Baptist History, Heritage and Distinctives – Tertullian Part THREE of THREE

Thomas E Kresal Admin · 10h August 25, 2020

Baptist History, Heritage and Distinctives – Tertullian Part THREE of THREE

Venema is quoted by Ford as saying: “Tertullian has no where mentioned Pedo-baptism (infant baptism) among the customs of the church that were publickly received, and usually observed.” Thus we learn that in the second century the baptism of infants was unknown as a practice of the church. Mosheim in his Ecclesiastical History says of the first century: “The sacrament of baptism was administered in this century without the public assemblies, in places appointed and prepared for the purpose, and was performed by immersion of the whole body in the baptismal font.”

We learn from this Lutheran historian that baptism was performed in the first century just as it is now administered by the Baptists. As the churches were then composed of baptized believers, and as those believers were immersed.

Montanists (Tertullian) believed in the literal reign of Christ upon the earth and longed for his coming, that he might hold his people separate by the final overthrow of sin and sinners, and then his saints would reign with him here in glory. They regarded every new persecutor on the imperial throne as the Antichrist of the Apocalypse; and made so much of that book, that the Alogians thought it a Montanist forgery. They hoped by preaching these things to purify the Churches, without founding a new sect, and for a time, things tended in that direction. Many returned, in part, to the Apostolic ideal, and in hopeful minds, there was promise of recovering a purely spiritual membership,” “A History of the Baptist; Traced by Their Vital Principles and Practices from the Time of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” by Thomas Armitage D.D., LL.D; New York Bryan Taylor & CO. 757 Broadway, 1887 pgs. 174-177

Presented by Thomas E. Kresal from: Elder John R. Daily, Primitive Monitor, 1897, pp. 181-184.