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CHAPTER -Infant baptism is an evil because its practice is unsupported by the word of God CHAPTER -Infant baptism is an evil because its defense leads to most injurious perversions of Scripture CHAPTER -Infant baptism is an evil because it engrafts Judaism upon the gospel of Christ CHAPTER -Infant baptism is an evil because it falsifies the doctrine of universal depravity CHAPTER -Infant baptism is an evil because the doctrines upon which it is predicated contradict the great fundamental principle of justification by faith CHAPTER -Infant baptism is an evil because it is in direct conflict with the doctrine of the work of the Holy Spirit in regeneration CHAPTER -Infant baptism is an evil because it despoils the church of those peculiar qualities which are essential to the church of Christ CHAPTER -Infant baptism is an evil because its practice perpetuates the superstitions that originally produced it CHAPTER -Infant baptism is an evil because it subverts the scripture doctrine of infant salvation CHAPTER -Infant baptism is an evil because it leads its advocates into rebellion against the authority of Christ CHAPTER -Infant baptism is an evil because of the connection it assumes with the moral and religious training of children CHAPTER -Infant baptism is an evil because it is the grand foundation upon which rests the union of church and state CHAPTER -Infant baptism is an evil because it leads to religious persecutions CHAPTER -Infant baptism is an evil because it is contrary to the principles of civil and religious freedom CHAPTER -Infant baptism is an evil because it enfeebles the power of the church to combat error CHAPTER -Infant baptism is an evil because it injures the credit of religion with reflecting men of the world CHAPTER -Infant baptism is an evil because it is the great barrier to Christian union CHAPTER -Infant baptism is an evil because it prevents the salutary impression which baptism was designed to make upon the minds both of those who receive it, and of those who witness its administration CHAPTER -Infant baptism is an evil because it retards the designs of Christ in the conversion of the world CHAPTER -Recapitulation, with concluding addresses CHAPTER - INFANT BAPTISM IS AN EVIL BECAUSE ITS PRACTICE IS UNSUPPORTED BY THE WORD OF GOD.

Proposition stated; no authority in the Bible for infant baptism; confessions or its advocates; the great Protestant rule in religion; their arguments; it is no baptism; forms of the evil. PERFECTION on earth, in its absolute form, unhappily no longer exists. “Man’s first disobedience” brought sin into the world. Evil was its attendant. And since that fatal hour, evil has been connected with all that pertains to our race! It is like the air we breathe, an ever present influence.

It corrupts all that is pure, and impairs all that is beautiful. Where are the natural beings whose perfection’s it has not disturbed? What rule of moral action is there, from compliance with which it has not turned men aside?

But these are not its most lamentable developments. Evil is found prevailing even in the professed churches of Christ! Nor is its presence in the sanctuary seldom apparent. Scarcely is there a feature in our holy religion, which it has not somewhere, marred or distorted! In no form, however, has it afflicted the cause of truth and salvation more grievously, than in that of infant baptism; a rite generally prevalent, but without divine authority; repulsive in itself, and in its consequences always injurious. This declaration I hold myself bound, in the following pages, to sustain by adequate testimony. At present I solicit your attention to the proposition announced: “Infant baptism is an evil because it is unsupported by the word of God. ” It is assumed that infant baptism is unsupported by the word of God. This is the subject of the proposition. If, upon examination, it be found true, the predicate, that it is an evil, follows as a matter of course. The forms and bearing of that evil may then be considered. Is infant baptism supported by the word of God? I aver that it is not. It is nowhere commanded. It is nowhere, in any form, divinely authorized. Examine the holy record, from first to last, and you will discover not a trace of infant baptism. If it is anywhere commanded, or authorized, the passages in which that fact appears, can be produced. Where are they? Let them be forthcoming. We have a right to see, and to examine them, for ourselves. We demand the texts. But this demand has before been often made, and always in vain.

They have never been produced. They have not yet been found. They never can be found. They do not exist. The word of God, in all its length and breadth, contains not a syllable of authority for infant baptism, in the form of command, of precept, of permission, of example, or in any other form whatever. In that sacred book not one word in relation to it, is anywhere uttered. He who claims divine authority for infant baptism, must justify himself by adducing it. Until he does so, the least that can be said of it, is that “it is unsupported by the word of God. ” The authority demanded, has however often been essayed. Learned, ingenious, and protracted efforts have been attempted by every sect into which Pedobaptist Christendom is divided. But as if God had determined to defend his own truth by the individual conflicts of its adversaries, it has turned out that no two of them have been able to harmonize either as to what may be regarded as testimony in the premises, or the class of infants divinely authorized to be baptized! Each is in collision with every other.

Wall, Hammond, and others of that school, claim that Jewish proselyte baptism is its broad and ample foundation. Owen, Jennings, and many more, repudiate Jewish proselyte baptism, and predicate it upon circumcision as taught in the Abrahamic covenant. Beza, Doddridge, and their associates, teach that children are holy, and are therefore to be baptized. Wesley, and his disciples, teach that they are unholy, and must be baptized to cleanse them from their defilements. Burder, Dwight, and their class, permit no other infants to be baptized but those of Christian parents, all of whom they contend, are born in the church, and are therefore entitled to its ordinances. Baxter, Henry, and those of similar faith, baptize infants to bring them into the covenant and church of the Redeemer. The evangelical divines of the Church of England, and of the Episcopal Church of America, tell us that the doctrine of infant baptism is deduced by analogical reasoning, from statements of scripture applying more expressly, to the case of adult baptism.” But those of the opposite character teach that baptism gives to the infant the regeneration of the Holy Ghost, and must therefore be administered. Many others receive and practice it, because, as they say, “It is in consonance with the general spirit of religion!” Each of these theories shows all the others to be wholly destitute of scriptural support. Among the several classes of religionists now indicated, are to be found very many men of the most extensive learning and research. Why are they all thus in hopeless conflict on the subject? The moment one brings forward his scriptural proofs of infant baptism, all the others clearly show them to be utterly false. Could this be the case were the ordinance anywhere enjoined or authorized? Every unprejudiced mind must see that, taken together, the arguments of all classes of Pedobaptists, destroy one another throughout. Like the builders at Babel, no two of them speak the same tongue, although every one protests that he utters the language of the Bible! It is true consequently, for any thing that yet appears to the contrary, that infant baptism is unsupported by the word of God.

But we have testimony in proof of our proposition still stronger if possible, than any which has yet been submitted. Very many of the most learned and pious Pedobaptist Biblical critics, themselves candidly confess that infant baptism is not distinctly enjoined, nor directly taught, in the word of God. Some of these I will now proceed to specify.

Martin Luther, the great father of the Reformation, says: — “It cannot be proved by the scriptures, that infant baptism was instituted by Christ, or begun by the first Christians after the apostles.” 1 John Calvin testifies thus: — “It is nowhere expressly mentioned by the evangelists, that any child was by the apostles baptized.” 2 Bishop Burner avers: “There is no express precept, or rule given in the New Testament for the baptism of infants. 3 “Strarck says: — “The connection of infant baptism with circumcision deserves no consideration, since there were physical reasons for circumcising in infancy.” 4 Angusti says: — “The parallel between circumcision and baptism is altogether foreign to the New Testament.” Bishop Jeremy Taylor thus writes: — “For the argument from circumcision, it is invalid from infinite considerations. Figures and types prove nothing, unless a command go along with them, or some express to signify such to be their purpose.” 6 Dr. Woods of Andover remarks: — “It is a plain case that there is no express precept respecting infant baptism in our sacred writings. The proof then, that it is a divine institution must be made out in some other way.” 7 Prof. Stuart says: — “Commands, or plain and certain examples in the New Testament, relative to it [infant baptism] I do not find.” 8 And finally Dr. Neander declares: — “As baptism was closely united with a conscious entrance on Christian communion, faith and baptism were always connected with one another; and thus it is in the highest degree probable, that baptism was performed only in instances where both could meet together, and that the practice of infant baptism was unknown” to the apostolic age. 9 In another work Neander says: — “Baptism was at first, administered only to adults, as men were accustomed to conceive baptism and faith as strictly connected. We have all reason for not deriving infant baptism from apostolic institution.” Multitudes of other similar declarations could, were they necessary, be readily produced, but these are amply sufficient. It is acknowledged that the word of God does not teach infant baptism. This acknowledgment is made candidly, by those who ought to know, since they were among the most learned men, and best Biblical critics the world has ever produced, made against themselves, voluntarily, freely, and of their own accord, and ought therefore to be considered decisive of the question. Infant baptism is not found in any form in the Bible. Every effort to deduce it from the sacred records, no matter how ingeniously conducted, has proved a wretched failure. It is confessed by its advocates that it is not found in the inspired pages. Infant baptism is therefore, unsupported by the word of God.

May I now, in view of all these facts, and considerations, solicit your attention to the great Protestant principle in religion, so familiarly known to all who are in the least conversant with sacred literature? — “The word of God is a perfect rule of faith and practice. ” To this maxim every evangelical denomination professes to bow with entire submission. It avows the scriptures to be not the supreme authority only, but also the sole authority, in all that pertains to religion. It repudiates all tradition. It looks not to the Fathers of the church of whatever period, except in so far as they are sustained by the divine word. It relies exclusively upon the scriptures. If any doctrine or practice be there clearly taught, it must be received heartily, and fully. If otherwise, you dare not admit it. “The word of God is a perfect rule of faith and practice.”

For myself, and for my brethren — although we are not Protestants — I declare for this Christian law in religion the sincerest reverence. We receive it fully, and conform to it in every respect. We do this however, not simply because it is wise in principle, and safe in practice, but because it is really an embodiment in another form, of the law of God himself. It comes to us with the sanction not of men only, but of God. The language of Jehovah on the subject is this:

What thing soever I command you, observe to do it. Thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it.” (Deuteronomy 12:3.)

And in another place he says: “Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.” (Deuteronomy 4:2.)

Is not this a plain declaration, in other terms, that, “The word of God is a perfect rule of faith and practice?” Does any one suppose that since these precepts had a more direct reference to the law of Moses, that they are not equally applicable under the gospel? To such it may be replied, that the law was much less perfect than is the gospel. Did our Heavenly Father enforce the obligations of the former with the most jealous particularity, and is he less careful as to our compliance with the demands of the latter?

Such an objection is unreasonable. It is. also in direct conflict with apostolic teaching. To this very topic Paul refers, when he says: — “God, who at sundry times, and in diverse manners, spake in times past to the fathers, by the prophets hath in these last days spoken unto us, by his Son. ” (Hebrews 1:1) “Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip. For if the word spoken by angels [messengers, in the law] was steadfast, and every transgression, and disobedience received a just recompense of reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him, God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and diverse miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost?” (Hebrews 2:1-4.) “See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape if we refuse him that speaketh from heaven. ” (Hebrews 12:25.)

Thus it is seen that if the inspired apostle knew where of he affirmed, and reasoned not illogically, it is unquestionably true that the gospel requires to be obeyed, not with less, but with more carefulness, particularity, and fidelity than did the law. To no commandment of the gospel therefore, may you add any thing whatever; neither may you diminish aught from it. You are obliged to obey, and in the manner en joined, all that Jehovah has there revealed for your guidance. It is “the word of God, ” and that “is a perfect rule of faith and practice. ” But we are constantly told that the gospel, unlike the law, is in many respects, indefinite in its instructions, giving only the outlines, and great principles of religion, and leaving the details to be filled up by the wisdom and pious discretion of the followers of Christ. He who has arrived at this conclusion has wholly mistaken the subject. If the word of God is a perfect rule of faith and practice, then the assumption cannot possibly be true. It is unreasonable in itself; it is in conflict with the inspired teachings just recited; and it proceeds on the false assumption that the gospel is less perfect than the law! On the contrary, in the gospel every duty required is distinctly enjoined. No one need mistake its authority, or its nature. That rule is certainly not perfect, to whatever department of life it may pertain, which only sketches general principles, and great outlines, and leaves the details to be supplied by each individual in such manner as may seem to him most proper. The word of God is no such rule. It is perfect. It is disfigured by neither redundancy nor defect. It must be obeyed in all things, without addition, diminution or change. You can never depart from it in any particular, without incurring imminent peril.

It is proper to remark in passing, that our Pedobapist brethren have yet another method of satisfying themselves that infant baptism is scriptural.

When, as we have seen, Dr. Woods stated that since, “It is a plain case that there is no express precept concerning infant baptism in our sacred writings,” and that consequently, “The proof that it is a divine institution must be made out in some other way,” you were perhaps, at a loss to conceive what that “other way ” could be. By what process can any ordinance be proved “a divine institution,” in regard to which not a word is said “in our sacred writings?” No such thing can be done. Since the Bible is our only authority in all cases, the proof proposed is clearly impossible.

We will, however, hear Dr. Woods. He obtains his proof thus: — “It cannot with any good reason, be denied, or doubted, that those Christian writers who have, in different ways, given testimony to the prevalence of infant baptism in the early ages of Christianity, are credible witnesses. Nor can it be denied that they were under the best advantages to know whether the practice commenced in the times of the apostles. On this subject, as they were not liable to mistake, so their testimony is entitled to full credit!” 11 This is the method. It is by tradition, vouched by the Fathers, that Protestant Pedobaptists discover that the word of God teaches ordinances which are confessedly not in the word of God! These Protestants will not allow the papists to prove, in the same way, the divine authority for the invocation of saints, prayers for the dead, the use of holy water, and such like institutions,” which they can do, readily and fully. They are Popish. But this is Protestant. If, therefore, the Fathers say, this was an apostolic tradition, it was an apostolic tradition! And more; in this matter, these same Fathers were not liable to mistake !” Their authority therefore, though entirely worthless when in favor of the Catholics, is when infant baptism is to be proved scriptural, as good at least, as that of the apostles, since of them no more can be said than that they were not liable to mistake ! Who would have supposed that theological professors could have been guilty of reasoning so absurdly? The argument, it would seem, needs not a word of refutation. I would not stop to consider it, if Dr. Woods alone, relied upon such testimonies. But it is a common Pedobaptist resort. I will offer two or three examples.

Dr. Miller deposes thus regarding tradition: — “The history of the Christian church from the apostolic age, furnishes an argument of irresistible force, in favor of the divine authority of infant baptism.” He proceeds: — “Can the most incredulous reader who is not fast bound in the fetters of invincible prejudice, hesitate to admit, first, that Augustine, and Pelagius, verily believed that infant baptism had been the universal practice of the church from the days of the apostles; and secondly, that situated, and informed as they were, it was impossible that they should be mistaken?” 12 These men flourished four hundred years after Christ. The word of God says not a word about infant baptism. This however does not disconcert Dr. Miller. Augustine, and Pelagius, say it was an apostolic tradition. And this he says, is “an argument of irresistible force, in favor of the divine authority of infant baptism,” and by which every one “not fast bound in the fetters of invincible prejudice,” must be convinced. But these Fathers also declared that infant communion was an apostolic tradition.

This Dr. Miller does not regard as of any importance. Their testimony makes infant baptism scriptural; but it has no such effect upon infant communion ! Was Dr. Miller dreaming when he uttered this logic? Richard Watson says: — “The antiquity of infant baptism,” taken together with the other arguments, establish this practice of the church upon the strongest basis of scripture authority !” In another place he says: — “That a practice which can be traced up to the very first periods of the church, and has been till very modern times, its uncontradicted practice, should have a lower authority than apostolic usage, may be pronounced impossible. ” 13 To these I will add the declaration of Mr. Hodges. He says: — “Were there no other testimony but that of Irenaeus alone, it seems to me, every unbiased and conscientious man must hold himself bound to continue infant baptism, were the scriptures even silent on the subject.” 14 By these and such like arguments, our Pedobaptist brethren essay to prove infant baptism scriptural, not by the scriptures, but by the Fathers. “It is a plain case,” say they, “that there is no express precept respecting infant baptism in our sacred writings;” yet we are assured that the traditions of early times, vouched by the Fathers, “establish the divine authority of infant baptism with irresistible force.” The Fathers say it was practiced in the time of the apostles, and “it was impossible that they should be mistaken!” It is not in the scriptures, but it is undeniably scriptural! And these men who so contradict themselves, and abuse common sense, are Protestant’s, who proclaim that “The word of God is a perfect rule of faith and practice,” and who clamorously join in the cry, “The Bible, the Bible alone, is the religion of Protestants.” Yet totally aside from the Bible, and by tradition exclusively, they hold infant baptism. Thus they renounce, in this case at least, their professed Protestant principles, and return to the old and exploded dogmatism of Popery. Their position is utterly inconsistent, and cannot be maintained. They are in truth, compelled either to reject all the traditions, as they do all the teachings of the Fathers, which are not sustained by the word of God, and thus become Baptists; or, as in this instance, they must receive them all irrespective of their biblical character, and thus become avowed Roman Catholics. However this may be, by the confession that the Bible does not in itself teach it, they have surrendered the argument to us, and made the truth still more sure, that Infant baptism is unsupported by the word of God.

How unlike the reasoning of Woods, and Miller, Watson, and the rest, on patristic tradition, is that of their brother pedobaptist, the great Neander!

He says: “Not till so late a period as — at least certainly not earlier than — Irenaeus appears a trace of infant baptism. That it first became recognized as an apostolic tradition in the course of the third century is evidence rather against, than for the admission of its apostolic origin, especially since, in the spirit of the age when Christianity appeared, there were many elements which must have been favorable to the introduction of infant baptism.” These were “the same elements from which [afterwards] proceeded the notion of the magical effects of outward baptism; the notion of its absolute necessity for salvation; the notion which gave rise to the mythos that the apostles baptized the Old Testament saints in Hades.

How very much must infant baptism have corresponded with such a tendency, if it had been favored by tradition ! It might indeed, be alleged on the other hand, that after infant baptism had long been recognized as an apostolical tradition, many other causes hindered its universal introduction, and the same causes might still earlier stand in the way of its spread, although a practice sanctioned by the apostles. But these causes could not have acted in this manner in the apostolic age. In later times we see the opposition between theory and practice, in this respect, actually coming forth. Besides, it is a different thing that a practice which could not altogether deny the marks of its later institution, although at last recognized as of apostolic founding, could not for a length of time, pervade the life of the church; and that a practice really proceeding from apostolic institution, and tradition, notwithstanding the authority that introduced it, and the circumstances in its favor arising from the spirit of the times, should not yet [in the third century] have been generally adopted. And if we wish to ascertain from whom such an institution was originated, we should say certainly, not immediately from Christ himself. Was it from the primitive church in Palestine, from an injunction given by the earlier apostles? But among the Jewish Christians circumcision was held as a seal of the covenant, and hence they had so much less occasion to make use of another dedication for their children. Could it have been Paul who first among heathen Christians introduced this alteration in the use of baptism?

But this would agree least of all with the peculiar Christian characteristics of this apostle. He who says of himself that Christ sent him not to baptize, but to preach the gospel; he who always kept his eye fixed on one thing, justification by faith, and so carefully avoided every thing which could give a handle or support to the notion of a justification by outward things; how could he have set up infant baptism against the circumcision that continued to be practiced by the Jewish Christians? In this case the dispute carried on with the Judaizing party, on the necessity of circumcision, would easily have given an opportunity of introducing this substitute into the controversy, if it had really existed. The evidence arising from silence on this topic has therefore the greater weight.” 15 Thus this distinguished scholar, and Ecclesiastical Historian, disposes of the question about which others are so confident, whether infant baptism was really an apostolical tradition. He fully proves the whole to be an utter fiction, not less gross than that which insisted that “the apostles baptized the Old Testament saints in Hades.”

There is still one other argument however, which is supposed by many, to be sufficient to sustain infant baptism upon a scriptural basis, as a “divine institution.” I am told It is not forbidden in the word of God. It may therefore be practiced. Not forbidden, forsooth! Infant baptism not forbidden in the word of God! It may therefore, be practiced! And is this the fashion of your argument? Upon this principle what may you not do?

You are obliged to baptize all to whom God has commanded the ordinance to be administered; and you may also baptize all others whose baptism he has not expressly forbidden ! What shall I say of a proposition so monstrous? Its folly can be concealed from no one, who will think for a single moment on the subject. Need I enter into its formal refutation? This is surely unnecessary. Yet, since the argument is so easy and plain, it may be as well to prove that infant baptism is in truth, actually prohibited by the word of God.

It is prohibited, in the first place, by the fact that it is unrecognized in the sacred records, as a divine institution. The great Christian axiom which teaches that “The word of God is a perfect rule of faith and practice, ” is, as we have seen, adopted by every Protestant denomination upon the face of the earth. We have, besides this, seen that it is fully sustained by the teachings of divine revelation, and that no other principle in religion, can be true in theory, or safe in practice. Whatever God has revealed, we are bound to receive in the love of it, and to obey with reverence, and fidelity, without addition, diminution, or change. Infant baptism, we have clearly seen, is not taught in the Bible. Its friends and advocates confess that it does not there appear, and therefore they vainly seek to sustain it by tradition, and the authority of early Christian Fathers. Is all this true? Is the word of God not a perfect rule of faith and practice? Are you, as taught by Moses and Paul, permitted to add any thing to the commandments of God, or to diminish aught from them? Dare you receive any doctrine as an article of faith. Or practice any rite as a Christian ordinance, not taught, and instituted by Jehovah? To these inquires who will venture an affirmative answer? No one, surely. Is infant baptism directly enjoined in the word of God? It confessedly is not. Then it is not by the word of God allowed. It is unlawful. And that which cannot be allowed, because it is not lawful, is clearly prohibited. Thus God has, in his word, clearly prohibited infant baptism.

Infant baptism is prohibited, secondly, by the apostolic commission. This is the “law of baptism” instituted by Jesus Christ himself, and the “only law, as Baxter justly observes, “he ever ordained on the subject.” As recorded by Mark, it has the following reading: — “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved.” This statue is perfectly simple and perspicuous.

It ordains first, that the gospel shall be preached; secondly, that it shall be preached to every creature ; thirdly, that all those who believe the gospel shall be baptized ; and fourthly, it promises that those who so believe, and are baptized, shall be saved. These are all positive declarations. Every positive necessarily has its negative. And does not every one know that the requirement of the positive is, as a general rule, the prohibition of the negative ? When God commands you to do a specified thing, the command embraces that particular thing only; and all that is not embraced is, by the very terms of the order, necessarily excluded. Especially is forbidden whatever is inconsistent with the faithful performance of the duty enjoined. All these are self-evident truths. Let them be applied to the law of baptism as contained in the commission. Only those are permitted to preach who are called of God to the work; they are not allowed to preach, as coming from Christ, any thing but the gospel; and those, and those alone, who believe the gospel, they are required to baptize. The persons to be baptized are minutely described. They are believers. Believers therefore, and believers only, are to be baptized. A law to baptize believers is necessarily confined in its administration to believers. It embraces no others. To baptize any others is a violation of the law. It is unlawful. It is prohibited. Infants are not believers. The baptism of infants supersedes and prevents the baptism of believers, and is therefore inconsistent with a faithful compliance with the law. Every violation of the law is unlawful, and consequently prohibited. Infant baptism is a violation of the law; is therefore unlawful; and consequently by the law itself, clearly prohibited.

Infant baptism, thirdly, is prohibited by the very nature and design of baptism. This ordinance was instituted and enjoined as the form in which you publicly profess your faith in Christ, and devote yourself to his service. Paul so teaches when he says, “As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” Episcopalians and Methodists consent to this truth when they concur in the declaration that it “is a sign of profession, and a mark of difference, whereby Christians are distinguished from others that are not baptized.” 16 Presbyterians and Congregationalists, of all classes, regard it as “not only for the solemn admission of the party baptized into the visible church, but also,” of “his giving up unto God, through Jesus Christ, to walk in newness of life.” 17 In this great fact, therefore, all parties are in theory agreed. I now submit the inquiry whether such a profession of faith, and devotion to Christ, as baptism expresses, must not necessarily be a voluntary and intelligent act, on the part of the baptized? To me no fact appears more certain. To those who are incapable of such voluntary and intelligent action, baptism can never be administered. Infants cannot profess their faith, even if they had any faith to profess. They cannot devote themselves to Christ. By the very nature of the ordinance, therefore, since they are incapable of compliance with its demands, they cannot be baptized. Any baptism which is unreasonable and inconsistent, because it does not embrace the design, nor express the sense of the ordinance, is unlawful, and therefore prohibited. Infant baptism is unreasonable and inconsistent, because it does not embrace the design, nor express the sense of the ordinance. It is therefore unlawful. It is prohibited.

It must now, I think, be evident to every unprejudiced mind that infant baptism is by the word of God actually prohibited. It is prohibited by the fact that it is unrecognized in the sacred records, as a divine institution; it is prohibited by the terms of the apostolic commission; and it is prohibited by the very nature and design of baptism.

My proposition is thus fully established. We have seen that “Infant baptism is not supported by the word of God,” because it is not found to be instituted, or in any manner authorized in the inspired records; because the different sects who imagine that they find it there, prove the contrary by their mutual refutation of each other; because the most pious and learned among pedobaptists themselves, confess it is not directly taught in the sacred writings; because the great Christian axiom which teaches that the divine word is our sole authority in religion, does not permit us to receive as scriptural what is not recognized in the scriptures; because the attempt to make it a divine institution by the testimony of the Fathers, through the medium of tradition, is a miserable failure; and because it is really and distinctly forbidden in the word of God. Infant. baptism is, in truth, therefore, no baptism at all. God in his word, does not recognize it as baptism. It never can be recognized as baptism by the people of God. It is exclusively an institution of men foisted surreptitiously into the religion of Christ. It is therefore a most appalling evil. Some of the forms and bearings of this evil may now not improperly be considered.

It betrays ministers into most fearful presumption. When an infant is baptized the minister performs the rite professedly, in the name, and by the authority of Jesus Christ! But Jesus Christ never authorized any such thing! On the contrary, he has discountenanced and forbidden it! What then, shall be said of the act? What magistrate in civil society would venture, under pretense of law, to do a thing, and especially in his official capacity, for the sanction of which no law could be produced, and which by existing laws, according to any reasonable interpretation, is plainly prohibited? Such an officer would act most presumptuously. He would violate his trust. In what well-regulated community would his administration long be endured? And shall ministers of religion thus conduct themselves, and that too without compunction, and without rebuke? In this unauthorized and prohibited ceremony of infant baptism, shall they not only meet no discountenance, but on the contrary be sustained, and defended? How can a conscientious servant of Christ occupy a position so revolting, and abhorrent?

But ministers are not alone concerned in this evil. Infant baptism must create in the minds of the people generally, who are under its influence, a want of proper respect for the word of God. The habit of acting without law, and in opposition to law, leads to this result inevitably. This truth is so obvious that no argument is needed in its support. May men do, under pretense of law, the most important acts for which no law can be produced? May they indeed, do all these things, and be sustained in them, even in opposition to law? How long then, will it be to them a matter of any special concern what the law may require? They are not obliged to conform to its demands. They may do what they please with impunity, without regard to law! Do they any longer yield a due respect to the law?

Do they feel for it any special deference? Assuredly they do not. In civil society this is true, and it is pre-eminently true in religion. Infant baptism necessarily destroys respect for the authority of the word of God.

The evil is still more striking in the fact, that it is a bold attempt to perfect that which it is vainly conceived God has left imperfect. It is greatly more criminal to do in the name of Jesus Christ, what he has not commanded, than it is not to do what he has commanded, since when you fall short you thereby confess the difficulty of obedience, but when you go beyond, you impugn his wisdom. In the former case you acknowledge your own deplorable weakness. In the latter, and especially when you claim what he has not authorized or permitted as a part of his religion, you madly charge him with defectiveness, and attempt by additions of your own, to make his government more complete. Why did he not ordain infant baptism?

Evidently because he did not design that his religion should embrace any such ordinance. You have discovered that it is necessary, and have therefore added it! You saw that it was demanded to make God’s appointments complete! You know better than Jehovah, what is requisite to give perfection to his religion!

Who, in view of all these facts, can avoid the conclusion that infant baptism is a sin against God? What is sin? Is it not any thought, word, action, omission, or desire contrary to the law of God? “Sin is the transgression of the law.” (1 John 3:4).

Infant baptism is not according to the law of God. It is a violation of the law of God. It is the transgression of the law of God. Therefore infant baptism is a sin against God.

These are some of the forms in which, as an ordinance not instituted, nor sanctioned by Jesus Christ, the evil of infant baptism is developed. Its practice betrays ministers into fearful presumption; it creates a want of respect for the divine law; it charges imperfection upon the institutions of Messiah; and it is a sin against God. Infant baptism is unsupported by the word of God. It is therefore a great and fearful evil.

In conclusion permit me to entreat for these facts and arguments, your patient, unbiased, and prayerful consideration. You fervently desire to glorify God, and in all things to do his will. You have no wish to depart in any respect from the divine law. You would not encumber religion, much less pollute it, with any doctrines, or observances, not sanctioned from on high. You must therefore, remove infant baptism from its place in your theological system. While it remains there, it will continue to produce its natural fruits. Its extirpation only, can relieve you from its inherent evil.

Humbly receive, and diligently practice the religion of Christ, guided in all things, exclusively by his most holy word, and infant baptism will be known no more. To the ascertained will of our Heavenly Father meekly submit yourself. Upon this principle alone is it possible for you to “keep the commandments of the Lord your God which he commanded you.” “Behold to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.” But rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.”

CHAPTER - INFANT BAPTISM IS AN EVIL BECAUSE ITS DEFENSE LEADS TO MOST INJURIOUS PERVERSIONS OF THE WORD OF GOD.

The general principle; instances in illustration, from the apostolic commission; from Peter’s sermon; from Paul’s instructions to the Corinthians; from Christ’s blessing the children; forms of the evil\parTHE defense of infant baptism, unsustained as it is by divine authority, necessarily leads to most injurious perversions of the word of God. The same may be said also, of every other departure from truth, to support which a resort is had to the sacred record. The evil resulting will of course, be in proportion to the magnitude, and peculiar bearing, of the error sought to be established. Infant baptism is not a mere ceremony, which when performed, ceases to be of any further importance. Considered in itself, it may indeed seem of little consequence. It is not however thus isolated. Its relations, and influences extend themselves into every department of Christianity. It is the process by which the churches which practice it, receive their entire membership, and must therefore enstamp upon them all, its own peculiar character. It leads to insidious and hurtful expositions of scripture; imposes upon the people false doctrines; subverts the true ecclesiastical polity; corrupts the spirit of religion; vitiates Christian intercourse; weakens the power of the gospel; and hinders the conversion, and salvation of men. Like an error in the beginning of a mathematical calculation, it runs through the whole process, continually increasing in magnitude as it advances, until every part of it is involved in hopeless confusion. How then, can infant baptism be taught and defended without most injurious perversions of the word of God?

In proof of the proposition now before you, I will point you to appropriate examples. But these are so numerous that I know not where to begin. A proper exposition of them all would require a volume. In the space allowed to this chapter it is not practicable to do more than briefly to refer to a few instances. These, however, of themselves, will be sufficient to establish the truth of the proposition now before us.

The apostolic commission, which I had occasion in the preceding chapter to recite, has been confidently claimed as a law for the baptism of infants. “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; and lo I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” This is the version of Matthew. That of Mark is as follows: — “And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth, and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.” How plain! How perspicuous! How comprehensive! To mistake its sense would seem almost impossible. The solemn obligations thus imposed, are to be faithfully and always obeyed by both the teachers, and the taught. And let it not be forgotten that the several parts of the commission are to be observed in the order in which they are enjoined. The order is plainly as imperative as the commands themselves. A violation of the order is indeed a violation of the commands. This interpretation so evidently correct, is not peculiar to Baptists. Pedobaptists also give it their concurrence.

Baxter, for example, says: — “This is not like some occasional historical mention of baptism, but is the very commission of Christ to his apostles, and purposely expresseth their several works in their several places and order.” “To contemn this order, is to renounce all rules of order; for where can we expect to find it if not here?” 1 Each duty in the commission must therefore be observed in the order in which it is enjoined. Thus far all is simple and obvious. The commission is evidently, as before seen, a law to baptize believers, and believers only.

By what kind of process, we now inquire, can it be possibly made to appear, that this law to baptize believers is a law to baptize infants?

Pedobaptists shall themselves answer, and in their own words. “In this commission to his apostles,” says Dr. Worcester, “his direction was that all nations should be baptized, and children constitute a part of all nations;” therefore children are to be baptized. 2 Dr. John Edwards remarks: — “This general commission includes all particulars. Go baptize all nations, is as much, and as full, as if Christ had said, Go baptize all, men, women, and children.” 3 Matthew Henry observes: — “If it be the will and command of the Lord Jesus that all nations should be discipled by baptism, and children, a part of all nations, are not excepted, then children are to be discipled by baptism. 4 These are fair examples of their teaching; and of the manner in which they bring infant baptism into the commission of Christ to his apostles.

Consider these expositions attentively. How evident the perversions they contain! Were the apostles directed to baptize all nations without respect to moral character, or any other religious qualification? Surely not. Is the commission a command in other words, to “baptize all, men, women, and children?” Preposterous claim! If infants are not in the commission “excepted ” in express terms from baptism, are they therefore to be baptized? How surprising the pretension! Is any one ever “discipled by baptism?” To disciple is to teach. To teach is one thing. To baptize is another. They are not the same thing. To pretend then, that any one is “discipled by baptism” is nonsense. Here we have four perversions of this portion of the word of God, all palpable, and all made evidently for no other reason than to defend infant baptism. When great and good men, such as these, and the thousands of others who agree with them, thus interpret the commission, we cannot but lament the blindness of mind into which this pernicious error has betrayed them.

One striking instance is now before you of the perversion of the word of God, made for the sake of defending infant baptism. Take if you please, another. In a learned and very elaborate work recently published, by a distinguished clergyman of the Episcopal church, we have the following passage: — “The chief scripture ground upon which it [infant baptism] is placed, is the text, The promise is unto you, and your children.: — Acts 2:39.

And one of its best supports is St. Paul’s statement that the children of a believing parent are in a certain sense holy. — 1 Corinthians 7:14. 5 We have here therefore, as claimed by pedobaptists themselves, the two passages which are, the one their “chief scripture ground ” for infant baptism, and the other “its best support. ” We will therefore, briefly examine them both, and see to what extent they have been perverted for the defense of the rite in question. “The promise is to you, and to your children.” (Acts 2:39.)

This text we are told, is the chief scripture ground upon which infant baptism is placed.” That you may understand it perfectly, I will refresh your memory with the circumstances under which this inspired declaration occurred. It was uttered by Peter, in Jerusalem, during the ever memorable Pentecost. Multitudes had on that day, been called together by “the signs, and wonders, and miracles” resulting from the fulfillment of the promise of God in the gift of the Holy Ghost. This intrepid apostle seized the occasion to preach Christ to the people. His sermon evinced great power, and was attended with singular success. Large numbers were convicted of sin, and in the anguish of their heart cried out: — “What shall we do?” In the strictest consonance with the apostolic commission, and almost in its very words, he answered: “Repent, and be baptized every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is to you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. ” What, I now inquire, was the promise of which the apostle here spoke? It was undoubtedly, the gift of the Holy Ghost. Peter himself so declares. “This is that which was spoken of by the prophet Joel: (Joel 2:28-32.) And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my spirit upon all. flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; and on my servants, and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my spirit.” “And it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” (Acts 2:16-21.)

It is decided therefore that the promise was the Holy Ghost, whose influences as predicted by Joel especially, were at that moment seen so conspicuously among the people. This truth is indubitable. To whom, I next ask, was this promise made? Peter answers, “To you Jews, and to your children, and to all that are afar off.” The words of the promise in Joel, recited by Peter, are, To you Jews, and to “your sons and your daughters. ” By “children” therefore, the apostle means “sons and daughters, ” or in general terms, posterity. (tekna ) The gentile nations are in other places of the scriptures spoken of as “them that are afar off. ” They are, therefore, the persons alluded to in that form of language. But was it the promise of God that all or any these classes of persons, who in reality included “all flesh, ” should receive the Holy Ghost in the times of Messiah — “the last days” — unconditionally? No one will surely maintain that it was, and especially since these very conditions were explicitly stated. They were according to Joel, that the persons in question should “call on the name of the Lord.” Peter instructs us that by calling on the name of the Lord is implied, that they should “repent, and be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.” The promise was to be fulfilled to all those who should comply with these conditions, and to none others. If you Jews repent of your sins, and by baptism profess your faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, for the promise is to you. If your “children, ” or as Joel calls them, “your sons and your daughters,” repent of their sins, and by baptism profess their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, they shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, for the promise is to your children. Nor are these privileges and blessings to be confined to your nation. They are to be extended to “them that are afar off,” to “all flesh,” to “every creature,” to all nations,” to as many as the Lord our God shall call by his gospel, and who shall repent and be baptized, no matter to what people they belong. They also shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, for the promise is to them. To that anxious multitude how full of encouragement was this precious gospel message! It fell upon their hearts like gentle showers upon the parched earth. Hope sprang up in the bosoms of about three thousand, who gladly received the word.” They believed it; they acted upon it; they became the subjects of renewing grace, and received the Holy Ghost, according to the promise of God.

Thus, briefly, I have submitted the sense of the passage, and that it is the true sense it seems to me impossible to doubt. In what part of it is infant baptism taught? Not the remotest reference is found to any such thing. Yet say our friends, “it is the chief scripture ground for infant baptism!” How is it possible for them to make good this assertion? It cannot be done. But you shall hear their arguments. They shall speak for themselves. Mr.

Henry gives the meaning of this passage as follows. Peter, he asserts, intends to say, in other words, to the people: — “Your children shall have, as they have had, an interest in the covenant, and a title to the external seal of it. Come over to Christ to receive those inestimable benefits; for the promise of the remission of sins, and the gift of the Holy Ghost, is to you, and to your children.” “When God took Abraham into covenant he said, I will be a God to thee, and to thy seed; — Genesis 17:7 — and accordingly every Israelite had his son circumcised at eight days old. Now it is proper for an Israelite, when he is by baptism to come into a new dispensation of this covenant, to ask, What shall I do with my children? Must they be thrown out, or taken in with me? Taken in, says Peter, by all means; for the promise, the great promise of God’s being to you a God, is as much to you and your children now, as ever it was. Who that possesses any tolerable knowledge of the scriptures could readily imagine that learned and good men would venture this as the sense of the passage in question? It is crowded in nearly every line, with absurdities and perversions. Let them be separately, and more particularly designated.

In the first place, the representation that the word “children ” in the passage means the babes of those then present is absurd for three reasons; first, because Joel says they were their sons and their daughters, who should then prophesy; and Peter did not intend to contradict Joel: secondly, because their babes could not fulfill the conditions upon which the promise was made: and thirdly, because of the nature of the promise itself, which was that they should receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, and prophesy. The word “children ” is unquestionably used by Peter, in the sense of posterity simply. This fact is so obvious that it is frankly conceded by some of the best biblical critics among the pedobaptists themselves. Dr. Whitby says: — “These words will not prove a right of infants to receive baptism, the promise here being that of the Holy Ghost mentioned in verses 16, 17, 18, and so relating only to the times of the miraculous effusions of the Holy Ghost, and to those persons who by age were capable of these extraordinary gifts.” 7 Limborch of Amsterdam, says: — “By children the apostle understands not infants, but posterity.” “Whence it appears that the argument which is commonly taken from this passage for the baptism of infants is of no force, and good for nothing.” With these distinguished interpreters agree Doddridge, Hammond, and many others. To represent Peter therefore, as referring to infant children, and inculcating their baptism, is a most injurious perversion of the word of God.

A second perversion is found in the implication that the faith and baptism, of their parents, were the conditions upon which their infant children were to receive the Holy Ghost, and the remission of sins. This passage teaches no such thing. Our pedobaptist brethren however represent Peter as saying in other words, to the Jews there under conviction of sin, and whom they, singularly enough, suppose to be inquiring, “What must I do with my children;” “Come over to Christ to receive these inestimable benefits; for the promise of the remission of sins, and the gift of the Holy Ghost, is to you and to your children.” Do you join the church of Christ, and your children, by virtue of their relation to you, shall be entitled to the same blessings you receive. They shall share with you every gospel blessing, and especially “the remission of sins, and the gift of the Holy Ghost.” Do not hesitate therefore; “come over to Christ.” What a monstrous perversion!

A third perversion of this passage is committed. Our Pedobaptist brethren insist that the promise in question, relates to the blessings pledged in the covenant with Abraham. The promise as stated by Peter, was the gift of the Holy Ghost to believers. But their version is wholly different. They interpret the apostle as saying to the Jews: — Your children [infants] shall [still] have as they have had, an interest in the covenant [with Abraham] and a title to the external seal of it,” all which the gospel gives to you, and consequently to them!

This short passage is subjected to a fourth perversion. They maintain that the gospel covenant is a continuance of the covenant of circumcision ! Their language is, “When God took Abraham into covenant, he said, I will be a God to thee, and to thy seed; — Genesis 17:7 — and accordingly every Israelite had his son circumcised at eight days old. Now it is proper for an Israelite when he is to enter into a new dispensation of this covenant, to ask, What must be done With my children?” And is the gospel a new dispensation of this covenant that God made with Abraham, according to which “every Israelite had his son circumcised at eight days old? The gospel a new dispensation of the covenant of circumcision ! And does Peter so teach? No such thing appears, either in this text, or elsewhere.

The fifth perversion of this passage, and the last I shall mention, is the claim that Peter means by “the promise,” that infants are to be baptized, receive the Holy Ghost, and be taken into the church. “An Israelite” is represented as inquiring, If I “come over to Christ,” and unite with this gospel church of yours, “What must be done with my children? Must they be thrown out, or taken in with me?” To this they represent the passage as answering — “Taken in, says Peter, by all means; for the promise, that great promise of God’s being to you a God, is as much to you and your children now, as ever it was.” How manifest a perversion is here! Strangely are good men blinded, so blinded by infant baptism, that they it seems, really believe that Peter teaches what they represent in the passage!

Having thus disposed of “the chief scripture ground upon which it is placed,” and found that no allusion whatever is made in it to infant baptism, we now turn to the other passage, which is, “one of its best supports. ” This “is St. Paul’s statement that the children of a believing parent are in a certain sense holy.” In what sense are they holy? To comprehend the whole matter perfectly, let us turn to the sacred record, and together with its context, read carefully the entire passage, “Now concerning the things where of ye wrote unto me,” says Paul, and proceeding, he gave various instructions to the Corinthians regarding marriage, and domestic duties. Among other things he says: “Let not the wife depart from her husband; but if she depart let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband; and let not the husband put away his wife.” “If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away. And the woman which hath a husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband; else were your children unclean, but now are they holy. But if the unbelieving depart let him depart.

A brother, or a sister, is not in bondage in such cases; but God hath called us to peace. For what knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband? Or what knowest thou, O man, whether thou shalt save thy wife? But as God hath distributed to every man, as the Lord hath called every one, so let him walk. And so ordain I in all the churches.” (1 Corinthians 7:1-17.)

We will here pause if you please, until we have ascertained definitely, the true sense of this interesting portion of divine truth. Paul is without doubt, instructing the Corinthians regarding their conjugal, domestic, and social relations. This fact no one can rationally question. On these topics they needed to be enlightened, since they were evidently disposed to go astray.

By some means, probably the instructions of Judaizing teachers among them, the church had, it seems, become agitated with the question whether the old Jewish law which required Israel to regard all gentiles as unclean, and their touch polluting, which in a word prohibited all familiar intercourse with them, ought not to govern Christians in their relations with unbelievers. Should not the church regard all who are not members as unclean to them in the same sense that gentiles were formerly looked upon as unclean to Jews? To this opinion the brethren of Corinth appear to have strongly inclined. They soon saw, however, that such a rule of intercourse if adopted among them, must be attended with the gravest consequences. It would not only sever their social and domestic relations, but would actually break up and destroy their families, since some of them were married to unbelievers, from whom of course, they must instantly separate. That this was the true state of the case, and the actual question submitted by them to the apostle, is so plain, from his answer alone, that it is confessed by some of the Pedobaptist commentators and divines themselves. Even Henry, for instance, could not avoid seeing it. He says: — “ They thought that (the unconverted members of their families) would be common, or unclean, in the same sense as heathens in general were styled in the apostle vision.” 9 Dr. Miller, notwithstanding his prejudices, is still more full. He says: — “ It appears that among the Corinthians to whom the apostle wrote, there were many cases of professing Christians being united by the marriage tie with pagans; the former being perhaps converted after marriage, or being so unwise as after conversion deliberately to form this unequal and unhappy connection. What was to be deemed of such marriages seems to have been the grave question submitted to this inspired teacher.” 10 Upon this point therefore, we are certainly right.

These were the perplexing circumstances under which they wrote to Paul for advice. He answered them in substance, that the old Jewish law regulating intercourse with gentiles, was not applicable to them, not only because the ceremonial dispensation to which it exclusively belonged had passed away, but also because in their case, (and the same was true of all other churches,) its observance was impracticable. Any attempts to enforce it, must have been attended with the most disastrous consequences. The Christians, unlike the Jews, lived, and must live, in the midst of unbelievers. Many of them were connected with their families, and were a part of them. With such persons they could not avoid contact, and association. If such separation was necessary to preserve their Christian purity, then to retain it they “must needs go out of the world.”

But especially some of them were married to unbelievers, and if this abrogated Jewish law was to be enforced all such husbands and wives must part from each other. But this was not demanded by the gospel, and ought not to take place, unless the temper of the unbelieving party should render it necessary. “If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away. And the woman which hath a husband that believeth not, if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him.” “But if the unbelieving depart, let him depart. A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases; but God hath called us to peace.” Believers and unbelievers who are husband and wife, may lawfully, and ought to continue to dwell together. No such rule of ceremonial holiness, and uncleanness, obtains under the gospel as that which characterized the Mosaic economy. The marriage tie makes the parties, though it unite a believer with an unbeliever, holy to each other.

The unbelieving husband is not unclean so that the believing wife may not lawfully dwell with him. The unbelieving wife is not unclean so that the believing husband may not lawfully dwell with her. Why then separate?

Let them remain together. And for their continued union there is yet another most important reason. God may perhaps, bless the efforts of the believing, to the conversion and salvation of the unbelieving party.

And yet more. Must the believing husband or wife separate from the unbelieving, for the reasons alleged? Then it will follow that, for the very same reasons, the believing parent must also separate from his own children, since they also are not believers! Indeed, not a member of the church, if separation from all unbelievers is necessary to preserve his Christian purity, must touch his own children, eat with them, or associate with them. The believing parent occupies, in this respect, precisely the same relation to his child that he does to his unbelieving wife. Must he separate from his wife? He must also separate from his child. But you do not, said Paul, consider your children unclean to you, but holy. You do not, you must not, humanity forbids that you should, consider their touch polluting. They are sanctified, holy, clean, to you. So also the unbelieving wife is sanctified, holy, clean to you. You must not separate from your child. Therefore you must not separate from your wife. “The unbelieving husband is sanctified to 11 the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified to the husband, else were your children unclean [to you], but now they are holy” to you. Therefore the unbelieving wife is holy to you. In the same way that the child is holy to the believing parent, the unbelieving husband is holy to the believing wife, and the unbelieving wife is holy to the believing husband. You may lawfully remain with your children. You may therefore lawfully remain with each other. Throw aside these absurd notions about the old Jewish law of ceremonial purity. Dwell together in the conjugal relation. “As God hath distributed to every man, as the Lord hath called every one, so let him walk. And so ordain I in all the churches.”

Is not this a true exposition of the sense of the apostle? It is self-evident.

Some few of the more learned pedobaptist divines have seen and confessed it. Dressier, for example, says: — “According to Paul a holy pedigree is nothing in religion. Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision availeth any thing, but keeping the commandment of God. The passage 1 Corinthians 7:13-14, [that now before us] does not support any such view. He says, if the Christians would flee from every unbeliever, regarding him as unclean, they must flee from their own children, and hold them as unclean, for they were among the unbelievers. ‘Otherwise your children would be unclean,’ for they are not Christians by birth merely. ‘But now are they holy,’ i.e ., you are not to consider yourselves polluted by them.” Such is the lesson, in response to their inquiry, taught by Paul to his brethren the Corinthians. How beautiful! How important! How simple!

How easy to be understood! Not the remotest reference is made in it in any way, to infant baptism. Yet it is declared to be “one of its best supports !” Accordingly our brethren have chiefly predicated upon it this declaration in the Westminster Confession of Faith — “Not only those that do actually profess faith in and obedience unto Christ, but also the infants of one or both believing parents are to be baptized.” 13 Commenting upon the passage, “Else were your children unclean, but now are they holy,” Mr. Henry says: — “That is, they would be heathen, out of the pale of the church, and covenant of God. They would not be of the holy seed.” “The children born to Christians, though married to unbelievers, are not part of the world, but of the church.” 14 On the same passage Dr. Clarke remarks: — “ If this kind of relative sanctification were not allowed, the children of these persons could not be received into the Christian church, nor enjoy any rights or privileges as Christians; but the church of God never scrupled to admit such children as members.” Dr. Miller, after admitting all that we have just seen, still says that Paul “pronounces under the direction of the Holy Spirit, that in all such cases, when the unbeliever is willing to live with the believer, they ought to continue to live together, that their connection is so sanctified by the character of the believing companion that their children are ‘holy’ that is, in covenant with God; members of that church with which the believing parent is in virtue of his profession united; in one word, that the infidel party is so far, and in such a sense, consecrated by the believing party, that their children shall be reckoned to belong to the sacred family with which the latter is connected, and shall be regarded and treated as members of the church of God.” These are specimens of the havoc made of the sense of the word of God for the sake ‘of infant baptism. Look at the perversions here committed.

Paul teaches, as they contend, that the offspring of parents one of whom is a believer, are born members of the church with which the believing parent is connected; that they are born in covenant with God; that as such they are entitled to “enjoy the right and privileges of Christians;” and that were it not so their children “would be heathens!” Here are four palpable perversions. None of these propositions are true in themselves; they are not sustained at all in the word of God; and especially they are not found in the instructions of Paul to the Corinthians. But a still greater perversion of this passage, if possible, remains to be mentioned. Paul told the Corinthians that as they did not consider their children ceremonially unclean or unholy to them, but holy, and they therefore took care of them; so the unbelieving party in marriage, since she bore the same relation to the believing party with the child, was not to be considered by the other ceremonially unclean, or unholy, but holy, and they should therefore remain together. No, no, Paul! respond our Pedobaptist brethren, this is not what you mean! You mean that the holiness of the children is spiritual, that it is “ecclesiastical, ” and more, you mean that this holiness is produced by hereditary transmission, so that the children are born in the covenant and church of God, and, since as such they are entitled to “enjoy the privileges and rights of Christians,” they are to be baptized! Thus boldly do they contradict the apostle himself, and greatly also to his injury; since if their interpretation is true they make Paul speak nonsense, and bring him into collision with himself, and other portions of divine truth. Are the terms unclean, sanctified, and holy to be understood in a spiritual, or an ecclesiastical sense? They so maintain. It is certain that these words are used in the same sense in their application to both parent and child. It follows thus, that if the child is to be baptized because that relationship makes it holy, as certainly is the unbelieving husband, or wife, to be baptized because by the same relationship he, or she, is sanctified. He who is sanctified is holy, and the sanctified have the same right to baptism with the holy? 16 If then you baptize the child upon the faith of its mother, you must, to be consistent, baptize the unbelieving husband upon the faith of his wife, since if the child is holy, so also is the unbelieving father sanctified. But it is certain Paul teaches no such doctrine. Paul was wise.

We have reason to lament that so much cannot be said of very many of his professed interpreters.

One other passage ought to be considered, and its false glosses briefly exposed, since much confidence has of late, been expressed that it contains evident authority for infant baptism. “Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 19:14.)

Let us, in the first place, carefully examine this text, and ascertain its exact Sense.

The Savior was in the midst of a discourse of surpassing interest. His disciples were absorbed in their attention to his instructions. Suddenly there “were brought unto him little children.” The object of those who brought them — probably their parents — the evangelist fully states. It was, “That he should put his hands on them, and pray.” 17 This was a very familiar observance among the Jews. Great importance was attached by them, and justly, to the benedictions of holy men. To obtain them therefore, when practicable, had been common from the earliest times. (Genesis 48:14; Matthew 9:18;. Mark 16:18.) These parents fully believed that Jesus was a prophet of God, and they desired for their children his prayers and blessing. This was what they sought, and all that they sought.

They however, encountered in their approach, a rebuke from the disciples!

This occurred, not certainly, from any want of respect on the part of the disciples for their motives, and wishes, but evidently because they were impatient of the interruption. Their feelings were deeply enlisted in the topic before them, and they were not willing that their Master should, on any account, be diverted from it. But he, observing what they did, “was much displeased,” (Mark 10:14-16.) and immediately suspending his discourse, “Called the little children to him.” (Luke 18:16.) Thus he manifested his great love, patience, and condescension. What the Savior did for these children is now distinctly and fully stated: — “ He took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them.” Meantime he compensated his disciples: for the interruption, by imparting one of the richest lessons to be found in all his teachings. It is contained in the very passage now in question: — “Of such is the kingdom of heaven.” And he adds: — “Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, shall in no wise enter therein.”

By “the kingdom of heaven,” and “the kingdom of God,” here employed as convertible terms, our Savior refers to the Gospel, the true principles of which in the heart, alone can qualify any one for the holy brotherhood of the church upon earth. This fact needs only to be stated. But what are we to understand by the phrase, “Of such is the kingdom of heaven?” Is it not sufficiently explained by the other phrase, “Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God [the grace offered by Christ] as a little child, [in the spirit, and with the disposition of a little child] shall in no wise enter therein?” This appears to me most evident. He does not say that the kingdom of heaven — the church — belongs to little children, or is composed of these, and other such little children. Certainly not. This is plain from our present version, but in the original it is still more obvious.

The word rendered “of such, ” (toioutwn , not autwn. ) conveys the idea, as every scholar must see, of comparison, and does not therefore, signify identity, but likeness. The church therefore, is made up, not, as Pedobaptists tell us, of little children, but of those who by divine grace are made like little children. Only “such” can have a place there, as are spiritually, what little children are literally. Little children love their parents supremely: To fit you for a place in his visible church, you must love God supremely. Little children receive as true, and implicitly believe, whatever is declared by their parents: You must receive as true, and implicitly believe whatever is declared in his word, by God. Little children submit themselves to such provisions as are made for them by their parents: You must submit yourselves to such arrangements as are made for you by God.

Little children obey the commandments of their parents: You must obey the commandments of God. In these and other respects, to qualify you for a place in the kingdom, or church of God, you must be like little children.

You “receive the kingdom of God as a little child” when you cherish the same love, faith, submission, and obedience towards God, that little children do towards their parents.

Such is undoubtedly, the true, and full sense of the passage. How evangelical! How rich! Never, as has been said, did the Redeemer himself, teach a more important lesson. Let it be observed, however, that neither in the passage, nor in the context, nor anywhere else in this connection, is there an allusion of any kind even remotely to baptism. With these facts and expositions before us, we turn to the interpretations of our pedobaptist brethren. What are they? Mr. Henry shall again serve as an example of them all. 18 He speaks thus: — “Observe the faith of those who brought [these children to Christ.

They were believing parents.] The children of believing parents belong to the kingdom of heaven, and are members of the visible church. Of such — not only of such in disposition, and affection, (that might have served for a reason why doves, or lambs should be brought to him,) but of such in age — is the kingdom of heaven; to them pertain the privileges of visible church-membership as among the Jews of old.” “Parents are trustees of their children’s wills, are empowered by nature to transact for their benefit, and therefore Christ accepts their dedication of them as their [the children’s] act and deed, and will own these dedicated things in the day when he makes up his jewels. Therefore he takes it ill of those who forbid them, and [who] exclude those [children] whom he has received;” “and who forbid water that they [infants] should be baptized, who if that promise be fulfilled (Isaiah 44:3) [I will pour out my Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring] have received the Holy Ghost as well as we, for aught we know.”

Look at this gloss! Ponder it! How preposterous! Dr. Clarke’s commentary is as follows — “Let every parent that fears God, bring up his children in that fear; and by baptism let each be dedicated to the Holy Trinity. Whatever is solemnly consecrated to God, abides under his protection and blessing.” These, and such like, are the Pedobaptist interpretations of the passage in question! They are published to the world, and received, and defended, as expressing its true sense ! Is it surprising therefore, that a vail is thus thrown over the gospel, and its great truths withheld from the faith of the simple?

And now mark if you please, the glaring perversions with which this whole Pedobaptist “exposition ” is crowded. I shall notice six only. It is here denied that Christ designs to illustrate the true Christian character by the disposition of children, and it is asserted that this might have been done by the dispositions and affections of doves, or lambs, as well as by those of children; thus the obvious truth is repudiated: it is maintained that Christ here teaches the church-membership of literal infants, by natural birth; that parents have a natural right to “transact” in religion for their children — impose upon them the vows, and ordinance of baptism — and that God will accept it as binding upon the children; that in the last day, when God shall make up his jewels, persons will be “owned” by him, because they were in their infancy “dedicated to the Holy Trinity in baptism;” that Christ takes it ill of those who refuse to receive infants into the church, and to baptize them; and that “for aught we know, infants have received the Holy Ghost as well as we,” and ought therefore to be baptized! What perversions ! What falsifications of truth!

We have thus seen how the word of God is perverted in order to sustain this unauthorized rite, in the instances of the apostolic commission, the address of Peter on the day of pentecost, the instructions of Paul to the Corinthians, regarding social and domestic intercourse, and the blessing of children by our Lord Jesus Christ. Many, very many other examples equally striking, might be produced, but enough has been said to establish fully the proposition with which we set out. It is unquestionably true that the defense of infant baptism necessarily leads to most injurious perversions of the word of God. This is an evil, a most melancholy evil. It destroys all just principles of biblical interpretation; it covers the sacred oracles with impenetrable obscurity; it inculcates error, and withholds the truth from the cause and people of God; by it knowledge is abridged; faith is made weak; religion becomes less enlightened; and practical godliness is overwhelmed!

CHAPTER - INFANT BAPTISM IS AN EVIL BECAUSE IT ENGRAFTS JUDAISM UPON THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST Form of church organization; pedobaptist theory; it proves too much; is in conflict with christianity; violates true analogy; is at war with fundamental religion; is antiscriptural. THERE are two theories, and two only consistent with themselves, of church organization. One of them models the church upon the spiritual plan developed in the New Testament; the other gives it the form of the old Jewish Theocracy. The former is Baptist. The latter is Roman Catholic.

Between these two, and partaking more or less of both, stand all the various protestant denominations. Their evangelical spirituality is Baptist.

Their other characteristics, and especially their infant baptism, is Roman Catholic; or rather Judaism, of which Popery is confessedly, a continuation. To obtain a basis for this ordinance, they have been obliged, with the papists, to assume the unity of the Jewish church and the Christian church. Thus they engraft Judaism upon the gospel of Christ. I shall state their argument in their own language, as elaborately set forth, in terms acknowledged by all, to be correct, and perspicuous. “Abraham and his seed, were divinely constituted a true visible church of God.” “The Jewish society before Christ, and the Christian society after Christ, are one and the same church in different dispensations.” “Jewish circumcision before Christ, and Christian baptism after Christ, are one and the same seal, though in different forms.” “The administration of this seal to infants was once enjoined by divine authority.” “The administration of this seal to infants was never prohibited by divine authority.” You will then perceive that we have “a divine command for baptizing infants.” 1 To this statement may be added that of Revelation Dr. Peters. He says: — “ When [circumcision] the ancient sign of the covenant which God made with his people for an everlasting covenant, was abolished, another [baptism] was instituted in the same church, under the same covenant, of precisely the same import, and for the same purpose.” Such is the platform erected for the support of infant baptism. It abandons the New Testament wholly, and assumes the old Jewish Theocracy as the true form of the gospel church! 1. In the consideration of this argument, so specious to many minds, generally so successful, and therefore advanced with so much confidence, I shall, in the first place, show that it proves immeasurably too much.

Let us, for the sake of the discussion, admit for a moment that it is true, and what are the results? By all. Protestants at least, as soon as its bearings and results are understood, it must be instantly renounced. It is really available for Papists, and for Papists only. But to the demonstration. “Abraham and his seed were divinely constituted a true visible church of God.” “The Jewish society before Christ, and the Christian society after Christ, are one and the same church in different dispensations.” “Jewish circumcision before Christ, and Christian baptism after Christ, are one and the same seal, though in different forms.” “They were instituted in the same church, and under the same covenant.” “The administration of this seal to infants was once enjoined by divine authority.” “The administration of this seal to infants was never prohibited by divine authority.” “You will therefore perceive that we have a divine command for baptizing infants.”

Very well. Now you have infant baptism, and you have it by “divine command!” Presbyterians, Methodists, Congregationalists, and others are delighted. The argument is satisfactory. They embrace it with eagerness. It is true, every word true. The thought has not occurred that it is dangerous.

But we shall see.

An Episcopalian perceives that it will serve his design. The other sects may protest against his use of it, but they cannot hinder it. All have an equal right to its benefits. He assumes as true, and admitted, all the propositions now before you, and then proceeds thus: — In the Jewish church there were three orders in the ministry, each a grade above the other in dignity and authority; the chief priests, the common priests, and the levites. There are therefore, three orders in the ministry in the Christian church. It is the same church, and under the same covenant. These orders in the ministry of the church were once enjoined by divine authority. They were never prohibited by divine authority. You will therefore perceive that we have a divine command for three orders in the ministry of the Christian church. They are bishops, priests, and deacons, and we have them by divine right and by regular succession from the apostles. Episcopalians are now fully gratified. Their episcopacy can be questioned no longer by any class of Pedobaptists, since the argument for infant baptism and for episcopacy is the same, and you cannot overthrow one without at the same time destroying the other. Here, however, Episcopalians insist that the “analogy” shall cease. But no. The ball has been set in motion, and you must be content to see it roll on. The propositions are admitted, and they carry you resistlessly forward to other results.

A Roman Catholic reminds you that in the Jewish church there was one great high priest, who was the Pastor or Bishop of the whole visible church of God upon earth. In the Christian church therefore, there is one great high priest, who is pastor or bishop of the whole visible church of God upon earth. Although in different dispensations, it is the same church, and under the same covenant. The appointment of this universal Pastor or Bishop was once enjoined by divine authority. It was never prohibited by divine authority. You will therefore perceive that we have a divine command for one great high priest, who is the Pastor or Bishop of the whole visible church of God upon earth. This universal Pastor or Bishop we have, by “regular succession from St. Peter. ” He is the Pope. His residence is Rome, the See of the Fisherman of Galilee, and the capital of the world, whence “by divine right ” he rules the whole visible church of God upon earth. His name at present isPIO NONO.

You have obtained, from the argument before you, infant baptism; but the process by which this has been secured has also forced upon you, first episcopacy, and then Popery ! If you take the first you must also take the other two. And what else will you have? You must go still further. You must unite your church with the state, and have a national religion! This would be very convenient. It would give you dignity, and wealth, and power. The Jewish church was a national church, and the Christian church is the same church. Therefore the Christian church must be a national church. The union of church and state was once enjoined by divine authority. It was never prohibited by divine authority. You will therefore perceive that we have a divine command for the union of church and state!

The sacrifice of the mass would probably be agreeable, if it only possessed divine authority. It is a very imposing rite. You have the wished-for sanction in the Jewish sacrifices. You want seventy cardinals? The seventy elders who composed the Jewish council will supply you. You are perchance fond of pageantry, and would willingly ornament the persons of your ministry with pontificals. The splendid robes and miters of the Jewish priests, and especially the jeweled breast-plate of the high priest, will satisfy your vanity to the utmost. The Jewish church and the Christian church are the same church. All these were once enjoined by divine authority. None of them were ever prohibited by divine authority.

You will therefore perceive that we have a divine command for the union of church and state, for the sacrifice of the mass, for the college of cardinals, and for priestly robes and ornaments.

The argument for the whole paraphernalia of Popery is precisely the same with that for infant baptism. It has the same force and conclusiveness.

Infant baptism, episcopacy, Popery, the union of church and state, the mass, cardinals, robes, all, rest upon the same foundation and must stand or fall together. They are predicated not upon the gospel, but upon what our brethren call the analogy of the church, and really upon Judaism.

Indeed such is, and has been the influence of Moses upon Christianity, that Pedobaptist churches of all classes, receive their members, and most of them are modeled, and governed, by his law rather than according to the gospel of Christ. Are you a Pedobaptist? To be consistent you must also be a Papist. The same law that requires infant baptism requires a pope, an established religion, and their adjuncts. Do you repudiate these? For the same reason you must also repudiate infant baptism. But renouncing them all, you are forced back upon Baptist ground. You adopt the New Testament as giving the true form of the church of Christ. 2. I, in the second place, remark that this Judaistic argument for infant baptism cannot be maintained, because it is directly in conflict with Christianity as taught by Christ and his apostles.

Essays to commingle Judaism with the gospel commenced immediately after the ascension of our Redeemer. The Judaism then preached was precisely such as our Pedobaptist brethren now claim as legitimate in religion. It did not indeed, include infant baptism, but advocated instead literal circumcision. The discovery that “Jewish circumcision before Christ, and Christian baptism after Christ, is one and the same seal, though in different forms,” was not yet made, nor did it come to light until some centuries after. The principle however was the very same. Glance through the history of the first period of the church, as contained in the Acts of the Apostles, and you will find that, as soon as the gentiles began to embrace the religion of Christ, there were instantly among them Christianized Jewish priests, urging upon the converts the absolute necessity of adding to the gospel the doctrines and rites of Moses. They said, in substance, to these disciples, The religion of Christ is true, and necessary, but it is not enough; “Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved.” (Acts 15:1.)

The agitations and proceedings consequent upon this teaching in the church at Antioch in Syria, and subsequently in the council at Jerusalem, with the numerous admonitions regarding them contained in all the epistles, will fully instruct you as to the rise of Judaism in the Christian church, its nature as then taught, and the manner in which it was met and resisted by the apostles. “Certain men that came down from Judea,” says Luke, thus “taught the brethren.” “When therefore Paul and. Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas, and certain others of them, should go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this question.” (Acts 15:1-2.)

We saw in the last chapter an instance of the influence of Judaism among the Corinthians, and the painful perplexity it occasioned regarding domestic and social intercourse. Among the Galatians were those who desired to be under the law, (Galatians 4:21) and they constrained their brethren to be circumcised. (Galatians 6:12-13) Indeed, the epistles evince conclusively, that the churches of the Romans, the Corinthians, the Galatians, the Ephesians, the Colossians, and the others, were constantly excited, and agitated with Judaism. This fact cannot have escaped the attention of any intelligent Christian. Perpetually repeated efforts were made by converted priests, and others, to engraft its forms, and ordinances, upon the gospel of Christ.

How was this subject regarded by the inspired apostles? Did they look upon the matter as of little importance? They taught the churches that it was in conflict with Christianity, and could result only in confusion and disaster. Corresponding with these sentiments were the measures they adopted respecting it. Let us turn to their inspired instructions, and be enlightened. Protesting against the introduction of the doctrines and rites of Judaism, Paul, for example, thus admonishes his brethren. “O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you that ye should not obey the truth?” “Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?

Are ye so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh? Have ye suffered so many things in vain, if it be yet in vain? He that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?” You wish to conform to the law of Moses that you may be accounted the children of Abraham. Remember that “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham.” And further. “After that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements whereunto ye desire to be again in bondage? Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. I am afraid of you lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain.” And still further. “They [the Judaizing teachers] zealously affect you, but not well; yea they would exclude you that ye might affect them.” “My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you, I desire to be present with you now, and to change my voice, for I stand in doubt of you. Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?” “It is written, Abraham had two sons, the one [Ishmael] by a bond maid, the other [Isaac] by a free woman. But he who was of the bond woman was born after the flesh; but he of the free woman was by promise. Which things are an allegory; [the two sons were typical] for these are [figures of] the two covenants; the one [that shadowed forth by Ishmael is the covenant] from Mount Sinai [the law] which gendereth to bondage, which is [the son of] Agar.” The other, that prefigured by Isaac, is the covenant of grace in our Lord Jesus Christ. Isaac was by promise; Isaac was free; and “we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise,” and like him we are free; “For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made us free from the law of sin and death.” (Romans 8:2.) “What saith the scriptures? Cast out the bond woman and her son [this law of ceremonies and external observances from Sinai], for the son of the bond woman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman.” “Brethren, we are not children of the bond woman, but of the free.

Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again in the yoke of bondage” “the yoke which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear.” (Acts 15:10.) “Behold I Paul, say unto you that if ye be circumcised Christ shall profit you nothing.” “Christ has become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.

For we through the Spirit do wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh by love. Ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?” “A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.” “He that troubleth you shall bear his judgment Whosoever he be.” “I would that they were even cut off which trouble you. For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty.” (Galatians 3,4,5.)

Once more. In Christ “dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him which is the head of all principality and power; in whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, [purified in heart by the Spirit] in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead. And you being dead in your sins, and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; blotting out the hand writing of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, nailing it to his cross; and having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it. Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days; which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.” (Colossians 2:9-17.)

In this manner did the apostles meet, and resist Judaism in the church of Christ. If any conclusion can be drawn from their language which is beyond question correct, it certainly is that they regarded its introduction as in conflict with Christianity, and portending destructive consequences.

Judaism was thus suppressed for the time, but it was not cast out. As some of the Canaanites were left in Israel, so Judaism remained in the church, to try the faith of the people of God. Nor did it lie inactive, but as time passed, and piety waned, it gained strength; and at the present hour, though slightly changed in form from what it was originally, it has, as we have already seen, with all the sects, more influence in their ecclesiastical polity, and their administration of ordinances, than has even the gospel itself of the grace of God.

We have thus seen how Judaism is embodied in the argument before us, by which infant baptism is sustained and defended. We have seen how it arose in the church, how deleterious was its influence, and how it was met and resisted by the apostles. And are we after all, to be told that it is legitimate and scriptural? Are we now to hear it defended by grave and learned divines? That very corruption once so warmly deprecated by Paul, and James, and Peter, and John, and the others, as so insufferable that they spoke of cutting off those who troubled the churches with it, is it now to be assumed as granted, and made the foundation for infant baptism? No, we cannot. We will not. We repudiate it. We protest against it. We denounce it as condemned by the word of God, in conflict with Christianity, and an offense to our adorable Redeemer. 3. This argument for infant baptism, in the third place, fails entirely, because it perverts, and renders wholly unintelligible, the true scriptural analogy of the church.

Pedobaptists call the argument for infant baptism, which we are now combating, analogy; but it is in truth identity, and not analogy, since they claim that the Jewish church and the Christian church are the same church, and that, although in different dispensations, they subsist under the same covenant. This is unquestionably sameness, as distinguished from similitude and diversity. This is identity. And what is analogy? If Webster be authority for words, it is “an agreement or likeness between things in some circumstances and effects, when the things are otherwise entirely different.” A correspondence between the churches, of this character undoubtedly exists. But the identity claimed and advocated, and which is necessary to include and defend infant baptism, while, as we have fully seen, it also includes and defends popery in all its absurd extremes, is condemned and denounced by the apostles. There is a beautiful analogy; but the identity assumed is nothing more nor less than naked Judaism.

Trace with me if you please, briefly, the true analogy between the Jewish church and the Christian church.

The relations between them are, I remark, precisely those subsisting between a figure and the thing signified, or a shadow and its substance. The Jewish church was a figure, a shadow, a type of the Christian church. No one with this proposition distinctly in mind, can read carefully the epistle to the Hebrews, and then seriously doubt its truth. To state this important fact, to establish it, and to illustrate its various bearings, much space, and carefulness, are employed in this admirable epistle. Indeed it seems to have been one of its main designs. The Hebrews were naturally more prone than others to Judaism, and to fall consequently into the error which supposes that “the Jewish society before Christ, and the Christian society after Christ, are one and the same church in different dispensations.” Paul therefore instructs them that the people, the sacrifices, the priesthood, the temple, and all the ordinances and forms of the Jewish worship, were “figures for the time then present,” and were ordained and instituted as “types of better things,” “until the times of reformation,” in other words, until the coming of Christ. “The holy places made with hands were the figures of the true” holy places. (Hebrews 9:9,10, 11-23, 24.) All the parts of the Jewish church and worship were figures of the Christian church and worship. What is true of all the parts, is true of the whole. The whole Jewish church therefore was a figure or type of the Christian church. This, as set forth in the word of God itself, is the true and exact analogy between the Jewish church and the Christian church.

The rules in Hermeneutics by which these correspondences are governed, are obvious and definite. They are as follows. “No external institution or fact in the Old Testament is a type of an external institution or fact in the New Testament. External institutions and facts in the Old Testament are invariably types of internal and spiritual institutions and facts in the New Testament.” These rules are, I am happy to say, recognized as legitimate by the learned among Pedobaptists themselves. Turrettine, for example, the distinguished successor of Calvin, referring to doctrines of Cardinal Bellarmine, says: — For what Bellarmine sets forth, that these [Jewish rites] were not so much sacraments as types of sacraments is absurd, inasmuch as a sacrament is an external thing, and whatever is a type of any internal or spiritual thing has no need of any other type by which it may be represented. Two types may indeed be given similar and corresponding to each other of one and the same truth, and so far the ancient sacraments were similar to ours;” “but one type cannot be shadowed forth by another type,” since “both are brought forward to represent one truth. So circumcision shadowed forth not baptism, but the grace of regeneration; and the passover represented not the Lord’s supper, but Christ set forth in the supper.” With these fixed principles of exposition before us, we will pursue, in order that the subject may be rendered if possible still more plain and certain, “the analogy of the church” somewhat more in detail.

Abraham, the great type of Messiah, was the head of the Jewish covenant and church; Messiah himself is the head of the Christian covenant and church. The natural seed of Abraham were entitled by virtue of their carnal relationship to him as their father, to membership in the Jewish church, and to all the ordinances, rights, and immunities of that church; the spiritual seed of Abraham by virtue of their holy relationship to Jesus Christ as their father, are entitled to membership in the Christian church, and to all the ordinances, rights, and immunities of that church. The natural seed of Abraham in right of their father inherited the earthly Canaan; the spiritual seed in right of their father Jesus Christ, inherit the Canaan above.

In the Jewish church sacrifices were literal. They were all types, and pointed to the great sacrifice in the person of Christ, to be in the fullness of time offered by him upon the cross. In the Christian church sacrifices are spiritual. “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart.” (Psalm 51:17.)

In the Jewish church offerings were presented to God in behalf of the people by priests only; in the Christian church all the people are priests, and through Jesus Christ, present to God their own offerings; for “ye are built up [not a literal house, as was the temple, but] a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 2:5.)

Every believer offers anew daily, the one infinitely glorious satisfaction of the Redeemer, by the power of which “he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified.” In the Jewish church the high priest entered once a year into the most holy place, “made with hands,” “not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people;” “which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices which could not make him that did the service perfect as pertaining to the conscience.” In the Christian church “Christ being come a high priest of good things to come by [the ministry of] a greater and more perfect tabernacle, [than that upon earth] neither by the blood of goats and of calves, but by his own blood, he entered in once into the [true] most holy place, [heaven itself] having obtained eternal redemption for us. For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth [in the Jewish church] to the [ceremonial] purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ [the infinite sacrifice, and who is also the great and only high priest in the Christian church] who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your consciences [spiritually, and truly] from dead works to serve the living God?” “It was necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these [priestly services of the Jewish church] but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself, there to appear in the presence of God for us,” our adorable Intercessor, and Advocate. “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment, so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.”

These are the teachings of the word of God. They demonstrate that the alleged analogy does not exist, but on the contrary is the very essence of Judaism. The figure and the thing signified by it, cannot be one. The type and the reality are not identical. The shadow and the substance are never the same thing. The Jewish church and the Christian church are not therefore the same church. But the Jewish church, with its institutions and facts, were external and literal, and were types or figures of the Christian church, which with its institutions and facts, are internal and spiritual.

That this is the doctrine of Paul it is impossible to doubt. So also are we instructed by the “rules of interpretation” before recited.: No external institution or fact in the Old Testament is a type of an external institution or fact, but always of internal and spiritual institutions and facts, in the New Testament. The whole subject of analogy is thus perfectly plain. The Jewish church, the type, was external, and composed of all the natural seed of Abraham; the Christian church, the reality, must therefore be internal, and composed of all the spiritual seed.: No one was permitted to enter the Jewish — the external typical — church, who was not, either by natural birth, or as a proselyte, already among the covenant people. The analogy therefore requires that no one be permitted to enter the Christian — the true spiritual church — who is not, by the new birth, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, already among the true covenant people of God. A correspondence exists in several respects between circumcision and baptism. By circumcision the natural seed were recognized as the children of Abraham, and received as members of the Jewish church; by baptism the spiritual seed are recognized as believers in Christ, and received as members of the Christian church. Circumcision was instituted expressly for literal infants,3 and it was commanded to be administered to them soon after they were born; baptism was instituted expressly for spiritual infants — believers in Christ — and it is commanded to be administered to them as soon, as they are born again. Circumcision was an essential preliminary to the passover; baptism is an essential preliminary to the Lord’s supper.

All this is clear, but our Pedobaptist brethren pervert the whole subject, and cover it with confusion, by supposing that because Abraham’s natural seed was circumcised, that therefore the natural seed of Christians should be baptized! How infinitely unworthy as you at once see, is this conclusion! It is unreasonable, evidently forced, and contradictory of the true “analogy of the church.”

The Pedobaptist doctrine is in fact, a misnomer; it is not analogy, but Judaism. It is confused, it is unintelligible. The true evangelical analogy is clear, reasonable, and scriptural. Nor does it even intimate infant baptism; but on the contrary teaches such great truths and principles, as are wholly inconsistent with the practice, and as indeed, must ever forbid the baptism of infants. 4. This Pedobaptist argument, I remark in the last place, is palpably anti- scriptural.

It maintains that the Jewish church and the Christian church are the same church, in different dispensations; or in the language of Dr. Peters: “When [circumcision] the ancient sign and seal of the covenant which God made with his people for an everlasting covenant was abolished, another ordinance [baptism] was instituted in the same church, under the same covenant, of precisely the same import, and for the same purpose.”

The Jewish church and the Christian church, the same church ! If so, then the only Christian church now existing, is as we have seen, the Roman Catholic ! It is not the Episcopalian, the Presbyterian, the Congregational the Methodist, nor any other Protestant church, since Judaized as all these are, they fall far short of the Jewish church. Only the Catholic is a tolerable copy of the original. But if they were the same church, why did Christ deny it, when he told the Jews that his was a church unlike theirs, and into which none could enter by virtue of carnal relationship to Abraham, or to any other good men, but only by repentance of sin, and faith in him? Why did Messiah deny it on another occasion, when he said: “The law and the prophets [the Jewish church] continued until John, since whom the kingdom of heaven [the Christian church] is preached, and all men press into it?” Why did Paul deny the identity of the Jewish and Christian churches by comparing the former to Hagar and her posterity, and the latter to Sarah and hers? Why did Nicodemus, and Paul, and the rest, trouble themselves about the Christian church? They were already members, and officers of the Jewish church, and that was the same church!

Strange infatuation! How surprising that any man with the Bible before him should fall into an error so palpable! This however, has already been sufficiently elaborated.

But we are told that the Jewish church and the Christian church subsisted under the same covenant! Were this true, then there would be no distinction between the law and the gospel. They would be the same in every correct sense. Very different from this, however, are the teachings of the word of God. Abraham, as any one may see who will be at the trouble of examining the Bible on the subject, was concerned in two covenants, which were made at different times, and related to distinct things. The former had regard to Christ; the latter to his natural posterity; the one was called the covenant of grace; the other the covenant of circumcision. The original promise in respect to the covenant of grace, was made to Abraham when he was seventy-five years old, in these words: — “ In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” (Genesis 12:3) This promise was afterwards renewed, and ratified with an oath : — “By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord” — “In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” (Genesis 22:16-18.)

This Paul declares to have been the covenant of grace in Jesus Christ. He says: — “God willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise, the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it with an oath, that by two immutable things [the oath and the promise ] in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to the hope set before us.” (Hebrews 6:17-20.)

The promises of this covenant, Paul teaches you, constituted the gospel, in relation to which he says: — “The scripture foreseeing that God would justify [not the Jews only, but also] the heathen through faith, preached before, the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thy seed [Christ] shall all nations be blessed.” It is proper to say in passing, that the gospel covenant now described was not really made with Abraham, but in the language of an apostle, was “confirmed to Abraham of God in Christ.” It was therefore previously made. The same covenant was announced to Adam in Eden, immediately after the fall, in a promise the language of which strikingly resembles that to Abraham, and which was repeated to Isaac, to Jacob, and to David: — “The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head.” The nature of this covenant was indicated to our first parents, by the institution of sacrifices, pointing to the great atonement afterwards to be accomplished for man, in the blood of Messiah. Who, I now ask, were the parties to this covenant for the redemption and salvation of men? Were they God and Abraham? No more than they were God and Adam, or God and David. They were God the Father, and God the Son; the latter of whom “took on him” for the purpose of our redemption, “not the nature of angels, but the seed of Abraham;” and in relation to this event it was that the promise was given, to “the Father of the faithful,” which promise Pedobaptists have so generally, and unhappily mistaken for the covenant itself ! So much for the covenant of grace.

The covenant of circumcision, received this name because of the peculiar ordinance attached to it. This covenant was made, in the true sense of that word, with Abraham, twenty-four years after the promise above referred to, and when he was ninety-nine years old, for himself, and for all. his natural seed. In it nothing whatever is said regarding Messiah. It stipulated, in the first place, that his descendants should be numerous, prosperous, and happy; in the second place, that they should possess a specified territory; and in the third place, that so long as they observed the laws of God, he would surround them with security and happiness. This covenant, as is acknowledged, received its organized development at Sinai, and was consequently really and truly identical with that “covenant which God made with Israel, when he took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt.” The Mosaic law was the formal exhibition, the possession of Canaan was the practical fulfillment, and the national religion of the Hebrews was the visible presentation, of the covenant of circumcision.

Thus it is seen that there were two covenants, distinct from each other, of different dates, designed for different purposes, and dissimilar in their characters. Accordingly the apostles speak familiarly of “the covenants; ” of “the old covenant;” of “the new covenant;” and these “covenants ” they everywhere represent, consider, and contrast, as separate and distinct from each other. Paul, employing the language of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 31:31-34.) thus speaks in relation to this important topic: — “ Behold the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah; not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt.”

And “in that he saith ‘a new covenant,’ he hath made the first old.” (Hebrews 8:8-12.) There are therefore two covenants; the one the covenant of the law, the organized development of the Jeremiah covenant of circumcision made with Abraham, which is “the old covenant;” the other the covenant of the gospel, the covenant between God the Father and the Son, the promise of which was announced to Abraham, which is “the new covenant. ” The covenant of the law constituted the dispensation of Moses, and was the covenant of the Jewish church; the covenant of the gospel is the covenant of grace and redemption, the covenant of the Christian church. The covenant of the law had circumcision annexed; the covenant of grace, in Christ Jesus, which was not visibly administered until after the law, or old covenant, had passed away, has baptism annexed. And yet Pedobaptists declare in the face of all these facts, that the Jewish and the Christian are the same church, and subsist under the same covenant! Never was there a conclusion more palpably antiscriptural.

Pedobaptists also declare that circumcision and baptism “were instituted in the same church, under the same covenant;” that they are “of the same import, and for the same purpose.” But the declarations of our Lord Jesus Christ on the subject contradict them in every particular. He asserts distinctly, that circumcision belonged to the law of Moses, and was identified with the covenant of Sinai. It never was therefore of the gospel, since the gospel covenant is “not according to,” or like “the covenant” of Sinai. To the Jews the Savior said: — “Moses gave you circumcision.” And again. “A man on the sabbath day received circumcision that the law of Moses be not broken.” (John 7:22,23.)

Did Moses give them circumcision? Then circumcision was a part of his ceremonial law. Is it objected that the rite was in existence before Moses?

Sacrifices were also in existence before Moses. Circumcision may therefore be said to have belonged to his law, as properly as sacrifices may be said to have belonged to his law. Or if it is still insisted that circumcision belonged to the gospel, and was succeeded by baptism; with the same truth may it be asserted that the offering of slain beasts in sacrifice belonged to the gospel and is now succeeded by the sacrifice of the mass. Circumcision and baptism are both types; but they are not the same type indifferent forms, since circumcision according to Paul, was a type of regeneration by the Spirit, and baptism, as John avers, is a representation, or type, of the burial and resurrection of Christ? (1 John 5:8.) And since circumcision and baptism are both types, the former is not a type of the latter, because one type cannot be a type of another type. Nor can one type ever be substituted for another type. Baptism, therefore, cannot take the place of circumcision. They are distinct things, and must ever so remain. The claim of Pedobaptists that circumcision “was instituted in the same church, under the same covenant, and for the same purpose,” with baptism, that is, in the gospel church, amounts to the declaration that the gospel church is in fact, built upon the law of Moses! We have now seen that the Jewish church and the Christian church are not the same church in different dispensations, that they are not under the same covenant, that baptism does not come in the place of circumcision, and that the Pedo-baptist argument that maintains the opposite of our conclusions, is palpably antiscriptural.

I have been necessarily somewhat prolix in this discussion, but I could not in a narrower compass present the subject clearly and intelligibly. I have shown conclusively how for the support of infant baptism Judaism is engrafted upon the gospel of Christ. It has been seen that the argument, by which this great evil is perpetrated, proves vastly too much, and leads directly into all the extremes of popery; that it is in conflict with Christianity as taught by Christ and his apostles, who deprecated Judaism as destructive of true religion; that it perverts and renders unintelligible the true analogy between the Jewish church and the Christian church, and which I have explained at some length, showing that it does not intimate the legitimacy of infant baptism, but teaches such doctrines as necessarily forbid it; and that it is utterly antiscriptural, confounding the law and the gospel, and leading men into confusion and error. Judaism in the gospel church is what Hagar and Ishmael were in the family of Abraham, a shame, and an offense. “Therefore cast out the bond woman and her son.” Sever the chains by which the bride of Messiah is manacled, and bound to the chariot of Sinai. Be it ours to contemplate the church of the Redeemer, not under the clouds of Judaism in which infant baptism has involved it, not obscured among the shadows of a former dispensation, but as developed in the gospel, distinct, spiritual, sanctified, the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In conclusion, I will only observe that by how much the gospel is thus corrupted, rendered difficult of comprehension, its forms changed, and its benevolent designs rendered inoperative, by so much is infant baptism, to which all this may be justly ascribed, a lamentable, a most melancholy evil.

CHAPTER - INFANT BAPTISM IS AN EVIL BECAUSE IT FALSIFIES THE DOCTRINE OF UNIVERSAL DEPRAVITY.

Statement of the subject; nature of alleged infant claims; their conflict with the doctrine of depravity; incompatibility of these sentiments. THE children of those parents “who profess the true religion,” are born, it is alleged, in the covenant, and church of our Lord Jesus Christ! On this ground mainly, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and other Calvinists, maintain their right to baptism. A glimmering of the same doctrine runs through the teachings of all the other sects. It is true as Bushel justly remarks: — That “no settled opinions of the grounds, or import of infant baptism has ever been attained to” by them all. 1 In this, however, they agree as nearly as they do in any other doctrine regarding that ordinance. It is my purpose in the present chapter, to show that this aspect of the subject develops prominently, another of its evils, since it falsifies the doctrine of universal depravity.

Pedobaptists claim that the infant offspring of believers enjoy hereditary rights to the covenant of grace, and their attendant privileges of baptism, and membership in the visible church. The truth of this statement I shall now certify in such a manner as to render it in, disputable. “It is an important inquiry, ” says a distinguished writer upon the Symbols and Rubric of the English church, “to what infants that title belongs. For not all even in the sight of man, can be considered as fit subjects for that holy rite,” baptism. “Are the children of infidels fit subjects?” “Baptism administered to them is not warranted by our church.” 2 Bishop Jewell says — “ No person which will profess Christ’s name ought to be restrained or kept back therefrom, no not even the babes of Christians, for asmuch as they” “do pertain unto the people of God.” 3 Nowell, Beveridge, and the other British fathers, teach the same doctrine. “We see then,” says Mr.

Goode, “the necessity of inquiring whether the child [brought to be baptized] is the offspring of parents who are at least professed Christians.” “Here is a question not decided by the church.” More unscrupulous ministers will baptize any child for whom sponsors can be procured. “But it is at least reasonable to think that our church, administering baptism on the grounds stated by Jewell and Nowell, administers it on the supposition” that the parents are believers. “The faith of the parent is to the infant, as an infant,” “mercifully reckoned by God as imputable to the infant, and on the strength of this it is baptized; faith and baptism together, as in the case of adults, perfecting the work of infantine regeneration. 4 We have in these passages, the doctrine on the subject of the more evangelical of the English church, and her doctrine in the premises is the doctrine of the Methodist church, and of the Episcopal church in the United States. Dr. A. Clarke therefore confidently says: — “Though infants have not, and cannot have actual faith, yet they are sanctified by being born of religious parents. They are already in some sense, within the limits of the church and covenant of promise.” 5 The Westminster Confession, however, is definite. Its language is: — “The visible church, which is also Catholic, consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion, together with their children; and is the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God.” 6 The Directory is still more explicit. It is there affirmed that the children of believers are “Born within the church, have by their birth inheritance in the covenant, and right to [baptism] the seal of it;” “that they are Christians, and federally holy before baptism, and therefore are they baptized.” On this subject Mr. Baxter remarks: — God hath made, and offered to the world a covenant of grace, and in it the pardon of sin to all true penitent believers, and power to become the sons of God, and heirs of heaven. This covenant is extended also to the seed of the faithful to give them the benefits suitable to their age, the parents dedicating them to God, and entering them into the covenant, and so God in Christ will be their God, and number them with his people.” Mr. Baxter further says — “As children are made sinners and miserable by their parents without any act of their own, so they are delivered out of it by the free grace of Christ, not through their own faith, but upon conditions performed by their parents.” 7 And still further. “Of those baptized in infancy, some do betimes receive the secret seeds of grace, which by the blessing of a holy education is stirring in them according to their capacity… so that they never were actual ungodly persons ” The late Dr. Miller says: — “The children of professing Christians are already in the church. They are born members. They are baptized because they were members. They receive the seal of the covenant because they are already in the covenant by virtue of their birth.” From these expositions we learn that, according to our Pedobaptist brethren, the children of believers are born in the covenant of grace, and have, by right of birth, the enjoyment of all its blessings; are born members of the church, and by hereditary descent are entitled to the privileges of membership in the house of God, and to the promises of salvation. These are prerogatives arising exclusively from their hereditary relations. Their parents are holy. Therefore their children are holy. Of all such Dr. Hopkins says: — “The church receive and look upon them as holy. So they are as visibly holy, or as really holy in their view, as their parents are.” With these doctrines distinctly before us we turn to consider the subject of universal depravity, that we may ascertain to what extent these two principles harmonize with each other. Depravity, I remark, consists essentially in a state of mind the opposite of that which is required by the law of God. The law commands, and the obligation is imperative upon every human being, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy soul, with all thy mind, and with all thy strength, and thy neighbor as thyself.” (Matthew 22:37.)

The want of this love on the one hand, and the love of the world on the other, places the soul in that moral position known as depravity. By nature, men prefer the world and its sinful gratifications, to the love of God and of their neighbor. The creature usurps in their affections the place of the Creator. The moral powers are perverted, and turned aside from God.

This is depravity. And I now remark that it is universal. It attaches to every human being. All are naturally affected by it in the same manner, and to the same extent. In this respect no material original difference exists between the children of the rich and the poor, the free and the bond, the holy and the unholy, the believer and the unbeliever. In subsequent life their characters are often very different. But this arises not from any difference in moral qualities, but in constitutional temperament, in instruction, in discipline, and in associations. These facts are apparent to every intelligent observer. We see in the children of all classes, the same inclination to evil, and the same estrangement from God, more or less strongly developed. But they are fully confirmed by the word of God. “The lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eye, and the pride of life,” all by nature pursue in preference to “the things of the Spirit” of God. The children of religious parents are involved in this depravity, to an extent fully as great as the children of others, who occupy with them the same social position. “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” (Romans 5:12) “The scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.” (Galatians 3:10-12.)

Than this what language can be more conclusive? It is therefore undeniably true that all are corrupt; that all are alike depraved.

Our brethren themselves, notwithstanding their doctrine of the holiness of the children of believers, maintain, and emphatically teach universal depravity. The Episcopal church thus expresses herself — “Original sin” is the fault, or corruption of every man that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam, whereby every man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil.” 10 The Methodist church says: — Original sin “is the corruption of the nature of every man that is naturally engendered of the offspring of Adam, whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and of his own nature inclined to evil, and that continually.” 11 Calvinism in all its sects speaks thus: — Our first parents by sin “fell from their original righteousness and communion with God, and so became dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body. They being the root of all mankind, the guilt of their sin was imputed, and the same death in sin, and corrupted nature, were conveyed to all their posterity, descending from them by ordinary generation. From this original corruption, whereby we are naturally indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all acts of transgression.” 12 All other evangelical denominations hold the same principles. They all teach universal depravity. Every man, therefore, descended of Adam, all the posterity of our first parents, are naturally indisposed to good, wholly inclined to evil and that continually.

Let the doctrine of infant baptism, as based upon hereditary claims of the children of believers to the covenant of grace, be now compared with the doctrine of universal depravity. We take them both as set forth by pedobaptists themselves. On the one hand they earnestly teach that the children of believers “are sanctified by being born of religious parents,” are “born within the church, and have by their birth inheritance in the covenant,” “are federally holy,” and for these and like reasons, are baptized. Persons cannot have, at birth, all these endowments, and be at the same time wholly corrupt. Therefore the infant offspring of believers are not naturally depraved. On the other hand, they all earnestly teach that “every one ” is wholly depraved. “Every man ” descended of Adam, is “defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body,” all “are naturally indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil. ” With this corrupt nature “all that are naturally engendered of the offspring of Adam” are born. The children of believing parents are not excepted, but fully included, since they too “are naturally engendered of the offspring of Adam,” and are a part of “all men. ” Are such corrupt and depraved persons holy? Are they born members of the church? Are they naturally inheritors of all the benefits of the covenant of grace? It is impossible. They cannot at the same time be holy and corrupt, sanctified and depraved, in the gospel covenant and “naturally indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil.” Both these propositions cannot be true. The one falsifies the other. But that all are born in sin, and are by nature, depraved, is true. The word of God emphatically declares it. The whole doctrine of hereditary claims to the covenant of grace, therefore, upon which our brethren so confidently predicate infant baptism, falsities the doctrine of universal depravity; his baseless in itself, and upon their own principles; and it is fraught with mischief, “full of deadly evil.”

There are at least, I may now add, two other, and collateral disastrous consequences which arise from this aspect of infant baptism, and which must here be briefly noticed. The former is the absurdity that religion is hereditary; and the latter that the children of believers have no need of the regenerating influences of the Spirit of God!

In the first place, if children are “holy, ” are “in the covenant of grace,” are “members of the church” “by being born of religious parents, ” then these children inherit “by their birth, ” all the blessings of religion, and of course, become religious by natural generation. The infant children of believers are in the covenant and church of Christ, because their parents are in the covenant and church of Christ. The infant children of unbelievers are not in the covenant and church of Christ, because their parents are not in the covenant and church of Christ. Religion and irreligion therefore are results of natural generation. Paul the apostle declares this whole hypothesis untrue. “The children of the flesh, ” he affirms, “are not [therefore] the children of the covenant.” (Galatians 3:12-20.)

But Pedobaptists allege, that the children of the flesh of believers, are the heirs of the covenant, and for the very reason that they are the children of the flesh. Which shall we believe? Paul, or our Pedobaptist brethren? The Bible or the Confessions of Faith? We cannot believe both, since, in the plainest terms, they contradict each other.

In the second place, if the infant children of believing parents are “holy,” are “in the covenant of grace,” are “born in the church,” then of course, their nature is pure. The work of the Spirit is not necessary to cleanse their hearts, and fit them for a higher life. They are the children of believing parents, and therefore “sanctified. ” They are born holy! All this they are carefully taught from childhood. Are they not likely to believe it? If they do, they cannot also believe that they have a depraved and corrupt heart.

Consequently they can never feel very deeply, their miserable condition as sinners, nor appreciate highly the grace of God in the gift of a Savior. They are thus, and by their teachers, made ignorant of their own hearts, and deceived in a most vital point. I will not say that they never will be converted. It is evident, however, that their salvation is thus placed in fearful jeopardy.

It is now demonstrated that, by arrogating hereditary claims to the covenant of grace, infant baptism falsifies the doctrine of universal depravity, teaches that religion is propagated by natural generation, and that the children of believing parents have no need of the renewing power of the Holy Spirit of God. Thus infant baptism inculcates a religion that is neither moral nor spiritual, but merely physical. It is therefore a most revolting evil.

CHAPTER - INFANT BAPTISM IS AN EVIL BECAUSE THE DOCTRINES UPON WHICH IT RESTS CONTRADICT THE GREAT FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE OF JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH.

Justification by faith; infant baptism; the two contrasted; reciprocal influence in the primitive churches; justification by faith restored at the Reformation; embodied with infant baptism in all the Confessions of Faith; effect upon Protestantism; one or the other must be abandoned. THE doctrines upon which infant baptism rests, and the great fundamental principle of justification by faith, are in irreconcilable contradiction. They are throughout, the antagonists of each other. To them both no church, nor individual, can consistently adhere. One or the other must, sooner or later, be abandoned. Their opposite characters indicate this result, and the history of the church, primitive, Popish, and Protestant, evinces that it is inevitable. Let the doctrines in question be separately stated, and compared.

The great fundamental principle of justification by faith, is taught in the word of God, in terms perfectly full and explicit. We are, says an apostle, “Justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins,” “that he might be just, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.” (Romans 3:24-26.)

And “being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Romans 5:1.)

Justification is the act of God by which he declares a man just and righteous. The justified are accepted, and approved, as if they had never sinned. This is an act of God’s own free and sovereign grace, and therefore necessarily irrespective of any works or worthiness on the part of the justified. It is by faith, not as a meritorious agency to procure justification, but as the medium through which it is bestowed. We are not justified for faith, as if it were of itself a sufficient righteousness, since faith no more than works can constitute such righteousness, but by faith through grace. “It is of faith, that it might be by grace;” faith being characterized by a peculiarity which harmonizes with grace, and which looks not to itself, but to Christ for righteousness and salvation. This, briefly, is justification by faith, as taught in the word of God.

How shall we ascertain the doctrines of infant baptism? They are not made known to us in the Bible. Revelation is silent on that whole subject. We must, of course, rely upon the statements of Protestant Pedobaptists for our authority. With Papists I have at present nothing to do. Dr. Wall is more definite on this topic than any other writer now before me. He says: — “Most of the Pedobaptists go no further than St. Austin does. They hold that God by his Spirit, does, at the time of baptism, seal and apply to the infant that is there dedicated to him, the promises of the covenant of which he is capable, viz.: adoption, pardon of sins, [and] translation from the state of nature to that of grace.” 1 The doctrines upon which infant baptism rests teach, therefore, that in that ordinance the child receives adoption, pardon, and translation into the state of grace, and of course that he receives justification! Davenant, the Bishop of Salisbury, thus speaks on this subject: — “ The justification, regeneration, and adoption of little children baptized, confers upon them a state of salvation.” 2 Archbishop Usher writes thus: — “The branches of this reconciliation [received by infants in their baptism] are justification, and adoption.” 3 So teach all the other divines, and all the Protestant Confessions of Faith and Catechisms.

Infants are therefore, according to this doctrine, justified before God in baptism.

Let now the great principle of justification by faith and the doctrines of infant baptism be compared. If you are justified by faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, through grace, you are not justified by baptism, either in infancy, or at any other time; and if you are justified by baptism, then you are not justified by faith. This conclusion is perfectly plain. These doctrines are therefore as opposite as darkness and light. They emphatically contradict and falsify each other.

Justification by faith, I have said, is a fundamental doctrine of the gospel.

It is vital. It is “the faith once delivered to the saints,” No system from which it is excluded, can ever be justly regarded as embodying the religion of Christ. It was taught by the apostles, and early ministers, constantly, forcibly, emphatically. It was cherished by the primitive churches as a priceless truth. How can we account for its abandonment by the professed followers of Jesus Christ? There is, I answer, an inherent tendency in human nature, renewed though it may be, to pass from the substance to the forms of religion. The transition is so easy that it can only be prevented by perpetual vigilance. The influence of this propensity the early churches did not very long escape. Among the first of the corruptions they admitted and embraced, was the undue importance which became attached to religious ceremonials, They gradually exalted the rites above the doctrines of Christianity, while both were perverted and misapplied. Baptism, especially, was imagined to possess great and peculiar virtues. Thus justification through grace by faith, was ultimately displaced by justification through grace by baptism. Popery was the result, the doctrine of which, on this subject, is thus expressed by the Council of Trent: — “Justification is ‘by means of the sacraments, either originally infused into us, or subsequently increased, or when lost, again restored.” 4 Thus the Christian world was plunged into darkness, which remained unbroken for a thousand years.

But justification by faith was restored at the Reformation. Noble efforts to give back to men this truth had previously been made by Tindall, and Wicliff, and Huss, and others, but they all fell martyrs to their benevolent designs. Finally arose “the monk of Wittenberg,” the iron-nerved Luther.

He was previously a blind slave of popery, and in his own esteem “irreproachably holy.” His penances, mortifications, and obedience, were exemplary; but of true religion he knew nothing. In his monastery, apparently by accident, he found a copy of the Bible. It was the first he had ever seen. He read it with mingled surprise and delight. He began to be enlightened, but his soul rebelled against its teachings. Referring to his state of mind at this period, he himself says: — “ I could not endure the expression, ‘The righteous justice of God.’ I did not love that just and holy being that punishes sinners.” But the study of the Bible, with prayer, was continued daily. At length that striking passage attracted his attention, “The just shall live by faith.” It originated a train of thought, and feeling, wholly new. “There is then,” it occurred to him, “another life for the just than that possessed by other men, and this life is the fruit of faith!” Thus dawned upon his mind the great doctrine of justification by faith, which led first to his own reconciliation to God, and then to other consequences of infinite moment. In allusion to this event Luther remarks in another place: — “When by the Spirit of God I understood these words, ‘The just shall live by faith’; when I learned how the justification of the sinner proceeds from God’s mere mercy, by the way of faith; then I felt myself born again as a new man, and I entered by an opened door into the very paradise of God. From that hour I saw the precious and holy scriptures with new eyes. I went through the whole Bible. I collated a multitude of passages, which taught me what the work of God was, and as I had before heartily hated that expression, ‘The righteous justice of God,’ I began from this time to value and love it, as the sweetest and most consolatory truth.

Truly this text, ‘The just shall live by faith,’ was to me the very gate of heaven.” Was Luther now free from those delusions which had so long led men to rely for justification upon works of various kinds, ordinances, penances, and mortifications? It would be very natural to suppose that he was. But he had gained no such freedom. The profoundest ignorance rested in those days, upon the minds of men. Thick darkness, in many respects, still covered his own soul. He dared not quit his secluded cell, and very naturally hesitated to act in opposition to the whole religious world. His fetters were not broken until some years after, when on business of his monastery, he visited Rome. While there he determined, for the sake of the indulgence promised, to ascend in the prescribed manner “la Scala Santa,” a sacred staircase preserved in that city, up which our Savior is said to have passed when brought before Pilate. “He began, but had not, dragged his prone body many steps before a voice arrested him in tones of thunder, ‘The just shall live by faith.’ Startled at these accents of terror, he hurried like a guilty thing, from the spot, and from that hour the doctrine, although mingled with other and contradictory doctrines, took full possession of his soul. He planted himself upon it as upon a rock, and looked serenely back on the wild sea through which he had been struggling. The last rivet in his chain was severed, and he stood up a freeman.” 6 Justification by faith was thus recalled from the oblivion into which it had been so long driven, and through the instrumentality of the leading mind, became the central principle of the Reformation.

All the denominations that then sprang out of Popery, did not agree as to the details of religion. Hence their separate organizations. But they all concurred in the doctrine of justification by faith, whether Lutheran, Calvinist, or Episcopalian. They each embodied it fully in their separate Confessions, and other standards. And strange as it may appear, they also embodied in the same symbols, that opposite and Contradictory system, infant baptism. Why they did this will more fully appear hereafter. I now speak of facts only. I am not attempting to account for them. Thus they threw together conflicting elements, which, as they had before done, gradually destroyed the blessings which had been gained. To the sublimest truths they united the rankest corruption. To the gospel of Christ they chained the main supports of Popery, ignorance, and worldly conformity.

These facts are most readily demonstrated by reference to the standards themselves.

In the first place, I shall show that the Confessions of all the Protestant sects embody the doctrine of justification by faith. The Augsburg Confession is the symbol of Lutheranism. Its fourth article is in the following words: — “They teach also that men cannot be justified before God by their own efforts, merits, or works, but are justified freely through Christ by faith, and are received into favor, and enjoy the remission of sins, through Christ, who by his death presented a satisfaction for sin.” In full agreement with this is the Westminster Confession, which doctrinally is embraced by all classes of Calvinists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Independents, and others: — “Those whom God effectually calleth he also freely justifieth; not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting, and accepting their persons as righteous; not for any thing wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ’s sake alone; not by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience to them as their righteousness, but by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ unto them, they resting on him as their righteousness by faith; which faith they have not of themselves, it is the gift of God. Faith thus received, and resting on Christ, and his righteousness, is the alone instrument of justification.” The doctrine of the Episcopal Church in all its sects, is contained in the eleventh of the Thirty-Nine Articles, in the following language: — “ We are accounted righteous before God only for the merits of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ by faith, and not for our works or deservings. Therefore that we are justified by faith only, is a most wholesome doctrine, and very full of comfort.”

Of the doctrine of the Methodist church in all its departments, the “Articles of Religion,” in the Discipline, is the symbol. Their ninth article speaks thus: — “ We are accounted righteous before God only for the merits of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ by faith, and not for any of our own works or deservings. Wherefore that we are justified by faith only, is a most wholesome doctrine, and very full of comfort.”

These are the principal Confessions of Faith of all the Protestant sects, and we have now seen their teaching on this subject. If they are to be believed, we are justified before God, not by our own efforts, merits, or worthiness, not by any thing done by us, or in us, not of course by baptism, or by any other act of obedience whatever, but alone through grace by faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. How great, how vital, how evangelical, how infinitely, important this truth! Who could have supposed that they would have inserted in each one of these very formularies any principle directly and plainly contradicting that already so fully and elaborately stated? Yet they did so. Infant baptism finds a place there, sustained by all the doctrines with which Popery had surrounded it. For proof in the premises we retrace these several Confessions.

The Augsburg is as follows; — “They teach concerning baptism that it is necessary to salvation, because by baptism the grace of God is offered. Infants are to be baptized, who being brought to God by baptism, are received into his favor.” The Westminster Confession says: — “ Baptism is a sacrament of the New Testament, ordained by Jesus Christ, not only for the solemn admission of the party baptized into the church, but also to be unto him a sign and seal of the covenant of grace, of remission of sins, and of his giving up unto God through Jesus Christ, to walk in newness of life.” 10 “By the right use of this ordinance the grace promised is not only offered, but really exhibited, 11 and conferred.” The Thirty-Nine Articles teach thus: — “ Baptism is not only a sign of profession, and a mark of difference wherein Christian men are discerned from others that be not christened, but it is also a sign of regeneration or the new birth, whereby as by an instrument, they that receive baptism rightly, are engrafted into the church. The promise of the forgiveness of sins, of our adoption to be the sons of God by the Holy Ghost, are visibly signed and sealed.” “The baptism of young children is in any wise to be retained in the church, as most agreeable to the institution of Christ.” “The Methodist Articles of Religion” speak as follows: — “Baptism is not only a sign of profession, and mark of difference whereby Christians are distinguished from others that are not baptized, but is also a sign of regeneration, or the new birth. The baptism of young children is in any wise to be retained in the church.” Thus we have the teachings of all these Confessions on baptism. The summary may be embraced in a few words. Lutherans declare that baptism is necessary to salvation, and that by it infants are received into the favor of God, and saved. Presbyterians, with all their kindred sects, maintain that baptism is to the child a sign and seal of the covenant of grace, of his engrafting into Christ, of regeneration, and of the remission of sins, and that all these are by baptism not only offered to the child, but really exhibited and conferred upon him. And Episcopalians and Methodists affirm that by baptism the new birth, the forgiveness of sins, and adoption, are all to the child, visibly signed and sealed. The child therefore in baptism, is pardoned of his sin, regenerated, is adopted, is received into the church, received into the favor of God, and saved. All this certainly involves justification, or the declaring the person innocent of crime. These Confessions teach, therefore, the justification of the sinner by baptism.

Consequently on the doctrine of justification by faith, and the doctrines upon which they rest infant baptism, the Confessions, each and all of them, plainly, palpably, unmistakably contradict themselves. If you are justified, pardoned, and saved through grace by faith, and not by works, merit, or obedience of any kind, then you cannot be justified, pardoned, and saved by baptism. But it may be objected that infants are not capable of faith. Neither therefore, I answer, are they capable of baptism. They are saved by grace through Christ, and without baptism. Is baptism necessary to their salvation? God forbid. Why then baptize them, since the act is without authority, and without benefit? And especially why teach that baptism gives them pardon, regeneration, adoption, and salvation?

Do I deal unjustly with these several sects when I thus represent them as in collision with themselves? Their inconsistencies on this point have been noticed and condemned by others as well as Baptists. Moehler, a Catholic priest, and recently Professor of Divinity in Munich, one of the most eminent Roman Catholic scholars of the age, says: — “ At the commencement of the Reformation, Luther and Melancthon evinced on this matter the most decided opposition to the Catholic church; and the internal ground of their opposition lay entirely in their one-sided conception of the justification of man before God. Hereby especially the communication of really sanctifying graces by means of the sacraments was thrown into the background, nay even totally called in question.” “The highest point to which they could rise was the one-sided view of the sacraments considered as pledges of the truth of the divine promises for the forgiveness of sins. The sacraments accordingly were to have no other destination than. to make the faithful receiver assured that his debt of sins was remitted, and to console and quiet him.” “So mean a conception of the sacraments necessarily led to the view that they operate only through faith in the divine promise of the forgiveness of sins. It was only in course of the disputes with the fanatics, as Luther called them, or with the Sacramentarians, that the reformers of Wittenberg approximated again to the doctrine of the [Papal] church. Already the Confession of Augsburg expresses itself, though indefinitely enough, yet still in a manner to enable Catholics to declare themselves tolerably satisfied with it.” “By degrees the Lutherans [and all other Protestants] again adopted the entire notion of the opus operatum, although they continue even down to the present day to protest against it.” “Thus in course of time no important difference [in the premises] inherent in the nature of things, could be pointed out” between Catholics and Protestants. 15 This testimony from an enemy is true. Still Protestants of all classes, as everywhere else, so among us, in their sermons, and their conversations, from the pulpit, and the press, continue to protest that they do not attribute to baptism any justifying or saving power. And do they not? I have fairly recited the very words of their Confessions of Faith ! Do they believe these Confessions? Let us turn to some of their standard writers, and see how they express themselves on this subject. “The gospel,” says Henry, the distinguished Presbyterian commentator, “contains not only a doctrine, but a covenant, and by baptism we are brought into that covenant. Baptism wrests the keys of the heart out of the hand of the strong man armed, that the possession may be surrendered to him whose right it is. The water of baptism is designed for our cleansing from the spots and defilements of the flesh. In baptism our names are engraven upon the breast-plate of the High Priest. This, then, is the efficacy of baptism; it is putting the child’s name into the gospel grant. We are baptized into Christ’s death; that is, God doth in that ordinance seal, confirm, and make over to us, all the benefits of the death of Christ,” among which, of course, must be embraced justification. Professor Charles Hodge, one of the Theological Instructors at Princeton, says: — “We are baptized in order that we should die with him, [Christ] i.e., that we should be united to him in his death, and partakers of his benefits. This baptism unto repentance, Matthew in 3:11, is baptism in order to repentance; baptism unto the remission of sins, Mark 1:4, that remission of sins may be obtained.” 17 Bishop Bedell says: — “This I yield to my Lord of Sarum most willingly, that the justification, and adoption which children have in baptism is not univoce the same with that which adults have. And this I likewise do yield to you, that it is vera solutio reatus, et veraciter, et in rei veritate performed in all the like emphatical forms, etc.” 18 Bishop Burnet says: — “Here, then, is the inward effect of baptism; it is a death to sin, and a new life in Christ.” “We are not only ‘baptized into one body,’ but also saved by baptism.” 19 The Episcopal Catechism affirms that the child is by his “baptism, made a member of Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven.”

These are the expositions of standard writers among Pedobaptists themselves, of all classes, explanatory of the efficacy of baptism as taught in their Confessions. They effectually shield me from the charge of misrepresentation, and at the same time evince that their doctrine is such, in the language of Moehler, as “to enable Catholics to declare themselves tolerably satisfied with it.” They inculcate, as do their Confessions, justification by faith, and also justification by baptism. Thus they contradict in one place what they teach in another. But Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Methodists, do not surely believe these baptismal doctrines! Many of them, I admit, earnestly deny it! Gladly would we credit their disavowals. But we take up their standards, catechisms, and writers of authority, and there, word for word, are the passages I have recited, and much, very much more of the same character. They deny that they believe their doctrines, and yet they continue to publish them to the world as expressing truly their faith. From the pulpit and from the press they disclaim and repudiate them; but when called to the. sacred altar, in their vows of office, they solemnly declare before God and men, that they do believe them “ex animo !” What now shall we say? They deny; they affirm; they again deny; and again affirm! The same contradictions which so strikingly mark their Confessions and Catechisms, we find pervading all their teachings, and practice! I lament these facts, but they are so natural to their position, that from them there seems to be, without changing their ecclesiastical relations, no way of escape.

We now turn to consider briefly, the results of the condition of things submitted. They are evil; and evil only. Look over the Protestant Christian world as it exists at the present moment, and you will find that infant baptism is again rapidly expelling, as it did in early times, the doctrine of justification by faith from the churches. Among the Lutherans of Germany, the Calvinists in continental Europe, the Episcopalians in England, and others — I speak of them as communities — the baptism of infants is observed with the utmost carefulness, but justification by faith has no practical influence whatever. It is still in their Confessions, but it has been banished from their pulpits, from their hearts, and from the faith of their people. Justification by faith they receive from the Bible. Infant baptism and its accompanying doctrines, they receive from Popery. The former is of God. The latter is of men. They cannot continue to exist together. All those churches, now regarded as evangelical, will, sooner or later, give up justification by faith, or they will give up infant baptism. What has been will be again. “Coming events cast their shadows before.” Justification by faith from one direction, and the doctrines of infant baptism from the other, like opposing currents in the ocean, meet and form a whirlpool, in which no church exposed to its violence can long survive.

We have now seen the doctrine of justification by faith, and the principles of infant baptism, and contrasting them, have found that they are wholly contradictory and irreconcilable; we have seen that it was infant baptism mainly, which expelled the doctrine of justification by faith from the early churches, and brought on Popery, by which the world was shrouded in darkness for a thousand years; we have seen through what providential agency this great doctrine was restored, and how it became the central principle of the Reformation; we have seen that though justification by faith is embodied in all the Protestant Confessions, Catechisms, and other formularies, it is placed in them side by side with infant baptism, and its doctrines, and that, as elsewhere, they reciprocally contradict, refute, and nullify each other; we have seen, in the history of Protestantism, the practical results of uniting these conflicting elements, and have found that they cannot exist together, but that the destruction of this fundamental doctrine is the inevitable result of maintaining infant baptism; and we have seen that the tendency of all the other Protestant sects is in the same direction, and that they also, must ultimately abandon practically, if not professedly, either justification by faith, or infant baptism, with the principles upon which it is maintained, and defended. It is now demonstrated fully, that the doctrines, upon which infant baptism rests, contradict the great fundamental principle of justification by faith. It is therefore, in all its bearings and influences, an alarming and most disastrous evil.

CHAPTER - INFANT BAPTISM IS AN EVIL BECAUSE IT IS IN DIRECT CONFLICT WITH THE DOCTRINE OF REGENERATION BY THE HOLY SPIRIT Nature of regeneration; its early identity with baptism; Popish doctrine on the subject: true principle restored at the Reformation; again confounded; Confessions of Faith, Catechisms, standard writers; contradictions; evils inflicted. THE relations of infant baptism to the doctrines of justification by faith, and regeneration by the Holy Spirit, are in many respects the same. In the preceding chapter we considered the former. We now proceed to examine the latter. This also is a vital topic. It must not be summarily dispatched. It is necessary to both your happiness, and your safety, that you should understand it. You may easily be misled. God forbid that any obstruction should be thrown in the way of your obtaining a full knowledge of all that concerns your everlasting life.

Our brethren of all the Protestant denominations 1 teach that we are regenerated by the spirit of God; and they also teach that we are regenerated by baptism ! Both these propositions cannot be true. This is self evident, since they are in direct conflict with each other. By the word of God, we are instructed that, while, on the one hand, regeneration is a spiritual change wrought in the soul by the Holy Ghost, baptism, on the other, is merely an outward ordinance of our religion. The one is the work of God; the other is the work of man. Believers only, can be admitted to baptism; every believer is regenerate: consequently none but the regenerate can be lawfully baptized. Regeneration must then, as you perceive, come before baptism. And besides, the supposition that baptism is essential to regeneration, or ever produces it, is absurd. He who is regenerate is “born again,” “born of God,” “born of the Spirit,” “quickened” into new life, has “Christ formed in him the hope of glory,” and is “made a partaker of the divine nature.” The moral image of God, lost by sin, in regeneration is restored to the soul. Is baptism, or any other ordinance, or all the ordinances together, competent to this great work? Why should it be effected in baptism rather than in any other Christian duty? Is it obtained by these, or by any similar acts? Then it is certainly, in part at least, the work of man. But can regeneration be so accomplished? The supposition is at war equally with reason, and the word of God. He only who created us originally, has power to renew, and so to change our nature that we shall be conformed to the character of our Lord Jesus Christ, enabled to love him supremely, to delight in his service, and to overcome all our corrupt propensities, and dispositions. Regeneration is one thing, and baptism is another and wholly different thing; nor are they, in any sense, dependent the one upon the other. How profoundly to be deprecated the fact that they should be confounded, and that, by any class of men, the latter should be substituted for the former! This deplorable evil, to all who truly love our Lord Jesus Christ, and have any just conceptions of the gospel, is matter of the deepest regret. Regeneration is essential to salvation. “Except a man be born again he can in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.” “Ye must be born again.” But he who has mistaken baptism for the new birth is never regenerated. How then can he be saved?

Dangerous, however, and fearfully fatal, as is this insidious error, it nevertheless arose in the church at a very early period. Its appearance was simultaneous with the perversion of the doctrine of justification by faith. It was a result, evidently, of a misconception of the design of baptism.

According to the apostles, baptism is one of the witnesses of God, for our Lord Jesus Christ, (the other two being the Spirit, and the blood, that is, the sacred supper,) and it bears testimony to the amazing facts that he died for our sins, and was buried, and rose again for our justification. In receiving baptism we express our faith in the primary truth that “we have redemption by his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace.” Had the church adhered unwaveringly to apostolic instruction on this topic, the defection we now deplore never could have occurred. But the fathers became, unhappily, wiser than the apostles, and they determined that it was necessary to have some sacramental emblem of the work not only of God the Son, but also of God the Holy Spirit. The Lord’s supper being commemorative of the sufferings and death of Christ, they thought that sufficient for him, and so removed baptism from its legal place, as a concurring witness, and not only without authority, but expressly against authority, made it a witness, and significant of regeneration. They accordingly defined it, “the outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual grace.” Here the perversion commenced. It was soon established. The work of deterioration then rapidly progressed. Ere long all distinction was forgotten, and the church and her teachers confounded hopelessly, what they called “the sign,” with “the thing signified.” With them baptism was now regeneration, and regeneration was baptism! This delusion fixed itself permanently, and remains to the present hour the strong fortress of Popery. Both by Papists of the West, and Greeks of the East, it is uncompromisingly maintained. The Council of Trent accordingly decreed thus: — “ If any man shall say that baptism is not essential to salvation, let him be accursed. Sin, whether contracted by birth from our first parents, or committed ourselves, is by the admirable virtue of this sacrament, remitted and pardoned. In baptism not only our sins are remitted, but also all the punishments of sins and wickedness are graciously pardoned of God. By virtue of this sacrament we are not only delivered from these evils, but also we are enriched with the best and most excellent endowments. For our souls are filled with divine grace, whereby being made just, and the children of God, we are trained up to be heirs of salvation also. To this is added a most noble train of virtues, which, together with grace, is poured into the soul. By baptism we are joined and knit to Christ as members to the head. By baptism we are signed with a character which can never be blotted out of our soul. Besides the other things we obtain by baptism, it opens to every one of us the gate of heaven, which before through sin was shut.” These facts sufficiently explain the manner in which regeneration and baptism were at first confounded, and the fatal extent of the consequent delusion. Baptism was a panacea which cured every malady. This was the condition of things everywhere prevailing, when the Reformation dawned upon the world. Spiritual religion — except among a few who were denounced as heretics, and hunted down with fire and sword — was lost, and grace, and salvation, were communicated, and obtained, only through sacraments. “Darkness covered the earth, and gross darkness the people.

The Reformation poured a flood of light upon the world. It restored the doctrine of justification by faith, as we saw in the last chapter; and it restored also, though much less perfectly, the doctrine of regeneration by the Holy Spirit. It did both by giving back to the people the Bible, of which for many centuries, priestly jealousy, and priestly domination, had deprived them. The minds of men were recalled to first principles. True penitents turned to God, and obtained as in primitive times, by faith in Christ, assurance of the divine favor, the Spirit bearing witness with their spirit that they were born of God. Luther, and Melancthon, and Calvin, and Zuingle, and Ridley, and Latimer, and their compeers, were themselves doubtless regenerated.

In Germany, and England, and France, and even in Spain, men awoke as from a sleep of ages. They shuddered when they beheld the gulf from which they were barely delivered. They commenced the work of reform.

They exposed the abuses of Popery in terms of indignant eloquence. They stated some of the doctrines of Christ with great clearness, but this, it must be confessed, is exhibited with painful obscurity. In none of the German Confessions is it presented with satisfactory distinctness. Nor is it set forth with more plainness in the Thirty-Nine Articles, or in the Articles of Religion of Mr. Wesley. The Calvinists had evidently a better comprehension of the doctrine than the other Protestants. The Westminster Confession thus speaks: — God is pleased “effectually to call [men] by his word and Spirit, out of that state of sin and death in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ; enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God, taking away their heart of stone, and giving unto them a heart of flesh; renewing their wills; and by his almighty power, determining them to that which is good.” I am gratified to say, however, that all these denominations, but especially those portions of them who have preserved their evangelical character, have gradually acquired, as they became better instructed in the word of God, more distinct and full conceptions of the work of the Spirit in regeneration, and especially is this true of the various classes of Methodists, Congregationalists, and Presbyterians in our country and in Europe. Apart from infant baptism, they recognize amply the great truth as stated by us, that regeneration is a change of heart, effected exclusively by the Holy Ghost. More than this; they give in their life and character, most gratifying evidence that they are themselves the subjects of this heavenly renovation. Thus happy, in its influence upon the character and destiny of the church and people of God, has been the Reformation.

But has any portion of the Protestant Pedobaptist world fully renounced the old Popish dogma which teaches that infants are regenerated. in baptism? Do they believe in the doctrine of regeneration as exclusively the work of the Holy Spirit, and also in the antagonistic and conflicting doctrine of regeneration by baptism? Such inconsistency, it would seem, is almost incredible. Yet when infant baptism is to be administered, or defended, all their evangelical principles are apparently forgotten. This relic of Popery can only be sustained by the dogmas of Popery. Baptism and regeneration are not now esteemed by them as separate and distinct things, but are declared essentially identical. This statement is not hazarded carelessly. It is made after mature thought, and full investigation. I am aware that it is not a light imputation. I shall therefore sustain it by the amplest evidence.

What kind of testimony may be regarded as satisfactory in proof of so grave a proposition? The declarations of Confessions of Faith, Catechisms, and accredited writers, must, of course, be conclusive. To these, therefore, I direct your attention. The Augsburg Confession says: — “Our church likewise teaches that since the fall of Adam, all men who are naturally engendered, are born with a depraved nature, that is, without the fear of God, or confidence towards him, but with sinful propensities; and that this disease, or natural depravity, is really sin, and still condemned, and causes eternal death to those who are not born again by baptism and the Holy Spirit.” 4 The earlier Helvetic, another Lutheran Confession, is still more explicit. Its language is: — “Baptism is, by the institution of the Lord, the law of regeneration. With which holy law, we, on that account, baptize our infants.” The Thirty-Nine Articles embrace in substance the declarations of the Augsburg Confession, and add, “There is no condemnation to them that believe, and are baptized. ” 5 For this reason they also baptize their infants! The Articles of Religion of the Methodist church assert that, baptism is “a sign of regeneration, or the new birth,” and is to be administered to infants. 6 The Westminster Confession says: — “Regeneration ,” with various other blessings, is “offered ” in baptism, and that “by the right use of this ordinance the grace promised is not only offered, but really exhibited and conferred by the Holy Ghost, to such, whether of, age, or infants, as that grace belongeth unto according to the counsel of God’s own will, in his appointed time.” 7 Other Confessions not yet noticed concur with these. The Belgic Confession says: — “The sacraments are signs, and visible symbols of things internal, and invisible, by which, as by means, God himself works in us by the power of the Holy Ghost.” The Heidelberg Catechism, or Confession, written by Zachary Ursinus, says: — “Christ commanded the external laws of baptism with this promise annexed, that [in it] I am not less certainly washed by his blood and Spirit, from the pollutions of the soul, that is, from all my sins.”

The Gallican Confession says: — “God really, that is, truly and efficaciously, does whatever he there [in our baptism in infancy] sacramentally shadows forth, and therefore we annex to the signs the true possession of that thing [regeneration] which is thus offered us.” 8 The same doctrine is maintained in the Bohemian, the Saxon, and all the others.

These are the teachings of the Confessions. Their lessons cannot readily be mistaken. The Catechisms maintain the same doctrine. The Bishops of the English church, in their “Answers to the Ministers of the Savoy Conference,” remark: — “We may say in faith, of every child that is baptized, that it is regenerate by God’s Holy Spirit; and the denial of it tends to Anabaptism, and the contempt of this holy sacrament, as nothing worthy, nor material whether it be administered to children or no.” 9 The present Bishop of Exeter thus states the doctrine of his church: — “The grace of God so certainly attends this ceremony of baptism, that regeneration and baptism are contemporaneous, and the terms are convertible, and may be used interchangeably.” 10 And did not Mr. Wesley express himself in similar terms? He says: — “By baptism we who are by nature the children of wrath, are made the children of God. And this regeneration which our church in so many places ascribes to baptism, is more than barely being admitted into the church, though commonly connected therewith.” “By water then as a means, the water of baptism, we are regenerated and born again, whence it is called by the apostle, ‘the washing of regeneration.’ In all ages the outward baptism is a means of the inward. Herein we receive a title to and an earnest of the kingdom, that cannot be moved. In the ordinary way, there is no other way of entering into the church, or into heaven.” “If infants are guilty of original sin, then they are proper subjects of baptism, seeing in the ordinary way, they cannot be saved unless this be washed away in baptism.” 11 Mr. Henry, Prof. Hodge, and others of their class, teach, as we saw in the last chapter, doctrines essentially the same. Mr. Ainsworth says: — “Thus to whom God giveth the sign and the seal of righteousness by faith, and of regeneration, they [the infants] have faith and regeneration; for God giveth no lying sign; he sealeth no vain or false covenants.” “If we cannot justly object against God’s work in nature, but do believe that our infants are reasonable creatures, and are born not brute beasts, but men, though actually they can manifest no reason, or understanding more than beasts, then neither can we object to God’s work in grace, but are to believe that our infants are sanctified creatures, and are born believers, not infidels, though actually they can manifest no faith, or sanctification.” 12 But Calvin himself ought to be heard in behalf of his followers. He says: — “We agree that sacraments are not empty figures, but do truly supply whatever they represent; that the efficacy of the Spirit is present in baptism to cleanse and regenerate us. ” 13 With the divines of Zurich, he had however, in this matter, one sad difficulty, which is more than intimated in the Westminster Confession. In “The Argument,” drawn up in 1549, Calvin says: — “We diligently teach that God does not put forth his power without distinction to all who receive the sacraments, but only to the elect.” If then the child is not one of the elect, it is not regenerated in baptism. If it is elect, it is certainly regenerated in baptism.

A volume might be filled with similar passages, but further proof is deemed useless. The Catechisms, and standard writers, even more conclusively than the Confessions of Faith, demonstrate, as you must plainly see, all that I have alleged. The fact is now placed beyond question that, whatever they may avow, or maintain at other times, whenever this ordinance is in question they all connect infant baptism and regeneration. With the Lutherans infants are born again by baptism; with Episcopalians baptism and regeneration are contemporaneous, and the terms are convertible; with the Methodists baptism is the means by which their infants are regenerated and born again; and with Presbyterians, since God gives no lying signs, nor seals, infants of believers are believers, and if they are elect infants, they are regenerated, sanctified, adopted, have conferred upon them, in a word, “all the benefits of the death of Christ,” “The denial of this tends,” in the language of the bishops, “to Anabaptism, and the contempt of this holy sacrament as nothing worthy, or material whether it be administered to children, or no.” They all teach, therefore, that we are regenerated exclusively by the Holy Spirit of God; and they also teach that we are regenerated by baptism! These propositions are the opposites of each other. They cannot both be true. But the doctrine of regeneration by the Holy Spirit is true. Therefore the doctrine of infant baptism is not true.

I am here again met, however, with the declaration, that the best and most pious of all these classes utterly deny that they believe at all, as charged, in baptismal regeneration. To this disclaimer I have already replied in such terms as I think appropriate. I have said that their positions are irreconcilably at variance. I have myself often heard them assure these same baptized children when grown up, who had been regenerated in their infancy, that they must yet be regenerated or they could not be saved! The attitude in which they are thus placed is most perplexing, and pitiable.

They solemnly declare to the world that they do not believe the very dogmas that in their books they solemnly declare that they do believe!

They repudiate them, adhere to them! In this dilemma they have involved themselves. I lament it sincerely, and trust that they may yet see their inconsistencies, and embrace the whole “truth as it is in Jesus.”

In these facts and considerations we have revealed another of the evils of infant baptism. It withdraws the mind from truth, and places it upon a fiction. It seduces men from the reality to the mere forms of religion. It attributes to an ordinance, which since it is despoiled of its form, and applied to unlawful subjects, is no ordinance of Jesus, a work which the Holy Ghost only can do. It is utterly subversive of the fundamental doctrine of the work of regeneration by the Spirit of God. It is a most deplorable evil.

CHAPTER - INFANT BAPTISM IS AN EVIL BECAUSE IT DESPOILS THE CHURCH OF THOSE PECULIAR QUALITIES WHICH ARE ESSENTIAL TO THE CHURCH OF CHRIST.

Qualities essential to the church; how destroyed by infant baptism; examples drawn from Protestantism in its various forms; recovery of the church hopeless. THE true visible church of our Lord Jesus Christ upon earth, is necessarily spiritual, and pure. If deprived of these qualities, it is evidently no longer his church. Its form, and organization, may still be retained; it may be great, and powerful, and honored; but it is a mere worldly corporation. It is not the church of Christ.

Do you inquire what I mean by spirituality, and purity? By spirituality I mean, that disposition of mind implanted by the Holy Ghost, by which men are inclined to love, delight in, and attend to the things of the Spirit of God. Those who are spiritual seek spiritual blessings, engage in spiritual exercises, pursue spiritual objects, are influenced by spiritual motives, and experience spiritual joys. Paul describes their character in terms, as clear as they are comprehensive. “They that are after the flesh, do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally-minded is death, but to be spiritually-minded is life, and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then, they that are in the flesh cannot please God.” (Romans 8:5-8.)

Such is spirituality. And purity is a fixed habit of abhorrence of whatever holiness forbids, whether in the heart or in the life. It is the disposition that discovers itself by a cautious fear of all that leads to sin, and by perseverance in prayer, devotion, and the service of God. Where these two qualities exist, all the others that distinguish true Christians, will ever be present. A congregation of such will be “living stones, built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 2:5.)

All those from whom they are absent, are carnal and unholy. And can men of this class legitimately compose Christ’s church upon earth? The supposition is preposterous. Spirituality, and purity, must distinguish those who are entitled to a place in the sanctuary of God.

Of this character were all those who formed the church in its original organization. The King in Zion intended and required that the holiness of his church should be preserved, and perpetuated. But how can this be done? Its accomplishment demands evidently, the strictest regard to appropriate laws of membership. That the required character cannot otherwise be attained must, to every thinking man, be perfectly obvious.

Who does not know that the character of any association, among men, is determined, and ever must be determined, by its laws of membership?

These laws decide the qualifications of the individuals of whom the association is composed. The aggregate is made up of the individuals. The character of the individuals will inevitably be the character of the association. This truth is self-evident. That would not be a Temperance society, however vehemently it might demand the name, which should receive, and retain, large numbers of men who continue in the daily use of ardent spirits as a beverage. A Literary society would not remain such, in any proper sense, when filled up with uneducated men, who neither study, nor intend to study literature. Nor would a Medical society deserve the name, if composed mostly of planters, merchants, and lawyers, who designed to give no special attention to medicine. If the specific character of the association is preserved and perpetuated, those only must be admitted to membership, and retained in the body, who are qualified by the necessary acquirements, and disposed to prosecute the objects had in view in its formation. These great truths are especially applicable to the church of Christ. Her spirituality and purity as a body, can be preserved and perpetuated no otherwise than by admitting to membership, and retaining in communion, those individuals only who are spiritual and pure.

In accordance with these facts, and corroborating their truth, the laws of membership enacted by our Lord Jesus Christ, are fixed with the greatest possible plainness and particularity. Baptism is the outward form in which this membership is given and assumed. This ordinance is essential to admission into the visible church, and of that church all who receive it are members. Paul so teaches us when he says: — “As many of you as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ.” (Galatians 3:27.)

All the denominations around us receive, and act upon this truth. At the baptism of a child in the Episcopal church, the minister says: — “We receive this child into the congregation of Christ’s flock.” 1 The Methodist minister says when a child is baptized, it is done that: — “He [this child] being delivered from thy [God’s] wrath, may be received into the ark of Christ’s church.” 2 And the Presbyterian says: — “Baptism is a sacrament of the New Testament,” “whereby the parties baptized are solemnly admitted into the visible church, and enter into an open and professed engagement to be wholly and only the Lord’s.” 3 The laws of baptism, therefore, are confessedly included in the laws of membership, Let these laws, as enacted by Messiah, now be indicated. “Teach, ” said he, and “baptize ” the instructed. “Preach the gospel,” and “him that believeth ” the gospel “baptize. ” In all your administrations let the fact be remembered, that “My kingdom is not of this world.” (John 18:26.) “The kingdom, and the dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High.” (Daniel 7:27.)

The language of the New Covenant describes truly, without doubt, the character of those who are in that covenant, and such only are legitimately, church members. “I will,” says God, “put my laws into their mind, and write them in their heart; and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people; and they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.” (Hebrews 8:6.)

By the laws of Christ, therefore, only those are to be admitted into the church who have been taught, who believe, who are not of this world, who are saints, in whose mind and heart the law of God is incorporated, and who know the Lord as their God. This character is required of them also by their relations to Jehovah. The church of God offer him acceptable worship, but this can be done by no others than those described; “for God is a Spirit, and they that worship him, must worship him in spirit and in truth.” (Romans 8:2-6.)

It is also demanded by their relations to mankind. “Ye are the salt of the earth. But if the salt have lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick, and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:13-17.)

These are some of the laws of membership in his church as fixed by Christ himself. How definite! How precise in all things! They describe, with the utmost clearness, the spiritual, and the pure. None others can enter his church, since it is his purpose to perpetuate in the body these holy qualities. The execution of these laws is confided to his ministers and people. If they swerve from their duty, the result is lost. The strictest obedience on their part, is consequently commanded, and enforced by the most solemn sanctions. He who fails in his fidelity, no matter who he is, or what may be his official position, sins against God, by disregarding his solemn injunctions; sins against the church, by corrupting and degrading it; sins against the world, because he removes and extinguishes the light by which it is to be guided to salvation; and sins against his own soul, covering himself with crime, and condemnation.

We are now prepared to inquire into the effect produced upon the character of the church by infant baptism. It sets aside all the laws of membership enacted by Christ for her preservation and glory; it proceeds upon others of its own creation, and substitution; it brings into the body, not the spiritual and pure only, but also all classes of men; and it thus impresses upon it such a character as effectually destroys its claims to be regarded as the true visible church of Christ. It is thenceforth necessarily carnal and unholy. It is not the church of Christ.

Infant baptism, I have said, necessarily leads to this melancholy result. Let this proposition be further considered. Does it not, to the extent that it prevails, throw the whole population of the country into the church? This fact no man will deny. Is it not also true, that great multitudes of these baptized children grow up to maturity in the church, worldly, sensual, wicked men? They are all members, and some of them ministers, and other officers, in the church! If, as we have seen, the character of an association as a body, is necessarily that of the individuals of which it is composed, then it follows with certainty, that infant baptism must soon despoil the church of its spirituality and purity, and render it carnal and unholy, since it is by this rite, filled with members, officers, and ministers, who are not themselves spiritual and pure, but carnal, unholy, and worldly. The church is what the members are of which it is composed.

But the evil influence in the connection in which I now speak of it, is not negative merely, it is positive, and overwhelming. It not only excludes spirituality and purity from the church, but it introduces corruptions of the most destructive character.

How it corrupts the church in her membership is sufficiently apparent. Its corrupting influence upon her doctrines has been seen in previous chapters.

I will here recapitulate. It perverts the word of God to bring it apparently into its support; it engrafts Judaism upon the gospel of Christ; its principles contradict the doctrine of justification by faith; they are in conflict with the work of the Spirit in regeneration; and they falsify the doctrine of universal depravity. What fearful destruction it has thus wrought in all that is revered and holy! What now must be her general temper, and disposition? Will she be as designed by Jesus Christ, and represented by his apostles, “A glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, but holy, and without blemish?” (Ephesians 5:27.)

Will she “crucify the flesh, with its affections and lusts?” Will she “live in the Spirit, and walk in the Spirit,” bringing forth the fruits of “love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, temperance?” Will she not rather be guided by ambition, pride, and vainglory, relying for her advancement upon measures of mere worldly policy? Will she not prefer a learned, or an eloquent, to a converted ministry? Will she not be ready to embrace any false doctrines, or unscriptural practices, which may be found congenial with her unsanctified nature, and suited to her purposes of dominion, and power? With such a spirit infant baptism has always been found inspiring the church. Nor is this less true of Protestantism than it is of Popery. Whence originated the Neology of Lutheranism, the Puseyism of Episcopacy, and the Unitarianism and Universalism of Calvinism? Had these churches adhered to the laws of membership established by Christ Jesus, and admitted, or retained in their communion, none but the truly converted, could these miserable dogmas ever have covered them with shame and misery? They are all, therefore, the legitimate offspring of infant baptism. Its advocates have “sown the wind,” and as a natural consequence, “they have reaped the whirlwind.”

Nor does the evil of infant baptism terminate even here. It blots out every vestige of the church itself, by wholly destroying its visibility ! This proposition may seem startling. Let us give, it a candid investigation.

The doctrine taught by pedobaptists would bring every child upon earth into the church as soon as it is born! We will suppose, for the sake of the illustration, that from this hour, the gospel is known in every land, and these principles universally prevail. What would be the practical effect?

Evidently that in one generation the whole world would be in the church !

The Presbyterians would baptize all the children of believing parents; the Episcopalians would baptize “upon the faith of the church,” all those for whom sponsors could be secured; and the Methodists, and others, would baptize the remainder! Not a living being would be out of the church! What now is the condition of things? The church is the world; and the world is the church! They are identical! Either there is no church; or there is no world! If the world is not the church — and we know that it is not — then there is no visible church of God upon earth ! Its visibility is destroyed; and is destroyed by infant baptism. What do we now see? The spirituality of the church is gone! The purity of the church is gone! The visibility of the church is gone! The church itself is gone! It is despoiled of those peculiar qualities which are essential to the church of Christ. If there is no other than a Pedobaptist church, then there is no true visible church of Christ upon earth!

But is not this an overstatement of the case? Would not a laudable Christian charity draw a much brighter picture than the one I have now sketched? I am reminded that the Methodist church, the Presbyterian church, the Congregational church, and several other churches in this country, and in England, are, in their numerous divisions, highly evangelical. All these, with infant baptism, still hold and teach the great fundamental truths of the gospel. I am happy to concede that this is true.

It is, however, the result of a peculiar condition of things, and cannot, therefore, discredit any argument which has been submitted on the subject. Four causes, continually acting upon them all, have hitherto preserved them, in a great measure, from falling into the same destruction which has overwhelmed others.

The first is the great Baptist principle, with which they are unceasingly in contact. In North America the Baptist churches contain a million of communicants. Four millions more, at least, are of their opinion, and under their influence. Nearly one-fourth, therefore, of all our population are strongly Baptistical. All these regard infant baptism, and infant church membership, as wholly unauthorized, and treat them as nonentities in religion. These Baptists are diffused in all the families of the land, high and low, rich and poor, bond and free, learned and unlearned. They are associated with their Pedobaptist brethren upon equal, and most intimate terms. As a consequence of this state of things, the influence of infant baptism is, to a very great extent, neutralized, and destroyed.

The second of these causes is the universal diffusion of the Bible. The word of God is now carefully studied, in Sabbath-schools, in Bible-classes, in families, and in the closet, not by scholars only, but also by all classes of our people, and it is probably better understood by them all, than it has ever been at any period since the days of the apostles. The masses are enlightened; they exercise their own judgment; and their religious opinions are approaching, consequently, much nearer the scriptural standard. In all the teachings of that holy book they find not one word to justify infant baptism. Thousands, consequently, who have received the rite, refuse utterly, to act in accordance with it. They do not regard themselves as church members, or in any way privileged spiritually, because of their infant baptism. That, say they, was only a form. And indeed, so far has this conviction proceeded, that many, very many members, even of Pedobaptist churches, do not hesitate to avow their entire disbelief in the whole theory. Hence its wide-spread neglect throughout our whole land. In proportion as the Bible is understood, loved, and obeyed, does infant baptism, in all its relations and bearings, dwindle, and recede from public view.

The third cause is found in the character of our Pedobaptist ministry. The great body of them, and especially of those connected with the denominations I have named, are converted men. Their religion and good sense lead them involuntarily to discard, except in its forms, the puerilities of their distinguishing rite. They preach to all alike, and boldly declare to sinners of every class, that if they are saved at all, it must be alone by the grace of God in Jesus Christ our Lord, whom they can approach only as penitent believers, and whose Spirit must renew and sanctify their hearts.

Thus preaching the fundamental truths of the gospel, they falsify infant baptism, keep it out of sight, and avert in part its deleterious influence.

The fourth and last cause is the revivals of religion which have so long, and so extensively prevailed in our country. Of these, in common with our churches, theirs have largely, and happily partaken. These revivals call the thoughts of men directly to the corruptions of their own nature, to the light of the word of God, to the cross of the Redeemer, to regeneration by the Holy Ghost, and to pardon, justification, and salvation, through faith in Christ. True religion is thus everywhere spread abroad, and many, notwithstanding the errors of their standards, and other authorities, whose forms they still observe, are converted, and saved.

These, mainly, are the causes which in America, and the British dominions, have thus far averted from them, its natural and inherent evils, and preserved their churches from total overthrow. Take these away, and nothing can save them from utter disaster.

We have now established our proposition by scripture, reason, and facts.

We proceed still further to illustrate and confirm it, by the history and present state of the Pedobaptist world.

Infant baptism swept the primitive churches into popery, with all its darkness, and horrors. The earthly “Head and Ruler,” thus brought whole nations into the church, and made them subject to his authority. National governments were within, and subordinate to his, and all the people of which they were composed owed to the “Holy See” their personal and primary allegiance. Thus the Pope ruled the nations with “a rod of iron.”

That all this is due to infant baptism is demonstrated by these two facts: in the first place, that he exercised this authority solely upon the ground that the people, and princes, were all members of his church; and in the second place, we all know that they never could have been of his church, but for infant baptism. May I not add, that it is by the same means that he still retains his influence over nations, and communities, keeps them in awe of his spiritual prerogatives, and holds them in servile subjection to his will?

For what other purpose than to force them under his authority, does he so sedulously inculcate the pernicious dogma, that by their baptism received in infancy, they are brought into the fold of the church, within which they will be saved, and out of which they will be damned; and that therefore, if they renounce their baptism, or apostatize from Popery, their everlasting destruction is certain? Do any of these nations, or communities, dare at any time, to oppose his authority, or disobey his orders? He immediately lays them under an interdict, suspending the sacraments, all public prayers, burials, and baptisms, the obsequious priests implicitly obeying his mandates. A superstitious dread of these prohibitions, and particularly of that which withholds baptism from their children, soon reduces the people to an humble compliance, since to parents it seems most horrible that their children thus deprived must, if they die, be inevitably lost. Whole kingdoms therefore yield to his exactions, however arbitrary or oppressive, because thereby, as they suppose, they save their own souls, and the souls of their children, which would be lost if they did not submit to the “Vicar of Christ!” What a tremendous influence does infant baptism give to Popery! How cunningly is it adapted to uphold its power? Protestant Hierarchies in the old world were not, in adopting infant baptism, indifferent to the power which they would be able through its means, to exert over the people. But we are now considering its effect upon the spirituality, the purity, and other holy qualities, which are essential to the true church of Christ. In these respects what, when uninfluenced by antagonistic causes, such as those I have recited, has been its effects upon the churches of the Reformation? Survey the present aspect of the Episcopal Church, and especially in England. Her creed was in the main, evangelical. Many of her early ministers were men of great learning, energy, and piety. She took a firm hold upon a large proportion of the people. She abolished the mass, and with it purged out most of the grosser abominations of popery, but she retained infant baptism, with its sacramental doctrines. It has had time to produce its mature fruits. And what are they? “The land which around the martyr-fires of Smithfield, swore eternal hatred to Popery, is now full of Popish dignitaries, Popish priests, and Popish proselytes!” Almost every week announces the conversion to Romanism of some of her ministers, and people! Infant baptism has destroyed her gospel faith, and transformed her worship into a beggarly imitation of Italian pageantry. Of the Methodist church, a late and vigorous offshoot of Episcopacy, it is proper to say, that it has not yet existed long enough to feel deeply, the evils in question. But since it is following in the same steps, it must, at length, reach the same results. How many already, of her ministers, and members, are found going over to the Episcopal church, and some of them go on to Puseyism, and to Rome!

Thus Methodism evinces that the blood of the mother courses in the veins of the daughter.

Turn now to Lutheranism. The fabric reared by the reformers of Germany, was originally, massive, lofty, and glorious. But infant baptism was left, apparently a little rill beneath its foundation. It has continued to flow on, slowly but certainly undermining the structure, and now it is overturned, and lies prostrate, in stately ruins! “For two centuries the doctrines taught by Luther, were rigidly maintained. But they were by many, held merely as a dead letter.” They constituted “a theological creed for which men would buckle on the armor of controversy, but which had no place in their hearts, and no influence over their lives.” “There came at last a change over the public mind.” There was “a breaking away from old paths of thought, and a reckless pushing into new ones.” What power existed to check this current of things? The whole of the people were in the church. Infant baptism had placed them there. Very few were converted. “Even her pastors, and theological professors, were in most instances, destitute entirely of any experimental acquaintance with the power of Christianity.

Such could have no inward witness of the truth of the gospel, and no illumination of the Spirit to guide them in their inquiries. Led exclusively, by unsanctified reason, and a skeptical philosophy, they plunged into speculations” the most wild and extravagant. The Bible was either perverted to sustain their infidel theories, or regarded by them as a mere mythical representation. Its inspiration they discarded as a fond conceit of former days. “This condition of things has continued until the church of Luther, the eldest daughter of the Reformation, has, to a great extent, become crowded in all her departments with men who, while partaking of her ordinances, and filling her offices, laugh at her doctrines,” and trample upon the word of God! Tholuck, a distinguished minister of her own, says of the present state of the Lutheran church, that, it is “a huge mass, stiff, cold, and livid. What in many of its parts appears like life, is but the life of the corruption itself by which these parts are dissolving. Only here and there among its dying members is there a living one, that with difficulty averts death from itself.” 5 This is the deplorable condition of Protestant Christianity in all the German states. By what means has it been produced? By infant baptism. The barriers with which Jesus Christ surrounded his church, were by this rite, thrown down, and the unregenerate, profane, and worldly filled her sanctuary.

The church of Calvin offers to our consideration, and from the same cause, a similar history. Like Luther, he did not return to the gospel laws of membership, but continued the initiatory ordinance as practiced by Popery. The light of his doctrines, with the piety of his people, gradually waned. The very city where he dwelt, is now covered by “the black night of Socin-Janism ! Her radiance is quenched. Her voice of truth is hushed.

The very pulpit in which he preached, is polluted by lips that deny the divinity of the Son of God, and the renewing agency of his Holy Spirit.”

Such are the results to which infant baptism has already brought Episcopacy, Lutheranism, and Calvinism, in Europe. But a still more striking instance, if possible, of its pernicious effects is furnished in the history of Puritanism in our own country. “The founders of `the New England churches had cast off the fetters of a tyrannical Hierarchy in the old world, and they brought with them to the new, views respecting the spiritual nature of Christian communities, and the simplicity of Christian worship, much more correct than those generally entertained in that age.

They were men profoundly read in the scriptures, of great faith and zeal, and of exemplary holiness.” “Their situation removed them far from the corrupting influence of other less evangelical societies. They were alone in the wilderness, with themselves, their offspring, and their God.” Here, then, if it ever can be anywhere, infant baptism would surely have been harmless. The process by which it inevitably leads to deterioration is thus described by Dr. Wisner, who being himself a Puritan Pedobaptist, cannot be suspected of having colored his picture too highly. “As to the promises [made at their baptism, by parents and friends] of educating children in the fear of the Lord,” “they soon came to be alike disregarded by both those who exacted, and those who made them.” “The most solemn and impressive acts of religion, came to be regarded as unmeaning ceremonies, the form only to be thought important, while the substance was overlooked, and rapidly passing away.” “And now another and still more fatal step, was taken in this downward course. Why should such a difference be made [in the persons receiving them] between the two Christian sacraments, which reason infers from the nature of the case, and the scriptures clearly determine, require precisely the same qualifications?

If persons were qualified to make in order to come to one ordinance, [baptism] the very same profession, both in meaning and terms required to come to the other, [the communion] why should they be excluded from that other? The practical result, every one sees, would be, that if the innovation already made [known among them as the Half-Way Covenant, according to which all the baptized, if not openly immoral, were regarded as church members] 6 were not abandoned, another would be speedily introduced. And such was the fact. Correct moral deportment, with profession of correct devotional opinions, and a desire for regeneration, soon came to be regarded as the only qualification for admission to the communion. ” The churches soon came to consist very considerably, in many places, of unregenerate persons; of those who regarded themselves, and were regarded by others, as unregenerate. Of all these things the consequence was, that within thirty years after the commencement of the eighteenth century, a large portion of the clergy throughout the country, were either only speculatively correct, or to some extent actually erroneous in their religious opinions; maintaining regularly the forms of religion, but in some instances having well-nigh lost, and in others having, it is to be feared, never felt its power.” “To such a state,” remarks Dr. Ide, 8 “had the Puritan churches of New England been brought by infant baptism within a single century! Silently, but surely, it had done its work!” Successively it had destroyed the spirituality, and the purity of the church. Truth was abandoned. Religion expired. “Every where men avowedly unconverted, belonged to her communion, presided over her interests, and served at her altars. With such a membership, and such a ministry, both alike carnal, it was not to be supposed that the church would long retain even a theoretical belief in the grand teachings of revelation. These, however, were not at once repudiated.

The forms of faith which have become fixed in a community, do not suddenly pass away. Truth leaves the heart, and the lips, long before it leaves the creed. For a considerable period, therefore, a dead, leaden orthodoxy hung over New England, hiding like a shroud the rottenness beneath. But this could not continue. An incipient change began to be perceived. The distinguishing doctrines of the gospel were not, indeed, denounced and opposed. They were passed over. While keeping their place in the Confessions, and Articles, they were quietly dismissed from the pulpit, to make room for moral essays, and panegyrics on the beauty of natural virtue. The downward progress having gone thus far, must go further. Men are never satisfied with what is merely negative. They demand a positive. When once they have discarded positive truth, their next step is to embrace positive error, Hence we find that as early as the middle of the last century, opinions involving a denial of the proper divinity of Christ, the depravity of human nature, the need of atonement, and the work of the Holy Spirit in regeneration, were extensively adopted in Massachusetts.” “They spread for fifty years through the country, pervading the graceless clergy, and more graceless laity.” “At last the great Unitarian apostasy stood revealed in all its hideous deformity !”

All these facts are authenticated by the stern voice of impartial history.

They afford a demonstration most perfect, that infant baptism, wherever it is not counteracted by mitigating influences, will destroy, and must destroy, the spirituality, the purity, the very visibility of the church. It inevitably despoils her of all those qualities which are essential to the true church of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Infant baptism, as must be seen, in the light of all the facts and considerations now before you, is not merely a question of an ordinance, it is also a question of membership in the church of Christ. In the former sense it is unlawful. In the latter it is fearfully destructive. It must always give character to the church in which it is practiced. It inevitably fills it with the unregenerate, and unholy, with skeptics, and unbelievers. And still more Against this deterioration and moral death, there is for Pedobaptist churches, as such, no possible remedy. They possess within themselves no power to throw them off. They must wither and expire under their influence. Not so with us. Do corruptions, no matter of what character, invade Baptist churches? They contain inherently all the elements of restoration. They have only to recur to first principles, to their inspired laws of membership, and discipline. By the former, no persons are admitted to a place among them, but those who are decided, in a judgment of charity, to be true penitent believers in Christ, born of the Holy Ghost; and by the latter laws, all those who depart from piety in life, or truth in principle, are promptly separated from their communion. By this simple, but effective process, how often have they purged themselves from evils of all kinds! Striking instances are perhaps, within your own memory.

Antinomianism attempted to fasten itself upon our churches. It was promptly thrown off. Campbellism came, with its Pedobaptist doctrine of sacramental efficacy. They arose and cast out this source of impurity.

Thus they have acted in all ages. They have only to enforce the fundamental laws of their constitution, which require that God’s spiritual house shall be composed of spiritual materials. While they do this, they will ever rejoice in a pure doctrine, a pure membership, a pure and able ministry, and a vigorous life. With Pedobaptist churches the case is wholly different. From a resort to first principles they can derive no help. These very first principles, embracing, as they do, infant baptism, and infant church membership, have done all the mischief. While they preserve and cherish the source whence they arise, they can never escape the corruptions that necessarily result. They may manifest occasional amendment. There may be in their history, intervals of revival. There have been such, in this country, among Presbyterians, and Congregationalists, and in the Methodist branch of the Episcopal church. Comparative spirituality and purity, will in such cases, for a while prevail. But these periods must be evanescent. The same prolific fountain is perpetually sending forth its streams, and they must soon again be deluged. They have no remedy. They must renounce their first principles, and adopt the laws of church membership contained in the word of God. The annals of history contain not an instance of a Pedobaptist church, that has continued a Pedobaptist church, which has radically and permanently reformed itself.

The Church of England has not done it. The Church of Germany has not done it. The Church of Calvin has not done it. No Pedobaptist church ever has done it. None ever will, except those who cease to receive into their bosom the worldly and the profane. In a word, if they would. be what the church was designed to be by Christ, they must cease to be Pedobaptists.

With Baptists, I remark in conclusion, are lodged, as you must plainly see, the only conservative influences now existing in the universe. It is ours, with the blessing of God, to save from being quenched that truth which is “the world’s only hope.” It is ours also, to save Pedobaptists themselves, of all classes, from the consequences of their own errors. If we do not save them, they must sink. It is ours to spread the gospel throughout the round earth. How exalted, therefore, how responsible, how far-reaching, is our mission! It is fearfully sublime. It has, however, been assigned us by our God. Sustained by his grace, let us discharge it with fidelity. He is even now, clothing us with strength for the work. How unexampled is our multiplication! How rapid our diffusion over the whole earth! Jehovah is evidently about to vindicate his gospel; to sweep away the clouds of ignorance, superstition, and error; to restore to man a pure and glorious Christianity. Of this great conflict who will consent to remain an idle spectator? Who can refrain from participating in the Battle? Who does not involuntarily exclaim with the princely prophet, “For Zion’s sake I will not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not be silent, until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth?”

CHAPTER - INFANT BAPTISM IS AN EVIL BECAUSE ITS PRACTICE PERPETUATES THE SUPERSTITIONS BY WHICH IT WAS ORIGINALLY PRODUCED.

Causes which produced infant baptism; hypothesis by which it was justified; Protestants adopted it with all its ancient absurdities; its original superstitions still prevail. INFANT baptism is the offspring of superstition . Nor has any of the progeny of that most prolific mother been more productive of evil to the cause of truth and salvation. In these respects it has amply justified its origin. It is not the eldest born, but it is the most popular and insidious of them all.

During the apostolic age, and until two hundred years of the church had been told, infant baptism was wholly unknown. The history of that period, whether sacred or profane, makes not the remotest allusion to such a practice. This of itself, is sufficient proof that it did not exist. But it is not the only testimony. The fathers in the church who then lived and wrote, often speak of baptism, and always in such terms as to convince us that it was not administered to children. One of them — Justin — contrasts the state of Christians at their birth with their state at their baptism. “Then [at their birth, says he] they were involuntary and unconscious of what they experienced; but at their baptism they had choice, and knowledge, and illumination.” 1 And Tertullian observes: — The laver of baptism is the seal of faith, which faith begins from penitence. We are not washed [baptized] in order that we may cease from sinning, but because we have ceased, since we are already cleansed in heart.” 2 Infant baptism, therefore, could not have as yet been introduced. Origen, who lived in the middle of the third century, was the first who defended it. It was, as he tells us, a subject of “frequent inquiry among brethren.” Consequently it must have been a new topic. “Brethren” did not understand it. Up to this time evidently, none received baptism, but such as with “choice and knowledge,” made a credible profession of their “faith.” In this ordinance they publicly “put on Christ.” But now, whether infants, or persons too young to understand the rudiments of religion, should be baptized, excited “frequent inquiry among brethren.” Thence onward the practice rapidly gained ground, and soon acquired universal prevalence Why, I may ask, should such a thing as the baptism of infants ever have suggested itself to the minds of men? It is not intimated in the word of God. Reason does not approve it. To religion it is plainly repugnant. From whence did it arise? It owes its existence, I answer, exclusively to blind superstition, which first persuaded men that there is a mysterious, secret, inexplicable efficacy in baptism, which conveys the grace of God to the soul of the recipient; then, that without baptism no one, whether adult or infant, could be saved; and lastly, that infants really do, by some incomprehensible power of God, repent of their sins, believe in our Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore, according to the gospel, are entitled to receive baptism! We will examine each of these propositions separately. 1. The opinion began to prevail as early as the middle of the second century, that there is in baptism some mysterious, secret, inexplicable efficacy which conveys the grace of God to the soul of the recipient!

Of this fact testimony so ample has already been submitted that you need not here be detained with its repetition. This superstitious absurdity seems to have been first taught by the Gnostics, borrowed doubtless from the “Eugenia” 4 of the pagan Greeks. Gnosticism was a popular and inveterate heresy,5 As a sect, it was nominally put down, and destroyed; but its dogmas lived. Many of them were embraced by the teachers reputed orthodox, and perpetuated in the faith of all subsequent ages. Among them, this is not the least striking or conspicuous. The spiritual benefits they attributed to baptism were supposed not to be in the ordinance itself, but through that as a medium conveyed to the soul by the administrator, in virtue of the prayers, and the faith of the church, and as readily to one individual as to another. No one, whether adult or infant, was considered safe who should die. without having obtained the benefits of these cleansing influences. Gregory Nazianzen, for example, supposing, in one of his discourses, that he might be requested to express his opinion in the premises, proceeds to advise that in case of any apparent danger of death, children should be baptized, “Inasmuch, ” says he, “as it were better they should be sanctified without knowing it, than that they should die without being sealed and initiated.” In all other cases he prefers that baptism should be delayed until those who receive it are of sufficient age to allow the impression intended to be made by the recital of the mystic words. 6 On these accounts the ordinance continued to grow in importance until it assumed all the consequence with which it has been invested in subsequent ages. 2. A kindred doctrine grew up with this, and soon took possession of the general mind, that no one, of whatever age, without baptism could be saved.

And if indeed baptism conveys grace and salvation, which without it cannot be received, how can any one be saved to whom it has not been given? On this subject, Cyprian, the Bishop of Carthage, says: 7 — “As far as in us lies, no soul is to be lost. It is not for us to hinder any person from baptism, and the grace of God. Which rule, as it holds to all, so we think it more especially to be observed in reference to infants, to whom our help, and the divine mercy, are rather to be granted.” Ambrose also, the Bishop of Milan, 8 remarks: — “No person comes to the kingdom of heaven but by baptism. Infants that are baptized, are reformed back again from wickedness to the primitive state of their nature.” And Chrysostom, the Patriarch of Constantinople 9 observes: — “The grace of baptism gives us cure without pain, and fills us with the grace of the Spirit.” “If sudden death seize us before we are baptized, there is nothing to be expected but hell.” Thus do these great men express the doctrine, which in their age prevailed among all who were considered orthodox. They believed that salvation without baptism was impossible. The effect upon the minds of parents and others, may readily be imagined. All, as we may suppose, were baptized without delay.

Concurrent with these movements arose an institution in the church, the workings of which had a powerful influence in hastening infant baptism. I allude to Catechumenical Schools, of which a full account may be seen in any extended ecclesiastical history. Concerning them I shall state but two or three facts. They originated in the second century, and were attached, as Sabbath-schools now are, to the several Christian congregations. They proposed to instruct children, and proselytes in the principles of religion, preparatory to their admission to baptism and membership in the church.

For several centuries they enjoyed boundless popularity. Into these schools were received children of all classes, and persons of all ages and circumstances. None of them, however, were baptized, except in cases of “danger of death,” until they had passed through their regular novitiate, and could answer intelligibly the questions proposed in the rubric of the times.

But as we have seen, the impression of the importance and necessity of baptism was constantly increasing in intensity, and the result was, proportionally to shorten the catechumenical period. The qualifications for baptism were also of course diminished in their number and extent, and finally, if the children could not themselves answer the questions, their friends were permitted to answer for them.

The liturgy then, as now, required that all who were baptized should, preparatory to receiving the ordinance, renounce the world, the flesh and the devil, profess their faith in Christ, and promise to walk in obedience to the gospel all the days of their life. This of course infants could not do. But the deficiency was supplied by sponsors, who did all this in their names, pledging themselves to the church and her ministry, that these little ones should subsequently receive the necessary instruction, admonition, and guidance, and at a suitable time, be brought before the bishop to be examined, and confirmed in their Christian profession. In these facts we have the true history of the origin of sponsors, or sureties for infants, in baptism. Such sureties had previously been employed only for older, or adult catechumens, having been first used for Pagans, and afterwards for others on their baptism. Ask you for testimony in proof of this statement?

It is abundant, and at hand. We satisfy ourselves with one only. The Edinburgh Encyclopaedia says: — “In the second century Christians began to be divided into believers, or such as were baptized, and catechumens, or such as were receiving instruction to qualify them for baptism. To answer for these [last] persons, sponsors or God fathers were first introduced.” By this device the consciences of all were quieted. Infant baptism thus gradually extended itself. And since preparatory instructions were no longer necessary the catechumenical schools were not wanted, and they at last ceased to exist. Murmurings were doubtless uttered occasionally, by those who knew any thing of religion as taught in the word of God. But for these there was a ready remedy. They were all silenced, and the policy of the Catholic church fixed, by decrees such as the following established at the Council of Trent: — “Whoever shall affirm that the sacraments of the new law [the gospel] are not necessary to salvation,” “and that they do not contain the grace they signify,” “let him be accursed.” 3. Infant baptism was now established, and justified, by the grace conferred in the ordinance, its necessity to salvation, and the expedient of sponsors to answer for the child.

Yet the difficulty was not entirely overcome. In those early days, repentance for sin, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, were acknowledged as indispensable preliminaries to baptism. These conditions are so plainly set forth in all parts of the New Testament, that no Pedobaptist then pretended to call them in question. They felt, on the contrary, that they were obliged to comply with them. They knew also that the repentance and faith of the sponsor, were only those of the proxy or substitute, and not of the child. But it was the child who was to receive the ordinance, not the sponsor, and the Bible requires these conditions of the very person to be baptized himself. Here, it would seem, was an insuperable impediment.

What was to be done? A most convenient discovery was now made and announced to the world. It was an effectual remedy. It was found that infants do, by some unexplained and incomprehensible power of God imparted to them, really possess, truly exercise, and acceptably profess repentance of sin and faith in Christ, and are therefore, according to the conditions prescribed in the gospel, the proper subjects, and legally entitled to receive baptism!

This assumption is so monstrous that many may doubt whether it was ever made. Since then it may, perchance, be called in question, I shall here pause until the amplest proof has been submitted. When first announced, it is not surprising that the proposition did not, at once, command universal assent. It seemed, even to some high ecclesiastics, to be an absurdity.

Bishop Boniface, for example, wrote on the subject, to St. Augustine, as follows: — “If I should set before thee a young infant, and should ask of thee whether that infant, when he cometh to riper years, will be honest and just,” “thou wouldest, I know, answer, that to tell in these things what shall come to pass, is not in the power of mortal man. If I should ask what good or evil such an infant thinketh, thine answer would be with the like uncertainty. If thou neither canst promise for the time to come, nor for the present pronounce any thing in this case, how is it that when such are brought to baptism, their parents there undertake what the child shall afterwards do? Yea, they are not doubtful to say it doth [believe ], which is impossible to be done by infants; at least there is no man precisely able to affirm it done. Vouchsafe me hereunto some short answer, such as not only to press me with the bare authority of custom, but also instruct me with the cause thereof.” To this very modest and sensible address Augustine thus replies: — “ In the infant there is not a present actual habit of faith.

There is delivered unto them that sacrament a part of the due celebration whereof consisteth in answering to the Articles of Faith, because the habit of faith that doth afterwards come with years, is but further building up the same edifice, the foundation whereof was laid by the sacrament of baptism. For that which we professed without any understanding, when we afterwards come to acknowledge, do we any thing else but only bring into ripeness the very seed which was sown before? We are then [in infancy] believers, because we then begin to be that which process of time doth make perfect. And until we come to actual belief, the very sacrament of faith [baptism] is a shield as strong as after this, the faith of the sacrament, against all contrary infernal powers, which whoever doth think ‘impossible’ is undoubtedly farther off from Christian belief, though he be baptized, than are those innocents who at their baptism, albeit they have no concert or cogitation of faith, are notwithstanding pure and free from all opposite cogitations, whereas the other is not free. If, therefore, without any fear or scruple, we may account them, and term them believers, only for their outward professions’ sake, who inwardly are farther off from faith than infants, why not infants much more at the time of their solemn initiation by baptism the sacrament of faith, whereunto they not only conceive nothing opposite, but have also that grace given them which is the best and most effectual cause out of which our belief doth grow. In sum, the whole church [infants and all] is a multitude of believers, all honored with that title, even hypocrites for their professions’ sake, as well as saints because of their inward sincere profession, and infants as being in their first degree of ghostly motion towards the actual habit of faith. The first sort are faithful in the eyes of the world; the second faithful in the sight of God; the last in the ready, direct way to become both.” 12 Again: — “Infants do profess repentance by the words of those who bring them, when they do by them renounce the devil and this world.” 13 Mr. Bingham of the Episcopal denomination, in his learned work on the Antiquities of the Christian Church, writing of this early period, says: — “Another sort of names given to baptism were taken from the conditions required of all those who received it, which were the profession of a true faith, and a sincere repentance. Upon this account baptism is sometimes called the sacrament of faith, and the sacrament of repentance. St. Austin uses this name to explain how children may be said to have faith, though they are not capable of making any profession of themselves.” “And upon this account, when the answer [in the. church] is made that an infant believes who has not yet the habit of faith, the meaning is that he has faith because of the sacrament of faith; and that he turns to God because of the sacrament of conversion.” Fulgentius uses the same terms in urging the necessity of baptism: — “Firmly believe and doubt not, that excepting such as a