. "All you can reasonably expect from me," says Dr. S., "is a probable account of the source whence this innovation originated, and the manner in which it was introduced: and this I am ready to give you." He says, "It is certain also that some innovations have arisen imperceptibly; imperceptibly at least, to us, who live in a late period of Christianity: for, with all the lights which history furnishes, it is out of our power to fix precisely the origin of some of those ceremonies which yet Protestants generally acknowledge to be unscriptural.” He

notices among other things the fact relative to this country, that in the course of about fifty years immersion was almost wholly laid aside, "and sprinkling substituted in its room, without the allowance of the Institutor, as Dr. Whitby acknowledges." The origin of the baptism of infants he traces as others, to a mis-understanding of John iii, 5, and of our Saviour's words, "Suffer little children to come unto Me." In opposition to the supposition of universality in the prevalence of infant baptism in the third century he quotes Dionysius, of Alexandria, describing Novatian as rejecting holy baptism, subverting the faith and profession which goes before it; and Vanslet as assuring us respecting Alexandria, that "in the first ages none but such as were thirty years of age were baptized there," and that some time after permission was given to "baptize the children of Christians." "No less," says he, "than ninety heresies are said to have sprung up in the three first centuries. And spurious books without number were forged under the names of Christ and His apostles, and the apostolic writers; and, what is remarkable, many of them cited by the primitive fathers as genuine." If some of the Pædobaptist professors of this century-instead of teaching in glaring destitution of all evidence the existence of Pædobaptism from the beginning of Christianity, the corroboration of this by the writings of the earliest fathers, and its consequent prevalence during this period-had taught no more than that from A.D. "400 to 1150, no society of men, in all that period of seven hundred years ever pretended to say it was unlawful to baptize infants," we should have had less cause to speak of the blind leading the blind; although my acquaintance with the history of this period is not such as to enable me to endorse Dr. Wall's statement. It is sufficient for my present purpose to have a knowledge of ecclesiastical history to the latter part of the third century.

Before we read of the baptism of infants we read of the celebration of baptism with an air of mystery, and with cautious secresy.

The inducement is strong to record the light which Dr. Stennett and others throw on "the Anabaptists of Munster," on the extent to which Pædobaptists shared with them in violence, and on the reprobation of all violence and coercion in religion of which the Baptists, along with the Friends, have given as convincing proofs as any denomination of Christians. Also, we are assured by Ivimey that the German disturbances were begun by Pædobaptists, by Papists, that after the reformation Lutherans and Papists, as well as Baptists, united in these disturbances for the securing of civil liberty; and, without examining into the correctness of his statements, I hesitate not to record my agreement with him," that it was not their principle about baptism that led them into such extravagant notions and actions" (His., vol. i, p. 16). Believers' baptism accords with the principle of personal willinghood in every religious matter, and looks frowningly on all coercion and persecution. I maintain not that among Baptists as well as others there are none unworthy, nor that the best are sinless; but I maintain that their principles are favourable to all holiness and goodness; and that coercion is a necessity of Pædobaptism in a religious ordinance.

J. H. WOOD, in his Baptist History (pp. 67, 68), after mentioning that Luther's sentiments as appearing in his translation of the New Testament, and in his declaration that "it cannot be proved by the Scriptures that infant baptism was instituted by Christ, or begun by the first Christians after the apostles," are in accordance with our views, and that "nearly all the reformers expressed themselves in similar language about baptism," says: "The true principles of reformation were not carried out by" Luther, who "maintained that a Christian church should include whole parishes;" &c. "Just emerging from papal darkness, the true principles of Christian liberty were not fully understood; and while the devout mind traces the work of God in the amazing efforts and the glorious success of the Reformers in removing the veil of ignorance, breaking the fetters of superstition, and promoting a revival of true godliness, it cannot but regret their retention of a degree of that spirit of persecution, which, by whomsoever encouraged, is a flagrant outrage on Christian principle."

In application to the work in hand, and to myself who, I may again say, am not writing a history of baptism, or of the Baptists, I will conclude this section with the following approved quotations.-J. Fletcher: "To enumerate all the influences which have contended against the primitive faith and institutions of the Christian churchto note their character and origin-to review all the changes in doctrine and practice which have resulted from them-is the work of the ecclesiastical historian" (His. of Ind., p. 108).-Dr. R. Wilson: "The friends of evangelical truth will firmly persist in measuring the Fathers by the standard of God's word, in holding up the law and the testimony' as the Divine rule for all times and all men, and rejecting without compunction whatever is most venerable on earth, when it is found to contravene the authority of heaven” (Inf. Bap., pp. 533, 534).-Dr. E. Williams: "As nothing should be considered as an established principle of faith, which is not in some part of

Scripture delivered with perspicuity, so that perspicuity should be sought for principally where the point in question is most professedly handled" (Note on Maurice, p. 36).— Augustine: "Whatever is beside the Scripture, reject it, lest ye wander into clouds." -Cyprian: "Cnstom without truth is only antiquated error.'

SECTION XXX.

ON THE MEANING OF THE WORD INFANT.

F. JOHNSTONE.-"As far, therefore, as preaching the truth and exposing error, exhorting sin. ners to the obedience of Christ, and convincing gainsayers of a delusion, may be called agitation, we should deem ourselves faithless servants to the Lord Jesus were we to cease to agitate the church upon the question."-Bap., p. 8.

R. BAXTER. "I ever judged controversy fitter for the press than the pulpit."-Plain Ser. Pr.

The plan of this work embraced a section on the meaning of the word infant. I almost, but not altogether, abandon this. This word is generally used to describe a child in the first period of life. "In common usage," says the Imperial Dictionary, "a child ceases to be an infant within the first or second year, but at no definite period." The word has in many writers wider import, or embraces a longer period of the first portion of life, and, in English law, at the present day "embraces a person under the age of twenty-one years." The ancient and frequent use of the word in application to the young, as we commonly use the word "minors," renders the occurrence of this word not in itself a proof, where the baptism of an infant is mentioned, that the baptism of a babe is intended. At the same time the word infans is used to describe a babe, and was, I believe, the common Latin word.

That babe is not the invariable import of infant, is evident from Dr. Wall's speaking of an infant in one place that "was probably four or five years old" (His., vol. ii, p. 440). Also, on Jewish proselyte baptism, Dr. W. says, "Concerning the age of the child to be baptized, they had this rule: Any male child of such a proselyte, that was under the age of thirteen years and a day, and females that were under twelve years and a day they baptized as infants at the request and by the assent of the father, or the authority of the court" (vol. i, p. lxxxi). Another use of the word infant is also mentioned by Dr. Wall, where he says: "There was indeed a custom of calling converts newly baptized (though they were middle aged or old) infants, by way of allusion; and a sermon made to a congregation of such was called Sermo ad Infantes" (vol. iv, p. 51). Somewhat similarly Zonaras, in the twelfth century, teaches that God's word enlightens (nepious) infants, the simple, the teachable. Also, says Robinson, "Clement's hymn makes it appear with the utmost evidence that by infant, and little infant, he did not mean either a babe or a minor; but a Christian of any age. His whole book called The Pædagogue, is additional evidence, and he expressly says: Paul defines an infant, in the Epistle to the Romans, when he informs them, I would have you wise to

that which is good, and simple concerning evil. We, adds Clement, are a choir of such infants" (His., p. 563). The words of Clement, "If one be by trade a fisherman, he would do well to think of an apostle, and the children taken out of the water," have been thought to encourage the baptism of infants. Clement, the pedagogist, says Dupin, regarded men and women, the learned and the ignorant, as children in one sense, because all stand in need of instruction. "There were in the African church at Carthage, when Eugenius was bishop," says Bp. Victor, as quoted by Robinson, "a great many little infants (infantuli), readers, who rejoiced in the Lord, and suffered persecution with the rest of their brethren" (p. 171). Many more such instances of the use of infans and infantuli are given by this Baptist historian. The Greek pais is more indefinite than the Latin infans.

We have the monumental inscription to Basil, son of Silibud and Gregoria, who in the eighth century lost his life "in the twelfth year of his infancy" (infantia). We have from the middle ages the last will and testament of Adald, of Count Gaifer, and of Hubert, little infants (each an infantulus), as quoted by Robinson, in his History of Baptism, from Muratori. The emperor Romanus was called paidion, says he, "not on account of his age, for he was a man, but to distinguish him from his grandfather, who was of the same name." The laws of some nations have fixed the termination of infancy at eighteen, of some at twenty, of others at twenty-one, and of others at twenty-five. Hence there have been laws, says Robinson, on "the maintenance of infants of twelve years of age, the nullity of the marriage of an infant except on certain occasions, the alienation of property by an infant, the punishment of an infant for killing a man, and so on" (His., pp. 140, 141). Also, there have been ecclesiastical laws on the catechising of infants, The free school at Stamford, Lincolnshire, was founded that " 'poor young children and infants be freely taught in learning and manners." The word infant, says Robinson, is Gothic; and "servants are called the master's infants. Foot soldiers are the infantry under the command of general officers." "In the Gothic laws a man's infants were disqualified for sitting as jurymen in his law-suits, for, being his tenants, they would be tempted to be partial" (p. 152). The word babe is sometimes, but less frequently, used in application to minors, to persons many years beyond the period commonly intended by infancy; but to every candid reader the connexion usually, as in the apostle John's Epistles, throws sufficient light on the import of these words.

The object of these remarks is to prevent in certain readers a too precipitate and an erroneous conclusion, from every simple occurrence of the word infans, nepios, or infantulus. The improper translation of parvulus, occurring in Tertullian and Origen, by the word infant, has been already noticed. Infant is not yet used exclusively in reference to children one or two years old, but it is in the nature of human language for changes to take place in the import of words. Since the present authorized version of God's word into our tongue was made, the words "prevent," "let," and many others, have undergone great change in their meaning.