So Danvers, in his "Treatise of Baptism," being unable to resist the force of this Epistle, if admitted to be genuine, attempts to make his position good against the ordinance, thus:

"We would rather believe that these things were foisted into his writings by that villanous, cursed generation, that so horribly abused the writings of most of the ancients."

But this Epistle of Cyprian is as well authenticated as any work whatever of the Fathers. Without attempting to exhaust the evidence on this point, it is enough to say, that Jerome and Augustine have quoted it so freely, that almost every passage of it may be found in their works. Jerome alone quotes the most of it in the Third Book of his Dialogue against the Pelagians. Augustine, in his Fourth Book against the Two Epistles of the Pelagians, quotes it extensively, and also in his work on the merits and remission of sins. And in one of his letters to Jerome, the Twenty-Eighth, he says, "Blessed Cyprian, not making any new decree, but expressing the firm faith of the Church, in refuting those that thought a child must not be baptized before the eighth day, said," &c.

So in their times this Epistle was known and received as the genuine production of Cyprian. And they lived so near to his times that we cannot suppose it possible that they were duped by it as a forgery. Cyprian's Letter to Fidus is therefore a lawful chapter in church history.

2. The Question submitted by Fidus to the bishops.—It is sometimes the case that a question gives more information than its full answer. It is so in this case. The inquiry is an ample revelation on the subject of infant baptism in the third century. In it Fidus assumes the validity and universality of the ordinance. It is no part of his inquiry, whether the ordinance shall be administered. By the very terms in which he puts it, the question concedes this. The Scriptural authority for the ordinance, or its propriety, does not lie with any doubt in his own mind, or lead him to ask for light from his brethren in the African ministry. A question so precise, and so sharp in its point, could arise only where infant baptism was, by common consent, assumed, granted, and practised, as a Christian ordinance. It is simply a question of time. May the rite be administered before the infant is eight days old? Would such a

question arise in any community where infant baptism was not common usage? And the discussion and answer of the question concede all that Fidus concedes in it. No one raises a doubt as to the authority and propriety of the rite. Were the ordinance at that time an innovation, or had it intruded itself into the Church within the memory of some of the aged bishops in that assembly, such a question could not have come in, and been discussed under so full an assumption and admission of its apostolical authority. Not only is its divine institution as fully conceded as that of adult baptism, but the association say, think it more especially to be observed in reference to infants, and persons newly born." Magis circa infantes ipsos, et recens

natos observandum putamus.

66 we

They thus give infant baptism precedence, as worthy of a more prompt and prominent attention than adult baptism. Nothing less than the unquestioned and apostolical authority, in their estimation, of this ordinance, and its general observance at that time in the Christian Church, could have led them to this high, not to say radical, ground, for the practice of the rite.

3. The connection, in the estimation of Fidus and the bishops, between baptism and circumcision. - Fidus argues that the rule of circumcision must be the rule of baptism as to time, and that the only proper day is the eighth, for administering the rite. Can it be an undesigned and untaught coincidence that he here presents? Why the connection of the two initiatory rites to the Church, and such a connection as makes the ancient rule the modern as to time? And why is baptism called "the spiritual circumcision"? We cannot escape the conviction that this connecting of the two rites, and this law of time, and this synonym for baptism, are the result of tradition and instruction, from the apostles; that the latter ordinance comes in the place of the former. If such were the teaching and belief of that early day, we can easily explain the introduction of these expressions. Otherwise the connection and some of the expressions are strangely accidental, and yet coincident.

4. The large section of the Church represented in this assembly. The number of bishops in it was sixty-six. At that early date, A. D. 253, this number must have represented a very large portion of the African Church. For in the best days of Chris

tianity in Africa there were not five hundred bishoprics on that continent. This body was, therefore, no small and unimportant gathering. It was no local clique of the clergy, drawn together on some principle of doctrinal affinity. Wide geographical boundaries marked the limits from which they came. It was a promiscuous gathering; nor did they know, till assembled, to what questions they were to make answer. A draft by lot on the Church at large would not probably have brought together fairer representatives of the Christian faith and practice concerning infant baptism than were found in the Carthaginian Association.

5. Their perfect agreement in answer to the question of Fidus. There is a grateful unanimity among them for one who loves the sacrament in question. "As for what you

thought fitting to be done, there was not one that was of your mind." In hoc enim, quod tu putabas esse faciendum, nemo consensit. This unity of opinion and result assures us that they reasoned from a unity of faith and of practice in the Church. Such agreement in faith and practice through the Church, and out of which their agreement in advice to Fidus sprung, may have resulted from either of two causes. There may have been a universal prevalence of the teaching of Christ and his apostles, that infant baptism is a divine institution in the Church. Or there may have been a universal prevalence of such a rite, and universal belief in it as divine, while it was only a forgery and an imposition among the original and authoritative rites of the Church.

In determining which of these two causes did, probably, lead them to this unity of advice to Fidus, we come to the last point. we would make on this letter concerning infant baptism.

6. The time when this assembly was convened. Some of its members could, very like, make their memories cover nearly half the period between the time of their session and the time of living apostles. They knew the generation that knew the apostles. In so narrow space of time could infant baptism have sprung up of human device, and established itself so widely and so absolutely? If this rite be an innovation and corruption among the institutions of the apostles, it must have come in by slow introduction. Three quarters of a century

would hardly suffice for so radical and fundamental a change in the constitution of the Church of God. Yet allow that to be sufficient time, for the sake of an inquiry. Between the time of this meeting at Carthage and the death of the apostle John, the interval was about one hundred and fifty years. Could the innovation and imposition have taken place in the last half of this interval? But that would have been within the lifetime and knowledge of these bishops. And knowing it, could they have gone through the discussion of the question of Fidus, and come to that unanimous result, with no intimation or breathed suspicion that the ordinance was of human invention, and so should be left to the widest range of private judgment for its performance? The entire teaching and spirit of the letter show that they supposed they were dealing with a divine ordinance, which could not be true if men had invented and introduced it within their memory and knowledge.

Could the innovation have taken place during the first half of this interval? But it is claimed by those who regard this ordinance as of man, that it is a great violation and departure from the primitive and apostolical constitution of the Church. It is a change, say they, of vast magnitude. Could it have been wrought in seventy-five years, no protesting and pure minority remaining, nor any record of the change, to prevent the unity of opinion and result in that body of sixty-six bishops? Could the change have been made in that age when a part of those among whom it was to be wrought were men whom the apostles had personally instructed?

On the theory that Infant Baptism is a human device and a forgery, thrust in among apostolic institutions, this Letter of Cyprian to Fidus is a great perplexity. The narrow and definite question that it answers, the number of bishops for whom it speaks, their perfect unanimity in opinion, and their nearness to the apostolic age, are confusing thoughts pressed on us by the Letter. If this ordinance be an invention and imposition, begun so early, carried so thoroughly and widely, and all knowledge and history of its corrupt human beginning lost so profoundly, and all within one hundred and fifty years of the apostolic age, then is it a marvel in Church history.

On the theory of invention and imposition this wonder is

increased when we read in Origen, who was born much before and within a century of the apostolic age, "infants are by the usage of the Church baptized," (Homl. in Lev. 8, c. 4,) and, "the Church had from the apostles a tradition to give baptism to infants," (Comm. in Ep. ad Rom. 5: 9). And Tertullian, an earlier witness, adds to the wonder when he adds his testimony to this Church usage in his day. For, speaking of the responsibility of sponsors, and advising the delay of infant baptism that their responsibility may not be so great, he says: "What need is there that the godfathers should be brought into danger? For they may fail of their promises by death, or they may be mistaken by the child's proving of wicked disposition. What need their guiltless age make such haste?" (De Baptismo, c. 18.)

But as we have to do only with the Letter of Cyprian, all earlier testimony to the primitive use of this sacrament is omitted.

ARTICLE III.

WHO WAS THEODORE PARKER?

1. Theodore Parker's Experience as a Minister, with some Account of his Early Life and Education for the Ministry ; · contained in a Letter from him to the Members of the TwentyEighth Congregational Society of Boston. Boston: Rufus Leighton, Jr. 1860. pp. 182.

2. Sundry Discourses, Addresses, Proceedings, &c. &c., occasioned by the Death of Rev. Theodore Parker, viz: Discourses by Rev. Messrs. J. F. Clarke, Bartol, Alger, Newhall, Frothingham, Hepworth; Addresses by Messrs. C. M. Ellis, Wendell Phillips, R. W. Emerson, at the Music Hall, Boston, Sunday, June 17, 1860; and Proceedings at the New England Anti-Slavery Convention, Melodeon, May 31, 1860.

THAT a man by the name of Theodore Parker, the reputed author of one of these publications, and concerning whom the