You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
Chapter 4: The Arguments for Infant Baptism, Drawn<br />
from Ecclesiastical History, Briefly Noticed<br />
born of water <strong>and</strong> of the Spirit, he cannot enter<br />
into the kingdom of God,” John 3:5. So full<br />
were the fathers of the notion that this passage<br />
proved <strong>baptism</strong> to be indispensably necessary<br />
to salvation, that Wall 1 mentions one (Hermas)<br />
whom he supposes to have written before the<br />
death of the apostle John, who maintains that<br />
the apostles, after their death, descended unto<br />
Hades, <strong>and</strong> baptized the patriarchs, prophets,<br />
&c. Hermas says nothing, however, of the<br />
<strong>baptism</strong> of infants. Justin Martyr, who lived<br />
about the year one hundred <strong>and</strong> forty, is the<br />
first who is supposed to allude to infant<br />
<strong>baptism</strong>. “We have received,” says he, “not the<br />
carnal, but spiritual circumcision.” But surely<br />
the spiritual circumcision is not the <strong>baptism</strong><br />
with water.<br />
Again, he observes, “Several persons of both<br />
sexes among us, sixty <strong>and</strong> seventy years old,<br />
who were discipled to Christ from their<br />
1 History of Infant-<strong>baptism</strong>. This author is abundantly<br />
zealous on the subject, but his work is not calculated to<br />
give satisfaction to those who wish to find a warrant for<br />
this practice. See also Gale’s Reflections on Wall’s<br />
History.<br />
23
Change language