nk, more
especially to be observed in reference to infants, even to those who are
newly born."

This was written, within a hundred and fifty years from the time of the
apostles, by sixty-six ministers of Christ, some of whom, we may
suppose, must have had grace enough to show a martyr-spirit in resisting
so gross an invention as the baptizing of infants would have been, if
apostolic example had restricted baptism to those who were capable of
faith. Did Paul reprove an abuse of the Lord's Supper, among the
Corinthians, and would he not have given an injunction against so Jewish
a superstition as the baptizing of children in place of the antiquated
circumcision would have been, if it were not commanded, had the churches
in his day seemed inclined to practise it?

_Mr. M._ All these things amount to a demonstration, in my view.

_Dr. D._ You would like to hear something from AUGUSTINE, whose
"Confessions" you have read with so much interest.

In his writings, on Genesis, Augustine says, about two hundred and
eighty-eight years after the apostles, "The custom of our mother, the
church, in baptizing infants, must not be disregarded nor accounted
useless, and it must by all means be believed to be (apostolica
traditio) a thing handed down to us by the apostles." "It is most justly
believed to be no other than a thing delivered by apostolic authority;
that it came not by a general council, or by any authority later or less
than that of the apostles." He also speaks of baptizing infants by the
authority of the whole church, which, he says, was undoubtedly delivered
to it by our Lord and his apostles.

Augustine was a man of distinguished piety and learning, whose testimony
is every way worthy of implicit confidence. But, connected with his
history, we have another substantial evidence with regard to the
subject. He conducted a famous controversy against the Pelagians, who
denied original sin. They were confronted with the argument from infant
baptism. "Why," it was said, "are infants baptized, if they need no
change of nature?" It would have been a triumphant answer could they
have shown that it was an unscriptural practice, not countenanced by
Christ or the apostles. But Pelagius said, "Men slander me as though I
denied baptism to infants, whereas I never heard of any one, Catholic or
heretic, who denied baptism to infants." Pelagius and his friend
Celestius, who was with him in the controversy, were born, the one in
Bri