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To: Cronos; wmfights; xone; Titanites
It's not just the Apostolic Church (Catholic, Orthodox, Oriental, Assyrian) who practise infant baptism and have practised it since Apostolic times (as the quotes from Origen, Augustine, Cyprian etc. demonstrate), but also Anglicans, lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians.

Infant "baptism" (so-called) was not practiced in Apostlic times, period! It seems that you need some education in church history on this issue. Explain the catechumens in the first few centuries of Christianity! They sure weren't baptised (immersed) before they spent a long time as students learning of Christ and His sacrifice on the cross for us.

712 posted on 03/21/2010 2:12:15 PM PDT by Ken4TA
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To: Ken4TA
1 Peter 3:21 (New International Version)

21and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge[a] of a good conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ,

Acts 2:38-39 (New International Version)

38Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call."

Titus 3:5-6 (New International Version)

5he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, 6whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior,

Matthew 18:6 (New International Version)

6But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. (little children believing)

Luke 1:13-15

13But the angel said to him: "Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to give him the name John. 14He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, 15for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from birth. (Holy Spirit in a babe from birth; John the Baptist)

2Tim 3:14-15

14But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, 15and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. ( Another infant knowing the Scripture)

Gal. 3:26-27

26You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, 27for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.

Matthew 28:18-20 (New International Version)

18Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in[a] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

Mark 16:16 (New International Version)

16Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned

Acts 2:38 (New International Version)

38Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. (Everyone one of you…not all you adults!!)

Acts 22:16 (New International Version)

16And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name.

There is not a single passage in Scripture which instructs us not to baptize for reasons of age, race, or gender. On the contrary, the divine commands to baptize in Scripture are all universal in nature. The promises and power of Baptism are extended to all in Scripture--including infants-and are available to all.

Baptism

715 posted on 03/21/2010 8:58:14 PM PDT by xone
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To: Ken4TA; wmfights; xone; Titanites
Ha - infant baptism was practised by the early Church -- Origen, Ireneus and Augustine talk about this -- you think you know it better now, 2000 years later than they did?

Here is the proof for you sola scriptura types from the bible
When the Redeemer declares (John 3) that it is necessary to be born again of water and the Holy Ghost in order to enter the Kingdom of God, His words may be justly understood to mean that He includes all who are capable of having a right to this kingdom. Now, He has asserted such a right even for those who are not adults, when He says (Matthew 19:14): "Suffer the little children, and forbid them not to come to me: for the kingdom of heaven is for such." It has been objected that this latter text does not refer to infants, inasmuch as Christ says "to come to me". In the parallel passage in St. Luke (18:15), however, the text reads: "And they brought unto him also infants, that he might touch them"; and then follow the words cited from St. Matthew. In the Greek text, the words brephe and prosepheron refer to infants in arms.

and

Moreover, St. Paul (Colossians 2) says that baptism in the New Law has taken the place of circumcision in the Old. It was especially to infants that the rite of circumcision was applied by Divine precept. If it be said that there is no example of the baptism of infants to be found in the Bible, we may answer that infants are included in such phrases as: "She was baptized and her household" (Acts 16:15); "Himself was baptized, and all his house immediately" (Acts 16:33); "I baptized the household of Stephanus" (1 Corinthians 1:16).

To the objection that baptism requires faith, theologians reply that adults must have faith, but infants receive habitual faith, which is infused into them in the sacrament of regeneration. As to actual faith, they believe on the faith of another; as St. Augustine (De Verb. Apost., xiv, xviii) beautifully says: "He believes by another, who has sinned by another."

And, the proof that the Early Church DID baptise infants ,is from here by St. Cyprian of Carthage
In respect to the case of infants, which you say ought not to be baptised within the second or third day after birth, and that hte law of ncient circumcision be regarded, so that you think that one who is just born should not be baptised and sanctified within the eighth day,we all thought very differently in our council. For in this course which you thought was to be taken, no one agreed; but we all rather judge that the mercy and grace of God is not to be refused to any one born of man.. we ought to shrink from hindering an infant, who being lately born, has not sinned, except in that, being born after the flesh accrding to Adam, he has ontracted teh contagion of the ancient death as its earliest birth, who approaches the more easily on this very account to the reception of the forgiveness of sins -- that to him are remitted, not his own sincs, but the sins of another (Adam)
and from Origen (185-254 AD)
The Church received from the Apostles the tradition of giving Baptism even to infants. For the Apostles, to whom were committed teh secrets of divine mysteries, knew that there is in everyone the innate stains of sin, which must be washed away through water and the Spirit
and from St. Augustine
Who is so impious as to wish to exclude infants from the kindgom of heaven by forbidding them to be baptised and born again in Christ? This the Church always had, always held; this she received from the faith of our ancestors; this she perserveringly guards even to the end

Whoever says that even infants are vivified in Christ when they depart this life without the participation of His Sacrament (Baptism), both opposes the Apostolic preaching and condemns the whole Church which hastens to baptize infants, because it unhesitatingly believes that otherwise they can not possibly be vivified in Christ,"

723 posted on 03/21/2010 9:43:03 PM PDT by Cronos (St. Ambrose -- elected by popular acclaim)
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To: Ken4TA; wmfights; xone; Titanites
Read my post above - Infant baptism was practiced in Apostlic times. It seems that you need some education in church history on this issue.


724 posted on 03/21/2010 9:45:09 PM PDT by Cronos (St. Ambrose -- elected by popular acclaim)
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To: Ken4TA; wmfights; xone; Titanites
Read my post above - Infant baptism was practiced in Apostlic times. It seems that you need some education in church history on this issue.


725 posted on 03/21/2010 9:46:11 PM PDT by Cronos (Origen(200AD)"The Church received from theApostles the tradition of giving Baptism even to infants")
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