nerated after the same manner with our felves; for they are wash'd in the Name of God the Father, and Lord of All, and of our Saviour John3.3,5. Jefus Chrift; for Christ has faid, Unless you are born again you cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. (But you all know 'tis impoffible to enter a second time into our Mothers Womb) and in Allufion to this, the Prophet Isaiah, in the Words above cited, speaks, when he prescribes the Method by which repenting Sinners If. 1. 16- may avoid the Confequence of their Sins; Wah ye, make you clean, put away the Evil of your Doings, learn to do well, judge the Fatherless, and plead for the Widow. Come now, and let us reafon together, faith the Lord, though your Sins be as Scarlet, they fhall be as white as Snow; tho they be red like Crimson, they shall be as Wool. But if you refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the Sword, for the Mouth of the Lord hath Spoken it.

20.

LXXX. The Reason of this we have from the Apostles, for having nothing to do in our first Birth, but being begotten by Neceffity, or without our own Confent, and train'd up also in vicious Customs and Company, to the end therefore we might continue no longer the Children of Neceffity and Ignorance, but of Freedom and Knowledge, and obtain Remiffi. on of our past Sins by Vertue of this Water, the Penitent, who now makes his fecond Birth an Act of his own Choice, has call'd over him the Name of God the Father, and Lord of all things. (When we conduct the Person to be baptized to the Place of Baptism we call

God

God by no other Name; because we have not any Appellation for the ineffable Majesty of God, that can explain his Nature; and if any Man pretends to that, we think him mad in the highest Degree; this Baptifm is called 8 Illumination, because the Minds of the Catechumens who are thus washed are illuminated ;) and moreover the Perfon baptiz'd and illuminated, is baptiz'd in the Name of Jesus Christ who wash crucify'd under Pontius Pilate, and in

• Illumination.] Baptifm was called by many Names, as Xdeoμα, Βάπτισμα, Αφθαρσίας ένδυμα, Λατρόν παλιγγεννησίας, Σpeasida, aliopov, &c. Grace, Baptifm, the Veftment of Incorruption, the Laver of Regeneration, the Seal, Illumination, c. Nazian. de Baptif. The great Variety of these Denominations flowing from the feveral Benefits occurring thereby. The most noble of thefe is what Juftin calls here paliouov, or Illumination, to which the Author of the Epiftle to the Hebrews, c. 6. v. 4. is thought to refer in the Word Inlightned. It is ftyl'd Illumination, 1ft, as Juftin fays, Because the Understandings of those who are catechiz'd antecedent to it are inlightned. 2dly, Because it is our first entrance into Chriftianity, and Chrift is 70 pas, that fupereminent Light which lighteth every Man that cometh into the World, thofe especially who are born again by Baptifm; He being, as Nazianzen calls Him, The fame to the Intellect, as the Sun to the Senfe. And 3dly, Because the Prince of Darknefs was ufually driven out by Exorcifm to make way for Chrift, the true Light.

h

Ἐπονομάζει ὄνομα, juft before the Parenthefis, and ἐπ ὀνόμ 10a, juft after, are Expreffions which import the fame. Now that which I remark from this Paffage of Juftin Martyr, is, That the very Form of Baptifm, inftituted by our Lord Himself, is here enlarg'd, for thus it runs,—ἐπ ̓ ὀνόμα] τὸ Πατρὸς ὅλων και δεσπότε θεῖ, καὶ Ιησέ Χρις, τὸ σαυροθέντα ἐπὶ Πολίς Πιλάτε, καὶ Πνεύμα Αγία ὁ διὰ Προφητῶν προεκήρυξε τὰ καὶ Ieory wavla: In the Name of the Father of all things, the Lord God, and of Jefus Chrift, who was crucify'd under Pontius Pilate, and of the Holy Ghost, who foretold by the Prophets all things concerning Chrift. In the Clementine Conftitutions, the Form of Baptifm ftands thus, ἐπ' ὀνόματΘ το αποςείλαν ο Πατρός, το ἔλθον Χεις, TμastvenПaegnanт8. Clem. Conftit. lib. 7. In the Name of the Father, who fent, of Christ, who came, and of the Comforter,

who

1

in the Name of the Holy Ghost who fpake by the Prophets, and foretold every thing concerning Christ.

LXXXI. The Devils no fooner heard of this Ezek. cap. Baptifm fpoken of by the Prophet, but they too, fet up their Baptisms, and made fuch as

36. v. 25.

go

who bore Witness. Now as different Herefies arofe, fo they gave Occafion for different Paraphrases and Enlargements, both in the Form of Baptifm, and the Creed. And this is the true Reafon why the Apoftles Creed is the fimpleft and shortest of any; for 'tis evident that the Simonians, Cerinthians, Ebionites, &c. fcatter'd their Herefies not at Rome, but in the Eaft, and moftly in Afia. And accordingly, Ignatius, in his Epiftles to the Afiatick Churches, does every where, almoft, inveigh againft the Hereticks, but commends the Romans for the Purity of their Faith. And Tertullian in his Præfcription, cap. 36. calls the Roman Church Statu falicem Ecclefiam. From hence I cannot but take notice of the Reasons of fome great Men against the Antiquity of that which is commonly called the Apoftles Creed: They fay, That none of the first Writers agree in delivering their Faith in a certain Form of Words, and that therefore, from thence it is clear, that there was no common Form deFiver'd to all the Churches; and if there had been any Tradition after the Times of the Council of Nice, of fuch a Creed compos'd by the Apofles, the Arians had certainly put the chief Strength of their Caufe on This, That they adhered to the Apostles Creed in Oppofition to the Innovations of the Nicene Fathers. And that there is no Reafon thewefore to believe, that this Creed was prepar'd by the Apoftles, or that it was of any great Antiquity. The fame fort of reafoning has Voffius made ufe of, de trib. Symbol. But now 'tis confefs'd on all fides, that in St. Paul's time there was a fettled Form in most Churches, which he calls The Form of Doctrine that was deliver'd, Rom. 6. 17. and in another Place, The Form of Sound Words, 2 Tim. 1.13. 'Tis certain alfo, that the Primitive Church, not far diftant from the Apoftolick Age, had a Creed refembling this, which paffes for the Apofle's, as to moft Particulars, and the Subftance of the Articles, tho' with fome variation, as is evident from Tertullian's Regula Fidei, Vid. Tertul. de vel. virg. & Cypr. Epift. 7. & Epift. 70. And if we confider the manner of the Fathers, and Justin in particular, in citing even Canonical Scripture, which was not always to confult the Originals, but often to deliver it in fuch Words as their Memory fuggefted, provided they preferv'd the Sense entire; we may conclude that from the fame Liberty in citing the Confefii

on

go to their Temples, and officiate in their Libations, and Meat-Offerings, first i sprinkle themselves with Water by way of Luftration; and they have now brought it to fuch a pass, that the Worshippers are wash'd from Head to Foot, before they approach the facred Place where their Images are kept. And whereas their Adorers are commanded by Priests to put off their Shoes before they presume to enter the Temples to worship these Dæmons, this is evidently done to mimick what they found

k

on of Faith, arose the Diversity in Creeds. And with all Submiffion I think, that the Men who argue against the Antiquity of the Apoftle's Creed, from the Variations among the Fathers, may as well argue against a fett Form in Baptifm from this Variation in Justin Martyr. As Herefies grew, fo did the Creed, and the Fa thers may with as good Reafon be prefum'd to enlarge the Apoftles Creed with explanatory Additions only; as here we find the Form of Baptifm, fix'd by Chrift himself, enlarg'd in the time of this Martyr, but the Form is the fame in Subftance or Effentials; and the great Creed is called the Nicene, tho' many things were added to it by the Council of Conftantinople, and fome things fince.

i That fuch Mock-Baptifms were fet up by the Contrivance of the Devil in the Gentile World, we find not only afferted by Juftin, but all the Primitive Writers, and particularly by Tertullian, de Baptifmo, c. 5. Certe ludis Apollinaribus & Eleufiniis tinguntur idque fe in regenerationem & impunitatem perjuriorum fuorum agere præfumunt. Thus were Men inițiated into the Myfteries of Eleufis, and he who initiated them was called devos the Waterer. Ὑδρανὸς ὁ ἀνικής τ Ελευσινίων. Hefych. Thus again we learn from Tertullian that they initiated Men into the Rites of Isis and Mithra, Nam & facris quibufdam per lavacrum initiantur Ifidis alicu jus & Mithra. de Bapt. c. 5. the chief Prieft of that Goddess (as Apuleius defcribes his own Initiation) Milefi. 11. citat. a Seldeno de fucceff. ad leg. Hebr. c. 26. leading the Party to be initiated to the next Bath, where having first deliver'd him to the ufual wathing, and ask'd Pardon of the Goddefs, he fprinkled him all about, and bringing him back to the Temple, after two parts of the Day were spent, plac'd him before the Feet of the Goddefs. See more on this Subject in Grotius upon Matt. cap. 28. v. 19.

Vid. Tertul. Apol. cap. 40.

com.

commanded the Prophet Mofes; for while Mofes was feeding the Sheep of his Father-inLaw in Arabia, he was commanded to go down into Egypt, and to bring out the People of Ifrael, and our Chrift talked with him out of the Bush in the Appearance of Fire, and said, Exod. 3.5. Put off thy Shoes, and come and hear; and ac

If. 1.3.

Mat.11.27.

cordingly he put off his Shoes, and went and heard that he was to go down into Egypt and conduct the Ifraelites from thence; and being appointed with prodigious Power by that Chrift who converfed with him out of the Bush of Fire, he went and brought the People out, doing great and astonishing Actions; the Particulars of which, if you have a mind to it, you may exactly fee in his own Writings.

LXXXII. But all the modern Jews teach that it was the unnameable God, who thus convers'd with Mofes, upon which Account the prophetick Spirit, by the Mouth of the Prophet Ifaiah, reprehends 'em in these Words already quoted, The Ox knoweth the Owner, and the Afs his Master's Crib, but Ifrael doth not know me, my People hath not understood me. And because the Jews were ignorant what the Father and the Son was, Jefus Christ himself thus corrects them, No Man knoweth the Father but the Son, nor the Son, but them to whom the Son will reveal him. But as I have faid, the Logos of God is His Son, and is also called Angel and1 Apostle; for He Himself did deliver as an Angel

'Chrift is called the Angel, Exod. 3. 2. but no where the Apoftle (as Dr. Grabe obferves) but in the Epiftle to the Hebrews,

cap.