I've come across that argument sometimes, that in the early church baptism was often put off until the person was on his deathbed, so that its justifying power would be like how you wait until after a workout to shower. Constantine was one of those, iirc.
It doesn't square with scriptural descriptions of new converts being baptized immediately, though.

Imagine putting off Baptism and you die unexpectedly. God is going to YEET you straight to Hell for playing politics with Salvation.

exactly

I was talking to a friend about Hell today.

We were discussing how priests don't preach about Hell enough.

It's one of the two places everybody is guaranteed to end up in.

There are a lot of people there already, and a lot of folks who claim to be Catholic will be heading there.

@SirLoin97 It's really a pretty bad argument though for that. Putting off baptism till the deathbed is a late practice from the historical record

"late" as in no evidence before Tertullian really

The best argument against it (from a Sola scriptura premise) is that there isn't an explicit example of it in the Bible or Christian church history until ~200 AD.

But there is tons of implicit evidence in both 2nd temple Judaism (proselyte baptism) and Christianity

Also, Sola Scriptura for the first generation of Reformers doesn't mean the same thing as it does for the Baptists

The first gen Reformers say Scripture is their only source for doctrine, but interpreting it uses outside sources (such as fathers, councils, Creeds, history, reason, etc.)

Baptists ditch the fathers, councils, Creeds, and history for the most part

Excellent distinction to make

for the Sola Scriptura thing, I mean

Constantine is also not someone to base anything theological on, considering he favored the Arians and was baptized by an Arian

Speaking of the Arians, are you familiar with Islamic history? or really, the specific episode in which Mohammed talks to "Bahira," which is a corruption of the title bhira which just is a priest. And so potentially Mohammed took ideas from an Arian in creating Islam

which makes a lot of sense, even if we don't go so far as to say he was demon-possessed

I've certainly heard he had Arian influence, and his doctrine is indeed Arian in nature

But I'm not familiar with any denomination using Constantine as an authority...

Oh, you're referring to how he was baptized on his death bed

Yeah, it was a trend in his time among a number of churches actually

But it got shut down fairly quickly. Jeremias deals with this situation in the second to last chapter of his first book on infant baptism

He refers to it as "A Crisis Averted"

As for Baptists, I will say that the London Baptists did affirm the Apostle's, Nicene, and Athanasian Creed.

Though not explicitly in their confessions

The later Baptists really ruin it though. I have a much harder time with them.

And it's sad that they have lost any sense of historical liturgy :(

Went to a Pontifical TLM at Shrewsbury yesterday.

Very pleasant, and the Bishop has handed over the Cathedral to the ICKSP.

Neato

Baptists are Amerimutt tier

@SirLoin97 Emperor Constantine is a saint, dingus, and called the First Ecumenical Council. By Providence was he a tool that saved and expanded Christianity.

Miss me with that gay shit.

https://youtu.be/-xHJeFVTaf0

I think his point is that still he isnt a good reference for theology

Independently of other virtues

His making him out to be a heretic is where I draw the line. He could be right about the other matter, but not this.