his affociate in the fame calling, to James the most renowned in Iberia, and to the hero Thomas, followers of Chrift, and martyrs for him, apostles known to God from the foundation of the world. I, your humble client, Gennadius, poor in merits, abundant in fins, an unworthy bishop, moft furely believe, moft firmly hold, and undoubtingly know, that you, O moft pious and powerful patrons, at one word of the Lord that called you immediately left the world, and all things in it....When you and all other faints fhall fit upon thrones judging, I beseech you entreat the king for me, that mercy may triumph over juftice, and may transfer me from the goats on the left hand to the fheep on the right (8)." It is very truly obferved, by the beft judges in Spain, that while literature flourished there among Moors and Jews, a light to lighten all Europe, it was grofs midnight darkness in all the Catholick ftates of Spain, and there was no appearance of learning among them till the clofe of the thirteenth century, and it made no progrefs till about the time of Cardinal Ximenes, in the fifteenth century (9). Indeed, the collectors of councils pretend that the church of Lugo in Gallicia preferved records of councils from the year five hundred fixty-nine (1): but this is far from being credible to criticks, and the corrupt ftate of the Spanish councils is acknowledged by all. the world (2). Cardinal de Aguirre gives up twenty as wholly fpurious, or if really held of no authority, and had his eminence added that of Girona as a twenty-firft, he would not have been guilty of any wrong, for the fame reasons weigh against this as against them (3).

On fuppofition the council of Girona were really held, the queftion. would naturally rife, whether the canons were law? Certainly they were not, either laws of the ftate, or of the whole church, or of any province, or of any individuals, and they ought to be confidered merely in the light of refolutions, exactly like thofe, which are made

(8) Sanctiffimis, gloriofiffimis dominis triumphatoribus, poft Deum mihi fortiffimis patronis, cœlorum claviculario, &c.

(9) NIC. ANTONII Bibliot. vet. Hifpan. Tom.i. Præfat. De Hifpanorum doctrina. x. At eo ipfo tempore, quo infidelium populus philofophica omni florebat doctrina, fterilefcere vifus eft, fateor, chriftianæ Hifpaniæ campus, et inter armorum fragores ac belligerandi neceffitatem, qua cuncti detinebantur et ab omni fere alio munere avocabantur æquales tot fæculis majores noftri, mufarum harmonia et cultus mentis ingrata et importuna effe.

(1) DE AGUIRRE Concil. Tom. i. Ratio operis, &c. viii. Antiquiffimum illorum exemplarium eft Lucense..fine anno, aut nota aliqua temporis, &c. Vide GARSI a LOAISA..MENDOZA, &c. op. in concil. Hifp.

(2) Dr. MICH. GEDDES Mifcel. vol. ii.

(3) AGUIRRE. Tom. ii. Differt. iii. Excurs. vi. Indiculus Chronologicus conciliorum Hifpanice, quæ primis quatuor fæculis eræ Chriftiana celebrata dicuntur in novis pfeudo-chronicis. N. 71. Prædicta omnia concilia veluti apocrypha ut minimum, five auctoritate deftituta cenfemus, propter argumenta præjacta, et plura alia, quæ brevitatis cauffa prætermittimus.

at

at a club, or a coffee-houfe in England. As the council-books now read, the affair looks plaufible, but on examination all evaporates into air. The books fay John the firft fubfcriber was a metropolitan: but this is no part of the original; this is a conjectural note of Garfias. The books give the fignature thus: I John, bifhop in the name of Chrift, fubfcribe: but the fame books in the margin inform the reader, that other copies omit the words, I, bishop in the name of Chrift fubfcribe, and give as the fignature, John, without any addition. There were more than a thoufand different Johns, who figned councils, and fome of them figned feveral (4). Is it very eafy in this multitude to deter mine who the John of Girona was? If the name were abbreviated, and nothing is more frequent in manufcripts, the difficulties multiply with the names, and the abbreviation may ftand for John, Joachim, Jonas, Jordanus, Jocundus, Jobianus, Immo, Innocent, Ingenuus, Imbertus, Humbertus, and many more. This will not appear visionary to any man, who cafts an eye on an abbreviated manufcript. Το what a miferable ftate doth Catholick religion reduce mankind, when it obliges them to acknowledge as a part of religion the validity of fuch deeds as this!

This canon is yet confiderable, in a third point of light, as a rule reducible to practice. Here a new fet of difficulties ftart up, and prefent themselves; for a confcientious man, who holds himself bound by a law muft think it of confequence to understand the precept; otherwise how can he reduce it to practice? The difficulties of this law proceed from one word, in the fifth canon which will be mentioned presently. The fourth and fifth read thus.

Canon iv. Concerning the baptifm of Catechumens it is ordained, that on the folemn feftivals of the Paffover, and Pentecoft, [and on the birth-day of Chrift] by how much the more folemn thefe feftivals are, by fo much the more proper it is that they come to be baptized: on other feftivals only the fick ought to be baptized: it is agreed not to deny baptifm to them at any time (5).

(4) LABBET Concil. Apparat. Tom. xvi. Index Epifcoporum et aliorum qui conciliis interfuerunt. LEO ALLATIUS De SIMEONUM Scriptis....De PSELLIS et eorum Scriptis Diatriba. Romæ. 1634. MATTHIAS UGONIUS de omnibus ad concilia celebranda rite ac legitime pertinentibus. Venetiis. 1563. THEOD. DE BRY Alphabeta et Characteres a creato mundo ad noftra ufque tempora apud omnes natienes ufurpati. Francofurti. 1596.

GUSTAV. SELENI Cryptographie Syftema. Lunebergi. 1624.

(5) De Catechumenis baptizandis id ftatutum eft, ut in Pafchu Solemnitate vel Pentecoftes, [Marg. vel Natalis Domini. in aliquibus Mfs.] quanto majoris celebritatis major celebritas eft, tanto magis ad baptizandum veniant: cæteris folennitatibus infirmi tantummodo debeant baptizari: quibus quocumque tempore convenit baptifmum non negari.

Canon

279

Canon v.

But concerning little ones, lately boin, it pleaseth us to appoint, that if, as is ufual, they be infirm, and do not fuck their mother's milk, even on the fame day on which they are born (if they be offered) [if they be brought they may be baptized (6).

The words in Italicks are in fome copies, and not in others, and they are generally omitted in the printed council-books. There is no difficulty in the fourth canon, for the fenfe clearly is, that Catechumens in health were to be baptized at Eafter and Whitfuntide, and fome copies fay Chriftmas: and that fick Catechumens might be baptized at any time as the danger of their cafe required. The fifth canon is partly clear; it regards natural infants, and it appoints the adminiftration of baptifm to them on two conditions: the one that they were infirm, and it was agreed to take their refufal of the breaft as proof: and the other, that they were....here lies the difficulty, one copy fays, ALLATI brought; the other fays OBLATI offered. Let the critick choose which reading he pleafes, one obfervation is clear, that it was not the practice of the framers of this canon to baptize infants in health, or by compulfion; for ficknefs and a requifition to baptize were the only titles to baptifm under this canon. This council, then, proves against infantbaptifm: firft, that in the year five hundred and feventeen it was not the cuftom in Catalonia to baptize healthful children; and next, that it had not been the custom to baptize even fickly children. If the word offered be the true reading, then it follows that these were feven monks, and that the oblation of children to infant-monachifm was precifely what the canon had in view. This is the moft probable of all conjectures, and, if it were of any confequence to Proteftants, it might be fupported by a great variety of proof taken from monaftical hiftory in general, and the ftate of this country and thefe men in particular.

On the whole then (to difmifs this dry fubject) it is extremely doubtful whether fuch an affembly as that at Girona were ever held; if it were, it fhould feem, it was not properly a council of bifhops, but a convention of feven monks: the canons feem not intended for law of the province, much lefs for a rule of the whole church, and they actually had no extent except over the conventual churches of this party, who appear to have been not Roman, but African Catholicks: and the whole, far from ferving the practice of infant-baptifm, tends to prove that for more than the firft five centuries infant-baptifm had not. been practifed in Europe even by the lowest and most illiterate Chriftians,

r

(6) De Parvulis vero, qui nuper E] materno utero editi funt, placuit conftitui, ut fi infirmi (ut adfolet) fuerint, et lac maternum non appetunt, etiam eadem die qua nati funt (fi oblati Lallati, Exc. et Ivo.] fuerint) baptizentur.

and

and that it was not appointed to be practifed in future, except in the cafe of imminent danger of death: and it hath nothing to do with fprinkling, which was totally unknown for ages after this.

These feven wife men of Catalonia do not feem, though they lived near the coaft of Africa, and though they corresponded with and were vifited by the bishop of Carthage a fucceffor of Cyprian, to have known any thing of Cyprian's letter to Fidus, or of Auguftine's council of Mela, otherwife their canon would have been quite needlefs, which forms a ftrong prefumption, either that both are forgeries of later ages, or that being attended with no effects they had fallen into general oblivion, and certainly it proves that they had not the force of law in Spain.

They, who fufpect that thefe fordid churchmen traded in the falvation. of fickly infants, for which purpose they frighted timorous mothers into the baptifm of them, and that all their rules of baptizing babes proceeded not from benevolence to mankind, but were mere local expedients to get money of their ignorant neighbours, will be juftified by obferving that the next time the cafe appears is in a canon of a council at Braga in Portugal, about fifty-five years after this at Girona, in which the priests are forbidden to extort money from the poor for baptizing their infants, which practice it feems had occafioned delays till the fouls of the infants had been loft (7). A moft uncomfortable religion, and highly derogatory from the glory of the attributes of Almighty God! It is utterly incredible, that the everlafting ftate of an infant fhould be left to fluctuate on fuch precarious ground: and in the present cafe it looks as if thefe counsellors at Girona were feven poor ftarved African monks, totally deftitute of education and patronage, contriving to pick up a few pence to procure a fcanty fupply of the neceffaries of life. And this is CONCILIUM GERUNDENSE, quoted with fo much parade by Voffius and other learned men, as an authority to baptize. babes!

(7) CONCIL. BRA CARENSE, iii. An. 572.

CHAP. XXVI.

Of the first Law in Europe for baptizing Babes, An. 789, and the Effect of it.

Wadvifing, and the other by ordering Chriftians to baptize babes, or however fuch a practice might lurk in a few obfcure places among monks of no account, it made no obfervable progrefs till an event fell out in the eighth century, which gave it authority, and credit for its great usefulness to defpotical princes. In the eighth century Pepin, the profperous ufurper of the throne of France, died, and was fucceeded by his fon Charlemagne, who was first King of France, and afterwards Emperour of the Weft, an unjuft, debauched, and bloody It was the policy of Pepin to keep his troops employed in foreign wars, left they fhould engage in any attempts at home to reftore the dethroned royal family, and Charlemagne placed his glory in fecuring the unjuft power ufurped by his father, and in completing and extending his conquefts. For thefe purposes chiefly they carried on a war of thirty years against the Saxons.

HATEVER Cyprian and Auguftine might intend, the one by

man.

The Saxons, at that time Pagans, inhabited a great part of Germany, of which two circles yet bear their name. They were a brave nation, and were paffionately fond of freedom. They had in times of peace no princes, but in times of war they created dukes to conduct their armies, and at this time they were under the government of the celebrated Widekind, a fkilful and intrepid general, the remote ancestor of the prefent royal family of England.

Charlemagne was refolved either to fubdue the Saxons, or utterly to exterminate the whole nation, but he could not for a long time effect his purpose, for the brave Widekind always found refources, and defeated his defigns. In the end his imperial majefty hit on a method, which disheartened Widekind, by detaching the people from him, and which completely put an end to the war by fubduing all the nation to the imperial yoke of bondage (1). This was by reducing the whole nation to the dreadful alternative, either of being affaffinated by the troops, or of accepting life on condition of profeffing themselves Chriftians by being baptized, and the fevere laws yet ftand in the capitularies of this monarch, by which they were obliged on pain of death to be baptized

(1) ALBERTI CRANZII Saxonia Coloniæ 1574•

themselves,