fant, had
been in this way admitted within the pale of visible Christianity.
Infant baptism must, therefore, have been an institution of the age of
the apostles. This conclusion is corroborated by the fact that Justin
Martyr speaks of baptism as supplying the place of circumcision. "We,"
says he, "who through Christ have access to God, have not received that
circumcision which is in the flesh, but that spiritual circumcision
which Enoch, and others like him, observed. And this, because we have
been sinners, we do, through the mercy of God, receive _by baptism_."
[473:1] Justin would scarcely have represented the initiatory ordinance
of the Christian Church as supplying so efficiently the place of the
Jewish rite, had it not been of equally extensive application. The
testimony of Irenaeus, the disciple of Polycarp, throws additional light
upon this argument. "Christ," says he, "came to save all persons by
Himself; all, I say, who _by Him are regenerated unto God_--infants, and
little ones, and children, and youths, and aged persons: therefore He
went through the several ages, being made an infant for infants, that He
might _sanctify infants_; [473:2] and, for little ones, He was made a
little one, to sanctify them of that age also." [473:3] Irenaeus
elsewhere speaks of baptism as _our regeneration_ or _new birth unto
God_, [473:4] so that his meaning in this passage cannot well be
disputed. He was born on the confines of the apostolic age, and when he
mentions the _regeneration unto God_ of "infants, and little ones, and
children," he alludes to their admission by baptism to the seal of
salvation.

The celebrated Origen was born about A.D. 185, and we have as strong
circumstantial evidence as we could well desire that he was baptized in
infancy. [474:1] Both his parents were Christians, and as soon as he was
capable of receiving instruction, he began to enjoy the advantages of a
pious education. He affirms, not only that the practice of infant
baptism prevailed in his own age, but that it had been handed down as an
ecclesiastical ordinance from the first century. "None," says he, "is
free from pollution, though his life upon the earth be but the length of
one day, and for this reason even infants are baptized, because by the
sacrament of baptism the pollution of our birth is put away." [474:2]
"The Church has received the custom of baptizing little children _from
the apostles_." [474:3]

The only writer of the first th