A just vindication of the covenant and church-estate of children of church-members as also of their right unto bastisme : wherein such things as have been brought by divers to the contrary, especially by Ioh. Spilsbury, A.R. Ch. Blackwood, and H. Den are revised and answered : hereunto is annexed a refutation of a certain pamphlet styled The plain and wel-grounded treatise touching baptism
Cobbet, Thomas, 1608-1685.
SECT. II.
* As for the Easterne and Greeke Churches, Cassanders testimony is very round and full, (albeit their discipline may well bee gathe∣red by their teachers and councells doctrine) speaking of testimo∣ny of Paedobaptisme he saith,
but especiall and chiefe testimo∣ny and weight of authoritie to this baptisme of Infants, is fur∣ther added, from the universall and constant custome, which unto this day in the Churches which are extant in the world, and there are many such without the limits of the Roman
Page 290 Church is retained, for the Churches which are yet remaining in Greece, Asia, Syria, Aegypt, and India, and the Russians and Muscovites which follow the Greeke orders; lastly, the Aethio∣pians under the government of Prester John; I say all these Christians professing nations, although differing in some opinions, and rites, yet in the custome of baptizing In∣fants, they all of old agreed among themselves, some stating the 8. and the Aethiopians the 40. day for baptizing them, un∣lesse in the case of danger or those of the female Sex. The Russi∣ans, and Armenians baptize Infants as they doe Adults, un∣lesse that when they baptize Infants, there are witnesses; and the Indian Christians doe so likewise, for which hee quotes Jo∣sephus Judas in his Aethiopian navigations, and Franciscus Alva∣res, and it's not credible that such Churches so averse from the Latines, would yet buckle to their customes of consecrating the unleavened bread, or eating thngs strangled, or blood, that they did borrow this of Paedobaptisme (so much abhord for∣merly by them) from the Westerne Churches;
and Paget in his Christianography citeth a speech of the Bishop of Bitonto in the Councell of Trent, acknowledging of the Greeke Church thus: ea igitur Graecia mater est, that the Greeke Church is that mo∣ther to whom the Latin owneth whatever it hath; see the acts of the Councell of Trent, pag. 18.
and hee mentions the forme of the Russians baptisme, the Priest when hee dippeth the child useth these words in the name of the Father, Sonne, and holy Ghost, and as oft as the God-fathers are asked whether they renounce the Devill, so oft they spit on the ground, Guag∣niny relig. Muscovit.
In the Greeke Church the Priest having said certaine prayers, taking the child in his armes, putteth him three times into the water saying: The servant of God N N. is baptized in the name of the Father, the Sonne and Holy Ghost.
Jerom the Patriarch pag. 103. and the same doth Thomas Aquinas observe in his third part, Quest. 6. Artic. 8. Quest. 67. Artic. 6. and Quest. 66. A•…tic. the 5th. And the same doth Dominic. a Sot. in quest. 1. Art. 8. te∣stifie, and let mee adde two things more; First, that the doctrine of Paedobaptisme was never ex professo opposed by any Orthodox Churches, or Christians in all the times of old, as farre as I can finde; of Tertullians mind wee have spoken before, and Gregory Nazianzen; how farre they went Auxentius the Arrian Bishop of
Page 291 Millain, as Bullinger in his Decads hath it, did so, and so indeed did the Samosatenian Heretiques. The Donatists they baptized In∣fants, witnesse the 48. Canon of the third Carthaginian Coun∣cell in reference to Siritius and Simplicianus. So did other African Councels in Austins time ordaine that children baptized by Dona∣tists should not bee rebaptized; the Pelagians themselves denied it not wholly. Austin in his 14. Sermon de verbis Apostoli. baptizand•… esse parvulos nemo dubitet, &c. none need to doubt of baptisme since even those here doubt not, which in part doe contradict (scil. the Pelagians:) there are cases, and times wherein some one of the servants of God saw much more then many, and most did; as Athanasius, and some few more in the point of the Divinitie of Christ in that Arrian age, and Paphnutius the Confessor in the point of Ministers marriage to which the Fathers of the Nicene Councell had like to have gone contrary, and yet before and af∣ter these times, whole Churches and Councels held out as much as these Saints did.
