INTRODUCTORY NOTE. THIS Treatise has grown out of a necessity. In early professional life the author felt the want of such a discussion of the topic of the volume as would cover all related points, since a full discussion could alone bring a safe conclusion. Only fragments, however, of such a treatment were found, with wide omissions. The relations of baptism to circumcision, the Christian Church as related to the Abrahamic, household baptisms in the New Testament, the constitution of the Church of God, infant baptism, infant church-membership, infant baptism in the early Christian centuries, and sundry other subdivisions, had been made the themes of isolated and valuable essays. But these could with difficulty be found; and, when brought together, it was seen that they left wide chasms in the facts and logic and uses of the subject. This incompleteness in the presentation of the topic has been the misfortune of infant baptism in the vague notions concerning it, resulting in some unpopularity and a growing disuse of it. In the forty brief chapters in this volume an attempt is made to remedy these difficulties. The work has three peculiarities. It distinguishes the Church of God from the so-called churches of men. It unfolds historically proselyte baptism as practised in the times of John the Baptist, showing its vital and interpreting connection with the Christian dispensation. It gives, as is believed, every passage relating to the subject in every Greek and Latin author or council between Augustine and St. John. The original, when extant, has been added in foot-notes, that the scholar might here find a complete hand-book of ancient authors on this subject, and an end of search, when studying the topic historically, and at a distance from libraries. Authorities sometimes cited for infant baptism have been omitted. Among them are Clemens Romanus, Hermas, the council of Eliberis, and the Apostolic Constitutions. It has not been thought best to introduce any evidence whose authenticity or genuineness could be questioned, or that would need to be drawn out by an inference, or enforced by an argument. This labor of leisure hours has greatly endeared the Church to the heart of the writer; and it has been only a pleasure and a joy to unfold the divine method of providing for the Children of the Church. READING, MASS., April, 1875. W. BARROWS. |