l.M^Ws ?'*9im:mmf»,'CC /A1 THE HISTORY OF BAPTISM, BY ROBERT ROBINSON, EDITED BY DAVID BENEDICT, A. Mi BOSTON : FROM THE PRESS OF LINCOLN & £DMANDS, No. 53 CornhilL 1817. Rhode Island District. BE IT REMEMBERED, Tliat on the 2ist diiy of July, in the year of our Lcrd one thousand eight hundred and seventeen, DAVID BENEDICT, of North Providence, in the County nf Prov. idence, in s«id District of Rhode-Island, deposited in this Office, the title of a Book, the right whereof he claims as Proprietor, in the words following, viz. "THE HISTORY OF BAPTISM. By Robert Robinson. Edited by David Benedict, A M.'' In conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United States, entitled "An Act for the encour- agement of learning by securing the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books, to the authors and Proprietors of such copies during the time therein mentioned :' And also to an Act, entitled ''An Act for the encouragement of learning by securing the copies of maps, charts and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies during the time therein mentioned, and extending the benefits thereof to the Arts of Designing, Engraving, and Etching Historical and other Prints." N. R. KNIGHT, Clerk R. I. District. ADVERTISEMENT, THIS volume, though it may be considered as a com- plete and distinct work, was put to the press by Mr. Rob- inson with the view only of exonerating the History of the Baptists, which he was writing, of the subject of Bap- tism. Had the Author lived, he would have published two, three, or more volumes of ecclesiastical history under the title of the History of the Baptists. From the re- searches which he had made into the authentic records of Christian antiquity, he flattered himself that he should be able to exhibit the history of a class of men, whose tide to be denominated the disciples of Christ was infinitely better founded, than that of those who have hitherto proud- ly and exclusively assumed to themselves the name of the church. In this work , Mr. Ro b i n s o n took great pleas- ure, and prosecuted his inquiries with such intense appli- cation, as is thought to have impaired his health, and to have brought on the fatal disorder of which he died. "* ADVERTISEMENT. The MSS. Avhich Mr. Robinson hath left on this subject are voluminous ; but they are neither arranged nor finished. The following is a sketch of them : 1. A general view of the Roman Empire at Pages the birth of Jesus Christ, 7 2. A general view of Judea at the time of Jesus, 13 3. Cautions necessary to a Reader of Ecclesi- astical History, jg 4. The Greek Church, 80 5. The Church of Rome, - 50 6. Afirica, ---_ gQ 7- Italy, 100 8. Spain, 104 9. Navarre and Biscay, -------- 80 10. Vallies of Piedmont, . v 50 11. Poland, -----70 12. Transylvania, I7 13. Livonia, -----„^-_„_ 5 14. Moldavia and Wallachia, 4 15. Hungary, - . g 16. Bohemia, -- 35 17. Moravia, 50 18. Austria, ----.---__.. 5 19. Germany, Munster, --.-_., 15 These are all closely written large quarto pages. It is the intention of Mr. Robinson's family to submit them to the inspection of some of his learned friends, on whose approbation the publishing of them will depend. Mr. Robinson had also made great collections for the Histo- ries of the German and English Baptists, which he pro- posed to write next winter ; and he had prepared some ma- ^ADVERTISEMENT. 5 terials for the History of the Dutch, American and other foreign Baptists. Mr. Robinson wrote very Tittle during the last twelve months. The whole of the present volume, except the .preface and the recapitulation was finished before tliat time. Though the reader may wish the Author had re- touched some parts, he will still find in it an ample fund of improvement and entertainment ; and the noble spirit of liberty, which it breathes, cannot fail of recommending it to the liberal men of every sect. For the errors of the press, the Author hath made an apology in the preface, which we trust will be accepted. Mr. Robinson had engaged himself in the spring to preach the annual sermons for the benefit of the Dissenters' Charity- School at Birmingham, and he promised himself great pleasure from an interview with Dr. Priestly, and other gentlemen of that place. The physician did not disapprove of the journey, though he wished it could have been deferred a v/eek or two longer, and his family flattered themselves that the exercise and company would have the most beneficial effects on his health and spirits. On Wednesday, June 2, he set off" from Chesterton with his son, in an open carriage, and travelling by easy stages ar- rived at Birmingham on Saturday evening, apparently not at all the worse for his journey. On Sunday he preached twice, in the morning at the new meeting-house, and at the old meeting-house in the afternoon. On Monday evening his friends were alarmed for him from an excessive difii- eulty of respiration, under which he laboured for some time, but on Tuesday he revived, and entertained the com- pany the greater pait of the day and the whole of the even- ing, with all that ease and viAacitv in conversatiori. fn*^ 6 ADVERTISEMENT. which he had ever been remarkable. He retired to rest about twelve o'clock, and probably died without a strug- gle soon after he got to bed ; for on Wednesday morning he was found nearly cold, the bed clothes were not dis- composed, nor the features of his countenance in the least distorted. It was always his desire to die suddenly and al6ne. Mr. Robinson departed this life at the age of fifty four years and eight months, in the house of William Russell, Esq. at Showel-Green, near Birmingham, and was interred by this gentleman with every possible mark of respect in the Dissenters' burying- ground. Dr. Priestly and several other dissentmg ministers paid the due tribute of respect to the remains of our much esteem- ed friend. We intend tg publish an authentick biographical ac- count of Mr . Ro B I N s 0 N in a short time. Chesterton, Cambridge, July 14, 1790. ''tTGSTGH ^\ *^ * * 'ir » 'vi te'i.- .J k J fi'vl'«*^ Reader, BEFORE you peruse the following History, pardon me if I detain you a moment to inform you of my real motive for com- piling it ; for I am well aware, that Baptism, one of the chief in- stitutes of our holy religion, hath been the innocent occasion of so many mean motives and violent dispositions, that the subject can hardly be mentioned without exciting suspicions of unfair treatment. I hope you will not find any thing to otfend in the following sheets ; at least, I can assure you that I have not allow- ed myself to deal in censoriousness, or knowingly to use the lan- guage of bitterness and wrath. When the subject first darted into my mind, I own, I was not thinking of Baptism, but of the evidences of Christianity. I was entering on that argument, which is taken from its rapid progress, and the multitude of its professors ; and I was the more struck with it by observing that the first ecclesiastical historian, Luke, in the book of Acts, makes frequent use of it ; but I could not help at the same time observing, that the same argument is not valid now, because a profession of Christianity doth not now im- ply an exercise of reason and assent, but is put upon infants by extrinsick force. The conduct of a multitude of wise, free, and virtuous men, forms a presumption in favour of the reasonable- ness of their actions ; but a multitude of beings of no character cannot form even the shadow of a presumption. The first are the thousands of whom Luke wrote ; the last are the modern pro- fessors of the Christian religion. Some writers have availed themselves of the modern case ; and supposing, as they have been told, that Jesus instituted the pro- fessinsf of his name in nonage, they have ventured to represent Christianity and its author unworthy of such respect as Christians pay to both. Thus the objection is transferred to the gospel, and the wisdom and equity of the author of it are brought into ques- tion, unwarily no doubt ; but the fact is true, and the reasoning, though from mistaken data, hath consistency and weight. Nor doth infant baptism appear less incongruous with the nat- ural rights of mankind, than it is with the Avisdom and equity of Christianity. Of personal liberty, one of the dearest branches is liberty of conscience, the liberty of choosing a religion for one's- self, of which none is capable during infancy. It is the parent or S PREFACE. the magistrate, who chooses what rehgion the infant shall profess, and this is depriving him of a natural birth-right. The observation, that infants are disposed of in baptism, with- out their knowledge or consent, is a sort of finger pointing to the age and the kind of governments where it was first practised. It must have happened where the choice of the religion of one man was a right of seigniory exercised by another. . Full of these, and such like suspicions, and loth to think Chris- tianity inimical to personal freedom, I set myself to examine the History of Baptism, and the following sheets contain my observa- tions. They go to prove that the Christianity, which Jesus and his primitive disciples taught and practised, is not liable to any objections on this head, but that it is in full agreement with the perfections of God, the character of revelation, the principles of good governments, and the freedom, virtue, and felicity of all mankind. Lest I should seem to arrogate a credit not due to my bare af- firmations, I have taken the pains to quote my authorities, and to mark the editions ; but I must own the authorities quoted are few in comparison with what I had collected, and which I have since destroyed, as what remain appear fully sufficient to authenticate any fact affirmed. I have severely felt the inconvenience of a distance of fifty miles from the press. ***** If^ Reader, you do me justice, you will number the errors of the press among my misfortunes, in common Avith those of all Authors, for I assure you, though I fried hard, yet I could not prevent them. I feel happy on reflection that I did not set about this work en any motives below the dignity of a Christian, nor am I aware that I have prostituted my pen to serve a party, or once dipped it in gall. Escapes undoubtedly there are many ; but when did any individual of my species produce a work of absolute per- fection ? Such as it is, I commit it to the candid perusal of my brethren ; and I am, Courteous Reader, Your humble Servant, R. ROBINSON. Chesterton, Cambridge. editor's preface. THIS work has for many years been known, and much esteemed, by many of the Baptist denomination on both sides of the Atlantic ; and many in this coun- try have desired that it might have a more general cir- culation. Some years ago, the Philadelphia Biptist Association appointed the late Dr. Samuel Jones, of Lower Dublin, Pennsylvania, to abridge and prepare it for the press, on a plan similar to that M^hich is here pursued. But it is believed, that age and infirmities prevented the Doctor from fulfilling that appointment. The Editor has been in the habit of perusing the work with considerable attention, and much interest for a number of years : but the labour which he has now performed, was first suggested to his mind while studying it for the purpose of m.aking out the article on Baptism, published in his General History of the Bap- tists. His intention was announced in that work, and soon after, he began to be solicited to undertake the preparation of Robinson. It abounds with notes and authorities in many dead and foreign languages, which the Editor designed at first to have generally omitted : but by the advice and desire of a number of learned friends, he resolved to retain the authorities without much abridgment, and also to insert a larger portion of the notes than he first designed. For the information of those readers who are unacquainted with languages, it may be proper to observe, that the substance of most 2 10 editor's preface. of the notes, so far at least, as they relate immediately to baptism, is incorporated with the English reading in the text, of which circumstance, notice is generally given by inverted commas. Mr. Robinson saw fit, in a great many instances, to insert the Latin, Greek, &c. below, which he had translated in his narrations. This was probably done for the purpose of giving the learned an opportunity to judge of the correctness of his transla- tions. A few of the most striking notes which were not thus disposed of, have been translated by the Edi- tor, for the benefit of the common reader, and the trans- lations immediately follow the notes. Although some portions of this work have been omitted, yet the reader may be assured, that every thing has been retained, which has any direct or important bearing on the history of baptism. The generous subscription which has been received for this justly celebrated production, is a proof of the high expectations which are entertained of its excellence ; and it is confidently believed, that it will be perused with uncommon interest and satisfaction. DAVID BENEDICT. Pawtucket, R, /» April 4, 1817» «.'.--.!;t''^' HISTORY OF BAPTISM. CHAP. I. THE MISSION AND CHARACTER OF JOHN THE BAPTIST. LONG before the appearance of John the B iptist, the Jews had been taught to expect that t/ie God of heaven M'ould, at a certain time, without hands^ set up a king- dom^ ivhich should never be destroyed. This heavenly kingdom was the economy of assortment which John introduced, and the baptism of John is called the begin- ning of the gospel, the epoch from which the New Tes- tament dispensation is to be computed. The taw and the prophets were until John : since that time the king- dom of God is preached (1). This came to pass in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Cesar, when Pon- tius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, and Annas and Caiaphas were his^h priests. It seems to have been an ancient idea, that the begin- ning mentioned in the New Testament, particularly in the 1st chapter of the gospel of John, and in' the Ist chapter of his 1st epistle, is to be understood not of the beginning of the world, but of the beginning of tlie evangelical econ- omy. This idea glimmers in the writings of the fathers, though obscured by allegory. This is what Cyril seems to intend, when he says, " water was the begin- ning of the world, and Jordan was the beginningofthe gos- pel"(2). This is a sort of harmony, ingenious but fan- ciful, between the first chapter of Genesis and the first of Mark and John. In the former it is said, in the be- (1) Mark i. 1, 2. Luke iii. 1, 2. Acts io 21, 22. (2) CyrilU Kierosolymitad Catecketo 12 THE MISSION AND CHARACTER ginning the spirit of God moved upon the face of the 'ujaters : and in the latter, in the beginning, the beginning of the gospel, John did baptize. From the beginning of the world to this period good men had been in a condition of comparative imperfec- tion. They were individuals mixed and confounded with numerous persons of opposite characters, in fam- ily, tribal and national divisions. They had never been A PEOPLE, but John was sent to associate individuals, to form a people, or, as an evangelist expresses it, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord^ and the rev- olution effected at this time was so substantial, that it is called a creation, a new age, a new world, of which Jesus, whom John proclaimed and introduced as chief, was declared the creator and lord, for John professed himself only a messenger of Jesus, employed indeed in his service, but not worthy to unloose the latchet of his shoes. John, it is supposed, was born at Hebron, and, if a judgment of his education may be formed by the char- acter of his parents, he was trained up in habits of piety and virtue, for they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. How he was employed in his youth ; whether his parents had given him any human literature ; whether he were single or married ; a man of property, or poor ; with many other such questions, must ever remain unanswered, for his historians did not think it necessary to mention them. They thought it, however, of consequence to affirm, that his conduct originated in a divine call. Neither did he come of himself, nor was he employed by any governing power of his country, civil or ecclesiastical, nor did the populace sec him up, but the word of God came to him in the wilderness, as to the ancient prophets. Three of the evangelists observe, that the coming of this extraor- dinary man had been foretold by the prophet Isaiah, and the fourth describes him as a man sent from God, which is further confirmed by Jesus, who declared, that the baptism of John was from heaven, and not of men. So exactly was the prophecy of Daniel fulfilled, and so tru- ly did the God of heaven without hands set up a king- dom to stand forever I OF JOHN THE BAPTIST. 13 When John was about thirty years of age, in obedi- ence to the heavenly call, he entered on his ministry, by quitting the hill-country, and going down by the wilder- ness to' the plains of Jordan, by proclaiming the king- dom of God, the near advent of the Messiah, and the necessity of preparing to receive him by laying aside sin and superstition, and by an exercise of universal justice, and lastly, by identifying the person of Jesus as the Messiah. He distributed various rules of righteousness among the different classes that attended his ministry. He said to soldiers. Do 'oiolence to no man ; he exhorted publicans to avoid exaction, and he taught the people benevolence, Let him that hath two coats impart to him that hath none ; and he directed all to Jesus as master and Lord, in manifesting whom his ministry was to cease. His dress was plain, his diet abstemious, and his whole deportment grave, serious, and severe. Muhitudes, both of provincials and citizens, flocked to hear him, and all held him as a prophet, and such as renounced their former sinful practices, and believed his predictions concerning the Christ, were baptized by him in the river Jordan, but the pharisees and laivyers are to be excepted, for they rejected the counsel of God against themselves, and ivere not baptized of him. While John was employed in preaching and baptiz- ing at Bethabara beyond Jordan, various reports were spread abroad of him, and as the people were in expecta- tion of the Christ, all men mused in their hearts whether he were the person or not, and the Jews of Jerusalem sent a deputation of priests and Levites to him to inquire what account he gave of himself. He fully answered all their questions, and informed them that he was not the Christ, but the person, spoken of by Isaiah, sent before to prepare the way of the Lord, who stood then a- mong them, but who was not then known. This was the day of the manifestation of Jesus. It is uncertain by what means John obtained an in- terview with Herod ; but, certain it is, he reproved him for living in adultery with Herodias his brother Philip's wife, and his language was that of a man who well un- derstood civil government, for he considered law as supreme ii> a state, and told the king, It is not lawful 14 THE MISSION AND CHARACTER for thee to ha've thy brother^s wife. Hcrodias was ex- tremely displeased with John for his honest freedom, and deterniined to destroy him ; but though she prevail- ed on the king to imprison him, yet she could not per- suade him to put him to death. Two great obstacles opposed her design. Herod himself was shcx^ked at the thought, for he had observed J jhn, was convinced of his piety and love of justice, he had received pleasure in hearing him, and had done many things which John had advised him to do , and, as there is a dignity in in- nocence, the qualiiies of the man had struck him with an awe so deep and solemn, that, tyrant as he was, he could not think of taking away the life of John. Herod also dreaded the resentment of the publick, for he knew the multitude held John as a prophet. Herodias there- fore waited for a favourable opportunity to surprise the king into the perpetration of a crime, which neither jus- tice nor policy could approve, and such an one she found on the king's birth- day. The story is at large in the gospel. Dreadful is the condition of a country where any one man is above control, and can do what this absolute king did ! Whether he felt, or only pre- tended to feel great sorrow, the fact was the same, he sent an executioner^ and commanded the head of the prophet to be brought^ and John was assassinated in the prison. The murder did not sit easy on the recollection of Herod, for, soon after, when he heard of the fame of Jesus, his conscience exclaimed, It is John, whom I be- headed, he is risen from the dead ! certainly, John the Baptist will rise from the dead, and Herod the tetrarch must meet him before an impartial Judge, who will re- ward or punish each according to the deeds done in the body. In the present case the Judge hath declared the character of John. John was a burning and a shining light. Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist. Jesus, speaking of the ill treatment of John, implies that posterity would do his character justice, and, true it is, the children of wisdom have justified John ; but mankind have entertained, according to their various prejudices, very different opinions of that m which his OF JOHN THE BAPTIST. 15 worth consisted (3). The Jews praise his rectitude, and pity his fate, for John was their countryman, and they hated Herod (4). The Arabians celebrate his ab- stemiousness, and say providence avenged his death (5). The Cathohcks have invented a thousand fables, and placed to his account the origin of monachism, and the working ot miracles. They have put him among their gods, consecrated waters, built baptisteries and temples to his honour, assigned him a day in the calendar, called themselves by his name, collected his pretended relicks, adorned them with silver and gold and jewellery, and wholly overlooked that which made John the great- est that had been born of women (6). How deplorable is it, that in the seventeenth century, in the enlightened kingdom of France, such a man as Du Fresne, of ex- tensive literature, of amiable manners, an instructor of ail Europe in matters of antiquity, should disgrace his pen by publishing a treatise, to prove that his native city of Amiens was hi possession of that precious relick the head of St. John the Baptist : found at Jerusalem, carried to Constantinople, discovered again in the city of Emesa, then transported to Comana, carried again to Constantinople, where the French found it when they took the city, and whence they conveyed it to Amiens, where it is now enshrined in all the odour of Saintship. (7). This example, to which a great number more might be added, may serve to shew Protestants, that whatever honour may be due to such learned Catho- licks, and much unquestionably is their due, yet very little dependence ought to be placed upon their critical discernment. They are voluminous collectors of all manner of materials, genuine and forged, and so they serve society : but it is the province of Protestants in free countries, where there are no licensers of the press, to sit in judgment on their works, and by selecting the (3) Matt, xi 19. (4) Joseph Gorion. Lib. v. cap. 45. Ganz Tzemach David, i. xxv. 2, (5) Sale's Kormi, chap. iii. The family of Imr am [the father of the Virgin Mary.] Chap. xvii. the Night Journey. Note b. (6) Baron. Annal Acta Sanct Paciaudi Antiq. Christ. (7) Traite H'storique du chef de S. Jean Baptists, avec des preuves et du remarques par Charles du Fresne, Sr. du Cange. Pam, Cram^isy. 1665. 16 OF THE BAPTISM true from the false, wherever they are blended together, to give mankind just ideas of ecclesiastical history. It was for just and noble reasons, worthy of a wise and benevolent mind, that Jesus estimated John so high- ly as to pronounce him as great a man as had been born of women : to which he added, the least in the king- dom of heaven was greater than he. It was a compar- ison between John and his predecessors, and John and his successors, in framing the new economy. He was greater than his predecessors, because he first intro-. duced a moral assortment of Jews, a kingdom of heaven upon earth : he was less than the apostles his succes- sors, because under the direction of Jesus, they brought his plan to perfection, by assorting and incorporating Jews and Gentiles in societies expressly united for the improvement of the mind, the meliorating of the heart, and the regulation of the life, a compact practice of piety, and an uniform course of virtue, and so extending and establishing personal excellence, tend- ing to unite all mankind in one family of universal love ; and he who under God gave a sketch of a design so pure, and so generous, ought to be reputed one of the first characters among mankind. How great then must he be, the latchet of whose shoes this great man was not worthy to unloose ? CHAP. II. OF THE BAPTISM WHICH JOHN ADMINISTERED. WHETHER John baptized by pouring on water, or by bathing in water, is to be determined chiefly, though not wholly, by ascertaining the precise meaning of the word baptize. A linguist determines himself by his own knowledge of the Greek language, and an illiterate man by the best evidence he can obtain from the testi- mony of others, whom by his condition he is obliged to trust. To the latter it is sufficient to observe, that the word is confessedly Greek, that native Greeks must un- derstand their own language better than foreigners, and that they have always understood the word baptism to signify dipping; and therefore from their first embrac- WHICH }OHN ADMINISTERED. 17 ing of Christianity to this day they have always baptized, and do yet baptize, by immersion. This is an authority for the meaning of the word baptize infinitely preferable to that of European lexicographers ; so that a man, who is obliged to trust human testimony, and who baptizes by immersion, because the Greeks do, understands a Greek word exactly as the Greeks themselves under- stand it ; and in this case the Greeks are unexceptiona- ble guides, and their practice is, in this instance, safe ground of action. The English translators did not translate the word baptize, and they acted wisely, for there is no one word in the English language, wliich is an exact counterpart of the Greek word, as the New Testament uses it, con- taining the precise ideas of the evangelists, neither less nor more. The difficulty, or rather the excellence of the word is, that it contains two ideas inclusive of the whole doctrine of baptism. Baptize is a dyer's word, and signifies to dip, so as to colour. Such as render the word dip, give one true idea, but the word stood for two, and one is wanting in this rendering. This defect is in the German Testament, Matt. iii. 1. In those days came John der tauffer, John the dipper ; and the Dutch, in those days came John een dooper, John the Dipper. This is the truth, but it is not the whole truth. The Saxon Testament adds another idea, by naming the ad- ministrator John Se Fidbihtere, John the fuller. The Islandick language translates baptism skim (1), scour- ing. These convey two ideas, cleansing by washing ; but neither do these accurately express the two ideas of the Greek baptize ; for though repentance in 'some cases accompanies baptism, as it does prayer, yet not in every case. Jesus was baptized in Jordan, but he was not cleansed from any moral or ceremonial turpitude by it, nor was any repentance mixed with his baptism. Puri- fication by baptism is an accident ; it may be, it may not be, it is not essential to baptism. The word then conveys two ideas, the one literal, dipping, the other figurative, colourings a figure however expressive of a real fact ; meaning that John by bathing persons in the river Jordan conferred a character, a moral hue, as dyers by 3 (1) Kristni Saga, HafnU 1773. Skirn, baptism, ffona skir, ektm, skir«; to deame. 18 OF THE BAPTISM dipping in a dying vat set a tinct or colour ; John by baptism discriminating the disciples of Christ horn other men, as dyers by colouring distinguish stuffs. Hence John is called, by early Latins, John tinctor^ the exact Latin of Joannes baptistes, John the Baptist. Tertullian, the first Latin father, observes, that baptism was administered with great simplicity (2), homo in aqua demissiis^ et inter paiica Derba tinctus. The mode seems to have been this. The administrator standing in the water, and putting his hand on the back part of the head of the candidate, standing also in the water, bowed him forward till he was immersed in the water, pronouncing in the mean time the baptismal words, by which he characterized him a Christian. Everybody knows how the Romans understood demisso capite, demisso vultu, demissis oculis, and the like. The Syrians, the Armenians, the Persians, and all Eastern Christians have understood the Greek word baptism, to signify dipping, and agreeably to their own versions, they all, and always administer baptism by immersion, but Mohammed in the Alcoran has most fully translated the original word. He calls baptism sehgatallah, that is dhlne dying, or the tinging of God, from sehgah d}ing, and Allah God. A cel- ebrated orientalist says, Mohammed made use of this compound term for baptism, because in his time Chris- tians administered baptism as dyers tinge, by immer- sion, and not as now [in the West] by aspersion (3). Mohammed every where expresses great respect ibr the rites of Christians, and being asked why he set aside baptism, heanswered, because the true divivie tinct, which is true baptism, is faith and grace, which God bestows on true believers. This inward tinct is half the mean- ing of baptism, the other half is immersion in water. The very learned Dr. John Gale (4), whose accurate knowledge of Greek was never doubted, hath traced the original word in profane writers, and hath proved that with the Greeks bapto signified I dip, baptai dyers, baphia a dye house, bapsis dying by dipping. Bamma- ta dying drugs, baphikee the art of dying, dibaphos double dyed, baptisterion a dying vat, &c. Tertullian (2) De Baptismo, cap. ii. (3) Herbelot. Bibllot. Orient. (4) Jieflcctions upon Wall's History of Infant Baptism. Let. iii. WHICH JOHN ADMINISTERED. 19 preserves both the ideas in the few words quoted above, demissus in aqua is the first, dipped, and tinctus the other, coloured, or characterized, so that the single word bap- tism stands for both dipping, the mode, and a person of real character, the only subject of baptism. There is a propriety in acknowledging a believer in Christ a real character by baptism. It is giving him the name who hath the thing. To this sense of the word all circum- stances and descriptions agree, as baptizing in the river Jordan — going down into the water — coming up out o/'the water, buried in baptism, and the rest, so that the proper answer to the question, how did John administer baptism, is, By immersion. Learned men have inquired whether John used any set form of words in baptizing, and, if he did, what words ? Some think he used no form (5). Others think he baptized in the name of the Trinity (6) ; but a passage in the book of Acts seems to say, that he bap- tized in one of the names of Jesus (7).' When Paul went first to Ephesus (8), he found some disciples, who had not received, or even heard of the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost. The aposde inquired, into what then were ye baptized ? They said into John's baptism. Paul described John's baptism, and said, John verily baptized with the baptism of rei>entance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is, added Paul, on Christ Jesus. And when they, the disciples of John, heard John say this, they were baptized by John in the name of the Lord Jesus. This paraphrastical reading is given in a few words to express the supposed true sense of the passage, and it seems to convey the opinions of those divines, who affirm, that there was but one bap- tism— that the Ephesians were not rebaptized — that the baptism of John was true christian baptism — and that he baptized In some one of the names of Jesus, and most likely in that of Messiah, or Christ, or him that was to come. (5) Bellarmln. Probabile est, Joannem nulla verborura formula usum fuisse. (6) Daniel Chamieri PanstratU, torn. iv. lib. 5. cap. IS. (7) Joan. Eccii Momii. 7. (8) Acts xix. i, &c. Beza . . .Gill, &c, % OF THE PLACES CHAP. Ill, OF THE PLACES WHERE JOHN BAPTIZED. DIFFERENT writers for different purposes have 'represented Palestine as a track of bleak and blasted mountains, always burnt up with excessive droughts, and from age to age a land of perpetual barrenness. Some have done this in order to discredit the writings of Moses, and others, with a design to disprove the bap- tism of immersion, as if the country could afford no more water than would suffice by pouring or sprinkling. This makes it proper to examine the places where John administered baptism. That Palestine hath been declining in fertility ever since the Babylonish captivity is true ; that in the time of Jerom, who lived there, it was ill supplied with water, and subject to great droughts, (1) and that it is now desolate, must be allowed ; but that it formerly answered the description of Moses, and deserved all the commendations he gave it, must also be granted, if any credit is to be given to the ancient inhabitants of it, to good historians of adjacent countries, or to modern cred- ible travellers (2). It was a ^^ood land, a land for cattle, a land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and Jig-trees, and pomegranates ; a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that sprang out of rallies and hills ; a landfio-mng with milk and honey (3). Its present condi- tion may easily be accounted for. It is not now the home of industrious owners, who divided it into manage- able family estates, where every exertion was employed to make it productive ; but it is a small inconsiderable part of a vast despotical empire, where the state of prop- erty, and the spirit of government, serve rather to depop. iilate than to improve a country. For ages, the land hath been a prey to successive plunderers, and the own- ers themselves defaced it to abate the rage of crusaders for invading it. It hath been damaged too by droughts and earthquakes. The opulent and fruitful island of (1) Com- kn Amos, cap . iv. (2) Joseph, de bel. Jud. lib. iii. cap 3. Aristeas. ^trabo. Lib. xvi- Taciti Hist. lib. v Shaw. Maundrell, &c. (3) Deut. viii. 7, 8. &c. Num. xiii. 17, &c. xxxii. 4, &c. WHERE JOHN BAPTIZED. 21 Cyprus was burnt up and nearly depopulated for want of rain ; for, about the time of Constantine, there was none for six and thirty years ; but this did not make histories of its ancient fertility incredible ; and the present condi- tion of Palestine serves to render respectable the ancient Jewish prophets who foresaw, and foretold it. John, setting out from the place of his birth, Hebron, a city in the hilly part of the tribe of Judah, two and twenty miles from Jerusalem, travelling northward, and leaving Tekoa, Bethlehem, and Jerusalem, on the left, went towards Bethhoglah, Engedi, Giigal, and Jericho, taking his road through the wilderness of Judah, near the banks of the lake Asphaltites, and crying, or preaching to the inhabitants of the towns, arrived at that part of the wilderness which is bounded on the East by the river Jordan, which met him, as it were, running a-long-side full south, and hereabouts fixed his first baptismal station. The word wilderness did not signi- fy in Judea an uninhabited country, but woody, grazing lands, in distinction from arable fields, which were champaign or open, and vineyards, olive-yards, or- chards, and gardens which vvere enclosed. There were, in the time of Joshua, six cities with their villages in this wilderness, and the inhabitants of those parts were gra- ziers and sheep-masters (4.) When Balaam, from the top of an adjacent hill, sur- veyed that part of the country toward which John trav- elled, he was charmed with the beauty and fertility of the scene, and he observed that the spot was adorned and perfumed like Paradise : the vallies we:re like gar- dens spread forth by the river's side : and the banks rising from the waters were ornamented with aromatick timbers and fruit trees (5). The description was exact, for that end of the wilderness toward Jericho hung sloping down a valley fifteen miles in width, all along which the Jordan, from north to south, rolled its waves ; in some places deep and rapid, overhung with wood growing on banks four or five feet above the water, formerly thickets and lodgments of lions ; behind these other banks rising to the height of fifteen feet ; (4) Bias. Ugolini Thesaur. Antlqxdtat. Sacrarum. Vol. vi. Venetils, 1746, Reland. lib. i. cap. Ivi. De locis incultis et sylvis Fakstinx. Solitudo yudx. (5) Num. xxiv, 6. Poll Synops. in loc. 22 OP THE PLACES in other places broad and shallow, and in general wider than the Tiber at Rome, and about as wide as the Thames at Windsor (6). Jo- dan did not receive its name, as many suppose, from I'or, the spriufj, and Dariy the tribe where it rose, for it was called Jarden, or Tarden^ before the tribes inhabited the land (7). in- deed it was supposed to rise at Yor, in Dan, uli Philip the tetrarch corrected the error by casting straw or chaff into the lake Phiala, fifteen miles highe" up the country eastward, which, coming up again to view at the old suj)posed source, proved a subterranean passage from the Phiala. A little below Dan, the stream formed the lake Samachonites, which was about four miles over and seven miles long ; thence issuing out again at tlie opposite end it ran fifteen miles further, and formed the lake, or, as it is sometimes called, the sea of Tiberias, which was in the broadest part five miles in width, and in length eighteen ; thence at the opposite end it pro- ceeded forward again, crossed the whole country through the wide valley just now mentioned, and fell into the lake Asphaltites, where it was lost. Reland derives its name from Tard, which answers, says he, to the low Dutch, Filet, or Floet, a river ; and it was called the Rher, by excellence, as the Nile and the Euphrates were, because each was the great and principal river of the country. He quotes authorities, Arabick and Persick, to prove that Jordan was called Arden, and the country the land of Arden. Father D'Herbelot (8) does the same, and quotes in proof a Persian life of the Khalif Jezid Ben Abdalmalek, who innocently caused the death of Hababah his favourite concubine, by giving her a grape in a garden in Beled Arden, or the country of Jordan. The grape was large, such as that country produced. The lady put it hastily into her mouth, it lodged in her throat, stopped her breath, and she died on the spot. The event so affected the Khalif, that he died with grief soon after. The pomegranates, and figs, (6) Dr. Richard Pococke's Description of the East. Vol. ii. part i. Lon- don, 1745. Cha.p. vVn. Of the wiiderness, the Jbuntain of EUsha, ycricho and Jordan. (7) Johan. Qjiistorpii Nebo. De aquis terrx sanctce. Relandi PaUst. Lib. i. cap. sliii. Jie jordano. (8) D'Herbelot Bibliot. Orient. A Paris, 1697. Arden. WHERE JOHN BAPTIZED. 23 and grapes of Eshcol, had been famous from the time of Moses, and his spies seem to have taken the rout that John the Baptist did, for they went by the same wilder- ness, tiirough Hebron, and came down to the brook EshcoI(9); from all which it appears, that both in the time of Moses and in that of Abdahiialek, the Jordan ivas a considerable river, and the adjacent country abounded in fertility. The patriarch Jacob, who knew the coun- try, described, perhaps from views which he had taken, the aspect or face of it, in a manner very picturesque and beautiful. Upward on the hills glistened the rich ripe grapes, projecting through the leaves ; on the sur- liice ran live mineral waters, twinkling and sparkling, like eyes red with wine ; below, the white rocky vallies, covered with flocks, appeared as teet/i white as milk; the shaggy herbage, tinged with mineral moisture oozing through the soil and hanging down the slopes, resem- bled ^Yzr/Tzc/?/^ washed in the blood of grapes (1). All the Evangelists aflirm, John baptized in Jordan. Mark, who says he baptized in Jordan, says also, he baptized in the wilderness (2). Of course he baptized in that part of the river, which bounded the lands of Benjamin and Judah on the east, about four or five miles above the mouth where it discharged itself into the lake Asphallites, and where the woodlands of Judah abutted on those of Benjamin. The river here was about seven miles east of Jericho, and about twenty-five or six east of Jerusalem. Hereabouts the Israelites passed over Jordan ; and about half a mile from the river, the remains of a convent, dedicated to John the Baptist, are yet to be seen ; for the S)'rian monks availed themselves of the zeal of early pilgrims who aspired at the honour of being baptized where they supposed John had baptized Jesus (3). The Greeks have imagined a place three or four miles distant; others have supposed it higher up the stream northward toward Galilee ; and others, again, the passage right over against Jericho ; but some ford a little nearer the mouth, some- where about the line that parted the lands of Benjamin f9) Numbers xiu. 17—25. (1; Gen. xlix 11, 12. VoXi Synobs. Tun. at. Tremel. rn /oc. (2) Chap. i. 4. / /- J (3) Pocorke, vol. ii. Beok i. chap. vi». Oric. Qom, in ^ohan. Hie. ron. de ioc, Hebr. 24 OF TRE PLACES and Judah, seems best to agree with the account given by the Evangelists, and it exactly agrees with the an= cient geography ; for the line that parted the two tribes ran through a place called Bethbarah, in the wilderness of Judah, or the house at the ford next the woodlands. The river Jordan, far from wanting water, was sub- ject to two sorts of floods, one periodical at harvest time, in which it resembled the Nile in Egypt, with which some suppose it had a subterranean communica- tion (4). When this flood came down, the river rose many feet, and overflowed the lower banks, so that the lions that lay in the thickets there were roused and fled. To this Jeremiah alludes, Behold the king of Babylon shall come up like a lion from the swelling of Jordan (5). The other swellings of Jordan were casual, and resem- bled those of all other rivers in uneven countries. In flat countries idle rivers move lazily along, and the waters preserve a general sameness of depth, from their surface to their mud ; but in hilly countries it is far oth- erwise, for here, after heavy rains or sudden thaws, waters come roaring down the mountains, sweeping through vallies in a wide bed, cleansing away the soil as they go, and, when they fall into chasms of narrow com- pass, weigh down every thing that obstructs their passage, cleaving rocks, and rending and rolling huge masses along to make themselves a way. There are several such rivers in the mountainous and northern parts of this island. In such rivers there are shallows in the greatest floods ; and in the greatest droughts there are, in various parts of their beds, a kind of natural cisterns, perfectly clean, and every way convenient for the bap- tism of immersion. The romantic glen, called Dove- dale, in Staffordshire, not far from Ashbourne, in Der- byshire, is a miniature picture of the channels of such riv- ers. It should seem, the bed of the Derwent about Mat- lock in the same county ; the rough and craggy channel of the fretting waters in the deep woody vale at Amble- side, in Westmoreland, above the town and a little below the fall ; the bed of the river Nith, in Scotland, between Sanquhar and Drumlanrig ; and a great many more, fordable one day and impassable the next, resem- ble, in this respect, the river Jordan at certain times. (4) Reland. cap, xliii. Dt Jordane, (JS) Chap. 1. 44r. WHERE JOHN BAPTIZED. 25 It is not easy to reconcile what is affirmed of Jordan without supposing it of this kind. There were fords, which vA^ere obHged to be guarded against invaders, and yet at one of them the water was so deep that a miracle was necessary to open a passage for the Israelites, when, under Joshua, they first entered the land. The waters were low in a drought, but Joshua passed the river at the time of the annual flood (6). Over the river were bridges, and yet on the river were boats and ships ; in it many delighted to swim, and yet swimming in it was so dangerous, from the steepness of the banks, and the rapidity of the water, that many lost their lives. All these accounts are true of different seasons and different parts (7). On the whole, Jordan was a con- siderable river, but at different seasons, and in different parts, subject to great variations, as all rivers in hilly countries are. John baptized first at Bethabara beyond Jordan. Here he received the messengers from Jerusalem, and bore that testimony of Jesus which is recorded in the first of John, then he crossed the river, and baptized on the opposite side, which belonged to Reuben or Manasseh ; and thus his ministry was extended through the region roundabout Jordan ; and here he delivered that testimony concerning Christ, which is recorded in the third chapter of John, and this is what some call his second baptismal station. The word Bethabara signifies a passage-house, and such •there were on both sides the river near the fords, and most likely they were houses to accommodate and direct trav- ellers in times of low water, and ferry-houses for the con- venience of passage, when floods and high waters ren- dered boats necessar}^ In the arabah or plain sloping towards the ford, where the abutments of Judah, Benja- min, and Reuben met, near the mouth of the river, a lit- tle above the north-bay of the lake Asphaltites, stood the town called Bethabara, sometimes named Betharabah, in the wilderness, and said to belong to Judah ; and at other times simply called Betharabah, and said to belong to Benjamin. Probably, like Jerusalem, it belonged to both, just as some towns in England stand in two coun- 4 (6) Judges iii 28. vii. 24. Josh. lii. (7) Dr. Gill's Expos. John i. 28. Matt. iii. 6 Pococke as above. Chap, *Hiz. xvii. Sea of Tiberias, xviii. Waterx ofMefom,, Rioe qf Jordan, ^c. 26 OF THE PLACES ties, the partition line running through the towns. No places could be chosen more convenient for the baptism of immersion than these. Here was a gentle descent into water of sufficient depth ; here were houses of accommo- dation ; and fords were publick roads. It did not be- come the majesty of a divine institute to shun the pub- lick eye when it first appeared in the world. I hanje not spoke?! in secret in a dark place of the earthy I Jehovah declare things that are right. The third station of John was at /Enon, near Salira. Salim is differently written, as Saleim, Salem, Salom, Schiloh, Zaleim, and so on ; and several places were so called either simply or in compound. This was about eight miles south from Scythopolis, the ancient Beth- shean, a city in Issachar, but belonging to Manasseh. One of the Apostles was said to be a native of Salim, and called Zelotes, from this place of his nativity. Some think this was the city of which Melchizedek was king. (8). iEnon, near it, was chosen for a place of baptism by John, because there was much water. Since sprink- ling came into fashion, criticism, unheard of in all former ages, hath endeavoured to derive evidence for scarcity of water, from the Greek text of the Evangelist John, and to render 7ro/A« v^^las, not much %vater, but many waters, and then by an ingenious supposition, to infer that many- waters signifies, not many waters collected into one, but waters parted into many little rills, which might all serve for sprinkling, but could not any one of them be used for dipping : as if one man could possibly want many brooks for the purpose of sprinkling one person at a time. It is observable that the rivers Euphrates at Babylon, Tiber at Rome, and Jordan in Palestine, are all described by 5r<»A/« v^kIx. Jeremiah speaks of the first, and ad- dressing Babylon says, O thou that dwellest upon many waters, thine end is come (9) ; for Babylon was situated on what the Jews called the river, the ^rt-^r river Eu- phrates (1). The Evangelist John describes Rome, which was built on the Tiber, by saying, The great har- lot, the great city which reigneth over the kings of the earth, sitteth upon many waters (2). Ezekiel describes ludea and Jordan, by saying to the pi.nces of Israel, (8) Reland in Salem. Ainon. Bethshean. (9> Chap. li. 13. (1) Gen. XV. 18. Deut, i. 7. Josh. i. 4. (2) Rev. xvii. 1. IB. WHERE JOHN BAPTIZED. 27 Your mother is a lioness, her uhelps devour men, she was fruitful by reason of many ivaters ; an evident allu- sion to the lions that lay in the thickets of Jordan (3). The thunder which agitates clouds, charged with floods, is called the voice of the Lord upon many ivaters : and the attachment that no mortifications can annihilate, is a love which 7nany waters cannot quench, neither can the j^oocis drown (4). How it comes to pass that a mode of speaking, which on every other occasion signifies miic/iy should in the case of baptism signify little, is a question easy to answer. The meaning of doubtful words is best fixed by ascertaining the facts, which they were intended to represent. Salim was at least fifty miles north up the river Jor- dan from the place where John had begun to baptize. iEnon, near it, was either a natural spring, an artificial re- servoir, or a cavernous temple of the sun, prepared by the Canaanites, the ancient idolatrous inhabitants of the land. The eastern versions, that is, the Syriack, Eth/o- pick, Persick, and Arabick of the gospel of John (5), as well as the Hebrew and Chaldean Ain-yon, or Gnain-yon, suggest these opinions, and it is difficult to say which is the precise meaning of the Evangelist's word vEnon, and it is not certain whether the plain meaning be, John was baptizing at the Dow-sprmg near Salim, or John was baptizing at the Su?i-fountain near Salim. To take the matter from the beginning. It seems to have been an universal custom derived from the first fathers of mankind, to describe the world by resem- blances of the human body. Hence, an arm of the sea, the ynouthoia river, the Jbot of a mountain, the drow of a hill, the face of SL country. The scripture abounds with such similitudes ; a plain between two prominent hills is a dwelling between shouldersy a bay near the mouth of (3) Ezek. xix. Numb. xxlv. 7. (4) Psal. xxix. S. Cant. viii. 7. (5) Feme? Syriaca. Baptlzabatauteraet Johannes in In-J on {fontecol- uvibx) quod est ad latus Salim : quoniam aqus erant lllic multse. Vers. Persica. Et Johannes etiam in fonte Jon, qui juxta Sa- lim est, baptizabat, eo quod aquaibi multaesset, homines igitur illic baptizati sunt. Vers. Arabida. Et Johannes baptizabat etiam in fonte Nun, qui est ad latus Salim ob multitudinem aquoe ibidem. Vers. iEtbiopica. Et erat Johannes baptista in Henonprope Salim_, quia erant ibi muUse aquse. 28 or THE PLACES Jordan is a tongue, a mountain is a head, of which trees, bushes, and vegetables, are the hair, a prominence is a breast, a cliff is a nose, and the bed of the ocean is the hol- low of God's hand. Through all the Plast, a spring, or fountain, or well-head, was called Ain (6). or with a nasal sound, gnain,an eye; and the name was carried by the Phe- nicians into all the countries where they travelled, and it remains incorporated into various languages and in a va- riety of compound words to this diiy (7). From ain, cor- rupted into an, aun, on, don, ern, een, eyen, eya, auye, ooghe, proceeded in various countries different words. In Egypt, On and Zoan with the Hebrews, and Tanis, Taphnis, Tahaphanes, with others. A Scythian ain be- came Tanais, the river dividing Asia from Europe, now the river Don of Muscovy. A Persian ain, adjacent to which was a temple in a grove, became with the Greeks, Anaia, Anaitis, Anaitidos, Anea, Nanca, Diana, the god- dess of fountains (8). From a Syrian ain, near Antioch, came Daphne, the daughter of a river, and the parent of ever-green shrubs, as the laurel and the bay (9). Hence came Ain-tab, Ain-zarba, or Ana-zarba, Ain-ob, Ino- pus, the Pythian spring, or the fountain of Diana and Apollo at Delos (1). Antiquaries observe, that Bath in England was once called Tr-ennaint twiymin (2) ; that Scotland hath its Annan, a place of two medical springs Separated by a small rock ; that Waterford in Ireland was once called ^f^/j-apia ; and that Ancaster in Lin- colnshire hath a spring at each end of the town, and, as there is no more water from thence to Lincoln, the name tells its own Saxon and British history (.3), Such eyes of water were of infinite value in the East. When Moses was in the plains of Moab, he ascended mount Nebo to survey the promised land. Wide spread before him, at the foot of Nebo, lay the great plain, slop- (6) V'fd. Buxtorf Gig-gei aliorque Lexic. Castelli Lex. Heptaglot . Ain. Heb. Oculus. Fons. Chald. Oculiis. Foramen furni. foramen lapidis molaris, &c. Syriac. Oculus. Fons. Samar. ibid. yEthiop, Oculus. Fons. Arab. Oculus. Fons. Lacln-vma, viva aqua, &c. (7) GigGcei Lcxic. Arab. Jac. Golii Lexic. Arabico. Latin. Ludolfi Lex JEthiopico Latin. Herbelot. Bib. Orient, &c. (8) Bocharti Phaleg. Lib. iv. cap. xix. Assur. (9) Chanaan. lib. i. cap. xvi. Pluenices in Bieotia. (1) Greg. Abul. Pharagii. Hist. Dynast. Bocliarti Chanaan. lib. i. cap. xiv, (2) Camden's Britannia. (3) Dr. Campbell's Political Survey of Great-Britain, vol, i. chap. v. On vsaterat WHERE JOHN BAPTISED. 29 ing from him down to Jordan, then, rising again from the river, it joined the high grounds, swelling into prominences ; behind which protuberated hills, beyond which hnge n»ountains heaved their gigantick heads, some bare, others rugged, and others cov- ered with timber, verdure, and fruits, wheat, barley, vines, figs, promegranates, and olives. The man of God took particular notice of what he calls the eyes^ that is, the live waters springing into natural basons, and run- ning in brooks among vallies and hills, and for their sakes he pronounced it an excellent country ( i). Mi- ners observe the tinct of spring waters, and the incrus- tations of the beds, in which their rivulets run. The Easterns did so. Jacob remarked the red eyes of the land of Judah, and it was an observation of mineral col- ours that made Moses add, when he was praising the land of eyes, a landivhose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass (5). It was natural to assim- ilate different springs to the eyes of different animals to de- scribe the qualities of the waters. A spring bursting vi- olently fronra steep rock was called An-zabba, the eye of a bear, there was a kind of fury in it; and a sparkling human eye in which the graces played, was likened to wa- ters enlivened by the activity of little spangling fish, thine €yes are like the fish-pools of Heshbon (6). The spring where John baptized was called the doue^s eye. The prophet Nahum describes waters running off in streams gurgling among stones, as doves that wander cooing, or, as the English version hath it, tabering through the sol- itary grove (7) According to this, iEnon was a cavern- ous spring, and such were of great account in Judea, especially in some seasons. There was in the time of Ahab a famine, occasioned by a drought of three years. The king in extremity commanded Obadiah to go through one part of the land, while he surveyed another to search for grass to save the cattle alive, and he partic- ularly charged him to go to all eyes of water. Near such eyes there were caverns, and in one of them Oba- diah had hid and fed an hundred prophets of the Lord in time of persecution (8) If Enon were an excavation (4) Deut. xxxii. 49. viii. 7. (5) Verse 9. (6) Cant. vii. 4. (7) Nahum ii. 6, &c. Diod. Sic. Lib. ii. The river Tigris swelling with incessant rains broke down the wall for twenty furlong-s. (8) 1 Kings xviii. 30 OF THE PLACES WHERE JOHN BAPTIZE*. of this kind, John baptized in a natural baptistery, the walls and arches, the dome and windows of which, were sculptured without hands. Here he was covered from the heat, sheltered from wind and rain, free from noise and interruption, and plentifully supplied with water in the natural stone basons of the rock. Were it necessa- ry, persons now alive might be named, who were bap- tized by immersion in similar places in Great- Britain. The natural caverns and artificial quarries of some rocks in Judea were very capacious, and in that at Adul- lam, David concealed four hundred fighting men, beside old people, women and children (9). Ancient Greek missals, and rude sculptures in subterranean caverns near Rome, describe John preaching and baptizing by- immersion in cavernous places (l) ; but whether the Christian artists intended to describe the history of John, or their own practice, or both, is a question. Certain it is, such places were in Judea, and it is not improbable iEnon near Salim was one. Springs issuing from the fissures of a rock, gurgling through the chinks as waters out of bottles, falling from crag to crag, murmuring from bed to bason, and from bason to bed, fretting along the ragged sides of a rocky channel, and echoing through rude and spacious caverns, would form what the Jews called a Do've-ivater^ or, if it flowed from a natural spring, in their figurative style, a Doi^e's-eye, It is credible, such a clean and plen- tiful baptismal stream was much to the purpose, and much in the taste of such a man as John. The inhabi- tants accounted such waters the greatest of blessings ; but as they might by accident become injurious, by afford- ing a supply to foreign invaders of the land, they took care in such cases, to conceal both the water and the sound from their enemies, and to convey the stream by subterranean pipes into their cities to supply the inhab- itants, and it is not improbable, that the first founders of towns consulted this advantage in determining where to place them. In the reign of Hezekiah, the Assyrians in- vaded Judah (2). The king took counsel ivith his prin- ces and his mighty men, to stop the waters of the fountains^ (9) 1 Sam. xxli. IX) PauH Aringii. Roma subierranea. l*aciaudi Antiq. Christiany (2) 2 Kings iii. 19. 3 Chron, xxxii. 3. , or THE PERSONS WHOM JOHN BAPTIZED, &C. 31 Huhich were without the city : and they did help him. So there was gathered much people together, who stopt all the fountains, and the brook that ran through the midst of the land, saying. Why should the kings of Assyria come^ and find much ivater ? This custom prevailed in all ages, and William, Archbishop of Tyre, who in the eleventh century was in a crusading army, mentions the same thing (3). This iEnon therefore might supply Salim with water, and as it was a time of peace, near the city, and plentiful enough to supply the inhabitants, it must have been highly convenient for the baptism of im- mersion. Adjacent to some of the fountains of Judea were build- ings, reservoirs, and large receptacles of water, cisterns of great size, and baths both simple and medicinal. Of the latter were the hot wells of Tiberias, Gadara, CaU lirhoe, and other places. Near Ramah there yet remains, of very ancient work, a reservoir a hundred and sixty- feet long, and a hundred and forty broad (4). Such also of different sizes, and for different purposes, were those at Tabor, Jerusalem, Etham, and the gardens of Solomon. One of the fountains of Judah was called Ain- rogel, the FuUer's-eye, because there fullers cleansed stuffs (5). Who, among this variety and uncertainty, can at this distance exactly determine what kind of wa- ter this at iEnon was ? One thing only is certain, that there was much or many waters. [ Similar critical observations are continued for a num- ber of pages more, with which a number of other things are connected. But it is judged it has bedn clearly shown that Enon contained water sufficient for dipping.] Editor.. CHAP. IV. OF THE PERSONS WHOM JOHN BAPTIZED, AND PARTICU- LARLY JESUS. PRESUMPTUOUS as it may appear, for a monk in Africa to add to a history of what was done in Asia, and recorded by -eye witnesses three hundred years (3) Willem. Tyren. Archiep. Hist. I/ib. vlii. p. 749. (4) Reland. Be Fontibus Palxstinx. De Thermis Palcesi. (5) Ain-aim, Gen. xxxviii. 21, - - - Ain-am, Josh. xv. 34, &c. 32 or THE PERSONS before he was born, yet this is what St. Augustine did, by affirming that Jesus baptized John(l): but Augus- tine had an ecclesiastical system to serve, and according to his sytem no unbaptized person could administer valid baptism to another ; and yet t!ie evangelists do not say either that John baptized himself, or that Jesus baptiz- ed him, or that he was ever baptized at all. Their silence is respectable, and to curve history to serve system is neither wise nor just ; but Augustine knew how much depended on affirming that only his own party could baptize. There is in the royal library at Turin a manu- script of the twelfth century, containing a fabulous histo- ry of the Old and New Testament, and in it is a fanciful representation of baptism, and on one side of the picture these words, "Ubi XPS. et Ihoannes in lordane flumine tincti fyerunt." — " Where Christ and John were baptized in the river Jordan (i)" It is not wonderful that such a man, pretending to inspiration, should utter oracles ; but it is really astonishing that any should be so inconsistent, with the true histories in their hands, as to believe him. It doth not appear that John baptized any persons of rank and fortune. No great names were seen among his converts. The Pharisees in reputation for piety, and the lawyers, famous for their knowledge of the law, rejected the counsel of God by John, and were not baptized by him. This, however, to such as know the men, doth not form even a prejudice in disfavour of the ministry of John. It is generally supposed John baptized great mul- titudes. His converts indeed were of the multitude, but it is far from being clear that they were very numerous. All Jerusalem, all Judea, and all the region round about, tvent out to him ; many of the Pharisees and Sadducees came to his baptism^ but they went only as spectators, they went out.as the Lord Jesus expresses it,Jbr to see {3) ; and this will appear most worthy of befief to such as con- sider the general character of the Jewish populace and their blind guides, and the pre-requisites necessary to John's baptism, especially when it it observed, that after (1) Augustini Op. torn, v, serm. 293. (2) P. M. Paciaudii Antiq. Christian. Soma 1755, Dissert. 3, cap. g. Membranaceus is est signatus que D. v. 39- (5) Matt. iii. 5. 7. xv. 7. 8. 9. WHOM JOHN BAPTIZED, &C. 33 the resurrection of Jesus, (and it is supposed all Christ- ians saw him) the greatest number of believers assem- bled together at any one time were not jnaoy above five hundred (4). John's disciples were of the common peo- ple, of that class of mankind, which of all others is most friendly to free inquiry. In the kingdom of heaven which John was forming, rank was nothing, superior faculties were nothing, mor- al excellence was all in all, and foith and repentance were indispensable qualifications for baptism ; for on John's part there was no collusion, on that of his converts no blind credulity, and the individuals whom the Baptist formed into a people were distiiiguished by three charac- ters, a character of freedom, a character of piety, and a character of virtue. I. A character o^ freedom. John taught, but he em- ployed no force, he used no allurements, offered no bribes, nor did any thing to give an unworthy bias. He pub- lished a fact, of the truth of which all the world was left free to judge, and it was a circumstance highly favoura- ble to his doctrine, that no power in being took it under patronage. It was left in the country among the com- mon people, wholly to itself, at a distatice from the court, the temple, and the army, and many of his hearers ful- ly examined, and freely entered on the economy ; for they had nothing but conviction to induce them to act as they did. II. A. character o^ piety. The fact was contained in the prophecies, and the disciples of John believed them, giving themselves up by baptism to the guidance of him whomsoever God had appointed Lord of the t^conomy, whenever it should please God to make him known. III. A character o{ liirtiie. I baptize you, said John, at^ or upon your repentance^ your invisible abhorrence of sin, manifested by fruits meet for repentance, that i-, by reformation. Except in one instance, John baptized on- ly persons having these characters. This one instance was the baptism of Jesus. In per- fect freedom, with eminent piety and virtue, but without any profession of repentance, Jesus was baptized. By this he entered on his publick ministry. When John be- 5 (4) X Cor. XV. 6. Mat. xxvUi. 10. John xx. 17- S4 OF THE PERSONS gan to baptize atBcthabara beyond Jordan, his first bap- tismal station, Jesus resided at Nazareth in Galilee, and he did not arrive at Bethabara till all the people had been baptized (5). There is some difficulty in harmonizing this part of the history. The following appears the most probable train of events. The Jews had many ills of various kinds, and they ex- pected a deliverer, but, more sensible to civil inconve- niences than to spiritual disorders, and to the condition of their own nation than to that of all mankind, they hope- ed to see a temporal prince invested with power to grat- ify the ambition and avarice of the seed of Abraham. When John appeared proclaiming the coming of the Messiah, the rulers of the metropolis sent messengers to him to obtain authentick information of what he meant. John informed them of what he knew, that he did not pre- tend to be the Messiah, that however he was standing among them, and would in due time be made known. John and Jesus were near akin, their mothers were inti- mate, and John it seems knew him when he came to be baptized, and paid that respect to him which was due from a man of inferior talents and virtue to his superi- or. When Jesus came to Jordan, John knowing his general character, said, I ha've need to be baptized of thee ; but he did not know till after he had baptized him, that he was the Messiah, for He, who sent him to baptize, had informed him that he should know the Messiah from ev- ery other man by a visible sign. / knew him not, but that he should be made manifest unto Israel. I knew him not^ hut he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, upon whom thou shah see the spirit descending and re- maining, the same is he. '1 o Bethabara, amidst a great multitude of spectators, in presence of those who had been baptized, and were now in wailing for him, a people prepared for the Lordy and while John was conversing with the deputation from Jerusalem, Jesus came to be baptized, giving by his con- duct, as well as by his language to John, the most une- quivocal proof of his entire approbation of water baptism. Thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. The very handsome and respectful manner in which John re- ceived Jesus, and the conversation that passed between (5) Luke iii. 21. Mat. Ui. 13. ii. 23. WHOM JOHN BAPTIZED, &C. 85 them, no doubt, held up Jesus to the multitude as some person of singular merit, produced a pause, and a pro- found silence, and attracted ever}' eye to behold the man. Immediately after John had baptized Jesus, he went up out of the water praying, and while he was going up, the clouds parted, and a bright light appeared hovering over him, falling and rising, rising and falling, as a dove hov- ers when it is about to alight, and at length settling on him. This was placing his person in full view, so that his features could not be mistaken, and, to those who saw him, his face must ever after have been the best known face in Judea. While the spectators were beholding this new and strange appearance, a voice from heaven said, This is my belo'oed Son, in whom lam we// pleased. John seeing the promised sign, exclaimed, addressing lumself to the deputation from Jerusalem, This is he of whom I said^ he that cometh after me is preferred before me ; and he repeated the same record the two succeeding days, on seeing Jesus walking, and so engaged his disciples to de- liver themselves up to the Son of God, which was the chief design of his ministry. It is supposed the deputation from Jerusalem was pres- ent, because some time after, when Jesus was at Jerusa- lem he reproved the citizens for their obstinate infidelity, spoke of the embassy to John, and, according to some criticks, referring to the voice Jrom heaven and the lu- minous appearance, asked, Haiie ye i2eDer at any time heard his voice, or seen his shape (C) ? implying tliat they had. John had foretold that Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire, and various opinions are form- ed of his meaning. An ingenious foreigner supposes (7), that John alluded to a statute in the law, which says, Every thing that may abide the fire, ye shall make it go through the fire — and all that abideth not the fire, ye shall make it go through the water : and that he intended to inform the Jews, not of the tongues of fire to be exhibit- ed at Pentecost, but only in general, that Jesus would ex- ercise a much more effectual ministry than he, that he would purify some by exciting in them acute convictions, (6) John V. 33, &c. Dr. Macknight quoted in the Theological Repository, Vol. i. p. 55 second edit. (7) Conrad. Ikenii. Dissert. Phiiol-Theol. Lu^d. 1749. Dis. xJx. 36 WHETHER THE BAPTISM OF JOHN WERL and by trying them with great calamities, and that he would punish the reficictory and finally impenitent with destruction. Others (S) understand this of the effusion of the Sjiirit at Pentecost, which sense seems to be coun- tenanced by these words, Jo! n baptized with ivater^ but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days hence. CHAP. V. •WHETHER THE BAPTISM OF JOHN WERE TAKEN FROM ANY JEW- ISH WASHINGS, PARTICULARLY THAT OF PROSELYTES ? IT is not pleasant to leave the high road of narration for the thorny paths of controversy. It is a drudgery, how- ever, which men of great respectability have obliged such as narrate the story of Baptism to undergo. It is rot possible to state the case without entering into the dispute. Before any reasonings from Jewish washings, or the baptism of proselytes, as it is improperly called, can be admitted in debates concerning Christian baptism, order requires, that the fact be ascertained. Purifications of proselytes indeed there were, but there never was any such ceremony as baptism in practice before the time of John. If such a rite had "existed, the regular priests, and not John, would have administered it, and there would have been no need of anew and extraordinary appointment from heaven to give being to an old established custom, iior would it have been decent for John, or any other man, to treat native Jews, especially Jesus, w ho had no Pagan- ism to put away, as Pagan proselytes were treated. This uninteresting subject hath produced voluminous disputes, which may be fairly cut short by demanding at the outset substantial proof of the fact, that the Jews baptized ^ros- elytes before the time of John, which can never be done. It is remarkable of this controversy, that they, who most earnestly take the affirmative, are of all men the least interested ; for could a christian rite be taken off the ground of immediate divine appointment, and placed on (8) Zuinglii de Bapthmo. Lib. Be prima baptisnni origine. Calvini Inst. iv. 15. 10. Chemnitii Exam. Trideni. ad Canon, de Bcipt. Bullingeri adv. Ana- bapt. Lib vi. cap. i. Musculi hoc. com. De Bapt. -Chaniieri Panstrgt. torn, iv. De Bapt. TAKEN FROM ANY JEWISH WASHINGS, &C. 37 that of human traditions, Christianity would lose much of its glory ; least of all are they interested in it, who in- tend to establish a law to sprinkle the infants of Christ- ians, upon proving, that the Jews had a custom of dip- ping men and women when they renounced Paganism. In this hopeless affair, could the fact be demonstrated, no advance would be made in the argument ; for it would be easy to prove, that if it were by tradition, Jewish trRdi- tions neither have nor ought to have any force with Christ- ians : and that if it were even an institute of Moses, the cer- emonies of Moses were abolished inform by an authority which no Christian will oppose. The legislator of the Jews instituted what an apostle (l) calls dhers washings^ which were not intended to be perpetual, but were imposed hy Moses on the Jews until the time of reformation by the Messiah, as all the other ceremonies of that religion were. The regular way of considering this subject is to set out with an inquiry into the duration of the Mosaical economy, or, to use the language of scripture, the pre- cise period in which Moses was to be heard \n the charac- ter of a lawgiver. This question receives an answer from Moses himself, who said to the Jews of his own time, and entered it into a publick record (2) for the information of their successors, The Lord thy God ivill raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst ofthee^ of thy brethren^ like un- to me ; unto him ye shall hearken. According to all that thou desiredst of the Lord thy God in Horeb, in the day of the assembly^ saying. Let me not hear again the 'voice of the Lord my God ; neither let me see this great f re any more, that I die ?iot. Atid the Lord said unto me they ha'ue well spoken that which they haiie spoken. I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren^ like unto thee, and ivill put my %vords in his mouth, a?id he shall speak unto tliem all that I shall command him. Ajid it shall come to pass, that whosoeiicr shall not hearken un- to my words, which he shall speak in my name, I will re- quire it of him. The rites of Judaism therefore were to be considered as institutes of God, and to be obeyed till he should think fit to give new orders by another pro- phet like Moses. Some think this prophet like Moses was (1) Heb. ix. 10. (2) Dent, xviii. 15, &c. 38 WHETHER THE BAPTISM OF JOHN WERE Joshua (3). Others say, Moses meant a succession of prophets (-^) ; but the Jews in the time of John the Bap- tist understood the passage of the Messiah (5) and the apostle Peter directly applies it to Jesus (o). Many are the resemblances (■/) between Moses and Jesus : but the most striking is that which Eusebius men- tions, and which most modern expositors approve, that the likeness lay chiefly in legislation (-). Oth- er prophets resembled Moses in many things, but none of them were law -givers ; they only interpreted and enforced the laiv of Moses. Heuce it follows, that let the rites of Judaism be what they may, Christians are not bound to perform them because they were instituted by Moses : but it must be proved that Jesus the successor of Moses, and a legislator like him, hath re-ordained them. This point was fully and finally settled in an assembly of all the apostles at Jerusalem convened for the purpose, who gave it under their hands in writing (P), that they had no commandment to keep the lu%v^ that is, the Mosaic- al law of ceremonies. Jewish ceremonies, therefore, are to be considered now only as Pagan rites are considered, as histories of past ages, but not as law of present times. Jewish washings, instituted and not instituted, may be conveniently classed under four heads, common, tradi- tional, ritual, and extraordinary. By common washings are meant bathings, which the Jews in common with all the people of the East practis- ed for cleanliness, health, and pleasure. The daughter of Pharaoh was going to bathe herself in the river when she found Moses (])- Bathsheba was bathing when Da- vid first saw her (:>;); for the Jews had baths in their gardens and houses. Private baths of their oun were more necessary to Jews resident in foreign countries than toothers ; for the Pagans adorned their publick baths \^ ith statues of their gods (3), and for this reason the Jew nev- er entered them. By traditional washings such are ip.tended as were en- joined by the Rabbles without any authority from the writ- ings of Moses. There is a clear distinct account of (3) Munstei-. Drusius, Fagius. Calmet. ^4) Pole. Le Clerc. (5) John'i. 21. (6) Acts iii. 22, 23. (7) Jortin. Newton on the Prophecies. Vol. i. dis. vi. (8) Eiisebii Demonst. Evang. Lib.i. cap. 3. (9) Acts xv. 5, 20, 23, 2,4. (1) Exod. ii. 5. (2) 2 Sam. xi. 2. (o) Jo. Alb. Fabricii Bibliograph. Antiq. cap.xxii. sect. 14. TAKEN FROM ANY JEWISH WASHINGS, &C. 39 these in the gospel of Mark, to which is added the opin- ion of Jesus concerning tliem ( t). 'Then came together wito him the Pharisees and certain of the scribes w/iick came from, Jerusalem : and iv hen they sa-iv so?ne of his dis- ciples eat bread with defied ( that is to say with iinwash- enj hands, theyfoiaidfault.-Jorthe Pharisees and all the Jews except they washtheir hands oft, eat not, holding the tradition of the elders. And when they come from the market ex- cept they wash, they eat not. And many other things there be which t/uy haije received to hold, as the washing of cups and pots, and of brazen "oessels and tables. Then the Phar- isees and the scribes asked him, Why walk not thy disci- ples after the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with un- washen hands ? He answered and said unto them, Well hath Esaias prophesied of you, hypocrites, as it is ivritten. This peoiJe honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Howbeit, in 'vain do they worship me, teach- ing for doctrines the commandments of men. For laying aside the commandments of God, ye hold the tradition ofmen^ as the washing of pots and cups ; cmd many other such like things ye do. And he said unto them, full well ye re- ject the commandment oj Gody that ye may keep your own tradition. Although no Christians hold themselves bound by the canons of Jewish Rabbles, yet this passage hath been ex- tremely disputed, for the sake of determining the meaning of the word baptize, some affirming that the Jews dipped themselvesand their utensils; and others that they only pour- ed on water, and hence they infer that to pour water is to baptize. There is nothing new to be said on a subject that hath been so thoroughly investigated: but an arrange- ment of what seems most satisfactory must suffit-e. i. It is to be observed, that whatever these washings or baptisms were, tliey were traditional, and censured by Jesus Christ, and consequently that nothing determinate concerning them can be inferred from the Old Testa- ment, or from the approbation of Jesus. ii. It is said, the traditions of the elders, or, as the Jews call them, " the words of the scribes, the commands of the wise men," expressly require dipping. In general (5) they say, " wheresoever in the law, washing of the flesh •(4) Mark vii. 1 — 9. (5) Maimonides, J»f»«n, CV/rm in Gill on the- pUoe. 40 WHETHER THE BAPTISM OF JOHN WERE or of clothes is mentioned, it means nothing else but the dipping of the whole body in water — for if any nian wash himself all over, except the top of his little finger, he is still in his uncleanness." In particular they say, " in a laver which holds forty seahs of water, which are not drawn, every defiled man dips himself, except a profiu- vious man ; and in it they dip all unclean vessels. A bed that is wholly defiled, if he dips it part by part, it is pure. If he dips the bed in the pool, although its feet are plung- ed in the thick clay at the bottom of the pool, it is clean. What shall he do v\ith a pillow, or a bolster of skin ? He must dip them and lift them up by their fringes." It was not a neglect but a performance of these human in- ventions which the Saviour reproved. iii. It is added, history explains how the Jews under- stood the canon. Dr. Gale says, " we have frequent men- tion among the ancients of the Hemero- baptists (6), who were so called from their practice of washing themselves in this manner every day : as in the apostolical constitu- tions, where it is noted, that unless they were so washed, they ate not — they are inserted in the catalogue of Jewish sects by Hegesippus ; and Justin Martyr, mentioning several sects also of the Jews, names these among the rest, and calls them Biiptists ; from this signification of the word. These washings are what in the constitutions are intended by daily washings, or baptisms, as may be further confirmed by that account given us of one sect of the Jews by Josephus. TertuUian, too, plainly inti- mates, that the Jews used to wash their whole bodies, when he says, the Jews daily wash every part of the body, yet they are never clean." iv. It is further observed by the same writer, that *' all the versions in the Polyglot (7), except those of Monta- iius, and the vulgar Latin, to wit, the Syriack, Arabick, Ethiopick, and Persick, unanimously understand the words in a sense quite different from what has been hith- erto mentioned, that is, they all take the meaning to be, not that the Jews washed themselves, or their hands, when they came from the market, but that the herbs, for in- stance, and other things they bought there, were first to (6) Gale's Reflectinns on Wall's History of Infant Baptism. Let, iv. where the autliorities are quoted (7) Gale, as above in favour of this version, and Gill, Pole, and others against it. TAKEN FROM ANY JEWISH WASHINGS, ScC. 41 be washed, before they could be eaten. Thus they trans- late the place, And %vhat they buy in the market, tmless it be ivashed, they eat not. It must be owned, the Greek is capable of this sense." V. Commentators of great note therefore conclude that the baptism of cups is putting them into water all over, and rinsing them (8). The washing is a washing of themselves all over (9) : for they not only washed their hands, but immersed their whole bodies (1). The third sort of washings were called ritual, because they were positively instituted by Moses, and make a part of that book, in which the observances of the Jewish religion are set down. These are called purifications, and there are several of them. One was at the conse- cration of priests (i:), who were first washed, then cloth- ed with sacerdotal habits, and then with sacrifices induct- ed, or put into actual possession of both the duties and the honours of the priesthood. A second purification was daily. Moses commanded a laver of brass (3) to be put betwixt the tabernacle and the altar, and water to be put therein, for the priests to wash or dip their hands and their feet, whenever they went to the altar to minister. This statute was in force until the dissokition of the economy, and the penalty for the breach of it was death (4). A third was the purifications of clothes stained with blood in offering sacrifices (5), which were washed ; and of uten- sils which were washed, scoured, and rinsed in water (6). A fourth was the cleansing of a leper (7). His clothes, whether linen, woollen, or skin, were washed in water twice. The priest always put spring water into an earthen vessel, and killed a bird over it so that the blood ran into the water, then he dipped a live bird into the blood and water, and let it fly ; next he dipped a bunch of hyssop tied with a scarlet thread to the end of a cedar stick, and sprinkled the patient, who shaved off all his hair, washed his flesh in water, and concluded the whole by offering sacrifices. (8) Hammond, and others. (9) Vatablus in Loc. Se totos abluebant. (1) Grotius in Loc. Se piirgabant a fori coniactu, quippe non manus tan- turn lavando, sed et corpus mersando. (2) Exod. xxix. 4, &c. (3) lb. xxx. 17, &c. (4) Maimon. Be introitu in sanet. s«ct. v. (5) Lev. vi. 27. (6) lb. v«rse 28. (7) lb. ehap. xii;. xiv. A 42 WHETHER THE BAPTISM OF JOHN WERE A fifth was the purifying of various uncleannesses (8), contracted by touching the dead, and by any other means ; in which cases, as before, clothes va ere washed, utensils rinsed in water, and the people bathed themselves : for the lawgiver had declared, if he ivash them not^ nor bathe his flesh ; then he shall bear his iniquity. The last class ol Jewish washings were extraordinary. One of this kind is in the history of the healing Naaman, by the prophet Elisha (!)). The prophet bade him go and ivash in Jordan seven times. Naaraan went down and dipped himself seven times, and was miraculously- healed. Another was at the giving of the law, when the Lord ordered all the people to prepare for that most sol- emn of all days, by sanctifying themselves, and washing their clothes (1), and two days were allowed for this ex- traordinary service. So after a victory (2), the captives were purified, the raiment of the conquerors washed, and the booty taken from the enemy purified with water of separation : and in like manner the people were ordered to sanctify themselves before they passed through Jordan to take possession of the land of promise (3). All these Were washings on extraordinary occasions ; and the whole, ordinary and extraordinary, were intended to impress the minds of the Jews with proper sentiments of the holiness of God, and that purity of heart, which he required in all his worshippers. Except in the single circumstance of dipping, none of these washings bears the least resem- blance to christian-baptism, and this circumstance is a mere accident, and may as well be taken from Pagan rituals as from the ceremonies of the Jews ; that is to say, it is so vague and far-fetched that it deserves, in this point of view, no consideration at all. Some learned men have currently reported, that christian-baptism is a continua- tion of proselyte-baptism among the Jews, and it saves a great deal of trouble to believe the report ; for if the matter be investigated, the report wiil appear untrue, and the reasoning, from an imaginary fact, illogical. There was no baptism in the world among any people till John, and the purifying of a proselyte by dipping himself, which they very inaccurately call baptism, will appear to have been a late tradition, long after the time of John. (8) Lev. chap. xv. xviii. 16, &c. (9) 2 Kings v ( 1) Exod, six. 10, &c. (2) Numb. xxxi. 19, 23, &.c. (3) Josh. iii. 5- TAKEN FROM ANY JEWISH WASHINGS, &CC. 43 The learned and laborious Dr. Benson, than whom no man studied the history of the New Testanient with more attention, argued at first against the opinion of "Vir. Emlyn, concerning the ceasing of baptism among such as descended from christian ancestors, upon the sup- position that the Jewish custom of initiating heathen pros- elytes by baptism was a certain fact, supported by un- doubted authority : but on further examination he saw reason to doubt of that fact, and like a generous investi- gator of truth, as he was, he proposed his difficulties with a view to excite a further inquiry. They are these : i. The doctor had " not found any instance of one person's washing another, by way of consecration, puri- fication, or sanctification ; except that of Moses his washing Aaron and his sons, when he set them apart to the office of priests. Lev. viii. 6," ii. The doctor says ; "I cannor find that the Jews do at present practise any such thing as that of baptizing the proselytes that go over to them, though they are said to make them wash themselves." iii. He asks, " where is there any intimation of such a practice among the Jews before ^he coming of our Lord ? If any one could produce any clear testimony of that kind from the Old Testament, the Apocrypha^ Jo- sephiis, or Philo, that would be of great moment." iv. He adds : "in former times, proselytes, coming over from heathenism to the Jewish religion, used to •ivash themsehes ; which is a very different thing from baptism^ or one person's being washed by another. Though I must own, I cannot see how infants could wash themselves (4)." The modest Dr. Benson was pleased to add, that he wished to see these difficulties cleared up, and that he could not answer fl//that Dr. Wall and Mr. Emlyn had said in support of proselyte-baptism : but with all pos- sible deference to this most excellent critick, it may be truly said, he hath, by stating his difficulties, fully an- swered both these writers ; for, if what they call prose- lyte-baptism was «or baptism, and if there was no institu- tion of such a washing as they call baptism in the Old Tes- tament, and no mention of such a thing in the Apocrypha, (4) On St. Paul's Epistles. Vol. i. dis. viii. part ii. The publick luorshifi of thefnt Chrimant. Chap. v. S. ii. - — Liglitfoot's viorks. Vol. ii. p. 120. 44 WHITHER THE BAPTISM OF JOHN WERE or in Josephus, or in Philo, what at this age of the world signify the conjectures of a Lightfoot and a Wall, or even an Emlyn ? A fact it is, beyond all contradiction, that this same pros- elyte-washing, which learned men have thought fit to call baptism, isnobaptismat all, biit,asDr. Benson truly says, a very different thing, and that in which infants could have no share. It was a person's crashing himself, and not the dip- ping of one person by another. It is conceivable that, if such a practice had existed, the whole formulary would not have been settled and published, or mentioned, or hinted at by the Jews, whose scrupulosity in the manner of doing the most minute affairs is so notorious. On supposition, the existence of such a practice could be proved, what then ? Nothing at all in regard to baptism. It would appear that a proselyte washed himself, but this is not baptism. Dr. Lightfoot led the baptizers of infants into this labyrinth, and no learned man ever did more to render words equivocal than he. If there be a word in the New Testament of a determinate meaning, it is the word baptism : yet, by a course of sophistry, it shall be first made synonymous with washing, and then washing shall be proved synonymous with sprinkling, and then sprinkling shall be called baptism. Thus the book in- tended to instruct shall be taught to perplex : the book in the world the most determinate shall be rendered the most vague : the book, the credit of which is absolutely ruined if it admit of double meanings, shall of all others be rendered the most mysterious book in the world, say- ing every thing, and of course narrating and proving nothing (5). It is necessary, however, to give some account of proselyte-baptism. A proselyte must be described, the fact of his baptism must be ascertained, and it must be inquired to what practical uses the subject can be applied. i. A proselyte must be described. There were among the Jews two, some say three sorts of proselytes (6). ' (5) See Dr. Benson's Essay concerning the Unity of Sense ; to shew that n» text of scripture has more than one single sense, page 11. (6) To avoid repetitions, the substance of this part is taken chiefly from the following' authors apud Bias. U^olin. Thesaur. Antiq. Venet. 1759, torn, sxii Pauli Slevogti Diss, de prosyl. judteor Jo Gregor, Mulleri Diss, de prosyl Johan. Reiskii de Bapt. Judifor Jo. And. Danzii Bapt. proselyt. Judaic Gill's Body of Divinity. Vol. iii. and l^reface to the New Test. Hammond and Lightfoot on Matt. iii. — Ow- en's Theologoumena Wall's Jlist. of Inf. Bapt. Gale's Refections on wan. TAKEN FROM ANY JEWISH WASHINGS, &C. 45 The first were called proselytes of the gate ; the second were denominated mercenary or hired ; the third were €5al!ed proselytes of righteousness. Philoand Josephus, who lived nearest the time of Jesus, both mention pros- elytes, but neither says one word about the baptism of them. The genuine Targums(7), written about the close of the first century, and the Misnah, written about the middle of the second century, say nothing on this subject. The christian writers called Fathers speak of Jewish proselytes, and washings, and purification from ceremonial uncleannesses : but nothing of admit- ting proselytes into the community by baptizing. This baptism of proselytes came to light, through the later Rabbies, and it is chiefly to be sought in the writings of Maimonides(8), or Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon, who flourished in the eleventh or twelfth century at the head of a famous school in Egypt. This justly celebrated writer composed the best system of the civil and canon laws of the Jews that is extant, under the tide of Yad Chazaka. It is a compendium of the Misnah and Talmud, and a collection of traditions, rites, usages, and customs of the Jews. A Jewish proselyte is a convert to Judaism. Prose- lytes of the gate were neither circumcised by others, nor did they dip themselves. Mercenary proselytes, it is agreed on all hands, did not dip, and it is uncertain whether they were circumcised. It is the proselyte of -righteousness, who was accounted purified by dipping himself. The Jews were extremely cautious what per- sons they admitted under this character. For this pur- pose candidates underwent a very strict examination concerning the motives of their conduct, and the exam- iners utterly refused all ignorant, mercenary, or vicious people. If they were adjudged sincere, they were tak- en into tuition, and were instructed in the doctrine of the unity of God, and all the other articles of the Jew- ish religion. After this the men were circumcised, and when they were out of danger both men and women dipped themselves in water. The ceremony was per- formed once by the first convert : but never more than once through successive generations in the same fam- (r) Gill Gale. (8) Jo. Laur. Berti Secies. Hist. Breviar. torn. ii. sec. 12. 46 WHETHER THE BAPTISM OF JOHN WERE ily. If a Jew bought a Pagan minor (9), or if one were taken in war, it was determined by the wise men, he should dip himself as a proselyte of righteousness. It was objected, that a minor could not consent ; but it was determined by the wise men, that in this extraordi- nary case, the decree of the Rabbies should be held to supply the place of assent. Adult proselytes received instruction, and made a confession of their assent dur- ing their washing, and afterwards completed the cere- mony of initiation by offering sacrifice. The mode of this purification was immersion in water. A river was preferred : but any collection of clean water of a depth sufficient for dipping would do. If a bath were neces- sary, a square, with about four feet and a half depth of water was requisite. The proselyte was not to jump in as if he were bathing ; but he was to walk in leisurely. A woman was to be conducted by three women, and when notice was given that she was up to the neck in the water, the three judges either withdrawing or turn- ing their backs, she plunged herself once into the water. Some dipped themselves naked, others in a thin gar- ment that would admit the water every where ; but none in any habit that might prevent the water from wetting all the body, for if only a small defluxion from the eye ran between the water and the skin, the purifi- cation was judged partial and incomplete. ii. The fact must be ascertained. A learned foreign- er (1) says, Jewish baptism is a solemn rite instituted by God, in which proselytes of both sexes, in the pres- ence of three credible witnesses, are dipped in water, that being legally cleansed and regenerated they may enter on the profession of a new religion. This defini- tion affirms what is not true, for neither was there ever such a rite as Jewish baptism, nor can it be pretended seriously, that proselyte-dipping was instituted by God. If any divine institute could be produced, if there were in the Jewish ritual any ceremony similar to baptism, there would be some shew of reasoning ; but in the present case, as affirmation is the whole argument, bare negation is a sufficient answer. There are in the Old Testament (2) many precedents of admitting proselytes (9) Slevogt. (1) Reiskius. (2) Josh. vi. 25. James ii. 25. Heb. xi. 31 . Ruth i. 8cc, TAKEN FROM ANY JEWISH WASHINGS, &C. 47 into the Jewish church, as Rahab, Ruth, and others : but not one word is said of their being baptized. There are laws of admission given by Moses (3). One is this, "When a stranger will keep the passover to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised : and then let him come near and keep it. One law shall be to him that is home-born, and unto the stranger." Where now is the divine institution of either baptizing or washing a pros- elyte all over in water ? One law shall be to him that is home-horn, and unto the stranger. That law is, Let all his males be circumcised ; and then let him come near. Dr. John Owen calls the opinion, that christian baptism came from the Jews, an opinion destitute of all proba- bility : yet Dr. Wall founds his main argument in fa- vour of infant- baptism on the practice, which the Jews, he says, had of baptizing proselytes to their religion. The fact cannot be proved, and the divine authority of it is absolutely denied. iii. It must be inquired to what practical uses the subject can be applied. The proper answer is, to none. Be it observed, that a law to dip is not a law to sprin- kle : a law for a man to dip himself is not an authority for another man to dip him ; a law to dip instructed proselytes is not a law to baptize infants ; a law to wash the first convert of a family is not an authority to wash all the descendants of that convert ; a law to enjoin three things, circumcision, washing, and sacrifice, is not fulfilled by a performance of only one of the three. The best use, then, that can be made of a knowledge of Jewish baptisms (as they are improperly called) is to pity the apostasy of the Jews, and to set them an exam- ple of renouncing that fatal error, from which all their ills originally proceeded, an implicit faith in guides, who assumed the authority of God, who pretended to regulate religion by their Bath Col, or daugluer of a voice, that is, the traditions of enthusiasts, who issued laws to bind conscience, and who, like some Etruscan statues, have not one thing in the world now to recom- mend them to attention, except their antiquity. (3) Exod. xii. 48, 49. 48 WHETHER BAPTISM W£RJK CHAP. VI. WHETHER BAPTISM WEaE AN IMITATION OF PAfiAN ABLUTIONS. IT hath happened to Christianity as to Judaism, the divine institutes of both have been said to be copied from the rites of Pagans ; but this is not credible, it cannot be proved a fact, and it would go, could it be ad- mitted, to cover Moses and John with shame for prac- tising a fraud so gross as the introducing of foreign cus- toms, in the name, and pretendedly by the express com- mand, of God himself; an insult on the Deity, which might easily have been detected, and of which the characters of the men could not furnish even a suspicion. Among the Jews, who valued themselves upon their being a select people, a chosen generation, Jehovah's portion of man- kind, who held all Pagan rites in deep abhorrence, and by a native Jew, who had never travelled, and who, it is credible, knew nothing of Pagan rituals, it is extremely rash to suppose from the mere connection of the appli- cation of water to the human body in religious exercises, that such a rite was, or could possibly be incorporated into a revealed religion in Judea. There are three opinions, in general, amongiearned men concerning those religious ceremonies, which were com- mon among the worshippers of the one living and true God and the various professors of Polytheism. It is allowed on all hands, that there is, and always was an evident simi- larity of religious rites, and that the temples of idols have some ceremonies resembling those of the church of God. Some think, the founders of Pagan religions incorpora. ted into their superstitious ceremonials some rites bor- rowed from the Jews. Others suppose that Moses and Christ took some Pagan ceremonies, proper in themselves, and hurtful only in the hands of infidels, and incorporated them into the service of the true God. Each of these opinions is attended with great difficulties, and a third is the least objectionable. This is, that the similarity is merely accidental, or, to speak more like a Christian, that the rites of true religion among the Jews were positive institutes of God, and that the practice of similar rites among Pagans rose originally out of the IMITATION OF PAGAN ABLUTIONS. 49 exercise of common sense among the first fathers of mankind or out of positive institutes, which were debas- ed afterward by their descendants into superstition. Of all rcHgious ceremonies, that of ablution, or wash- ing with water immediately before divine worship, is the most general, and the conformity the most obvious. The Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans and all Pagans had divers washings. Descended from the same par- ents as the Jews, they originally worshipped one God, the God of Noah, Job, Jethro, and Melchizedek, and him they approached with clean washed hands, expres- sive of that purity of heart, which was necessary to his approbation of their service. Hence this exclamation. If I he %mcked, though I wash myself e^er so clean, yet mine own clothes shall abhor me (1). In like manner Homer (2) represents Hector as afraid to offer a libation to Jove before he had washed his hands. He makes Telema- chu6 wash his hands, and Penelope her clothes, before they prayed to God (3). Virgil describes iEneas as afraid to touch sacred things till he had washed himself in running water (4). There is no need to suppose either that the Jews imitated the Pagans, or that the Pagans imitated the Jews. It was natural to consider God as a pure and holy being, and it was natural for a conqueror to wash off the blood of enemies from his hands after a battle, before he approached God to praise him for victory. . In after times when superstition had multiplied gods or demons, so that in Greece only there were thirty thou- sand (5), it became necessary to divide and class them, and regulate their rituals according to their rank. Some were celestial, others terrestrial and infernal ; some were aerial, others aquatick, and they were treated with different degrees of respect (6), When the superior gods were approached, the worshippers washed them- selves all over, or, if that could not be, they washed their hands. When sacred rites were performed to the inferior deities, a sprinkling sufficed (7). None were approached without sprinkling or washing the hands, (1) Jobix.29. (2) llomevl Iliad. <3) Komtvi in Odyss. (4) VLrgll Mneid. Lib. ii. 719, (5) Hesiod op. et dier. Lib. i. 250- (6) Orph. ad Musxum. (7) Virgil JEn, ii. 719. Donee me flumine vivo abluero- - - -corpus pargit aqua. vi. 636. 50 WHETHER BAPTISM WERE, &C. the head, or the whole body. For these purposes a vessel of clean fountain or river water was placed at the entrance of Pagan temples. A priest in waiting sprink- led those vAho went to worship three times with boughs (8) of laurel or olive dipped in water, and a written order was affixed in ihe porch that no man should proceed further without washing (9). The heathens, not content with this simple expressive rite, multiplied religious ablutions to excess. The Egyptian priests washed themselves four times in the twenty-four hours (l). Other nations went into great- er extremes, they washed and sprinkled not men only, but all utensils of worship, sometimes their fields, often their houses, and annually their gods (2). The Romans had a general lustrum every five years, when the censor sacrificed a sow, a sheep, and a bull, and lustratcd or sprinkled all the Roman people (3). There are pictures of lustration on monuments yet in being (4). It is not to be supposed that all the heathens believed polytheism. The wisest of them held the popular religion in contempt, and exactly resembled some mod- ern deists in the church of Rome. They had a private faith for their own use, and a public profession for popular purposes. Their own good sense disabused themselves : but they thought it hazardous to unde- ceive the common people, who, they supposed, had not sense enough to make a proper use of such intelligence as they could have given them. Hence came, most likely, the mysteries of Isis, the same as Ceres, Cybele, or the mother of the gods ; those of Mithra, the same as Apollo, the sun, or fire; and those of Eleusis. The priests initiated only wise men into these mysteries, in which probably they were taught that the popular deities were nothing but symbols of the perfections and works of one almighty God (5). This was a very criminal disposition. It left them ivithout excuse^ because^ "johen they kne%v God, they glorified him 7iot as God. "Qy profess- ing themsehes %me, they discovered themselves y£>o/^. (8) Plin. Nat. Hist. v. 30 Sozom. Mist. Eccl. vi. 6. ^neid. vi. 229. Ovid. Metam. vii. 2. (9) Potter's Greek Antiquities. (1) Herodotus ii. 37. (2) Ovid. Fast. iv. Lucan. Pharsal. i. Tertul.-De Bapt. cap. v. (3) Varro Be Re Rust. Lib. ii. c. 1 Tacit, Lib. iv Dion. Halic Liv. (4) Ezcch. Spanheim. De Prxst. Numism. to7n. ii. edit. Verbeirgii. Amstel. 1717. (5) Pluche Hist, of the Heai-eiis. Vol. i. c.ii. s. 45, OF THE INSTITUTION OF, &G. 51 Many ceremonies were used to initiate people into these mysteries, and ablution was one. It was an odd conceit of Justin Martyr, in which, however, he was followed by Tertullian, and other fathers, that the dev- il inspired the heathens to mimick, in these ab- lutions, the baptism practised in the christian church (6). It would be in vain to object, that the ablutions used by the Pagans to initiate persons into their mysteries were far more ancient than the institution of baptism itself: for these fathers inform their readers that the prophet Isaiah had foretold his ivaters shall be sure, and bread shall be giveii him ; that the devil understood the prophet to foretel, in these words, the institution of bap- tism and the Lord's supper ; and that he set up his ab- lutions in order to be forehand with Christ, and so to discredit his ordinances when he should appoint them. Satan thus prepared Paganism to say to Christianity, Have you ceremonies ? So have I. Do you baptize ^ So do I. The devil of the fathers was an arch droll ! It is a just, and, it may be hoped, not an unseasonable moral reflection, that Pagan ablution was a sort of publick homage, which natural religion paid to the purity and perfection of God, and an universal acknowledgement of the indispensable necessity of vir- tue in man, in order to his enjoyment of the first great Cause. CHAP. vn. OF THE INSTITUTION OF BAPTISM BY JESUS CHRIST. JESUS CHRIST before his death promised his apostles,. that after his resurrection he would meet them on a mountain in Galilee (1). Immediately after his resurrection, the angel, who informed the women at the sepulchre that he was risen, directed them to go quickly and tell his disciples that he was risen from the dead, and that he was going before them into Galilee, and there they should see him (2). As they were going to (6) Justin. Apol. adv. Tryph. Tertul. De coron. mil. cap. xv. Z>« prescript, adv. Hxr. cap. xl- - - -De Bapt. cap. v. - - - vid etiam not. PamcliL -- -Anton. Franc. Gorii. Museum Etrus. torn. i. Florent. 17.37. (1) Matt. xxvi. 32. Mjirk xiv. 2Q. CI) Matt, xxviii. 7—10. 52 OF THE INSTITUTION OF deliver the message, Jesus himself met them, and re- peated the order, go tell my brethren^ that they go into Galilee, and there shall they see me. In the forty days between his resurrection and ascension he had many interviews with his disciples, in which he instructed them in the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. Baptism was one of these things, and of this he chose to speak in the most public manner on the mountain in Galilee to above Jiiie hundred brethren at once. It is not very material to determine whether this were the third, the eighth, or the last appearance of Christ to his disciples, in which he shewed himself aVme after his pas- sion by many infallible proofs^ and spoke to them of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God {i). To the assembly on the mountain, Jesus came, and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaiien and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all na- tions, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost : teaching them to ob- serve all things %vhatsoever I have commanded you : and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world (4). It is a glorious example of that benevolence with which Jesus used the vast powers committed to his trust. The authenticity of this passage is allowed by all Christians, but they differ very much in expounding it ; and three classes of expositors deserve attention ; the first enlarge, the second diminish, the third supersede the meaning of the passage. Without entering into verbal criticisms, upon which the christian religion doth not stand, for it is support- ed by facts true and demonstrative, and not by hypo- thetical reasonings confined only to a few learned men, it is observable, that one class of expositors so expound the text as to give it a much wider extent than Jesus intended, for they make it an authority from him to baptize infants, though they are not mentioned, and though there is not in the whole New Testament either precept or precedent for the practice. The order runs, teach all nations, baptizing them. The thing speaks for itself, die style is popular, the sense plain, and it must (3) Acts i. 3. (4) Malt, sxvili. 18, &c. BAPTISM EY JESUS CHRIST. So mean either baptize whole nations, or such of all na- tions as receive your instructions, and desire to be bap- tized. The first is too gross to be admitted, because it cannot be effected without force, and the grossness of the one instantly turns the mind to the other, the plain and true sense. In the principles of the kingdom of Christ there is neither fraud nor force, nor is it suitable to the dignity of the Lord Jesus to take one man by conviction, and his ten children by surprise. The practice of the apostles, who understood the words, no doubt, is the best exposition of the language. Did they baptize any whole nation, or city, or village ? yet they described the baptism of individuals in a style similar to that of the words in question. The following is an example. Philip ivent doivn to the city of Sama- ria^ and preached Christ unto them, and such as belie'oed Philip, preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, were baptized, both men and women (5). The history of this is thus de- scribed by Luke. The apostles which were at Jerusa- lem heard that Samaria had recei'oed the word of God^ not the whole country called Samaria, not the whole city of the same name, not Simon and his adherents, inhabitants of the city, but such only as believed Phil- ip, had received the word of God, and were baptized. The same Philip baptized the eunuch, but not his servants ; for Christianity is a personal, not a family, or national affair (6). Some families were baptized, but it was only when each person of each family was a believ- er, and not always then. Crispus(7), the chief ruler of the synagogue at Corinth, belie'ued on the Lord'with all his house, yet Paul baptized none but Crispus ; for there might be very good reasons for the other believers in his family to defer their baptism (8). The Jailer at Philippi belienied in God with all his house, therefore lie was baptized, and all his straightway (9). The house- hold of Lydia were brethren who were conforted by the apostles (i). The family of Stephanas of Corinth, which Paul baptized, were X\iq frst fruits of Achaia, and (5) Acts vlli. 5 14. (6) Ibid. ver. 30. (7) Acts xviii. 8. (8) 1 Cor. i. 14. (9) Acts xvi. 31—33 (I) Acts xvi. 15, 40. 54 or THE INSTITUTION OF addicted themsehcs to the ministry of the saints^ that is, to assist the deacons in relieving the poor (2). Tlie second class so understand the traiasaction as to narrow the subject. To them it seems that Jesus ad- dressed himself only to the aposdes, and thence they argue, that none but apostles and apostolical men, their successors, have any right to administer baptism. This exposition is clogged with insuperable diHiculties, and it is asked, is it a true fact that during the lives of the apostles none but they baptized ? In the case just men- tioned, Philip the deacon baptized the Samaritans, and Peter and John only went down to confer the extraordi- nary gifts of the Holy Spirit (3). There was no apostle at Damascus when Paul was baptized, and a certain dis- ciple at Damascus named Ananias baptized him (4), or, as he expresses it, buried him by baptism into death. While Paul was at Corinth many of the Corinthians hear- ings believing, and were baptized, but he baptized none of them except Crispiis and Gains, and the family of Stepha- nas. Aquila, who was a resident, and Silas and Timothy, who were travellers, most likely baptized the rest (5). When Peter went to open the kingdom of heaven at Ceesarea to proselyted Gentiles, he did not baptize them himself, but lie commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord, which was done it should seem by Jews of Joppa who accompanied him, and who are called brethren of the circumcision who beiicoed {6). Of this, as of the former case, the description is in general terms : the apostles and brethren that were in Judea heard that the GeJitiles had also receii^ed the word of God, though only a few proselytes of one city had received it (7). It is inquired further, who are the successors of the apostles ? Is it true that Jesus instituted a priesthood, or any order of men to succeed the apostles? After the defeat of that numerous, learned, and wealthy church, called catholick, further attempts to prove what they have contended for are extremely rash and entirely hope- less, and go on a principle wholly disallowed in pure Christianity, the necessity of a standing priesthood. The apostle Paul gave a rule to the Corinthians applica- ble to baptizing as well as to teaching. Ye may all proph- (2) 1 Cor. i. 16. xvl. 15. (3) Acts vlii. 15. (4) Acts ix. 18 Rom. vi. 4. (5) Acts xviii. 2, &c. (6) Acts X. 5—23. (>) Acts xi. 1. BAPTISM BY JESUS CHRIST. 55 esy one by one^ that all may learn and all may he comforted^ and the right of every Christian to enlarge tlie kingdom of Christ by teaching and baptizing others, is perfectly in unison with the whole spirit and temper of Christiani- ty. The conduct of Jesus was uniform, he first called twelve, afterwards seventy, and, when he extended his commission to the whole world, he appointed above five hundred, and in them all Christians to the end of the world ; nor is it imaginable that he uttered any prohibi- tion against such as should increase his holy empire by instruction and baptism ; for baptism is not an initiation into any particular society, which may have possessions, and in a participation of which justice requires the con- sent of the owners, but it is simply an admission to a profession of Christianity, to which wisely no temporal advantages of any kind ever were annexed by Jesus Christ. The third class so expound the words as to supersede the institution. They affirm that the words to the end of the world, should be rendered to the end of the <^^e, which is either the age of the Jewish polity, and so the period expired at the destruction of Jerusalem, or the age of the apostles, and so it expired with the last aposde. Baptism therefore was only a temporary institute, and it ought not to be administered to all Christians now. To such Pa- gans as embrace Christianity it may be proper, but to the children of Christians it is not so. - It is said on the contrary. There is no mention of any such cessation in any part of the NewTestament, and to be wise above what is written is a most dangerous pre- cedent, it would go further than is intended. - - - -There is nothing in baptism injurious to piety and virtue, or in- consistent with any improvement which a good man ought to promote The abolition of baptism is not in agteement with the perfection of the economy, which be- ing finished admits of no emendation. Heaven and earth shall pass aivayy but my ivord shall not pass aijjay. Abide in me. If my words abide in you, ye shall be my disci- ples There w^as no connection between the lives of the apostles and baptism, for during their lives they were not the only administrators of it There was no more connection between baptism and the destruc- tion of Jerusalem, than between baptism and the de- 56 OF THE INSTITUTION OF struction of any other city. The notion leaves the most obedient Christians in a difficult case without a guide, by not fixing a precise time for leaving off to baptize. It is most natural to suppose, Jesus dated by his own economy, and appointed baptism to con- tinue to the etui of the age, that is, the end of the christian economy, the new age, in distinction from the Mosa- ical state of things. Christians of early ages did not understand that baptism was to be laid aside, for all parties continued to baptize beyond every period to which the words have been supposed to refer Christians are exhorted to hold Jast their profession of faith, haloing their bodies "vjashed %vith pure water It is allowed t/ie end of the age does sometimes signify the end of the ivorld, and some substantial reasons should be given why it does not stand for the end of the world here. This notion is chiefly founded on the supposition, that christian baptism was a continuation of a Jewish ceremony, proselyte- baptism, which is not a true fact. The words of Christ are not properly a law given to all Christians, but a direction to the Christians then present, and applicable to future ages, as a precedent. Jesus had foretold the destruction of Jerusalem, that the Jews should be led away captiiie into all nations^ that his disciples should be hated of all nations^ and that the gos- pel should be published among all nations^ but he had not informed his disciples that they were to baptize all nations, and incorporate Gentiles with Jews into one body. Now he advises them to submit patiently to the wise providence of God, and to improve the event of their dispersion to the benevolent purposes of instructing all mankind, and participating with them- selves in the general benefits of the Christian religion. The event discovered the wisdom and goodness of the charge, and the example is worthy of imitation by all Christians of all ages, even to the end of the world. In addition to the arguments from scripture, which each party hath advanced against the other, to confirm their own sense of the words of Christ, teach all nations, baptizing them, and the rest, many reasons have been taken from other topicks, as history, the interests of , BAPTISM BY JESUS CHRIST. 57 piety, virtue, social iiappiness, and so on, and some of them of great weight. Those who practise infant baptism have been requested "to consider whether the baptism of babes have not effected a revolution greatly in disfavour of the evidences of Christianity by exhibiting whole nations of Christians, who were all forced to profess the religion of Jesus without their knowledge or consent. Is it, they ask, because Christianity will not bear examination, or have the children of Christians less right to judge for themselves than the first converts had ? In the days of the apostles, it was argument to tell, multitudes ijjcre added both of men and ivomen (8). The word of God increased^ and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem^ and a great company of the priests were obedi- ent to the faith (9). The same day there were added unto them about three thousand soids .(\). This is no argument now. Further, it is inquired, whether the turning of whole nations into christian churches, so that there is no world, but all is church, have not deprived Christianity of that noble argument which the purity of the doctrine of Christ afforded. The few upright lose the evidence of their shining as lights in the world m the vast multitude of wicked characters, among whom they are obscured, confounded, and lost. Of what national church can it be said the people are hofyy harmless^ undefiled^ and separate from sinners ? What nation, if they observe the direction of apostolical episdes, durst claim a letter directed to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints (.:) ? To Such a change, say they, it is owing that intidehty abounds ; and a Christianity of this kind admits of no defence. Such as confine the administration of baptism to men in orders, have been requested to advert to the history of priesthood, and to reconcile, if it be possible, the effects produced by it to the spirit and temper, the doctrine and conduct, of the Lord Jesus Christ, the freedom and peace of mankind, the maxims of good civil government, the prosperity of commerce, and many other articles remotely or immediately affected 8 (8) Acts V. 14, (9) lb, VI. 7. (1) lb. ii. 41. <:2^ 1 Cor. I. 3. 58 Of THE INSTITUTION OF BAPTISM. by the dominion necessarily connected with every kind of priesthood. To those who set aside baptism, it hath been asked. What is there in the inoffensive ordinance of baptism that should tempt a wise and good man to lay it aside ? What line of separation do you leave between the world and the church ? Why deprive Christians of the honour and pleasure of confessing Christ ? Why take away the powerful motives to holineS"s, which are taken from a voluntary putting on Christ by baptism ? If it could be proved that a few Greek Christians wholly disused water- baptism, which by the way is not granted, what is this to a modern Christian ? Is it history ?'Let it pass. Is it urg- ed as argument ? On the same principle, it may be also argued, that the established church of Greece used trine immersion, and the single church of Antioch, on- ly one city of many, consisted of one hundred thousand souls, half the number of inhabitants (3), The Greek dissenters all baptized, and particularly the Eunomians, who denied the Trinity, and rejected the baptism of trine immersion of the established church, administered baptism by single immersion (4) either in the name of Christ, or in the death of Christ ; supposing either that Peter had altered the form of words (5), or that Paul described the form of administration when he said, Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ ivere baptized into his death (6) ? If num- bers be argument, the yeas have it ; but where the authority of scripture cannot be quoted, and where no substantial reasons from the fitness of things can be urged, and where history cannot help, it seems at least hazardous to lay aside a practice, which the Lord Jesus himself honoured by his own example, and which it seems he left to his disciples to enable them to follow his steps. There can be no danger in following his hteps in an imitable case, as baptism is allowed to be, (o) Chrysost. vita. (4) Concil. Constantinop. i. Can. vii, Evuf^iuuvg fiiv t«, ret/; «f fCiuv (5) ^.gidii Carlerii Orat. in Concil. Basil, habit. Petrus Apostolus loruiam baptismi a Christo traditam mutabit in istam. Ego te baptize in nomine domirn nostri Jesu Cbristi, &c. . (6) Basilii Op. Tom. Vi. de Spiritu Sancto. cap. xii. ' Adversus eos qui discuntsufficere baptisma tantum in noinine Domini. Biiiii natx in canen. Jpett. Can. xlix. OF APOSTOLICAL BAPTISM. 59 and there is no likelihood of placing Christianity in a better state than that in which he himself placed it. True the baptism of immersion is in modern times, in some churches, fallen into neglect and contempt ; but if that be a motive for disowning it, let such Christians be thankful they did not live in the days of Jesus himself, who was more despised by Jews than any of his insti- tutes ever were by Christians. CEIAP. VIII. OP APOSTOLICAL BAPTISM. THE state of baptism during the lives of the apos- tles is to be gathered from the book of Acts written by Luke, the first ecclesiastical historian. It extends from the ascension of Christ to the residence of Paul at Rome, a space of more than thirty years. The book is full of information, and in regard to baptism, it in- forms by what it does not say, as well as by what is re- ported. For example. The historian relates the baptism of many proselytes, as Cornelius, the Ethi- opian eunuch, and others, on their profession of Christianity ; of course the administrators did not know of such a custom as proselyte-baptism, or they did not understand proselyte- wasliing to be baptism, or they practised anabaptism, which is not credible. There are frequent narrations of the baptism of be- lievers, but not one infant appears in the whole his- tory ; yet, no doubt, some Christians had married, and had young families within the thirty year's between the ascension of Jesus and the settlement of Paul at Rome. There is no mention of any of the ceremonies which modern Christians have affixed to baptism : no conse- cration of water, no sprinkling, no use of oils and un- guents, no sponsors, no kneeling in the water, no trine immersion, no catechumen-state, no giving a name, no renunciation of any demon, none of the innumera- ble additions, which, ur.der pretence of adorning, have obscured the glory of this heavenly institute. It be- longs to those who practise such additions to say how they came by them, and under what master tliey serve. 60 OF EASTERN BATHS. It is observable, there is no mention of baptizing in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Peter exhorted die Jews of Jerusalem to repent^ and be baptized ei^ery one of them in the name of Jesus Christ. Philip baptized the Samaritans in the name of the Lord Jesus. Peter commanded believers at Csesa- rea to be baptized in the name of the Lord. Many- Christians taking it for granted, that the aposdes thor- oughly understood the words of the Lord Jesus, and supposing the form of words of local and temporary use, administer baptism in the name of Christ, and think themselves justified by the book of the Acts of the Apostles. CHAP. IX. OF EASTERN BATHS. IN this country, bathing is not considered, except by a few individuals, as an enjoyment, and many think of it with reluctance; but in the East it is far otherwise, and is to be numbered among the conveniences, if not the necessaries of life. Established customs derived orig- inally from nature are seldom changed, they continue the same, or nearly the same, in all ages in the same countries ; for they lise out of the climate of the country, and the condition of the natives. The inhabitants of the East from the most remote antiquity to this day, liave been naturally impelled, from the warmth of the climate, to consider bathing as one of the highest enjoyments of life, and their water-works for this as well as for other uses are magnificent and innumerable. It is difficult to compress a subject so voluminous into a narrow compass, and to leave unapplauded those grand reservoirs, those expensive aqueducts, those ex- tended and incomparable canals, those ingenious de- vices for raising and distributing water into baths, those distinguished honours which have been bestowed on the immortal architects, and those innumerable benefits which the inhabitants derive Irom them, and which make so conspicuous a figure in all good histories of the East. A general idea, however, is necessary to the OF EASTERN BATHS. 61 present design ; and omitting the great and national (l) works of this kind, a small miniature picture of a do- mestic enjoyment of water shall be taken from a late celebrated lady (2). These are her words : "Abroad the common people enjoy themselves (3). For some miles round Adrianople the whole ground is laid out in gardens (4), and the banks of the rivers are set with rows of fruit trees, under which all the most considerable of the Turks divert themselves every even- ing, not with walking, that is not one of their pleasures ; but a set party of them choose out a green spot, where the shade is very thick, and there they spread a carpet, on which they sit drinking their coftee, and are gener- ally attended with some slave with a fine voice, or that plays on some instrument. Every twenty paces you may see one of these little companies, listening to the dashing of the river ; and this taste is so universal, that the very gardeners are not without it. I have often seen them and their children sitting on the banks of the river, and playing on a rural instrument perfectly answering the description of the ancient fistula, being composed of unequal reeds, with a simple but agree- able softness in the sound. "In their gardens water is an essential part of ele- gance. In the midst of the garden is a chiosk, that is a large room, commonly beautified with a fine foun- tain in the midst of it. It is raised nine or ten steps, and enclosed with gilded lattices, round which, vines, jes- samines, and honey-suckles make a sort of green wall ; large trees are planted round this place, which is the scene of their greatest pleasures, and where 'the ladies spend most of their hours, employed by their musick or embroidery. In the publick gardens there are pub- lick chiosks, where people go that are not so well accom- modated at home, and drink their coffee and sherbet. " In private rooms water is a part of the innocent luxuriance of eastern embellishment (5). The rooms are low, which I think no fault, and the ceiling is al- w^ays of wood, generally inlaid or painted with flowers. They open in many places with folding doors, and (1) Gr3evii Thesaur. De AquceJuct Balneis Thennis, ijfc. Po- COC^Q'a Description of the East. Aqueducts. (2) Right Hon. Lady Mary Wortley Montague's Letters. (3) Vol. i. Let. XXX. (4) Vol. i. Let. xxxii. (5) Vol.ii. Let. xliii. 62 OF EASTERN BATHS. serve for cabinets, I think more conveniently than ours. Between the windows are little arches to set pots ol per- fume, or baskets of flowers. But what pleases me best is the fl\shi«jn of having- marble fountains in the lower part of the room, which throw up several spouts of water, giving at the same time an agreeable coolness, a pleasant dashing sound, falling from one bason to another. Some of these are very magnificent. Each house has a bagnio, which consists generally in two or three little rooms leaded on the top, paved with marble, with basons, cocks of water, and all conveniences for either hot or cold bathing." One of those private bagnios is described by her ladyship (6). " No part of the palace of the Grand Vizir pleased me better than the apartments destined for the bagnios. There are two built exactl}? in the same manner, answering to one another ; the baths, fountains and pavements all of white marble, the roofs gilt, and the walls covered with Japan china. Adjoin- ing to them are two rooms, the uppermost of which is divided into a sofa ; and in the four corners are falls of water from the very roof, from shell to shell, of white marble, to the lower end of the room, where it falls into a large bason, surrounded with pipes that throw up the water as high as the rooms. The walls are in the nature of lattices, and on the outside of them there are vines and woodbines planted, that form a kind of green tapestry, and give an agreeable obscurity to these delightful chambers." A pubiick bagnio is described thus (7) : " I went to the bagnio about ten o'clock. It was already full of women. It is built of stone, in the shape of a dome, with no windows but in the roof, which gives light enough. There were five of these domes joining to- gether, the outmost being less than the rest, and serving only as a hall, wliere the portress stood at the door. Ladies of quality generally give this woman a crown or ten shillings, and I did noc forget that ceremony. The next room is a very large one, paved with marble, and all round it are two raised sofas of marble, one above another. There were four fountains of cold water in this room, falling first into the marble basons, •'6) Vol. ii. Let, xliii. (7) Vol. i. Let. xxvh OF EASTERN BATHS. 63 and then running on the floor in little channels made for that purpose, which carried the streams into the next room, something less than this, with the same sort of marble sofas, but so hot with steams of sulphur, pro- ceeding from the baths joining to it, it was impossible to stay there with one's clothes on. The two other domes were the hot baths, one of which had cocks of cold water turning into it, to temper it to what degree of warmth the bathers please to have. " 1 was in my travelling habit, which is a riding dress, and certainly appeared very extraordinary to them : yet there was not one of them who shewed the least surprise or impertinent curiosity, but received me with all the obliging civility possible. I know no European court where the ladies would have behaved themselves in so polite a manner to a stranger. I be- lieve, upon the whole, there were two hundred women, and 3'et none of those disdainful smiles, and satirical whispers, that never fail in our assemblies, when any body appears that is not dressed exactly in the fashion. They repeated over and over to me Uzdle, pek Uzeilc, which is nothing but charming, iwry charming. The first sofas were covered with cushions and rich carpets, on which sat the ladies ; and on the second, their slaves behind them, but without any distinction of rank by their dresS, all being in the state of nature,, that is, in plain English, stark naked, without any beauty or defect -concealed. Yet there was not the least smile or immodest gesture among them. They walked and moved with the same majestick grace, which Milton describes our general mother with. ' There were many among them, as exactly proportioned as ever any goddess was drawn by the pencil of a Guido or Titian, — and most of their skins shiningly white, only adorned by their beautiful hair, divided into many tresses, hanging on their shoulders, braided either with pearl or ribbon, perfectly representing the figures of the graces." Baron de Tott, who complains of the exuberance of her ladyship's pen, and who doubts whether she went into the bath with her clothes on, allows and confirms the general description (>). (8) Memoirs c^tht Turh and the Tartar.-. London, 178^. Vo!. i.p. 19i. 64 OF ROMAN BATHS. CHAP. X. or ROMAN BATHS. PAGAN Rome had as great a passion for baths as any eastern country had ; she had too a passion for sculpture : but she prostituted herself to the gods of all nations to gratify it, and with an unsparing hand dis- tributed all over the western world idolatry and vice. At home all the coast near Baioli was covered with couiitry houses and baths, and even the ruins are so grand that people mistake them for temples of Diana, Venus, and Mercury (l). They are surrounded with galleries, with drawing-rooms, canals, and reservoirs, piled one upon another, disputing, even as they fall for rank in magnificence. Cicero has immortalized his villas by "works, which have always been the delight of the learned (2)." Seneca noted others for their im- morality (3). Vitruvius hath described the rooms, and to read Horace is to see the company, the houses, and the expensive pomp of rooms, embellished with furniture and ornaments, and decorated with all the softening arts of the East (4). There were in Rome nineteen magnificent aque- ducts, and twelve publick baths (5), all truly Roman; but architecture, which had arrived at maturity in the reign of Augustus, drooped, because it was neglected under Tiberius, revived a little under Nero, made one fine effort in the time of Trajan, and left to the admira- tion of the present age the famous column, called Tra- jan's pillar, declined again, and revived once more un- der Alexander Severus ; and then, along with other polite arts, fell with the western empire, and did not rise again for twelve hundred years. During this long period artists were ignorant of just designing, the life of architecture ; and baths, as well as other buildings, displayed a medley of refinement and barbarism, the (1) Voyage Pittoresque de Naples et de Sicile. A Paris, 1781. Tom. u. Vue des Bains de Nero- Page 214, (2) John Moore, M. D. View of Society and Manners in Italy. Vol. ii. Let. Ixv. (3) Seneca ad Lucil Epist. 52. (4) Vitruvius. Be Architect. Lib. v. Cap. 10. (5) Joh. Jac. Boissard. Aniiquitat. Rom. Francf. 1600. Onuphrii Panvinii Bartholomwi Marliani - - - - Petri Victoris - • - • Topograbhia Jioince, I or MOHAMMEDAN BATHS. 65 first in beautiful monuments of antiquity, and the last in ravages and repairs of foreigners. There was, how- ever, in both periods, one invincible objection against using Pagan baths as christian baptisteries ; they were always ornamented with heathen deities, and the statua- ry was an offence both to the morality and the faith of the primitive Christians. They could baptize in the private baths ol Jews, because they had no images of God ; and it is not improbable, that in later times suc- ceeding teachers made use of ready constructed baths in Mohammedan countries for the same purpose : it is, however, certain, that Christians, who lived among the Moors, were some of the last who erected baptist- eries. CHAP. XI. OF MOHAMMEDAN BATHS. THE Mohammedans in general preserve in their baths a moral purity as well as grandeur of style, and elegance, and chastity of design. Jealous of the honour of one God, not the smallest representation of animal life can be discovered amidst the variety of foliages, grotesques, and strange ornaments. About each arch is a large square of arabesques surrounded with a rim of characters, that are generally quotations from the Koran. That celebrated remnant of the ancient mag- nificence of the Moorish Kings of Granada in Spain, the great bath of the A 1 ham bra, is entirely in this taste, and is thus described ( l) by an excellent judge. " On my first visit, I confess I was struck with amazement, as I stept over the threshold, to find myself on a sudden transported into a species of fairy-land. The first place you come to, is the court called the communa, or del mesucar, that is, the common baths : an oblong square, with a deep bason of clear water in the middle , two flights of marble steps leading down to the bottom ; on each side a parterre of flowers, and a row of orange trees. Round the court runs a perystile paved with marble ; the arches bear upon very slight pillars, in 9 (1) Henry Swinburne, Esq. Travels through Spain. Letter xxii. Page 177—180. * ^ ^ 66 OF MOHAMMEDAN BATAS. proportions and sU le clifFtrent from all the regular or- ders of arciiitecture. The ceilings and walls are in- crusted with fretwork stucco, so minute aiid intricate, that the most patient draftsman would find it difficult to follow it, unless he made himself master of the general plan. This would facilitate the operation exceedingly, for all this work is frequently and regularly repeated at certain distances, and has been executed by means of square moulds appiit-d successively, and the paits join- ed together with the utmost nicety. In every division are Arabick sentences of different lengths, most of them expressive of the following meanings, "there is no conqueror but God ;" or, "Obedience and honour to our Lord Abouabdallah." The ceilings are gilt or painted, and time has caused no diminution in the freshness of its colours, though constantly exposed to the air. The lower part of the walls is mosaick, dis- posed in fantastick knots and festoons. A work so new to me, so exquisitely finished, and so different from all I had ever seen, afforded me the most agreea- ble sensations, which, I assure you, redoubled every step I took in this magick ground." Mohammed hath incorporated washings in his relig- ion. "O true believers, says he, come not to prayers when you are drunk, until ye understand what ye say; nor when ye are polluted, until ye wash yourselves. If ye find no water, take fine clean sand, and rub 3^our faces and your hands therewith. When ye prepare yourselves to pray, wash your faces and your hands unto the elbows, and rub your hands and your feet unto the ankles, and if ye be polluted wash your- selves all over." Mohammed imagined two fountains of water near the gate of his paradise, of the one the blessed arc to drink, and in the other they are to wash. The Mohammedan ablutions differ from those of the ancient Pagans in one respect. The washings of the old heathens were either derived from their own ob- servation, or from the customs of their earliest ancestors, or from a fanciful superstition ; but those of Mohammed are evidently copied from Judaism, as a comparison of the several cases that required ablution would easily demonstrate. OF BAPTISTERIES. 67 Ablutions for sensual, civil, and medical purposes are omitted here ; for they do not belong to an essay on religious rites. It is very probable that the cert mony of v\'ashing before worship was a patriarchal custom, and that all nations derived it originally from their com- mon ancestors, in the most remote antiquity ; but this conjecture is not necessary, for the purity ot God is an idea so natural, the connexion between his pmity ar.d that of his worshippers so obvious and the signifyiug of these notions by washing the body with pure water so very consequential, that there is nothing wonderful, mysterious, or unaccountable, in a similarity of prac- tice. CHAP. XII. OF BAPTISTERIES. IT should seem then, the primitive Christians in the empire were under a necessity of baptizing in open waters, or, where they had not private baths of their own, of constructing baptisteries for the express pur- pose of administering baptism. Authors are not agreed about the time when the first baptisteries were built. All agree that the first were, like the manners and conditions of the people, very simple, and merely for use, and that in the end they rose to as high a degree of -elegant superstition, as enthusiasm coi.'d invent. The catholicks affirm, that the Emperor Constantine built a most magnificent baptistery at R(jme, and was hiihself with his son Crispus baptized there; and in 'evidence they produce some ancient records, and shew a princely baptistery at the Lateran to this day (l). Protestants, influenced they think by better authorii\ irom authentick history, prove, that the empe.or tell sick at Constan- tinople, nent to the hot baths at Helenopolis, and from thence to Nicomedia, and in the suburbs of that city was baptized by Lusebius. '1 hey say, he deferred his baptism, as many more did, till he iound his constitUr tion breaking up, and himself ju-,t going to the grave. Some thirk he was baptized twice, and departed an Unitaiian Anabaptist. (1) Anastasius Baroniiis Durant, &.<:, QB or BAPTISTERIES. It is not impossible, it may be hoped, to reconcile the difference between learned writers concerning the time, when Christians erected publick edifices. Suicer, Vedeiius, and others, affirm, that the primitive Chris- tians had no distinct places of worship for the first three centuries (2). Bingham, Mede, and others deny this, and endeavour to prove that Christians had publick places of worship in the third, second, and even first century(3). Both sides appeal to the fathers, and for this very reason the dispute may be comfortably settled. Ev- ery body knows the stvle of those primitive writers is so full of tropes, figures, and allusions, that half the difficulty of understanding them lies in determining when they speak literally, and when they depart from this first law of all perspicuous and polished writers. In the present case they are charged with directly con- tradicting one another ; for Origen, Minutius Felix, Arnobius, and others, affirm, Christians had no tem- ples : on the contrary, many of equal authority say they had, and what is more extraordinary, Lactantius, and some other fathers, contradict themselves, and say they had, and they had not. The most probable con- jecture is, that when they speak of temples among primitive Christians, they mean Christians themselves, especially christian assemblies ; for so they had figur- atively temples, and they may be very well allowed to expatiate on the worth, and even the majesty of the ma- terials. When they affirm they had no temples, they speak literally of such edifices as the Pagans had, for it is allowed on all hands that they assembled in their own houses, and if there be any faith in ancient monu- ments, often in obscure and remote places, and partic- ularly in such subterranean caverns as the Italians call catacombs. These cavities are very numerous about three miles from Rome, and about Naples, and many- other parts. It is supposed many of them were dug by the inhabitants for materials to build, for here they found both stone and a cement, which the Neapolitans call La pozzolane. They shew one at Naples, where S. Januarius is represented as preaching by the light of (2) Suicer. Tkcsaur. Eccles. N«<5 Vedel. Exercitat. in Ignatii . Epist. ad Ephes. 4 (3) Bingham. Oripnet Eccies. Book viii. chap. 1. OF BAPTISTERIES. 69 two lamps to some primitive Christians (4). Thtre are now in the kingdom of Naples, not including Sicily, one hundred and twenty-three bishopricks, and the in- habitants of Naples are computed at three hundred and fifty thousand : but they are not ashamed to own this conventicler for their founder and patron. He was martyred at the latter end of the third century, and the liquefaction of his blood is famous all over Europe. To return. Baptisteries are to be first sought for, where they were first wanted, in towns and cities ; for writers of unquestionable authority affirm, that the prim- itive Christians continued to baptize in rivers, pools and baths, till about the middle of the third century (5). Justin Martyr (6) says, that they went with the catechu- mens to a place where there was water, and Tertullian (7) adds, that candidates for baptism made a profes- sion of faith twice, once in the church, that is, before the congregation in the place where they assembled to worship, and then again when they came to the water ; and it was quite indifferent whether it were the sea or a pool, a lake, a river, or a bath. About the middle of the third century baptisteries began to be built : but there were none within the churches till the sixth cen- tury ; and' it is remarkable that though there were many churches in one city, yet (with a few exceptions) there was but one baptistery. This simple circum- stance became in time a title to dominion, and the con- gregation nearest the baptistery, and to whom in some places it belonged, and by whom it was lent to the oth- er churches, pretended that all the others ought to con- (4) Anton-Caraccioli. De sac. Ecdes. Neap, momirti. Neap. 1645. P. 189. Tue des Catacombs des Naples. Tom. i. I'art i. Page 80. (5) Writera. PauUi M. Paciaudii Antiq. Christian. Diss. ii. Cap. 1, 2, &c. De Baptisteriis Rom. Eccles. lib. Cap. 26. Joan, Stepli. Durant De Sit. Eccles. Lib. i. Cap. xix. De Baptisterio. Parisiis 1631. Josephi Vicecoinitis Observat. Eccles. Tom. i. Lib. i. Cap. 4. An baptisteria semper in ecclesiafuerint ? Et de more in fium,inibus, jbntibus, viis, ac carceribus baptizandi, Mediolani. 1615. - --- Joan. Ciampini Vetera Monimenta. Cap. xxv. De Ecclesia S. yoannis in fonte, iJfc. Romx 1699. Mazocchi Diss. Hist. De Cathed. Eccl. Neapoli- tana semper unica. Neapoli 1751 Du Cangii. Glossar. Baptisterium Sulpicii Seven Dial. ii. 5. Bingham's Antiquities. Book viii. Of the Bap' tistery. Cum multis aliis. De sacris christianarum. (6) Justini Mart. Apol. ii. (7) TertulUani De baptismo. Cap. 4, Stsijno, Tlumtne, Fonte, Lacu, Alveo, 70 OF BAPTISTERIES. sider themselves as dependent on them (8). When the fashion of dedication came up, the church that owned the baptistery was generally dedicated to Saint John the Baptist, and assumed the title of S. John in fonte, or S. John adfontes, that is, the church near or at the bartistery. It is common now for Baptist congre- gations in large cities to avoid the expense of erecting baptisteries, and to borrow for the time of the congrega- tion that has one : but they would think the teacher of that congregation a bad reasoner, if he were to infer from this that he was bishop of all the people in the city, that the teachers of other congregations were his clergy, and that the congregations themselves were obliged to believe and practise^ what he ordered under pain of a fine, an imprisonment, or death, as he in his wisdom should think most fit for the glory of God, and the good of the church of S. John mfonte. This, how- ever, hath been done, and it hath been effected by prov- ing what was very true, that the noble and splendid cities of Florence, Pisa, Bologna, Parma, Milan, and many others in Italy, had but one baptistery in each, and by inferring what was very false, that the incumbent of the baptismal church was therefore the parent and lord of all the rest. These baptismal churches were gen- erally built near rivers, or waters, as those of Milan, Naples, Ravenna, Verona, and many more (9). I later times the bishop of the baptismal church, having obtained secular power, granted licenses for other churches to erecr baptisteries, taking care, however, to maintain his own dominion over the people. By a baptistery, which must not be confounded with a modern font, is to be understood an octagon building, with a cupola roof, resembling the dome of a cathe- dral, adjacent to a church, but no part of it(l). All the middle part of this building was one large hall capable of containing a great multitude of people ; the sides were parted off, and divided into rooms, and, in (8) Greg'. Nazianzeni Orat. xl. - - - Onupbrii Panvinii De prexc'p. urb. Horn. Basi/'c. de Baptister. lateran, cap. - - - Muratorii Antiq. Ital. Tom. i. Part. 2. Pippini Leges i. (9) Paciaudius ut supra. (1) Joan. Ciampini Vet Monhnenta. Cap. xxv. Baptisterum Ravenna- tense octangulare. Oiim eniiu baptisteria octogonali forma constructa fuisse, &;c. OF BAPTISTERIES. 71 some, rooms were added without- side, in the fashion of cloisters. In the middle of the great hall was an octagon bath, which, strictly speak in p^, was the bap- tistery, arid from which the whole building was denom- inated. This was called the pool, the pond, the place to swim in, besides a great number of other names (2;) of a figurative nature, taken from the religious benefits which were supposed to be connected with baptism; such as the laver of regeneration, the luminary, and many more of the same parentage. Some had been natural rivulets, before the buildings were erected over them, and the pool was contrived to retain water sufficient for dipping, and to discharge the rest (3). Others were supplied by pipes, and the water was conveyed into one or more of the side rooms ; for as they often (if not always) baptized naked, decency required that the baptism of the women should be per- formed apart from that of the men. Some of the sur- rounding rooms were vestries, others school-rooms, both for the instruction of youth, and for transacting the affairs of the church ; and councils have been held in the great halls of these buildings (4). It was necessary they should be capacious, for as baptism was administered only twice a year, the candidates were numerous, and the spectators more numerous than they. Baronius relates an anecdote of a little boy falling through the pressure of the crowd into a baptistery in Rome, and being drowned (5). This is very credible : but that, after he had lain an hour at the bottom, he was restored to life by Damasus, is not quite so likely. It is an opinion generally received, and very proba- bly, that these buildings took some of their names from the memorable pool of Bethesda, which was surrounded with porches, or cloistered walks. The Syriack and Persick versions call Bethesda, a place of baptistery, or, lying aside Eastern idioms, plainly a bath (6). The Greek name K6Xv^^y,efx signifies a swimming place, a place to swim in ; ana liie Latin name piscina simply signi- fies a dipping, or diving place. It is from the gram- (2) Paciaudius ut supra Durant, &c. &.c. (3) Paciaudius ut sup. (4) Suicer. Thesaur Eccl. voce (pt^iltrAOtov. (5) Annales. Ann. 384. (6) M. Mich, Arnoldi sub Frischmutho dissert, de Piscina Bethes Wendeleri Dissert, de Piscina Bethes. 72 OF BAPTISTERIES. matical sense of these words that many learned men suppose the pool of Bethesda, which is said to be by the sheep market^ or rather by the sheep gate^ to have been a place where sheep were washed before they were offered to the priests for sacrifice. Whether these names were given to christian baptisteries because they were built after the model of Bethesda, which is not an improbable conjecture ; or whether they were so called from a fanciful parallel between Besthesda and a baptis- tery, is not certain. A genuine father would readily find many resemblances between halt, sick a^nd impo- tent people and the fallen sons of Adam ; the nature of sheep and the qualities of Christians ; washing in a pool before sacrifice on a mountain, and baptism in this valley of tears before ascending to the Lamb in the midst of the throne. The first is the most likely, because a baptistery was like Bethesda, a pool, in a court surrounded with cloisters : but the last is not improbable ; for allegory can do any thing ; and certain it is, TertuUian, Optatus, and others, who called them- selves fish, ran the parallel too far. *' You," says TertuUian to some who denied baptism, "you act naturally, for you are serpents, and serpents love deserts, and avoid water ; but we, like fishes, are born in the water, and are safe by continuing in it." There were in process of time baptisteries at most o the principal churches of Rome, as at those of St. Peter» St. Laurence, St. Agnes, St. Pancras, and others (7). The church of St. Agnes is a small rotund, and it is said a baptistery adjacent was erected, for the baptism of Constantia, sister of the Emperor Constantine (8). Some think the church itself was the baptistery. The most ancient is that at St. John Lateran (9). Such baptisteries were erected, separate from the churches, in all the principal cities of Italy, as Florence, Ravenna, Milan, Pisa, Parma, and the rest ; but in one point these cities differed from that at Rome : at Rome there were many : in other Italian cities only one at first ; in the middle ages two, an unitarian and a trinitarian ; and in modern times only one, and that, the trinitarian or catholick. Some are yet standing : the memory of (7) Johan. Mabillon. Iter. ItaL I'om. i, xxv. (8) Ciampini Vet. Mon. Cap. xxvi. (9) Giovanni. Villani Storia Fiorenza, 1587. Lib. i. Gap. Ix OF THE BAPTISTERY OF ST. SOPHIA. 73 Others is preserved in records, and monumental frag- ments ; and the place of others is now supplied by fonts within the churches. The convenience extended the custom of erecting baptisteries, and improving them. Linus built one at Besancon over a stream, which Onnasius the tribune gave him for the purpose. That at Aquileia was placed close to the river Alsa, and all were set either over running water, or near it, or so that pipes conveyed it into the pool. The octagon form was either suggested by the form of the principal room of a Roman bath, or of a Gaulish temple at Milan : and the latter is the most probable. If so the Gauls are the remote ancestors ; and Milan the imme- diate parent of octagon baptisteries. It doth not now seem necessary to investigate the history of that of St. John Lateran at Rome. Some attribute it to the Emperor Constantine, others to different Pontiffs : but all must and do allow, that the primitive edifice hath yielded to time and accidents, and that the present bap- tistery, though very ancient, is not the original build- ing. CHAP. XIII. OF THE BAPTISTERY OF ST. SOPHIA AT CONSTANTINOPLE. CONSTANTINE the Roman Emperor, soon af- ter he had given full liberty to Christians, and embraced the profession of Christianity himself, removed the seat of empire from Rome in Italy to Byzantium in Thrace ; and having enlarged, enriched, and adorned it, solemnly conferred on it his own name, and called it Constanti- nople, that is, Constantine 's city. It remains one of the most magnificent cities of the East to this day. For ages it was the seat of the eastern or Greek empire, and it is now the capital of the Ottoman Empire, and from its admirable port, is often simply called the Porte. Here his imperial majesty erected the spacious and splendid church of St. Sophia. Succeeding emperors amplified and adorned it. Justinian at an immense cost rebuilt it, and his artists, with elegance and mag- nificence, distributed variegated marbles of exquisite beauty, gold, silver, ivory, niosaick work, and endles? 10 74 OF THE BAPTISTERY OF ornaments, so as to produce the most agreeable and lasting effects on all beliolders. Tlie baptistery v\as one of the appendages of this spacious palace, something in die style of a convoca- tion-room in a cathedral. It was very larfre, 'axx\ coun- cils have been held in it, and it wa;> called ^^7^ ^ftJI^rrupjay, the great llknniiiatorv (l). In the middle Wiis Uie bath, in which baptism was administered ; it was supplied by pipes, and there were outer rooms for all cop.cerned in the baptism of immersion, the only baptism of the place. Every thing in the church of St. Sophia goes to prove, that baptism was administered by trine im- mersion, and only to instructed persons : the canon laws, the officers, the established rituals, the Lent ser- mons of the prelates, and the baptism of the arch- bishops themselves. 1. Cafiofi law. The Greeks divided their institutes into two classes, the scriptural and the traditional. The division was merely speculative, for they thought both equally binding. B isil gives an instance in baptism. (2). The scripture says, Go ye, teach and baptize, and tradition adds, ' aptize by trine immers'iony and "if any bishop or presbyter shall administer baptism not by three dippings but by one, let him be punished with deprivation ( ) " At what time this canon was made, and by whom it was first called an apostolical canon, is uncertain ; but it was early received for law by the established Greek church, it was in full force when the cathedral of St. Sophia was built, and no person durst bajjtize any other way in the Sophian baptistery. 2. The officers. In the church of St. Sophia there were eighty presbyters, one hundred and fifty deacons, seventy subdeacons, and forty deaconesses, beside catechists and others. A catechist was an ecclesiastical tutor, whose immediate business it was by instructing catechumens in the principles of religion, to prepare them during the thirty days of Lent for baptism at Easter. Two sorts of women were called deaconesses (1) Du Fresne in Paul. Silent, Descript. S. Sophice notae. Ixxxii. Bap- Ulster imn. (2) Op. De sancto spiritu. Cap. xxviii. (3) Canon Apost. 1. £< rt? tTTiirKOTroif t) vftirovlifci ftv) Tfiit ZetTflKrf^oileij^C. 3onarac Com. in Can, Jpost. ST. SOPHIA AT CONSTANTINOPLE. 75 ill the oriental and Greek churches. The first were the wives of deacons ; for all church officers formerly communicated their titles to their wi\es, and even to their mistresses. Thus Heraclius, patriarch of Jeru- salem, kept a Venetian lady riamed Pascha di Riveri, by whom he had childici., and she was called patriarch. ^ss (4). The wives of bishops, presbytc rs, deacons and subdeacons, were called bishopesses, prcbbyteresses, deaconesses, and subdeacoi esso ( ). 'J'he stci.nd are deaconesses properly so talitd, bicause they (officiated in the services of religior», and chitfi\ in ihe adnnnistra- tion of baptism to their ova n sex (t). The office of deaconesses continued in all churches, eastern and western, till the eleventh century, then it fell into dis- use, first in the Roman church (7), and then in the Greek (8), but it continued longer in the oriental churches (S^) ; and the Nestorian h^th deaconesses to this day (l). The duration of these female officers is allowed to affi3rd probable proof of the duration of the baptism of adults by immersion (2). 3. Rituals. All the ancient Greek rituals have in- structed catechumens for the subjects of baptism, and trine immersion for the mode (3). 4, Lent-sermons. The archbishop of St. Sophia says, they baptized at Easter, and the forty days preceding were devoted to religion. They abstained from certain foods, as fish and fowl, they went to church every day, "the serious part of them laid aside publick amusements, the catechists prepared catechumens for baptism, the prelates preached on the subject, and the two followin.^ extracts from the discourses of Basil, archbishop of Csesarea, may serve to shew both how and whom they (4) Gesta Dei per Franoos : sive oriental, exbedit. hist, Tom. i. Hano= via: 1611, Piafat. (5) Assemani Bibliot. Orient. Tom. iii. Part ii. p. 847. De Diaconissis. (6) Ibid. (7) Ivenini. Dissert, apud Asseman, Post annum Christi millesimum noil special! alicujus concilii decreto, sed sensim sine sensu evanuisse, &c. (8) Asseman. ut. sup. (9) Ibid. Durant lamen diaconissarum officium in ecclesia Syriaca diutiiis, quam in Grseca. (1) Josephi Indorum Metropolitan, pontijical. Nestorianor. an. Chriit^ 1559. ut Slip. (2) Dr. Rces's Cyclopaedia on the ivord Deaconess (3) Goar. Eucholog. sive rituale Gracorum. Far ii. 164:7. Theoplj. Hiei-o-Tzanphuvnar. Menologia. Venetiis, 1639. 76 OF THE BAPTISTERY OF baptized in the Greek established church in the fourth century (4). "It is necessary to the perfection of a christian life, that we should imitate Christ, not only such holy ac- tions and dispositions, as lenity, modesty, and patience, which he exemplified in his life, but also his death, as Paul saith, I am a follower of Christy I am conformable to his death, if by any means I might attain unto the re- surrection of the dead. How can we be placed in a condition of likeness to his death ? By being buried ivith him in baptisju. What is the form of this burial, and what benefits flow from an imitation of it ? First, the course of former life is stopped. No man can do this, unless he be born again, as the Lord hath said. Regeneration, as the word itself imports, is the begin- ning of a new life ; therefore he that begins a new life must put an end to his former life. Such a person re- sembles a man got to the end of a race, who, before he sets off again, turns about, pauses, and rests a little : so in a change of life it seems necessary that' a sort of death should intervene, putting a period to the past, and giving a beginning to the future. How are we to go down with him into the grave ? By imitating the burial of Christ in baptism ; for the bodies of the bap- tized are in a sense buried in water. For this reason the apostle speaks figuratively of baptism, as a laying aside the works of the flesh : ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, bu- ried with him in baptism, which in a manner cleanses (4) Chrysost. op. Edit, de Montsaucon. Tom. li. p. 445. Tom. i. p. 611. Tom. ii. p. 42, 77. Tom. iv. p. 8, 39. Tom. ii. p. 224, &c. Catacheses ad illiiminaiidos. ... - Tom. xiii. Synopsis eormn, quie in operibus ChrystoTrd observantur, Diatrib- i. Baptism! ritum ita describit Chrysostomus : qui baptizandi erant per dies triginta ad sanctum illud lavacrum apparabantur . antequam tingerentur bsec verba proferebant : Abrenuncio tibi Satana, et pompct tux ct cultut tuo, et conjungor tibi, Ckrisie, Hits vera addere jubebantur, Credo in resurrectionem mortuorum. Posteaque ter in unda mergebantur. TRANSLATION. The works of Chrysostom edited by Montfaucon. Vol. ii. p. 445, &c. Catechetical instructions for those who are about to be illuminated. Vol. xiii. Synopsis of those things which appear in the works of Chrysostom. The baptismal rite is thus described by this Father : The candidates for baptism spent thirty days in preparing for that sacred bath : before they were baptized they made the following confession : / renounce thee, Satan, and thy potnp and thy ivorship, and am, joined to thee, O Christ : to vihich they were ordered to subjoin, I believe in the resurrection of the dead. After which they were three times iramersed in the flood. Editor. * ST. SOPHIA AT CONSTANTINOPLE. 77 the soul from the impurity of its natural carnal affec- tions ; agreeably to this saying, 'uoash me, and I shall be ivhiter than snoiv. This is not like the Jewish purifica- tions, washing after every defilement, but we have ex- perienced it to be one cleansing baptism, one death to the world, and one resurrection from the dead, of both which baptism is a figure. For this purpose the Lord, the giver of life, hath instituted baptism a representation of both life and death ; the water overflowing as an im- age of death, the spirit animating as an earnest of life. Thus we see how water and the spirit are united. Two things are proposed in baptism ; to put an end to a life of sin, lest it should issue in eternal death ; and to animate the soul to a life of future sanctification. The water exhibits an image of death, receiving the body as into a sepulchre : the spirit renews the soul, and we rise from a death of sin into a newness of life. This is to be born from aboue of ivater and the spirit : as if by the water we were put to death, and by the op- eration of the spirit brought to life. By three immer- sions, therefore, and by three invocations, we administer the important ceremony of baptism, that death may be represented in a figure, and that the souls of the baptiz- ed may be purified by divine knowledge. If there be any benefit in the water, it is not from the water, but from the presence of the spirit ; for baptism doth not same lis by putting aivay the filth of the fleshy but by the aJiswer of a good conscience toward God.'" *' What time for baptism so proper as Easter ? — Let us receive the benefit of the resurrection when we com- memorate the resurrection of Christ. For this the church lifts up her voice, and calls from far her sons, that those, whom she once brought forth, she may now^ bring forth again ; and feed with substantial food them, whom she hadi hitherto fed with the milk of the first el- ements of religion. John preached the baptism of re- pentance, and all Judea went out to him - - - -One John preached, and all the people repented : but you a prophet calls, saying, wash and be clean ; you the psalmist addresses, when he says, look to the Lord, and be enlightened ; to you the apostles say, repe7it and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ /or the remission of sins, and ye shall receins the Holy 78 OF THE BAPTISTERY Of Ghost ; the Lord himself invites you, come unto me^ all ye that labour, and are heavy laden^ and I wdl gwe you rest. All these passages have been read to you to-day. Why do you delay ? Why do you deliberate ? What do you wait for ? Instructed in the doctrine of Christ from your infancy, are you not yet acquainted with it(5) ? Having been always learninq, will you ne'uer come to the hioivledge of the truth ? Making experiments all your life, will you continue your trials to old age? when then will you be a Christian ? When shall we acknowledge you for our own ? Last year you deferred it till this ; do you intend now to put it off till the next ?" It seems clear that the homilies of Archbishop Basil were ad- dressed, not to Pagans old or yo'ing, but to the chil- dren of Christians, whom he calls the church that the Greek church of those times did not force a profes- sion of Christianity upon their children, but conducted them to baptism by instruction and argument that baptism was administered by trine immersion and that, as the sermons of their bishops were intended to persuade, so the lessons for the day read openly in the church, were intended to explain and enforce the sub- ject of baptism. Nothing like this is to be found in the Lent-sermons of modern times, and a translation of the Lent-homilies of the ancient Greek bishops could not be read to any congregation of modern Christians without great absurdity, except to Baptist assemblies, and there they would be heard in raptures for their singular pro- priety and beauty. 5. Baptism of the archbishops of St. Sophia. Nazi- anzen, Nectarius, and Chrysostom, presided in suc- cession over the church of Constantinople at the close of the fourth century, and the beginning of the fifth. In the year three hundred and twenty-five, the church of Nazianzum, a little city in Cappadocia, being desti- tute of a pastor, one Gregory was baptized and elected bishop. Gregory and his wife Nonna were both emi- nent for piety, and Nonna, like Hannah ti e mother of Samuel, by solemn vows, dedicated her children to God before they were born (6). While Gregory was bishop of this church he had a son, whom he n^nied after him- (5) Homilia xiii. Exhort, ad Baptismum jx y»)5r<«v 'iovn»\ii^%wff>im} &C. (6) Greg. Naz. Or at. xix. ' ST. SOPHIA AT CONSTANTINOPLE. 79 self, and who afterward became so famous as to eclipse his father, and to be known by the name of St. Gregory Nazianzen (7). His father gave him an excellent edu- cation at Athens and Antioch. While he resided at Athens he contracted an intimacy with Basil, which continued, though with a little interruption through life. These two youths were so intent on the acquisition of learning, and the duties of religion, that they knew only- two streets in the city, the one led to the church, and the other to the schools. When Gregory had finished his studies, he returned home to his father. He had al- ways been a catechumen at Athens, and had attended the catechetical lectures of the church there : but on his return he was baptized, joined the church, and became an assistant to his father, being near thirty years of age (8). Some time after his return from college he married Theosebia the sister of Basil : but soon quit- ted her to become a monk (9). In process of time he was preferred to the archiepiscopal throne of Constan- tinople. Nazianzen at length grew tired of his office, and withdrawing into Cappadocia along with many oth- er bishops, disgusted like himself with the turbulence and futility of councils, was succeeded in the archiepis- copal throne by Nectarius (i). Nectarius was a native of Tarsus, and when Gregory Nazianzen quitted Constantinople he held an office at court. He was a dissipated gentleman on the list of catechumens, and availed himself of a happy moment, and got himself elected patriarch of Constantinople by a corrupted majority of the council then sitting, before he had been baptized (2). He was actually baptized after his election, and for many years filled his high office with dignity and propriety. He was succeeded by John Chrysostom. Chrysostom was a Syrian, born at Antioch in the year three hundred and forty-seven. His father, Sccun- dus, was a man of high rank in the army (3). His mother's name was x^nthusa : both were Christians before John was born. His father died while he was (7) Basil. Op. torn. ili. Benedict, Parisiis, 1730. Vita Basil, cap. i. (8) Ibid. (9) Muratorii. Anecdota Gneca, p. 133. (1) Greg. Naz. Episr. ad Ptocup. (2) Sever. Bhinii Not in Concii. Const, acumen. An. 381 , (3) MoiUfaucon. Chry.sostonii vit. Op. torn, xiii. so OF THE BAPTISTERY OF in the cradle, and his mother, though she was only- twenty years of age when she was left a widow, con- tinued in that state, and devoted herself wholly to the educating of this her only son. She provided tutors for him in several branches of literature, under whom he profited so much as to become one of the most learned, eloquent, and accomplished young gentlemen of the age. Happily for him, while he frequented the bar for business, and the theatres for pleasure, as others of his rank did, he had an intimate acquaintance named Basil, who, being himself an eminent Christian, pro- posed to him the truths of Christianity, and pressed home on his conscience the purity and felicity of its morals. John felt, avoided places of publick amuse- ment, altered his dress, forsook the bar, and commenc- ed an intimacy with Meletius, the pious bishop of Antioch. After three years acquaintance with Mele- tius, who was extremely fond of him, and who thor- oughly instructed him in the religion of Jesus, he was baptized, and admitted into the church, being twenty- eight years of age. In a church where the archbishops themselves were baptized at an age of maturity, it is not imaginable that adult baptism was accounted an impro- priety. It may not be improper to add here the baptism of Basil, the favourite of Nazianzen at Athens, and after- wards archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia. Nazian- zen discovered the soundness of his understanding and the refinement of his taste by selecting Basil for his bosom friend at college. No Christian had descended from a more honourable ancestry, no youth had receiv- ed a better domestick education, none excelled him in beauty of person and elegance of manners, none went beyond him in sweetness of disposition, none equalled him in future life. It was with great reason that Eras- mus preferred him before all his contemporaries, and named him, not as his countrymen did Basil the Great, but Basil the Greatest ; for he is the best writer of all the Greek fathers (4). Basil descended from two opu- lent families of Pontus and Cappadocia. His grand- fathers and great grandfathers, being Christians, had suffered immense losses in times of persecutior), and (4) Erasmi JEfiist. ad SadoUt. ST. SOPHIA AT CONSTANTINOPLE. 81 some of them had been martyred. His father Basil was eminent at the bar in Cappadocia. By his lady Knime- lia he had ten children, three of whom were bibhops. Basil was the eldest. When he was an infant he was extremely ill, and in danger of death. His father v\ as cut to the heart, he could not help praying for the life of his child ; and recollecting how the tender Jesus had said to a man in his condition, Go thy way, thy son Ihethy he hoped for his recovery. Basil recovered, and was committed to the care of his grandmother Macrina, who resided at a village in Pontus(5). This good lady took all possible care to instil into his mind the relig- ious principles of her bishop, Gregory of Neocassarea, whom she chiefly admired. From hence in early age he was taken home, and instructed both in literature and religion by his mother and his father, who then re- sided at Neocassarea. Here he profited very much in learning, and here he imbibed the principles of Chris- tianity under successive bishops, whose lectures he at- tended as a catechumen. His father sent him first to Caesarea, then to Constantinople, and lastly to Athens, where he completed his education. Dianius bishop of Ccesarea was the teacher whom Basil most esteemed. By him he was baptized in the twenty-eighth year of his age, and admitted into the church. Here he performed the office of a reader of the holy scriptures. When Dianius died, the church elected Eusebius, a magistrate of eminent virtue and knowledge, to succeed him. He was only a catechumen when he was elected : but a neighbouring bishop baptized him, and hini Basil first assisted, and then succeeded. "The baptism, then, of the* Greek church, as well as of St. Sophia the Metropolitan, in the fourth and fifth centuries, was that of instructed adults, whether Pagans or children of Christians, by trine immersion. It would be easy to make similar remarks on more eastern churches, as on that at Antioch, the capital of Syria, where Chrysostom presided before he was preferred to the see of Constantinople, and of which he says, the city- contained two hundred thousand souls, and half were Christians ; on that at Alexandria, the capital of Eg} pt, where Athanasius was archbishop ; on that at Jerusa- 11 (5) S. Basil, r/f. op. Prcffixs Cap. i. 5. 82 OF THE LATERAN lem where Cyril presided, and on many more, for all their baptisteries resembled that at St. Sophia, and their baptism was that of believers by trine immersion. So far were the Greeks and other Easterns from imagining that the word baptism signified sprinkling. CHAP. XIV. OF THE LATERAN BAPTISTERY AT ROME. THE injustice and cruelty of the Emperor Nero fell so heavy upon the people of Rome, that several wise and virtuous citizens conspired to rid the empire of him. Plautius Lateranus, consul elect, was in such a con- spiracy (1). Being discovered, he was put to death, and his estate on mount Coelius was confiscated to the crown (2). By various monuments since discovered, it is supposed Vespasian and other emperors resided in the Laleran mansion, and made it an imperial palace (3). The Emperor Constantine gave this old building for a sort of parsonage-house, or rather an episcopal palace, to Sylvester, bishop of Rome ; and among other im- provements converted the family bath into a baptistery (4). Catholick historians say, Constantine adorned this baptistery with many images of gold and silver, and endowed it with a handsome income (5). However that might be, succeeding bishops of Rome repaired and adorned the baptistery ; and Hilary, who was elect- ed pope in the year four hundred and sixty- one, and held his office seven y^ars, added four oratories or chapels to it (6). A traveller entering Rome by the gate Del Popoh must go up the street Strada Felice, till he arrive at the church of St. John Lateran. Turning in and passing along through the church, he must go out at the door behind the great choir, which lets him into a court surrounded with walls and buildings. On the left hand (1) Taciti Annul. Lib. xv. Cap. 49, (2) Juvenal. Sat. x. 15. (3) Famiani Nardini Roma vetus. Lib. iii. Cap. vii. Coehus apud Grzevium. Tom. iv. (4) Ciampini Be Sacris Rdificits a Constantino exstructis, cap. i. (5) Platins et Onuphrii Vit. Pontif. jRommor. Colon. 1568. Silvest. i. vit. (6) Pontiff. Vita. Hilarius i. BAPTISTERY AT ROME. 83 is a porch supported by two marble pillars, which leads into the octagon edifice, called the baptistery. On entering, he will observe eight large polygonal pillars of porphyry support the roof, and there is a spacious walk all round between them and the uall (7). In the centre of the floor, under the cupola, is the baptistery properly so called, lined with marble, with three steps down into it, and about five Roman palms, that is, thirty seven inches and a half deep ; for the Roman palm is seven inches and a half English measure (8). Some antiquaries are of opinion that this baptistery was deeper formerly (9). Perhaps it might before the baptism of youths was practised, but this, all things considered, is the most desirable of all depths for baptizing persons of a middle size ; and in a bath kept full as this was by a constant supply of fresh water, the gage was just, and any number might be baptized with ease and speed. The true standard depth o-f water for baptizing an individual is something less than two-thirds of the height, be that what it may ; but the tallest man may be baptized in the Lateran depth by only setting his right foot forward, and by bending his knees a little to lower his height, while the ceremony of bowing him in the water is performed. It would be foreign to the present purpose to exam- ine all the ornaments of this beautiful antique ; it should however, be observed, that the adjoining chapels built by Hilary for the use of administrators and catechumens were appendages to the baptistery, and are as it were inserted into it (I). That on the right hand, dedicated to St. John the evangelist, hath an elegant roof of Mosaick work in the most chaste and delicate style ; and as a proof of its great antiquity, there is not an human animal represented, or even a single cross (2). Never was a prettier pattern, for nothing can be more soft and satisfactory. Birds and fruits are not crowded, but lightly distributed, in various segments, and foliage and flowers are seen curved and w reathed in the pretti- est style in the world. In the centre, surrounded with (7) Ciampini Vet. Moniment. cap. xxvi. De Lateranensi Bapthterio. (8) F, Rossi Ritratto di Roma Moderna. Roma 1645. Di S. Gio. Battista in fonte. Jos. Vicecom. De Baptisteriis. (9) Vicecom vbi. sup (1) CiAm^ini ubi supra . (2) Nulla humana figura in eo fornice reperiatur. 84 OF THE LATERAN a laurel crown, stands one innocent lamb, intended to remind catechumens, say antiquaries, of what John the B.iptist said concerning the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin oj the "j^orld: a proper lesson when they were preparing to be baptized in the adjoining hall. At the opposite end of tiie baptismal hall is a second door, on which are these words, Bishop Hilary, a ser- i)ant of God, dedicates this to blessed John the Baptist. 0\er the door within side, cut in a fillet of veined mar- ble, are these words, Lord, I lo'ue the place where thine honour dwelleth. This chapel resembles the other, except that the roof is a different pattern thou,^h in the same taste, and in the corners of two little windows are the figures of the four evangelists, with their hieroglyph- icks, arfd with another proof of their antiquity, the gos- pel open in their hands. Learned men have long disputed, and they have not yet determined whether Constantine were baptized in this baptistery. Such as credit the pontifical affirm he was ; such as follow Eusebius say, he was not : but Eusebius doth not say he was not baptized at Rome, although he doth say he was baptized at Nicomedia. Cardinal Baronius endeavours to prove, by Eusebius himself, that the emperor was baptized before the pre- tended baptism at Nicomedia ; and, what is more to the purpose, he brings probuble evidence from disinterested pagan writers of the time. There is a third opinion, which is probably the only clue to this mystery, that is, that he was baptized at Rome into the faith of the Trinity, and rebaj)tized at Nicon^edia by Eusebius into the Arian faith. If so, the first christian emperor was truly and literally an Arian Anabaptist. There is a fabulous history of the baptism of the Emperor Constantine which reports, that the empe- ror was afflicted with a leprosy ; that the pagan priests advised him to bathe in a laver filled vuth the blood of innocent children ; that he procured children for the purpose, \\hom, when the priests were about kill, he returned to their parents, being moved by the tears of their mothers : that the apostles Peter and Paul appear- ed to him in a vision, and directed .him to send for Bishop Sylvester, who would shew him the pool of piety, in which, while he should immerse him three times, his health should be restored : that he obeyed the BAPTISTERY AT ROME. 95 lieavenly vision, and that Sylvester, after he had blessed the font, purified him from his leprosy by trine immer- sion (3). . In this manner, forgers of books were obliged to describe baptism in order to give an air of probability to their productions. To prevent confusion in a publick worship, conduct- ed by a great many persons, as well as to preserve uni- formity, prudence early suggested to the hierarchies of Greece and Rome the use of ordinals, marking every person's part, his place, his dress, his words, and all his actions and gestures. Copies went from church to church as tunes do now, and at length ordinals obtained a general likeness and displayed an infinite variety. Father Mabillon, having observed that the vulgar Roman ordo was a confused collection of several ordines, collected with infinite pains the most ancient copies, and collated, corrected, and published sixteen. Vari- ous as these are, the first being of the ninth, and sup- posed to describe the seventh or eighth century, and the last of the fourteenth (4), the order of baptism differs much less than could have been imagined ; for, in regard to the mode, there is not a trace of sprinkling or pouring ; it is dipping, and in some, trine immersion ; and to this manner of baptizing every word agrees, as going down into the baptistery, coming up out of it, undress- ing, dressing, napkins, vestments, and so on. In re- gard to the subjects, although they are called infants, as all people to be baptized were, yet it is clear the rituals were composed for the baptism of minors, on their own profession of faith. It was a great misfortune, that the monks set oft' in the name of the Holy Ghost ; for it was this that brought their successors into such an awkward situation, that when the times required alterations it was impossible either to refuse a revisal, or openly to avow it. On the Tuesday of the third week in Lent (5), the priests in the public congregation gave notice : " Dear- ly beloved brethren, you know the day of scrutiny is at hand (6), in which our elect may be divinely instructed : (3) Joan. Sichardi confesdo Constantini imp. Colonits 1569. Ipse tibi piscinam pietatis ostendat, in qua dum te tertio merserit, omnis te Taletiido ista deserat leprae. ' (4) Mits. Ital. Tom. ii. Prxfat. ; (5) Ordo Roman. N. vii. apud Mabillon. (6) Scrutinii diem, Dilectissimi fratres, quo electi nosti'i divinitU* instruantur inarainere cognoscite, &c. 86 OF THE LATERAN you will therefore vouchsafe to attend with fervent de- votioti at three o'clock next Thursday : that ne may endeavour to perform, by the assistance of the holy God, that heavenly mystery, by which the devil with his pomp is destroyed, and the gate of the kingdom of heaven set open." When the time appointed was come, the infants appeared, and an acolothist took down their names, or the names of their attendants. This done, the acolothist called over the list ; John such a one, and so on, and placed the boys on the right hand, and the girls on the left. Then the presbyter proceed- ed to crossing, praying, exorcising salt, and giving it to the childreii. Then the children withdrew, and the service of the day proceeded. At length the priest sat down, and the deacon went to the door and called, *' Let the catechumens co.ne forward." Tiiey did so, and the acolothist called over the list, and placed them as before. Presently the deacon said ; " Ye elect males, kneel down and pray." Tiie children did so. When the deacon thought they had prayed long enough, he cried, " Rise, finish your pravers altogeriier, and say Amen :" and they all answered, Amen. The i the same was repeated with the girls : Ye elect females, kneel down and pray, and so on, as Iiefore. Next the priest proceeded to exorcism and benedictions, and in the end dismissed them by saying, Return, and come agai » to the scrutiny on Saturday, and be at chnrch in time, John, Thomas, Mary, and so forth. Bet*veen this day and Easter, six times more were added, for the whole scru- tiny included seven days, in honour of the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Ghost. The whole was a coarse of tuition mixed with superstitious usages. Manv passa- ges of scripture were read ; as. Take of the best fruits in the land^ and carry down the man a present ; and take also your brother, and God Al nighty give you mercy s before the matt, that he may send away your other brother and Benjamin And he lift up his eyes, and saw his brother Betijamin, his mother'' s son, and said, is this your younger brother, of whom ye spake unto me ? God be gra- cious unto thee, my son Hearken diligently unto me, and eat you that which is good, and let your soul delight itself iti fatness. Incline your ear, and come unto me : hear^ and your soul shall live: and so on. Seek ye the BAPTISTERY AT ROME. 87 Lord while he may he found, call ye upon him nvhile he is near. Let the wicked forsake his vjay, and the iinright- eons man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lordy and he will ha=Ge mercy upon him, and to our God, for he ^ill abundantly pardon - - - - 'There ivere many lepers in Israel- - ^- - In the beginning was the word • — John bare witness of him - - - - Now in the fifteenth year of Tiberius The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God, as it is written in the prophets^ hehold^ I send my messenger before thy face, iv inch shall prepare thy way before thee. I'hese, and several more such lessons, were read to die children, and the deacon often cried between times, "Stand still and hear diligently. Mind and observe your order (,)." On the last day of the scrutiny the priest gave notice of the time and place of baptism. As there were several baptismal churches at Rome(8), that of St. John Lateran, the mistress if not the mother of all the rest, where the pope was bishop, and where himself officiated, is the most proper to be seen on the present occasion. Holy Saturday, the day before Easter, was the chief day of baptizing (9). The prime, or the first canonical hour of that day, began at midnight : and three hours were spent in singing psalms, saying prayers, and reading homilies (l). At three in the morning the catechumens, who had been scrutinized, attended, and various ceremonies were performed, as crossing (2), blessing, catechizing, taking the renunciation, and so on ; and in the end the archdeacon dismissed them with these words : " My dear children, return to your (7) Aclnunciat Diaconus, dicens : State cum silentio, audientes intente. (8) Ordo Roman, xi. n. 43. (9) Ordines Missal. Brev/ar. De Sabbato Sancto. Ord. Rom. i.vii. 46. (1) Missal. Sabbato sancto. (2) Ibid. Sacerdos tanei'it de oleo sancto scapulas et pectus, et dicit: Abrenuncias Satame ? R. Abrenuncio. Et omnibus operibus ejus ? R. Abre- nuncio. Et omnibus pompis ejus ? R. Abrenunc'-o. JSgo te lino oleo salutis, Ifc. Postea dicuntur eis ab archidiacono : Orate electi, jiectite genua. Et post paululum dicit : Legate, istc. Dicit Diaconus ; Jilii charissimi rever- timini, ksfc. translation: The priest applies the holy oil to the head and breast of the catechu- men, and says ; Dost thou renounce Satan ? Ans. / do renounce him,. And a I his works ? I do renounce them. And all his pofnps ? Ans / do renounce them. I anoint thee with the oil of salvation, isfc. Afterwards the archdeacon thus addresses them : Te elect, prav, bend the knee And after a ilnrt p luse, he says, /?/«, ^J'f. The deacon then says : Dearly beloved children, retufn, ^c. {^Edit9r. 88 OF THE LATERAN places, and wait for the hour in which the grace of God may be communicated to you by baptism." At nine the pontiff, attended by a great number of prelates and clergy, went to the sacristy, and after they had put on the proper habits, proceeded in silent order into the church (3). Then the lessons for the day were read, and several benedictions performed. When this part was finished, his holiness with his attendants proceeded to the baptistry, the choir (4) singing all the way the forty-second psalm : Js the hart panteth after the vja- ier-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, 0 God ; and so on. This ended at the porch of the first chapel, where his holiness sat down. Then the cardinals pre- sented themselves before him, and one, in the name of the rest, prayed for his benediction, which was bestow- ed (5). This was repeated thrice, and immediately af- ter the last, the pontiff add^d : Go ye, and baptize all nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. The cardinals having received the mission, withdrew immediately, and mounting their horses proceeded each to his own station to baptize. The pope went on to the bap. tismal- hall, and, after vari- ous lessons and psalms, consecrated the baptismal water. Then, while all were adjusting themselves in their proper places, his holiness retired into the adjoining chapel of St. John the evangehst, attended by some a- colothists, who took off his habits, put on him a pair of waxed drawers, and a surplice, and then returned to the baptistery (6). There three children were waiting, which was the number usually baptized by the pontiff. Silence was ordered. When the first was presented, he asked, What is his name (7) ? The attendant an- swered, John. Then he proceeded thus : John, dost thou believe in God the Father Almighty, the Creator of (3) Hora nona ingrediiintur sacrarium pontifex. (4; Mab, in ord Ro7n. comvfient. xv. De ritibus Sabbati sancti. (5) Ord. Rom. xi 43. (6) Ord. Rom. %. 22. (7) Ord. Rom. x. 22. Preparatus vero. regreditur ad fontes, et prssen- tatjs sibi infantibus, Johanne scilicet, sive Petro et Maria, interroget offerentem. ^is vocaris ? R'.^sp, yn/iames Inciilcat et dicit, ^ohannec, credis in Deutn patrem- omnipotentuin, creatorem exit et terrce ? R. Credo, iS'c. - - - -Interrog. et dicU : jjfohannes vis baptizari ? K. volo. Tunc bap- tizat eum sub trina im'iiersidne, sanctam trinitatem semel tantum invo- cando, sic, £f ego te bapuzo in nomine patris ; et immergat semel ; et filii, et immergat secundo; et sptritus sancti, et immergat tertio ; m( habeas mam, aeternam, R. Amen, SimUiter Fetrum et Mariam. BAPTISTERY AT ROME. 89 of heaven and earth ? I do believe. Dost thou believe in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord, who was born and suffered death ? I do believe. Dost thou believe in the Hoi} Ghost, the holy cathohck church, the commu- nion of saints, the remission of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life eternal ? I do believe. John, do you desire to be baptized ? 1 do desire it. I bap- tize thee in the name of the Father, dipping him once, and of the Son, dippinpj him a second tiaie, and of the Holy Ghost, dipping him a third time. The pontift' added, may you obtain eternal life ! John answered, Amen. The same was then repeated to Piter and Mary, the other two. Attendants with napkins received the children, and retired to dress them (^). The attend- ants of his holiness threw a mande over Iiis surplice, and he retired. The rest of the catechumens were baptized by deacons, who in clean habits, and without shoes, went down into the water (9), and performed the ceremony as the pontiff had set them an exaaiple. Af- ter all was ovcr(l), and the children dressed, they waited on the pope in an adjacent room, where he con- firmed them, and delivered to each chrism and a white garment. The part relative to the habits of the pope is taken from the twelfth ordinal in the collection of Father Mabillon, and it was written by a cardinal in the latter end of the twelfth century. That these ordirials were originally composed for the baptism of those of riper years seems not to admit of a doubt, and that baptism was perforn\ed by im- mersion cannot be questioned, nor can any one hes- itate to deteimine, that the candidates were the chil- dren of christians. The scrutiny ; the service in part in the night ; the command of silence ; the change of deacon's habits ; the wax, or oil-skin drawers, breeches, or trousers of die pontif?"; the interrogations and answers ; the kneeling and prajiiig of the can- didates; the proper lesso. s for the days; the services of susceptors, parents, patrini, and matrini, who were uncles, aunts, relations, or assistants, and not modern godfathers performing sponsion ; the addresses to tne young folks; the total omission of charges to spon- gers; all go to prove the point. 12 ( 8) Ord. kom. i. 44. (9) Ord, Jiotn, i. 43 . (1) Ord. Rom. x. 23 , 90 OF THE CATHOLICK AND THE ARIAN CHAP. XV. OF THE CATHOLICK AND THE ARIAN BAPTISTERIES AT RAVbNNA. THE very ancient and noble city of Ravenna was built and inhabited by idolaters, worshippers of Diana, and other Etruscan deities, as marbles, altars, and other ancient monuments prove (1). A primitive christian, named ApoUinaris, and said by the eccle- siastical historians of Ravenna to have been one of the seventy disciples, first preached Christianity there (2). He taught in private houses, his converts assembled to worship God in a cottage without the walls, and he baptized sometimes in the sea, and at other times in a bath belonging to an officer of the army, in whose house also during twelve years he taught tlie gospel. In process of time Christianity prospered in this city, and was established by law. Before the year 451, in which the bajjtistery now in sight was put into its present form, the emperors Honorius and Valentinian had resided here. There are two of these buildings in Ravenna, one erected by the Arians in the reign of Theodorick, the other earlier by the Catholicks in the reign of Valentinian (3). That in view is the catholick, and it was built, or rather re- built in a more elegant taste on the ground plot of the old one by Neon, archbishop of Ravenna (4). Proper drafts of this beautiful little monument of an- tiquity were sent by Cavallo, archdeacon of the church of Ravenna, to Ciampini at Rome, and were published by the latter among other antiquities. This edifice is octangular (6) as is the Arian baptiste- ry, and as almost all baptisteries were; at present the two angles on the right and left hand sides, at the upper end, are carried out in a semicircular form, and parted off for oratories, or chapels. On entering the front door you find yourself in an octangular room of about two and thirty English feet square. It is not necessary to be so exact as to introduce fractions, the Roman foot is (1) Ant. Franc. Gorii. Museum JStruscam. Tom. ii. Tab. xxxv. (2) Jos. Vicecomitis. Observ. Eccies. Tom i. Lib. i. Cap. 4. (3) Ciampini. (4) Hieron. Fabri In sacris Meinoriis Ratennx antiqU0^ (5) Montfaucon. Supplem, ToBi, ii. p»g. 220. BAPTISTERIES AT RAVENNA, 91 two-fifths of an inch less than the London foot, or as twenty. nine is to thirty. Exactly in the centre of this hall is a vast bath of white Grecian marble, or, in other words, an octangular receptacle for water about nine feet square. Directly fronting the door, at that end of the baptistery which is furthest from it, is a marble pulpit with two steps cut in the same block, from which elevated stand, probably, some teacher over- looking the water, into which the pulpit projects a little, harangued the people before and during the time of baptism (6). Eight marble pillars, properly placed at the eight angles, support other pillars, and columns, and arches, which form the dome, which is ornamented with mo- saick work of the utmost magnificence (7). At the top of the dome within a large circle exactly in the middle, there is a representation of the baptism of Jesus. In the middle flows the river Jordan, and in the midst of that, stark naked and up to his navel in water, stands Jesus Christ. It is to be observed, by the way, that there is not the least indelicacy in this representation, or any thing to oftbnd the most chaste and scrupulous eye ; but not to interrupt attention, it may be proper to defer remarking on this for a lew minutes. Over the head of Jesus is the dove. On the left hand bank in a short thin violet coloured cloak stands John the Baptist, inclining over the river, hold- ing in his left hand an ornamented cross taller than himself, and in his right a bason, or some such uten- sil, and pouring out of it water on the head of Jesus. It hath always been the practice of artists to repre- sent rivers under human forms, and it is done here. There is, as an emblem of the river, a man in the water on the right hand side, over whose head is the word Jordan, who holds in one hand a branch, and in the other toward Jesus a napkin, or towel, as if to wipe him after his baptism (8). (6) This is not the opinion of Ciampani. His words are. Hoc ex pul- pito episcopus (ni tamen fallor) parvulos baptizandos in aquam immei-ge- bat. It shuuld seem, for many reasons not to be inserted in this place, that the conjecture in the text is the more probable of the two. (7) Joh. Fred. Gronovii. Museum Alexandrin. (8) The god of the river. Virgil. iSneid viii. 31. 92 OF THE CATHOLICK AND THE ARIAN This circle is surrounded by another, divided by a sort of flowers and festoons into twelve parts, in each of which is one apostle at full length, with his name. All are ch^thed in long habits reaching down to the feet, and the hiud part of the cloak, which is the upper gar- ment, is, graceiully enough, gathered up, and thrown over the arm (9). The vesture of Peter is gold, and the cloak white : that of Paul, who is next Peter, is white, and the cloak gold : and all the rest are varied as these two are. Each carries a crown in his hand, all w hich are of different colours. That of Peter is of a ruby colour, that of Paul like gold, and this whole pan is e\ idently taken from the fourth chapter of Reve- lation, uhcre the twenty-four elders are described as casting their crowns before the throne, which place the fathers interpreted oi the twelve prophets and twelve apostles. A third circle comparatively narrow surrounds the second, and is divided into twenty-four compartments. Each is ornamented with columns, cornices, and a va- riety of foliage and decorations. This circle may be conveniently divided into four parts, six in each part, for each six resembles another, except in one article, Mbich will be mentioned presently. The first repre- sents the tomb of a martyr, a confessor, a prelate, or a bisljop. The secor^d represents a small sepulchre, and out of the top a lily or a palm springiiig up. A lily on a tomb denotes a virgin or a confessor, and a palm branch signifies a martyr. The third describes the seat of a bishop, the feet of a gold colour, and all the rest white. The fourth repr-esents a sort of desk of a gold colour with a book lying open, and on the book, in ab- br-eviated Latin, these words, The gospel according to Matthew. The fifth is the same as the third : and the sixth the same as the second. Tlie other thr-ee parts differ from this only in the words on the books ; for as this is the gospel according to Matthew, the others are according to Mark, Luke, and John. Bringing the eye below the dome, and carrying it round the interstices between the eight arches, which support the dome, in ovals of foliage are represented (9) Ciampini-.vestis- , pallium -- Apostoli dalmatica et Pallio induti sunt. Cap. vii. De oramentis. BAPTISTERIES AT RAVENNA. 93 at full length eight men, one in each oval. Their heads are uncovered, their habits are white and long, the cloak is gathered up, and hangs over the arm, each carries a book, four lift up a hand with two fore-fingers and the thumb stretched out : but no emblems appear sufficient to determine whom the artist intended to rep- resent. Probably, they were intended to describe Christians newly baptized in their baptismal habits. Passing from the hall of baptism to the chapel, at the left hand corner of the upper end, these words on an arch meet the eye. Blessed is he whose transgres- sion is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord injputeth not iniquity. Then on another are these words, Jesus laid aside his garments, and poured water into a bason, and began to wash his disciples' feet. Under these words stands a large marble bason of exquisite workmanship chizelled into foliage, and fruits, and birds, and angels. It is eight feet in circumference at the brim, four at the base, and about two feet high. Here baptism is now adminihtered ; but formerly, adds the learned antiquary, when it was administered by immersion, it was per- formed in the middle of the hall (1). At that time this laver was used, it should seem by the inscription over it, to wash the feet of persons newly baptized. In regard to the nakedness of Jesus just now observed, it should be recollected, that, however shocking it may appear to English manners, and how rude and indecent so- ever it would be justly reckoned here to imitate the cus- tom of introducing naked persons into publick company, yet in the ancient eastern world it was far otherwise, and at this day all over Italy, in places sacred and profane, statues, pictures, vases, and books exhibit such sights, and nobody is offended. It is not only in the ancient Etruscan monuments, in those of Herculaneum and Pompeii, the Vatican at Rome, royal cabinets all over Italy, and in many other parts of Europe, that naked figures give no oifence : but in every city in Italy thr constant sight of figures \vithout drapery produce in both sexes a perfect insensibility to nudity (2). The (1) Ciampini. In hoc autem vase sacri baptlsmatis ritus ad presem pe- I'a.efitur, cum olim, quando baptismiis per imviersionein dabatur, in medio adificii perag-eretur, iibi octangulare aquarum receptaculum erat. (2) John Moore, M, D. Vico) of Society and Manners in Italy, iSfc. isfc. §4 OF THE CATHOLICK AND THE ARIAN beautiful and magnificent city of Florence contains eighty thousand inhabitants, before whose eyes are exposed in the streets and squares an hundred and fifty naked statues, many of them are of exquisite workmanship, by Michael Angelo, B.iadinelli, Dona- tello, and others, and the Florentines behold theai every- day from their infancy without any hazard to their mor- als. Christianity hath conveyed die god of the gardens in- to the cabinets of the curious : but, it is not impossible, that the ancients viewed such statues, as the moderns do the Laocoons, and Apollos, and Venuses, and Madonnas ; or, which is more iiivcly, as the ancient Egyptians view- ed hieroglyphicks. Let it be observed, next, that the primitive Christians baptized naked. Nothing is easier than to give proof of this by quotations from the authentick writings of the men who administered baptism, and who certainly k »e\v in what way they themselves performed it. There is no ancient historical fact better authenticated than this. The evidence doth not go on the meaning of the single word naked ; for then a reader might suspect allegory ; but on many facts reported, and many reasons assigned for the practice. One of these facts is this. Chrysos- tom criminates Theophilus because he had raised a dis- turbance without (3), which so frighted the women in the bapdstery, who had just stripped themselves naked in order to be baptized, that they fled naked out of the room, without having time to consult the modesty of their sex. Another is this. " Basil rose up with fear and trembling, undressed himself, putting off the old man, and went down praying into the water, and the priest going down along with him baptized him (4)." The reasons assigned for the practice are, that cm is- tians ought to put off the old man before they put on a profession of Christianity ; that as men came naked into the world, so they ought to come naked into the church, for rich men could not enter the kingdom of heaven ; that it was an imitation of (3) Chr5fsostomi Epist. ad Innoc. papavi. Mulieres, quje intra ecelesiam, ut baptizarentur, sese veste nudaverant, per id tempus nudse fugiebant neque sexus verccundire pormittebantur consulese. (4) Amphilochii Basilii Mag. Vita. Surgeiisque cum tremore, suis se vestibus spoliat, unaque cum illis veterem exuit hominem, descendcMsque in aquas, orabat, una autem etiam sacerdos descendit eumque baptizavit. 2JAPTISTERIES AT RAVENNA. 95 Christ, who laid aside his glory, and made himself of no reputation for them ; and that Adam had for- feited all, and Christians ought to profess to be re- stored to the enjoyment of all only by Jesus Christ. That most learned and accurate historian, James Bas- nage, than whom no man imderstood church history better, says, When artists threw garments over pictures of the baptized, they consulted the taste of spectators more than the truth of the fact (5). At the same time he observes, that, after all, it is highly probable, the ut- most decency was preserved, that though the upper and lower parts were uncovered, yet something was wrapped round the niiddle : and it is absolutely certain, that wo- men weie baptized in a baptistery apart from that of the men, and that deaconesses waited on all the sex during the whole ceremony. It is further remarkable, that this representation at Ravenna is not singular ; for most artists of those an- cient times described the baptism of Jesus in the same maimer. The doors of the very ancient church ot St. Paul in the suburbs of Rome are plated with brass ; the whole is divided into six perpendicular segments (6). Each segment is divided into nine parts, and each part contains one or more figures relating to the history of Jesus. It was formerly a most elegant exhibition, for the artist had let into the brass with the graver fine threads and filaments of silver. In the second square of the first segment on the left hand is the representation of the baptism of Jesus. John is on the bank with his right hand on the shoulder of Jesus, who stands naked in the middle of the river, and his clothes lying by, While two angels wait with napkins to wipe him dry. The word baptism is on the upper part (7). Much in the same manner he is described in the Greek church. The Greeks have a custom of exorcising and blessing water on the Epiphany, on which day they celebrate a festival in commemoraiion of the baptism of Christ. In this ceremony they divide the water with a cross, on which (5) Jacobi Basnagli Thesaurus Monument - - in Canisii Lectiones. Tom. ?. Prafat, Cap v. De imrnersione et forma Baptisnii. S. 14. (6) Ciumpini Vet. Monim. Tom. i. Cap. iv. De vaivis aneis ecd. sice S. PauU. (7) Ad ChrisU peds* ipsiui vestLmcttt* c^nuntur, cum inscjriptionc— SAnilCHC. 96 OF THE BAPTISTERIES OF VENICE, the baptism of Jesus naked, by the hand of John attend- ed by angels as before, is engraven (h). On the top are the Greek words for — He cometh unto John. The missals for the same day are illuminated with figures very much like these. In all, Jesus is naked, but so represented as to appear perfectly delicate and chaste to the spectator. The same may be said of the picture of the baptism of St. Augustine, which is preserved in a church at Milan (9), Augustine, Deodatus, and Alyp- ius are all three naked in the water. One ancient mon- ument represents candidates in a sort of drawers, like the highland fillibeg ; and this most likely ^^as taken from the suhUgaculum of champions in the Grecian games, for the Fathers often allude to these games, when they speak of baptism. CHAP. XVI. OF THE BAPTISTERIES OF VENICE, FLORENCE, NOVARA, AND MILAN. BAPTISTERIES, properly so called, were alike in all places ; they were baths in the ground for the use of men and women : but they differ very much in their coverings, which were more or less spacious, more or less elegant, and ornamented according to the condition of the church to which they belont^td. Each of the four mentioned in the title of this chapter hath some peculiarity worth examining. That at Venice is remarkable for a curious piece of mosaick representing the baptism of Christ. 1 bt first object that strikes the eye of a person walking in the noble square of St. Mark, is the patriarchal church of St. Mark, one of the richest and most expensive in the world, and one of those dutiful daughters, wiio continue to acknowledge their decrepid parent, John the Baptist. Adjoining this superb palace is an ancici.t biipiistery, which is adorned with many figures of mosaick work of great antiquity and beauty ( l). Antiquaries, fnm a careful examination of all the symbols, pronounce it the (8) Paciaudi Ant'iq. Christ ii. 6. (9) Josephi Vicecomitis Observ. Eccles. Tom. i. Lib. iv. Cap. 10. Ifudos ad baptistnum accessisse. (1) Paciaud. Antiq, Christian, Diss, ii. Cap, 4. FLORENCE, NOVARA, AND MILAN. 97 work of the eighth or ninth century, though the Vene- tian historians say it was repaired, and in some parts eml)elii.shed by the njagnificeut Andrew Dandalo in the foin-teenth century. Turning from every other orna- ment to that compartment, which represents the bap- tism of Jesus, the eye will be at once feasted with the beauty, and fitigued with the inaccuracy of this precious monument of antiquity. In the middle the river Jor- dan rolls along, lashiiig the banks with its waves, and gurgling as it goes. In the river stands Jesus naked, the water nearly up to his shoulders (2). On the left hand ba'ik stands John the Baptist, a tali thin man, his hair dibhe veiled, his beard not long but rough, habited in a short shagj^y skin, over which a light claik is thrown, the whole covermg him only to the elbows and the knees. He is leaning toward the river, his left hand is just seen behind, spread open and lifted up, and his rigiit hand is on the head ot Jesus, as if pressing him gently dovsn into the water, while Jesus seems to be yielding to tlie water under the hand of John (3). Be- hind John more to the left lies a double axe at the foot of a tree, an allusion probably to his own words, M.to!y is exhibited in this most rich and exquisite piece of workmanship. Grand as it is, most likely it had its oriij;iu in the harm- less napkin, with which some neat sister Phoebe, a ser- vant of the church, coveied the top of the homely table of the baptistery. The baptistery of Novara is mentioned for the sake of a singular opinion of original sin, v^hich Lorenzo the bishop stated in a baptismal discourse there. Loie^zo, or Laurence L was first bishop of Novara, and was after- wards elected to the archbishoprick of Milan in the be- ginning of the sixth century. He died in the reign of Theodorick. His homily on repentance, preached whilst he was bishop of Novara, seems to have been a preparation sermon for baptism, or a directory discourse immediately after it (6). The baptistery, a separate building, near the church, yet remains. He begins, as all preachers of his sentiments do, with Adam, whose fall polluted all his descendants. He proceeds to shew- how Jesus took away the sin of the iDorlcl by being bap- tized in the river Jordan. He adds, that the old testa- ment saints had not the ordinance of personal water baptism literally : but they had the benefit of Christ's baptism spiritually ; and when David said, ivash ;« 404 OF THE BAPTISTERIES OF VENICE, depart. If any pagan be here, let him depart. If any heretick be here, let him depart. If any Jew be , here, let him depart. If any one have no business here, let him depart. Tlie catechumens but no others went j out. Then a verse was sung : Come, ye children, \ and I %mll teach you the fear of the Lord. Then the archbishop retired to change his habits, as others of the clergy did, and when the latter were ready, they went together to the archbishop, and asked leave to admit the children, which being granted, they proceeded with great ceremony to the door, and on opening it said, Enter, children, into the house of the Lord. At- tend to your father teaching you the 'i\)ay of ivisdoin. Then, the children being properly arranged, the arch- bishop from his stall, said, Cross your sehes, and hear the creed : I beheDe in God the Father Almighty, and so on, the whole being chanted, ver^icle by versicle, and the acoiothys^ts frequently admcjnishing the women to cross the children, that is, such of them as could not cross themselves. Several services foUoxyed, and the catechumens were dismissed. In all processions during the scrutiny, the master of the ceremonies used to carry in his hand a hazel wand, or more properly, a branch of hazel with its leaves ; •and the tables, as they were called. These were of bone or ivory, in form of the leaves of a mass book, and like them representing various actions of the life of Christ, which were depicted, and explained by sev- eral Greek letters, labels, or words. These were giv- en the children to kiss, as they went in procession from place to place, or as they perlormed their devo- tions in the church. This custom continued at iMilan till the year sixteen hundred and thirty. three. Beiore the reformation it was common in all caiholick churches ; the ivory leaf was called the pax, and in England it was latterly given the people to kiss at the end of the mass. The whole proceeded from the primitive kiss of charity, and the compliment append- ing to it : peace be ivith you. All things having been prepared, early in the morn- ing of holy Saturday the service began, and proceeded with lessons, h\mns, psahns, bei-tdictions, and so on, till the time of baptizing arrived. Alter the choir FLORENCE, NOVARA, AND MILAN. 105 had chanted the psahn ; Like as the hart doth pant mid bray, the %uell springs to obtain, and the rest, and a short collect, the archbishop put on his sacred vest- ments, the deacons their dalmaticks, the sub-deacons their surplices, some of the proper officers took their censers with incense burnint^, others waK torches and tapers lighted, and the procession set forward to go from the cathedral to the baptistery, where the catechu- mens were in waiting. First went a sub-deacon with a lighted lan\p, to light up the baptistery, then followed others with lights, then came the children of the choir with the master, singing. Up, Lord, why sleepest thou? and so on. The officiating clergy followed, intermixed with sub-deacons carrying lights, and incense : and last came the archbishop. When the procession arrived at the baptismal church, as soon as the archbishop drew near the door, it halted ; and, before he entered, he put off his ornamented habits, and put on the baptismal palliament ; girded himself with a towel, the knot being on the left side and hanging down like a sword ; fastened his sandals behind, the ties being over the heels like spurs (a metnorial that former bishops had gone into the water to baptize, though his circumstances would not permit him to do so) ; and put a mitre on his head to signify who was king and pontiff. Then the procession set forward again, the choir singing, and the archbishop walking in his new dress to the baptistery. The bap- ■ tismal church was illuminated with wax lights, and over the baptistery hung twelve glass lamps lighted. After the benediction of the water, the archbishop plac- ed himself at the head of the baptistery without side, and two cardinals went into the water. Three officers then went among the catechumens, and inquired for three boys, one to be named Peter, another Paul, and a third John. Having found them, they were conducted to the cardinals. The archbishop asked them : What they desired ? They answered : To be baptized. He asked again : Do yon believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth ? They answered : IVe do beliei)e. And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, ivho %vas born and suffered death ? IVc do belicn^c. Do you believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy catholick church, the communion of saints, the forgi^etiess of sins, the resur- 14 106 OF THE BAPTISTERIES Or VENICE, &C. rection of the body, and life eternal ? We do believe. Then the archbishop said to the cardinals. Baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Oiie of the cardinals said, Peter, I baptize thee, dipping him once, in the name of the Father [s): /7;zr/ dipping him a second time, in the name of the Son: «w/ dipping; him a third time, in the name of the Holy Ghost. Amen Then the archbishop knelt down; the cardinals delivered the three bo}s to their parents, and they g.we them to officers, who con- ducted them to the archbishop, who rose from kneelinj^, and anointed tiKir foreheads with crism in the form of a cross. Two officers then stijod prepared, one with a vase. of water, the other with a napkin, and the arch- bishop washed the feet of the three b )ys, and wiped them, and kissed them, ai^d put a chrismal cap on the Iiead of each. Instantly, all the bells set a ringing, and the company divided ; the cardinals proceediiig to bap- tize, and the archbishop mounting his horse, and going to the church of St. Ambrose to celebrate mass ia honour of him ; for it happened, that Ambrose died on a holy Saturday, and the two services clashing, the arch- bishop could not go into the water to baptize, as former archbishops had done. After the mass of St. Ambrose vi^as over, the archbishop went back to the baptistery, where the cardinals having done baptizing, and having washed themselves in a warm bath prepared for them at coming out of the water, waited to proceed to the remainder of the service, which consisted of lessons, hymns, prayers, and so on. After all, six of the offi- cials dined with the archbishop. It was a perquisite to one who carried the golden cross in the procession : to the two, who handed water and a napkin to the prelate to wipe the feet of the boys : and to the three who con- ducted Peter, Paul, and John, to the cardinals. Thus after a scrutiny, by trine immersion, was baptism admin- istered, by the Catholicks in Italy, in the twelfth centu- ry. So very difficult was it to accommodate an insti- tution for men to the practice of babes, that the latter stole in by slow and wary steps, first a few, then a few (2) Et statim arclilepiscopiis subjungit dicens: BapCtzate eos -- Et statjm baptizant, dicendo nomina eorum : baptize te, priina mersw ; in nomine patris : secunda mersio ; et filii : tenia mersio ; et spiritus sanclus. Amen. OF PICTURES OF BAPTISM. 107 more, and so on, till tliey became the inajorit) , and outed the old possessors ; for it is evident that both the ordinals, the Ambrosian and the Roman, were compos- ed tor minors and not for babes. CHAP. XVII. OF PICTURKS OF BAPTISM. WALAFRID STRAQO, who flourished in the latter end of the ninth century, supposed, that many iidd been formerly baptized by pouring, and that therefore baptism might then be so administered (1). He* col- lected this not from the practice of the times in which he lived, which was that of dipping, but from a book called the Acts of St. Laurence, in which it was said that Laurence had baptized n\)o persons, Romanus and Lucillus, by pouring. Hence, being a just reasoner, he inferred, that not only many had been so baptized, but that any body might be so baptized in future in case of necessity, as when the size of a man was so great as to render a baptistery inconvenient, pouring might sup- ply the place of dipping, and yet the picture did )tot shew two men in any case of necessity. It is to be observed, adds he, that in the first ages baptism was administered only to persons of mature age, who were capable of understanding the benefit of baptism, the articles of faith, the baptismal confession, and the obli- gations of such as were born again. He goes on :o remark, that since original sin had beep poi -ted out by Augustine, people had believed infants dving unbaptized would be eternally lost ; and therefore to prevent such a misfortune, the priests had bciptized them, contrary to the opinions of hereticks, enemies to the grace of God, who coniended, that children ought not to be baptized, because they had not sinned. The latter remarks are true : but the former about St. Lau- rence are not so. Father Mabillon, and James bas- nagc, have set the matter in a clear light, and the fact is this (2). In the church of St. Laurence at Roiic (1) He Rebus Gest'ii. Cap. xxvi. (2) Joiiii Mabillon Iter Ital. Jac. Basnag'U Prcefat in lection. Canisii. Cup. V. De Immersione Super Ronianum el.iindeb'o aquam LatireTavis, secuiKlum morem Graecorum qui prsever trinain immersionem aqnam ca- pitibiis baptizatorum siiperfundunt. 108 or PICTUIIES Of BAPTISM. part of the life of the saint is depicted. Romanus is represented naked, as having been just immersed. Laurence is pouring water out of a vessel upon him, according to the custom of the Greeks, who beside trine immersion poured water upon the heads of the baptized. The picture is taken from, the book of the acts of St. Laurence. The book is either wholly spu- rious, or extremely corrupted. Nor is it likely that Laurence, a deacon of Rome, should practise a custom of the Greeks : or that the Greeks, who were aU ways exceedingly attached to immersion, did practise superfusion in the time of Laurence : and if the whole account of Laurence were true, (and it is not supported by any ancient testimony) such a baptism was contrary to the laws and usages ol the church, and therefore it would not prove that the fathers departed from the prac- tice of immersion. These are the reflections of the learned and faithful Basnage (3). There is an article in the primitive ecclesiastical his- tory of Italy, which may not improperly be inserted here, because it proves at once the enthusiasm of the iounders of Catholick churches, and accounts for one grand source of error, the works of artists, in a very just and ingenious manner. All Italian ecclesiastical historians inform their read- ers that during the first three hundred and fifty years of the Christian era, the bishops of Ravenna were elect- ed in the following manner. On the demise of any one, the clergy and people assembled, and prayed God to shew whom he would have them choose for a suc- cessor. In answer to this prayer, the Holy Ghost in form of a dove descended, and distinguished the man, who was immediately after duly elected, and invested with the ensigns of his office. The window at which the sacred dove entered is yet shewn. In the middle of the fourth century, on the demise of Agapetus II. the clergy and the people assembled as usual to elect an archbishop (4). Opposite the church li\ed a poor wool-comber named Severus. The procession awoke his curiosity, he took his hands out of the suds, left oft' washing his wool, and throwing his old cloak over his (3) Nescio tamen an fides habenda vel imaginibus, vel etiara actis Lau- rent ii, Ac. (4) UghelU Ital. Sac. Tom. ii. OF PICTURES OF BAPTISM. lUS' shoulders, out he ran to see the miracle of the dove. His v,ife, Vincentia, ran after him, and overtook him. She reproved him for his vain curiosity, and told him he would be much more in the way of his duty, it he would return to his work, and earn somethint^ for the support of his poor family. Severus was not a gen- uine son of Adam, he would not listen to his Eve : he would go, that he would. Go along then, exclaimed she, perhaps you will be chosen archbishop of Ravenna. When he got into the church, the grandeur of the place and the dresses of the company sa him a loohing on his own vile cloak and the rest of his tatters, and he crept into a blind corner. The priests said mass, and implored the divine token, and the eyes of all were fixed on the window in the roof. At length the holy dove appeared, sitting on the cell, and surveying die vast assembly below. A while the people prayed, and the dove sat still : but at length, taking wing, down he flew to the corner where Severus hirked, andiiying round and round him, seemed as if he would peck his ears. The man was frighted, and would have driven him away: but the dove returned to the charge, and kept hovering round him. The priests and the people ad- vised him not to resist, but to be still and see what the dove meant to do. In brief, he alighted, and perched awhile on his ear, and then flew away through the win- dow to heaven. The assembly was astonished : but believing God the Holy Spirit had nominated the wool- comber archbishop of Ravenna, they elected him, took off his rags, clothed him in prelatical robes, conducted him to the archiepiscopal throne, and hailed him Lord Archbishop of Ravenna. When he ascended the ros- trum to address the people, all perceived he had been divinely elected, for his fluent eloquence convinced them that he was filled with the Holy Ghost. His future life was exemplary, and after his death miracles wrought at his tomb were numerous ; a church was erected over his grave, and he is worshipped as a saint to this day. Among other endowments, he had the gift of prophecy, and he foretold the people of Ravenna, that in the future elections they need not wait f u* the dove, for he would appear no more. A prophecy amply fulfilled ; for the white pigeon hath not been seen at Ravenna at the elec- tion of any archbishop from that day to this. 110 OF PICTUKE& or BAPTISM. The reflections of the learned and judicious Muratori on the descent of the dove, are both ingenious and just. He says : " It is generally believed at Ravenna that the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove indicated to the clergy and people whom they should elect for their first twelve bishops (5). I am not inclined to deprive them of this persuasion. However, I cannot help suspecting that the prevalence of such an opinion was owing to some ancient picture misunderstood. As the election of bishops was formerly made by the clergy and people, and as it was supposed, very truly, that the secret working of the Holy Ghost intluenced the minds of the electors, particularly when the persons elected were men of eminent piety, so painters, to display this invisi- ble work by a visible sign, painted, to represent the holy Spirit, a dove over the heads of the bishops so elected. It might happen that the ignorant vulgarity of after ages might take the emblem for a history of a fact. In like manner, when they see the pictures of martyrs who had been beheaded, standing and holding their heads in their hands, they instantly imagine a prodigy, and sup- pose they survived their martyrdom, when the painter meant nothing more than that such martyrs suffered death by being beheaded for their profession of Christianity. There are hundreds of such errors, which originated in the licentiousness of artists. Let the people of Ravenna contend as earnestly as they please for their tradition : and let me also be allowed in this place to express my doubts." A Protestant cannot help observing, that either this tale is an absolute forgery, or a misrepresented fact ; and in both cases it is a proof of the enthusiasm of the first Catholicks at Ravenna. If it be a forgery, the forgers were sharpers, and the people were dupes to their own enthusiasm. If it be a fact misrepresented, •when the misrepresentation ib laid aside, the fact in tue case of Severus was this. When the chief of the city was Pagan, one congregation of Christians at Ravenna first imagined themselves inspired to choose a wool- comber for their teacher, and then of course he and they supposed him inspired to guide them, and to de- spise, discountenance and oppress others, who were (5) Rer. ltd. Script. Tom. par. ii. prxfat, in Spicikg. Havennatis hist. OF PICTURES OF BAPTISM, 111 not inspired. Nothing is more likely to be true than this ; for as this inspiration is the very essence of Popery, so in all countries it hath erected its throne among the least rational of the human species. Muratori as a man of learning and sense disliked the representation, but as a Catholick, he was obliged to admit the fact : for all such men as he thoroughly understand, that if once ex- traordinary influence were disowned, reason would suc- ceed to the office of faith, and the whole system would lall into one general ruin. How much do learned men deserve pity when they are compelled by law to make sense of vulgar errors, and to expound for theology the dreams of the dregs of the people ! By a very natural train of metamorphoses, after sim- ple facts come emblems to represent them by artists, then these emblems become patterns of actions, and in the end the fact is lost, and the shadow of a shade sup- plies its place. The illustrious antiquary Bishop An- drew ab Aquino observed some singular representations of baptism on a tomb at Chiaia, a villa near Naples, belonging to his relation, Prince Caramanici (6). He ordered drafts to be taken of two, and sent them to Rome to the celebrated Ciampini, who shewed them to Fabretti and Mabillon. The three connoisseurs sup- posed them representations of baptism by immersion and superfusion, or pouring water all over, administered by a layman. In one there are eleven human figures, some appear to be intended for Romans because they are clean shaven, others Greeks or Lombards because they have long beards. In the middle stan^ls a large labrum, and in it a prince and princess are kneeling, iDoth naked except the coronets on their heads. The water is supposed to rise above the waist, while a Ro- man in a lay habit is standing and pouring water plenti- lully out of a pitcher upon the head of the prince, who lifts up his hands as if in prayer, and M'ho by his beard should be either a Greek or a Lombard. In the other there is the same number of persons. A laver of another form stands by. Four are kneeling on the ground, three clothed, and praying ; the fourth naked except a loose covering round the middle ; one pouring water on the head of the naked person out of a pitcher, (6) Joan. Mabillon. Iter Italicum An. 1685, 112 OF PICTURES OF BAPTISM. and the rest waitino^ with habits to put upon the newly baptize d, when the ceremony is over. Father Mdbillon observes that these resemble that of the baptism ot Ho- manns by St. Laurence at Rome, and that they are in- tended either to exhibit a Greek baptism, where beside trine immersion superiusion is practised, or a baptism vhere the la\er was loo small, and where the bt)d\ \>as immersed in the lav er, ard the, head vva-. inmitrsed by superfusion. When Stiabo reasoned from such a pic- tuic for the validity of baptizing by pouring, he resem- bled the reasotiers at Ravenna about th^ ir dove, in the opinion of three of the most leariied antiquaries that ever lived, who saw and exanuntd v\hat buabo never did see, both the church of St. Laurence and the drafts of the sepulchre near Naples, and who were not only celebrated antiquaries, but also thoroughly ac- quainted with ecclesiaistical history, and who could not be under any bias to mislead, all are representations of baptism by immersion, and perhaps of a mode of im- mersing, which was never [practised, and was intended by the artists only as emblematical of a ceremony in which persons were stripped naked, and covered all over with water. The conjecture of Strabo founded on an ill written book doth not deserve a moment's atten- tion, in opposition to the united opinion of Fabretti, Cian)pini, and Mabillon. . Every thing had a beginning, and there must have been a first artist, who introduced emblems of baptism. He thought, no doubt, he should give a just notion of immersioi', (for he could mean no other, as no other was in practice) by placing the lower part of a person in water, either in a river or a bath, and by shewing another person pouring water over the upper part out of the water ; for what could he mean, except that to bap- tize was to wet all over, to cover the whole man with water ? This rude emblem has been taken for true history, and baptism has been supposed to be rightly administered by pouring, though they who plead for this never practise it, and though there is no proof that any ancient church ever baptized in this manner, and though if it were performed according to the emblem, a person would be, though in the most unpleasant way in the world, drenched in water. When accidents have OF PICTURES OF BAPTISM. 113 put a Greek priest on this expedient, he has, not im- properly, accounted it immersion ; but such modes were never allowed by law, and the occasional inventions of individuals ought not to pass for either the custom or the law of any church (7). Nor let any one mistake this emblem for a description of the capitulavium of some late Roman Catholicks. The pictures intended are of too early date, and were in being long before this ceremony was heard of. Isidore, bishop of Seville in Spain, in the sixth century (8), and H. Rabanns Manrus, (so the manuscripts write his name) archbishop of Mentz in the eighth (9), both say, that on Palm-Sunday the heads of catechumens were washed from dirt con- tracted in Lent preparatory to their receiving the holy unction at their Easter-baptism, and they add, the com- mon people from this circumstance called Palm-Sunday Capitulavium, or Head Washing Sunday : but ancient Greek and Roman artists could know nothing of this, and the baptism of pouring, a njere vulgar error, may- rank with the white pigeon of Ravenna. This error, however, hath been taken for true history by adminis- trators of baptism both before and since the reformation ; and baptism hath been administered both by Catholicks and Protestants in this manner, with this difference, Catholicks did it only in cases of necessity when some impediment lay in the way of dipping, but Protestants by choice, under pretence of the sufficiency of it. There are many representations of baptism in old church windows, and all in favour of immersion. In Canterbury cathedral, the union of baptism and Noah's flood ; the drowning of Pharaoh and the passage of the Israelites through the red sea ; the cleansing of a leper, the dipping of Naaman, apostolical baptism, the pool of Bethesda, and Peter's sheet, all explained ot ordinary baptism by ancient monkish verses, clearly speak the sense of the designers. (7) Goar. Eucholog. Lutet. Paris. 1647. /». 365. In baptismatis ojicium ■notce. 24. (8) De Eccles. Officiis. Lib. i. Cap. 27. Be die palmartim. (9) Be Ir.stitut. Cleric. Li.b. ii. Cap. 35. JDe die palmar. 15 114 , OF BAPTISMAL FONTS. CHAP. XVIIL OF BAPTISMAL FONTS. FONS is a fount, or spring, and by a very natural transition, it is frequently put for the stream, nn^fontes for streams, rills, rivulets, brooks, running waters. Buildings erected near such places took their names from thern, as persons did from the names of the build- ings. Thurstan, archbishop of York, in the twelfth cen- tury, founded a monastery near Rippon in Yorkshire, and named it Jontes, or mojiasterium dejomibus : and in the thirteenth century the abbot of the house John defoji- tikis was bishop of Ely (i). It was for a similar reason that baptisteries and baptismal churches, vAhich were usually dedicated to John the Baptist, were called St. John adfontes. A Saint John adfontes was a sacred edifice, in which there was one baptistery or more, supplied by running w^ater. The building was fiequently called ad fontes, or simply fontes, and so by degrees the bath itself obtained the name oi ajunt. When the baptism of infants became an established custom, it was unne- cessary for the administrators to go into the water, and they contrived cisterns which they called fonts» in which they dipped the children without going into the water themselves. In the first baptisteries, both admin- istrators and candidates went down steps into the bath. In after ages the administrators went up steps to a plat- form, on which stood a small bath which they called a font, into which they plunged children without going into water themselves. In modern practice, the font remains, but a bason of water set into the font serves the purpose, because it is not now supposed necessary either that the administrator should go into the water, or that the candidate should be inmnersed. This in England was custom, not lav/, for in the time of Queen Elizabeth the governors of the episcopal churcii in effect exi)ressly prohibited sprinkliiig b} lor- bidding the use of basons in publick bajitibm. ''Last of all [the church-wardens] shall see, thdt in every church there be a holy founte, not a bason, wherein bap- tism may be ministered, and it be kept comely and (1) Lelandi Collectanea. Ex libra incerti auctoris de episcobis £bor Vol. ii. p. 338. A. D. 1132. OF BAPTISMAL FONTS. 115 clean (2).'* *' Item, that the font be not removed, nor that the curate do baptize ifi parish churches in any ba- sons, nor in any other form than is already prescribed, &:c. (3)." SprinkUn^, therefore, was not allowed, except, as in the church of Rome, in cases of necessity at home where a child born after one Sunday or festival was not like to live till the next. That all fonts, fixed and moveable, were intended for the administration of baptism by dipping, is allowed by antiquaries, and an history of a few may serve to con- vince any man that their opinion is well founded. Artificial fonts are comprehended in three classes- original, missionary, and ordinary parochial fonts. About the middle of the fourth century, during the pontificate of Liberius, Damasus, who M^as afterwards Pope, constructed a baptismal font in the o!d Vatican church at Rome (4). The spot had been a burial place, and stagnant waters rendered it offensive, Damasus caused the oozing waters to be traced to their spring, and by laying pipes under ground, received and carried the whole in a stream into the church, 'where it fell into a large receptacle of beautiful alabaster marble, the undulated veins of which produced a pleasing eftbct in the water, as also did the reflection of the ornamented roof, the pannels, and the altars of the chapel ; for the figures above seemed to live and move in the trans^ parent fluid below. Of this font, which was truly and properly an ecclesiastical bath or baptistery, the Catholicks tell two remarkable stories. They say. Pope Liberius in this font on a holy Saturday baptized of both sexes and of different ranks eight thousand eight hundred and ten catechumens (5). They add, that on another holy Saturday when Pope Damasus was baptiz- ing here, the crowd was so great that a little boy was pushed into the font, and was drowned : that it was an hour before they could get, the corpse out : that Damasus (2) A hooke of certaine canons, concerning some parte of the discrpline of the churche of England. In the year of our Lord 1571. At London by Joim Bnye. Cum pmnleg ijfc. page i9 ('.>) Aduertisements partcly for due order in the publike administration of common prayers, and using the holy sacraments .• and partelyfor the apparel of all persons ecclesiastical, by virtue of the ^teencs Maiesties Letters, com- maunding the same the w day of yanuary in the seaucntk ycere of the re'gm- of our Souercigne Lady Elizabeth, isi'c. Printed at London by Dawson, 1584, (4) Ciampini De Sacr. JEdif. Cap. ir. (5) Ciampini ut sup. 116 OF BAPTISMAL FONTS. lifted up his eyes to heaven, and prayed God to restore him to life : that the boy was restored to life and perfect health : and that the restoration convinced the multitude of the power of God and the holiness of his servant the pope (6). Of such tales, chiefly does, the pontifical consist : but these do not effect the history of the font itself, which is taken from other, and undoubt- ed monuments (■;). Near the font Pope Symmachus erected a magnificent altar adorned v\ith various em- blems, and dedicated it to John the Biiptist. It was commonly called the altar of St. John ad fontes. "When it fell into decay, two cardinals of the family of the Ursini repaired and endowed it(^). A font remarkable in ecciesiasucal history, is that belonging to the church of Notre Dame, in v^ hich Clo- vis the first catholick, if not the first christian king of the Franks, was baptized. It stood without the church, and it is mentioned here for the sake of observing, that two opinions of baptism generally received are mere popular errors, expressly contradicted by this as well as by other ancient and authentick monuments. It is commonly said, by such as allow immersion to have been the primitive mode of baptism, that dip- ping was exchanged for sprinkhng on account of the coldness of the climates of some countries in connec- tion with the Roman church. Here are two mistakes, the one that dipping was exchanged for sprinkling by choice : and the other, that coldness of climate was the reason. It is not true that dipping was exchanged for sprinkling by choice before the reformation, for till after that period, the ordinary baptism was trine im- mersion, and sprinkling was held valid only in cases of necessity. In this font Clovis was dipped three times in water at his baptism (9). Modern French writers observe, wiih becoming dignity, that their first christian king had too much spirit to submit to pro- fess a religion before he had examined whether it w^e true ; and that Vedast and Remigius first instructed him in the doctrine of the holy trinity, which he after- w^ard professed to believe by being thrice dipped at his (6) Baron. Annal. 584. (7) Ciamp. ut sup. Damasi versicul. fragment in cryptis VaticajiU (8) Ibid. N. 30. (9) Car. Le Cointe Annaks An. 496^^ OF BAPTISMAL FONTS. 117 baptism (I). More than three thousand Franks were baptized at the same season in the same manner : nor did sprinkling appear in France till more than two hun- dred and fifty years after the baptism of Clovis ; and then it was invented not as a mode of administering baptism in ordinary, but as a prhate relief in a case of necessity. The other opinion of the coldness of the climate operating toward the disuse of immersion is equally groundless. Hincmar, archbishop of Rheims, led all the first French historians into tlie error of believing that Clovis was baptized at Easter: but later historians have corrected this mistake, by remark- ing that Avitus, a contemporary writer, better informed than Hincmar, who lived in the time of Charlemagne, three hundred and fifty years after the event, Avitus, who was intimate with Clovis, and who wrote to com- pliment him on his baptism, expressly declares, he was baptized the night preceding Christmas-Day (2). Au- dofledis, the sister of Clovis, was baptized at the same time by trine immersion, and no change of the mode of administration was made on account either of her sex, or her rank, or her health, which probably was doubtful, for she died soon after, or the season of the year (3.)- The baptism of this king was an event of so much consequence, that it made a principal article in the history of his life : it was recorded in an epitaph oil his tomb, and the baptistery is there called a font : a full proof therefore that font at that time signified a spa- cious bath (4). This at the church of Notre Dame, and that at the Vatican were original fonts. The fonts of missionaries make a class divisible into three ': fonts of choice ; fonts of necessity ; and fonts of fancy. So for distinction sake they n\ay at present be named. In the close of the seventh century some English and Irish monks went over to the Netherlands to con- vert the inhabitants of that country to Catholicism. An accident at sea obliged them to land on an island which was called Fosteland, and which others name Helgoland or Heiligland. Here they found the inhabitants were (1) Hist. Llterahe De La France. Tom, iii. Clovis I. s. i. (2) A.viti Episcop. Viennensis Epist. ad Clocloveum. De suscepta ab eo Chr'isti fide, atque baptismo. (3) Remig'ii Rhemormn Episc. Epist. ad Cloveum; (4) Hist, Literaire. tit sup. 118 OF BAPTISMAL FONTS. idolaters, and among other superstitions they held a certain fountain, or pit at a spring head, in profound veneration, so that when they fetched water from it, they observed a solemn silence. One of the mi:,sionaries determined by a publick action to break the charm and undeceive the solemn votaries of the fountain god. For this purpose he baptized three converts in the font in the name of the trinity, and the experiment succeeded among the common people (5). Rathbod, king of the Frieslanders, was offended, and persecuted them so that they fled. A few years after they returned to the charge, and one of them, Wulfran, then bishop of Sens, succeeded so far as to engage Rathbod hi.nself to agree to be baptized. The day appointed for the ceremony came, and the people with the priests proceeded with the roy- al convert to the font. When the service had been perforrned so far that the king had set one foot into the water, he stopped short, atid with a stern dignity be- coming his rank solemnly adjured the bishop in the name of Almighty God to inform him, whether his departed ancestors, the ancient nobility and kings of Friesland, were in that celestial region, which had been promised him on condition he were baptized, or in that infernal gulf which he had been describing as the future abode of the unbaptized ? Wulfran replied : Excellent prince, be not deceived : God hath a certain number of his elect. Your predecessors, former princes of the Frisians, dying unbaptized, are undoubtedly damned ; but henceforth whosoever believeth and is baptized, shall be happy with Christ forever in heaven. O, if that be the case, exclaimed Rathbod, withdrawing his foot from the font, I cannot consent to give up the company of my noble predecessors in exchange for that of a few poor people in your celestial region ; or rather, I cannot admit your novel positions, but I prefer the ancient and universal opinions of my own nation (6). Having so said, he retired, refusing, says the historian, to be dip- ped in the font of regeneration ; fonte regenerationis no- luit mergi. By choice^ therefore, sometimes mission- aries baptized by immersion in open waters, and par- (5) Alcuin. fl/)Kc/Sur. Tom. vi. Nov. 7- (6) Haeec audiens Dux incredulus (nam ad fontem processerat, iit feruiit) a fonte pedem retraxit, dicens, &c Baron. Ann, 697- -719^ £vV. Jona. apud Sur, tft'e 20. Martii. Tom. ii. OF BAPTISMAL FONTS. 119 ticiilarly at well, or spring-heads, where the god of the stream was honoured by the Pagans. They thought it was an act of heroism, a carrying of the war into the very hciirt of the enemy's country. By fonts ol necessity are meant such convenient places to baptize in as missionaries made use of when they had not time or ability to erect regular cliapels for arti- ficial baths. The old chroniclers of this country sa\% the first missionaries from Rome baptized the Anglo,*. Saxons in rivers ; and John Fox observes, tliat "Where- as Austin baptized then in rivers, it follow eth, there was then no use of fonts : '* but this is not quite accu- rate, for the monks called those parts of the rivers, ia which they administered baptism, fonts. It is also re- markable, that Paulinus, chaplain of the Queen of Northumberland, when he had prevailed on Edwin, her consort, to profess the religion of the queen, hastily ran up a wooden booth at York, which he called St. Peter's church, and in which he catechized and baptized the king and many of the nobility, Edwin after his conversion be- gan to build of stone a cathedral on the spot, the walls of which were erected round about the wooden building, that being left standing in the centre, probably for a baptistery for the use of persons of rank, who might not choose to expose themselves undressed before a gazing multitude (7. ) The same Paulinus baptized openly in the river Swale, "for, (says Bede), they could not build oratories or baptisteries there in the infancy of the church." Edwin afterward enclosed several springs by the road side in the north, and set there large basons of brass to wash or to bath in for the accommodation of travellers, and most likely by advice of the monks for the purpose of baptizing. Pope Gregory says, Austin baptized more than ten thousand persons on a Christmas- Day. (8) Allov^ing this saint his usual privilege of affirm- ing the thing that is not, in regard to the number of persons baptized, it is very credible he spoke truth in respect to the day, for he had no interest to serve, but rather the contrary, for his interest in Italy was to set a gloss on Eastern baptism : and the baptism of Clovis on the same day renders his testimony highly probable, (7) Bedse Hist. Eccles. Lib, ii Cap. xiv. (8) Grej^or.4. Epist. Lib. vii. Ep. xxx. Eulogio. £fius, Alexandriivt, X20 OF BAPTISMAL FONTS. If SO, this is an additional proof that dipping wa^ not exchanged for sprinkling on account of coldness of cli- mate. It seems, then, Paulinos baptized in a river ■ because he had no baptismal chapels : and he baptized king Edwin and his court in a temporary wooden oratory, because he had not any such baptistery as the wealth and eleirance of the Greeks and Romans had erected. In the 12th centurv, Otho, bishop of Bamberg, baptized his con- verts in Pomerania in bathing tubs let into the ground, and surrounded with posts, ropes from post to post, and curtains hanging on the ropes (9). Within the curtains the people undressed, w^ere baptized, and afterward dressed again. Many of these also were used for bap- tism in the depth of winter, and die baths and tents were warmed by stoves. Among fonts of necessity such are to be placed as were allowed to be used in private houses in cases of necessity. In a statute of Edmund, archbishop of Can- terbury, it is ordered, that if a child should be baptiz- ed at home by a layman in case of necessity, the remain- ing water should be either cast into a fire, or carried to the church and poured into the baptistery : and the vessel in which the child had been baptized should be either burned, or appropriated to the use of the church (1). Canonists expound this statute by observing, that a true and proper baptism was trine immersion, by a priest, with orderly ceremonies, and nothing else : that, however, as baptism was essential to salvation, the church in her great clemency for infants allowed in case of danger of immediate death and consequent damnation, a priest, or a layman, or any body to baptize bv pouring, or, even bv sprinkhng, yea, by touching a toe or a finger of the bi.be with water : that for these purposes a bathing tub was to be pre- pared, and water if possible to dip, or if that could not be, to use a part for sprinkling, on condition that the remaining water and the utensil were disposed of as above : and they add that the use to which the church ap- plied such a vessel, was that of washing in it suiphces and altar clothes, and other ecclesiastical linen (2). Such a bathing-tub, or wash-trough is the pehis ot an- (9) B. Ottonis vita apud Canisii Lection, antiq. (1) De Baptinmo, et ejus effectu. __ . . _ ^^ (2) Lyndwood Provincial. Oxoniit.1679. Lib. ui. tit. sxiv. pag. 242^ OF BAPTISMAL FONTS. 121 cient ritualists, and it is with great inattention that the word is rendered bason, and with greater still that an argument for sprinkling is drawn from it (3). Dr. Johnson observes, that the Saxon word Batr > ^<2^ hath given rise to a great number of words in many langua- ges (4). iElfric in his Glossary translates it by tlie Lat- in word I'mtei-y and he places it first in his list of names of ships and their accompaniments, for baz; with the Saxons, like linter with the Latins signified a little boat made of a tree hollowed or scooped out like a tray or trough. Such were the first boats of most nations. It was, therefore, with great propriety that the word b.; t was put, in after-times, both for a wherry and a trough, for at first both were one and the same thing. Hence came the Saxon word Bae-^ , baeth, a buth, with its com- pounds and derivatives, as Stanbaeth, a stoae bath, Baetlian to wash, to bathe, and hence, most likely, came the modern English word bason; a word to this day so vague that it is necessary to describe a size by an affix, as Aizw^-bason, ro^Ti^-bason, ^if^^-bason, and so on. Dr. Johnson says, basin is the true spelling according to ety- mology, not bason : but this is probable only to such as derive the word from French or Itcilian. P^legant mod- ern writers retain the old spelling, and it seems far more probable, as the word is of Saxon origin, that it was de- rived from bat-stone : as bat-stone, base-stone : bason, A bat-stone was a base-stone, or a concave or hollowed stone, the hole in which served as a socket to receive the foot of an upright pillar. However it were, all such ves- sels were fonts of necessity, and it is credible, various kinds and different sizes were used as exigences re- quired. By fancy -loiwXs are intended such as were erected and decorated with a variety of ornaments, merely to serve the temporary purpose of one baptism. These are put into the class of missionary-fonts, because they do not imply a stated administrator : and because they were set up in places where baptism was not ordinarily adminis- tered. It is at royal or noble christenings that these make their appearance. In these a baptizer was ap- 16 (3) R. Hospiniani i)e Ori;g-. 7>m/)/or«m. Lib. ii. Cap. iv. Be orl.. fine Baptisterii. (4) Dicticnary under the ^Yord Bat. 122 OF BAPTISMAL FONTS. pointed to officiate for the time, and the ceremony was performed in royal or domestic chapels, or in conventual or collegiate churches, where no fonts were required, because no parish and no cure of souls were annexed to them (5). Always before the christening, and generally before the birth of a royal child, a baptismal font was prepar- ed. The church was hung with rich tapestry, or cloth of gold, called Arras, from the town of that name in Artois, where it was manufactured. The ceilings as well as the v\ alls of the porch were covered with the same. The floor was boarded and carpetted. The altars were hung with rich embroidered cloths, and sumptuously furnished with images, and church-plate. In a conspicuous pnrt of the church, an area was railed in, and on the rails was tacked vith brass nails cloth of scarlet, or blue, or such colour as the mistress of the ceremonies directed, fringed or bordered according to her taste. Within the railing there were three open spaces : one faced the door of the church, and by this tPie comrany eutticd the area : the second faced the hny\\ altar at the upper end of the church, for the pur- pose of passing from the area to the altar : the third was opposite what they called the travers. Trave is a frame. A baptismal travers was a high frame of wood set on the floor like a skreen, and hung with curtains of coloured silks, satin, damask, or tapestry, plain fringed, or embroidered, and set off" at the top with deep val- ence, and corniche, like the tester and head of a bed. The travers was a sort of retirmg room for the ladies, who waited on the royal infant at his baptism, and it was furnished wiih chairs, cushions, pans of lighted well-burnt charcoal, basons, napkins, water warm and cold, perfumes, and so on, *' read} for the chaunginge of the chiide out of the clothes, and makinge it ready unto christendome:" and "afterward, to washe the chiide if neade be, and to make him ready," cleanse him in case of accidents, and dress him after his baptism. The case referred to often happened, and the manuals of the monks provided for it. Infans in fontem si stercoral ejlce fonteru : Si dimiltit iu hunc urinam : qusestio non est (6). (5) Lvndwood ubi sup. Edmundi canon. <6) Raymunai SHinmula. Fol. x^i". -De Sacr. confirm. OF BAPTISMAL FONTS. 12S From this accident, some acquired a nick-name, which went with them throui^h life, as C}pticin, Copronymus, and others. In the centre of the area a high platform was raised with steps carpetted all over. On a pedestal in the middle stood the font, by the side of which lay a broad step covered with scarlet cloth for the administrator to stand on. Some- times an old font of stone was set, at other tmies a new one was made, but generally a silver font kept at Canterbury for the purpose was fetched and used on this occasion. Whatever it were, it was hung round v\ithoutside with cloth of gold, and covered withinside and at bottom with ravnes, that is, soft linen gathered and puckered in many folds, and mtcnd- ed, no doubt, to prevent any accidental bruising of the tender babe. Over the font was a large and rich canopy of damask, satin sarcenet, or ra} nes, bordered and valenced with fringe or cloth of gold. The whole was magnificent, and the taste of the ladies regulated every part, for before a queen lay in, " women were made all manner of officers for the month, as butlers, panters, and so on." The ordinances now recited were chiefly drawn up by Margaret, countess of Richmond and Derby, who placed all the decorations of the queen's lying-in-room, the royal bed, and the cradles, tlie nur- sery, the church, chapels, and altars; the habits of the prince, the font, the traverses, and the rest, v\ ith splen- dour and taste, properly disposing cloths, silks, velvets, linens and trains, adjusting the places and sizes of or- naments ; the colours of white, brown, blue, scarlet, purple, silver, gold, ermine, crimson, russet, stripes, and shades ; the appendages of silk-fringes, embroidery, lace, lawn, tassels, pommels, devices and coats of arms, so as to exhibit a superb apparatus of the magnificence and taste of the times (7). On such theatres a courtly- prelate in imperial robes represented John the Baptist, the part of Jesus was performed in crimson lined with ermine by a princely babe, the silver font set forth the river Jordan, and the noble mistress of the ceremonies with magick wand like a goddess created a scenery, sup- plied the place of a deity, and covered the beggarly ele- ments of popes and councils from contempt. (7) Lelandi Collectanea Vol. iv. p, 179. Vol. ii. p. 663. Baptisatio, reginx EUzabethx apud Grenviich. 124 OF BAPTISMAL PONTS. At the baptism of Prince Edward, afterward king Edvvctrd VI. in the chapel of Hampton-Court, Arch- bishop Cranmer stood e;odfather for the prince, as he had done four years before for the Princess Elizabeth, who \^as born at Greenwich, and baptized in the con- ventual church of the Franciscan friars (8). Similar pomp was displa3ed at both, and the whole ceremonial is inserted in histories of the times. A detail would be te- dious : but two or three remarks may not be impertinent. The princess was born in September, the prince in October : but both were carried to church and baptiz- ed in publick, and both by t ine immersion, so that dipping had not then been exchanged for sprinkUng on account of cold. This was no novelty, as the practice of one royal family will prove. Prince Arthur, eldest son of Henry VH. was born at Winchester on the twentieth of Octo- ber, fourteen hundred and eighty-six. The Sunday following he was carried in procession to the cathedral to be christened. Although the " ivether ivas to coiilde and to foivle to ha'Dc been at the west ende of the chirche .•" yet an accident happened, which obliged the company to wait in the church *'iii owres largely and more." The Earl of Oxford had been appointed one of the three godfathers. His lordship was at Lavenham in Suffolk when the prince was born. A messenger v.as dispatch- ed, and a time fixed for the baptism. His lordship set forward, hoping to arrive in time: but as "//zd- season was al rayny^'''' he could not reach Winchester so soon as he expected. The procession, however, set forward : news came the earl was near, yet he did not arrive. This was no inconvenience to the company, for there were traverses v\ ith fires in them in the church, and into one the prince was carried, while the nobility retired into others, and partook of spices, wines, and refresh- ments. At length, a courier arrived with intelligence that Lord Oxford uas '■'• imhi7i a myle.'''' The bishop then began the service ; for the Earl of Derby and Lord Maltravers had been appointed godfathers at the bap- tism, and the queen dowager godmother, and the Earl of Oxford had been appointed godfather at the confirm- ation, which followed baptism, and which was perform- (8) Baptizatio Eliz. ut aup Vol. ii, p. 670. OF BAPTISMAL FONTS. 12& ed at the high altar where the child was carried as soon as he was dressed after his baptism. The service therefore proceeded, for the part of Lord Oxford came in toward the latter end : and " incontinent after the prince was put into the fount, then entrede th'* Erie of Oxinforde. From the font the prince was had to his iravers.^^ From thence, after he was dressed, he was carried to the altar, upon which his royal godmother laid him. After some ceremonies, Lord Oxford " toke the prince in his right armej and the bishop of Excester confer my d him (9). Three years alter, his majesty thought fit to create Arthur and some others Knights of the Bath. The thirtieth of November was fixed on for the ceremony, and bathing the night before was a part of it. Neither the tender age of the prince, nor the weak state of his health, (for some say he was born a month before his time : and it is certain he died before he was fifteen) nor the season of the year, nor the time of night, was supposed to render bathing hazardous : but '"'when it was nyght the prince'^s hayne [bath] %x)as prepared in the kinge''s closet. And in the entre betwene the parlia- ment cliambre and the chapelle was the baynes of the Erie of Northumberland^ and the Eord Maltraiiers, and the JLord Gray Ruthyn.'^'* While they were thus preparing for knighthood, about nine o'clock of the same night the queen was delivered of a princess, afterward Marga- ret, queen of Scotland. All the furniture of her majes- ty's lying-in-room is described with punctilious detail, but there doth not appear any utensil for a private bap- tism of necessity, and the abbey church at Westminster, and the rich font at Canterbury, were ^^ prepay red as of old tyme ben accustumed for kyngs chyldren.''^ Next day, the thirtieth of November, the new-born princess was carried in procession to the church to be christen- ed : and ^'- as son as she was put into the font, all the torchess wer light, and the taper also, and the officers of arms put on ther cotys of arms,'''' and the herald pro- nounced her name and title. After the whole service had been performed, the procession returned ^^wythe nois of trompettis, and with Crystis blessyng. Ajnen.''* So little did the royal family dread bathing their chiU (9) Leland. ut sup. Vol, t. 126 OF BAPTISMAL TONTS, dren, and so little did they encourage private baptism, that a female child, the day after her birth, was carried to church and baptized by trine immersion, when the court had begun or were about beginning to keep Christmas, and at a season when " the meazellis wer soo strong and in especiall amongis the ladies and gentil- ivemen, that sum died of that sikeness, as the Lady Ne'uill, daughter of Wilham Paston : ivherfor on Seint Johji's day the ^veen was pri'ovly cherched or purifi- ed(\).'' To return to the children of Henry VIII. The font used at the baptism of the Princess Elizabeth was sil- ver, probably the old one of Canterbury : that of Prince Edward, " the most dearest sonne of the king,^^ was of silver gilt, and very likely a new one. This, however, is not certain, for there was one of silver gilt used at the baptism of Prince Arthur, son of Henry VIL Each was set upon a stage with steps carpetted, having above a canopy of crimson satin fringed with gold, and -a travers on the floor near the bottom step with lighted charcoal, basons, water, perfumes, and all other conve- niences to wash the children, " z/' ;z(?d'(i were." " ^// the tyme of the princes opening,'''' noblemen, " %mth a- prons and towels about their nechs^'''' stood round the steps, the '' baptizer''* and the godfathers stood under the canopy, to '■''abide the coming^'''' of the lady godmo- ther and the princes out of the travers, and the ceremo- ny of hallowing the font was performed meanwhile. All this is a preparation for undressing in order to dip, and for dipping after undressing (2). Since sprinkling took place, no such services are necessary. After baptism, " z/z tyme the prince was making ready in his travers,''^ the officiating part of the company were waited on with basons and towels : then they were *' ser'ved with spice in sp'ice-plateSy wyne and wafers^ and all other estates and gentiles within the church and the court were sensed with spice and ypocras, and all other had bread and sweet wyne.^^ Next Te Deum was sung : and lastly the prince was brought out of his travers, and carried home in procession along with the (1) The same, p. 250. (2) Baptizafio Christening as above Fox's Acts and Monu- nieiits. An. 1333. ^eene Elizabeth christened, p. 962. V OF BAPTISMAL FONTS. 127 rich gifts given by the godfathers. He had been con- ducted thither by the choir chanting : but he returned with trumpets sounding, and as the king on such occa- sions gave great largess, all manner of festivity crowned the da; ( i). Tiie interlude in the church was well a- dapted to i^ive time to dress royal infants. Such have been the sports of fancy in baptism, and so full of meaning is the saying of Jesus concerning John the Baptist, Be/iold they that wear soft clothing are in king's homes (4). In the last class may be placed all fonts in parish ehurches for the publick ordinary baptism of children. These came forward along with infant-baptism. Be- fore the coming of Austin, the monk, there were Chris- tians in this country. When he came, he brought monachism, which he called Christianity, and endeav- oured to unite that with the Christianity of the Britons. To this the Britons objected, because one of his requi- sitions was, that they should give christendome^ that is, biiptism to children, which they positively refused to do. King Ethelbert, the first royal convert of Austin, was a mild prince, he had no notion of converting men by fire and sword ; and although he was baptized himj^eli, yet he did not attempt to force his subjects to become either Christians or Catholicks (5). Historians, who aliirm he was taught by the catholick doctors liberality of sentiment, impose on themselves, for whatever they ■pretend, there is yet extant a letter of Pope Gregory to him fraught with maxims of fraud and force supported by precedents of cruelty and luxury, and fired with false alarms concerning the end of the world. It is credible this great kiiig was a much better man before his conversion than after. Even the Pagan priests had not learned to persecute before the Roman missionaries taught them. They bore no arms when they travelled, they either walked, or rode like those who tilled the ground mounted on dull and drowsy mares : but no sootier had Paulinus converted one, than out he sallied on a fiery steed full armed to destroy altars and tem- ples, and of course to plunder property and oppress his (3) Chriitening of Prince Eciiuard, p. 674, 675. (4) Matt. xi. 8 (5) Be4« Scciet. MUt. Lib. i. Cap. xxx. 128 OF BAPTISMAL FONTS. peaceful neighbours (6). In this spirit barbarous Aus- tin, a foreigner, caused the murder of twelve hundred native British Christians, and forced nionachism on the Pagans, and as a part of it infant-baptism. Fonts for this purpose rose out of ecclesiastical canons, and for- eign customs and foreign laws were imported, by which each parish was ordered to provide fonts of wood or stone, the latter if possible, for the baptism of chil- dren. All these fonts were evidently intended for dippin,a[, as the size ot them proves, and as the laws and ru bricks of the church ordain. Writers on topographical antiq- uities mention a great many ; and the learned and inde- faiigable author of that complete body of information, entiiled British Topography, hath taken the pains on this, as on all other articles, to arrange and class the materials with wonderful precision, for the benefit of investigators (7). It may be proper to run the eye over some of the most remarkable fonts. The continent would furnish many, but a few of this country will serve to ekicldate this article. Grymbald w^as a native of French Flanders, and iEI- fred, the glory of the Saxon kings, brought him into England in the year eight hundred eighty five, and plac- ed him at Oxford (8). There, in the first school found- ed by iElfred, he taught divinity along with the Abbot Neot, and he may justly be reputed, as by the Oxon- ians he is, one of the founders and first ornaments of that noble Universit} (9). The old church of St. Pe- ter was built by Grymbald, and a part of it remains en- tire to this day. In this church there was till lately a very ancient baptismal font, of elegant sculpture for the time. Mr. Hearne thought, it was of the same date as that of Winchester, and he adds : after it had kept its place about five hundred years, it was ordered to be removed, and one much inferior to be put in its place. (6) S. Gregorii. Papx Epkt. Lib. ix. Indict. i7. et seq. (3) Rev. Mr. John Bell's (F/car o/"^nVc/f/>i) letter DecT 11, 1767, in Arclijeologia. f4) Arcliscol Vol ii. plat^ ix, p. tJJ. 17 130 OF BAPTISMAL FONTS. in this part of the world." Thus his lordship reads it. Er Ekard men egrocten : and to dis men Red wer Taner men brogten. Here Ekard was converted : and to this man's example were the Danes brought (5). Bishop Lyttleton entirely agreed with his learned predecessor, that the inscription was Danish : but he strongly suspected that the font was of higher antiquity, and that the inscription was added on a memorable event about the beginning of the eleventh century, under the Danish government. Both their Lordships supposed Ekard to have been " a Danish general, who received baptism on his conversion to Christianity, and whose example was then followed by several of his country- men at this place (6)." The Danes made their first incursions into this kingdom in seven hundred eighty- seven, and it seems not improbable that this font was set up about a hundred years after in the reign of Alfred, or in that of his son Edward, for both entered into treaty with the Danes, and the treaties were confirmed by the baptism of the Danish generals (7). In that be- tween iElfred and Gothrun the Dane, the baptism of the Danes, was one condition, and Gothrun and thirty officers were baptized in a river. Some provision, no doubt, was made for the baptism of their children, for the catholick missionaries never forgot this favourite maxim of Austin their leader ; and as the Danes inhabited Northumber- land, in which a part of Cumberland was then included, so it is credible that Bridekirk font is of earlier date than that in the church of Grymbald, and is the oldest font yet remaining in this kingdom, being of the ninth century, when the Danes first received the catholick religion. Whether the font be Danish or Saxon, the baptism represented on it is that of the Catholicks op- posed to that of the old Pelagian Britons. The artist in- tended to represent the reason for baptizing infants, that is, original sin derived from Adam ; and the mode of baptizing, that is, immersion, after the example of Jesus the second Adam. To this the laws of the times of iElfred, and of succeeding synods agree, and partic- (5) Gough*s Topography, Vol. i. p. 285. (6) Bishop Lyttletoii's Description of an ancient font at Bridekirk, in Cumberland. Read at the Society of Antiquaries, Dec. 8, 1767. Archxoi. Vol. ii. xxi. (7) H. Spelman. Concilia. Leg. Ecotgs. ab AlU^edo et Cuthurno. OF BAPTISMAL FONTS. 131 ularly those which are entitled, Northumbrian priests laws (8). Among the plates published by Mr. Strutt, there is one from a manuscript life of Richard, earl of Warwick, which represents "how he was baptized, havyng to his godfathers King Richard the second, and Seynt Richard Scrope, then [1381] Bishop of Lichefeld, and after in processe of tyme he was Archebishop of Yorke(^)." This plate Mr. Strutt took from "a very curious and valuable manuscript in the Cotton Library, marked Julius, E. IV. The original delineations, together with the writing, are all done by the hand of John Rouse, the Warwickshire antiquary and historian, who died the 14th of January, 1491, the seventh year of Henry the Seventh. It is illustrated with 53 excellent delineations, which fully explain the manners and cus- toms of the times in which they weredone(l)." Round a neat Saxon font the company stand. A bishop is holding the child, stark naked, and just going to be dipped, over the font. The hand of the royal godfather is on his head. The archdeacon, according to custom, stands by the bishop holding up the service book open, which implies that the baptism is performing according to the Ritual. As the child's face is toward the water, this is the last of the three immersions, and the bishop may be supposed now uttering the last clause of the baptismal words : and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. The priest on the other side of the officiating bishop is hold- ing the chrism. Fonts, like medals, form an history, and from an history of fonts incontestible evidence, rises to prove that during the whole reign of Popery publick or- dinary baptism was administered by immersion : that the mode was not changed to sprinkling here, any more than on the continent, for such considerations as climate or timidity, rank or caprice ; and that in the publick opinion there was no hazard to health in dipping infants. The noble babe whose baptism is here represented was born on the twenty-eighth of January at Salwarp, in the county of Worcester. Ordinary baptism was administered by trine immer- sion, and fonts competent to this mode of baptizing (8) Spelman ut sup. Circa an. 988. Lambard. Aluredi leg. (9) View of Manners, iS'c. Vol. ii. Plate viii. p. 121. (1) P'^S' 119- Account of the principal MSS. i3'c. 132 OF BAPTISMAL FONTS. were parts of the establishment. Doctor William Lyndvvood, who was first Chancellor of the Archbish- oprick of Canterbury, next Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, and lastly, Bishop of St. David's, and Ambassa- dor to several foreign courts, compiled, at the request of the Archbishop, his Provinciale, or the provincial cou'Dtitutions of fourteen archbishops of Canterbury, be- ginning with Stephen Langton, in the reign of King John, and ending viith the then archbishop Henry Chi- cheley (2). In Langton's time the papal despotism arrived at its summit : in the days of Chicheley it be- gan to fall, when, by authority of a parliament holden at Leicester, one hundred and ten alien priories were suppressed, and their possessions given to the king, and to his heirs forever (3). Lyndwood began to com- pile this book in fourteen hundred twenty three, and to the statutes he added a gloss expository of ev- ery doubtful word, unquestionably taken from the prac- tice of the courts, ly a canon of Edmund, archbishop in the reign of Henry III. every baptismal church was required to provide a competent baptistery of stone or other material. The learned canonist observes, on the word stone, that it was agreeable to a foreign canon of the church : on the word other, that it signified a ma- terial solid, durable and strong, that would hold water : and on the \a ord competent, that it meant such an one as would admit of the dipping of the person baptized ; sic quod haptizandiis possit in eo mergi (4). By a canon of Archbishop Peckham, and by that of Edmund, just mentioned, provision is made for cases of necessity, Lyndvvood observes on the word, that canonists defin- ed the several cases of necessity to be, imminent danger oi death, a state o^ Iiostility ; an incursion ofthieiies ; an inundation of ivater, or any similar obstruction of the road; or a legal disability. In another statute of Peck- ham to confirm a former canon of the Cardinal Legate Ottoboni, baptism is called iimnersion. Here the com- mentator makes a great many curious remarks on the cases in which immersion may be dispensed with, and observes, that although, if a child died before it was ful- ly born, it was held valid to salvation, and to christian (2) Fr. Godwini. ds prxsid. AngUa. (5) Speed. Hen. iii. (4) Lib. iii. Tit, 24. De baptismo et ejus effcct'u- OF BAPTISMAL FONTS. 133 burial, to touch any part of it with a drop of wa- ter ; yet it was safer, if it could be done after its birth, to 'pour water on its head ; that in case, after it had been wetted with bciptismal water before its birth, it should live, it would not be amiss to bap- tize it by immersioti in the conditional form, by say- ing, if thou hast not been baptized I baptize thee, and so on : and that in all possible cases it was safest to im- merse the ivhole body ; and most laudable to immerse three times (5). It hath been observed before, that bap- tisteries, strictly so called, imply an intermediate state of baptism between that in rivers, and that in fonts, and a very sufficient reason may be given for the paucity of such edifices in Britain. The baptism of minors pre- vailed for ages in some countries, and there many bap- tisteries appear among catholick antiquities : but Ca- tholicism arrived here late, monks were the missiona- ries, and the unyielding firmness of the old British Christians, who, probably, were not believers of origin- al sin, and who certainly opposed infant baptism, inspir- ed the monks with caution on this head. There were, however, as Bede observes, some of these oratories or baptismal chapels erected here at first, and a chapel of the abbey at Braintree in Essex seems to have been one. The period of these is that between the coming of Aus- tin and the conquest by the Normans, and this chapel is supposed to be of that period. In seventeen hundred "seventy-two, Mr. Strutt preserved the last remnant of this antique from obUvion, and hath giving both a draw- ing of the east front, and a description of the whole. It was dedicated to John Baptist, and it was about fif- teen feet in breadth, and its length measuring in the in- side was about thirty (6). The size agrees with that of many baptisteries abroad. The Balneum or bathing- room of a Roman Bath at the west end of the parish church of St. Mary at Dover measures, one side, twen- ty-five feet, and the learned antiquary who surveyed it supposed it had been forty feet in length (7). Very (5) Tit. 25. a just point of light, so others refer to Norman or Saxon times. It is far from improbable, that the present bath near one end of the church of East Dereham in Norfolk was a baptistery : but the conjecture is connected with histor- ical anecdotes. If a bishop of Coventry granted to the abbey of Haghmon in Shropshire an officer, whose pro- vince it was to baptize Jews as well as infants, it is nat- ural to infer, there were at that time Jews resident in Shropshire, and baptisteries, at least one, in or near the abbey, for the purpose of baptizing men and women (4). The old circular font at Brighthelmstone is on the out- side a piece of history ss. ulpture (5). The institution or administration of the Lord's supper is represented in one compartment: and Jesus and his disciples are sitting at the table. In another, baptism is described : a man is standing naked "in the water up to his middle ; one on the right holding his clothes ; another on the left dressed in a canonical habit, like that of an officiating priest, presenting two rolls of linen. The figures are shewn as if standing under arches, possibly meant for those of a baptistery." In another compartment, four persons are represented, two in a boat, and two in or upon a rough water. Perhaps this might be intended to represent a baptism in the sea. If so, the sculpture hath a local propriety. The beautiful old octagon font in Orford chapel, Suffolk, is of a date not difficult to be guessed by the inscription on the surface of the octa- gonal base of three steps (6). The two catholick rea- sons for trine immersion are represented here : the one by an angel holding an escutciieon in his hand charged with a triangle to represent the Ti inity ; the other, a wo- man sitting and holding a dead corpse in her lap, to sig- nify either the dead body of Christ, or a dying and being buried with him in baptism by trine imniersion, which represented the three days' burial of Jesus. These and many others deserve more attention than the limits of (4) Exception to GosUing's Walk. Gent. Mag. Nov. 1774. pag. 509. note Mr. Gostling's Answer Jan. 1775 (5) Antiquarian Repertory London, 17S0. Vol. iii. pages 56, 254. (6) The same. Vol. i. p. 181. 136 OF INFANT SPRINKLING. this chapter will allow ; and here it is sufficient to re- mark, that all, various as they are, were evidently form- ed to be used in the practice of immersion, and some of them to teach the doctrine, or the history of it. The rude figures on that at Winchester seem intended to pre- serve an history ; and whether the boat refers to a local sea baptism, or to a foreign mission, is a question not easily answered (7). To finish this article. A conjecture, on one class of miracles in baptisteries, may not improperly be inserted here. The Catholicks speak of baptisteries abroad, which used to flow with water at Easter without the aid of art, and to become dry of themselves after the priest had done baptizing. They gave this out for a miracle in proof of the doctrine of the Trinity into which they baptized. Their enemies, the Arians, taxed them with imposture. Writers of natural history may, perhaps, settle the difference. They mention a variety of springs distinguished by remarkable properties : and some that ebb and flow several times in an hour. There is one at Lay well, near Torbay : and another at Giggleswick, in Craven, a district in Yorkshire : and there are many in other countries (8). A "monk of the middle ages would naturally meet with much to excite his astonishment, and cherish his credulousness in such places. In all such cases, supposing the illiteracy of the times, the fact might be affirmed and denied with equal sincerity on both sides. In modern times, enlightened by philoso- phy, the ancient Spanish Catholicks may be acquitted of a charge of fraud ; the Arians, their opponents, of the guilt of wilful slander ; and both may be regarded only as innocent spectators of a real fact, on which neither party knew how to reason. On such an axiom it may be charitably hoped, the good Parent of mankind will in all cases of unavoidable ignorance hold his children less guilty than some are willing to imagine. CHAP. XIX. OF INFANT BAPTISM. INFANT baptism is an ancient practice ; but inflmt sprinkling is more ancient than the institution of baptism <7) Ar.tiq. Rep. Vol. iv. 1784. pages 40,252. (8) Dr. Campbell's Political Sun^ey of BritUin, Vol. i. Book i, Chap. v. OF INFANT BAPTISM. 137 itself. Let no serious man take oftence at the distinction between baptism and sprinkling, for it is necessary in ecclesiastical history, and it is impossible to relate, with any degree of accuracy, the history of baptism without it. To baptize is to dip : to sprinkle is to scatter in drops. The application of water to infants in these two modes forms an history naturally divisible into two dis- tinct branches. The dipping of children for a religious purpose rises to view at a certain period in the ecclesi- astical history of Christians: die sprinkling of children is an article of Pagan mythology, and it is traced by an- tiquaries from monument to nionument, on Roman and Etruscan remains, till it hides itself in depths of ilie most remote antiquity (l). Among the Pagans, it was lus- tration : when it hist apj)eared in the church, it was un- der the name of exorcism : when the monks united exorcism with baptism it became confounded with bap- tism itself : and in the end it came forward, and suppli- ed the place of it. In a future chapter on aspeksion, all this will be investigated at large. At present it will be sufficient in brief to observe, that baptism was uni- versally performed by immersion, single or trine, for the first thirteen hundred years (2) : that from thence till after the reformation it was generally performed by trine immersion : that pouring or sprinkling began to be al- lowed for baptism only in the eighth century in cases of necessity : and that in this country sprinkling was "never declared valid ordinary baptism till the assembly of divines in the time of Cromwell, infiuenced by Dr. Lighffoot, pronounced it so (3). In the Eastern and Greek churches it hath been invariably administered by dipping from the first introduction of it to this day (4). (1) Gorii Museum Etnisctim. Floreniin-d\-x. Anyia'es. Interprefe Hieronyme Welphio, ct nofe given. Books, therefore, use the words literally for a minor in years, and figuratively ior an imperfection of knowledge, a sort of infancy oi the mind, a puerility of manners, and so on. Inscriptions make a third class of evidences. Out ol a great number two may suffice. The learned lather Montiaucon hath exhibited one, of many seinilchral monuments of the Greeks, which describes different stages of infancy. The first figure is that ot a babe wrap- ped in swaddling clothes, and lying in the lap of the parent who is sitting in a car. The second sheu s the parent in the same manner, and the child sittini^ up on the knee, as if grown. The third represents him on the ground playine with a kind of go-cart with two wheels. The fourth describes him at play with some birds, as having arrived at a further period (6) What would an history of the baptism of an infant mean, when tnfency includes persons so different, and the term cov- ers more than twenty years of life ? The following is a rude inscription of the eighth cen- tury at Naples. ' It says, Basil the son of Silibud and Gregoria lost his life in the twelfth year of his infancy. The antique form of the letters cannot be expressed here. (3) Psal. cxix. 130. (4) Zonavje in Canon. Apost. Coinment. Parisiis. 1558. 11. "hnT^UTH, &C. (5) Hist. Literaire de la France. Tome. iv. A Paris l7o8. pag. 146. (6) aiontfaucon. Supplement- de I' antiqwue^fpllqude. Paris. 1724. Tom. v. cf infant baptism. 145 credo quia redemptor meus bibit* et in nobissimo die de terra. suscitabit me et in carne mea videbo deum mkuyi egobasilius filius silicudi et gregoria conjugem ejus du\i irem in mand \tum ipsorum malus homo adprehenditme.et portabi 1 me in ribum et occisit me mortem crudelem in infantim my.je. annorum z)j70d£c/.kf in indictione quarta decima vigesima sexta (7). Translation: I believe that my Redeemer lives, and in the last day will raise me up from the grave, and in my flesh I shall see my God ; I, Basil, son of Silibud and Gregoria his wife ; while I was behaving myself like a duti- ful child, a wicked man caught me and carried me into a river where he put me to death in a cnxel manner, in the nvelfth, year of iny infancy, ijfc, {Ed. A fourth class of proofs is taken from laws. I'hese ought to be divided into four sorts : imperial ; goth- ick ; ecclesiastical ; and monastick. It is a part of natural justice to take care of infants, and all nations have lound it necessary both to guard the tender age of infancy by express law, and to fix a moment when care passes from the guardian to the ward. In the present case it is unnecessary to inquire into the moment of majority in the empire before the institu- tion of baptism (8). After the division of it into an eastern and a western empire, the law in both fixed twenty-five years as the term of infancy (9). The question of baptizing an infant, or a person under age, was first agitated, where it might most naturally be ex- pected, in the writings of an eminent Christian Lawyer, who, for wise poliiical reasons, objected against it on account of its interference with sponsion (l). When the northern nations dismembered the empire, and settled themselves, the Vandals, the Goths, the Lombards, the Franks, the Burgundians, the Saxons, and the rest, (who may all be considered as of one fami- ly) guarded their minors by express laws of their own, * In this inscription, in bibit, and a number of other words, B is used for'y^ nditor. (7) Gul. Fleetwood Inscript. Antiq. Sylloge. Par. ii. Monument. Chris- *'«»!. pag. 520. Londhii 1691. Not. Neapoli. (8) Gronovii Thesaur. Antiqmtat. Graecar. Ludg. Batav. 1697. et am. seqq. Tom. viii. (9) BASIAIKJ2N BIBAIA2 lidit. Car. Annlbal Fabroti. Paris. 1647. Tom. i. Lib. x. I'it. iv. De restitutions minonim. \1) TertuUian. de baptismo. 19 14TS OF INFANT BAPTISM. and fixed the expiration of infancy at eighteen, twenty, or twenty-five years of age, during which period, differ- ent in different governments, minors were called infants, little infants, infantuli, and so on (2). Hence in all these states, laws for the maintenance of infants of twelve years of age, the nullity of the marriage of an infant except on certain occasions ; the alienation of property by an infant : the punishment of an infant for killing a man ; and so on. Among the Lombards, an infant in time of scarcity might, if he were in danger of perishing for want, alienate his property : and he might if in dan- ger of death alienate to endow the church : but his do- ing so did not make him of age, and he could not alien- ate to the king on any pretence whatever, nor could the king give what they called a thinx, a thingatio^ a laiine- chiiiU^ quid pro quo (3). A Lombard infancy expired at eighteen by a law of king Liutprand. In those times infant baptism was an affair of the utmost consequence, on account of its connexion with the person and property of the infant, and it was disputed accordingly between the Trinitarian Roman Catholicks, and the Unitarian Goths. Ecclesiastical laws respecting infants, that is, minors, are extremely numerous, and among other things con- cern the catechizing of them, and in express terms en- join the instruction of them previous to baptism, and the administration of baptism by immersion (4). Father Martene, one of the most indefatigable collec- tors of monastical antiquities, hath comprised in a nar- row compass from a variety of authentick monuments of Italy, Germany, England, and France, the laws by which infant monks were governed. The code was called the discipline of the infants^ or the discipline of the boys, the harnes^ the catechislings : in the choir, in the cloister, in the refectory or eating-room, in the (2) Frld. Lindenbrogli Codex legum antiquar. in quo continentur leges Wisi^othorum, edict. The odor id regis, Lex Burgundior. Lex Salica, Lex At- aman, i^c. Francofurt. 1613. Longobardor. Leg. Liutprandi L. Ixiv. Be tetate infantum. , „...,. ^ ,. (3) Muratorii Antiq. Itat. Tom. v. Notx tn leges Pippini, Lmtprandi, &c. De estate. . ~ (4) Ordo Roman. Be Sabbato Sancto Qiialiter catechizantur tntantet - - . Interim autem diim lectiones leguntur, presbyteri catechizent infantes et prsparent ad baptizandum Dioet banc orationem ad catechizandos infantes Deinde pontifex baptizet unum de ipsis infantibtts Ibi baptizentur jftorva//, &c. OF INFANT BAPTISM. 147 kitchen and scullery, in the dormitory or sleeping. room, in the infirmary, in the lavatory laundry or washing- room, and every where else. Each article is adjusted with the utmost precision, as lessons, hymns, and pro- cessions, the shaving of their crowns, the correction with the rod, and some other articles too indelicate to be mentioned (5). The whole proves beyond all con- tradiction that the term infancy signified nonage in general. The same language prevails in all modern laws. Hence the late learned Judge Blackstone says, *' Infan- cy is nonage, which is a defect of the understanding. Infants under the age of discretion ought not to be pun- ished by any criminal prosecution whatever. What the age of discretion is, in various nations, is matter of some variety (6)." In this country twenty-one is gen- erally understood to be the period of minority, but in France twenty -five is the usual term fixed for the expira- tion of infancy, which however admits of exceptions (7). Such being the language of manuscripts, books, in- scriptions, and laws, it may not be improper to remark the general conformity of the popular style to the legal sense of the word, though nothing can be more vague than the popular use of all the words that belong to the subject, nor can any thing less conclusive be imagined than arguments derived from single vague equivocal terms. Child. Established rituals introduce the baptism of babes with the words of Mark. They brought young Children to Christ (8). Others quote, in affirmation of the same practice, a passage in Acts. The promise is to you and to your children (9). Both are single words in a book, which uses the term for posterity^ without the least regard to the age of any one, as children of Israel Children of Benjamin Children of prom- ise - - - - Children of men Children of God Children of light, and so on (I). In this book one of at (5) Edm. Martene De Antiq. Monachorum ridbus Tom. i. Lvgd. 169Q, Prcefat. Lib. v. Cap. v. De puerorum oblatione et disciplina. (6) Commentaries on the Laivs of England. Book iv. Chap. ii. (7) Hint du Droit pub. ecclesiast. Francois. Tom i. (8) Mark x. 13. (9) Act.s ii. 38, 30. (I) Israel, Exod. xii. 37. Benjamin, Num. i. 36 Tromise, Rom. ix. 8. - - - = Men, Gen. xi. 5 God, Matl. v. 9. Lig'ht, Luke xvi. 18. 148 or INFANT BAPTISM. least sixteen years of age is called a child^ and another of thirty a child, a little one (2). The word child is of Cehick original, and it exacdy answers to the general idea of offspring, descendants, or posterity, but can by no means be understood of any precise age. " Child is from ac-hil-id, he is from our race or our offspring (3)." Before the reformation, in the year fifteen hundred sixteen, there was a folio book jjublished, entitled NoDa legenda Anglic, printed by Wynkyn de Worde at the signe of the Sun in Fleet- street, London (4). It contains the histories of the lives and miracles of British saints, or of saints whose lives were connected with Tritish story, alphabetically disposed, beginning with the life of Saint Adrian Abbot at Canterbury, and ending with that of Bishop Wulstan. The life of King Edgar came to hand too late to be in- serted in its place, and it is subjoined to that of Wulstan. This book, which is a complete legend of British saints, is a fair specimen of all writings of this kind, and it exhibits variety of proof of the vague and indeterminate use of the words under examination. In the life of Adrian, school boys are called /jwm .• par'vuli : Saint Hugh, a child of about eight years of age, is called puer : and Bede is called puer, when he was taken into the monastery at seven years of age, and yet the next stage of his life is called his infancy, A clergion is a young clerk : a young student. Strictly speaking, a child was infant till seven, and pi/er till fourteen : but the order is not preserved, and the whole minority is called infancy, childhood. Such is in general the vague language of ecclesiastical writers : but when they fix the sense of the terms by re-, porting circumstances, the narration is in disfavour of the baptism of babes. Near the close of the sixth century a monk named Junian founded an abbey of Benedictines at Maire L' Evescaut in France, and of course was Abbot of the house. One day as he was at prayer, in a time of great scarcity, a poor woman, who was pregnant, came to ask relief. Junian supplied her wants, and in- (2) Joseph. Gen. xxxvii. oO. Benjamin, xliv. 20, (3) R Jones, Esq. The Origin of Language and Nations After the method of an English, Celtick, Greek and Latin-English Lexicon. Lonjipp. 1764. (4) Noua Legeda Anglic, V OP INFANT BAPTISM. 149 formed lier that she was with child of a son, and that if she would take care of him, and bring him to the monastery- after he was grown up, he would baptize him, and make him a scholar, and appoint him his successor. The woman did as she was directed, and when the child arrived at boy's estate, that is, seven years of age, she carried him to the monastery, v^ here Junian bap- tized him with his own hands, became his godfather, trained him up in monastical science, and in the end the youth was ordained a priest, and succeeded to the Abbacy- Such were the children of the middle ages who received baptism : but such as these were not babes, although they are called in a vague sense infants. In this style it would be easy to shew, it was the per- petual custom of this country to express the subject in quest ; and as there was no daiiger, so there is no ex- ample of a mistake, except in the case of baptism. In the reign of Henry III. a statute made at Merton, says, "Whatsoever layman shall be convicted of with- holding any child led away or married, he shall yield to the loser the value of the marriage. And for the offence his body shall be taken and imprisoned until he hath recompensed the loser, if the chdd be married. This must be done of an heir within the age of fourteen years. And touching an heir being fourteen years old or above, until his full age, if he marry without license of his lord to defraud him of the marriage, and his lord offer him reasonable and convenient marriage without disparagement, dien his lord shall hold his land beyond the term of his age, that is to say, of one and twenty years (5)." Again, in a statute of Henry VII. which regulates the wages of artificers, labourers, and servants, it is enacted : that A chUde of the age of xiiii yere vi s. vesture pryce iii s. with mete and drynke. Here are English chUdren, the poor at service earning meat, drink, three shillings a year for clothes, and six shillings for wages : and the rich married, and disputing with their guardians. (5) Stat. An. 1235. Hen. Iii. xx. - - - Hen. VII. xi. Cap. xxiii. See in the statutes the "words Enfant age iy/ant ' ■ nonage- ddnsage-^ parol, demur— —cor on— ^aliem, isf'ci 150 OF INFANT BAPTISM. The free-school at Stamford in the county of Lincoln, was founded by William Radcliffe, Esqr. and the act of parliament for carrying into execution the will of the said founder, made in the reign of Edward VI. begins thus, *' Forasmuch as it is a right godly and charitable deed to educate and bring up cliildren and youth as well in learning as also in civil manners ; and a great num- ber of persons having children be not able to keep the same to school, therefore William Radcliffe, of the town of Stamford, of his godly zeal and good mind, intend- ing to found and erect within the same town, one school wherein such poor young children and infants be freely taught in learning and manners without taking any salary or reward of the parents of such poor schol- ars (6)." Infant baptism like infant tuition implied something more than mere animal life. About eight hundred years ago iElfric wrote a gram- mar and a glossary for the use of lun^ cil*:>um young children (7). The learned editor, who first published it, rendered the words with the utmost propriety pueros^ and the book was evidently intended for school -boys : and the words of Chaucer, just now quoted, are to be understood of such a grammar-school. There is an English catechism printed by Edward Whitechurch in 1550, which quotes the famous passage in Mark in the title page, in its true sense. " A short cathechisme. A briefe and godly bringinge up o{ youths in the knowlege and comaundementes of God in fayth, prayer and other articles, necessary to be knowen of all those that will be partakers of the kingdom of Jesus Christ : set forth in maner of a Dialooue. Marc x. Let the chyldren come vnto me, and forbidde them not, for vnto suche belongeth the kyngdom of God." That incomparable picture of ancient men and man- ners, the Northumberland household book, represents in miniature various classes of the world of ancient children. The minors of the most noble Percy fomily are called childre, chdder^ and chillder. There were childeryn in offices in the household : as six childryn of the chapel a childe to attend in the niircy, nursery (6) W. Harrod's AnUqulties of Stamford. Vol. ii. Chap. iv. — Hospitfxls —'Schools — Callises — Stamford 1/85. (7) Gul. Somneri ^Ifrici Gram, una cum JElfriei Glosanio-. Pr^fnt, or INFANT BAPTISM. 151? ^ - - - achilde of the wairdrobe — -a childe of the hak' hoiis a childe of the squyllery - — and a childe of chariote - --'-^^^^^ of his lordbhip's brothers had his chapleyn or his clerk, his childe^ and his horskepar The chambrelayn had his chapleyn, his clerk, two yo- men, a childe of his chambre, and his horskepar — The steward had his clerk, his childe^ and his horskepar : and so on (8). Such as these are the tiney foot pages of ancient song. Mr. Warton says, " Some criticks may be inclined to deduce the practice of our plays being acted by the choir boys of St. Paul's church, and the chapel royal, which continued till Cromwell's usurpation, irom the entertainments exhibited by boys on the festival of the hoy-bishop (9). Annually, either on the day of St. Ni- cholas, Dec. 6, or on that of the Holy Innocents, Dec. 28, in all the collegiate churches of France and England, the festival of the boy -bishop was celebrated. One of the children of the choir was completely apparel- led in the episcopal vestments, with a mitre and a cros- ier, bore the title and the state of a bishop, and exacted canonical obedience from his fellows who were dressed like priests." The jittle prelate was called the barne- bishop, the cAjy/^^c-bishop, bishop of the boys^ bishop of the choristers, bishop of the little ones{\). He and his chapter performed divine offices in the cathedral in imi-. tation of the bishop and his prebendaries. After dinner ■they acted plays called miracles, moraliries, interludes, or farces, in different parts of the town. In one of these, which was composed by Bale, afterward bishop of Os- sory, both the words child and baptism are used prop- erly. God the Father is represented as sending John to baptize : and John gives his modest answer, which is evidently taken from the history of Jeremiah. These are the words : (8) Pages 42 83 43 86, &c. (9) Wartons History of English Poetry. Vol. i. Sect. vi. (1) Episcopus puerorum Episcopus chorisUmm - - - - Episcopu* fiarvulorum. Dugd. Hist. S. Paul. 152 or INFANT BAPTISM. " Pater coeiestis»--]g)?eacf)e to tf}e pcopIe, retjufe'^ ^nge tfteir negligence Doope tfjem in toater, t|)e|? knotoleng^nge tfieir ofence HnD fa^ unto tftem, tf)e liing= UomofcFotsDotl) turn. Johannes Baptista. Hnmete JLorD 1 am, Ctuiai puer ego mim (2)» Sir John Hawkins, who in his celebrated history of the science and practice of rnusick, hath omitted no- thing that could elucidate his subject, or exhibit views of ancient men and manners, hath inserted a particular account of the i?ifa?it bishops from which it appears, that the annual festival of electing a child bishop from among the choristers, according to the usage of the church of Sarum, was in honour of St. Nicholas (3). Nicholas was remarkable in his infancy for his piety, and for knowing the scriptures, as Timothy did in his child- hood. He was afterwards bishop of Myra in Lycia, and was present in the council of Nice, where it is said, he gave Arius a box on the ear. In time he became the patron of young scholars. By the statutes of St. Paul's church school, founded by Dean Colet, it is re- quired that the children there educated " shall every Childermas day, come to Paulis churche, and hear the chyldc-bishop sermon, and after be at the hygh-masse, and each of them offer a i. d. to the childe-byshop^ and with them the maisters and surveiors of the schole." The infant-bishop bore the name, dressed in the habits and ornaments, and maintained the state of a bishop, as the other choristers did that of his prebendaries, from the anniversary of Saint Nicholas, being the sixth day of December, until Innocent's day, as it is called, the twenty-eighth day of the same month. The infant-pre- late had an episcopal throne in the cathedral, and he and his prebendaries performed divine offices, and went in procession, guarded from all interruption by express statutes, which forbade all persons whatsoever, under pain of the greater excommunication, to interrupt them. (2) Collection of old plays. A tragedye or enterlude. Compyled by Johan Bale, 1538. (3) Vol. ii. Book i. Chap, i - • . ■ Bayle, Life of John Columna, or Colonna. Marg, 15. N. B, OF INFANT BAPTISM. 153 It appears also, that this infant bishop did, to a certain limit, receive to his own use, rents, capons, and other emoluments of the church." It should seem, too, that in certain cases the infant bishop presented to prefer- ments vacated in his month : for " a chorister-bishop in the church of Cambray disposed of a prebend, which fell void in the month or year of his episcopate, in fli- vour of his master." In the household-book of Henry Algernon Percy, Earl of Northumberland, which was compiled so lately as fifteen hundred and twelve, are the following entries : " Item, my lord usith and ac- customyth yerely, when his lordship is at home, to yef unto the banie- bishop of Ee\erlay, when he comith to my lord in Christmas hallydayes, when my lord keepeth his hous at Lekynfield, xx s. Item, my lord useth and accustomyth to gif yearly, when his lordship is at home, to the banie-bishop of Yorke, when he comes over to my lord in Christy nmasse hallydayes, as he is accus- tomed yearly, XX s." In case the little bishop died within the mondi, his exequies were solemnized with great pomp, and he was interred, like other bishops, "with all his ornaments. The memory of this custom is preserved, not only in the ritual books of the cathedral church of Salisbury, but by a monument in the same church, with the sepulchral effigies of a chorister-bish- op, supposed to have died in the exercise of this pontif- ical of^ce, and to have been interred with the solemni- ties above mentioned. The custom of instituting an anniversary boy-bishop was not peculiar to^the cathedral of Salisbury, or to this kingdom : it was observed at Canterbury, St. Paul's, Colchester, Westminster, Eton, York, Beverly, and all the churches that had cathedral service, as well as at Antwerp, Tullus, Cambray. These are nearly the words of that judicious antiquary, Mr. Gough, who quotes his authorities (4). Infant. The word ijifa7it is Gothick, and of wider extent than the former. Fa?it, one under die care of another, from affano I take care (5). Thus servants are called the masters infants. Foot soldiers are the infantry tinder the command of general officers. The children 20 (4) British Topography. Vol. ii. Wiltshire, p, 362. ^5) J. Loccenil Leg. Goth, cum mt^ 154 OF INfANT BAPTISM. of the house of Spain are called infants. In the Gothick laws a man's biflints were disqualified for sitting as jurymen in his law suits, for being his tenants they would be tempted to be partial. So many instances have already been given of the vague meaning of this word that it seems unnecessary to add any more (6). Babe. Even the word babe is too indeterminate to be quoted on this subject, as it is not confined to a cer- tain age. There was near two hundred years ago a singular old man at Peterborough in Northamptonshire, whose mem- ory is yet preserved by a portrait at the west end of the cathedral. His name was Scarlet. He was sexton of the church, and, as he lived to the great age of ninety- eight, he had dug the graves of the househr.lders twice over, and had interred two queens, Catharine, whom Henry VUI. divorced, and Mary, Queen of Scots. The lines under his picture say, he was a man of great size and sturdy in proportion, and, as his vibage was grim, and his voice loud and rough, he was known by the name of Old Scarlet Scarebabe. Second to none for slrength and sturdy limm, A Scarebabe migtiJty voice with visage grim (7). JBabe here must mean a child capable of making obser- vations. What then is the baptism of children, bearnes, infants, babes of former times ? Nothing at all. The words singly crumble all away in the hands of an investigator : they may signify a new-born babe, or a litde boy of sev- en, or a great boy of fourteen years of age, or a young man turned of twenty. Circumstances must determine. The truth is, minor baptism began with young gentle- men under age at the Alexandrian academy, and in after times gradually descended to boys of seven years of age, where it stood many centuries, and at length it settled on babes of a few days old ; but this is only to be under- stood of Catholick hierarchies, for it docs not appear that those Christians, whom the domineering parties called hereticks, made any such alterations in baptism, (6) F. Linflenbrogii Cod. leg. antlq. -•Wsr'gotk-- Theodor - - Burgund - • Ataman - - Ripuar - - Sax, ijfc. Francofurt 1613. (7) The Antiquarian Repertory^ 2d Edit. Vol. i. p. 52. London, 1780, Obiit 1594. iEtat 98. OF INFANT BAPTISM. 155 It should not pass unobserved that if the words above mentioned, particularly mfant, be understood of a mi/zor, it will remove a great many difficulties in ecclesiastical history. One example shall suffice. In the year three hundred and seventy-four the church of Milan assembled to elect a bishop instead of Auxentius lately deceased. They were divided into two violent parties, the one Aria'n, as the last bishop had been, the other Trinitarian, and each aiming to bring in a bishop of their own sen- timents. Disputes ran^ so high that the city was in an uproar ; and Ambrose the governor, who was only a catechumen, and therefore had no vote, went thither to keep the peace. The crowd was so great he could scarcely get in : but the news of his being come ran about, and in a little time silence was ordered, and the governor stood up to speak. He addressed the assembly in a manner so calm, and with so much prudence and moderation recommended peace and freedom of election, that, to his great surprise, the whole assembly shouted. Let Ambrose be bishop, Let Ambrose be bi hop ! and he found himself unanimously elected. Thus Protes- tants relate the affair : but the people of Milan, who should know best, say, that though their archives confirm all this, yet they add one circumstance which is omitted in this account (ij). There it is recorded, that the first person, who exclaimed, let Ambrose be bishop, was an infant, and the assembly only repeated the exclamation. •Catholicks give this as a miracle ; some Protestants laugh at it as a forgery : but probably it is neither a miracle nor a forgery, but a true historical flict, and to be under- stood of a minor. When such a fact as this is published under the direction, and with the imprimatur of the car- dinal archbishop, the office of the inquisition, the senate of the city, and the college of St. Ambrose, it is rash to tax the author with forgery (9). The licensers for the press pledge their honour for the truth of the record in the archives, of which the history is a copy : but the (8) Jos. Ripamontii e collegio Ambrosiano Hist. Eccl. Mediol. Mediolani. 1617. pag. 154. (9) Federicus Borromeus CarcUtialis • - decreto nobis stipondio datisque Jegibu.s, Ijfc. Imprimatur. BARioi>Apro reverendiss. inquis. 'Bossius pro illust. D. Card. Archiep. Saccus pro excellent. Senatu. A. RuscA Coll. Ambros. Prsi". suo etcoUegatum nomine. 150 OP INFANT BAPTISM. pretence of a miracle is a mere opinion of the publisher, and the holy office would not tax an examiner with her- esy for denying that it was a miracle, because the church hath not declared that an article of faith. Let it not seem strange that such a fact should be thought worthy of a record. Here was a violently contested election. The publick safety was at stake. The governor acted wisely to go to the spot to prevent an insurrection. He had no authority over the consciences of the people as a magis- trate. He had no vote as a citizen, for it was not a civil affair. He had no vote as a Christian, because though his family v^ere all Christians, and had given great ex- amples of piety, and though he himself was a Christian, yet he had not been baptized, and was not a member of the church. He was, some say, thirty-four, others for- ty-one years of age, and all the authority he had was what his prudent reasoning as a magistrate gave him. Here then, it should seem, was an unavoidable division taking place, which no power could prevent. It is not supposable any young infants were there ; but it is very credible, that a minor was a member, and had a vote at the election of a pastor. Here then lay the wonder, that none -of the elder members or officers should think to nominate Ambrose, and yet that a nomination made by a minor, who in civil offices could neither elect nor be elected, should instantly appear so wise and judicious tliat all parties at once saw the propriety of it, and their unanimity recovered order, and prevented all bad conse- quences. Ambrose was soon after baptized, and set- tled bishop of the church (l). There are other similar tales in other histories, which probably owe their being to some true facts, and their miraculousness to a mis- take occasioned by the equivocalness of the terms in which they were recorded. Thus infants are said to have nominated kings (2), erected churches (3), com- posed hymns (4), and suffered martyrdom (5). A monk half asleep, overlooking an old church register with a fancy dreaming of mysteries and miracles, on (1) S. Ambi-os. Vit. (2) Diiai-dii Nonii in Teix libel. Censura. xliv, apud scriptor. JRet;. Mispan. Tom. ii. Franc. 1603. (3) Greg. Turon. Ue Glor. Mart. Cap. Ix. (4) Niceph. Lib. xiv. Cap. 46 Joan. Damas. de Trisagio coin. (5) Martyfol, Rom. Jul. xiii. Infantuli confessores, isfc. passim^- " Victoris Fitens. Hist. Vand. pers. OP EXTRAORDINARY CHILDREN. 157 finding such simple vague accounts, might very soon confuse facts by composing declamatory legends and uttering them for true histories. That this hath been Jrequently done is beyond all doubt. CHAP. XX. OF EXTRAORDINARY CHILDREN. A FRENCH writer truly remarks, that the capability of children is but little understood : they are puerile be- cause their education is puerile. *' I saw, adds he, a lit- tle child in the country, who liad been under the tuition of the parish priest, at seven years of age promiscuously open the Greek New Testament, and I heard him ex- plain it with more facility than children in general read it either in Latin or French. 1 heard two other infants, brother and sister, the one 9 years of age, the other 11 or 12, speak Greek and Latin perfectly well, and dis- pute in logick in both languages (i)." A little super- stition, of which there are numberless curious instances, added to such cases, handed baptism downward from minors to babes. A very few examples may serve to give a sketch of this subject, and a few monumentar in- scriptions follow. [The inscription is in abbreviated Latin. — The following is a correct translation. £d.] This inscrifition informs the reader, that Joanna Bafiiista De. Perusc/iis, daughter of Mexander Dc Pcruschis avd Beatrix Garzei, mhen she was only six months old, most sweetly and freely fironounced the name of Jesus every daij before she sucked the breast, and most devoutly adored the images of the saints : but, after she had excited great ex/iectancies of her eminent sanctity, she fed to that Jesus whom she had used to invoke^ being only one year eight months and ten days old. It is not worth while to inquire whether the modern dolls of little girls be the successors of the puppet saints of young ladies of former ages : but it may not be im- proper to observe, that when, in any church, the mere uttering of certain words goes for proof of an inward (1) M. De Vigneul-Marville* Melanges d'historie et d\t litterature. 4 Paris, irOl. Tom. i. p. 150. 158 OF EXTRAORDINARY CHILDREN. Operation of the Holy Ghost, rational religion is discard- ed, enthusiasm hath succeeded to its place, and inspired children are fit subjects of baptism. In such a case religion is brought down very low indeed, and churches are duly prepared for the admission of these odd prop- ositions - - - - extraordinary invisible influence is a title to baptism baptism communicates grace — infants are as capable of baptismal grace as men, yea, they are more so, because they have nothing but original de- pravity to oppose against the omnipotence of grace, but men have that and actual sin beside. Pity that Protestants ever adopted such ideas ! ^ It must appear strange at first sight, that on the monumental inscriptions of a church which held the doctrine of original sin, innocence is ascribed to infants. A little observation solves the difficulty. The church held, that children were born in sin, guilty of Adam's transgression : but that baptism restored them to inno- cence. It is further observable, that the innocence supposed to be acquired at baptism was attributed to the influence of the Holy Ghost, and this was represented by a dove. When this influence was bestowed on a babe, it was called miraculous, and it is very credible that in the style of those writers inira innocentia, miraculous inno- cence signified on tombs extraordinary baptism. Such inscriptions were frequently ornamented with doves. The following is one of this kind. MIRAE INNOCENTIAE ANIMA DVLCIS EMILIANVS QVI VIXIT ANNO VNO MENS. VII. D.XVIII DORMIT IN PACE Columba cum ramo. Innocens and innocentia in inscriptions are sometimes proper names : and the departed spirit of a person w ho had been restored to innocence by baptism is often called the innocent or the holy spirit, or the holy ghost of such a person, the inscription being intended to in- form the reader that the deceased, although born in sin, had been baptized for the remission of sin, and had ac- quired innocence by baptism. This is called in the ca- aon law a distinction, and it is a distinction absolutely OF BAPTISM IN AFRICA, &C. 159 necessary to the history of catholick bapUism, for in the church of Romc.it is expressly declared by law, that in- nocence is fiot natural but acvjuired, and acquired by baptism. Had it been true, that all these infants had been sanctified from the womb, it v\ould not have tollowed. that they ought to have been baptized ; for baptism is neither intended to wash away sin, nor to signify that it hath been put away by ary other means, but it is a mere form of putting on the profession of Christianity : as such it is prc^per, significant, and beautiful ; but in every other \ieu ii either implies the knowledge of the heart, or a moral effect produced by a mechanical cause, which would be preposterous. Happy to be content with the simplicity of Revelation ! Baptism is for the use of the living, not for the benefit of the dying or the dead. CHAP. XXL OF BAPTISM IN AFRICA IN THE TIME OF TERTULLIAN. FEW writers have been so often quoted in the con- troversy concerning infant baptism as Tertullian, and yet the subject is not so much as mentioned by this father. They are boys and not babes, of whose bap- tism he writes. This looks as if a subject might be greatly disputed without being much studied ; however^ such oversights render it necessary thoroughly to ex- amine the whole of the business as far as it, regards Tertullian of Africa. Christianity coming out of Africa into the West re- sembles old Jacob the shepherd tottering into the pres- ence of King Pharaoh, and may very properly adopt his language, and say, Feix) and evil have the days of my pilgrimage been. In the East ai:d in the West it took 5cmc cei turies to enervate the religion of Jesus, to wear out the spirit of it, and to reduce it to a skeleton, or rather to turn it into an engine of absolute dominion : but the Africans went on more rapidly, and in a very short period gave the world a system for a gospel, of which most readers of the four' evangelists had never Qjitertained a thought, and gave it as tyrants give orders 160 OF BAPTISM IN AFRICA IN to their slaves. As the intelligence of a corporation, like that of an individual, is to be appreciated by its speculative productions, it should seem easy to deter- mine the worth of the speculations of Africa. No, it is not. Christians are extremely divided in opinion about the doctrine of this church. Some consider their dis- putes about grace and freewill, original sin and the di- vine decrees, in the most solemn light, and think salva- tion depends not only on investigating these subjects, but on determining concerning them precisely as they did. Others behold them with perfect indifference, and, instead of disputing these points, repeat a tale of a Jesuit missionary, the substance of which is this(l). The bigots among the Persiai^s and the Turks, both Mohammedans, have a mortal hatred of each other. Both agree, as the Koran directs, that men ought to purify themselves by washing their hands before they pray, and it is clear to both, that they ought to wash to the elbow : but the manner of doing this is the cause of the abhorrence just mentioned. The Turk puts his hand into the water, and taking up some in his palm, holds up his hand, and lets it run uj) the arm to the el- bow. The Persian takes water into the palm of one hand, carries it up to his contrary elbow, and lets it run down his arm, and off his fingers ends. In this dis- pute, whether water should run up to the elbow or down to the elbow, Almighty God takes a side, and will as certainly destroy one party as ever he created both. It is much easier to determine the moral charac- ter of this church. When in the eleventh century there were only five poor bishops in all Africa, they held a Council to determine which of two pretenders was Lord Primate (2). Two and two, and a casting vote. What a general council ! Some Christians consider this as a glorious efibrt of sublime piety to preserve the imity of the spirit in the bond of peace. Others say, it proves nothing, except that love of dominion was the last disposition that died in the heart of an African pre- late (3). Probably, had a certain person been there, he would have decided the matter by setting a little child <1) Father April's Travels into Tartary. B. i. (2) Leonis Papx ix. Epist. iii. Ad Thomam Ep'isc. African. (T) Jaq. Basnage Hist. Eccles. Tom. i. Liv. iv. Cap. viii. THE TIME OF TERTULLIAN. 161 in the midst, and by saying, Except ye become humble as this little child^ ye may exercise dominion, but ye shall not' enter into the kingdom oj heaiien (4). Having never heard of this, or never attended to it, they appeal- ed to the pope, and he settled the dispute by informing them, that there was but one Lord Primate, and that was himself. By Africa in ecclesiastical history is not to be under- stood that immense tract, which geographers describe under this name : but that part only, which extended from the Atlantick ocean to Cyrene, a border lying all along the coast of the Mediterranean sea, from the straits of Gibralter, upward (5). The whole continent was peopled originally by the descendants of Ham, that son of Noah, on whose posterity the patriarch, foreseeing that a family likeness would descend from father to son, and that the meanness of their minds and the profligacy of their manners would produce natural effects, denounced the curse of servitude (6). This hath been their general condition under the descendants of both Shem and Japheth. In a very early age the Phoenicians settled colonies on this coast, and built Utica and Carthage, one of the finest situations in ihe world for trade (7). Trade produced population, pop- ulation wealth, wealth magnificence, and magnificence ambition of dominion over petty surrounding king- doms. Hence followed appeals to foreign states, alli- ances, events that made a breach of faith : then came as natural effects the dreadful Punick wars, and in the end the total destruction of Carthage, and the reduction of the whole coast to a Roman province, where solitary garrisons to keep slaves in awe took place of manufactoi' ries and warehouses, population and plenty, and all the blessings of trade. When Hannibal was obliged to yield to the superior power of Rome, he exclaimed, " I know the fate of Carthage." Fate was always in Africa an apology for misconduct. (4) Matt, xviii. i, &g. (5) Emanuel a Schelstrate Ecclesia Africana. Paris. 1679. Diss. i. Gap. iil. (6) Bocharti Opera, curis Leusdeo et Villemandy Lugd. 1712. (7) Livii Kfit. * ,n ngtis Joan Doujatii • - innmm Delfh. Paris. 1679. 21 \62 OF BAPTISM IN AFRICA IN To begin from the Atlantick, the first part is Maurita- nia, which was divided into three provinces : Tingitana, so called from the city Tingis, now Tangier : Csesari- ensis, so named from the city Caesarea where King Ju- ba anciently resided : and Sitifensis from Sitifi the capital. Next lay Numidia, and then Africa properly so called, the dominions of the Carthaginians- When the Romans had conquered Carthage, they divided this district into two provinces ; that in which Carthage was, they called Proconsular, the other Byzacena from the city Byzacia (8). Beyond this lay the Tripolitan pro- vince, which reached as far as the confines of Cyrene, The whole is generally now called the coast of Barbary. When Jesus was upon earth, this country was inhabited by three sorts of people : the ancient Mauritanians and Numidians : the descendants of Phoenician colonists : and the Roman provincials. Loss of liberty is always attended with dejection of spirit, and this generates in- dolence, ignorance, and brutality. When foreigners are quartered upon natives, it is natural for each na- tive to say, For whom do I labour and deprive my soul of rest ? It was easy for Scipio and Caesar to hire pane- gyrists with the spoils of Britain and Africa. By what means, or at what time the gospel was first taught in Africa nobody knows (9). The Roman Cath- olicks, as usual, contend, that some saint was sent thither by the bishop of Rome : but this is said, as all such fables are, for the sake of an inference, that is, that Af- rica was dependent on Rome, and ought to be subject to its jurisdiction. Whoever casts his eye on the maps will think it not improbable that it made its way thither through Eg}'pt (1) ; yet nothing is more likely than that it should go from Rome along with some provincials. However it were, no African churches appear in history till the close of the second century. The obscurity of the history of almost all christian churches affords a high degree of probability, that the first disciples of Je- sus were poor plain men, beneath the notice of the mag- istrate and the historian : that they taught a very simple (8) Sexti Rufi Notitia imperii Concil Carthag. vi. An. 419. Guil, Beveregii Synodicon Oxon. 1672. (9) Basnage Higt ut sup - - • • Carthag. CoUat. (1) Guliel. Sanson Geograph. Patriarchnlis apud'Lzhh&i. concil. Tom. xvu • - . Nicephori Hist. Lib. ii. Cap. iv. • - • Schelstrate ttt sup. Diss. i. Cap. 2^ THE TIME OF TERTULLIAN. 163 gospel : that their worship was a very plain affair : that their converts were chiefly of the lower sort of people : and that their persons were not distinguished by any habits different from those of their neighbours, or by any thing except their piety and virtue. Authentick histories of some churches give this probable conjecture a sort of demonstration in regard to others of which there are no accounts. How wise the institution : He shall not lift up his Doice^ tior cry in the streets ! Although this church continued only about eight hun- dred years, yet the history of it ought to be divided into five periods. The first begins with the appearance of the first Christians, and ends with the council of Nice : a period of about one hundred and thirteen years. Dur- ing this time Christianity shifted for itself in the hands of the people, and Christians were dissidents : but no party was established. The second period contains about one hundred years from the council of Nice to the irruption of the Vandals. This term exhibits establish- ment, and persecution. The third is the next hundred years, the time of the duration of the kingdom of the Vandals : the time of the triumph of Arianism. The fourth period includes about one hundred and fifty years from the ruin of the Vandal kingdom to the irruption of the Saracens. In this period the condition of the Afri- can church resembled that of the Greek church. The last period extends from the irruption of the Saracens to the disappearance of Catholicks, and contains about three hundred years. A question, it may be hoped, not more curious than wise, naturally enough ocpurs here. On supposition it had been the duty of a christian to profess the religion of the civil magistrate : and on sup- position one Carthaginian Christian, suppose Tertullian, had lived through all these periods and discharged his duty, of what religion would Tertullian have been ? Let it not pass unnoticed that great numbers did live in a part of two periods. The first man that appears in this church is Tertullian, one of the most singular characters in history, and the first Latin father (i2). His father was a centurian under the proconsul. He was born at Carthage, and brought (2) Quinti Septimii Florcntis TertuUiani. Opera, ex. edit. Nicolai Rigal- tii. Parisiis. 1664 - - Du Pin. Bibliot des Juteurs Eccles. Tertullien. Siec. it. 164 or BAPTISM IN AFRICA IN up a lawyer. He became a Christian and joined the church at Carthage in the close of the second century. The church elected him an elder, and he wrote several books, the chief of which is his apology for Christianity, which is an admirable work full of information. He was a man of allowed virtue, and consideryble learning ; but his judgment was not equal to his zeal, and he fell into the snare, too common to primitive Christians, of writing books to explain the whole of a religion which he did but half understand. In the latter part of his life he removed his communion, and joined the people called Montanists, in ck fence of whom he wrote more books to contradict what he had published before. Most Chris- tians condemn him as an apostate and a hereick : but many think, he proved the sincerity and goodness of his h( art by following his own convictions, and regarding nobody. He lived to extreme old age : but as he died heterodox, nobody knows when or where, or how he finished his course. This is the first writer who mentions the baptism of children, and he dissuades from it : but the question is whether he means natural infants, or infants in law (3). It is not incredible that this book has been garbled and interpolated : it is certain one other book is attributed to him in which Sabellius is mentioned, though TertuUian died before Sabellius was born (4). The mode is not in dispute, for it is clear the Roman Africans administered baptism by dipping three times in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost (5). Trine immersion to represent the three days burial of Jesus Christ, or faith in the Trinity, is of uncer- tain origin : but the practice was universal among Chris- tians of the Catholick kind; and some who did not believe the Trinity performed baptism in the same manner. It is therefore the subject, whether a natural infant or a minor that rises to view. The introduction of infants into the christian church is such a singular innovation that it hath (3) De Bapiismo advers ^intil. Liber. (4) Jbr Scidteti Analysis Script Tertull. De P RolUn's Moman Mimry. Vol, viii. Third Punic luar. Sect, iii. I IN THE TIME OF CYPRIAN. 181 This ferocity they carried into their religion. When Agathocles was upon the point of besieging Carthage, the inhabitants imputed their misfortune to the anger of Saturn, because instead of children of the first quality, which they used to sacrifice to him, they had fraudulent. ly substituted the children of slaves and strangers ia their stead (7). To make amends for this pretended crime, they sacrificed two hundred children of the best families of Carthage to that god ; besides which, more than three hundred citizens offered themselves volunta- rily as victims. A brazen statue of Saturn was set up, his two arms, brought almost together, were extended downward over a fierce fire. The mothers kissed and decoyed their children into mirth lest the god should be offended with the ungracefulness of his worshippers. The priests were habited in scarlet, and the victims in a bright purple vest ( ,). The infants were laid upon the arms of the statue, and rolled into the fire ; and a rough mubick drowned their shrieks lest mothers should hear and repent. Plutarch says, they who had no children, used to purchase those of the poor for this horrid purpose (9). So the citizens of Jerusalem pur- diased pigeons and lambs of the country people for sac- rifice in the temple. Historical scepticism is a virtue in a great many cases : but there is no room for it in this, for evidences both sacred and profane, put it beyond all reasonable doubt, that the Phoenicians, the Druids, the Gauls, the Carthaginians, and even the Greeks and the Romans, offered human sacrifices to their gods(l). The Greeks and Romans reformed the abuse ; ajid as the Romans subdued barbarous nations they obliged them to reform it. The first decree of senate that forbade human vic- tims was issued about ninety-seven years before Christ, when Cornelius Lentulus and Licinius Crassus were (7) RoUin Vol. iv. Sect. i. Justini Hist, Cap. x\i. Plutarch, De ger. Reip Schelstrate £ccl. Afric. Diss. i. Cap. i. Pescenius Festus apud Lactant. Histor. -- Ex Diodoro refert Caetius Rbodicinus. (8) TertuUian De TesUmon. animx Z>f Pail. Cap. iv. (9) De superstitione. (1) Levit. xviii. 21 - - xx. 2, 3. - - Deut. xviii. 10. - - 1 Kings xi. 5,7 - - 2 Kings xvii. 31. - - xxiii. 10 - - 2 Cliron. xxviii 3. - - Psal. cvi. 37, 38.- - Jer. xix. 5. - . Ezek. xvi. 20, &c. - - xxiii 37, &.c. Jacques Saurin Discoura sur lea eei»ted his condition, and besought him to marry, and reform his life. He pretended, that he was not a Pagan, that indeed he was not of his mother's church, but how- ever he was of one much better, he was of the Maniche- ans, a people so remarkable for love of virtue, that they called themselves Puritans. This did not content the old lady, who thought, let him be of what denomination he would, he was of that class which God had threaten- ed to judge. At length he gave out that as he was walking in a garden he heard a voice from heaven calling to liim and saying. Take up the epistles of Paul and read them. He obeyed the voice, opened the book, and found out what any Pagan could have told him without a revelation from heaven, that rioting and drunkenness, chambering and wantonness, were grievous crimes. He determined therefore to marry, and as a proof of his sincerity he put his name on the list of Catechumens. He fixed his eyes on a girl who would be marriageable two years hence. He sent his old mis- tress back to Carthage. He kept the child, and put him also into the Catechumen list, and while father and son were preparing for baptism, he took another mis- tress into keeping till the young lady should come of age. Mean time he wrote books in defence of that religion which he was about to embrace. He understood nei- ther Greek nor Hebrew ; however, he expounded both the Old Testament and the New. In the end he became intimate with Ambrose the bishop, set his heart on the ministry, renounced rhetorick for a better trade, laid aside the proposed marriage, turned off his mistress, vowed he would become a monk, and in company with his bastard son, then fifteen years of age, and his friend Alypius, was baptized by immersion in the baptistery at Milan by Ambrose, at Easter, in the year three hundred eighty-seven, and in the thirty-third year of his age (2). The Cistercians at Milan have preserved the (3) MURATORII Jnecdota Tom. i. Medial. 169/. Diss. xv. BRING IN THE BAPTISM OF BABES. 197 memory of this by a publick monumeDt (3). Soon after he became assist mt to Velerius bishop ol Hippo, in his own country, a-ici lastly his successor, and continued aiiuost half a century the light and glory of Africa. How thick that darkness must be v\ litre such a genius was taken for bunshine may be easily guessed. [Here follows an account of Austin's labors, his persecuting spirit and measures, and his contentions with the Arians, Pelagians, Manicheans, and Donatists ; the last of whom gave him the greatest trouble. Ed.'\ There were two African teachers of the name of Do- natus, the one bishop of Carthage, called for his learning and virtue Donatus the great, the other bishop of Casa Nigra. A violent dispute about the choice of a teacher, like the dispute of Henry VIII. with the Pope about his divorce, was the event in the chain of Divine Providence, that set these men a thinking for themselves. They found, as TertuUian had formerly, they were somehow incorporated into a very corrupt community. They dis- sented, and in a very few years there were in Africa four hundred congregations, all called Donatists (4). They did not then differ from those who called themselves Catholicks in doctrine, but their chief diflerence lay in their morals, which were pure and exemplary, and their discipline, which was exact, for they not only baptized converts from Paganism, but they rebaptized all on their own profession of faith, who came from the pretended Catholicks to join their churches. They did so, not for a reason of faith, but morals, for they thought immorality had unchurched the Catholicks, and sunk them into a mere worldly corporation. This dissent began forty years before Austin was born. The disputes between them and the Catholicks were at their height when Con- stantine came to the throne. The Catholicks, who had no idea of toleration, except in times of Paganism for themselves, tormented the Emperor to settle their differ- ences. He appointed commissaries to hear both sides, and he even condescended to hear them himself : but it was out of his power to reconcile them, and in the end (3) Ibid Pag. 174. (4) Hen. Norisii Cardlnalis opera. Verona: 1729 Gab. Albaspinxi Notx in Optati opera Fr. Balduini Dei-batio Hint. Afric. - - - Collat. Carthag. Papirii Mussonis et P. Pitlioei Gesta Collat. Carthag. in Catholicos et Bona*.- istat - - - Valesii Dissert, de Schismate Donatietarum in Hist. Euseb. 198 OF THE EFFORTS OF AUGUSTINE TO he yielded to the wicked advice of his bishops, and de- prived the Donatists of their places of worship, banished their teachers under pretence of sedition, and put some to death. There wat^ a set of fierce people in Africa, ■called Circnnncellians, men of no religion, and even of barbarous dispositions in uar, who thought the Donatists injured, and v\ho actually took up arms in their defence, and revenged the injustice of the Catholicks. Kvery thing threatened a civil war, and the Emperor very pru- dently followed the advice (S his governors in Africa, and abolished the laws against the Donatists, which had kindled up such a flame. Austin, long after, had the arrogance to censure the Emperor for this sound policy, and to blame this as an ignominious indulgence (5). Bis system of church government is the most gross and unpardonable insult on a crowned head that can be im- agined. According to that the liishop and Emperor are priest and curate. Constans ajid Gratian persecuted the Donatists with a cruelty, of which the very Catholicks complained, for Optatus an African bishop who wrote against them, ex- poses the injustice of liis party, while he pretends to make apologies for their severity. Julian restored the Donatists to their rights : but when Austin had been some time metamorphosed into a bishop, he set about the extirpation of them, and it was not his fault that there was one Donatist left to tell the barbarous tale. Finding that nobody regarded his books, or was deceived by his frauds called conferences, he formed cabals named coun- cils, procured penal edicts from the crown, and sewed in a long list of letters maxims of the genuine ancient Carthaginian kind. His pagan ancestors had attempted to appease the Deity by burning infants ; he improved their barbarous plans, and placed virtue in cursing and killing good men. What ! said he to one who was not savage enough for him, what authority do you want for coercion : Scripture? Here it is, " The wicked kill- ed the prophets ; and the prophets killed the wicked. The Jews scourged Christ; and Christ scourged the Jews. The unrighteous delivered the apostles up to ^i\\\ magistrates; and the apostles delivered the un- (5) Excerpts of the Donatists, pag-. 47. - - Dodwell - - Gilb. Rule • - John Sage, and others on the principles of the Cyprianic age. BRING IN THE BAPTISM OF BABES. 199 righteous over to the devil (6)." Ecclesiastical histori- ans ate pleased to say, St. Augubtiiie by his learning and eloquence subdued the pestilent schism of the Dun- atists : but Au.^tiii, who was never backward to sound his own fame, did not pretend to thi^ honour. He says his city of Hippo had been full of conventicles and schis- maticks till he procured penal laws from the Emperor, and it vvah the terror of them that converted his flock (7). When the Donatibts reproached him with niaki)ig mar- tyrs of their bishops and elders, as Marculus, Maximian, Isaac, and others, and told him God would require aa account of their blood at the day of judgment: he an- swered, " I, (know nothing about your martyrs. Mar- tyrs ! martyrs to the devil ! They were not martyrs ; it is the cause, not the suffering that makes a martyr. There is no such thing as a martyr out of the church. Beside, it was owing to their obstinacy, they killed them- selves; and now you blame the magistrate (8)-" There are two things very remarkable in this affair, and both as much to the honour of the Donatists, as to the disgrace of their persecutors. First, it is to be ob- served, that there was then no difference in doctrines between the two parties : and the whole dispute was a- bout virtue (9). The Donatists thought the church ought to be kept separate from the world, a religious society volimtarily congregated together for pious pur- poses, and for no other. With this view they admitted none w ithout a personal profession of faith and holiness, and them they baptized, or, if they had belonged to the great corrupt party, rebaptized. They urge^ ^or all this the New Testament. The Catholicks, of whom. Austin was the head, taxed them with denying in effect^ if not in express words, the Old Testament, and partic- ularly such prophecies as spoke of the accession of kings, and Gentiles, and nations to the church of Christ* *' Is it not foretold, said Austin, that to mc every knee- (6) AujTiist Epist xhiii. Occidenint impii prophetas : occidenint impi- OS et prophetsc. Flapeliavertmt Judaei Christum: Jiidsos flagelluvit et Cbristiis. Traditi sunt Apostoli ab hMiiinibus potestati humanse : tradide- runt { t Apostoli homines potestati. Satanae. (7) Epist. xlviii. I. Q,ije cum tota esset in parte Donati, timore legum imperialium, conversa est (8) BuKluinJ Hist. Carthag. Collat. pag-. 648. Jactabant Donatistae suos martyres Sed Augustinus graviter talem jsctationem refiiiaverat — - Extrx ecclesiara non posse esse martyrem - - . - Diabolus habet suas martyres. (9j Ibid. 625, 200 OF THE EFFORTS OF AUGUSTINE TO shall boiu ?" The Catholicks then were for a national church for the sake of splendour : the Donatists for a Congregational church for the sake of purity of faith and manners. The second observation is on the means to be used to efiect the end. The Donatists thought reason, scrip- ture, and example the only proper means of propagating Christianity. "You come to a conference, said Pri- mian, with bai^s full of imperial letters, and laws, and mandates, and rescripts : for our parts v\e have brought nothing but the gospels of the four exangelists. V\4iat, added they. What business have bishops at court ? What have we to do with emperors ? What have mag- istrates to do with religion ? When they concern them- selves with it they always injure it. Their interference includes persecution, of which you have no examples in the gospel or the epistles (i)." "There again, said Austin, the gospel and the epistles ! Granted : there is no example in the gospel. What then ? Doth not David command the kings of the earth to serve Christ ? and they do serve him by suppressing schism (^)." There was a party nearer to Augustine than the Dona- tists, who were called Luciferians from Lucifer, bishop of a church at Cagliaria in Sardinia : a man of eminent piety and goodness. He and his followers held the doctrine of the Trinity, they rebaptizcd nobody, and their lives were exemplary : but they held separate as- semblies, and would not hold communion with Austin's worldly church (3). They were a sort of Trinitarian Inde])endents. The Donatists were Trinitarian Ana- baptists, literally so, for there was no sprinkling then. Austin held all in like execration, for all stood in the way of that hierarchy, v^ hich this Carthaginian genius was endeavouring to set up. While each bishop tyran- nized over his own congregation, all were easy : but when one in the chair began to treat the bench as the bench had treated the people, the bench rebelled against the chairman, and made the people free for the sake of being free themselves. How wisely hath Providence constituted man ! Even his ills work their cure. (1) August. Lib. post. coUat. (2) August. Epist. xlviii. (3) Balduin ul'i sufi. BRING IN THE BAPTISM OF BABES. 201 If the name of Augustine had not sunk below con- tempt in eyery free country, his conduct in procuring the first law to compel Christians to baptize their infants in a council at Mela in Nuinidia, in the year four hun- dred and sixteen, would deserve a treatise by itself, Augustine was a crafty irritated man, hemmed in, dis- appointed, and foiled by able opponents. Too insignifi- cant to obtain distinction in the state, he reconnoitred the church, and felt himself excellently qualified to cant out of Solomon's song to unsuspecting Christians, es- pecially single sisters atid monks. A superannuated bishop, to whom he made himself convenient, lifted him into preferment. From that day he became a mer- ciless tyrant, and truckled to the bishop of Rome only for the sake of pla}ing Jupiter in Africa. When he obtained the support of the Emperor, and got his dreams tacked to imperial decrees, he became the scourge of all good men within his reach, whose coiifis- cations, and banishments, and death, with the ruin of their families, lay at his door. He considered himself as an oracle of God, and Emperors only as ofiiters, whom Heaven had appointed to execute his decrees. How these decrees were obtained, this council at Mela fully discovers (4). First, under pretence of suppress- ing the heresy of Pelagius, which had been approved by a council at Diospolis, more than sixty bishops, all of one party, met at Carthage. Thence, it should seem, they adjourned to Mela, and because they should not all be detained from home too long, three deputies for e.ich province were appointed to represent the rest, and sub- scribe for the whole. There remained then only about fourteen or fifteen. This deputation at length issued out seven and twenty new commandments, eight of which were directed against Pelagianism, and run in this style. It is the pleasure of all the bishops present in this ho- ly synod 'to order, i. That whoever saitli, Adam was created mortal, and would have died, if he had not sin- ned : be accursed. (4) Concil, Cartliag ii.-.- -Concil. Milevitan. Placiut ergo omnibus episcopis, qiii fuerunt hsec sancta synotlo, constituere, &c. 26 202 OF THE EFFORTS OF AUGUSTINE TO ii. Also it is the pleasure of the bishops to order that whoever denieth tliat infants newly born of their moth- ers are to be baptized, or saith that baptism is adminis- tered for the remission of their own sins, but not on ac- count of original sin derived from Adam, and to be ex- piated by the laver of regeneration : be accursed. An honest indignation rises at the sound of such tyranny ; and if a man were driven to the necessity of choosing one saint of two candidates, it would not be Austin, it would be Saint Balaam, the son of Bosor, who indeed loved the wages of unrighteousness, as many other saints have done, but who with all his madness had respect enough for the Deity to say, Ho-:o shall I curse vdkom God hath not cursed / To curse citizens for sayings : to curse Christians for not saying more of a subject than the scripture says : to be cursed by the very men, who are kept only for the sake of blessing mankind with good examples of virtue : fifteen African slaves to mount themselves on a tribunal, and denounce curses on the whole world ! Who can help being of- fended at the sight ? Who can be grieved to see the Vandals come forward, and subvert all the kibours of Austin's life ? There is one article relative to infant baptism, which it may not be improper to observe. Austin and his company were the first, who ventured to attack at law believers-baptism. They went therefore on the forlorn hope, and a plain tale puts them down. They did not pretend to ground infant baptism on scripture, but tra- dition ; and as they could not possibly cite a law, human or divine, they ventured to place it on universal custom. Had custom been for it, and reason against it, reason should have taken place of custom : but with what pos- sible decency could Austin dare to affirm this ? Some, who have no very favourable opinion of either the sin- cerity or modesty of the man, are so shocked at this affirmation, that they suspect his works have been inter- polated, and think he could not say so. Yes, he is al- lowed by those, who have most studied his books, to have constantly affirmed this (5). Was he himself then baptized in his infancy ? Was Ambrose, who baptized (5) Petavii Opera. Tom. iii. Aniuerput. 1700. Be Eccl. Hierarch. Lib. i. Cap. i. 6. August. Op. Be peccator. merit. Lib. i. Cap. xxiv. BRING IN THE BAPTISM OF BABES. 205 Ilim, baptized in infancy ? Was his own natural son baptized when he was an infant ? Was his father Pat- ricius baptized when an infant ? Had he, who pretend- ed he had been a Manichean, never heard that they did not baptize infants ? Had all other hereticks escaped his notice ? Had he forgot himself, when he taxed the Pelagians with denying- infant baptism ? and when he complained in another book of people who opposed it (6) ? If it were an established universal custom, for whose use was the law made to compel it ? A thousand more such questions might be put, all serving to con- tradict this falsehood. Jerom knew better, and express- ly mentioned it in a curious letter to a Christian lady for the purpose of decoying her daughter, Paula, into a convent, it should seem, to be instructed by her grand- mother and baptized (7). Some parents consider the holy man as a mere kidnapper. For his part he consid- ered nothing but eloquence. "Had Jove such a grand- mother as Miss Paula has, even Jove would become a believer in Christ !" Yes, Austin knew ; some Christians told him : The ground on which you place baptism is not able to bear the baptism of babes. It sets aside the necessity of baptism itself to the children of all Christians. You say, infants must be baptized because they are sin- ners. We ask, when they sinned ? You say, never in their own persons, but they were in the loins of Adam when he sinned. And pray, were they not in the loins "of their immediate parents, when they were baptized ? How came they to derive guilt from a remote ancestor, and not grace from an immediate parent, whose ^insboih original and actual, you say were all washed away in his baptism (8) ? Austin knew all this ; but, as Adam was the very foundation of his system, and he could not pos- sibly preach once without him, he was forced to write a book to answer these objections against both the prac- tice of baptizing infants, and the reason on w^hich his canon was founded. How was it possible this man could call infant baptism an apostolical custom ? (6) Ibid. Lib, ii Cap. xxv Be libera arbitrio. Lib. iii. Cap. 23, (7) IWeron. Epist ad Lxtam. .(8) Aiignst De peccator. marit. Lib. ii. Cap. xxv. Aclversus cos, qui dicunt, si peccn.tor genuit peccatorem, Justus quoque justum gignere de- buit - . - Cur cnim non, inquiunt, in Jumbis patris sui poluitbaptizari ' S:c. - - xxvii. 204 OF THE EFFORTS OF AUGUSTINE TO After a)!, there is one v^ay, and but one occurs at present, of accounting for Austin's calling the baptism of children a custom, which he supposed was derived from apostolical tradition. He found the custom, he could not find it in scripture, he would not tax his pre- decessors with innovating, he therefore supposed it might be derived from the apostles. If the coi jecture above mentioned on the rise of infant baptism, be just, the case was this. Near an hundred and fifty years be- fore Austii^ was born, some zealous women hurried for- ward the baptism of children. Forty years after, Fidus, a country bishop full of Judaism, applied the doctrine of circumcision to the case, and baptized at eight days to save infants from being burnt, by getting them ded- icated to the true God. Cyprian thought, if baptism were necessary at eight days, it was so as soon as infants "Were born. It doth not appear, that any one of these practices was of any duration or extent ; and it is to be remembered that persecution often dissolved the first churches, and scattered the people, so that their customs disappeared with the authors of them, and every new company made new regulations. One thing, however, remained when Austin began to know the church at Carthage ; that was, the old name of baptism. He says, the Carthaginian Christians called baptism salus, by which, probably, the first baptizers of children meant no more than safety (9). Austin being a spiritual minded man, thought they meant sahation ; not recollecting that the natives had taken the word from the Romans, who never had any idea of salvation in his sense of it, but who all knew, even the meanest soldier, what votive offerings pro salute meant. Not being aware of the first reason of baptizing pro salute, and the vague meaning of the word escaping his notice, he said the baptism of infants was a custom. So far he might be right in some sense, as it regarded the back-setders : but when he affirmed it was derived from the apostles, he was wrong, for it was not a custom in any other part of the world. Wheth- er Austin deserves any apology for the error may be a question to such as know the man. Some of his con- temporaries did not believe him, assert vvhat he would, without great caution. "He said, he had been a Mani- chean. No, said some Manicheans, you never was. (9) See above note, Punici, &c. BRING IN THE BAPTISM OF BABES. 205 He said, his conversion was of God. No, replied the Manicheans : it was of fear of persecution, and covet- ousness, of honour and power. Lay aside, said they, your punick feith : cease to utter falsehoods : how can a Carthaginian be saved ? Can he make the gospel say, broad is the way that leadcth to life (1) V It must not be omitted, that this first law for the bap- tism of babes was so little known, and of so little ac- count, that for ages it fell into oblivion, and learned an- tiquaries among the Catholicks are not able to satisfy one another about the meaning of the words Concilium Milei)- itanum. They agree that some bishops, somewhere, in the time of some pope, met and made canons, or, in ecclesiastical- style, held a coimcil, and constituted themselves a legislative body for the whole Christian world : but when the question is put, who were they that presumed to do so? One side answers: "The bishops of Africa, for Milevitamim means Mela,^'' An opposite class replies: "No such thing ; Milemtanum concilium signifies a- council held in the isle of Mal- ta (i^)-" Men of great literary consideration arrange themselves with both parties, and each produces reasons and etymologies, and so on. A protestant, like the spectator, when Sir Roger de Coverly insisted on his o- pinion whether the daubing on the sign-post were a por- trait of his worship or of a Saracen, " composes his coun- tenance in the best manner he can, and replies, that much may be said on both sides (3)." Whether this council be a forgery or not, it is dated in die council books four hundred sixteen, ai;id in four hundred twenty-nine, the Vandals subverted the Catlio- lick dominion in Africa, for this church was built upon the sand, and when the Vandals entered the country, the priests, who shuddered at the name of an Arian army, ran away, and in less than one year of all this national church, or, as their historians speak, of all the innumer- able churches of Catholicks, only three remained in all Africa (4). This law of Austin therefore could have no force long- er than the space of thirteen years even in Africa, and that only with the Catholicks ; and it is very questionable (1) Secimdini Manicheel Epist. ad Aug. (2) Laiir. Surii Concil. M'lev. Tom, i. (3) N. 122. (4) Johan. De Ragusio Oral, hab, in Concil. Comtav. 206 THE llEDUCTION OF whether any regard was paid to it in that time except in cases of danger of death ; for when the bishops and saints decamped, and the people came dow n to see the parade of their martyrs going on board a ship, it is said, *' Some brought wax tupers to grace the procession, others threw their infants on the gronnd to be sanctified by their blessed steps, the company set up a waihng, some cried, to whom do you commit the care of us, now you are going away to receive your crowns? Who Tvill baptize these infants at Easter when you are gone ? Who will hear confessions? Who will appoint pen- ance ? O miserable people that we are, who but you can give us absolution? You have power to bind and loose, and whatsoever you bind or loose on earth, is loosed or bound in heaven!" It should seem by this that the Easter baptism of boys continued to be practised after the promulgation of Augustine's canon ; and certain it is, it was practised in other countries by the Catholicks many centuries after this time : but it is very probable some vagabond Afri- can monks passed over into Spain, and the reader will hear of them in the next chapter but one. CHAP. XXIV. THE REDUCTION OF BAPTISM IN THE EAST, FROM MEN TO MINORS, AND FROM MINORS TO BABES. IT is a cruel violence that system hath offered to truth. True history shews that in things non-essential there hath always been variety of sentiment and diversi- ty of practice among Christians ; but the papal system having asserted the supremacy of the bishop of Rome, it hath been thought necessary to represent all Christians as one corporation, under one universal bishop, and his code of law as the practice of the whole world. This is not true, for many centuries there was no such being upon earth as an universal bishop, no such thing as universal law, and no mention of uniformity of faith and manners. If a man would form, for instance, a just notion only of baptism, he must not regison from the laws of one country to the practice of another, but he must take each apart, as will appear clearly by examin- BAPTISM IN THE EAST. 207 insj baptism in four points of view. Neu-T'e^tament baptism is the baptism of men and women Egyp- tian-baptism is paido-baptism, or the baptism of minors Jerusalem-baptism is the baptism of Catechumens and late Greek baptism is the baptism of little New-Testament-Baptism, or the Baptism of Men and Women. The baptism of the New Testament as the principal object of attention to a consistent Christian : it is even the sole standard of his practice. There the ordinance appears along with the persons of men and women. One verse of the history of the church of Samaria, which was congregated by Philip the deacon, is full and express, and may serve for the whole. "When the Sa- maritans believed Philip, preaching the things concern- ing the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, hotli men and ivomcn {V).'''* This was exactly conformable to the command, and the ex- ample of Jesus, whose disciples they were : to his com- mand, teach all nations baptizing them (2) : and to his example, for he was at man's estate when he went to be baptized, being about thirty years of age (3). This is a plain path, free from every difficulty. Egyptian-Baptism, or the Baptism of Minors. Origen was a native of Alexandria. He flourished in the third century. He was a man of sober morals : but he was an eccentrical genius, and his theological speculations were the most wild and extravagant in the world. Two sorts of his works remain; the one gen- uine Greek fraimients : the other pretended Latin ver- sions of the remainder of his Greek originals, which are lost. The genuine Greek works contain nothing in favour ol ii^fant baptism, but on the contrary, bap- tism is always spoken of in relation to the adult (1). The snmious Latin pieces do speak in favour of iniant baptism, but thty scent strongly of forgery, and seem to have been written after the Pelagian controvers) (ii). (1) Acts viii. 12. (2) Mat. xxviii. 19. (3) Luke iii. 2l, 23. (1) Dr G.ile's reflections on Mr. Wall's hist, of infant baptism. Let xiii, (2) Tombes Kxamen. 208 THE REDUCTION- 01 Perhaps the vague sense of the word may have been the innocent, or it may be the guilty, cause of these ap- parent contradictions. Even Dr. Wall exposes the partiality of Sir Peter King for quoting a mutilated pas- sage from the genuine works of Origen in favour of the baptism of babes, and proves by quoting the whole passage, that Origen spoke of such babes as the apostle Peter had addressed in his first epistle, new-born babes, laying aside all eml speakings, and desiring the sincere milk of the word that they may grow thereby [2>). In- deed it is impossible to quote any thing conclusive in favour of modern infant baptism from Origen, because as he held the pre-existence of human souls, so he af- firmed, that " some souls before they were born into the world, and before they were united to the body, had heard, and had been taught of the Father {^).'''' Is there then no foundation for the common tradition of the fathers, that Origen favoured infant baj)tism ? It must be granted the fathers are miserable evidence of the truth of facts, as well as incompetent judges of right : but it doth not follow that they never speak truth. Eusebius, who was a professed admirer of Origen, gar- nished his history with many incredible tales : but he related some facts very likely to be true. He says, Origen was Catechist of the ecclesiastical school at Al- exandria : this is a true fact. Six of his disciples, male and female, suffered death in time of persecution : this is possible. When the school was broke up, some were catechumens, and others liad been lately baptiz- ed : this is very likely to be true : he adds, Ori- gen accompanied his pupils to the place of execution : this is very doubtful (5). He subjoins, that Po- tamiasna promised one Basilides, a Pagan officer of the guards, that she would pray for him after her martyr- dom : this is extremely suspicious. He proceeds to relate, that the said virgin martyr three days after her death did appear to Basilides, did inform him that her intercession had prevailed, did put a coronet on his head, as a token that he should soon obtain the crown of martyrdom ; that Basilides was converted by these (3) Dr Wairs Hist, of infant baptism. Vslv\.. i. Chap.-v. S. 9. •- -Ga^C- Let. xiii 1. Pet. il. 1, 2, &c. (4) Orlg. Com. in yohan.- -Gale. Let. vii. John vi. 45. (5) Hist. £ccies. Lib. vi. Cap. ii. iii.iv. BAPTISM IN THE EAST. 209 iiieans, was commitied to prison for his faith, was bap- tized by the brethren in prison, and was soon after beheaded ; here blusebius becomes a narrator of old wives fobles. The Uttle credit due to his history is due only to such parts as are attested by others more credible than himself. One of the Catechists of this celebrated seminary, the first Christian academy in the world, published a work entitled The Pedagogue (6). This was Clement the master of Origen. Two sorts of masters presided over the ed- ucation of young gentlemen (7). Pedotribes formed the body : Pedagogues the mind. PubUus JEi'ms Tertius was one of the first kind : Clement and Origen were of the last. The Pedagogue of Clement is ac- counted a valuable monument of Christian antiquity, Mr. Du Pin, who most highly applauded it, and who recommended a French translation of it, advised how- ever, that a translator should retrench some parts of it, because they were not fit for every body to read, and that the remaining parts should be accommodated to the manners and customs of the present age (8) : a very prudent method of translating, and that exactly which Ruffinus used when he translated Origen. Pedagogy, the subject of the book, is not the discipline of Christian youth, or what would now be called a course of acadenjical education : but it is the moral discipline of Christians, men and women, the learned and the ignorant (9). Clement observes, this was not called Pedagogy, or a diacipliie for children, because Christianity was a puerile science : on the contrary, it was a science of the most exalted w isdom ( i). it may be objected, you speak of a Pedagogue, vou call your science Pedagogy, or the educating of children : who are the children under your tuition? in order to explain this point, the author lays down this position', that all the disciples of the truth are children in regard to God. The whole fifth chapter oi the first book is irv- (6) Clementis Akxandr. Uxi^aytnyos (7) See the chap on Infant baptism. (8) Btbliot Des Auteurs Ecdes Tom. i. S. Clement B^Alex. (9) Lib. i. Cap. v. n TTtn'^d'yiiyici ■ffet4^»ii tctv »y»iyrj - • -^« fre^hs H(>tif9 Cap. vit. (1) Cap. vi. 27 210 THE REDUCTION OF tended to explain and elucidate this article (2). Let us consider, says he, whom the scripture calls children. The scripture uses many allegorical modes of speaking, diversifying itself to inform us. Then he quotes many f)assages, in which men as well as little ones are called children. Jesus said unto his disciples, Children, have ye any meat (3). The priests saw the children crying, Hosanna, and they said, hearest thou what these say ? And Jesus said unto them. Yea, ha^ae ye never read, out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise (4) ? Jesus said to his disciples, Little children, yet a little ivhile I am ivithyou(5). This generation is /ike unto c/ii/dren sitting in the markets. Wisdom is justified of her children (6). By many similar passages, taken out of the Old Testament, he proves that this is a common mode of speaking in scripture (7). From both Testaments he collects diminutive terms, literal, as in- fant, babe, suckling ; and figurative, as chicken, lamb, and so on, to set forth what he aims chiefly to estab- lish, the simplicity of christians, and their littleness in their own eyes (8). For this purpose he enlarges on the lessons which the heavenly Pedagogue gave his litdc children, when they brought other little children unto him, and when he set one in the midst of them, and said ; Except ye be converted and become as little child- ren, ye shall not enter into the^ kingdom of heaven. Whosoever shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven. All Christians therefore are little children, simple, sincere, modest, ingenuous, and free from fraud, and a Pedagogue is a teacher of such babes. The Pedagogue of these babes is Jesus Christ. The Pedagogue of Clement, stripped of allego- ry and pedantry, is really a fine compound of simple and sublime sentiments. Reduced to literal description, this is the chain of thought : God is infinitely wise : Jesus the messenger of God to men was perfectly qualified (2) Ol; !r«v7£5 e< 9r£p« t>)» a.'hSutt.t Kxldymofiiyot, Txt'^i? vctfu, rta ^ta. (3) John xxi. 5. (4) Mat. xxi. 15, Sic. (5) John xiii. 33. (6) Mat. xi. 16. - - 19. (7) Psalm viii. 2, - - Isaiah viii. 18. - - - Heb. ii. 13. - - &c. (8) Mat. xxili. 37. How often would I have gathered thy children to- P^ether, even as a hen g'athereth her chickens under her win,^s ! - - Isai. xl. 11. He shall gather the inmie with his arm - - John i. 36. Behold the Lamt of God. BAPTISM IN THE EAST. 211 to instruct mankind by his doctrine and example : man- kind have no knowledge of God and no virtue without revelation, yet they are vain of pretended knowledge, and some glory in crimes, while others boast of false virtues : God their merciful Father by the ministry of Christ informs them of their folly and vice, and requires them to lay both aside, and to become as it were little children : all Christians do so : they give themselves up to the tuition of the wise and holy Jesus, in malice they are children ; in understanding, men ; wise to that which is good, and simple concerning evil : thus the things, which in former ages the Lord of heaven and earth had hid from the wise and prudent, he hath by Jesus reiiealed unto babes (9) Thus God is the fountain of all wisdom and goodness : Jesus his imag;e is n««5«y6;y«s the Peda- gogue : all Christians are ^«"^6f children under tu- ition ( I ). What now is Alexandrian paido-baptism ? The apostles were babes ; the old preceptors of the school are babes, all Christians are now and ever will be babes, and to grow old in religion is to go from childhood to infancy. When at the Reformation, some Baptists affirmed that baptism was to be offered to all men, but not given to all men(an expression sufficiently obscure, but perhaps taken from some such allegorical mixtures as those of Clement) a zealous physician, who wrote against them, was extremely offended, and express- ed his resentment in these words : "Ye captaynes of catabaptistrye offer baptyme unto all chyldren, and intend not to gyue it unto them, therefore ye mocke all chyl- derne, lyke as boyes mocke yong byrdes (2)." Clement makes a very just distinction on this subject, by observing, that although all Christians were infants, yet infancy in Christ ought to be considered compara- tively : infancy in Christianity was manhood, in com- parison with the puerile science of Judaism : a child in Christ was a perfect man compared with a Pagan : yet the same accomplished man was a babe compared with an apostle, as the most enlightened apostle was when (9) 1 Cor. xiv. 20 Horn. xvi. 19. Mat. xi. 25. (1) Lib. ii. Cap. xi. (2) A preservathe, or triacle, agnynst the poyson of Pelagius, latefy renucd, and styrrcd up agayn, by the furious sectc of the Annabaptistes .• deuyscd by Willyam Turner, Doctor of Physick Imprinted at London for Andrew- Hester, dvuellyng in Powles Churckyarde, at the wytt horse, next to Powlcs ccole. An. 1551 . the thi^rty of yanuarii. Cum privile^io ad imprimendum solum. 212 THE REDUCTION OF compared with Jesus (3). He exemplifies this by the case of those Corinthians, whom Paul called cur nal Chris- tian babes, and to whom he said, 1 have fed you with milk, and not with meat, for ve were not able to bear it. These babes in Christ, adds he, were Catechumens, they were wise men compared m ith Paiians, but they were carnal in comparison with some other Christians, whom Paul called spiritual (4). Of buch babes did the school at Alexandria consist : mt babes in age, but babes in Christ : arrived at a manhood of understanding compared with Pagans: but inferior to their tutors. The school was a station between the world and the church, and no modern English term so well expresses the preci e condition of the Alexandrian Catechumens as that of pedants, or academical pupils. Such were the HAiAES, who were admitted to baptism at Alexandria. The coiidiiion of this church compared with the doc- trine of it renders it highly probable, that paido-baptism in the true literal sense of the word, that is, the baptism of youth, during their education, and in consequence of their education, was first practised in this church. Origen, himself, who assisted Clement, was only eigh- teen years of age, when he was made -one of the Cate- chists. That pupils were not baptized at tht-ir first ad- mission into the school is clear by the case of the six martyrs just now mentioned, two ot whom, at least, died unbaptized. It hath been argued from the case of the apostle John that juvenile baptism was scriptural, for, say they, John became a disciple of Christ while he was under age, and while, had he been the son of a man of fortune, he would have been in the hands of Peda- gogues and Pedotribes. This is a mistake ; for if, as the best chronologers say, John died in the second year of Trajan at ninety-two years of age, he was only seven years younger than Jesus, and of course he was about twenty-three when Christ entered on his publick ministry. It is an ancient artifice to protract the lives of the apostles and apostolical men, and to antedate the births of the fathers for the purpose of charging the first with the doctrines of the last. Thus they bring together (3) Lib. i. Cap. vl. (4) Ktftl«%>jir« v(ixi, Cataechizavi vos, hoc est, per auditum i Christo institui, simpliciet perse naturali alimento spiritali, &c. 1 Cor. ili 1,2, &c. BAPTISM IN THE EAST. 213 Jesus and , Ignatius, Polycarp and John. Irenseus to give himself" consequence pretended to have been a dis- ciple of Polycarp, who pretended to have been a disciple of John, and he quotes his master to prove that Jesus Uved to be fifty years of age. There was a great difference between the condition of John and that of Alexandrian pupils ; and the preceptors introduced a great change in baptism by their conduct. The school was set up for the tuition of such babes as Clement describes in his Pedagogue: but it degener- ated into a literary seminary for youth. Here baptism was first associated with a learned education, and made a part of it. Here youth were first incorporated and became church members by baptism : before, baptism had only signified a profession of the Christian religion at large. Here human creeds were first connected with baptism, for the discussion of them became a chief part of the course of instruction ; and exactly the same effects were produced by constituting a church of young ped- ants as would be produced in any age, and in any coun- try by the same circumstances. Human literature be- came an ecclesiastical qualification, the pedants were put into office, and introduced each his academical thesis into theology, and to determine which was the true opinion became the test of a Christian. Three hundred years before Christ, the theological system of Plato had been taught in another celebrated school of Alexandria. The Ptolomies had settled a great number of Jews there. The most were merchants, but some were philosophers, and the apocryphal book called the wisdom of Solomon was written by them one hundred years before the birth of Christ (5). In this curious remnant of antiquity, which Clement, Origen, Cyprian, and others, took for a genuine book of King Solomon, the religion of Moses and the speculations of Plato are evidently blended together. Thus for example, Moses, speaking of the destruction of the first born of Egypt, says, " at midnight the Lord smote all the first-born in the land of Egypt (6)." The wisdom of the Alexandrian Solomon, according to the wisdom of Plato, describes the same event thus: "while all things were in quiet (5) Calmet. Bissertat. Tom. ii. (6) Exod. xii. 29. Psal. Ixxvili. 51, 214 THE REDUCTION OF silence, and that ni^ht was in the midst o^ her swift course, thine Almighty Logos leapt down from heav- en, out of thy royal throne, as a fierce man of war into the midst of a land of destruction, and brought thine unfeigned commandment as a sharp sword, and standing up filled all things with death (7)." The Christian school at Alexandria adopted the science, and formed a new body of theology, a compound of ihe simple ideas of scripture, the reveries of the rabbies, the mysticism of Plato, the profane literature of the Greeks, the instructive lessons of Jesus, and the frivo- lous comments of the preceptors (8), The next step was to distort scripture by ])retended expositions, ia order to make it speak these preposterous notions : and the last was to support by the sword what no other ef- forts could uphold, and to make tyranny civil and eccle- siastical supply the place of conviction. Every suc- ceeding catechist became more intoxicated than his predecessor, and about sixty years after the death of the first preceptors, out of this school, roaring like a lion, came the Arian controversy, the scandals of which filled the whole Christian world, for by forming a church of pedants they transmuted the moral discipline of Jesus into a disputatious science, discharged of its original proprieties, and impregnated with dangerous and desper- ate elements, which, with the loss of many thousand lives, rent that mighty mass, the whole Judaizing Christian church, into fragments : the vibration continues to this hour (9). At this distance of time and place, it is impossible to dive into the hidden recesses of the hearts of the first projectors of the Alexandrian academy : and, for much more obvious reasons, it will ever be impossible for frail man in the present state to determine why Provi- dence suffered the religion of Jesus to undergo a change so inimical to the professed intention of it. The con- version of Christianity into a learned science produced a revolution fatal to Christian liberty. The preceptors of the school united in their plan of tuition the gospel of Jesus, the discipline of the Synagogue, the polity of the Greeks, and the vulgar superstitions of the Egyptian (7) Cbap. xviii. 15. (S) Clem. Alex. Stromal, paashn. i.9) Tillemoot, Mem. Ecdes. Tom. vi. An. 319. BAPTISM IN THE EAST. 215 priests. Of all the modes of Grecian polity, that of Sparta seems to have obtained most grace in the eyes of Clement. He thought the system of Lycurgus mio^ht be corrected by the j)hilosophy of Plato, and united \vith the maxims of Moses and the gospel of Christ. The system of the Spartan lawgiver is extremely deceptive, and hath beguiled men wiser than Clement into admira- tion. Most encomiasts of diat government applaud the democratical part of it as a bulwark of liberty (l). They admire the principle, that children are more the propert}'- of the state than of their parents. They say the publick educating of all alike, rich and poor, in diet, dress, and exercise, is the forming of a state into one large family of brethren. Parents, say they, spoil their children, by giving them a fanciful education : but the wise Lacede- monians enacted that children belonged to the state, that they should be publickly brought up by the state, and educated according to the intention of the state. This, they add, made the Spartans as virtuous as Pagans could be. As soon as the child was born, it was examined by proper officers of the state. If it appeared healthy and robust, likely to serve the state, it was provided for : but if otherwise, it was put to death. At seven years of age the children were distributed into classes, educated all together, and the whole of their education, as one of the chief modern admirers of this discipline, observes, " properly speaking was nothing more than an appren- ticeship to obedience (2)." The Pedagogues of Alex- andria intended to train up their pupils to believe mys- teries, and to obey orders, and the Spartan polity was highly adapted to their design. Plato, Aristotle, and others, had observed, that the Lacedemonian discipline tended only to form the body, and to make soldiers, for these tutors of the Spartan youth were all Pedotribes, there were no Pedagogues. Clement, who observed the same, put into the plan of his school the literary Cliristian Pedagogue, and supplied the place of the ma- teriil Px*dotribe by in*^roducing the exercises of the priesfs of the temple ci' Isis (3).' The bare foot and the shjyen crown, the abstemious diet, and the nerveless sapience of contemplative indolence, aetachment from fl) Rollin's Belles Letfres. Vol. iii. Part iii. Chap, in (2) Rollia. (5) Stromat. Lib, i. 216 THE REDUCTION OF the world, and a superstitious confidence in symbols, particularly across, had always distinguished the Es