A Body of Divinity, Vol. 4 (of 4): Wherein the doctrines of the Christian religion are explained and defended, being the substance of several lectures on the Assembly's Larger CatechismRidgley, Thomas
Religion
A Body of Divinity, Vol. 4 (of 4): Wherein the doctrines of the Christian religion are explained and defended, being the substance of several lectures on the Assembly's Larger Catechism
Saint Chrysostom observes, “that persons may be baptized either in
their infancy, in middle age, or in old age.”—He tells us, infants
were baptized, although they had no sin; and that the sign of the
cross was made upon their foreheads at baptism.—Saint Hierome says,
“if infants be not baptized, the sin of omitting their baptism is laid
to the parent’s charge.”—Saint Austin, who wrote at the same time,
about 280 years after the apostles, speaks “of infant-baptism as one
of those practices which was not _instituted by any council_, but had
_always_ been in use.” The _whole church of Christ_, he informs us,
_had constantly held_ that infants were baptized for the forgiveness
of sin.—That he “had _never read or heard_ of _any Christian,
Catholic_ or _sectary_, who held otherwise.”—“That no christian, of
any sort, ever denied it to be useful or necessary.” “If any one,”
saith he, “should ask for divine authority in this matter, though
that, which the whole church practises, and which has not been
instituted by councils, but was ever in use, may be believed, very
reasonably, to be a thing delivered or ordered by the apostles, yet we
may, besides, take a true estimate, how much the sacrament of baptism
does avail infants, by the circumcision which God’s former people
received.”
No one of these ancient Fathers ever wrote directly in favour of, or
against, infant-baptism. In their various discourses and writings,
they often mention it, occasionally and transiently, when discoursing
on some other subject.—They mention it as a general practice of
universal notoriety, about which there was no controversy, in order to
confute some prevailing heresy, or establish certain doctrines, that
were then disputed. Similar testimonies might easily be produced from
the writings of many other ancient witnesses, but this would
unnecessarily add to the prolixity of the present work. I will
therefore conclude, by stating very briefly, the incontestible and
conclusive evidence in proof of infant-baptism, arising out of the
well-known Pelagian controversy respecting original sin, which
happened about three hundred years after the apostles.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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