Augustine (354-430 A.D.) refers to infant baptism as:

"A doctrine held by the church universal, and that not as instituted by councils, but as delivered by the authority of the apostles alone."

Pelagius (?-419 A.D.), a denier of original sin and tota depravity of man and predominant opponent of Augustine wrote:

"Men slander me, as if I denied the sacrament of baptism to infants... I have never heard of any, not even the most impious heretic, who denied baptism to infants."

Luther, Calvin, Knox, Zwingli, and all of the Reformers am churches of the Reformation taught and practiced infant bap tism on biblical grounds. The following summarize the view of the church of the Reformation:

"Therefore we detest the error of the Anabaptists, who are not content with the one only baptism they have once received, and moreover condemn the baptism of the infants of believers, whom we believe ought to be baptized and sealed with the sign of the covenant, as the children in Israel formerly were circumcised, upon the same promises which are made unto our children. And indeed Christ shed His blood no less for the washing of the children of the faithful, than for adult persons; and therefore they ought to receive the sign and sacrament of that, which Christ hath done for them; as the Lord commanded in the law, that they should be made partakers of the sacrament of Christ's suffering and death, shortly after they were born, by offering for them a lamb, which was a sacrament of Jesus Christ. Moreover, what circumcision was to the Jews, that baptism is to our children. And for this reason Paul calls baptism the circumcision of Christ."

-Belgic Confession of Faith, Article XXXIV (1561)