sial
genius of Augustine, and these were the Donatists. These men were not
heretics, but bigots. They made the rite of baptism to depend on the
character of the officiating priest; and hence they insisted on
rebaptism, if the priest who had baptized proved unworthy. They seemed
to forget that no clergyman ever baptized from his own authority or
worthiness, but only in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the
Holy Ghost. Nobody knows who baptized Paul, and he felt under certain
circumstances even that he was sent not to baptize, but to preach the
gospel. Lay baptism has always been held valid. Hence, such reformers as
Calvin and Knox did not deem it necessary to rebaptize those who had
been converted from the Roman Catholic faith; and, if I do not mistake,
even Roman Catholics do not insist on rebaptizing Protestants. But the
Donatists so magnified, not the rite, but the form of it, that they lost
the spirit of it, and became seceders, and created a mournful division
in the Church,--a schism which gave rise to bitter animosities. The
churches of Africa were rent by their implacable feuds, and on so small
a matter,--even as the ranks of the reformers under Luther were so soon
divided by the Anabaptists. In proportion to the unimportance of the
shibboleth was tenacity to it,--a mark which has ever characterized
narrow and illiberal minds. It is not because a man accepts a shibboleth
that he is narrow and small, but because he fights for it. As a minute
critic would cast out from the fraternity of scholars him who cannot
tell the difference between _ac_ and _et_, so the Donatist would expel
from the true fold of Christ those who accepted baptism from an unworthy
priest. Augustine at first showed great moderation and patience and
gentleness in dealing with these narrow-minded and fierce sectarians,
who carried their animosity so far as to forbid bread to be baked for
the use of the Catholics in Carthage, when they had the ascendency; but
at last he became indignant, and implored the aid of secular
magistrates.

Augustine's controversy with the Donatists led to two remarkable
tracts,--one on the evil of suppressing heresy by the sword, and the
other on the unity of the Church.

In the first he showed a spirit of toleration beyond his age; and this
is more remarkable because his temper was naturally ardent and fiery.
But he protested in his writings, and before councils, against violence
in forcing religious convictions,