A superstitious idea, respecting the necessity of baptism to salvation, led to the baptism of sick persons, and, finally, to the baptism of infants.

Sponsors, holy water, anointing with oil, the sign of the cross, and a multitude of similar ceremonies, equally unauthorized by the Scriptures, were soon introduced.

The church lost her simplicity and purity, her ministers became ambitious, and the darkness gradually deepened to the long and dismal night of papal despotism." "Probably introduced about the commencement of the third century, in connection with other corruptions." Recall what I read to you from Origen, born A.D.

185; from Tertullian, who flourished within one hundred years after the apostles; from Cyprian and the Council of Carthage; from Augustine and his antagonist, Pelagius, who expressly said that he had never heard of any one, not even the most impious heretic, denying baptism to infants.
In contrast with such a passage as the one just read to you, I am reminded of the host of writers, on our side of the question, who, almost all of them, make such candid and full concessions, that they furnish their brethren of the opposite side with many of their arguments against us.

I remember reading a book of "Paedobaptist Concessions," containing a formidable array of points yielded by our writers, so that a common reader might ask, What have you left as the ground of your belief and practice?
But the thought which arose in my mind was, Notwithstanding all these concessions, they who make them are among the firmest believers in baptism by sprinkling, and in infant baptism.