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Chapter 4: The Arguments for Infant Baptism, Drawn<br />
from Ecclesiastical History, Briefly Noticed<br />
regenerated to God, infants, <strong>and</strong> little ones, <strong>and</strong><br />
children, <strong>and</strong> youths, <strong>and</strong> persons advanced in<br />
age.” This will be readily granted; but here is<br />
nothing about baptizing infants. It is true, that<br />
<strong>baptism</strong> very early got the name of<br />
regeneration, <strong>and</strong> upon this the argument from<br />
this passage is founded. But if being<br />
regenerated here means being baptized, it must<br />
refer to those who were baptized by Jesus<br />
Christ personally.<br />
Tertullian, who lived about the year two<br />
hundred, is the first who mentions infant <strong>baptism</strong>,<br />
<strong>and</strong> he argues against it, which he surely would<br />
not have done, if he had considered it to be a<br />
comm<strong>and</strong>ment of Christ. 1 After his days it<br />
seems gradually to have gained ground, <strong>and</strong> in<br />
Cyprian’s time, (A.D. 250.) a council of 66<br />
bishops determined that it was not necessary to<br />
delay it till the eighth day. This is, of itself, a<br />
1 Even Wall admits, that he probably knew nothing of<br />
an apostolic tradition for infant <strong>baptism</strong>, else he would<br />
not have opposed it. Some passages from Origen are<br />
quoted in favor of infant <strong>baptism</strong>: but it is generally<br />
admitted, that his works are so interpolated by his Latin<br />
translator, that we cannot distinguish what is genuine<br />
from what is spurious.<br />
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