I do not remember that I ever heard any other thing from any Christian who received the Old and New Testaments, neither from such as were of the Catholic Church, nor from such as belonged to any sect or schism."

This testimony of St. Augustine is very important: he declares that he never met with any Christian, either Churchman or Sectary, nor with any writer who acknowledged the Scripture, who taught any other doctrine but that infants are baptized for pardon of sins: much less then had he known or heard of any who denied that they were to be baptized at all. And they had then, as I said before, but three hundred years to look back to the times of the Apostles; and St. Augustine, though he speaks modestly of his own attainments, had studied the history of the Church so well, that in a few years after this time he published his History of all the secls or opinions that were or had been in Christendom.

To that objection of Pelagius, "If baptism take away original sin, then such children as are born of parents both baptized must be without that sin," St. Augustine answers to this effect, "If I had this cause to manage against such men as either denied that infants are to be baptized, or said that is was needless to baptize them, because they, being born of baptized parents, are necessarily partakers of their parents' privilege,

Q

then I ought to take more pains with such persons in confuting their opinion than would be necessary with others. Such persons should be reminded that as a circumcised parent begets an uncircumcised son, and wheat that has been cleansed from chaff does, if it is sown, produce wheat with chaff upon it; so a parent, who has been spiritually cleansed, begets a son who resembles him not according to that state which he is in by spiritual regeneration, but according to the state in which he was by carnal generation."

After this, it would really be trifling with the argument, and with the patience of my reader, to dwell upon this subject longer: I will only make one observation more, and then close this chapter.

We see that the Pelagians denied original sin. The Catholic doctors, among other arguments against them, urged this: That infants have original sin is proved from the need they have of baptism, which is given them on account of sin, and other than original sin they cannot have. The Pelagians do not pretend to deny the necessity of Infant Baptism, which it would have been highly for their advantage to do if they could; and when St. Augustine mentions it as a practice of the whole Church from the time of the Apostles, they do not deny it; but distinctly admit it; as we shall see by what follows:

"We hold one baptism which we say ought to be administered with the same sacramental words to infants as to older persons."-From the Creed of Pelagius.

"Who can be so impious as to hinder infants from being baptized and born again in Christ?

"Men slander me as if I denied the sacrament of baptism to infants, or did promise the kingdom of God to some persons, without the redemption of Christ, which is a thing that I never heard, no, not even any wicked heretic say."-Letter of Pelagius to Pope Innocent.

CHAPTER IV.

Examination of Dr. Gale's "Reflections on Mr. Wall's History of Infant Baptism," and of Dr. Cox's Book " On Baptism.”

HAVING treated this subject with as much detail and minuteness as was necessary to give a clear view of this very interesting and important question, the reader will now be able to accompany me, without difficulty, in a review which I mean to take of two works which have obtained much reputation among the Baptists, as giving a powerful, and, as they think, a successful defence of their tenets; and it is for this reason that I have selected those volumes for a particular examination. The work of Dr. Gale is considered as the most elaborate production that has ever appeared on that side, and is certainly a shrewd and able performance. The work of Dr. Cox is the latest book which I have met with from the pen of a Baptist writer; and as that author has handled the question in what he is pleased to think a new

and improved manner, I cannot deal more fairly with the argument than by making his work the subject of my investigation. It is but fair to let the reader see in what manner the Baptists defend their own cause; and it is but just to the writers, too, to let them state their own arguments in their own words.

The former part of Dr. Gale's book is wholly occupied with etymological criticisms, illustrative of the meanings in which he understands the words μαθητευω and βαπτιζω, which I have already observed signify to proselyte and to baptize: Concerning the signification of μanrevw I have already written at some length; of Barw, I shall speak at the close of this volume. My present object is to consider the animadversions of Dr. Gale upon Mr. Wall's general argument. In doing this, it shall be my endeavour to omit nothing which demands the attention of a fair and candid examiner.

The first passage which requires to be considered occurs in Dr. Gale's sixth letter, p. 221.*

"He (Mr. Wall) first very freely allows (and, indeed, what unprejudiced man would venture to assert the contrary?) that it cannot be made appear from the Scriptures that infants were to be

* The edition which I have now before me is the first that was published, without Dr. Gale's name. London, 1711.