Dr. Lathrop observes, “that Tertullian, who flourished about one hundred years after the apostles, gives a plain testimony, that the church admitted infants to baptism in his time. It is true, he advises to _delay_ their baptism; not because it was _unlawful_, for he allows of it in cases of necessity; but because the _sponsors_ were often brought into a snare; and because he imagined that sins, committed _after baptism_, were next to unpardonable. He accordingly advises that unmarried persons be kept from this ordinance, until they either marry or are confirmed in continence. His advising to a delay, supposes that infant-baptism was practised, for otherwise there would have been no room for the advice. He does not speak of it as an _innovation_, which he would certainly have done, had it _begun_ to have been practised in his time. His words rather imply the contrary. His speaking of _sponsors_, who engaged for the education of the infants that were baptized, shows that there had been such a custom. And his asking, ‘why that innocent age _made such haste_ to baptism,’ supposes that infants had usually been baptized, soon after their birth. So that he fully enough witnesses to the _fact_, that it had been the practice of the church to baptize infants. And his advice to delay their baptism, till they were grown up and married, was one of those odd and singular notions for which this father was very remarkable.” This quotation agrees well with the account given of Tertullian, by Dr. Wall and other approved writers. Tertullian was evidently a man of abilities and learning, and in some respects an useful writer. His integrity and veracity were never questioned. But as has been hinted, he held to some strange and peculiar notions. He was not deemed perfectly orthodox by the ancient Christians. Being a person of warm imagination, he expressed himself, very strongly, on different subjects, at different times; and some have thought, in a manner that was not consistent. Some of the later Baptists have even pretended that he denied infant-baptism. But these considerations do not disqualify him as a witness in the present case. Instead of invalidating, they serve to confirm his testimony.