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 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
 From the collection of 
 Julius Doerner, Chicago 
 Purchased, 1918, 
 
 lfUUJUiTAC’i.S 
 
4 
 
 A LETTEll 
 
 TO 
 
 THE CLERGY OF THE DIOCESE OF EXETER. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2017 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates 
 
 https://archive.org/details/lettertoclergyofOOhenr 
 
A LETTER 
 
 TO THE 
 
 CLEllGY OF THE DIOCESE OF EXETER, 
 
 ON CERTAIN STATEMENTS OF 
 
 THE ARCHDEACON OF MIDDLESEX 
 
 IN THE “ PREFATORY EPISTLE ” TO THE SECOND EDITION 
 OF HIS CHARGE. 
 
 By HENRY, LORD BISHOP OF EXETER. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 
 
 1851. 
 
A L E 1' T E R, 
 
 
 My Reverend Brethren, 
 
 I HAVE thought it due, both to you, and to the cause of 
 Catholic Truth, that I should reply, however briefly, to the 
 remarks which have been made by the Archdeacon of Middle- 
 sex on those parts of my Address to you at our late Synod, 
 which had special reference to the statements then recently put 
 forth by him on the great doctrinal question before us. In 
 doing this, I will, first, very shortly dispose of the personal mat- 
 ters mixed up in the discussion: — they are of little consequence 
 even to the parties concerned, and of none to the Church at 
 large. 
 
 The Archdeacon deems it “ an anomalous procedure ” that 
 a Bishop of another Diocese should animadvert on statements 
 made by him to his own clergy. But surely when those state- 
 ments vehemently assailed the very Article of Faith for the 
 assertion of which that Bishop had deemed it necessary to con- 
 voke his Clergy in a Diocesan Synod — and when the utmost 
 use had been made of the authority of the Archdeacon against 
 him — there is little reason for surprise, much less for blame, in 
 the “ procedure ” which is thus characterized as ‘‘anomalous.” 
 
 But a graver matter of complaint is urged. The Arch- 
 deacon is indignant at “ the contumelious epithets affixed to his 
 statements and opinions.” I am not aware of any epithets being- 
 applied to him, which can reasonably be termed “ contumelious.” 
 A writer who permits himself to characterize the Catholic sense 
 
 R 
 
( ) 
 
 put on an Article of the Creed, as “ an inference so preposterous, 
 that the Fathers of the Council of Constantinople would have 
 expressed their indignation that it should he deduced from their 
 assertion ” — has no right to complain of his own statement being 
 called “ an ill-advised and rash attempt to roh the Catholic 
 doctrine of the support it has always hitherto derived from our 
 acknowledging in the Creed one Baptism for the remission of 
 sins.” In truth, I wished to say nothing unnecessarily offen- 
 sive, much less contumelious, of the Archdeacon : I thought his 
 proceeding ‘‘ ill-advised and rash ” ; I think so still — and much 
 more strongly, since his recent attempt to justify it. To that 
 attempt, and to the main particulars, on which he rests his 
 renewed and more vehement assault on what we deem an essen- 
 tial part of the Catholic Faith, I now invite your attention. 
 
 In order to bring any discussion to a tolerably satisfactory 
 conclusion, it is necessary that we steadily bear in mind what is 
 the real matter at issue. Now, the issue between Archdeacon 
 Sinclair and us— for you are as really concerned in it as myself 
 — is, whether the proposition that Baptism is God’s instrument 
 for conferring remission of sins, be a matter of opinion or of 
 Faith — for that the proposition is true^ we are agreed. The 
 Archdeacon tells us^ that he believes it himself, and that he 
 has never doubted, that all the Fathers at the Council of Con- 
 stantinople — and not only they, but the entire Catholic Church 
 of the fourth century — agreed in that opinion — were unanimous 
 upon it.” Where then do we differ? — In this, I repeat — 
 Whether the proposition, which w^e all hold to be true, must be 
 believed as an Article of Faith, or is a matter of opinion— m 
 other words, an open question. You and I have declared that 
 we hold it as an Article of Faith : and, if it be an Article of 
 Faith, then it follow^s — for we are not afraid or ashamed to 
 avow the consequences — that the Church which shall permit 
 
 Prof. Ep. p. 7. 
 
( ) 
 
 its ministers to teach what is contrary to it loses its Catholicity, 
 and is thereby involved in all the fatal consequences of that 
 loss. 
 
 Now, that the Article, “ I acknowledge one Baptism for the 
 remission of sins/’ is an Article of Faith, seems primd facie 
 indisputable — for it is an Article of the Creed ; - rnidC what is 
 a Creed, — but a summary of the Articles of our Faith ? a de- 
 claration of Truths, which are to be held as of Faith ? 
 
 To this very simple reasoning — not the less cogent, because 
 it is simple — the Archdeacon thinks it sufficient to say — for this 
 is the only semblance of a reason which I can discover, whether 
 in his original Charge, or in the Prefatory Epistle to his new 
 edition of it — that “ the Article was designed to forbid the 
 repetition of Baptism, rather than to affirm its efficacy 
 
 Let us, for a moment, suppose that he is so far right — that 
 the Article was introduced into the Creed for the purpose which 
 he states — how far does this carry him towards his conclusion ? 
 Be the reason for the introduction of the Article what it may, 
 there it is — part of the Church’s Creed ; expressing what the 
 Church requires to be believed as of Faith. “No !” says our 
 learned opponent — “ The Church requires not any such thing ; 
 I admit that the Article is true — that it is an Article of the 
 Creed — that the whole Catholic Church, in the age when the 
 Creed was framed and accepted, believed this as fully as any 
 other Article of it : but then it intended only that the one-ness 
 of Baptism should be believed as of faith : the effect of the 
 “ one Baptism/’ though stated in the Creed, is an open ques- 
 tion upon which Churches, and individual Catholics, may 
 differ [“ agree to differ ” is, I believe, the most approved 
 formula] without at all violating the unity of Faith.” 
 
 In answer to this, we may be permitted to ask, What “ Bap- 
 tism ” is “ ONE ? ” “ Baptism /hr the remission of Sins."' Of 
 
 Prcf. Ep., p. 19. 
 
( 4 ) 
 
 other i^aptisms, there may be as many as human ingenuity can 
 devise ; but “Baptism for the remission of Sins,” which is the 
 Baptism specified in the Creed, is One — only One. This is 
 the truth, the important truth, which the whole Church has re- 
 ceived as an Article of the Catholic Faith, and has fixed it for 
 ever in its Creed, as such. Here too we are agreed. 
 
 Upon what then, I again ask, do we differ? Upon this: 
 Whether the proposition be of faith, or only one of its terms. 
 Strange as it must sound to ordinary ears, the sole ground on 
 which Archdeacon Sinclair has constructed his theory is this : 
 It is an essential Article of Faith, that there is otzc Baptism of 
 a certain specified description ; but it is not of Faith, that the 
 “ Baptism ” which is “ One,” be of that specified description. 
 
 I think you will forgive me, if I make no attempt to discuss 
 this particular further. I turn, but only for a single moment, 
 to one other point, before I examine the Archdeacon’s main 
 discussion. 
 
 He “ trusts ” that the Clergy to whom his Charge is ad- 
 dressed, “ will agree with him that the assembled Fathers at 
 Constantinople were not thinking of infants, but of adults : 
 not of original sin, but of actual sins, of schisms, heresies, and 
 crimes.” I should be sorry to impair the confidence of his 
 Clergy in their Archdeacon, but I must be permitted to say 
 that he here draws rather largely upon it. AVhy should they 
 suppose — except because he wishes it — that these venerable 
 Bishops excluded the case of infants from their consideration, 
 when they dealt with the question of “one Baptism ?” — that they 
 thought, not of original sin, but of actual sins ? Is not “ ori- 
 ginal sin ” the special disorder of the soul, for which our Lord 
 in Flis mercy devised Baptism as the full and appropriate 
 remedy ? Does not our own Church say, that “ the Baptism 
 of young children is most agreeable with the institution of 
 Christ ?” Why is this, or how can it be, except that young 
 children have no other sins to be remitted, but that sin which 
 
( 5 ) 
 
 adheres to them as ‘‘ naturally engendered of the offspring of 
 Adam ?” One of the most distinguished of the Fathers at 
 Constantinople did, in his own teaching (as I before showed 
 to you), enforce in the strongest way the duty and the blessed- 
 ness of baptizing infants.* Why are we to suppose that he for- 
 got all this, when he sate with his brethren at Constantinople ? 
 
 But let us look at the consequences of excluding the case of 
 children from the contemplation of those who framed the Creed. 
 
 If that case was not contemplated, aye, and included in the 
 Article “ I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins,” 
 it follows that there is nothing to forbid — nay, that there is 
 every thing to enforce — the re-haptizing of all who were bap- 
 tized in infancy. Will the Archdeacon stand by this manifest 
 result of his own statement ? And will he persist in his grave 
 censure of us for declaring a contrary judgment ? 
 
 But I proceed to the main subject of those observations of 
 his, which it is my present duty to answer. 
 
 You will remember that in his Charge (p. 32) he had broadly 
 asserted, that “the 7th Canon” of the Council of Constanti- 
 nople “ was enacted making this addition to the Creed,” be- 
 cause “ the Council disapproved of an assertion, shortly before 
 made by Saint Basil, that Baptism by heretics or schismatics 
 was absolutely void, and that the Sacrament in such cases 
 ought to be repeated.” 
 
 In my observations on this statement, I called on the Arch- 
 deacon to produce any authority for it as a matter of fact — 
 especially the authority of any writer of the age of St. Basil — 
 or of any subsequent age which approached it. He answers 
 
 * St. Jerome, who was contemporary with this Council, thus writes, in his 
 ‘ Symboli Explanatio ad Damasum.* 
 
 Baptisma unum tenemus, quod in iisdem Sacramenti verbis in infantibus, qui- 
 bus etiam in majoribus esse celebrandum. Hominem, si post baptisraum lapsus 
 fuerit, per poenitentiam credimus salvari posse. — S. Hieron. Op. T. v. p. 124, 
 Ed. Paris. 1706, 
 
( « ) 
 
 this call by a passage from a work of Christianus Lupus, 
 written in the seventeenth century ! 
 
 But he endeavours to strengthen his case by an assertion 
 which, I doubt not, he believes himself, but which will be be- 
 lieved by few other persons who are at all conversant with the 
 opinions which prevailed in the age of St. Basil. “ The re-bap- 
 tismal controversy,” says he, “had long been carried on, not 
 only between Catholics and heretics, but between Catholics and 
 Catholics. St. Cyprian of Carthage, and St. Firmilian of Cap- 
 padocia, had maintained, in opposition to Pope Stephen of 
 Rome (three centres of agitation, you will observe, sufficiently 
 far apart to include all Christendom), that Baptism adminis- 
 tered by heretics or schismatics was absolutely null and void ; 
 and this harsh doctrine, under various modifications, had been 
 strenuously maintained in letters, treatises, and canons, by men 
 of learning and high station, during nearly a century and a 
 half, in various parts of Europe, Africa, and Asia. These 
 controversies had become so troublesome and inveterate at the 
 period immediately previous to the Council of Constantinople 
 that the want of a Synod must have been keenly felt, and was 
 very pointedly expressed by distinguished leaders in the 
 Church.”^ Again (p. 11), “It appears then, that when the 
 Council of Constantinople assembled, in 381, a controversy had 
 long been raging far and wide, both within and without the 
 Church, on the subject of ‘ One Baptism,’ in contradistinction 
 to repeated Baptisms.” 
 
 Now, in answer to this statement, I take leave to say, first, 
 that no controversy on this point ever “ raged ” in the Eastern 
 Church, though Firmilian did indeed side with Cyprian against 
 Pope Stephen ; and, secondly, that the controversy which had 
 been, at one time, very violent in the Western Church was 
 completely set at rest, and harmony quite restored, at least fifty 
 
 Prefatoiy I^'pistle to Second Edition of the Charge, p. 9. 
 
( 7 ) 
 
 years before the Synod of Constantinople. I rest this state- 
 ment on the highest authority to which we can appeal — Fleury's 
 Ecclesiastical History — which tells us (after a long detail of the 
 contest in the West) that “ the opinion of the Pope Stephen 
 ultimately prevailed ; the African Bishops who had, like 
 St. Cyprian, ordered that heretics should he rebaptized, changed 
 their mind, and made a contrary decree ; those Oriental 
 Bishops who had been of the same party, also retracted ; and 
 at length this dispute was entirely terminated by the authority 
 of the General Council ” — that is to say, at the Council of 
 Nice — fifty years, I repeat, before the time of which the 
 Archdeacon writes. 
 
 But he cites two proofs of his assertion, in contradiction to 
 Fleury — First, St. Epiphanius,f in his work against heresies, 
 finds fault with certain Catholics, who, contrary to the custom 
 of the Church, and unauthorised by the decision of a General 
 Council, had ventured to rebaptize those followers who had 
 come over to them from the Arian party, although that point 
 had not been synodically determined. Secondly, “ the epistles 
 of St. Basil ” — especially to St. Amphilochius. 
 
 Still, there was no “ controversy raging ” on the subject. 
 Epiphanius simply condemned these persons for baptizing all 
 who came to the Church out of countries where Arianism pre- 
 vailed : not because he deemed it wrong to re-baptize those who 
 had been baptized by Arians, but because there were very many 
 concealed orthodox in those parts — persons who were afraid of 
 avowing their orthodoxy, — so that it was not possible to know 
 
 * Fleury, Hist. Eccles. lib. vii. c. S3. The Council of Arles, a.d. 314 
 (Lobb. i. 1418), had made the following Canon, 8. — De Afris, quod propria 
 lege sua utuntur ut rebaptizent, placuit, ut si ad Ecclesiam aliquis de Hseresi 
 venerit, interrogent eum symbolum, et si perviderint eum in Patre et Filio, et 
 Spiritu Sancto esse baptizatum, manus ei tantixm imponatur, ut accipiat 
 Spiritum Sanctum. Quod si interrogatus non responderit hanc Trinitatem, 
 baptizetur.- The 21st Canon of Nice, a.d. 325. (Lobb, ii. 58.) — Et ut 
 Paulianistse, qui sunt Photianiani, rebaptizentur, 
 
 t Pref. Ep. p. 9. 
 
( s ) 
 
 whether those who had been baptized there had been baptized 
 by Arians, or by orthodox. 
 
 The truth is, that the Eastern Church did not accept the 
 judgment of Rome on this point, yet there were no controver- 
 sies raging there upon it. They simply took their several 
 courses according to their own judgment. Thus St. Amphilo- 
 chius, in order to decide his judgment, applied to St. Basil, who 
 gave him his opinion, but told him at the same time, that 
 “ several Bishops ought to meet together, and so make a 
 Canon, in order that the baptizer might be released from all 
 responsibility, and that he who answers the inquiry might in 
 his answer have wherewithal to claim authority.” 
 
 But the Archdeacon had said, that “ the Council of Con- 
 stantinople disapproved the doctrinal assertions of St. Basil, 
 made in reliance on the earlier Fathers (St. Cyprian and 
 St. Firmilian), and that in consequence their 7th Canon was 
 enacted, making this addition to the Nicene Creed, ‘ I acknow- 
 ledge one Baptism for the remission of sins.’ ” 
 
 I required to know on what authority this assertion was 
 founded, stating that there was not a particle of evidence to 
 that effect in any contemporary, or nearly contemporary 
 writer. The Archdeacon now adduces his authority, Chris- 
 tianus Lupus, a writer, as I have said, of the seventeenth 
 century, from whose work the Archdeacon cites the following 
 sentence, “ Hocce symbolum addidit unum baptisma, contra 
 S, Basilii supra adductas cogltationes.” 
 
 Before I proceed further, let me notice the manner in which 
 the Archdeacon seeks to depreciate St. Basil. He first cites 
 the very learned Jesuit Petavius’s remarks on some of Basil’s 
 statements, as being uncatholic, because they did not conform 
 to the decision of Rome respecting Baptism by Heretics and 
 Schismatics, and what was afterwards maintained in that 
 Church respecting Baptism by Laics. 
 
 “ The Epistles of St. Basil ” [his Canonical Epistles to St. 
 
( 9 ) 
 
 Amphilocliius] “ were,” says he, “ to a great extent in accord- 
 ance with the severe views of St. Cyprian and Firmilian, to 
 wliich Stephen of Rome and the Catholic Church, Eastern and 
 Western, had in general objected.” 
 
 The Archdeacon must permit me to say that this state- 
 ment is sadly at variance with notorious historic facts. “ The 
 Catholic Church, Eastern and Western,” did not agree in ob- 
 jecting to what he calls “ the severe views of St. Cyprian and 
 Firmilian,” — in other words, the rejection of all Baptism 
 ministered out of the Church. On the contrary, they differed 
 very widely. The Eastern Church adhered to the judgment of 
 St. Cyprian and Firmilian (founded on the Apostolic Canons), 
 so far as related to Baptism by Heretics, though it admitted 
 Baptism by Schismatics : Rome, on the other hand, and most 
 of the Western Churches, admitted both. St. Basil’s views 
 were such as might have been expected in an Eastern Bishop, 
 leaning, however, not to “ the severe,” but to the lenient side — 
 in other words, making exception in favour of certain Heretics. 
 Still, as his views were not in accordance with the teaching of 
 Rome, they were censured by Petavius as “ parum Catholica.” 
 That such a censure should be pronounced upon them by a sworn 
 adherent of the papacy, can surprise no one. But who could 
 expect that so good a Protestant as the Archdeacon of Middle- 
 sex should side with him ? — nay, go further than he — do what 
 Petavius in his warmest opposition to that illustrious man would 
 have blushed to do — sneer at Basil the Great as ‘ ‘ this Eastern 
 Saint !” 
 
 But I have a word more to say on this matter. If the East- 
 ern Church did indeed object (as the Archdeacon says) to the 
 statements of St. Basil, it took an extraordinary mode of testi- 
 fying its objection : for it actually confirmed them all, by the 
 2nd Canon of the General Council in Trullo. Will the Arch- 
 deacon say that this was three centuries later than the first 
 Council held in the same city, Constantinople, and, therefore, 
 
( 10 ) 
 
 tliat it may have approved what the earlier condemned ? No ! 
 that suggestion will not serve him. For, as the Council in 
 Trullo was held twelve centuries before the time of the Arch- 
 deacon, and therefore twelve centuries nearer to St. Basil and 
 the First Council of Constantinople, there is no want of courtesy 
 in assuming that the Fathers, there assembled, were better 
 acquainted with the object and purpose of the Canons which 
 they took upon themselves to confirm, than the Archdeacon or 
 any one of the present generation can pretend to he. Now the 
 same Canon of the Council in Trullo, which confirmed the 
 Canons of St. Basil, confirmed also the Canons of the First 
 Council of Constantinople, thus proving that they were then 
 deemed by the Church to be in accordance one with another ; 
 yet the Archdeacon insists, that the seventh of the last named 
 Canons was made for the special purpose of condemning those 
 very statements of St. Basil, which the Council in Trullo con- 
 firmed, and which it even characterized as “ the Great Basil’s 
 sacred Canons.”* 
 
 Flaving, as we have seen, availed himself of the authority 
 of Petavius against Basil, he next adduces this other writer of 
 the Roman communion, Cliristianus Lupus, “ who, in his 
 elaborate and universally esteemed work on the Canon, cha- 
 racterizes Basil as ‘a Cappadocian,’ and disparages his oppor- 
 tunities, as a theologian, compared with those of the Roman 
 and Western Divines.” 
 
 A more unfortunate attempt than this, to depreciate any 
 writer, it would he impossible to conceive. At the time when 
 Liqms is thus supposed to have spoken scornfully of “a 
 Cappadocian ” — four of the greatest luminaries of the whole 
 Church — men, with whom few of that age in the Roman, or 
 even the whole Western Church, could be deemed worthy to 
 be compared — were actually Cappadocians — St. Basil of 
 
 * Can. 40 — 'O f-Uyas Bam'Ac-ios iv rots Upo7s avTov icavoai. 
 
( n ) 
 
 Caesarea, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Gregory of Nazianzum, 
 St. Amphilochius of Iconium.* 
 
 But it is only just to Lupus to say, that he meant nothing 
 so absurd. His words — clear enough, it might have been 
 hoped, to escape such a perversion — were misapprehended by 
 the Archdeacon, and therefore mistranslated. I would deal 
 with this matter as little offensively as possible ; but it is 
 impossible not to feel some surprise, that such a construction 
 should have been put upon the following words — “ Basilius, 
 licet veraciter sanctus, et Magni cognomen merito sortitus, 
 homo tamen Cappadox, Romanis et omnibus Occidentalibus 
 ex causis supra insinuatis non plene cequus, ac Firmiliano suo 
 niraiiim adfixus, respondit varia that is, “ Basil, though 
 truly a Saint, and one who had justly earned the addition to 
 his name of ‘The Great’ — yet being a Cappadocian, and 
 therefore, for reasons which have been already insinuated, not 
 altogether without a leaning against the Romans and all of the 
 Western Church — being moreover too much prepossessed in 
 favour of the opinions of Firmilian, bis Predecessor in the See 
 of Caesarea — answers the question put to him in various ways.” 
 
 Such is the construction which ought to be given to these 
 words cited from Lupus’s “ elaborate and universally esteemed 
 work on the Canons.” I have not been able to obtain access 
 to the book itself; but I will request the Archdeacon to give' 
 us the context indicated in the words — “ ex causis supra 
 insinuatis,” — of which, before I see it, I venture to predict, that 
 
 * St. Jerome (Ep. 83, ad Magnum, T. IV. G56), enumerating the most 
 learned Theological Writers, thus says : — “ Cappadocumque Basilii, Gregorii, 
 Amphilochii, qui omnes in tantum Philosophorum doctrinis atque sententiis 
 suos refarciunt libros, ut nescias quid in illis primiim admirari deheas, erudi- 
 tionem Sseculi, an scientiam Scripturarum.” The same Jerome, in his Catalog. 
 Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum, speaks of Gregory of Nazianzum, one of these 
 Cappadocians, as “ his own master, from whom he had learned what is in the 
 Scriptures.” 
 
( 12 ) 
 
 it will confirm the construction which I have here put on the 
 passage. 
 
 But these matters, whatever importance may have been 
 attached to them by the Archdeacon, are not worth further 
 discussion. 
 
 I proceed, therefore, to what is really the juguliim of the 
 whole question. 
 
 Archdeacon Sinclair, in his Charge, had said that because 
 “ St. Basil’s opinions w^ere disapproved of by the Council,” 
 “ the 7th Canon was enacted, making this addition to the 
 Creed ” (“ I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of 
 sins ”). Upon this, you may remember, I remarked, “ 1st, that 
 the 7th Canon makes wo addition to the Creed. 2ndly, that the 
 Canon itself is treated by Bishop Beveridge, and others, as 
 undoubtedly spurious.” 
 
 I will dispose of the Archdeacon’s dealing with the latter of 
 these twm remarks, before I proceed to the former. 
 
 Now% any one who reads the words in which I expressed my 
 statement, will see, that I abstained from giving any judgment 
 of my own on the genuineness, or spuriousness, of the Canon. 
 In truth, I am not ashamed to say, that I was not, and am not, 
 competent to pronounce a judgment on the point. To do so, 
 would require a measure of learning in an important branch of 
 sacred literature, to which I cannot lay any claim, but which 
 Bishop Beveridge notoriously possessed beyond almost any 
 other of our English divines. I therefore adduced the de- 
 cided rejection of the (^anon by that great authority, as a 
 reason wliy no prudent theologian would attach so much 
 importance to the condemned Canon, as to rest upon it the 
 origin and purpose of an Article of the Creed. This was all 
 that I could be reasonably understood to mean, by my state- 
 ment of Bishop Beveridge’s judgment on the question. But, 
 because I did this. Archdeacon Sinclair has thought himself 
 justified in representing me, again and again, as having 
 
( 13 ) 
 
 “ denounced the Canon as undoubtedly spurious ” on my own 
 authority, supporting my own judgment by the authority of 
 Bishop Beveridge. With what was doubtless intended as 
 sarcasm, he couples “ Bishop Beveridge and the Bishop of 
 Exeter,” whenever he thinks he can say anything smart — a 
 compliment, which, however intended, I would gladly, if I 
 could honestly, accept ; for, in the whole catalogue of. English 
 divines, there are few more learned, none more truly evan- 
 gelical, than that illustrious prelate. But enough of what 
 regards myself. 
 
 The reasons stated by Bishop Beveridge for considering this 
 7th Canon as not a genuine Canon of the 1st Council of Constan- 
 tinople are such as, I will not say, cannot be satisfactorily 
 answered, but I will say, require some more powerful answer 
 than any which is given by the Archdeacon of Middlesex, 
 backed by his host of authorities, Roman and Protestant. 
 These reasons are briefly as follows : — 
 
 1st. The Canon in question is not found as a Canon of this 
 Council, in any of the Latin versions ; and, in particular, not in 
 that of Dionysius Exiguus in the 6tii century, nor Isidore 
 Mercator. 
 
 2nd. It is not mentioned in a letter from a Presbyter of 
 Constantinople to Marty rius, Patriarch of Antioch, about 
 eighty years after the First Council of Constantinople, on the 
 same subject as is treated in the supposed Canon, (viz., the 
 custom observed in receiving Heretics), and in nearly the same 
 words. Now surely, if there had been a Canon of a General 
 Council on this matter, this letter written by a Presbyter of the 
 very city in which this General Council was holden, to the Patri- 
 arch of Antioch, whose predecessor had attended it, the Canon 
 would have been cited, not merely the custom of the Church. 
 
 3rd. It is not mentioned as a Canon of the First Council of 
 Constantinople, before the Nomocanon of Photius in the 9th 
 century. 
 
( 14 ) 
 
 4tli. It is included as the 95tli Canon of the Sixth General 
 Council, also holden at Constantinople (in Trullo), in almost 
 the very same words (enlarged by a single sentence at the 
 end;, in which latter Canon, not the slightest notice is taken of 
 its having been previously sanctioned as a Canon by the 1st 
 Council of Constantinople. 
 
 Such is Bishop Beveridge’s statement of the reasons which 
 made him pronounce the Canon spurious. 
 
 But, while it is thus shown to be without any very early 
 evidence whatsoever, it has the express and particular testimony 
 of Ckristianus Lupus, who, in the seventeenth century, de- 
 clares (without citing any authority for his assertion), that St. 
 Amphilochius brought before the Council the questions which 
 he had proposed to St. Basil — and that, because of this reference 
 to it, the Council — having decided that the matter belonged not 
 merely to discipline but to faith — inserted in the Creed “ I 
 acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of Sins.” “ Him et 
 inseruit, Confiteor unum baptisma in remissionem peccatorum.” 
 
 Now this impudent fable (for it really deserves no milder 
 description), shall be exposed to merited indignation by evi- 
 dence which cannot be objected to either by Christianus Lupus, 
 or by the Archdeacon ; whom, however, I most fully believe to 
 be “ ignorant of the knowledge,” however he may applaud 
 the deed.” My first witness shall be Christianus Lupus him- 
 self. 
 
 I have said that I have not had access to the work from 
 which the Archdeacon quotes — but I have now before me 
 another work of Lupus, “Scholia et Notm ad variorum Patrum 
 Epistolas, concernentes Acta Ephesini et Chalcedonensis Con- 
 cilii,” published after his death by the Prior and Convent of 
 Augustinian Friars at Louvain — to which convent Lupus had 
 belonged. As I very reasonably expected, I found in this 
 elaborate work (a quarto of nearly 600 pages), something of 
 much importance to our present subject, pp. 194, 5. 
 
( ) 
 
 We are there informed that the Nicene Creed, having 
 declared only the Mysteries of the Holy Trinity, and of our 
 Blessed Lord’s Incarnation, said but a very few words of the 
 Holy Spirit, and respecting the Catholic Church, Remission of 
 Sins^ the Resurrection of the Dead, and Life Everlasting, 
 absolutely nothing. But new heresies subsequently arising, 
 various Fathers and Churches made various additions and 
 supplements to the Nicene Creed. For this is plain from the 
 Catechetical Lectures of St. Cyril, delivered by him before he 
 was Bishop of Jerusalem [a.d. 350], and while he was a simple 
 Cleric and Catechist of that Church. In those lectures he 
 explains not the Creed of Nicsea, but that of his own Church — 
 which, however, is no other than the Nicene, with the supple- 
 ments and additions [among which was ‘ I acknowledge one 
 Baptism of repentance for the Remission of Sins.’ Vide Lect. 
 xviii.] All these additions, made by various Churches, the 
 Council of Constantinople afterwards discussed, selected out of 
 them what it most approved, and on this selection^ framed its 
 own Creed.” 
 
 Such is Christianus Lupus's own account of the making 
 of the Creed of this Council. It directly contradicts the 
 assertion in his former book. Will it be contended, that 
 although all the other additions might have been made from 
 other Creeds, yet the particular Article — “ I acknowledge one 
 Baptism for the Remission of Sins,” — might have been 
 introduced as stated in the passage cited by the Archdeacon ? 
 That supposition has been already contradicted by Lupus him- 
 self, who shows that the Creed of J erusalem was one of those 
 whose additions were considered by the Council — and we know 
 from St. Cyril that this particular article was in that Creed. 
 
 I may have occasion to use the testimony of Lupus again 
 presently ; but, meanwhile, fully acquitting the Archdeacon of 
 intentionally using a false statement of this writer — proved by 
 his own words to have been false — I must yet remark on 
 
( ) 
 
 his not having availed himself of evidence which was actually 
 before him, to refute the unhappy notion which he had taken up. 
 
 It will be remembered that I had reminded him that while 
 he cited for his own purpose one of the two Creeds of St. 
 Epiphanius, as containing the clause, “ One Baptism of re- 
 yentance for the remission of Sins,” he had omitted to state — 
 as he was in candour bound to state — that the other Creed 
 exhibited the same Clause in the very same terms as those in 
 which it is expressed in the Creed we now use — “ I acknow- 
 ledge one Baptism for the Remission of Sins ” — that is, without 
 including the words of repentance.” Upon this the Arch- 
 deacon triumphantly replies: — “When I stated plainly that 
 there were two forms — claiming only one of them as favour- 
 able to my views, I could not surely imagine any hearer or 
 reader not to see at once that I gave up the other.” (p. 19.) 
 Indeed ! is it possible that this should be written by a person 
 of the Archdeacon’s great acumen in the very same paragraph 
 in which he says — “ Many of the ancient Creeds make no men- 
 tion of Bai^tism at all^ or mention it without alluding to its 
 efficacy T' Why then, let me ask him, might it not be sup- 
 posed that St. Epiphanius’s other Creed was of this number ? 
 
 But I should be sorry to press anything affecting the Arch- 
 deacon personally further than is necessary. I turn, therefore, 
 from his statements to his reasoning ; and then I cannot but 
 express my astonishment that a revision of what St. Epiphanius 
 had written did not convince him — as it immediately convinced 
 me — that the Archdeacon’s theory was absolutely contradicted 
 by the express words of the writer before him. 1 hat the Arch- 
 deacon, before he set forth the Prefatory Epistle to the new 
 edition of his Charge, had looked again at St. Epiphanius’s 
 Ancoratus, and with more attention than before, is plain from 
 his own words (p. 18): — “I may observe, that Epiphanius 
 himself distinctly gives the preference to the longer form 
 as the more perfect and authoritative of the two.” 
 
( 17 ) 
 
 Now, it is to me, I say, very wonderful — and I wish to be 
 understood as remarking on the matter merely as such, and 
 not with the slightest wish to impugn the good faith of the 
 Archdeacon— that he did not see in the very sentence of 
 Epiphanius from which he was quoting, a proof — a direct, abso- 
 lute, irresistible proof — that all his own notions on the subject 
 of the Creed were a mere idle dream. 
 
 Epiphanius there says, that what he wrote of the second 
 Creed, he wrote eight years before the Synod of Constantinojde 
 was holden. True, he does not state this in express terms, 
 but he did what was tantamount to it — he said that he wrote 
 in the 10th year of Valentinian and Valens and the 6th of 
 Gratianus, and in the 90th after the tyrant Diocletian. Now 
 here were materials which the Archdeacon was bound to use 
 (as I did in fact use), in order to ascertain whether the 
 Article One Baptism, &c., was, as he contends, inserted in the 
 Creed for the first time, by ihe Council of Constantinople. 
 That it was in both the Creeds of Epiphanius — in the earlier 
 “ I acknowledge one Baptism for the Bemission of Sins,” in 
 the later “ One Baptism of repentance,” — stared him in the 
 face. He knew and saw the fact. He, therefore, must also 
 have known and seen that if the Creeds of St. Epiphanius were 
 in existence before the Council of Constantinople, the Article 
 in question could not have owed its origin to that Council, as 
 he had been induced to assert over and over again in every 
 form which assertion could assume. Now the dates, which 
 Epiphanius gave, enabled any reader to ascertain that the later 
 of the two Creeds was in existence when that father wrote — 
 in other words, eight years before the Council of Constantinople, 
 that is in the year 373 : while the immediate context tells 
 us that the earlier of the two Creeds, in which the Article 
 appears in the very words of our present Creed, had been 
 received by the Church the Apostles. 
 
 The truth is, that the earlier Creed of Epiphanius was the 
 
 c 
 
( 18 ) 
 
 general Creed of the Eastern Church, brought to the form in 
 which he exhibits it by the various additions made to the 
 Nicene Creed by various particular Fathers and Churches ; 
 and this Creed w^as that which the Council of Constantinople 
 finally reduced to its present state, by striking out the few in- 
 considerable superfluities which were previously in it. My 
 witness for this statement shall be the Archdeacon’s witness, 
 Christianus Lvpus : he says in continuation of the passage 
 which I have just cited from him — Ex his surgit alia qusestio, 
 quomodb Constantinopolitanum Symbolum dicatur esse a Con- 
 stantinopolitana Synodo ? Quomodb haec Synodus dicatur 
 discussisse varia ad Nicaenum Symbolum additamenta, eligisse 
 meliora, ac ex ipsis conflasse suum Symbolum ? Rationem 
 dubitandi facit S. Epiphanius, in Ancorato libro istud Sym- 
 bolum adducens de verbo ad verbum, et adj ungens haec a se 
 scribi ad decimum annum Valentiniani ac Valentis, sextum 
 Gratiani, qui a Diocletian! irnperio erat nonagesimus, quart! 
 Christiani Sacculi 73. At verb Constantinopolitana Synodus 
 convenit istius Sa?culi anno 81. Quomodb igitur istud Sym- 
 bolum possit esse ab ista Synodo ? Respondeo, In isto Epipha- 
 niano Symholo quidem contineri omnia fere ac singula Con- 
 stantinopolitani verba, attamen non sola : est largius ac 
 abundantius. — Constantinopolitana igitur Synodus probavit 
 istud Symbolum, contraxit ac polivit, suum fecit, imposuit toti 
 Ecclesia", atque ita dici caepit Constantinopolitanum.” 
 
 I assure the Archdeacon that, before I met with Lupus’s 
 book, I had arrived at the same conclusion from the mere 
 consideration of the materials afforded to all of us by Epi- 
 phanius. It was gratifying to find my own view thus signally 
 confirmed- by the Archdeacon’s witness : but it was still more 
 gratifying to have it confirmed by another authority, which I 
 met with still more recently — the illustrious Archbishop Usher, 
 lie says, after going through the case in his short, but most 
 learned and luminous, work, ‘ De Symbolis ’ (p. 17), “Sane in 
 
( 19 ) 
 
 ea me aliquando fuisse opinione, vetera Orientalium Ecclesiarum 
 Symbol a in simplice Personae Spiritus Sancti confessione fuisse 
 terminata, illius verb amplificationem capituli, et quae do 
 Ecclesia, et Beneficiis ad earn spectantibus, sequebantur omnia, 
 a Patribus secundae Synodi CEcumenicae, Constantinopoli Anno 
 Christi 381 habitae, primura fuisse addita. Sed ab ea me 
 depulit sententia temporis quo a Cyrillo Hierosohjmitano Cate- 
 chetici Sermones sunt habiti, et ah Epiphanio Anchoratum fuit 
 editum, diligentior consideratio.” 
 
 He then details the case, as it has been already here stated. 
 Now, is it too much to hope, that an admission, which Arch- 
 bishop Usher did not deem it derogatory to make, may also be 
 made— the facts and dates being thus brought before him — 
 by Archdeacon Sinclair? Yes ; this must not yet be hoped : 
 for there remains another voucher for his assertion, that the 
 7th Canon was introduced by the Council of Constantinople 
 against the then recent doctrine of St. Basil — no less than St. 
 Thomas Aquinas — “ a still higher authority,” says the Arch- 
 deacon — and in this I agree with him — than even Christianus 
 Lupus — not only because of the extraordinary learning and 
 abilities of the writer, but also because of the age in which he 
 lived, many centuries nearer to the Council. But here the 
 Archdeacon is a little hard upon us. He is, himself, I dare say, 
 sufficiently conversant with the writings of St. Thomas not to 
 need any special reference to the particular portion of his 
 works, in which any important passage is to be found. Still, 
 the Archdeacon’s readers in general (and I confess myself to 
 be of the number) are not so well acquainted with this 
 great writer’s works — extending over a range of many closely- 
 printed folio volumes — every one of them almost a library in 
 itself — ipsa nemus — by reason of the many subjects it includes, 
 and the variety of learning which it brings to bear upon them. 
 It w'ould, therefore, I repeat have been an act of kind con- 
 sideration, if not of strict justice, to bis readers, if be had told 
 
 c 2 
 
( 20 ) 
 
 US where to go for this crowning proof of his statement from 
 the greatest of all his authorities. 
 
 After a search — I will not say a wearisome search, for to 
 look into the works of St. Thomas is hardly to be called 
 wearisome, so wonderful is his power of engaging the attention 
 even of the casual reader — but after a long search in his 
 greatest and best known work, the ‘ Summa Totius Theologise,’ 
 I at length had recourse to his ‘ Opuscula,’ in the 6th of 
 which, entitled ‘ Expositio super Symbolo Apostolorum,’ I, 
 at last, found the passage — with one variation, indeed, on 
 which I must observe in passing. The Archdeacon cites it 
 thus — ‘‘ Patres addiderunt ‘ Confiteor Unum Baptisma.’ ” 
 Now, Patres, I need not say, is a word peculiarly suited to 
 the Archdeacon’s purpose, for it is that which is commonly 
 applied to Bishops assembled in a General Council : whereas, 
 in St. Thomas, it is not Patres but “ Sancti,’’ a word never, I 
 believe, so applied. 
 
 That this variation was accidental, we cannot doubt ; for 
 Archdeacon Sinclair would not wilfully interpolate : yet it is 
 unlucky, for it lays him open to disagreeable remarks from 
 any opponent desirous to make them. 
 
 But let this pass. 
 
 I think it highly probable that St. lliomas did here intend 
 to quote from the Nicene Creed (so called). But then the 
 reason for which he quotes, proves that he had not either St. 
 Basil or the 7th Canon of Constantinople in his thoughts. 
 
 Did St. Basil ever dream of baptizing a person more than 
 once ? No I he and all other Catholics, as I have already 
 said again and again, held a second baptism to be not only 
 heretical, but really impossible. The only point on which 
 they differed, was, whether certain heretics did really bajjtize 
 with the “ one Baptism ” of Christ, or not. St. Basil held that 
 they did not, and therefore that converts to the Church from 
 them must be received with Baptism. 
 
( 21 ) 
 
 But I must not leave St. Thomas, without thanking the 
 Archdeacon for leading me to the gratifying confirmation 
 of what we declared of Baptism at our recent Synod, which 
 is afforded by the very passage, a small part of which he 
 cites against us. It occurs in the exposition of the Article 
 
 Sanctorum Communionem,” “Inter alia membra Ecclesise, 
 principale membrum est Christus, quia (ut Eph. I., 23) 
 
 ‘ Ipsum dedit Caput super omnem Ecclesiam, quod est Corpus 
 ipsius.’ Eonum ergo Christi communicatur omnibus Chris- 
 tianis, sicut virtus Capitis omnibus Membris ; et haec com- 
 municatio fit per Sacramenta Ecclesise, in quibus operatur 
 virtus passionis Christi, quae operatur ad conferendam gratiam 
 in remissionem peccatorum. Hujusmodi autera sacramenta 
 ecclesise sunt septem. Primum est baptlsmus, qui est regeneratio 
 qusedam spiritualis. Sicut enim vita carnalis non potest haberi 
 nisi homo carnaliter nascatur, ita vita spiritualis, vel gratise, non 
 potest haberi nisi homo renascatur spiritualiter ; hsec autem 
 generatio fit per baptismum. Joann. 3 — ‘ Nisi quis renatus 
 fuerit ex aqua et Spiritu Sancto, non potest introire in regnum 
 Dei.’ Et est sciendum quod sicut homo non nascitur nisi 
 semel, sic et semel tantum baptizatur. Unde et Sancti addi- 
 derunt, Confiteor unum baptisraa. Virtus autem haptismi est^ 
 quod purgat ab omnibus peccatis et quantum ad culpam, et 
 quantum ad poenara.” So much for St. Thomas’s authority 
 against us ! 
 
 But, the Archdeacon says, “ The main point is, what I 
 stated in my Charge, and what I now repeat — namely, that if 
 the object of the Article, ‘ I acknowledge one Baptism for the 
 remission of sins,’ had been to assert the efficacy of Baptism — 
 we should be utterly at a loss to account for the fact, that 
 many of the ancient creeds make no mention of Baptism at all, 
 or mention it without alluding to its efficacy ; and that Baptism 
 is never named in any creed, except where ‘ one Baptism ' in 
 contradistinction to repeated Baptisms, is spoken of.” 
 
( 22 ) 
 
 I will consider all these points ; but not in the order in 
 which they stand. The last shall be taken first, because the 
 consideration of it will help us in dealing with the others. 
 
 “ Baptism is never named in any creed, except where one 
 Baptism, in contradistinction to repeated Baptisms^ is spoken 
 of.” 
 
 Now, in order to do justice to this assertion, we must first 
 come to an understanding of what the Archdeacon means by 
 “ Baptisms^ If true Baptism be intended, doubtless there 
 never could be “ repeated Baptisms. On this point all Ca- 
 tholics are, and have always been, so fully agreed, that I do 
 not believe that the Article in question was ever introduced 
 into any creed for the purpose which the Archdeacon states 
 was intended in all of them. Whether, indeed, the heretical 
 notion of the Marcionites, that a man might be thrice baptized, 
 receiving at every Baptism the full benefit of our Lord’s 
 ordinance — and whether that of Valentinus, that there might 
 be a second Baptism — were thought of when this Article was 
 first introduced into the most ancient of all the Creeds of the 
 Greek Church, the Creed of Jerusalem, “ the Mother of all 
 Churches,” as St. Cyril boasts, it is not possible to ascertain, 
 for no documents remain to tell us. 
 
 Be it as it may, this is not the sense in which the Article 
 seems to have been generally regarded, though it was sometimes 
 so applied, by the ancients ; nor is it that, in which the Arch- 
 deacon now requires us to regard it. “ One Baptism ” in the 
 Creed, he contends, was in contradistinction to “ repeated 
 Baptisms,” in the sense of admitting into the Church, by the 
 Church’s Baptism, those heretics and schismatics, who had 
 already, in their heresy and schism, received some rite of 
 Baptism. 
 
 This, he confidently and repeatedly affirms is so certain, that 
 he assumes as “ a fact ” — which he calls upon us to account for 
 — “ that Baptism is never named in any Creed, except where 
 
( 23 ) 
 
 ‘ one Baptism,’ in contradistinction to repeated Baptisms, is 
 spoken of.” 
 
 Now I will not attempt to account for what I regard as— 
 not “the fact,” but — the very contrary of what is indeed “the 
 fact.” I rather undertake to prove the truth of the character 
 which I here give of it. 
 
 So far, indeed, as regards the Archdeacon, this is already 
 sufficiently done. For he rests his “ fact ” on evidence, which 
 has already been disposed of. He says, “ that the Council of 
 Constantinople having been compelled to examine carefully the 
 whole question of re-baptization ’’—meaning by that phrase the 
 receiving hy Baptism those who had received already what was 
 called Baptism from heretics and schismatics — “ introduced into 
 the Nicene Creed the very appropriate Article, ‘I acknow- 
 ledge one Baptism for the remission of sins.’ ” Now, I have 
 proved the very contradictory of this assertion : I have proved 
 that the Council did ?2c>Hntroduce this clause into the Nicene or 
 any other Creed — and by the testimony of the Archdeacon’s 
 own witnesses, Christianus Lupus, and St. Epiphanius. 
 
 Still this is not enough. It does not follow that because the 
 Archdeacon’s witnesses affirm the contrary to what he calls 
 them to prove — therefore his “fact” may not be capable of 
 proof by other witnesses, of whom the Archdeacon knows 
 nothing. I therefore proceed to make it clear that this Article 
 of the Creed, whenever it was introduced, had not the meaning 
 which the Archdeacon assigns to it. I shall do this, first, by 
 showing that it was not understood in the Archdeacon’s sense 
 by the Churches which used the earliest Creed in which it was 
 found. That Creed, I have already said, was the Creed of the 
 Church of Jerusalem ; it obtained throughout all the East, 
 which acknowledged, with St. Cyril, the Church of Jerusalem 
 to be “ the Mother of all the Churches.” It was used, there- 
 fore, we cannot doubt, by the two most eminent Fathers of the 
 Eastern Church, St. Basil, and St, Athanasius, both of whom 
 
( 24 ) 
 
 held and set forth doctrine as undeniable, and universally ad- 
 mitted, which is directly contrary to the Archdeacon’s posi- 
 tion. 
 
 That St. Basil did so the Archdeacon has himself shown — 
 and has indeed thereupon founded his whole theory. He has 
 shown that; in answer to the inquiries of St. Amphilochius 
 (Canon L), St. Basil declares that all who have been converted 
 to the Church from heretics, must be received by Baptism. I 
 turn, therefore, to St. Athanasius. 
 
 He, in his Second Oration against the Arians (41, 42) says, 
 in the plainest terms, that their Baptism was absolutely null 
 and void. After showing, in the first place, from the coiisub- 
 stantial union of the Father and the Son, that what the Father 
 does, the Son does likewise, “ so,” says he, “ when Baptism is 
 given, whomsoever the Father baptizeth, him the Son bap- 
 tizeth, and whom the Son baptizeth, he is initiated (j&'kziovr'xi) 
 in the Holy Ghost” — (thus teaching us, as I remark by the 
 w’ay, the precious truth, that in Holy Baptism, it is not man, 
 but God, who baptizeth) — he proceeds to say of heretics — 
 “ These incur the loss of the completion of the mystery — I 
 speak of Baptism. For if it is into the name of the Father, and 
 the Son, that the initiation is given — and they, by the word, 
 intend not the true Father (inasmuch as they deny Him who is 
 of Him, and like in substance), but deny the true Son also, and 
 inventing to themselves another, created out of nothing, give 
 the name of Son to this invented being — how is it possible that 
 what is given by them should be other than utterly profitless 
 and void ? In which there is a pretension indeed, but in reality 
 nothing that can give the slightest help to holiness. For it is 
 not into the Father and the Son that the Arians give Baptism, 
 but into a Creator and a creature, into a Maker and a thing 
 made : for as a creature is something else than ‘ the Son,’ so 
 that which they are considered to give must be something else 
 than the real gift of Baptism, even though they affect to name 
 
( 25 ) 
 
 ‘ tbe Father and the Son,’ as required by Scripture : for not 
 because a man says ‘ Lord ’ does he therefore give the Lord ; 
 but he who, when he names the name, has also the right faith. 
 
 “ The same may be said of many other heretics, uttering 
 the names merely, but not having right understanding, nor, as 
 I said, sound faith : nothing is given by them hut profitless 
 water, entirely without true religion, — so that he who is sprinkled 
 by them is polluted, instead of being redeemed.” 
 
 (Here let me pause, to remark on the high thoughts of the 
 grace of Baptism which were cherished by this great man. He 
 had just before spoken of the LorrZ— he here speaks of Redemj)- 
 tion being given in it.) 
 
 He continues : “ Those who think with the x\rians, though 
 they recite the form from Scripture, and pronounce the names, 
 nevertheless only cheat all who receive their pretended Bap- 
 tism. For they who seem to receive Baptism into him who 
 has no existence, will be found to have received nothing ; 
 and, being joined to a creature, will have no help from such a 
 creation.” 
 
 I have given my citation from St. Athanasius thus at length, 
 in order that there may be no doubt of his judgment respecting 
 Baptism by Arians ; it follows, therefore, that unless he and 
 St. Basil were ignorant of their own creed, the Archdeacon of 
 Middlesex is utterly mistaken in his construction of it. 
 
 In truth, if that construction were correct, the words would 
 be the most unfit for their purpose which could be selected : 
 They would forbid Baptism, not only in cases where we have 
 seen that the greatest authorities practised it, even in the 
 Churches which received this very creed — but also in cases 
 where every Catholic would say that Baptism is necessary ; 
 and, on the other hand, they would be utterly powerless in 
 those cases, which, the Archdeacon says, they were designed to 
 meet. 
 
 Let me briefly show that this is so. First, if the Article, “ I 
 
( 26 ) 
 
 acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins,” were in- 
 deed “ inserted in contradistinction to repeated Baptisms” — 
 that is, as the Archdeacon explains the phrase, the baptizing 
 those who have already received what is called Baptism — then, 
 as the words are without limitation or restriction, they W'ould 
 forbid Baptism in all such cases — even in those in which every 
 Catholic would say that Baptism must be had — in cases where 
 the very form instituted by our Lord has been changed — cases 
 in which Baptism is absolutely enjoined by the 8th canon of the 
 Council of Arles cited above (p. 1). 
 
 On the other hand, the Article would be utterly powerless 
 against those whose practice (on this supposition) it was espe- 
 cially designed to prevent — Cyprian, and those who thought 
 with Cyprian. “ One Baptism !” (they would cry), “ how is it 
 possible that there should be more than one Baptism ? We do 
 not rebaptize Novatians or Arians ; for they never have been 
 baptized. The water with them did not wash — it defiled — the 
 soul.” 
 
 “ What then,” it may be asked, “ was the reason for insert- 
 ing the Article ‘ One Baptism ’ in the Creed of the Eastern 
 Church?” The answer maybe given by another question: 
 “ What was the reason for St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Ephe- 
 sians, speaking of ^ One Baptism ?’ ” Manifestly, in order to 
 mark the oneness of the true Christian baptism, as he had previ- 
 ously affirmed the oneness of the other great objects of Christian 
 Truth. If a clue be necessary, it is given in the 5th and 6th 
 verses of 1 Cor. viii. “ For, though there be that are called 
 gods, whether in heaven or in earth (as there be gods many, and 
 lords many) ; but to us there is but one God, the Father, of 
 whom are all things — and one Lord Jesus Christ — by whom are 
 all things, and we by Him in like manner, though there be 
 that are called Baptisms — as there are many baptisms (Toletus 
 in his 37th note to Luke iii. tells us that Gregory of Nazianzum 
 reckons five— Athanasius and Damascene seven — Baptisms — 
 
( 27 ) 
 
 called so by Scripture), yet to us there is but “ One Baptism ” 
 of Water and the Spirit — instituted by our Lord. 
 
 But let me here insert the Creed of Jerusalem as it is given 
 in St. Cyril’s Cat. Lectures upon it. W e shall find that one 
 is prefixed to Baptism, just as it is to all the other objects of 
 Faith : — 
 
 Uiareifit) elg eva Qeov llarepa TravroKpciTopa, 
 
 Kai elg eva Kvpioy Itiaovy Xpiaroy, 
 
 Kal elg ev ayioy Ilvtu/ia, 
 
 Kfxi e'lq ey QciTmapia iderayoiag etc acpEULV apLocpTLCoy, 
 
 Kcti etc [xiay ayiay yado\iKr)y "EKtiXpaiay. 
 
 With this exhibition of the Creed we might close our anim- 
 adversions on the Archdeacon’s theory. But there is one re- 
 mark which must not be omitted. The Article, of which the 
 Archdeacon has made so much, is found only in the Creeds of 
 the Eastern Churches, in which Baptism was commonly practised 
 in receiving converts from Heretics ; but in the Creed of the 
 Western Church, which accepted the decision of Stephen, for- 
 bidding Baptism in such cases, no such article is found — 
 nothing even is said either of “ one Baptism,” or of Baptism 
 at all. How is this to be accounted for ? Simply by the 
 fact, that there never was any doubt that there is but one 
 Baptism,” in the Church of Christ. Those who practised what 
 the Archdeacon would call rebaptization, were as strenuous in 
 affirming this great Catholic truth, as those who condemned 
 that practice. Tertullian, St. Cyprian, and St. Firmilian, 
 indignantly denied that they rebaptized heretics or schismatics : 
 they insisted that they baptized those who had not been really 
 baptized at all. 
 
 Tertullian, de Bapt. c. 15, says “ Unus omninb Baptismus 
 est nobis, tarn ex Domini Evangelio, quain ex Apostoli literis ; 
 quoniam unus Dominus, et unum Baptisma, et una Ecclesia 
 in coelis. Non debeo in illis [Haereticis] cognoscere quod 
 mihi est pra?ceptum ; quia non idem est nobis et illis, nec 
 
( 28 ; 
 
 unus Christus, id est, idem. Idedque nec Baptismus ziniis, quia 
 non idem : quern enim rite non babeant, sine dubio non babent ; 
 nec capit numerari, quod non babetur.” I may be forgiven 
 for adding a translation of these last uncouth words, “ Nor is 
 that capable of being numbered, wbicb is not had.” 
 
 From St. Cyprian, the most eminent and most active of those- 
 who affirmed the necessity of baptizing all converts from 
 heresy or schism, it would be easy to load my pages with 
 citations. Let one or two suffice. 
 
 In his Epistle to Juhaianus (73) he meets his correspondent’s 
 statement, that it was the practice of the Novatianenses to 
 rebaptize those whom they inveigled from the Church, by 
 saying that Novatianus herein only aped (simiarum more) the 
 practice of the Church — “ Sciens etenim unurn esse Baptisma, 
 hoc unum sibi vindicat ; ut apud se esse Ecclesiam et nos 
 Ilaereticos faciat. Nos autem, qui Ecclesise unius caput et 
 radicem tenemus, pro certo scimus et fidimus, nihil illic, extra 
 Ecclesiam, licere, et Bap)tismatis quod est unum caput nos 
 esse.” 
 
 lie continues — seeing that in a letter, a copy of which had 
 been sent to him by Jubaianus, Mar cion s name was mentioned, 
 as if persons, coming even from him, ought not to be baptized, 
 because they seem to have been already baptized in the name 
 of Jesus Christ — “ Considerare itaque debemus fidem eorum, 
 qui foris credunt, an secundum eandem fidem possint aliquid 
 gratiae consequi. Nam si fides una est nobis et Haereticis, 
 potest esse et gratia una. Si eundern Patrem, eundem Filium, 
 eundern Spiriturn Sanctum, eandem Ecclesiam confitentur nobis- 
 cum Patripassiani, Anthropiani, Valentiniani, — et caeterae 
 Haereticorum partes, et gladiis ac venenis subvertentes veritatem; 
 potest illic et baptisma unum esse, si est et fides una.” St. 
 Cyprian, in this passage, seems to have had special regard to 
 the Creed of Jerusalem, as will be seen by collating the two 
 documents. 
 
( 29 ) 
 
 I will cite only one other short passage from this Father j 
 it occurs in the same Epistle — 
 
 “ Nec quisquam dicat, quod accepimus ab Apostolis, hoc 
 sequimur; quando Apostoli nonnisi unam Ecclesiam tradide- 
 runt, et Baptisma unum, quod nonnisi in eadem Ecclesia sit 
 constitutum.” 
 
 “ From St. Firmilian I will give one single passage on this 
 point. I shall have to refer to his authority on another parti- 
 cular presently. 
 
 “ Qai contendunt ab Hwreticis baptizatos sic recipi oportere, 
 tamquam legitimi Baptismi gratiam consecutos : unum nobis 
 atque illis Baptisma dicunt esse, et in nullo discrepare. Sed 
 quid ait Apostolus Paulus ? ‘ Unus Dominus, una Fides, 
 
 unum Baptisma, unus Deus.’ Si unum atque idem est cum 
 nostro Baptisma Haereticorum, sine dubio et tides una est : 
 si autem tides una est, utique et Dominus unus : si Dominus 
 unus est, consequens est dicere, quia unitas est. Si autem haec 
 unitas quae separari omninb et dividi non potest, etiam apud 
 Haereticos ipsa est; quid ultra contendimus? ut quid illos 
 Ilaereticos, et non Christianos vocamus ? Porrb ciim nobis et 
 Haereticis nec Deus unus sit, nec Dominus unus, nec una 
 Ecclesia, nec tides una, sed nec unus Spiritus, aut corpus unum : 
 manifestum est nec Baptisma nobis et Haereticis commune esse 
 posse, quibus nihil est omninb commune.” — Cyprian, Ep. 75, 
 p. 229. 
 
 The object for which I have made these citations will be 
 remembered : it is to show that they whose Creed did not 
 express “one Baptism” — the Fathers of the Western Church 
 — even those among them who were most earnest in contend- 
 ing for the necessity of baptizing all who had received what was 
 called Baptism from heretics — did yet assert most strenuously, 
 nay, assume as an undisputed truth, that there is but “ one 
 Baptism.” 
 
 If we look at the very Council which formally decreed 
 
( 3 « ) 
 
 against admitting Heretics into the Church without baptizing 
 tliem (the Third Council of Carthage), the 87 bishops there 
 assembled, in giving their suffrages, rested those suffrages 
 (many of them expressly) on this as a recognised principle 
 — that there is but one Baptism.” In truth the matter in dis- 
 pute "was not respecting ?’ehaptization, for it was agreed on all 
 sides that to rebaptize is impossible : but whether heretics and 
 schismatics could baptize at all. I cite tlie words of tw^o or three 
 of them : Ccecilius a Bilta, says (Lobbe, I., 787) — “ Ego unum 
 Baptisnia in ecclesiasola scio, et extra ecclesiam nullum. Hie erit 
 unum, uhi spes vera est et fides certa. Sic eniin scriptum est : 
 Una fides, una sp)es, unum baptisma. Non apud hsereticos, uhi 
 spes nulla est, et tides falsa, uhi omnia per mendacium agun- 
 tur.” 
 
 Demetrius (Aleptuanus) “ Unum Baptisma nos custo- 
 dimus, quia Ecclesise Catholicse soli rem suam vindicamus. 
 Qiii autem dicunt, quia liceretici verb et legitime baptizare pos~ 
 sunt., ipsi sunt qui non unum, sed multa Baptismata faciunt. 
 Nam, ciim haereses multae sint, pro eorum numero, et Baptis- 
 mata computabuntur.” 
 
 Aymnius (ah Ausnagia) “ Nos unum Baptisma accepimus, 
 et tenemus, et exercemus. Qui autem dicit, quia et haereticis 
 licet baptizare, ipse duo Baptismata facit A 
 
 St. Cyprian, in the same epistle from which I have 
 already largely quoted, thus writes of a still earlier Council’s 
 decree : — “ Et nunc quoque, cum in unum convenissemus tarn 
 Provinciae Africae, quam Numidiae, Episcopi numero 71, hoc 
 idem [he had just before stated the opinion, that the Baptism 
 of heretics was invalid] denub sententia nostra firmavimus, 
 statu entes unum Baptisma esse quod sit in Ecclesia Catholica 
 constltutum, ac per hoc non rebaptizari, sed baptizari a nobis. 
 Quicunque ergo ah adultera et profana aqua venirent, abluendi 
 sunt, et sanctificandi salutaris aquae veritate.” 
 
 Now without entering into the question whether this Council 
 
( 31 ) 
 
 of Carthage was right or wrong in deciding tliat all converts 
 from heresy must be baptized, yet, as the ground of their so 
 deciding was that the one Baptism ” of Scripture means the 
 Baptism of the Church only, it is inconceivable that the article 
 in the Eastern Church’s Creed, which was the Creed of parties 
 agreeing, most of them, with the Bishops of Africa on this very 
 point, should have been inserted, as the Archdeacon affirms, 
 in order to prevent such Baptism. 
 
 Here then I close what I have to say on this main particu- 
 lar of the Archdeacon’s argument ; — or rather what he is 
 pleased to call, by a somewdiat bold figure, “ the fact, that 
 Baptism is never named in any Creed, except where ‘ one 
 Baptism,’ in contradistinction to repeated Baptisms, is spoken of.” 
 
 There remain two matters of no small interest which, how^- 
 ever, will be disposed of much more briefly : he says, as we 
 have already seen, “ if the object of the article, ‘ I acknowledge 
 one Baptism for the remission of Sins,’ had been to assert the 
 efficacy of Baptism, we should be utterly at a loss to account 
 for the fact, that many of the ancient Creeds make no mention 
 of Baptism at all, or mention it without alluding to its efficacy.” 
 
 I confidently undertake to remove the difficulty, to the satis- 
 faction, if not of the Archdeacon, at least of all whose minds 
 are not possessed by a foregone conclusion. 
 
 First let me say that I am not aware, nor do I believe that 
 the Archdeacon is aw^are, of more than one instance of an 
 ancient Creed which makes mention of Baptism without allud- 
 ing to its efficacy — namely, the second of the two Creeds given 
 in the “ Ancoratus ” of Epiphanius, where w^e read “ one 
 Baptism of repentance,” and nothing added. I have no hesi- 
 tation in saying that the omission simply indicates the unhesi- 
 tating conviction of those. wdio compiled that Creed, that it 
 was not necessary to insert what w'as so universally understood 
 of the efficacy of the Sacrament of Baptism, in a formulary 
 wffiich seems to have obtained only for a short period, and was 
 
( 32 ) 
 
 finally superseded by the decree of the Council of Constantino- 
 ple. But it will he seen hy those who look at this Creed and 
 compare it with the common Creed of the Greek Churches, that 
 its main object was to define more largely against various 
 heretical statements, which were current at the time of its 
 compilation, respecting the Second and Third Persons of the 
 Blessed Trinity — having nothing to do with Baptism. 
 
 I will, however, here take occasion to advert to the phrase 
 “ One Baptism of repentance,^’ which presents itself in this 
 Creed, and which also is found in the Creed of Jerusalem — 
 “ We acknowledge one Baptism of repentance for the remission 
 of Sins.” For upon these words the Archdeacon in his Charge, 
 (p. 33, Second Edition), founds the startling observation, that 
 “ St. Cyril of Jerusalem, according to the Creed of that Church, 
 the Mother of all Churches, speaks of ‘ one Baptism of repent- 
 ance for the remission of Sins,’ thus connecting the remission 
 of sins not with Baptism, hut icith repentance.” He applies 
 the same observation to the Article in the second Creed of 
 Epiphanius. 
 
 In a note, appended to the ‘‘ Acts of the Diocesan Synod,” 
 p. 123, I had met this observation by saying that as “the 
 Fathers at the Council of Constantinople exhibited the Article 
 in its present form, ‘ one Baptism for the remission of Sins,’ it 
 follows, on the Archdeacon's own principle, that the authority 
 of those Fathers must be cited as ‘ excluding all reference to 
 the efficacy of everything except Baptism,’ and as ‘ connecting the 
 remission of Sins, not with repentance, hut with Baptism.’” 
 
 To this the Archdeacon makes no reply ; but as he retains 
 the passage to which my answer was directed, I think it right 
 to say something more in detail respecting the phrase, “ One 
 Baptism of repentance for, although what I before said to 
 the Archdeacon is not only unanswered, but also unanswerable 
 as argumentum ad hominem, yet there may be some who wish 
 further satisfiiction on this point. 
 
( 33 ) 
 
 Let me then, first, give to them that satisfaction in the words 
 of St. Cyril. He in his second lecture treats expressly “of the 
 power of repentance for the remission of sins,” — and the sum of 
 his teaching is not, what the Archdeacon states it to be, “ con- 
 necting remission of sins not with Baptism, hut with repentance 
 but, on the contrary, making repentance to be no more than a 
 necessary condition — a preparation — to enable the penitent to 
 receive remission of Sins by Baptism. Accordingly, his third 
 lecture “ On holy Baptism ” opens with these words, “ ‘ Let the 
 Heavens rejoice and let the Earth be glad ’ for those who are 
 to be sprinkled with hyssop; to be cleansed with the invisible 
 hyssop, by his power, who, at his Passion, received the hyssop 
 and the reed.” It is plain, from these words, that the persons 
 thus spoken of, were not yet, though penitent, so sprinkled and 
 cleansed. St. Cyril proceeds : “ Yield then, O ye children of 
 righteousness, to John’s persuasion, exhorting you, and saying 
 ‘ Make straight the way of the Lord.’ Remove all blocks and 
 stumbling-stones, that ye may hold straight on unto life eternal. 
 Make ready the chambers of the soul, purifying them through 
 faith unfeigned, for the reception of the Holy Ghost. Begin to 
 wash your robes through penitence, that when summoned to the 
 bride-chamber ye may be found clean. For the Bridegroom 
 invites indeed all without conditions, because His grace is lavish, 
 and the voice of His loud-sounding heralds brings together all ; 
 but ever afterwards He is separating between those who have 
 come in to the figurative marriage-feast. O may none, who 
 are now enrolled, hear those words. Friend, how earnest thou in 
 hither, not haviny a wedding garment ? But may you all hear 
 it said. Well done, good and faithful servant ; thou hast been 
 faithful over a few things ; I will make thee ruler over many 
 things ; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. Hitherto thou hast 
 stood without the gate ; may you all be able to say. The King 
 hath brought me into His chambers. My sold shall be joyful in 
 my God, for He hath clothed me ivith the garments of salvation ; 
 
 D 
 
( 34 ) 
 
 He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bride- 
 groom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth 
 herself with her jewels : so that all your souls may be found not 
 having s-pot, or wrinkle, or any such thing. I say not, before you 
 have received the gift ; (if so, Why should you be now called to 
 the remission of sins ?) but so that, on its being given, your 
 conscience, being found blameless, may keep pace with it.” 
 
 These words are addressed to persons not yet baptized — but 
 catechumens, about to be called to baptism, and preparing for it. 
 
 Can it be necessary to say more ? Certainly it is not neces- 
 sary to our immediate purpose ; but the next paragraph is too 
 valuable to be omitted. 
 
 “ This is, in truth, a serious matter, brethren, and yon must 
 approach it solemnly. You are, each of you, on the point of 
 being presented to God, before innumerable hosts of angels : 
 the Holy Ghost is on the point of setting a seal on your souls ; 
 ye are coming for enlistment under the great King. Make 
 ready therefore ; prepare, not by wearing robes of shining white- 
 ness, but arraying the soul with the devoutness of a clear con- 
 science. Regard the sacred laver not as simple water ; regard 
 rather the spiritual grace given with the water. For, as the 
 sacrifices at the altars, being by nature without meaning, by 
 invocation of the idols become polluted ; so, contrariwise, plain 
 water, after the invocation of the Holy Ghost, and of Christy 
 and of the Father, gives a sanctifying power.” 
 
 From St. Cyril of Jerusalem I turn to a still higher authority 
 — the great St. Athanasius; to a passage in his fourth epistle to 
 Serapion (n. 13), valuable not merely as it is applicable, and 
 indeed conclusive, on the point immediately before us, but also 
 as giving the true meaning of a text, which many of you pro- 
 bably may have found among the most perplexing in the Holy 
 Volume. 
 
 He is opposing a notion which was adopted by Origen and 
 Theognostus, and seems to have been prevalent in his days, as 
 
( 35 ) 
 
 it was prevalent in the age of the Reformation, and gave occa- 
 sion for the sixteenth of our own Articles of Religion — “ Not 
 every deadly sin willingly committed after baptism is sin against 
 the Holy Ghost, and unpardonable.” 
 
 Both Origen and Theognostus, though on somewhat dif- 
 ferent grounds, had supported this doctrine by the text, Heb. vi. 
 4 — 6, which I will cite in the words of our own translation : 
 “ For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and 
 have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of 
 the Holy Ghost, And have tasted the good word of God, and 
 the powers of the world to come. If they shall fall away, to re- 
 new them again unto repentance ; seeing they crucify to them- 
 selves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.” 
 
 St. Athanasius, meeting the argument founded on this text, 
 says — “ If this was said of those who sin after baptism, that 
 their sin is unpardonable, how is it that the Apostle ‘ confirms ’ 
 the sentence of ‘ love ’ to the penitent at Corinth (1 Cor. ii. 8) 
 and ‘ travails in birth again ’ of the backsliding Galatians 
 (Gal. iv. 19), ‘ until Christ be formed in them T ” But, he con- 
 tinues, when the Apostle [in the 6th verse of Hebrews vi ] says 
 ‘ again,’ he thereby shows their former perfection in the spirit. 
 
 “ But why do we condemn Novatus for denying repentance, 
 and saying that there is no pardon for those who sin after bap- 
 tism, if this Scripture to the Hebrews was spoken because of 
 such persons ? It was not spoken with any reference to them : 
 for what is there said does not shut out sinners from repent- 
 ance, but shows that the Baptism of the Catholic Church is one 
 only — there is no second. It was to Flebrews that the Apostle 
 was writing ; and, therefore, in order that they might not think 
 that (like the practice under their own law) there are, on the 
 plea of repentance, many and daily Baptisms, he for this reason, 
 while he exhorts them to repent, sets forth to them at the same 
 time, that there is only one renewing of the soul by the Baptism 
 of the Gospel, and no second — (as he said in another Epistle 
 
 D 2 
 
( 36 ; 
 
 [Ephesians iv. 5] ‘ one faith, one baptisin’). For he says not, 
 It is impossible to repent ; hut it is impossible, by profession of 
 repentance (however sincere), to renew us. There is a great 
 difference between the two things. For he that repents ceases, 
 it is true, from sinning, hut he still carries about him the scars 
 of the wounds which sin has made; whereas he, who is bap- 
 tized, puts off entirely the old man, and is renewed, being be- 
 gotten again by the grace of the Spirit.” 
 
 Here, then, we have the true meaning of the words “ one 
 Baptism of repentance ” as they are used in the Creed of the 
 Eastern Church, a meaning declared of them by the very highest 
 authority which ever used that creed : and we have at the same 
 time, I rejoice to think, a most satisfactory solution of one of 
 the “ things hard to be understood ” in the Epistle of St. Paul.* 
 
 * With this interpretation we may compare that of the great St. John 
 Chrysostom, Horn. ix. 2, 3, in Epist. ad Hebrteos, cap. vi. (tom. xii. pp. 95, 
 96, ed. Benedict). “We may not say. If we live carelessly, we shall again 
 receive baptism, again become catechumens, again receive the Spirit ; and 
 if we fall from the faith, we may again wash away our sins in baptism, and 
 attain to our first estate. Ye err, he says, if ye thus think, ‘ For it is impossi- 
 ble,’ &c. ‘to renew them again with repentance’ — that is, by repentance. What, 
 then, is repentance cast out? Not repentance — God forbid I but a repetition 
 of that renewing which is by washing. . . .for to make new is of the washing 
 only. To repentance it belongs to renew once more, and to release from their 
 senility those who have grown old in sin, although they were once made new in 
 baptism : but to that first splendour it is not possible for repentance to bring 
 them back; for theie only grace is complete and perfect.’ ‘ Ciucifying to them- 
 selves,’ &c. ‘ Baptism is the cross. . . .as therefore it is impossible that Christ 
 
 be crucified a second time, so neither is it possible to be baptized again.... a 
 second baptism is a second crucifixion. . .if therefore a second baptism is neces- 
 sary, it is necessary that He should die again .... Is there then no repentance ? 
 There is ; but no second baptism.” 
 
 A single passage may be added from one of the Doctors of the Western 
 Church — S. Ambrose de Poenitentia, lib. ii. cap. 2, ad loc. Heb. vi. 4-6: — 
 “ Numquid Paulus adversus factum suum prsedicare potuit ? Donavit Corinthio 
 peccatum per poenitentiam : quomodo hic potuit sententiam suam ipse repre- 
 
 hendere? contrarium non est. Etenim quia de remittenda prsedicavit 
 
 pcEnitentia debuit et de iis qui iterandum putant baptismum non silere : et prius 
 sollicitudinem nobis auferri oportuit ut sciremus etiani post baptismum si qui 
 peccarent, donari eis posse peccatum ne spe venise destitutes iterandi bap- 
 tismatis opinio vana perverteret : deinde iterandum non esse baptisma ration- 
 abili disputatione suadendum fuit.” 
 
( 37 j 
 
 I must not conclude without fulfilling my engagement to 
 solve the last problem which the Archdeacon has proposed to 
 me — “ to account for the fact, that many of the ancient creeds 
 make no mention of baptism at all ” — so as to make it consistent 
 with the statement, “ that the object of the article in the Nicene 
 Creed, ‘ I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins,’ 
 was to assert the efficacy of baptism ” — rather, that the article 
 does assert it — for this was my statement. 
 
 I account for it in one word, by saying, that, in the creeds 
 of the Western Church, the mention of “the remission of sins” 
 as an object of Faith, implied Baptism, as the instrument by 
 which that remission was conferred. 
 
 I appeal, in confirmation of this assertion, first, to the same 
 Epistle of St. (Cyprian to Jubaianus, from which I have already 
 largely quoted. That he used the Roman Creed, and that the 
 Roman Creed did not mention Baptism, though it included the 
 Article “ the remission of sins,” will be conceded to me : and 
 from this concession I show that Baptism was implied in that 
 Article, Jubaianus, as T before said, had sent to Cyprian a 
 copy of a letter, in which a claim of the validity of Baptism by 
 heretics — even by Marcion — seems to have been insisted on. 
 Now, upon a passage in it to this effect, St. Cyprian thus re- 
 marks ; — “ Plane quoniam inveni, in Epistola, cujus exemplum 
 ad me transmisisti, scriptum esse, quod quserendum non sit quis 
 baptizaverit, quandb is, qui baptizatus sit, accipere remissam 
 
 Indeed it were well for the Archdeacon’s readers to be reminded once for all 
 of their duty to consider whether what the Creed and the Fathers apply to a 
 second baptism for the remission of sins committed after baptism, the Arch- 
 deacon has not throughout his disquisition applied to the very inferior and 
 temporary question of receiving by baptism converts from heretical and schis- 
 matical bodies. The Creed pronounces for the unity of baptism — the baptism 
 of remission of sins— against its iteration as a spiritual and cleansing process. 
 But the Archdeacon cannot see in the article this great Scriptural truth, but only 
 a reference to a transient dispute as to a mere matter of fact whether certain 
 heretics were or were not baptized — a case in which the question of any second 
 baptism, strictly speaking, does not occur. 
 
( 38 ) 
 
 peccatorum potuerit secundum quod credidit; prastereundum 
 hunc locum non putavi ; inaxime cum in eadem Epistola ani- 
 madverterim, etiam Marcionis fieri mentionem, ut nec ab ipso 
 venientes dicat baptizari oportere, quod jam in nomine Jesu 
 Christi baptizati esse videantur.” After speaking of the 
 Trinity as included in Christ’s form of Baptism, he proceeds — 
 “ Numquid hanc Trinitatem tenet Marcion ? — Longe alia est 
 apud Marcionem, sed et apud caeteros haereticos, fides ; imb nihil 
 est aliud apud illos, nisi perfidia, et blasphemia, et contentio 
 sanctitatis et veritatis inimica. Quomodo ergo potest videri, 
 qui apud illos baptizatur, consecutus esse peccatorum remissam, 
 et divinae indulgentiae gratiam per suam fidem, qui ipsius fidei 
 non habit veritatem ? (200.) — Quod si secundum pravam 
 fidem baptizari aliquis foris [z. e. extra Ecclesiam], et remissam 
 peccatorum consequi potuit, secundum eandem fidem consequi et 
 Spiritum Sanctum potuit. Manifestum est autem ubi, et 
 per quos, remissa peccatorum dari possit, quae in haptismo scilicet 
 datur (201). After a passage thus decisive it may be un- 
 necessary to make any further citation from the same great 
 Father. Yet there is one sentence, so pregnant with meaning, 
 which extends beyond our immediate subject, that I must not 
 omit it. “ Neque enim parva res Hereticis, et modica conced- 
 itur, quandb a nobis Baptisma eorum in acceptum refertur : 
 cum inde [z. e. a Baptismate] incipiat omnis jidei origo, et ad 
 spem vitce (Bternce salutaris ingressio, et purijicandis ac sanctvft- 
 candis Dei servis divina dignatio : Nam si baptizari quis apud 
 Haereticos potuit, utique et remissam peccatorum consequi 
 potuit : Si peccatorum remissam consecutus est, et sanctijicatus est, 
 ettemplum Dei f actus est'" Here we see how much St. Cyprian 
 (as all the primitive Fathers) considered to be implied in “ the 
 .remission of sin ” conferred in Baptism ; it carried with it the 
 gift of the Holy Ghost, sanctifying the baptized, and making 
 him to be the Temple of God. 
 
 St. Firmilian, in a similar tone, shows that he regards Bap- 
 
( 39 ) 
 
 tism, as it is the instrument of conferring forgiveness of sins, 
 to be the channel of the other graces also. In his letter to St. 
 Cyprian (Ep. 75), he says : — “ Stephanus, qui per successionem 
 Cathedram Petri habere se prsedicat, nullo adversus Hsereticos 
 zelo excitatur; concedens illis non modicam sed maximam 
 gratise potestatem, ut dicat eos et asseveret per Baptismi Sacra- 
 mentum sordes veteris hominis abluere^ antiqua mortis peccata 
 AondiYQp'egeneratione ccelesti fdios Dei facer e, ad oeternam vitam 
 divini lavacri sanctificatione reparare''' (225.) 
 
 So manifest is it, that if St. Cyprian and St. Firmilian under- 
 stood the Church’s Creed, they held that Baptism was im- 
 plied in the Article “ remission of sins,” and with Baptism all 
 its high and inestimable blessings. 
 
 But if it be contended that these are the opinions of men 
 whose judgment was disclaimed by a large portion of the 
 Church on the question of Baptism ministered by H eretics, and 
 therefore that their authority is not to be accepted in what 
 relates even to their own creed, I will appeal to one who was 
 most opposed to them on that question — St. Augustine — and 
 to that very work of his, which professes to expound the Roman 
 Creed — commonly called by us “ the Apostles’ Creed ” — which, 
 as the Archdeacon says, “ makes no mention of Baptism.” 
 
 In Augustine’s First Book ‘‘ De Symbolo ad Catechumenos,” 
 c. 6, he says, explaining the Article, Remissionem peccatorumf 
 Hahetis symholum perfecte in vohis, qua^ido haptizamini. [You 
 have perfectly in you that remission of sins, which the Creed 
 expresses, when you are baptized.] Ciim baptizati fueritis, 
 tenete bonam vitam in prseceptis Dei, ut Baptismum custodiatis^ 
 usque ad hnem — [that you may guard that blessing of forgive- 
 ness of sins which your Baptism gave to you.] “ Non vobis 
 dico, quia sine peccato hie vivetis, sed sunt venialia : sine qui- 
 bus vita ista non est. Propter omnia peccata Baptismus inventus 
 est ; propter levia, sine quibus esse non possumus, oratio in- 
 venta. Quid habet oratio ? ‘ Dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut 
 
( 40 ) 
 
 et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris.’ Semel ahluimur Baptis- 
 mati, quotidie abluimur oratione. Ergo tribus modis dimit- 
 tuntur peccata in Ecclesia — in Baptismo, in oratione, in humili- 
 tate majoris poenitentiae ; tamen Deus non dimittit peccata nisi 
 haptizatis. 
 
 So entirely does St. Augustine, in his Exposition of the 
 Apostles’ Creed, though it makes no express mention of Bap- 
 tism, nevertheless include Baptism in the words “ forgiveness 
 of sins,” as God’s instrument of conferring that, and the other 
 graces of newness of life. He returns to the matter in his 
 Fourth Book, c. 9, ‘ In remissionem peccatorum' Addressing 
 Catechumens, persons about to be baptized, he says : — “ For- 
 titer tenete, fideliter sperate, patienter expectate : reddetur no- 
 vitas per Baptismum, vehistatd discedente, deonerdbitur anima 
 sarcinis peccatorum, ut, libertate novae vitae induta, adver- 
 sus diabolum cum adjutorio divino valeat fortiter dimicare ; 
 eumque, a quo superata est, ita superet, ut in regno Dei 
 translata, de hoste devicto secura regnet cum suo Capite 
 Christo.” 
 
 1 will not do the Archdeacon the injustice of imagining that 
 he can need any further proof, that the absence of all express 
 mention of Baptism in the Creed of the Western Church is yet 
 quite consistent with the assertion, which I here deliberately 
 repeat, that the Article in the Nicene Creed, “1 acknowledge 
 one Baptism for the remission of sins,” declares the efficacy of 
 the one true Baptism of Christ ; and 1 repeat this declaration 
 with greater confidence that it will be accepted by all sound 
 members of Christ’s Church, because it appears that in the 
 Apostles’ or Roman Creed, in which Baptism is not expressly 
 named, it has yet been always understood by the highest autho- 
 rities to be implied ; in particular by St. Augustine, who, in 
 expounding that creed for the instruction of those who were 
 about to be baptized, has shown that in the Article “ the for- 
 giveness of sins,” Baptism is implied and included, as the in- 
 
( 41 ) 
 
 strument or channel, through which that grace, and all the other 
 graces which flow from it, are conferred. 
 
 I repeat, therefore, that this efficacy of Baptism is an 
 Article of Faitli^ the denial of which, or the permission of its 
 denial — in other words the leaving it an open question — would 
 unchurch any community whatsoever calling itself a church. 
 
 We have seen how St. Augustine understood the Apostles’ 
 Creed ; from him let us turn to our own illustrious expositor 
 of the same Creed, Bishop Pearson. Under Article X., 
 “ The forgiveness of Sins,” he thus begins: — “ This Article 
 hath always been expressly contained and acknowledged in the 
 Creed as being a most necessary part of the Christian profes- 
 sion.^^ And in justification of this statement, he tells us in a 
 note, “ Therefore Carolus Magnus in his Capitular (1. 3, 
 c. 6) inveighs against Basilius, the Bishop of Ancyra, because 
 in his Confession of Faith, which he delivered in the second 
 Council of Nice (Art. I.) he omitted the remission of sins, 
 which the Apostles in so short a compendium as the Creed 
 would not omit.” “ For some ages,” he continues, this Article 
 “ immediately followed the belief of the Holy Church ; and 
 was, therefore, added immediately after it, to show that re- 
 mission of sins was to be obtained in the Church of Christ. 
 For, being the Creed at first was made to be used as a con- 
 fession of such as were to be baptized, declaring their faith in 
 the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, in whose name 
 Baptism was administered ; they propounded unto them the 
 Holy Church., into which by Baptism they were to be admitted, 
 and the forgiveness of sins, ivhich hy the same BaiHsm was to 
 he obtained ; and therefore in some Creeds it was particularly 
 expressed, ‘ I believe one Baptism for remission of sins.’ ” 
 “ These f says he, “ are the ivords of the Constantinopolitan 
 Creed ^'^ — thus giving to the Article of that Creed the very 
 same construction, for which the Archdeacon of Middlesex has 
 exhausted all his store of learning in reproving me. 
 
( 42 ) 
 
 After a lengthened argument, Pearson thus sums up : — 
 “ From hence every one may learn what he is explicitly to 
 believe and confess in this Article of ^forgiveness of sins f for 
 thereby he is conceived to intend thus much : I do freely 
 acknowledge, and with unspeakable comfort embrace this as a 
 most necessary and infallible truth, that whereas every sin is 
 a transgression of the law of God, and upon every transgres- 
 sion there remaineth a guilt upon the person of the transgressor, 
 and that guilt is an obligation to endure eternal punishment, 
 so that all men being concluded under sin, they were all 
 obliged to suffer the miseries of eternal death ; it pleased God 
 to give his Son, and his Son to give himself, a sacrifice for sin — 
 even his precious blood as a price by way of compensation and 
 satisfaction to the will and justice of God ; by which propitia- 
 tion God became reconciled, and, being so, took off our obli- 
 gation to eternal punishment, which is the guilt of our lives, 
 and appointed in the Church of Christ the Bacrament of Baptism 
 for the first remission, and repentance for the constant for- 
 giveness of all following trespasses. And thus I believe the 
 forgiveness of sins /” 
 
 Now, upon this, I will not say to my opponent “ Malim 
 errare cum Pearsono, quam tecum recte sent! re but I will 
 say, that when I find my position, which I here repeat, that 
 
 the forgiveness of sins,” part of the Catholic faith, part 
 of every Christian’s creed, includes the admission of the ejfi,- 
 cacy — that is, the spiritual grace — of Baptism, and that this 
 very position is maintained and proved by Bishop Pearson, 
 I am quite content that, by Archdeacon Sinclair, it should be 
 termed at once unnecessary, unsafe, and untenable ; unne- 
 cessary because the efficacy of Baptism may be siLfidciently 
 established on other grounds ” — in plain English, because 
 the Archdeacon thinks it sufficient to hold that efhcacy, as 
 a matter of opinion ; — “ unsafe, because ” to hold it as we 
 have declared that we hold it, “ has a dangerously Roman- 
 
( 43 ) 
 
 izing tendency ” — whereas the experience of the last two 
 years has taught all, who are willing to learn, that to 
 leave such a matter “ an open question,” as the Archdeacon 
 urges us to leave it, — and as it is apprehended that the 
 judgment in the Gorham case, if not protested against, would 
 leave it — has already driven many to Rome, and, if followed 
 by other similar instances of un-Catholic laxity, would, we 
 can hardly doubt, drive thither many more. Lastly, the posi- 
 tion is pronounced to be “ untenable for the reasons which I,” 
 the Archdeacon says, “ have already given but whether these 
 reasons do indeed prove it untenable, is a question which must 
 be decided by more impartial judges than either he or myself 
 can be supposed to be. 
 
 Here, then, I close this long, and, I fear, tiresome address 
 to you. I have no wish to press the matter with more severity 
 against our opponent than is necessary for the vindication of 
 Catholic Truth. I am quite ready to believe that this “ at- 
 tempt ” of his is rather an exception to the general character 
 of his theological teaching, than a sample of it. Be this as it 
 may, it would be unreasonable, and ungrateful, to deal harshly 
 with a writer, who has given probably to many among you, 
 as he has given to myself, an occasion of strengthening our 
 conviction of the soundness of our Church’s doctrine on this 
 great Article of Faith, by an accurate examination of all the 
 arguments, by which the Archdeacon of Middlesex has sought 
 to make it nothing more than a probable opinion. 
 
 I am. Reverend and Dear Brethren, 
 
 Your affectionate Friend and Brother, 
 
 II. EXETER. 
 
 P.S. — I avail myself of this opportunity to vindicate a part 
 of the Declaration made by the Synod of Exeter on Baptism 
 
( 44 ) 
 
 from an objection, which has, I am informed, been taken in 
 several quarters, and which is expressed in “ Appendix ” to a 
 Pamphlet recently published by a very respectable Presbyter 
 of an adjoining diocese.* 
 
 The part of our Declaration which is objected to, is as 
 follows : — “ Acknowledging ‘ one Baptism for the remission of 
 sins,’ we hold as of faith that all persons duly baptized {and 
 being adults, ivith Jit qualijications), are not only baptized once 
 for all, but also are baptized with the one true baptism of Him 
 who ‘ baptizeth with the Holy Ghost,’ and who, thus making 
 us to ‘ be born again of Water and the Spirit,’ delivers us 
 thereby from the guilt and bondage of all our sins, of original 
 and past sin absolutely and at once, of sins committed after 
 Baptism conditionally, when with hearty repentance and true 
 faith we turn unto God.” 
 
 The objection is, that this “ seems to say, that such adult 
 [as has not fit qualifications] has not received the Gift of 
 the inward and spiritual Grace of Holy Baptism, i. e. that in 
 his case there has been no Sacrament.” 
 
 I answer this objection, first, by pointing out to the attention 
 of the objector, that it is founded on an assumption contrary to 
 the teaching of our Church in its 29th Article, specially 
 indeed concerning the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, but 
 equally applicable to Baptism. “ The wicked, and such as 
 be void of a lively Faith, although they do carnally and 
 visibly press with their teeth (as St. Augustine saith) the 
 Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ, yet in no wise are 
 they Partakers of Christ ; but rather to their condemnation, do 
 eat and drink the Sign or Sacrament of so great a thing. 
 
 In like manner, they who are baptized without Faith or 
 otherwise unworthily, are “ not Partakers of Christ ; but 
 rather to their condemnation ” they receive the Sacrament, 
 
 * Rev. G. A. Denison, M.A. 
 
( 45 ) 
 
 but not the effect thereof — incorporation into Christ, spiritual 
 regeneration, and birth of the Spirit. 
 
 This distinction between receiving the Sacrament, and re- 
 ceiving the proper effect thereof, is as old as St. Augustine, 
 who tells us of baptized heretics coming to the Church, and 
 wishing to be baptized, — ut nec sic eis deberemus ad itera- 
 tionem baptismi consentire, sed potius docendi essent, nec 
 integritatem Baptismi prodesse perversitati eorum, si corrigi 
 nollent, nec eorum perversitate violatum fuisse integrum Bap- 
 tisma, quamdiii corrigi noluerunt ; nec quia corrigi volunt, 
 melius in eis Baptisma fieri ; sed ipsos a malignitate discedere, 
 illud autem incipere jam prodesse ad salutem, quod prius ad 
 perniciem. — Aug.^ De Bapt. cont. Donat. 1. v. c. 5. 
 
 The same distinction is often made by Catholic writers of 
 great authority, and citations might be made without number. 
 I content myself with giving one or two very short, but very 
 clear : 1st, from St. Thomas, S'"’’ 67, 5. Speaking of the 
 case of unbaptized persons baptizing each other, he says — “ Si 
 extra articulum necessitatis hoc fieret, uterque graviter peccaret, 
 scilicet baptizans et baptizatus ; et per hoc impediretur Bap- 
 tismi effectus., licet 7ion tolleretur ipswn Sacr amentum. 
 
 2nd. Alex. Alensis, par. iv. qusest. 8, art. 2. “ Fictio, sive 
 
 infidelitas, non impedit, quin baptizatus suscipiat sacramentum 
 Baptismi, sed impedit, ne suscipiat ipsam rem, manente 
 fictione. Dico autem rem, ipsam gratiam, vel remissionem 
 peccatorum, unde Augustinus ‘ Adulti, quod baptizantur cum 
 Jide^ Sacramentum et rem suscipiunt : qui verb sine fide acce- 
 dunt, vel ficte, Sacramentum et non rem suscipiunt.’ ” 
 
 LONDON: PilINTED BY \Y. CLOWEj AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET. 
 
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