(c) The presence of the idea ov principle upon which infant baptism is grounded, we may say, is an indis- putable yac< in the New Testament; the evidence of the actual jjractice of infant baptism can onlj' be said to amount to a ver?/ strong pj-obability or a moral cer- tainty. All Baptists assert that there is no ground for this probability. Some eminent historians and critics also, who are nevertheless p:cdobaptist in principle, de- clare that the evidence is against the practice in apos- tolic times. Thus Neander {Plant, and Training, p.
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524
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162) savs, "It is in the highest decree probable that the practice of infant baptism was unlvnown at this pe- riod." Meyer also remarl^s {Com. iiber die Apostelgesch. p. 361) that there is no trace of infant baptism to be found in the New Testament. But it is to be noted that while these eminent scholars do not find sufficient evidence of the actual practice of the rite in the New Testament history, yet both affirm that the conception of the family there actually present was the idea from which it naturally grew, or which logically and his- torically justifies it. Neander, for example, in speak- ing of 1 Cor. vii, 14, says, " In the point of view here taken by Paul, we find (although it testifies against the existence at that time of infant baptism) the fun- damental idea from which the practice was afterwards developed, and by which it must be justified to agree with Paul's sentiments : an intimation of the pre-em- inence belonging to children born in a Christian com- munity ; of the consecration for the kin.t^dom of God therebj' granted them, and of an immediate sanctify- ing influence which would communicate itself to their earliest development" {Plant, and Train, p. 164). Sim- ilarly Kling in Lange, Com. on Connthians, and Mej'er.
AVe should observe that certain circumstances of the time would affect the practice itself, and the men- tion of it in historical records. Christianity being preached as a new fliith, or as a renewal or revolution of an old faith, it must begin mainlj' with adults; the work of spreading it would be missionary work, and baptism of adults would be most important and most numerous. It was characteristic of Christians to in- sist with emphasis upon a living, personal faith in their converts, in contrast to the formal, perverted faith in Abrahamic descent among the Jews, and a formal, superstitious faith among tlie Gentiles. This makes it appear in most instances as if this personal adult faith were the indispensable condition of entering into the Church in any way, and of baptism. Again, Jew- ish Christians, as we have noticed, continued to cir- cumcise their children ; and although baptism and circumcision were regarded, as we have seen, as anal- ogous, and as having the same signification, j-et there would naturally be some time before this would take full possession of the Jewish mind, and it would be some time also before baptism would entirely super- sede circumcision. Further, the idea in accordance with which children would be baptized was so thoroughly inwrought into Jewish thought, and passed so naturally into the thought of the New Testament, that we should not expect to find either the idea or the rite spoken of with that prominence and explicitness which would certainly have been the case had they been something new.
2. Historical Testimony/ in the Post-Apostolic Church. — The first unquestionably explicit reference to infant baptism in Christian literature occurs in Tertullian's Di BaptismOj written about A.D. 202. That this at least is such a reference is universally allowed by Baptists themselves in opposing the practice. Earlier fathers, whose writings are quoted as testifying to infant baptism, are Justin ^Iart\'r and Irenajus ; but it is disputed by opponents of pa3dobai)tism that the pas- sages cjuoted imply its existence. In the doubtful and scanty remains of other early writers, as the Epis- tle of Barnabas, the Slicphcrd of Hernias, tlie Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians, the epistles of Ignatius and of Clement of Rome, there are no references to the baptism of children. This silence is looked upon by Baptists as evidence that the practice was un- known ; by Pajdobaptists as evidence that infant bap- tism was so general!}" accepted as not to have been disputed at the time. AVe present in what follows the passages from Justin ^lartyr, Irena-iis, and Tertullian.
Justin Martyr (born about A.D. 100, died A.D. 166), in his First Apology for the Christians, addressed to the emperor Antoninus Pius, written about A.D. 138, says, " Many persons among us of both sexes, some sixty.
some seventy j'ears old, who were discipled to Christ from childhood (oV Ik TralSaiv Ijxa^ijTiv^ijaav Tif XptcTTto), continue uncorrupted." 'Eic TraiCwv may meanyVom very early childhood, or from infancy, as in Matt, ii, 16, "from two years old and under." The phrase " were discipled" is the one used by Christ in connection with the word baptizing in the commission in Matt, xxviii, 19, the participle iSa-uTt'Coi'Tet; ex- pressing the means by wliich they were made disciples (Meyer, Lange, Alford, Schaft"). If, as is most prob- able, baptism continued to be implied as the means of the /iia^ijTeviii', then the persons spoken of must have been baptized as iralcec, perhaps as infants, and that too in the time of some of the apostles. Allusion has alread}' been made to Justin Martj'r's association of circumcision and baptism. "Writing at so short an in- terval after the apostles, his association of the two is strong evidence that they were regarded as correspond- ing in the apostolic Church, as indicated in Col. ii, 11, 12, and evidence that baptism was performed upon children as circumcision had been. In his Dialogue v:ith Trypho the Jew, § 29, he says, " What then is circumcision to me, who have a testimony from God ? what is the use of that baptism to one that is baptized with the Holy Ghost?" Also § 43: "We have not received that circumcision which is according to the flesh, but a spiritual circumcision ; and we have re- ceived it by baptism." In § 61 of his Apology, he ex- plains to the emperor "the manner in which Ave have consecrated ourselves to God." This is an account of baptism, and apparentl}' of adult baptism only. This would lead us to think that infant baptism was not common, but the omission of allusion to it in the account does not give us reason to assert that it was not practiced.