Well, this morning we return to the topic of why do we baptize babies? Why do we baptize babies? We are looking at this question from three angles. Last week, we looked at the biblical foundations for why we baptize our babies. This morning, we're gonna look at the historical practice. What did the church historically do in this respect? And then next week, we'll look at pastoral experience. So biblical foundations, historical practice, and pastoral experience. Once we get this posted on the web, I'd encourage you to even go back and look at last week again, biblical foundations. Again, remember we are Sola Scriptura people. We only want to practice and do that which God commands. Both in the Old Testament and the New Testament, you have commands given to God's people to not go to the right or to the left of what God commands, to not subtract to not minimize what God calls us people to do, as well as to not add on man-made additions to what God has said. And even in the New Testament, such as Acts 20, where Paul meets the Ephesian elders, Paul's pretty sure he's never gonna see them again, and he calls the Ephesian elders to come up and meet him on the island of Miletus. And in that farewell address, he tells them, I am innocent of the blood of all, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. So both in the Old and the New Testament, there is a burden that God's people practice the whole counsel of God and nothing more, nothing less. So help me God, as you swear in a courtroom, you know, I swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. So help me God. And that's really the oath that every minister must take. And we as Protestants, as Presbyterians, we are sola scriptura people. The whole counsel of God matters. But if that is the case, why should we care about what the church historically has practiced? Should we not just care about what we looked at in scripture last week about we baptize babies because of covenantal solidarity with the covenant with Abraham and with the sacramental solidarity that circumcision and baptism are paralleled in the New Testament or because of the principle of household solidarity that we saw throughout the whole Bible. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. The children of a believing parent is referred to in covenantal terms, they're holy. As Jesus said, as those that wanted to follow Jesus that were Jews brought their little children to him and he said, forbid them not for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven. Is that not enough? Why as Sola Scriptura people would we need to understand historical theology at all? Well, this is why. It's because we all read the Bible with tinted lenses. When we come to scripture, we do not come with a blank slate. We come with assumptions, with cultural assumptions, with assumptions about what we've been taught perhaps by other ministers or other spiritual mentors. We come with a load of assumptions that form a filter when we read the Bible. There are some who will say things like, Jesus is my creed, or my creed is the Bible. But when they say that, they're ignoring, what they're really saying is that my way of reading the scriptures is the only right way to read the scriptures. But they're not even saying, they're just saying, Jesus is my creed, the Bible's my creed. But the fact is, is that they are reading scripture from a particular lens and context with assumptions. And so what historical theology does is it lets us know if we are reading the Bible the same way those who have gone before us read the Bible. Because surely if the Holy Spirit is illumining our hearts and minds, there shouldn't be too many things in scripture we read and believe that nobody in church history has ever read or believed or taught. You know, that should, that should kind of put a warning flag up in our mind that maybe we're, we're, we're getting off. Or if you feel like you, this is what the Bible teaches, at least you're aware of the fact that you're standing against the tradition of the church. Okay. So at least it lets you know where your interpretation of scripture on a particular doctrine sits in light of the history of the church. So as we come to the the topic of infant baptism, regardless of what we at the end of the day believe scripture teaches, it's important to know what the church has practiced throughout its existence. Now there are limits to historical theology. And I just want to add one more qualifier here before we begin and address the historical practice. There are limits to historical theology. And they were really articulated well by John Calvin in a letter to the Roman Catholic Bishop named Cardinal Satellito, not Bishop, Cardinal Satellito. John Calvin was kicked out of Geneva, where he had been pastoring for some time. The Genevan council wasn't happy with just kind of his unqualified way of preaching the word of God as it came. And so they kicked him out of Geneva. But then the Roman Catholic Church, the Pope and the Cardinals were trying to win Geneva back to the Roman Catholic faith. and the Geneva Council didn't know what to do. So they asked John Calvin to write a letter to Cardinal Sattolito. They kicked him out, but then they asked him to write the letter. Eventually they dragged Calvin back to Geneva. But at any rate, they want Calvin to defend them and to basically articulate what was the point of the Reformation. And in that letter, Calvin attributes the Roman Catholic tradition of placing tradition on the same level as scripture, even really above scripture, He accused the Roman Catholics of doing the same thing that the Anabaptists were doing when they said that the inner revelation of the Spirit trumps the written word of God. So both... The Roman Catholics placing church history, the Apostolic tradition, whatever a Pope ever said, actually above the Word of God as the sole way to interpret Scripture. The Anabaptists and the others were saying, well, my inner felt sense of what is right or wrong or what the Spirit's telling me goes above Scripture. Both of them made a fatal error. We are Sola Scriptura people. Scripture trumps church history. So there are limits. So while we can look to church history to learn how the church historic has read the Bible, we also need to be aware of those two limits. In fact, the spirit of the Reformation is summed up in a Latin phrase, ad fontes. which means back to the sources, ad fontes. That was the spirit of the Reformation, to return back to the scriptures and what the early church actually taught. If you read, for example, Calvin's Institutes, he's quoting the early church fathers over and over and over again, showing how even the church fathers had been twisted into false doctrines and teachings in the Roman Catholic Church. So the reformers are going ad fontes, back to the sources. And so that's what we need to do as we look at this subject as well. But it's not just the spirit of the Reformation, it's also the spirit of the Bible. With the text that we read this morning, when the Lord says through Jeremiah, ask for the ancient paths where the good way is and walk in it. In Hebrews 13, seven, remember your leaders, those who spoke the word of God to you, consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. In principle, we look back to those who have gone before us because often they can remind us where the good way is. In C.S. Lewis's terms, we need to fight chronological snobbery. Too much of the church today thinks that what it is doing now is the best way the church has ever done this or that or taught that or done that with fog machines and lights included and everything and care almost nothing for any history that has gone before. So we need to both follow the spirit of the Reformation and the spirit of the Bible. Let's go back to the sources. Let's learn from those who have gone before us. Let's consider the outcome of their way of life and let's imitate their faith. So we're going to look at this question, why do we baptize babies? from the historical practice point of view with three points that we'll look at this morning. First, we're gonna look at explicit statements from the early church on baptism. Second, we're gonna look at the contested material. then third we're going to look towards a reformed theology of baptism in Augustine around the turn of the the 5th century. So we're going to look at sources from the 2nd to the 4th century up to the cusp of the 5th century this morning and I hope that it will give you clarity as to why we baptize babies from a historical point of view, how they read the scriptures, how they saw things handed down. And I will just say as a piece of personal biography, this was really important for me as I grew up in the Baptistic world. This was a really important study for me before being convinced of the practice of infant baptism. So what I'm really sharing with you is what I discovered in my own journey along the way, and I hope it'll be helpful and clarifying for you as well. And if any of you would like the actual quotations of these guys, I have a printout I have at home that I can email you if you'd like to look at those in depth. But you'll see in your worship folder those that we're gonna cite this morning, and that might give you just kind of some benchmarks along the way, at least how to spell some of these guys' strange names as well. So you've got it there in the worship folder. So let's begin by looking at explicit statements. The first explicit statement of infant baptism that we need to understand, it really surfaces here in really explicit form in the history of the church, is Hippolytus of Rome, AD 215, writing around the year 215. And Hippolytus wrote a book that's called Apostolic Traditions. Apostolic Traditions. So, hence the name. He's writing about what he says is the Apostolic Tradition. And what Hippolytus says in this document which by the way is it's kind of basically something that uh this document is something that was used to catechize people before they came into the faith before they were baptized they were called catechumens so people that they weren't christians yet but they wanted to be and so they were catechizing them And so they had works like this, like the apostolic tradition that taught the faith as they articulated it, the faith once for all delivered to the saints. And Hippolytus of Rome says in 2.15, you are to baptize the little ones first. All those who are able to speak for themselves should speak. With regard to those who cannot speak for themselves, their parents or somebody who belongs to their family should speak. Writing around the same time, shortly after, we have three writings from Origen of Alexandria from 233 to 251. And Origen says, the tradition from the apostles is to give baptism even to little children. Elsewhere, he says, little children are baptized for the remission of sins, quoting Acts 2, 38 and 39. And he says, for this reason, even small children are baptized. And then in another writing, he says, according to the observance of the church, that baptism also be given to infants. What can we learn from both Hippolytus and Origen? Both Hippolytus and Origen are guys that were living during the second century, so the century right after the close of the New Testament age. And Hippolytus is an elder in Rome, the church in Rome. And Origen is one of the, really the leading theological figure in Alexandria, which is in Africa. And both these guys essentially represent the eastern and the western tradition of the church at that time, of the early church, Apollitus being in Rome, Origen in Alexandria. Both these guys claim that infant baptism was of apostolic origins. that it was the practice of the church. So very early on here in the third century, we see two very credible witnesses in the eyes of church history who say that infant baptism is of apostolic origins. Origins says it explicitly, Hippolytus does through, by that being included in his work, Apostolic Traditions. So those are two texts that we need to wrestle with. Another explicit statement comes to us through Cyprian in the Synod of Carthage in AD 257. He was writing to somebody, I'll give you a little background to this quote, but there was a debate going on in the church whether infants should be baptized on the eighth day like circumcision whether they can be baptized earlier like the third day or something like that and someone writes Cyprian who just emphatically is arguing that it should be on the eighth day like circumcision so he's he's making the parallel there between circumcision and in baptism. And so a group of, I believe it was 66 or 60, yeah, 66 men gathered together as a synod in Carthage to debate the issue. Should an infant be baptized on the eighth day or should they be baptized earlier? The debate is not about, should infants be baptized? The debate is about, should infants be baptized on the eighth day or earlier? And Cyprian writes to Phidas, who's saying it must be the eighth day. Cyprian writes, but as for what pertains to the case of infants who you said ought not to be baptized within the second or third day after they were born, and that the law of ancient circumcision must be considered, that you thought that he who was born should not be baptized and sanctified within eight days We thought far otherwise in our counsel, for in this matter, no one agrees with what you thought ought to be done. But we all judge that the mercy and grace of God must be denied to no man born." So in other words, he's saying, you can do it well before the eighth day. Let the grace and mercy of God be denied to no man born. So here again we have three explicit statements to infant baptism, two claiming apostolic origins, another one where infant baptism is simply assumed, and the debate is eighth day or earlier. We have two other sources we need to look at from the early church in regards to explicit statements. There's another document called Apostolic Constitutions or Constitutions of the Holy Apostles that comes to us around AD 375, 390. And in that document, the writer is addressing heresies regarding baptism. One of the heresies that he points out is anabaptism, of being re-baptized. And he says that that is, you are essentially crucifying the Lord all over again when you re-baptize somebody. He also speaks against the delay of baptism. Some people were delaying baptism till their deathbeds because they thought, well, any sins after I'm baptized won't be forgiven. So he's writing against that practice as well, calling that a heresy as well. And then finally in that document, he gives an explicit statement to baptize your infants saying, also baptize your infants and bring them up in the nurture and admonition of God, for he says, Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not. That's a reference to Luke 18, Jesus's words. And as you read these early church guides, these biblical texts we cited last week, they go to over and over again. Lastly, in respect to an explicit statement, we have Augustine in AD 400. Augustine, we should note, is the principle uh theologian of the early church that unites especially all of western chrism together whether roman catholic or protestant augustine is the guy that everybody goes back to john calvin himself is going back to augustine when they're in the reformation project of going ad fontes. I wanna say one brief thing about Augustine here, and then we'll come back to him at the end. But Augustine, at the start of this citation that I'll reference later, says, this is the firm tradition of the universal church in respect of the baptism of infants. And he's gonna go on and explain the theology of it, which we will come back to at the end. But Augustine as well says this is the universal tradition. This is the tradition of the universal church, the firm tradition. Augustine actually was not allowed to be baptized by a long time by his mother who thought that post-baptismal sins couldn't be forgiven. So this adds weight though to the tradition to the contrary. Okay, so these are explicit statements that we need to consider from the third to just the cusp of the fifth century. So in other words, what we've seen so far is that we've made an argument last week for the continuation of household solidarity. We saw the baptism of whole households in the New Testament. In the first century, we've now cited material from the third century and beyond. In between the first and the third, hopefully all of our math is good enough to get this, there's the second century. Right? The second century. And this is where a great debate ensnares, and I will try to summarize it for you. So we have the first century, household solidarity continues. We see things like household baptisms in the New Testament. And then the third century, very early, we have guys saying this is the apostolic tradition, both in the East and the West. Origen traveled all over the Roman Empire. He was a well-known, reputable, trusted theologian. And then we have all these guys saying this is the universal apostolic practice. Well, what's going on in the second century? The problem with the second century is there is silence in respect to infant baptism. There is nothing in the second century that tells you one thing or the other. And thus we have to make an argument from silence. What is going on in the second century? So we first come to a document called the Didache, which means the teaching, the Greek word for the Didache. It comes just a few decades before the writings of Hippolytus and Origen. And in that document, in the Didache, it reflects adult missionary-directed language. For example, it says that the person who's going to be baptized should fast beforehand. Well, infants can't fast. It's not good to make your infants fast. So from the Baptist argument, they would say, thus, infants should not be baptized. So they're reading into that and saying infants should not be baptized. On the infant baptism side, we would say that this is adult-directed language. to pagans who are coming, whole families who are outside the faith, who are coming into the faith, and because you must repent and be baptized, the parents must, or at least one of the parents, that this is adult-directed missionary language for families coming into the church, but it's not addressing what do you do with the children of those who are already in the church. So that's something we need to wrestle with. And both in the New Testament and in this early church period, we don't have any examples like a historical narrative of what the church did with the child of a believer. In other words, a second generation baptism. We can argue household solidarity in the New Testament, which we did last week. It doesn't matter the age, it represents whoever's part of the household. But we don't necessarily have a historical evidence of one way or the other in these first two centuries until the third century when they say it's the universal apostolic practice of the church. So the didache leaves us wanting more. It leaves us wanting more. It doesn't determine one way or the other what's going on. The second set of, we could call it contested material, refers to the association of your Christian life with your age. People who seem to be associating their age with statements about how long they've been a Christian. We should remember the Roman Empire, the average life expectancy was 25 years old. If you remove the infant mortality rate, it goes into the 50s. So the average life expectancy would be up into the 50s. And I think that's important to just note as we listen to these references here. So we have a couple that we can mention. First, from the martyrdom of Polycarp. Polycarp was an early church father who was martyred for the faith. And when the pro-council is asking him to recant, to renounce Christ, Polycarp said, 86 years have I served him and he has done me no wrong. How can I blaspheme my king who saved me? Polycarp, by the way, this is around 167 AD. He would have been an early disciple or associated with the apostle John and his people. And he's writing, 86 years have I served him. And so many scholars say he's associating basically his birth with the amount of time that he has served Christ. Pauli Kratis says a similar thing around AD 190-191. Pauli Kratis He says, talks about his Christian family heritage. He says, all these observed the 14th day of the Passover, according to the gospel, deviating no respect of following the rule of faith. And I also Polycratus, the least of you all, do according to the tradition of my relatives, some of whom I have followed closely, for seven of my relatives were bishops and I am the eighth. And my relatives always observed the day when the people put away the leaven. He's talking about the Lord's supper, when and how often you should practice it. But anyways, he's clearly comes from a very Christian family and lineage. And he then goes on and says, I therefore brethren who have lived 65 years in the Lord. Again, likely that he's referring to his baptism as a child or as an infant. Again, not conclusive. This is contested material. We also have Justin Martyr, who in around AD 150 says, many men and women who were disciples of Christ from childhood remain pure at 60 or 70 years of age. And now what we need to understand about that phrase, disciple, since childhood, is that only baptized people were considered Christians or disciples. Only those who were baptized, in fact, were considered born again. Irenaeus, for example, says around AD 170-180, he says, "...for Christ came to save all through means of himself, all I say who through him are born again to God." So he's using this born-again language. "...are born again to God, infants." and children and boys and youths and old men. He therefore passed through every age, becoming an infant for infants, thus sanctifying infants, a child for children, thus sanctifying those who are this age." And he goes on to talk about people of every age. Using the language born again and sanctified to refer to as infants and children, those who are of the church. Elsewhere, we see an early association with baptism and regeneration, which gets into some interesting theology that we'll have to deal with another time. Irenaeus will say, we have received baptism for the remission of sins. For this reason, the baptism of our regeneration takes place. And he goes on to explain what baptism is. And these early church guys are associating baptism with regeneration, with being born again, with becoming a Christian. Without baptism, they believe there was no forgiveness of sins. Augustine will give a qualifier to that as he reflects on the doctrines of grace later on. But in the early church, this is the assumed belief. And so when we come to a very early citation, 117, just a few decades after the close of the New Testament, we hear from Aristides of Athens. And he says, and when a child has been born to one of them, they give thanks to God. Thanks, it's the word Eucharist, which this author is often using in reference to the sacraments of the church. He says, they give thanks to God. And moreover, if it happened to die on childhood, they give thanks to God the more, as for one who has passed through this world without sins. And the argument is that in the early church, only those who passed through the world without sins were those who were baptized for the remission of their sins. So this has to be a reference to a child who was baptized. And moreover, if it happened to die in childhood, they give thanks to God the more as one who has passed through the world without sins. Now we may or may not like some of the theology of the early church. But this contested material is something to consider. The last piece of contested material we need to understand is Tertullian. Tertullian is the go-to for the Baptist argument. Tertullian's writing, fairly early around 200, so about a decade before the writings, a decade or two before the writings of Hippolytus and Origen, who said that infant baptism was universal and apostolic in origin. Tertullian says some interesting things. And this is where for me, when I was studying this, I got mad. I got mad because I feel like I was getting snowed by one side of the argument. Tertullian is referred to as the key source for why only adults or believers should be baptized. But I was never given the whole Tertullian. And so we need to look at two quotes from him. This for me was a watershed moment. Again, for me, my coming into infant baptism was a cumulative case of looking at all the evidence, not just one thing, the biblical evidence as well as the early church evidence. But Tertullian says two things, only one of which the Baptist quote. Tertullian on baptism says, the delay of baptism is preferable Principally, however, in the case of little children, for why is it necessary, if baptism itself is not so necessary, that sponsors likewise should be thrust into danger? What Tertullian is saying here is his grounds for the delay of baptism is danger imposed on the sponsors. So in the early church, they had godparents or sponsors who would sponsor the child. And this has to be a case where the parents weren't there, or he feared that the parents might die and then the child won't fulfill his promises. So what's going on here with Tertullian? Is he speaking in exclusive terms that all infants and little children should delay their baptism? Well in another writing, called On the Soul, Tertullian writes, this is the reason why St. Paul said that when either of the parents was sanctified, so he's referring to 1 Corinthians 7, which we looked at last week, when either of the parents was sanctified, the children could be born holy, as much from the privilege of Christian birth as from the conferring of Christian baptism. So what's going on? It seems like Tertullian's talking out of both sides of his mouth. How can on the one hand he says the delay of baptism is preferable, and then on the other hand he talks about children can be born holy as much from the privilege of Christian birth as from the conferring of Christian baptism. He's talking about those who are born holy. I think the most persuasive argument is that when Tertullian is talking about the delay of baptism, he's talking about pagan families coming into the faith who have yet to be catechized, who have yet to learn the faith. And in those cases, he's saying delay. And in the early church, sometimes they would delay the baptism of families up to two or three years while they went through catechism and catechesis. But on the other hand, those who are born into the faith in Christian homes, he seems to have no problem with baptism whatsoever, saying they're born holy as much from the privilege of Christian birth as from the conferring of Christian baptism. So even Tertullian is not kind of the silver bullet for the Baptist or delayed baptism argument. Even Tertullian needs to be read in context. Tertullian's also kind of an interesting figure because he later joins a heretical group known as the Montanists later on, which believe in ongoing infallible revelation of the Holy Spirit in addition to scripture. So he's an interesting case along the way. Well, I've given you a lot, and hopefully this has been clear. In these last few minutes, I want to look at Augustine. We've looked at explicit statements. We've looked at contested material. And now in Augustine, we see a movement towards a Reformed theology of baptism that's going to be recovered in the Reformation. Augustine, I'll just read a few segments of what he writes in around AD 400. So the close of the fourth century going into the fifth century. Augustine says, and this is the firm tradition of the universal church in respect of the baptism of infants. we can form a true conjecture of the value of the sacrament of baptism in the case of infants from the parallel of circumcision. which was received by God's earlier people, and before receiving, which Abraham was justified. As Cornelius also was enriched with the gift of the Holy Spirit before he was baptized, yet the apostle says of Abraham himself that he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith, having already believed in his heart, so that it was counted unto him as righteousness. So to interject for a moment, Abraham believed and it was counted to him as righteousness. Abraham was given the gospel as we saw in Galatians 3, the gospel was preached. beforehand to Abraham, he believes, and it was counted to him as righteousness. So he believed and then received the sign. So shouldn't always be faith before the sign, right? Faith and then circumcision, not the other way around. So then Augustine's gonna answer that question. Why therefore was it commanded him that he should circumcise every male child in order on the eighth day, though it could not yet believe with the heart? For the sake of time, I'm gonna skip down. He gives a lengthy argument about this. He says, and as in Isaac, who was circumcised on the eighth day after his birth, The seal of this righteousness of faith was given first, and afterwards, as he imitated the faith of his father, the righteousness itself followed as he grew up, of which the seal had been given before when he was an infant. So in infants who are baptized, the sacrament of regeneration is given first, And now here is the Protestant turn that we see already happening in Augustine. And he goes, and if they maintain a Christian piety, conversion also in the heart will follow, of which the mysterious sign had gone before in the outward body. So Augustine, I think for us as Presbyterian and Reformed people, it's a very interesting guy universally respected in the western tradition as well as by the eastern tradition he says infant baptism is the universal the not just the universal practice but the firm universal practice of the church he roots it in the abrahamic covenant which is the thing we rooted it in last week ourselves. He also, we see, uses the sign and seal language, that baptism is a sign and seal of the righteousness that we have by faith. He, in many ways, is contesting what in the Catholic Church is known as the ex opera operato, a Latin phrase, that by being baptized, you're automatically regenerated, you're automatically saved, you're automatically born again. He's actually slightly contesting that later theology by saying that that baptism the child receives is only good if they maintain a Christian piety. It's about persevering in the faith. And if so, they will come into conversion. And this word conversion in this period of time refers both to being born again and being sanctified and glorified all the way to the day of Christ. So converting all the way, they will grow up into conversion. So he's saying it's only good. if the child perseveres in the faith. So here we see an early articulation of what will later become Protestant Reformed theology, particularly for the Reformed and Baptists, or Reformed, excuse me, and Presbyterian tradition. So I just want to sum up this argument. It's probably been a lot, and again, I can share with you some of these citations if you would like, but we see I think very clearly that infant baptism was the universal, and if we want to be as like fair as possible, we could say the near universal practice of the church. Very early Hippolytus and Rome origin in Alexandria say it's of apostolic origins. Augustine says it's the firm tradition of the universal church. We may not like the theology of baptism at times, and we see the church wrestling with the theology of it, and that's something that we should wrestle with as well. But who should be baptized was really never wrestled with, with this exception of Tertullian, but even there we see very qualified, it seems, with a pagan family versus a child born in a Christian home. So up to the Reformation, we have almost 4,000 years of household solidarity being practiced. The children being circumcised before Christ, the children of believers, and after christ households being baptized and then the church up to the reformation almost exclusively baptizing their infants so we have almost 4 000 years of household solidarity i guess you could say that doesn't mean that they should have baptized infants but you should really be clear you're really standing outside of a lot of other godly people reading the scriptures and coming to the conclusion that the apostles taught us to baptize infants. So we at least have to recognize that. When we get to the Reformation, we see the first really explicit break away from baptizing infants by the Anabaptists in the 16th century and the Baptists later in the 17th century. But the magisterial reformers, Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, are all practicing infant baptism while they are emphatically refuting false doctrine in the Catholic Church. So we have these guys that we look to who have recovered the gospel for us. Our church traditions exist today because of these guys who are going back to the sources and back to the scriptures and recovering the gospel. And they all affirmed infant baptism. They're working with the theology of it, but they all affirm it. And that for me, I had to wrestle with. when I was in another tradition. All these guys I look to and respect practice infant baptism. Well, what on earth did they see? Because I had mostly just heard contemporaries argue the subject. And so I went back and read the sources. I went ad fontes, the principle of going back to the sources. And I was really surprised what I found, as well as what was never told to me. So I think in the principle of scripture and the principle of the Reformation, to consider those who have gone before us, we need to at least consider the witness of church history on the subject of baptism. That history and practice does not trump scripture, but it should help us to know how we're doing reading scripture so that we can read with better lenses as we approach the Bible. Next week, we will get into the pastoral experience. I'm going to share my experience as a pastor in the Baptistic tradition and some of the things that I wrestled with as I came to the conclusion that we should baptize our babies. So we've looked at biblical foundations, now historical practice. Next week, we will look at pastoral experience. Let's pray.