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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2011 with funding from 
 
 Princeton Theological Seminary Library 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/infantbaptismOOmi 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by 
 
 SOUTHWESTERN BOOK & PUBLISHING CO., 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 

 INTRODUCTION. ^' 
 
 '^v*^^^^ 
 
 There are two extreme views with respect to the 
 Church, each of which is false and mischievous. In 
 one view, the Church has official custody of the grace 
 of God, which it dispenses by authority, through sac- 
 ramental channels of communication. In the other, 
 the Church is made nothing of, or next to nothing. 
 Connection with it is held to be of little or no value. 
 Its ordinances and means of grace are slighted as 
 nothing worth. 
 
 It is true, beyond all question, that a man's rela- 
 tions with his Maker are to be determined by himself. 
 He can confer no " power of attorney " upon the 
 Church to attend to the business of salvation for him. 
 He must come to God in his own person. In the 
 vital process of repentance and faith, and in the mys- 
 tery of the new birth, no proxy can be employed. 
 Yet it is also true that God has ordained in the 
 Church many efficient aids, many means of grace, 
 through which the earnest penitent, and the more 
 advanced believer, are alike strengthened and helped 
 
4 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 forward in the Christian race. The fellowship of 
 saints and the ordinances of religion quicken the spir- 
 itual perception and sensibilities, and encourage and 
 strengthen faith. 
 
 The mere fact of membership in the Church exerts 
 a most wholesome effect on the mind and heart. Of 
 course, like all other aids and means of grace, it loses 
 its effect upon the conscious and deliberate hypocrite, 
 for all the means are, to us, what we make them by 
 our manner of using them. Perversely and hypocrit- 
 ically used, they harden. But when used in the can- 
 dor and simplicity of a genuine faith they are an 
 invaluable agency in the development of the Chris- 
 tian life. Not that the Church confers salvation 
 officially through them ; but their use, in keeping with 
 the laws of our being, quickens faith, and commits us 
 openly and formally to a Christian course. God 
 makes them a blessing through a process altogether 
 rational. In the same way the very fact of member- 
 ship in the Church gives strength to our purposes. 
 It separates us openly and formally from the world. 
 It classifies us with the people of God. It brings 
 home to us our high privileges, and puts us into a 
 category altogether favorable to the service of God. 
 It enforces upon our attention all the motives of piety. 
 
 It is not a matter of small consequence what rela- 
 tion our children shall sustain to the Church; whether 
 
INTRODUCTION. 5 
 
 they shall come upon the arena of that contest in 
 which eternal life is lost or won, in their place in the 
 militant host, or enter it single-handed and without 
 support. 
 
 The whole question of the relation of children to 
 the Church is involved in the doctrine of infant bap- 
 tism. This book is devoted to the discussion of the 
 various questions involved in this doctrine. The 
 matter has appeared in a series of articles in the " St. 
 Louis Christian Advocate." These articles have been 
 read with great interest and beneficial effect. The 
 author, though a young man, has already attained to 
 eminence in controversial writing. It requires no 
 sanguine temperament to hope for the accomplish- 
 ment of much good by the publication of this 
 book. 
 
 There is a demand for it. Several large denomina- 
 tions of Christians in our country are strangely hereti- 
 cal upon this subject. The popular mind has, to a 
 considerable extent, been infected by false ideas. 
 What with the heresy of baptismal regeneration on 
 one side, and that of anti-pedobaptism on the other, 
 there is need for a widespread presentation of the 
 "truth as it is in Jesus." Controversy for its own 
 sake is undesirable, but when the interests of truth 
 demand it it is not to be shunned. The incidental 
 ill-feeUng that may arise is to be regretted, but we 
 
^ INTRODUCTION. 
 
 must "contend earnestly for the faith once delivered 
 to the saints." 
 
 There is much shameful neglect of children by the 
 Church and by Christian parents. The best possible 
 results of Christian training are rarely realized, for the 
 reason that the training itself is imperfect. A thor- 
 ough course of training, where there is a due blending 
 of authority, affection and Christian teaching on the 
 part of parents, and the proper care and influence on 
 the part of pastors, with prayer and faith, would breed 
 up a style of Christian now rarely seen among us. 
 
 This training, to answer to the divine ideal, must 
 be based on baptism and the covenant therein entered 
 into by the parent for the child. On what a vantage 
 ground is that child placed who has been brought 
 into covenant with God by its parents. 
 
 The parental relation is greatly disparaged and 
 degraded, so far, at least, as religion is concerned, by 
 those who oppose infant baptism. They deny the 
 authority of the parent to make a covenant for his 
 child. How totally they misconceive the nature of 
 the parental relation. The fact is, that during infancy 
 the parent does everything for the child, and is obliged 
 to this by the very facts in the case. He must 
 believe for the child and act for him in every interest, 
 even the most vital. The child is in his hands, 
 incapable of acting for itself, and he 7nust act for it^or 
 
INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 let it perish. The responsibility is on him, and he 
 cannot avoid it. What food it shall eat, what atmos- 
 phere it shall live in, what medicine it shall take, he 
 must determine. Nor does he make a title-deed in 
 which he does not covena?it for his chihi as well as for 
 himself. If you say a man cannot enter into covenant 
 for his child, you contradict nature itself, and the cus- 
 toms of mankind from the earliest ages. 
 
 If a man may not bind his child by a covenant in 
 the matter of religion^ it is an exception to the author- 
 ity he holds in all civil relations. If this be so, an 
 advantage is lost to the child in this highest of all 
 interests^ that is secured to it in all other cases. The 
 mature business judg?ne?it of the father may be made 
 available in the temporal interests of the child — not in 
 the way of advice merely, but of actual covenant 
 transactions which are to inure to his benefit. But as 
 to his soul, he may be bound by no stipulations, so 
 that the intelligent and mature faith of the father are 
 not available in any such substantial way for his spir- 
 itual wealth and safety. The very instance in which 
 we would expect a gracious God to secure to the 
 child the highest advantages of this relation, accord- 
 ing to this unnatural theory, is the instance in which 
 he is to reap no benefit from it whatever. 
 
 Where the filial feeling is properly evolved there is 
 the deepest sense of obligation and honor in respect 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 to the fulfillment of any covenant made by the parent. 
 Let this feeling be properly fostered in the child, and 
 then let him be trained to understand the force of the 
 obligations that rest upon him from the baptismal 
 covenant, entered into on his behalf by his parents, 
 and you have a class of motives to a Christian life of 
 the most commanding character. These motives are 
 totally wanting in the case of children unbaptized. 
 
 My neighbor says, "I will not bind my child in the 
 affairs of his soul. He shall h^ free. He shall cJioose 
 for himself.'" This is quite taking to the popular ear. 
 
 But I say, my child shall 7iot be free t© go wrong, 
 either in religion or anything else, if I can help it — 
 and more emphatically in religion than in anything 
 else. I will bind him by commands, by covenants, 
 and by all the most sacred obligations, to serve God. 
 
 1 will environ him with motives that he shall feel it 
 to be unnatural and monstrous for him to disregard. 
 I will make it in the highest degree difficult and pain- 
 ful for him to go to hell. 
 
 To this view of the case the Church mus*: be 
 brought There is much need of light amongst us 
 upon this subject. Our own Church needs toning up 
 greatly Thousands in the Church use little or no 
 authority to turn the young, unpracliced feet of their 
 children from the way of death. Many Methodists 
 are incurring heavy guilt in this very thing. 
 
I^TRODUCTION. 9 
 
 The recent agitation of this subject in Kentucky 
 and Missouri has done good — great good. Let it be 
 followed up by the dissemination of a sound litera- 
 ture, and by thorough pastoral instruction. This 
 book appears at a good time, and will be gladly 
 received by all intelligent and earnest-minded parents. 
 
 May It have a wide circulation, and bring many to 
 the knowledge of the truth on this particular point. 
 Let it be understood, moreover, that the duty of offer- 
 ing our children to God in baptism is not the whole 
 truth. The value of baptism to a child is found in 
 the fact that it is the starting point in a course of 
 Christian training. Its chief value is in its relation 
 to the subsequent training. Its significance is in this 
 relation. If a thorough Christian training does not 
 follow, then the value and significance of the baptism 
 are never realized. 
 
 There is need of a great awakening of the parental 
 conscience. 
 
 E. M. MARVIN. 
 
 St. Louis, March 26, 1872. 
 
INFANT BAPTli#;; ^> J 
 
 ARTI CLE I . 
 
 At the request of very many friends, I propose to 
 write a series of papers on Infant Baptism, setting 
 forth the argument as I understand it. The impor- 
 tance of this subject in itself, independent of the vast 
 difference which it creates between the rehgious 
 denominations of this country, makes it worthy of a 
 patient and prayerful consideration. The papers 
 which I propose to write on the subject shall be 
 short and strictly ad rem — epitomizing and sifting 
 down the matter of the argument so as to enable the 
 popular mind to appreciate the central points of the 
 argument. 
 
 I shall occupy the present paper with a statement 
 of my Methods of Proof, and thus indicate in advance 
 the line of argument to be developed. The numer- 
 ous works which I have examined on this subject 
 are very faulty in this regard. No definite aim seems 
 to be before the writers. The reader finds himself, 
 consequently, beating about in a vast sea of mate- 
 
12 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 rials, uncertain as to what port he is to reach. Some 
 writers begin at one end of the argument, others at 
 the other end, and still others in the middle. Some 
 open with the objections to infant baptism, others with 
 objections to the theory that opposes infant baptism. 
 The result of this rudderless, compassless effort to navi- 
 gate this sea of facts is, that the reader soon loses 
 sight of the author and interest in his subject, and 
 then lays down the book, indifferent whether he goes 
 down amid the icebergs of the Arctic seas or strands 
 upon Cimmerian shores. 
 
 We would avoid this evil. Therefore we shall state 
 clearly how — by what method — wc propose to vindi- 
 cate what we believe to be taught in and authorized 
 by the Holy Scriptures on the matter before us. 
 
 There are three methods of proving a proposition, 
 e. g.: (i) A command; (2) An authoritative example; 
 (3) An induction. We shall employ these methods 
 of proof in this investigation. We, therefore, pro- 
 ceed to an explanation of these methods of proof, 
 and to indicate how we shall apply them. 
 
 (i) ^ command. Thus : '• Do this or that." This 
 is our first method. We propose to show a cominand 
 for infant baptism. Now, to determine to whom a 
 command extends it is not necessary to fix or deter- 
 mine the age, or sex, or name of the party contem- 
 plated. The only thing necessary to be determined 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 13 
 
 in order to ascertain whether the command extends to 
 this, that, or the ottier one, is to determine whether 
 they belong to iJie class contemplated in the com- 
 mand. For exami>le, in the Lord's Supper the com- 
 mand is, " Do this in remembrance of me." Here 
 neither age^ sex, nor fiame is contemplated, but all who 
 *' remember " Christ are included in the command, 
 " Do this." Now, it is only by the recognition of this 
 rule that we can justify the giving of the Lord's Sup- 
 per to women. We shall have occasion to examine 
 this matter more at length hereafter. Let it, there- 
 fore, suffice at this point to say that at the institution 
 of the Lord's Supper none but men were present ; no 
 instance is on record in which it is stated that a 
 woman partook of the Lord's Supper; and in all 
 statements with reference to that institution, such as 
 Acts XX. 7, I Cor. xi. 28, words are used which defi- 
 nitely distinguish the male from the female. Upon 
 what authority, then, do we give the Supper to 
 women ? Where is the command ? We can only 
 answer, and the answer is sufficient, they are included 
 in the class — namely, of those who ''remember" 
 Christ, to which class the command, " Do this," is 
 given. Therefore they are entitled to the Lord's 
 Supper, for it is an axiom that " whatsoever is com- 
 manded of a class may be commanded of each indi- 
 vidual in that class." We shall apply this method of 
 
14 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 proof to infant baptism, thus: In Matt, xxviii. 19-20, 
 we are commanded, " Go ye therefore and teach (or 
 disciple) all nations, baptizing them in the name of 
 the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," 
 &c. Now, the only thing to be determined is, do 
 infants belong to the class here contemplated in the 
 command ? The class is "^//nations." Are infants 
 any part of that class ? If so, then the command to 
 baptize them is as imperative as it is to baptize any 
 others that belong to that class. We shall not antici- 
 pate here the usual objections which anti-Pedobap- 
 tists raise at this point. That shall be attended to 
 in due time. We simply indicate now our Une of 
 proof. 
 
 (2) An autho7itaiive example. E. g:, has any 
 proper authority done the thing in question ? Have 
 those who have been set forth by the Head of the 
 Church as an " ensample " in practice for the Church 
 done this thing ? The force of this as a method of 
 proof can not be well over-estimated. Some of the 
 most solemn and oft-repeated ordinances of religion 
 have been set aside, and new ones substituted in their 
 room by an authoritative example in the absence of 
 any command or enactment in the case. Take but 
 one instance. No ordinance was more solemn or 
 more oft-repeated than the holy Sabbath — the fixing 
 ot the seventh day as a holy day. When God finished 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 1 5 
 
 the work of creation, He " blessed the seventh day 
 and sanctified it" (Gen. ii. 3), and when the Deca- 
 logue, the basis of all moral law, was given at binai, 
 He embodied the law of the Sabbath in that ; and on 
 through succeeding ages the blessings of heaven were 
 poured upon the man who "remembered the Sabbath 
 day to keep it holy," and terrible curses fell upon him 
 who secularized or despised that day. No enact- 
 ment stands upon the holy page for the abrogation of 
 that law of the Sabbath, and no command was ever 
 given by Christ to substitute another day in its room. 
 And yet the Church, for eighteen centuries, has secu- 
 larized the seventh day, doing all manner of work 
 therein, and in the stead of the seventh day it has 
 " remembered " the first day " to keep it holy." Now, 
 upon what authonty does the Church do this ? That 
 there is no command for it, all agree; that it sets 
 aside the day which God appointed from the begin- 
 ning, is perfectly plain; and that this thing, in the 
 absence of any command, is done with " a conscience 
 void of offense toward God and man " by the holiest 
 men the Church has ever had, is equally true. Where, 
 then, is the authority ? We answer, it is to be found 
 only in the exa?nple of the apostles and of the Church 
 in its purest ages. Their example is esteemed by us 
 as of sufficient authority to justify us in no longer 
 remembering " the Sabbath day to keep it holy," and 
 
l6 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 in keeping a day which, numerically, is as far from 
 the seventh as is possible — iJie first. 
 
 Now, we shall apply this rule (an authoritative 
 example) to the argument on infant baptism, thus: 
 About o?ie-tJiird of the instances of baptism in the 
 New Testament — a history embracing more than 
 thirty years of apostolic labor — are instances of house- 
 hold, or- family baptisms, and those family baptisms 
 expressed by a word which narrows the signification 
 of household down to the father, mother and children^ 
 which make up a family. Here is an authoritative 
 example. We shall also see that the Church, from 
 the apostles on through the purest ages of its exist- 
 ence, practiced infant baptism with an unanimity 
 never exceeded in any item of faith and practice 
 which the Church has held. If, therefore, the exam- 
 ple of the apostles and of the Church in the first cen- 
 turies can authorize the setting aside of the Sabbath 
 day, and the substitution therefor of the first day^ 
 their example can authorize infant baptism, 
 
 (3) An induction. This is a legitimate method of 
 proof, and by it a demonstration may be as infallibly 
 made as by any other known process of argumenta- 
 tion. By induction we mean, that process of argu- 
 mentation in which we ascend from the parts to the 
 whole, and from general analogy or special presump- 
 tions in the case form conclusions. This is Bacon's 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. I7 
 
 method in science. It is that method of proot upon 
 which many of the most sacred rights and most 
 momentous interests of this Hfe depend. Take, for 
 example, the rights or basis of property. Law does 
 not fix the right or basis of property, though, as Way- 
 land says, "the existence and progress of society, 
 nay, the very existence of our race, depends upon 
 the acknowledgment of this right." Now, our knowl- 
 edge of the rights of property is obtained simply by 
 an induction. We make an induction (i) of natural 
 conscience, and (2) of general consequences, and thus 
 determine the question as to the right of property. 
 
 I shall apply this method of proof, thus : I shall 
 take the cove?iant of grace, the great organic law of 
 Christ's kingdom, and the relaiio7i of children to 
 Christ's kingdom (" of such is the kingdom of God"), 
 and by an induction of these establish the rightful- 
 ness of infant baptism. 
 
 I have thus indicated the line of argumentation, 
 the methods of proof, which I propose to follow. I 
 may not confine myself to the exact order in which I 
 have stated these rules, but they shall be the head- 
 lands toward which I will constantly steer, the paths 
 in which I shall walk. The reader, therefore, who 
 may desire information upon this important subject, 
 may now follow us, intelligently and satisfactorily, to 
 the conclusions which we propose to reach. 
 2 
 
15 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 ARTICLE II. 
 
 HISTORIC EVIDENCE — THE PRACTICE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 Whence the practice of infant baptism ? This is a 
 perfectly natural question. Is it an innovation ? If 
 so, it had a beginning somewhere and by some one. 
 But whe?i, where, and by whotn ? Is it true that the 
 opposers of infant baptism charge that it is an inno- 
 vation, and yet utterly fail, with the history of the 
 whole Church before them, to fix when, where, and 
 by whom so great an innov^ation came in? This fail- 
 ure is not without significance. If it were an innova- 
 tion, history would have recorded the name of the 
 innovator, where he lived, and when he began the 
 practice ; and those who have succeeded in cultivat- 
 ing in themselves and in their followers so strange a 
 disgust for the practice, would not have been slow in 
 announcing the record to the world. Their failure to 
 produce reliable history to sustain their assumption, 
 that infant baptism is an innovation, is the more 
 remarkable when we consider the fact that the 
 fathers — the reliable writers of the first centuries of 
 the Christian era — have transmitted to us full and 
 minute accounts of the origin of the various heresies 
 and innovations which arose from time to time. 
 Thus, TertuUian, of the second century, has trans- 
 mitted a list of the innovations of his time; Irenaeus. 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 19 
 
 who was born about A. D. 120, wrote a volume of 
 nearly 500 pages agamst heresies^ which has come 
 down to us; Hippolytus, who was born about A. D. 
 200, wrote ten books against "All Heresies." In 
 these and similar works the innovations which crept 
 into the Church are carefully catalogued. Hence, it 
 is not a difficult task to give the name, and the place, 
 and the time of each innovator. For example: 
 Extreme Unctio?i was introduced by the Marcosians 
 in the second half of the second century; penance 
 came in about A. D. 225; exofcism, insinuation, 
 touching the ear ot the baptized, and the sign of the 
 cross, &:c., in the second and third centuries (See 
 Schaff., Hist. Chr. Church, vol. 2, p. 486). Leo the 
 Great was the first Pope (Ibid., p. 316-17). The 
 Mass was introduced by Gregory in the sixth cen- 
 tury; the Collyridians introduced the worship of the 
 Virgin Mary in the close of the fourth century ; image 
 worship and purgatory came in about the same time. 
 It is needless to extend this list, as it might be done 
 almost ad i?ijinitiim. These instances are sufficient to 
 show the fidelity of history in preserving a record of 
 innovations. 
 
 Now, the introduction of all these strange notions 
 and practices excited fierce controversies, and often 
 civil commotions, which lasted for many years. Is it, 
 therefore, possible that infant baptism, one of the 
 
20 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 greatest and gravest innovations, according to the 
 testimony of its opponents, could have come into the 
 Church without exciting a single notice from any one 
 of the many writers in the Church, and without 
 awakening one moment's controversy on the subject? 
 Never was there a more impossible assumption ! 
 Where were all the Baptists and Campbellites of 
 those days ? Is it not marvelous that one of them 
 did not preach a sermon or write a pamphlet 
 against what they now spend half their time in 
 opposing ? 
 
 I shall now proceed to show that while the silence 
 of the grave hangs upon the opposition to infant bap- 
 tism in the first centuries, the testimony of the writers 
 of those centuries to the existence and apostolic 
 authority of the practice is unbroken and unequivo- 
 cal. By showing thus that the Church in her purest 
 period, and the Apostles and their colaborers, prac- 
 ticed infant baptism, we will produce an authoritative 
 example, which is one of the legitimate methods of 
 proof indicated in our opening letter. 
 
 I shall now ask the reader to start with me at about 
 the opening of the fifth century, and then, step by 
 step, guided by true and reliable history, we will 
 move back to the Apostles' time, and trace the exist- 
 ence of infant baptism right within the apostolic age. 
 We will then take up the practice of the Apostles and 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 21 
 
 see that it was harmonious with the practice of the 
 Church after their day. 
 
 Sozomen, A. D. 443. His Ecclesiastical History, 
 from which I quote, is a continuation, as he tells us, 
 of his history of events from the Ascension of the 
 Lord to the deposition of Licinius, A. D. 324. Here- 
 is a history, then, written in the fifth century, and 
 extending back to the xA.scension. The source of 
 information from which Sozomen drew his facts were, 
 Clemens of Rome, Hegesippus, Africanus the histo- 
 rian, Eusebius, etc. On page 202, speaking of Julian 
 the Apostate, he says: " The extravagant attachment 
 which Julian evinced toward the Pagan rites was 
 extremely displeasing to the Christians, more espe- 
 cially on account of his having been himself formerly 
 a Christian. He was born of pious parents, had 
 been baptized in infancy according to the custom of 
 the Church, and had been brought up in the knowl- 
 edge of the Holy Scriptures, under the guidance of 
 priests and bishops " 
 
 Here is a historian of vast information and of 
 undoubted veracity, declaring that infant baptism 
 was " the custom of the Church," and that declara- 
 tion made in a history that goes back from the fifth 
 century to the Ascension ! 
 
 Now, on the assumption that the position of anti- 
 Paedobaptists is true — namely, that infant baptism is 
 
22 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 an innovation, then is it not amazing that a Church 
 historian, who Hved within 300 years of the Apostles, 
 and who had read up the whole literature of the 
 Church down to his time, should, in a history that 
 goes back to the Ascension, affirm infant baptism to 
 be " the custom of the Church ?" And is it not 
 stranger still, if possible, that no good Baptist or 
 Campbellite historian of Sozomen's time ever contra- 
 dicted his statement and sent the facts in the case 
 down to us ? There are volumes of significance in 
 this. 
 
 Augustine, A. D. 2>^^- ^^ was one of the most 
 eminent men for learning the Church ever produced, 
 and had read, according to his showing, the whole 
 literature of the Church up to his times. Speaking of 
 infant baptism, he says : " Which the whole body of 
 the Church holds, as delivered to them, in the case ot 
 little infants baptized; who certainly can not yet 
 believe with the heart to righteousness, or confess 
 with the mouth to salvation, as the thief could ; nay, 
 but by their crying and noise while the sacrament is 
 administering, they disturb the holy mysteries ; and 
 yet no Christian man will say they are baptized to no 
 purpose. And if any one do ask for divine authority 
 in this matter, though that which the whole Church 
 practices, and which has not been instituted by Coun- 
 cils, but was ever in use, is very reasonably believed 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 2$ 
 
 to be no other than a thing delivered (or ordered) by 
 authority of the Apostles; yet we may besides take a 
 true estimate, how much the sacrament of baptism 
 does avail infants by the circumcision which God's 
 former people received" (Wall, vol. i, p. 158). Here 
 it will be observed that St. Augustine agrees perfectly 
 with the historian Sozomen. They both declare 
 infant baptism to be the universal custom of the 
 Church. Augustine says, Quod universa te?iet eccle- 
 sia — " which the whole Church holds." Now, con- 
 sider that he lived within about 280 years of the 
 Apostle John, and how amazing is the assumption 
 that a dangerous innovation could in that time have 
 become the universal practice and faith of the Church ! 
 And here was a bishop referring it to the authority of 
 the Apostles, and yet no one knew who introduced it, 
 or when, or where ! 
 
 Pelagws, a British monk of exalted reputation, was 
 contemporary with Augustine. His views concern- 
 ing depravity and original sin were opposed by Au- 
 gustine with great vehemence, and as warmly defended 
 by Pelagius. In the progress of the controversy 
 Augustine charged that Pelagius' views made the 
 baptism of infants meaningless and useless. Augus- 
 tine had fallen into the grave error of baptismal 
 regeneration — baptism even for the cleansing away of 
 original sin. Pelagius denied that there is such a 
 
24 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 thing as " original sin." Hence infants, not having 
 any actual guilt from personal transgression, Augus- 
 tine argued that Pelagius' opinions made it useless to 
 baptize them. It would have been greatly to the 
 advantage of Pelagius, therefore, to show that infants 
 should not be baptized ; that it rested on no divine 
 authority; was an innovation, &c., &c. He was a 
 man of great learning, and had access to the history 
 of the Church. If it had been possible, therefore, to 
 show infant baptism to be an innovation, here was 
 the man, and this was the time to do it. Instead of 
 attempting such a thing, however, Pelagius said : 
 " Men slander me as if I denied the sacrament of 
 baptism to infants, or did promise the kingdom of 
 heaven to some persons without the redemption of 
 Christ; which is a thing that I never heard, no not 
 even any wicked heretic, say. For who is there so 
 ignorant of that which is read in the gospel, as (I 
 need not say to affirm this, but) in any heedless way 
 to say such a thing, or even have such a thought ? 
 In a word, who can be so impious as to hinder infants 
 from being baptized and born again in Christ, and so 
 make them heirs of the kingdom of heaven," &c. 
 (Wall, I, 279.) A controversialist having the sagacity 
 and learning which Pelagius possessed would have 
 ransacked the entire literature of the past, and have 
 paraded every suspicion that could have been found 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. ^5 
 
 against the rightfulness of infant baptism, had there 
 existed a suspicion in his day that it was not author- 
 ized by the Bible. It was vital to his theory to dis- 
 prove its divine authority. And yet he declares he 
 never heard their right to baptism questioned ! 
 
 Chrysostom, A. D. 380. This brings us within 280 
 years of the Apostles. He, speaking of baptism as 
 Christian circumcision, says: " But our circumcision, 
 I mean the grace of baptism, gives cure without pain, 
 and procures to us a thousand benefits, and fills us 
 with the grace of the Spirit ; and it has no determ- 
 inate time as that had [i. <?., that circumcision in the 
 flesh had] ; but one that is in the very beginning of 
 his age, or one that is in the middle of it, or one that 
 is in his old age, may receive this circumcision made 
 without hands." Again : " And yet some think that 
 the heavenly grace consists only in forgiveness of sins ; 
 but I have reckoned up ten advantages of it. For 
 this cause we baptize infants also, though they are not 
 defiled with sin; that there may be superadded to 
 them saintship, righteousness, adoption, inheritance, a 
 brotherhood with Christ, and to be made members of 
 him" (Wall, I, 143-145). 
 
 This is a statement from a source of very great 
 authority. Chrysostom was at this time Bishop of 
 Constantinople, the new capital of the Roman empire. 
 His elevation was, therefore, great in the Church, and 
 
26 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 his learning profound. He is not here arguing the 
 rightfulness of infant baptism. There is not one line of 
 controversy on that point in the entire history of the 
 first thousand years of the Christian era. But he 
 speaks ot infant baptism as a fact about which there 
 was no doubt — ^just as he speaks of the Church, the 
 Lord's Supper, or any other fact in Christianity. 
 
 Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, A. D. 374. This was 
 274 years after the Apostles. He supposed that the 
 dividing of the river Jordan by Elias was a type of 
 baptism, and says of baptism, " by which those 
 infants that are baptized are reformed back again 
 from wickedness [or a wicked state] to the primitive 
 state of their nature." Wall, commenting on this 
 passage, says : " He plainly speaks here of infants 
 as baptized in the Apostles' time, as well as in his 
 own; and makes St. John (if his meaning be to speak 
 of the persons baptized by him), in baptizing infants 
 for the reformation of their nature back again to the 
 primitive purity of it, to resemble Elias in turning 
 back the waters to their spring head . . . He does 
 plainly speak of the baptism of infants used in the 
 Apostles' time" (Vol. i, 139). 
 
 Basil, A. D. 360 ; i. <f., 260 years after the Apostles. 
 He was Bishop of Caesarea, and " stands high among 
 the fathers of the Church as one of the most eloquent, 
 energetic, and spiritual of their number" (Kitto, 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 2*J 
 
 Ency.). He says: "But any time of one's life is 
 proper for baptism. Be it day or night, be it but an 
 hour or a minute, yet the most proper time is Easter," 
 &c. (Wall, I, 131.) He practiced infant baptism 
 accordingly. Theodoret, in his " History of the 
 Church," which was written about A. D. 423, says, 
 on page 177, that Basil directed the child of the 
 Emperor Valens to be baptized. In the above 
 extract from his writings he declares any period of 
 one's life to be proper for baptism — even an hour 
 after birth. 
 
 Gregory Nazia?izen, A. D. 360 — 260 years after 
 the Apostles. He was not baptized in infancy, 
 because, as is abundantly evident from the most 
 reliable sources, he was born before his father em- 
 braced Christianity. If there had been any doubt, 
 therefore, of the rightfulness of infant baptism in his 
 time, he would have availed himself of it in order to 
 vindicate the memory of his father, for whom he 
 always expressed great reverence. He thus expresses 
 himself with reference to baptism : " Hast thou an 
 infant-child ? Let not wickedness have the advan- 
 tage of time; let him be sanctified from his infancy; 
 let him be dedicated from his cradle to [or by] the 
 Spirit. Thou, as a faint-hearted mother and of little 
 faith, art afraid of giving him the seal because of the 
 weakness of nature." He is here reprimanding any, 
 
28 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 who, through a misapprehension of the saving effects 
 of baptism, might be disposed to defer it until late in 
 life, or until the approach of death. Tertullian, in 
 the second century, had advocated such a delay in 
 baptism. Gregory, however, urges the giving of " the 
 seal," or baptism, " in infancy," or " from the cradle." 
 
 Optatus^ Bishop of Milevi, A. D. 360, calls baptism 
 in the name of Christ " a garment." and says : "Oh ! 
 what a garment is this, that is always one and never 
 renewed, that decently fits all y.ges and all shapes ! 
 It is neither too big for infants nor too little for 
 men," &c. 
 
 Cypria?t, Bishop of Carthage, A. D. 250; i. <?., 150 
 years after the Apostles, About the year 250 this 
 bishop presided over a Council at Carthage of sixty- 
 six bishops. A country bishop by the name of Fidus 
 addressed a letter to this Council, inquiring whether an 
 infant might be baptized at any time after birth, or 
 whether the law of circumcision should be observed, 
 and the baptism delayed to the eighth day. To this 
 letter the Council, through Cyprian, the president, 
 gave the following answer : " But in respect of the 
 case of infants, which you say ought not to be bap- 
 tized within the second or third day after their birth, 
 and that the law of ancient circumcision should be 
 regarded, so that you think that one who is just born 
 should not be baptized and sanctified within the 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 29 
 
 eighth day, we all thought very differently in our 
 Council. For in this course which you thought was to 
 be taken, no one agreed; but we all rather judge 
 that the mercy and grace of God is not to be refused 
 to any one born of man . . . And, therefore, dearest 
 brother, this was our opinion in Council : that by us 
 no one ought to be hindered from baptism and from 
 the grace of God, who is merciful and kind and lovmg 
 to all. Which, since it is to be observed and main- 
 tained in respect of all, we think is to be even more 
 observed in respect of infants and newly born persons, 
 who on this very account deserve more from our help 
 and from the divine mercy, that immediately, on the 
 very beginning of their birth, lamenting and weeping, 
 they do nothing else but entreat." (Cyprian, vol. I. 
 Epis. lviii.)_ 
 
 Here, within 150 years of the Apostles, a Council of 
 sixty-six bishops, representing a large portion of the 
 Church, decide that no delay should be made in bap- 
 tizing infants. Let it be observed that the question 
 submitted to this Council by Fidus was not concerning" 
 the rightfulness of infant baptism, but whether infants 
 might not be withheld from it for eight days. Fidus 
 urged that " the aspect of an infant in the first days 
 after its birth is not pure, so that any one of us would 
 still shudder at kissing it." As, therefore, it was the 
 custom to give the " kiss of peace " to one when bap- 
 
30 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 tized, it seemed to him well to delay baptism until the 
 eighth day, in order that delicacy might not be 
 offended by having to kiss one so young. In support 
 of his claim he urged the law of circumcision. But 
 Cyprian and his sixty-five associate bishops promptly 
 strike down any innovation in the faith and practice 
 of the Church on this subject, and inform Fidus that 
 no *time was to be fixed to which the baptism of 
 infants should be delayed. If the claim of anti- 
 Paedobaptists be true, that infant baptism is an inno- 
 vation, does not this Council exhibit the most astound- 
 ing absurdity ever witnessed ? For example, they, 
 with perfect unanimity, enjoin upon Fidus a radical 
 and dangerous innovation, which has just crept in — 
 one that is almost to subvert " believers' baptism " — 
 and yet they are so scrupulous about innovations as 
 not to permit Fidus to delay baptizing an infant until 
 the eighth day! Who but a fanatic could believe 
 such a thing? The Baptist historian (?!), Orchard, 
 after miserably mutilating this epistle to Fidus, and 
 then trying to discredit the genuineness of it, and 
 having failed to break its force, turns to the unworthy 
 means of aspersing the character of Cyprian. He is 
 denounced as " an ignorant fanatic," "a great tyrant," 
 as making his way to the bishopric by his wealth, as 
 sequestering himself from persecution, &c., &c. (See 
 vol. I, pp. 75-76, Orchard's Hist. Bap.) This is the 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 3 1 
 
 common resort of the opponents of infant baptism. 
 When, as they invariably do, they fail in an appeal to 
 facts, they resort to ridicule and detraction. We are 
 inclined to expose this pretended historian, and make 
 an example of him for the benefit of others. As to 
 the character of Cyprian, Fox, the great martyrolo- 
 gist, thus speaks : " Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, 
 was an eminent prelate, and a pious ornament to the 
 Church. His doctrines were orthodox and pure, his 
 language easy and elegant, and his manners graceful." 
 (Fox's Book of Martyrs, p. 43.) This is the picture 
 of a Christian gentleman, and is concurred in by all 
 whose opinion is worth having. Instead of " seques- 
 tering " himself from persecution, as Orchard alleges, 
 Cyprian suffered the loss of all his estate, which was 
 large, in the Decian persecution, and on the 14th day 
 of September, A. D. 258, was beheaded. 
 
 * We hardly know how to characterize such conduct 
 as Orchard is here guilty of. It is unworthy of any 
 cause — even as bad a one as that he was aiming to 
 maintain. Orchard also says that Cyprian " had no 
 such practice as infant baptism in the Church at Car- 
 thage," and that on receipt of Fidus' letter " he called 
 together, in a private way, his brethren in the vicin- 
 ity, and then he submitted the business."" There is not 
 a truth in all this statement. Let the reader reperuse 
 the quotation from Cyprian and then judge whether 
 
32 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 the practice of infant baptism was known in his Church. 
 Instead of these bishops being assembled for the pur- 
 pose of considering the letter of Fidus, it is plain that 
 they were assembled upon other matters, and that Fidus 
 availed himself of the opportunity to address them as 
 he did; and so far was this assembly from being '* a 
 private " collection of Cyprian's " brethren," that it is 
 most manifestly a regular Council, assembled to delib- 
 erate upon Church affairs. The opening sentence in 
 the reply to Fidus warrants this opinion. Thus — 
 " Cyprian and others of his colleagues who were pre- 
 sent in Council, in number sixty-six, to Fidus their 
 brother," &c. I deem it due the cause of truth 
 to make this exposure of the falseness of a pre- 
 tended Church history, because its statements have 
 been re-echoed by fifth-rate prophets, who depend 
 upon such material for their inspiration. 
 
 I shall resume in the next article the historic argii- 
 ment. 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 33 
 
 ARTICLE III. 
 
 HISTORIC ARGUMENT CONTINUED — TESTIMONY OF 
 ORIGEN, TERTULLIAN, IREN.tUS, JUSTIN MARTYR, 
 ETC. 
 
 We now resume the argument from history, and 
 proceed to show that mfant baptism was practiced by 
 the Church in the apostohc age without a dissenting 
 voice. Our last witness was Cyprian and the Coun- 
 cil at Carthage. This brought us within 150 years of 
 the time of the Apostles. 
 
 Ori^en, A. D. 210 ; i.e., no years after the Apostles. 
 He was "the most learned and one of the most influ- 
 ential of the Christian Fathers. . . . His father, 
 Leonidas, was a Christian, and suffered martyrdom 
 for his attachment to the cause of Chribt, A. D. 202." 
 (Kitto's Bib. Cyc.) 
 
 Dr. Scliaff says : " Epiphanius, an opponent, states 
 the number of his [Origen'sJ works at six thousand, 
 which (continues Schaff) is, perhaps, not much beyond 
 the mark, if we include all his short tracts, homilies, 
 and letters, and count them as separate volumes." 
 He was a man of profound and extensive research. 
 Being born in the year 185, and baptized in his in- 
 .. 3 
 
34 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 fancy, there must have been many still aUve in the 
 Church when he was baptized who had been brought 
 to Christianity by the Apostles themselves. When 
 Origen was baptized in infancy the Apostle John had 
 been dead only about twenty-five years. His bap- 
 tism, therefore, takes us within the shadow of the 
 apostoHc age. Let us now hear his testimony. He 
 says : " Besides all this, let it be considered, what is 
 the reason that whereas the baptism of the Church is 
 given for forgiveness of sins, infants also are, by the 
 usage of the Church, ba2:)tized -, when, if there was 
 nothing in infants that wanted forgiveness and mercy, 
 the grace of baptism would be needless to them." 
 (Wall, I. 65.) With Origen's opinion as to the de- 
 sign of baptism we have nothing to do. It is simply 
 his testimony to a fact that we are concerned about. 
 He here asserts that it was the " usage " or custom of 
 the Church to baptize infants. If this was not a fact, 
 every man contemporary with Origen could have con- 
 tradicted it; and there was just the same opportunity 
 for their contradiction to reach us as there was for his 
 statement. But the fact is before us, uncontradicted, 
 that about 120 years after the Apostles, it was the 
 " usage of the Church to baptize infants. Origen fur- 
 ther affirms : " For this also it was that the Church 
 had from the Apostles a tradition [or order] to give 
 baptism even to infants." (Ibid., I, 66.') The word 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 35 
 
 which Dr. Wall here renders " tradition or order " 
 has not the evil sense which now attaches to '' tradi- 
 tion." The Latin traditionem, which Rufinus, Ori- 
 gen's translator, used to translate TTapa^ooLg, the word 
 used by Origen, means " a delivering by words, teach- 
 ing, instruction, delivering." (Leveretfs Lat. Lex,) 
 So also the original word of Origen, napaSoaig, means, 
 *' In N. T. meton., anything orally delivered — a pre- 
 cept, ordinance, instruction." iyRobinsofi's JV. T, 
 Greek Lex.) Here, then, the man who within eighty- 
 five years of the Apostles was himself baptized in in- 
 fancy, whose father and grandfather were Christians, 
 affirms that the Church had a " precept " or " instruc- 
 tion " from the Apostles " to baptize infants." 
 
 TertuUia7i, A. D. 200 — 100 years after the Apostles. 
 It is proper to state that Tertullian had fallen into the 
 most grievous errors concerning the efficacy of the 
 water of baptism. He believed that when the Spirit 
 hovered over the great deep in the beginning, he im- 
 parted to water a divine element, and that when the 
 body came in contact with water in baptism, it ab- 
 sorbed, in some mysterious way, this divine element. 
 Hence, in his opinion, the water of baptism did of it- 
 self, cleanse away all pollution. As a matter, there- 
 fore, of safety, he advised the delay of baptism of all 
 persons until the most dangerous periods of life were 
 passed, lest if they should fall into grievous sins after 
 
36 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 baptism there should be no hope for them, as baptism 
 could not be readministered. Hence, says he, " For 
 no less cause must the unwedded also be deferred — in 
 whom [the ground of] temptation is prepared, alike in 
 such as never were wedded by means of their maturi- 
 ty, and in the widowed by means of their freedom 
 [from the nuptial yoke] — until they either marry, or 
 else be more fully strengthened for [maintaining] con- 
 tinence. If any understand the weighty import of 
 baptism, they will fear its reception more than its 
 delay; sound faith is secure of salvation." (De Bap- 
 tismo, chap, xviii.) 
 
 This explanation is necessary to a proper under- 
 standing of the quotation following : "And so," says 
 Tertullian, '• according to the circumstances and dis- 
 position, and even age, of each individual, the delay 
 of baptism is even preferable ; principally, however, 
 in the case of little children." (De Baptismo, chap, 
 xviii.) He did not oppose the rightfulness of infant 
 baptism, as anti-Paedobaptists have frequendy repre- 
 sented him ; he only did in their case what he did in 
 the case of "the unmarried," "widows," and all in 
 whom " the ground of temptation is prepared " — 
 namely, advised the delay of baptism as a matter of 
 expediency. Here, then, is a distinguished writer, 
 who was born about A. D. 150, speaking of infant 
 baptism as an existing fact. He utters no word 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 37 
 
 against its rightfulness. He simply advises its delay, 
 as he does also in the case of adults, as a matter of 
 expediency. I can not refrain from again exposing 
 the unchristian conduct of the opponents of infant 
 baptism. The Baptist historian, Orchard, fabricates 
 the following with reference to Tertullian : " Tertul- 
 lian was inquired of by a rich lady named Quintilla, 
 who lived at Pepuza, a town in Phrygia, whether in- 
 fants might be baptized on condition that they asked 
 to be baptized and produced sponsors. In reply to 
 Quintilla, Tertullian observes, ' That baptism ought 
 not to be administered rashly, the administrators of it 
 know.' " (History of Baptists, vol. I, pp. 69-70.) 
 Now, what will the candid reader think when, with 
 Tertullian's works (from which Orchard pretends to 
 quote) open before us, we assure him that there is not 
 one word of truth in this whole story? The entire thing 
 is a fabrication. The remotest allusion to such a story 
 is not found in his works ! Orchard's intention evi- 
 dently was to create the impression that this was the 
 first suggestion of infant baptism made to Tertullian's 
 mind, and that he promptly rejected that. How des- 
 perate must be a cause which throws itself upon such 
 expedients for support ! 
 
 CUment of Alexjndri'X, h.. D. 192 — 92 years after 
 the Apostles. He was a distinguished writer and 
 teacher in the Church. His works which have come 
 
38 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 down to US exhibit great calmness and moderation. 
 His work before us, The Pcedagogus, is largely devoted 
 to instructing men and \vomen concerning the gravity 
 and modesty to be cultivated in all the affairs of life — 
 e. g., apparel, ornaments, &c. Referring to the cus- 
 tom of wearing rings on the fingers with seals or de- 
 vices graven on them, he inveighs against the custom 
 of putting lascivious pictures and devices for such 
 seals, and advises as follows : "And let our seals be 
 either a dove or a fish, or a ship scudding before the 
 wind, or a musical lyre which Polycrates used, or a 
 ship's anchor, which Seleucus got engraved as a de- 
 vice; and if there be one fishing, he will remember 
 the apostle, and the children {naLdiijdv) drawn out of 
 the water." Or, as Dr. Wall translates : "And if 
 any one be by trade a fisherman, he will do well to 
 think of an apostle, and the children taken out of the 
 water." (Pjed. B. Ill, chap, xi.) Wall, who is re- 
 ceived as the highest authority by all on the history of 
 infant baptism, remarks upon this passage : "An apos- 
 tle's taking, or drawing, or lifting a child out of the 
 water, can not refer to anything that I can think of, 
 but the baptizing of it. And infantejn de fonte?n levare 
 [to raise an infant from the font] is a phrase used by 
 the ancients, denoting the baptizing of it, almost as 
 commonly as the word baptizing itself" (Wall I, 53.) 
 This, in Clement, is but an allusion to the existing 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 39 
 
 fact of infant baptism ; but, as Wall says, " Such tran- 
 sient supposals of a thing, and taking it for granted, 
 are in an ancient author rather plainer proofs of its 
 being then generally used or known, than a larger in- 
 sisting on it would be." Within ninety-two years, 
 then, ot the Apostles' time, infant baptism is referred 
 to as a well-known fact, and made to illustrate other 
 topics of religion. But how could such references 
 have been made if the custom did not prevail, and re- 
 ceive the sanction of the Church ? With reference to 
 *• the drawing of the child out of the water," it may 
 be proper here to state the manner of baptizing infants 
 in the East, where customs remain the same from age 
 to age. The " Report to the Board of Missions of the 
 Prot. Epis. Ch., U. S.," by Rev. Dr. Jarvis, says: 
 " The priest then asks the name of the child, and tak- 
 ing him on his left arm, and supporting his feet with 
 his right, he puts him into the font, his head being kept 
 out of the water. Then, with the hollow of his hand, 
 he pours water upon the child three times, baptizing 
 him," &c. (Chapin Prim., chap. 80.) This is an 
 account of the manner of baptizing among the Arme- 
 nians. The same is also stated of the Syro- Jacobites, 
 Copts and Abyssifiia?is, 2ind. other Eastern Christians. 
 An apostle, therefore, " drawing a child out of the 
 water," was simply lifting its feet out of the font. 
 Irencdus. Pie was born about A. D. 120, and wrote 
 
40 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 the book from which we quote about A. D. 182. He 
 was bom within about twenty years of the Apostles' 
 time. He was a disciple of Polycarp, who was a dis- 
 ciple of the Apostle John. Concerning Polycarp, 
 Irenseus thus speaks : " Polycarp also was not only 
 instructed by the Apostles, and conversed with many 
 who had seen Christ, but was also, by the Apostles in 
 Asia, appointed Bishop of the Church in Smyrna, 
 whom I also saw in my early youth, for he tarried [on 
 earth] a very long time, and when a very old man, 
 gloriously and most nobly suffering martyrdom, de- 
 parted this life, having always taught the things which 
 he had learned from the Apostles, and which the 
 Church has handed down, and which alone are true." 
 (Ire. B. HI, 4.) Schafifsays of Irenaeus : " He en- 
 joyed in his youth the instruction of the venerable 
 Polycarp of Smyrna. Through this link he still was 
 connected with the Johannean age. The spirit of his 
 preceptor passed over to him." (His. Chr. chap. I, 
 488.) Such, therefore, was his contiguity to the Apos- 
 tles, and such were his opportunities tor knowing their 
 practice, that whatever he says upon this question 
 should be received as conclusive. We quote him : 
 "For He [Christ] came to save all through means of 
 himself — all, I say, who through him are born again 
 to God [renascurJur in Deiiu{\ infants, and children, 
 and boys, and youths, and old men. He, therefore, 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 4I 
 
 passed through every age, becoming an infant for in- 
 fants, thus sanctifying infants ; a child for children, 
 thus sanctifying those who are of this age, being at 
 the same time made to them an example of piety, 
 righteousness, and submission," Szc. (Iren^eus Adv. 
 Haereseos, B. II, chap. xxii. 4.) The only thing to be 
 explained in the phrase " born again to God," or '•' re- 
 generated to God." That Irenaeus meant baptism by 
 regenerate, is true beyond reasonable doubt, in book 
 III, chap, xvii, he uses "baptize" and "regenerate" 
 as interchangeable terms. "And again, giving to the 
 disciples the power of regeneration into God, he said 
 to them, ' Go and teach all nations, baptizing them,"' 
 &c. Regenerate was so used by all the Fathers — e. 
 g., Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, 
 &c. Wall and Lightfoot show that it had been so 
 used by the Jews before and during the time of the 
 Apostles, and even the strongest opponents of infant 
 baptism admit that Irenaeus so used the word. Thus 
 Alexander Campbell says : " Well, now it comes to 
 pass that I represent all the primitive Fathers as using 
 the term regenerated as equivalent to the term bap- 
 tized. All this is true; and what then ? 
 But on a more accurate and strict examination of their 
 writings [the Fathers'] and of the use of this term in 
 the New Testament, I am assured that they used the 
 term regenerated as equivalent to immersion, and 
 
42 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 spoke of the spiritual change under other terms and 
 modes of speech." (Rice and Campbell Debate, 430.) 
 This is the testimony of a bitter opponent of infant 
 baptism. Wall says : " The ancients, when they 
 speak of regeneration as applied to a person in this 
 world, do always by that word mean, or connate, his 
 baptism." (I, 47.) The evidence is, therefore, abso- 
 lute and overwhelming, that Irenaeus meant baptism 
 by regenerate. We hear him, then, declare that " in- 
 fants " are " baptized to God." Let it be remem- 
 bered that this is the statement of a man who was the 
 disciple and pupil of the venerable Polycarp, who was 
 the disciple and pupil of the Apostle John. We have 
 already seen that Origen, who was born in A. D. 185, 
 was baptized in infancy. (See Wall and Schaff.) 
 Hence, as Irenaeus wrote the book from which we 
 quote, about eighty-two years after the Aposdes' time, 
 this statement was made while the Church was un- 
 questionably practicing infant baptism, as in the ease 
 of Origen. Now, is it to be presumed that right there, 
 under the shadow of the Apostles, and while their 
 disciples were still living — such men as Polycarp, who 
 willingly gave up their lives for the truth of Christian- 
 ity — that under such circumstances a grievous innova- 
 tion came in, and the holiest and truest men in the 
 Church submitted to it ? Never was there a more 
 absurd conceit ! 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 43 
 
 y^ustin Martyr^ A. D. 140 — 40 years after the 
 Apostles. This eminent man in the Church often 
 speaks of baptism as " spiritual circumcision," recog- 
 nizing thereby the same relation of baptism to the 
 Church and its members as that which circumcision 
 sustained. On this subject he says : "And we, who 
 have approached God through Him, have received 
 not carnal, but spiritual circumcision, which Enoch 
 and those like him observed. And we have received 
 it through baptism, since we were sinners, by God's 
 mercy; and all men may equally obtain it." (Dia. 
 with Trypho, chap, xiiii.) 
 
 It was the belief of these Fathers, as it has been of 
 the Church at all times, that baptism takes the place 
 of circumcision in the Church, and consequently is to 
 be administered to infants just as that was. In the 
 light of these truths we are now prepared to under- 
 stand the following statement by Justin : "And many, 
 both men and women, who have been Christ's disci- 
 ples from childhood remain pure at the age of sixty or 
 seventy years." (Justin Martyr's First Apology, chap. 
 
 XX.) 
 
 It is not a little remarkable that Justin uses the 
 same word here for disciple {efiadi^revdrjaav) that 
 Matthew uses in the commission. (Matt, xxviii. 19.) 
 Now, it is conceded on all sides that baptism is one 
 of the essential items in discipling persons to Christ ; 
 
44 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 and from the office of baptism in the Christian econo- 
 my as Justin understood it — being the same as cir- 
 cumcision — it can not be doubted that he meant to 
 say these persons were baptized to Christ in childhood 
 — natdcjv — infancy. Now, persons seventy years old 
 in Justin's time who had been baptized in infancy, 
 were baptized only about thirty-six years after the As- 
 cension of Christ. This was, consequently, right in 
 the Apostles' time. Schaff says of Justin : " He ex- 
 pressly teaches the capacity of all men for spiritual 
 circumcision by baptism ; and his rraoLV [all] can with 
 the less propriety be limited, since he is here speaking 
 to a Jew, and as he elsewhere (in his smaller Apolo- 
 gy) speaks of old men who have been from childhood 
 disciples of Christ." (His. Chr. Ch. I, 402.) 
 
 Hernias Fastor. It is generally believed that this 
 work was written before the Apostle John wrote his 
 Gospel (Vid. Wall, I, 34), and consequently it con- 
 ducts us inside the Apostolic age. The book is a re- 
 ligious allegory, in which the Church is represented as 
 a tower in process of building. I shall only give a 
 summary statement of the line of reasoning observed 
 by the author. The foundation of the tower, or 
 Church, is " the Son of God." (Chap, xii.) The 
 "tower" built thereon "is the Church." (Chap, xiii.) 
 The stones of which the tower was built were taken 
 from ^' twelve mountains " (chap, i.), which repre- 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 45 
 
 sent the "twelve tribes which inhabit the whole 
 world." (Chap, xvii.) As the stones are taken from 
 the mountains to be placed in the building, the " Seal," 
 which is baptism, is appHed to them. (Chap, xvi.) 
 Now, the question is, have children any place in this 
 tower, or Church ? We quote in answer: "And they 
 who believed Irom the twelfth mountain, which was 
 white, are the following: they are as infant children, 
 in whose hearts no evil originates; nor did they know 
 what wickedness is, but always remained as children. 
 Such, accordingly, without doubt, dwell in the king- 
 dom of God, because they defiled in nodiingthe com- 
 mandment of God ; but they remained like children 
 all the days of their life in the same mind. All of 
 you, then, who shall remain steadfast, and be as child- 
 ren, without doing evil, will be more honored than all 
 who have been previously mentioned; for all infants 
 are honorable before God, and are the first persons 
 with Him." (Chap, xxix.) It is only necessary to 
 let the mind run over the contents of the chapters 
 above given to see the bearing of this statement on 
 the question before us. Here was a -'tower" — the 
 Church; it was built by stones taken from "twelve 
 mountains" — the nations; to each "stone," as it was 
 placed in the tower, the " Seal " was given — baptism ; 
 the most honorable persons in this " tower," or with 
 the owner of it, who is God, are " infants." "Was the 
 
46 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 " Seal " given to the less honorable, and withheld 
 from those who were more worthy ? This would be 
 absurd. We claim, therefore, that here is reliable tes- 
 timony, carrying us back within the Apostolic age, 
 and asserting infant baptism and infant Church mem- 
 bership. In view of this unbroken historic line. Dr. 
 Schaff says, in his great " History of the Church," vol. 
 I, p. 401 : " But at the same time it seems to us a 
 settled fact, though by many disputed, that, with the 
 baptism of converts, the optional baptism of the child- 
 ren of Christian parents in established congregations, 
 comes down from the Apostolic age." There is no 
 fact in the history of the Church better attested than 
 that of infant baptism. In the first one thousand 
 years of the Church's history there is not a voice raised 
 against it. On the contrary, we have now seen that 
 Sozomen, A. D. 443 ; Augustine, 388 ; Chrysostom, 
 380; Ambrose, 374; Basil, 360: Gregory, 360; Cy- 
 prian, 250; Origen, 210; TertuUian, 200; Clement, 
 of Alexandria, 192; Irenaeus, 160; Justin Martyr, 
 140; and Hermas Pastor, before John wrote his 
 Gospel — all proclaim it as the practice of the 
 Church. 
 
 The testimony of these writers is the more remark- 
 able from the fact that there could not have been 
 any collusion between them. They were separated 
 from each other by continents and oceans, as well as 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 47 
 
 centuries of time. Still their voice is one. I shall 
 close this chapter by* referring to some rules as laid 
 down by the distinguished legal writer, Simon Green- 
 leaf, LL. D., lor fourteen years the colleague of Chief- 
 Justice Story, and afterward the honored head of the 
 most distinguished school of English law in the world. 
 He says : " Every document, apparently ancient, 
 coming from the proper repository or custody, and 
 bearing on its face no evident marks of forgery, the 
 law presumes to be genuine, and devolves on the op- 
 posing party the burden of proving it to be other- 
 wise." (Greenleaf on Testimony of the Evangelists, 
 p. 7.) We present in court, then, the depositions of 
 fourteen unimpeached witnesses, testifying to infant 
 baptism back to the days of the Apostles. Let our op- 
 ponents disprove these documents or forever abandon 
 the absurd charge of innovation. If it be an innova- 
 tion, when did it come in ? If it be not an innova- 
 tion, it was practiced by the Apostles. This we pro- 
 pose to show in our next. 
 
48 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 ARTICLE IV. 
 
 APOSTOLIC PRACTICE APOSTLES EDUCATED IN INFANT 
 
 BAPTISM. 
 
 Having traced the practice of infant baptism back 
 to the very days in which the inspired Apostles lived 
 and taught, and having seen that these early writers 
 in the Church do almost constandy refer to the Apos- 
 tles as authority in this matter, it is proper now to ex- 
 amine the practice of these holy men and ascertain 
 what there was in their practice to warrant these state- 
 ments of the Fathers. In prosecuting this inquiry, we 
 shall first call attention to the fact that whenever, in 
 the ministry of the Apostles, the head of a family was 
 converted to Christianity, it is expressly stated that 
 the family thereof was baptized, and the word for fam- 
 ily is carefully selected to express the idea of father, 
 mother and children. We will show, in the second 
 place, that these Apostles were reared and educated 
 under the constant practice of the Church to baptize 
 all, including infants, who were proselyted to the true 
 faith. 
 
 In the ministry of the Apostles we have the record 
 of ten baptisms; e. g. (i) Two without families — 
 Paul and the Eunuch. 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 49 
 
 (2) Five are records of large assemblies, collected 
 together in some instances on a sudden — as Pente- 
 cost, &c. 
 
 (3) Three are of families — the family of Stephanas, 
 ist Cor. i. 16; the family of Lydia, Acts xvi. 15; the 
 family of the Jailer, Acts xvi. ^^. Nearly one-third, 
 therefore, of the baptisms recorded of the Apostles 
 were of families. Now, in expressing these family 
 baptisms, a word was carefully selected which nar- 
 rows the signification down to the father, mother and 
 children of a home. This is worthy of notice. There 
 are two words in the Greek which are indiscriminately 
 rendered, in our version, " household." This, we 
 think, should not have been. The words in question 
 are, (i) oliua {oikid)^ and (2) olnoq [oikos). The first 
 word, oikia, includes in its meaning servants, attend- 
 ants, friends, and any others who may be attached to 
 a family. This word is never used in speaking of 
 household or family baptism. 
 
 The second word, oikos, means the family proper, 
 excluding servants, attendants, &c. This word is al- 
 ways used to express family baptism, except in Acts 
 XVI. 33, where its equivalent is used. We have only 
 to show that such distinction in these words exists. 
 This we proceed to do. In ist Cor. i. 16, it is said 
 that Paul " baptized the household — olkov — of Steph- 
 anas," and in ist Cor. xvi. 15 it is said that the "house" 
 4 
 
50 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 — oLKtav — of Stephanas " addicted themselves to the 
 ministry of the saints." Now, what reason is there 
 for this change of words in this case if there be no dif- 
 ference between them ? The facts simply are, that m 
 I St Cor. i. 1 6, Paul baptized the family proper of 
 Stephanas — father, mother and children, and in ist 
 Cor. xvi. 15, a few years after, domestics or others at- 
 tached to the family of .Stephanas, "addicted them- 
 selves to the ministry of the saints." Here, then, 
 when the family proper is spoken of, oi^os is used, and 
 when those not properly of the family are spoken of, 
 oiha is used. Again: In Numbers xvi. 27-32, we 
 read : "And Dathan and Abiram came out, and stood 
 in the door of their tents ; and their wives, and their 
 sons, and their little children. And the earth opened 
 her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses 
 — oLKovg — and all the men that appertained unto Ko- 
 rah, and all their goods." 
 
 Here, "the wives, the sons and the little children 
 of these men are called their oikos — their family; 
 while others who were attached to the family, but 
 were not properly of it, are called "the men that ap- 
 pertained unto Korah." Here, then, in the very 
 Scriptures from which the Apostles drew their reli- 
 gious phraseology, that word which they used to ex- 
 press " household " baptism is employed carefully to 
 express simply the father, mother, " sons and little 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 5I 
 
 children." When it is remembered that these Apostles 
 drew their religious phraseology from the Old Testament 
 Scriptures (quotmg in their epistles, as they constantly 
 do, from the Greek version of the O. T.), it is very 
 significant that they should, in every instance, select a 
 word to express " household " baptism which in the 
 O. T. so expressly includes " the little children " of 
 the family. Our position with reference to these 
 words is ably sustained by learned critics. Thus, 
 Bloomfield on ist Cor. i. 1 6, says, ^^ oLicog, 'family,' 
 including every age and sex, and, of course, infants." 
 He cites an example from Ignatius in proof. It is a% 
 follows : " I salute the households — otfcovg — of my 
 brethren with the women and children." Thus, by 
 the Greek Fathers, oi^os was used to designate the 
 family proper, including the infants thereof. Dr. 
 Summers says : " The term oiKog [oikos) means fam- 
 ily as distinct from oiKia {pikia) household." (Bap- 
 tism xxxii.) Now, with the fact settled beyond rea- 
 sonable doubt, that the word used in the New Testa- 
 ment to designate " household " baptism, does thus 
 carefully exclude all but father, mother, " sons and 
 little children," let us examine the record. 
 
 Acts xvi. 15. "And when she was baptized, and 
 her household, she besought us," &:c. Here house- 
 hold is the same word used in Numbers xvi. 32, in 
 which " the little children " are mentioned as being 
 
52 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 included. The learned inform us that the Peshito- 
 Syriac translation, which some eminent critics believe 
 was made in the first century, while the Apostles were 
 still living, and none, I believe, place it later than 
 about the close of the second century, renders this 
 passage thus : " She was baptized, and her children." 
 Not only then does the inspired writer use a word in 
 speaking of the baptism of Lydia's family, which in- 
 cludes "the little children," but the oldest translation 
 in the world of that inspired statement, is that her 
 " children " were baptized also. This is conclusive. 
 • Acts xvi. 2,3- "And he took them the same hour 
 of the night, and washed their stripes ; and was bap- 
 tized, he and all his, straightway." It is true that ozkos 
 is not employed here ; but it is equally true that ol 
 avTovTTavreg, " all his," is here put as the equivalent of 
 oikas — family. All the old English translators so un- 
 derstood it. Thus, Wicklif, 1380, renders it, "and 
 alle his hous ;" Tyndale, 1534, has it, "was baptized 
 with all that belonged unto him;" Cranmer, 1539, 
 renders it, " and all they of his household; " the Ge- 
 neva version of 1557, "with all that belonged unto 
 him ; " and the Rheims version of 1582 has, " and all 
 his house." The critics so understand it. Lange 
 says : " They [the Apostles] returned that act of love 
 by another, when they baptized him and his family at 
 the same water." They baptized his family just as 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 53 
 
 they a day or two before had baptized Lydia's family. 
 When we consider, as we presently shall, the educa- 
 tion of these Apostles with reference to infant baptism 
 and Church membership, such expressions cannot be 
 misunderstood. 
 
 First Cor. i. i6. "And I baptized also the house- 
 hold of Stephanas." The word for household here is 
 oikos. This, as we have seen, means the immediate 
 family, and was so used by Paul in many instances. 
 Thus, giving instruction to bishops, he says : " One 
 that ruleth well his own house, oikov, having his child- 
 ren in subjection with all gravity; for if a man know 
 not how to rule his own house, olkov, how shall he 
 take care of the Church of God." (ist Tim. iii. 4, 5.) 
 Now, upon the supposition that the infants of a fami- 
 ly are not to be baptized, can it be conceived how the 
 Apostle could, with propriety, use a word in speaking 
 of family baptisms which he elsewhere employs to ex- 
 press the entire family, infants and all ? To suppose 
 such a thing would be to charge a culpable indiffer- 
 ence in the use of words upon an inspired Apostle. 
 We claim, therefore, that these facts demonstrate that 
 the Apostles practiced infant baptism. The Fathers, 
 who lived nearest to them, so understood it, and con- 
 sequently they speak, again and again, of infant bap- 
 tism being practiced and " ordered " by the Apostles. 
 
 But, that we may still further see that these "house- 
 
54 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 hold," or family, baptisms did necessarily involve in- 
 fant baptism, let us look at the education of these 
 Apostles and their co-laborers with reference to this 
 thing. 
 
 We fearlessly affirm that no custom was more com- 
 mon among the Jews in the time of the Apostles, and 
 for ages before, than the baptism of proselytes, includ- 
 ing families and infants. If now it can be shown that 
 these Apostles grew up and received their training 
 amid the universal prevalence of infant baptism, of 
 household baptisms, including infants, and of the un- 
 hesitating recognition by all of the eligibility of infants 
 to membership in the Church, it will amount to dem- 
 onstration that they practiced infant baptism, when, 
 in accordance with this their training, they went forth 
 proselyting the nations and baptizing families. 
 
 We ask the reader, therefore, to accompany us in 
 the examination of some authorities establishing the 
 custom of proselyte and infant baptism among the 
 Jews. 
 
 Maimonides, a learned Rabbi and commentator on 
 Jewish law, says : "A stranger that is circumcised 
 and not baptized, or baptized and not circumcised, he 
 is not a proselyte till he be both circumcised and bap- 
 tized ; and he must be baptized in the presence of 
 three," &c. Again : " Even as they circumcise and 
 baptize strangers, so do they circumcise and baptize 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 55 
 
 servants that are received from heathens," Sue. (Wall 
 
 I. 3, 4-) 
 
 Lightfoot, speaking of John's baptism, says : " But 
 yet the first use of baptism was not exhibited at that 
 time. For baptism, very many centuries of years 
 backward, had been b.oth known and received in most 
 frequent uses among the Jews — and for the same end 
 as it now obtains among Christians — namely, that by 
 it proselytes might be admitted into the Church ; and 
 hence it was called baptism for proselytisms." Again, 
 he says : "All the nation of Israel do assert, as it were 
 with one mouth, that all the nation of Israel were 
 brought into the covenant, among other things, by 
 baptism. 'Israel (saith Maimonides, the great inter- 
 preter of the Jewish law) was admitted into the cove- 
 nant by three things — namely, by circumcision, bap- 
 tism and sacrifice," &c. Again : " Whenever any 
 heathen will betake himself, and be joined to the cove- 
 nant of Israel, and place himself under the wings of 
 the divine majesty, and take the yoke of the law upon 
 him voluntary, circumcision, baptism and oblation are 
 required ; but if it be a woman, baptism and oblation. 
 That was a common axiom : No man is a proselyte 
 until he be circumcised and baptized. . . . They 
 baptized also young children (for the most part with 
 their parents)! ' They baptize a little proselyte ac- 
 cording to the judgment of the Sanhedrim.' (Bab. 
 
$6 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 Erubhin.) . . . ' This is to be understood of little 
 children, who are made proselytes together with their 
 father.' . . If an Israehte take a Gentile child, 
 
 or find a Gentile infant, and baptize him in the name 
 of a proselyte, behold, he is a proselyte." (Lightfoot, 
 Hor. Heb. et Tal., vol. II, pp. 54-57.) 
 
 Here it is made manifest that proselyte baptism ex- 
 isted in the Church many centuries before the time of 
 the Apostles, and that the infant children of proselytes 
 were always baptized with their parents. Household 
 baptisms, therefore, including infants, were just as 
 common among the Jews as household circumcision. 
 Dr. Lightfoot, who had read up exhaustively the en- 
 tire literature of the Hebrews, says that " all the na- 
 tion of Israel do assert, as it were with one mouth, that 
 all the nation of Israel were brought into the cove- 
 nant, among other things, by baptism." What, 
 now, we ask, could have been the construction, and 
 the only construction, which a Jew would place upon 
 the language of Luke and Paul when they again and 
 again speak of baptizing " the household " of such 
 and such persons ? Unless we assume that a nation 
 did, in a day, change its whole religious phraseology, 
 without any reason appearing why they should do so, 
 we must admit that the Jews, to whom these inspired 
 documents were directed, and the Apostles who wrote 
 them, must have understood such expressions as 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 57 
 
 " household " or " family baptism " in the same sense 
 in which those phrases had been used for ages — 
 namely, as including infants. Home lays it down as 
 a universal rule, that " The received signification of a 
 word is to be retained, unless weighty and necessary 
 reasons require that it should be abandoned or ne- 
 glected." (Introduction Pt. 11, 335.) But no such 
 " weighty and necessary reasons " have ever been ad- 
 duced by our opponents showing why Paul and others 
 used those phrases in a different sense from that 
 which they had borne in all the literature of all the 
 ages of the Hebrew people. 
 
 If it were necessary to substantiate the statements 
 of Lightfoot and Wall concerning this practice of pro- 
 selyte infant baptism, we might array, almost without 
 end, the names of the most distinguished scholars of 
 the past and present, who afhrm the same. We will 
 give a few as samples. 
 
 Kitto's Cyclo. Bib. Lit., vol. Ill, Art. Proselytes. 
 "According to the Rabbins, baptism was even more 
 essential than circumcision. . . . When a prose- 
 lyte had young children, these were baptized with 
 their parents. . . . Assuming that they practiced 
 that rite before, we can account for their not giving it 
 up simply because the Christians had adopted it; but, 
 trace it as we please to Jewish customs and rites, it 
 seems utterly m credible that after it had become the 
 
58 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 symbol and badge of the religious party, which of all 
 others, perhaps, the Jews most bitterly hated, any 
 consideration whatever should have induced them to 
 begin to practice it. On the other hand, we have, in 
 favor of the hypothesis that proselyte baptism was 
 practiced anterior to the time of our Lord, some 
 strongly corroborative evidence. We have, in the 
 first place, the unanimous tradition of the Jewish Rab- 
 bins, who impute to the practice an antiquity com- 
 mensurate almost with that of their nation Secondly, 
 we have the fact that the baptism of John the Baptist 
 was not regarded by the people as aught of a novelty, 
 nor was represented by him as resting for its authority 
 upon any special divine revelation. Thirdly, we have 
 the fact that the Pharisees looked upon the baptism 
 both of John and Jesus as a mode of proselyting men 
 to their religious views (John iv. 1-3) and that the 
 dispute between the Jews and the sons of John's disci- 
 ples about purifying, was apparently a dispute as to 
 the competing claims of John and Jesus to make pro- 
 selytes." We give so much of this valuable article 
 because it expresses so concisely the views of the 
 learned world. To the names already given might be 
 added those of Selden, Danze, Witsius, Kuincel, Jahn, 
 Halley, Buxtorf, Schoetgen, Wetstein, Furst, Mosheim 
 and Schaff. 
 
 If, therefore, learning and the literature of a people 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 59 
 
 can establish anything, or is worth anything in deter- 
 mining the customs of a people, then it is established 
 that proselyte infant baptism was the universal custom 
 of the Hebrews in the days of the Apostles, and had 
 been for ages. Now, under these influences, these 
 Hebrew men, who were made the Apostles of Christ, 
 were reared and educated. There had never been a 
 suspicion in their minds against the eligibility of infants 
 to a place in the Church and to the token of covenant 
 relation ; they had witnessed the baptism of families, 
 including infants, whenever a Gentile father or mother 
 sought a place among God's Israel; their Divine 
 Master had uttered no syllable indicating that a change 
 in this respect was to characterize their practice ; and 
 now, with such an education, and from the midst of 
 this universally prevalent custom, they go forth to 
 proselyte the "nations" to Christ, and in this work 
 nearly one-third of the baptisms recorded of them are 
 of " households " or " families." Logic and common 
 sense leave but one conclusion to be drawn — namely, 
 that they baptized infants, as their fathers had done 
 through the ages past. 
 
 There is one point in this question of Jewish prose- 
 lyte baptism which it may be well here to notice, be- 
 cause our opponents, in their despair, invariably run 
 to it. They tell us that no such thing as baptism is 
 commanded in the inspired laws of the Hebrews ; and 
 
6o INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 that if baptism was added by the Hebrews at any 
 time before Christ, it was an innovation, and conse- 
 quently heretical. This is the best they can do in 
 setting aside this custom. But this cavil may be suc- 
 cessfully exposed and refuted in many ways. 
 
 Thus, for example, when the Passover was instituted 
 no mention is made of wine as any part of the ele- 
 ments of the Passover Supper. The Paschal " lamb," 
 " unleavened bread " and " bitter herbs " are the only 
 things mentioned in the institution of that solemn feast. 
 (See Ex. xii. i-io.) And yet, when Christ ate the 
 last Passover with his disciples, and of it instituted his 
 Supper, wine was an essential part in that Passover, 
 and Jesus recognized the rightfulness of its being there 
 when he used it in the institution of His Supper. In 
 like manner, if we were to admit that no mention of 
 baptism is made in the law concerning a proselyte, 
 still here was the custom of baptizing them, extending 
 back to the remotest periods in Hebrew history, and 
 Christ recognizes its rightfulness in that he enjoins 
 upon his Apostles to baptize all whom they proselyte 
 to him. But there is divine authority for the existence 
 of baptism among the Hebrews anterior to the Apos- 
 tles. Thus, Paul says of their ordinances, " which 
 stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings 
 {or baptisms, (3a7TTLaiJ,oLg), and carnal ordinances, im- 
 posed on them until the time of reformation." (Heb. 
 ix. lo.) 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 6l 
 
 Here it is plainly declared that He who imposed 
 the ordinances of " meats and drinks " upon the He- 
 brews, also imposed the ordinance of *' divers bap- 
 tisms." Again: " Moreover, brethren, I would not 
 have you ignorant how that all our fathers were under 
 the cloud, and all passed through the sea ; and were 
 all baptized [(SaTTTi^d)) unto Moses in the cloud and 
 in the sea." (ist Cor. x. i, 2.) Here, " the whole na- 
 tion of Israel " was baptized when they came out of 
 Egypt. "And when they came from the market, ex- 
 cept they wash (or baptize^ f^arrrLOCDvr at), they eat not. 
 And many other things there be, which they have re- 
 ceived to hold, as the washing (or baptism, (3a7TrLaiJ,og) 
 of cups, and pots, brazen vessels, and of tables." 
 (Mark vii. 4.) We have seen from Heb. ix. 10 that 
 these baptisms were " imposed " on them by the same 
 authority that imposed the ordinances of " meats and 
 drinks " — namely, Jehovah. Baptism, therefore, was 
 of divine appointment among the Hebrews, and that 
 baptism was given to infants. 
 
 Men, therefore, who had been educated under this 
 divinely appointed rite, and who had witnessed it 
 through their entire lives, would have required special 
 instruction from the Master, and the most explicit 
 commands, before they could have been brought to 
 practice contrarily. Witness, for example, the difficul- 
 ty there was in inducing Peter " to go to the Gen- 
 
62 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 tiles," whom he had been taught by his reUgion to 
 regard as unclean. God had not only to give an ex- 
 press command, " Get thee down, and go with them" 
 (Acts X. 20), but he had to work a wonder, in the 
 vision of " the sheet," before the religious training of 
 this Jew could be overcome. And after all this had 
 been done, Peter went to Cornelius with these words, 
 " Ye know how that it is an unlawful thing for a man 
 that is a Jew to keep company, or come unto one of 
 another nation." (Acts x. 28.) Now, in the face of 
 such facts, the opponents of infant baptism would 
 have us believe that these Apostles, educated and de- 
 veloped in all their religious life under the practice of 
 infant baptism, whenever a Gentile family was prose- 
 lyted, themselves went forth to proselyte the Gentile 
 world, and, without one hint or suggestion from the 
 Master, abandoned in their practice that which they 
 had been educated to believe an essential feature of 
 religion. The thing is too absurd to be entertained 
 for a moment. 
 
 Let us now run back over the argument from an 
 authoritative example. We have seen that in the first 
 four centuries of the Christian era, the voice of history 
 is uniform in regard to the practice of infant baptism. 
 We traced it inside the Apostolic age. Here is the 
 practice of the Church in its purest age. We have 
 seen that the Apostles, who were reared and educated 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 63 
 
 under the universal prevalence of infant baptism, did 
 always baptize the whole family when the head there- 
 of received Christ ; and that in the education of the 
 Apostles such family baptisms always involved the 
 baptism of infants. We have seen that the proselyte 
 baptism among the Hebrews, which included that of 
 infants, was not an innovation, but of divine appoint- 
 ment, as certified to by St. Paul, in Heb. ix. lo. Now, 
 if the opponents of infant baptism were called upon 
 to produce one-half the authority for setting aside the 
 " seventh day " as a holy day, and for substituting 
 therefor the first day of the week, that is here pro- 
 duced for infant baptism, they could not do it to save 
 the world ! And yet, with an effrontery which is ab- 
 solutely shocking, they declare that infant baptism has 
 no divine warrant ! 
 
 We shall take up in our next our first method of 
 proof — namely, a divine command. 
 
64 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 ARTICLE V . 
 
 THE COMMISSION A POSITIVE COMMAND — UNDER IT 
 " LITTLE CHILDREN " ARE TO BE RECEIVED " IN 
 THE NAME OF JESUS." 
 
 We have stated that one method of proving a pro- 
 position is a cot?i?na?id — " Do this or that." 
 
 But how shall we determine to whom such a com- 
 mand extends ? It is perfectly obvious that a com- 
 mand may, and often does, extend to parties not 
 named in it. In the event, then, of a controversy as 
 to whether a certain party is contemplated in a given 
 command, how could it be satisfactorily determined ? 
 Simply by ascertaining whether that party belongs to 
 the class named in the command. This position may 
 be fully established by reference to the Lord's Supper. 
 In it the command is, '* Do this in remembrance of 
 me." Xow, if one were disposed to be captious, and 
 to confide in such arguments as the opponents of in- 
 fant baptism put forth, he might urge, with great 
 plausibility, that women are not entitled to partake of 
 this Supper. He might urge the following considera- 
 tions, which are much stronger against giving the Sup- 
 per to women than anything they have put forth 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 65 
 
 against infant baptism. E. g. — It might be urged (i), 
 That none but men were present when the Supper was 
 instituted ; (2), That no mention is made by any of the 
 inspired writers of any instance in which a woman 
 partook of the Lord's Supper. There is not one such 
 example; (3), That the appellations given in the New 
 Testament to those who partook of the Lord's Sup- 
 per, such as [MaOrjTfjg, dytog, {jiiatheetees^ hagios), &c., 
 are in the masculine gender; and (4), That when the 
 Apostle gave directions about partaking of the Lord's 
 Supper, he employed a word which is often used to 
 distinguish the man from the woman. Thus, ist Cor. 
 xi. 28, " But let a man — avdpoj-jog {aiithropos) exam- 
 ine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink 
 of that cup." Now, the word for man here is often 
 used to distinguish man from woman. 
 
 I will give a few examples : Gen. ii. 24, " There- 
 fore shall a man {a?ithropos) leave his father and 
 mother and cleave unto his wife." Gen. xxvi. 11, 
 "And Abimelech charged all his people, saying, He 
 that toucheth this man [anihropon) or his wite, shall 
 surely be put to death." Gen. xxxiv. 14, "And they 
 said unto them, We can not do this thing, to give our 
 sister to one [anthropd) that is uncircumcised." Matt, 
 xix. 10, " His disciples say unto him, If the case ot 
 the man {anthropon) be so with his wife, it is not good 
 to marry;" xix. 3, " Is it lawful for a man {anthropo) 
 5 
 
66 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 to put away his wife for every cause ?" These exam- 
 ples might be indefinitely multiplied, were it necessary. 
 These, however, show that when the Apostle gave 
 direction about partaking of the Lord's Supper he 
 used a term which signifies man as distinguished 
 from woman. What an array a shrewd debater could 
 thus make against permitting women to commune ! 
 And, O ! if our opponents could adduce anything half 
 so strong against infant baptism, how they would 
 exult in it ! Now, how do we determine that the 
 command, " Do this," extends to women ? In other 
 words, how can we justify the practice of giving the 
 Lord's Supper to them ? Simply by determining 
 whether they belong to that class to whom this com- 
 mand is given. What is the class ? They that " re- 
 member " Jesus — " Do this in remembrance of me." 
 Upon this, and this alone, we give the Supper to wo- 
 men. 
 
 Now let us apply this rule to the question under 
 consideration. The commission as given in Matt, 
 xxviii. 19, is as follows : " Go ye therefore and teach 
 [or disciple] all nations, baptizing them in the name 
 of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." 
 Here the command is, disciple, baptize ; the class is, 
 " all nations." Do infants belong to the class ? Are 
 they a part of '• the nations ?" If so, then the com- 
 mand extends to them as well as to any others of " the 
 nations." 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 6j 
 
 Let US see if the Scriptures use the expression, "the 
 nations," so as to include infants. John xi. 50, " Now 
 consider that it is expedient for us that one man die 
 for the people, and that the whole nation perish not." 
 If a " whole nation " were to perish, would the in- 
 fants thereof escape? Acts xvii. 26, God ''hath 
 made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on 
 all the face of the earth." When God made " all na- 
 tions " were infants not included ? Thus it is most 
 manifest that the very terms of the commission em- 
 brace infants — " disciple all nations, baptizing them." 
 The very moment the opponent of infant baptism dis- 
 proves the rule by which we extend the command to 
 baptize in this commission to infants, that moment he 
 takes away the only ground upon which he can vin- 
 dicate his practice of giving the Lord's Supper to wo- 
 men. Here, therefore, we claim, is a positive com- 
 mand for infant baptism. That we may the more 
 fully realize the force of this, let us consider the cir- 
 cumstances under which the Apostles received this 
 commission. We do not understand that this com- 
 mission was first given after the resurrection of Jesus. 
 The record shows the contrary. Thus, Matt. x. 2-6, 
 " Now the names of the twelve Apostles are these : 
 The first Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his 
 brother, &c. . . . These twelve Jesus sent forth, 
 Bud commanded them, saying, Go not into the way 
 
68 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans 
 enter ye not ; but go rather to the lost sheep of the 
 house of Israel. And as ye go, preach, saying. The 
 kingdom of heaven is at hand," &c. Mark says, iii. 
 13-14, that he " ordained twelve, that they should be 
 with him, and that he might send them forth to 
 preach." Matt. x. contains just such full and com- 
 plete instructions as we would reasonably expect such 
 ambassadors to have. Here, then, is the commission 
 as given about two years before the crucifixion. This 
 commission authorized them to " preach " and to bap- 
 tize. It is evident from John iv. 1-3 that they did 
 baptize. Now, when this commission was given it 
 limited them, in all their labors, to " the lost sheep of 
 the house of Israel." Beyond this they were not al- 
 lowed at that time to go. But when, after the resur- 
 rection of Jesus, " all power in heaven and in earth " 
 was given him, he lifted this limitation, and sent them 
 " into all the world," to " disciple " and " baptize all 
 nations." The statement which we have, therefore, 
 in Matt, xxviii. 19, 20, is simply an epitome of the 
 commission as given more than two years before ; and 
 the only difterence between this epitome and the full 
 commission is, that in the full commission they are 
 limited in their operations to the Hebrews, and in the 
 epitome that limitation is removed. 
 
 These facts being estabHshed, we are prepared to 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 69 
 
 appreciate the bearing of this commission on infant 
 baptism. When it was first given, it was to men who 
 all their lives had witnessed infant baptism in the 
 Church whenever a Gentile family was proselyted, 
 and it sent them restrictively to a people who had 
 practiced infant baptism, according to their own testi- 
 mony, from time immemorial. When they first went 
 forth under this commission to preach and baptize, 
 proselyte baptism, including infants, existed everywhere 
 among " the lost sheep of the house of Israel," to 
 whom they were restrictively sent. Now, if this prac- 
 tice was to be ignored by them in their operations, 
 every dictate of reason and safety for the future indi- 
 cated this as the point at which definite instructions 
 against the practice should have been given them. 
 To take men whose whole religious life had been de- 
 veloped under the practice of infant baptism and in- 
 fant Church membership, and send them to preach 
 the "kingdom of God" to a people among whom 
 this thing prevailed everywhere and was recognized 
 by them as of divine appointment, and give these 
 men no instruction against this practice, was the most 
 direct and inevitable method of insuring heretical 
 practices, if this thing was not to be continued, that 
 could possibly have been chosen. But not only were 
 they commissioned and sent, under these circum- 
 stances, to "the lost sheep of the house ot Israel," 
 
7© INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 without a hint from their Divine Master that they 
 were to practice in this respect differently from what 
 they had all their lives witnessed, but after his resur- 
 rection they were sent " into all the world " to disci- 
 ple and baptize " all nations " upon the same com- 
 mission, and without a hint that they were to abandon 
 a practice which they had all their lives been taught 
 was of divine appointment. 
 
 Suppose, for illustration, that their commission had 
 read thus : " Go ye, therefore, and disciple all na- 
 tions, circumcising them in the name of the Father, 
 and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Now, our 
 opponents admit the prevalence of circumcision among 
 these Hebrews, and that every proselyte, including his 
 infants, if he had any, was circumcised. These Apos- 
 tles, then, religiously reared and educated to believe 
 in the divine rightfulness of infant circumcision, would, 
 under such a commission, have had no hesitancy in 
 circumcising the infants of a family when the parents 
 were discipled to Christ. It would have required an 
 express injunction from the Master against this thing, 
 and the assigning of reasons for such prohibition, to 
 keep the Apostles from practicing it. But, according 
 to the most undoubted source of information in the 
 world, infant baptism prevailed among the Hebrews 
 as extensively as infant circumcision, and the religious 
 training of every Hebrew was just the same with refer- 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 71 
 
 ence to the one as the other. Why, then, will our 
 opponents continue to assume that they so readily, 
 and without instruction, abandoned the one while it 
 required the most express commands and a long coun- 
 ter-education to induce them to give up the other ? 
 Such assumptions may be a fine illustration of one's 
 adherence to his party, but it can never pass as an 
 exhibition of intelligence and candor. 
 
 I shall at this point notice two objections which our 
 opponents make against the position that infant bap- 
 tism is authorized by this commission: (i) It is ob- 
 jected that my rule which extends the command to 
 " baptize " to intants because they belong to the class 
 named — namely, " all nations," would also extend 
 that command to thieves, murderers, swearers, &c., 
 because they also belong to the class, " all nations." 
 This is simply an ingenious dodge, and its sophistry 
 can be exposed in a moment. We have simply to ask 
 the question — Do " thieves, murderers, swearers," &c., 
 sustain the saved relation to Christ's kingdom that in- 
 fants possess ? In Matt. xix. 14 we read : " But 
 Jesus said, suffer little children and forbid them not to 
 come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven;" 
 and, in Mark x. 14, " Suffer the little children to come 
 unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the king- 
 dom of God." Whenever it can be shown that thieves, 
 murderers, &c., have any such relation to the kingdom 
 
72 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 of heaven as is here affirmed of " Httle children," then 
 will this anti-Psedobaptist objection have some force, 
 not before. 
 
 (2) It is objected that there are essential parts of 
 this commission which cannot be affirmed of infants, 
 and that, therefore, they are not embraced in it. Thus, 
 it is said, the commission embraces '"teaching," "faith," 
 " salvation," " damnation ; " an infant can not be 
 " taught," it can not '' believe," it can not be " damn- 
 ed," and therefore it is not a proper subject for the 
 other item of the commission — namely, baptism. 
 There is much sophistry in this so-called process of 
 reasoning, which our opponents never fail to get off 
 on this question. We propose to expose it. Let the 
 reader get the issue fairly before him. Baptists and 
 Campbellites affirm that infants are not proper sub- 
 jects of baptism because they can not '-'repent," "be- 
 lieve," " be saved from sin," or be exposed to " dam- 
 nation " — the things contemplated in the commission. 
 Now, let us try this logic. It is an axiom in reason- 
 ing that any process of argumentation that would es- 
 tablish a position which is clearly against the truth, 
 or which would support a manifest falsehood, is false 
 and sophistical. Now, let us see if this process of 
 argumentation, adopted by our opponents, would es- 
 tablish a proposition which is contrary to fact. It 
 will not be denied that Jesus Christ was baptized, and 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 73 
 
 it will not be contended by any that he was not a 
 suitable subject for baptism. But which of these items 
 ot the commission could be affirmed of him ? Could 
 he " repent ?" He was without sin. Could he exer- 
 cise saving faith ? He is " the author and finisher " 
 of it — himself the object of saving faith. Could he be 
 saved from sin ? " He knew no sin." If, therefore, 
 no one is a proper subject of baptism but he who can 
 "repent," "believe," be "saved from sin," &c., then 
 Jesus Christ was not a proper subject. The objection 
 would thus prove a falsehood, and, therefore, is in it- 
 self false and sophistical. 
 
 Again: The same objection would disprove infant 
 circumcision. What did circumcision stand connected 
 with in the Scriptures ? We read. Acts xv. 24, " Ye 
 must be circumcised, and keep the law." Gal. v. 3, 
 " Every man who is circumcised is a debtor to do the 
 whole law," Rom. ii. 25, " Circumcision profiteth, if 
 thou keep the law." Now, could an infant at eight 
 days of age "keep the law," and "be a debtor to do 
 the whole law ?" If the inability of the infant to ex- 
 ercise the " faith," " repentance," &c., of the com- 
 mission proves him to be ineligible to the baptism 
 connected with these, would not the inability of the 
 infant to " keep the law," " be a debtor to do the 
 whole law," &:c., prove him ineligible to the circum- 
 cision connected with these ? Thus the sophistry of 
 
74 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 this objection is dissipated. When our opponents try- 
 to reason upon this question they outrage all the rules 
 of logic and of common sense. 
 
 Thus they assume that when the Scriptures say 
 "repent and be baptized," or " he that beheveth and 
 is baptized," repentance and faith are required of all 
 in order to baptism. But we have seen that this is 
 untrue. Jesus Christ was baptized, but not upon the 
 condition of faith and repentance. Faith and repent- 
 ance are required in the Scriptures for salvation, but 
 will mfants be damned because they can not exercise 
 these ? It is required in the Scriptures that " if any 
 would not work, neither should he eat" (2 Thess. iii. 
 10), but shall infants be starved because they can not 
 work? If it is required in the Scriptures "not to for- 
 sake the assembling of ourselves together " (Heb. x. 
 25), does, therefore, the brother who is prevented by 
 sickness, or other cause, from going to the house of 
 the Lord, sin against this command ? Well, the 
 Scriptures require repentance and faith in order to 
 baptism. But of whom do they require these ? The 
 answer plainly is, they require repentance and faith 
 only of those who are capable of exercising them, just 
 as the law of circumcision required " the keeping of 
 the whole law " of him who was capable of doing it, 
 and still circumcised the infant. Now, the logic (?) 
 of our opponents is on this wise: "The Scriptures 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 75 
 
 require faith and repentance in order to baptism; but 
 infants have not faith and repentance ; therefore, they 
 are not to be baptized." The sophistry in this is man- 
 ifest. The Scriptures require laith and repentance 
 only of aduhs, just as they required obedience to the 
 law only of adults in order to circumcision. Now, a 
 universal rule of logic is this : " There must never be 
 more in the conclusion than there is in the premises 
 from which it is drawn ; " and the reason assigned for 
 this is self-evident. " Because," say the authorities, 
 " the conclusion is to be drawn from the premises." 
 
 The logic of our opponents on this subject stands 
 thus, when thrown into syllogistic form : The Scrip- 
 tures require faith and repentance of adults in order 
 to baptism; but infants can not have these; therefore, 
 infants are not proper subjects of baptism. Thus, we 
 have adults in the major premise, and infants in the 
 conclusion. This, as all must see, sets at defiance all 
 the recognized rules of reasoning. But to this the 
 theory of our opponents must come in every attempt 
 to combat the facts of this case. Having now dis- 
 posed of the usual fallacies which characterize the ob- 
 jections to infant baptism, we will resume the argu- 
 ment. 
 
 In the commission, Matt, xxviii. 20, Christ said 
 to the Apostles : " Teaching them to observe all 
 things whatsoever I have commanded you." Let us 
 
76 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 now examine some of the things which Jesus had 
 '' commanded " his Apostles with reference to infants 
 and his kingdom, which "things " they in turn were 
 to " teach " to those proselyted to Christ. 
 
 In Matt. xix. 14 an opportunity was furnished for 
 the Savior to announce the relation of infants to his 
 kingdom. He said : " Suffer little children, and for- 
 bid them not, to come unto me, for of such is the 
 kingdom of heaven." The Savior made this declara- 
 tion to define the relation of infants to his kingdom, 
 and thus assign the reason why they should not be 
 kept from him. Their relation is that of subjects; 
 they are citizens in his kingdom, and as such they 
 stand in a saved relation to him, alike with a regene- 
 rated adult. When adults are " born again," and 
 made recipients of all the blessings of atoning love, 
 their relation to Christ is expressed by, and compre- 
 hended in, the statement, " Now, therefore, ye are no 
 more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with 
 the saints, and of the household of God." (Eph. ii. 19.) 
 
 Such is also the statement with reference to infants 
 — " Of such is the kingdom of heaven." Now, Christ 
 had commanded these Apostles to let "little children 
 come to him," and in the commission he tells them 
 to teach all things whatsoever he had commanded 
 them, including necessarily the bringing of little child- 
 ren to him. This can not mean anything but the re- 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. yy 
 
 cognizing of their covenant relation to Christ, and 
 the giving to them the token — baptism — of that rela- 
 tion. 
 
 Again: Luke ix. 47,48: Jesus "took a child, and 
 set him by him, and said unto them, Whosoever shall 
 receive this child in my name, receiveth me." Mark 
 ix. T^6, says Jesus " took him in his arms," showing 
 that it was an infant child. Now, what does Jesus 
 here command with reference to this child ? It is, 
 that his people shall receive it in his name. This 
 must imply the recognition of the fact that the child 
 is Christ's subject, and treat him accordingly. But 
 would that be a recognition of this fact, which frown- 
 ingly ignores that the child is a subject of Christ's 
 kingdom, and forcibly withholds from it the badge — 
 baptism — of citizenship ? Verily not. In these pass- 
 ages two things are made manifest : 
 
 (i) In Matt. xix. 14, the rights of infants are as- 
 serted — "Of such is the kmgdom of heaven." They 
 are citizens — subjects. 
 
 (2) In Luke ix. 48, the duty of the Church with 
 reference to them is announced — receive them in the 
 name of Jesus Christ. This impHes, beyond doubt, 
 their baptism. 
 
 Men educated as we have seen these Apostles were, 
 with infant baptism and infant membership in the 
 Church prevalent from one limit of Israel to the other, 
 
78 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 could not have misunderstood such declarations as 
 these. Hence their practice in baptizing families, and 
 hence the fathers, again and again, refer to the Apos- 
 tles as authority for infant baptism. 
 
 With these facts before us, we have no hesitation in 
 affirming that if anything is made obligatory upon us 
 by the law of Christ's kingdom — by direct command 
 — it is the baptism of infants. The right of pious wo- 
 men at the Lord's table, though unquestionable, has 
 not half the testimony in its favor that infant baptism 
 has. Their rights in "the kingdom of God" are 
 clearly defined (Matt. xix. 14) — they are citizens; the 
 duty of the Church in reference to them is explicitly 
 stated (Luke ix. 48) — receive them in the name of 
 Jesus; and the commission to disciple and baptize 
 "the nations" (Matt, xxviii. 19) brings the positive 
 command to baptize them. It is a fearful thing to 
 stand up in the face of God's will, as thus plainly de- 
 clared, and repudiate their rights in " the kingdom of 
 heaven." 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 79 
 
 ARTICLE VI. 
 
 THE ORGANIC LAW OF GOD's KINGDOM ABRAHAMIC 
 
 COVENANT INFANTS PROVIDED FOR. 
 
 An appeal to constitutional provisions is always ul- 
 timate and decisive in matters in dispute. If the 
 rights of my child as a member of the Commonwealth 
 of Kentucky should be contested, I have only to ap- 
 peal to the Constitution of the State — the organic law 
 of the Commonwealth — and determine, by its deci- 
 sions, the questions at issue. Equally true is it in the 
 " Commonwealth of Israel." It has its organic law — 
 a Constitution broad as the purposes of God in re- 
 demption, and as enduring as time. Its provisions 
 are plainly written, and were illustrated by centuries 
 of divine and inspired administration. To it we con- 
 fidently appeal. We propose here to establish that 
 the covenant which God made with Abraham is the 
 universal covenant of grace, and that it makes special 
 provision for infants. We thus state in advance our 
 purpose, that the reader may follow intelligently. If, 
 now, we establish, that this covenant is the great con- 
 stitutional law of the Church, that it is never to be 
 abrogated, and that it provides for the admission of 
 infants into the Church, and that they shall have the 
 
8o INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 token of that covenant and Church relation, we shall 
 have established the rightfulness of infant baptism by 
 an appeal to an unalterable constitutional provision. 
 It may be necessary at this point, before entering 
 more fully upon the examination of this divine consti- 
 tution, to advert to some matters which our opponents 
 seem to think are insuperable obstacles in the w^ay of 
 our argument upon the covenant. They affirm that 
 that covenant was local and temporary^ that it had ex- 
 clusive reference to the lineal descendants of Abraham, 
 and that it contemplated no higher good than the 
 possession of Canaan and secular prosperity. Hence, 
 they are fond of denominating both the covenant it- 
 self and everything appertaining to it as a "fleshy in- 
 stitution." Now, we are free to admit that some of its 
 provisions were local and temporary. But it can not 
 be ignored that its great central features were spiritual^ 
 Ufiiversal, and eternal. Let us illustrate our position 
 here. On the 15th of June, 12 15, the barons of Eng- 
 land extorted from John, at Runnymede, the Magna 
 Charta Libertatum. Many of its provisions were local 
 and temporaty — they passed away when the special 
 want had been met for which they were framed. Such 
 were the " checks upon the forest laws, feudal tenures," 
 &c. But not so with the 39th article of Magna Char- 
 ta. It reads : " Let no freeman be imprisoned, or 
 disseized, or outlawed, or in any manner injured or 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 8l 
 
 proceeded against by us, otherwise tlian by the legal 
 judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land. We 
 shall sell, delay, or deny right or justice to none." 
 Here were the " writ of habeas corpus^' and " trial by 
 jury." While other provisions of that Charta met the 
 special Avants for which they were framed and then 
 fell into desuetude, this article has survived the lapse 
 of centuries, the changes of administration, and the 
 tread of revolutions. The thrones of Charles I. and 
 James I. crumbled into irretrievable ruin ; new names 
 have appeared upon the rolls of royalty ; new laws, 
 customs, &c., have come and gone in the history of 
 England, yet that 39th article of MagJia Charta has 
 survived the wreck and changes of these centuries, 
 and will hold on in its supremacy as long as English 
 liberty shall be prized, either in the old or new world. 
 So with the covenant which God made with Abra- 
 ham. It contained items local and temporary^ such 
 as the " possession of the land of Canaan," a " nu- 
 merous posterity," &c., &c. These provisions were 
 realized in the millions of Hebrews, Ishmaelites, 
 and others who descended from Abraham ; in a fifteen 
 years' residence in the promised land, &c., and then 
 these provisions passed away. But the great central 
 features of this compact were "confirmed in Christ," 
 and established as the Constitution of God's kingdom 
 or Church forever. We propose in the following dis- 
 6 
 
82 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 cussion to make this truth perfectly obvious. To this 
 end we affirm : (i) Thai the covenant made with 
 Abraham is universal in its bearings and benejits. 
 This can not be said of any other covenant which God 
 ever made with man. £. g. — The covenant of works 
 made with Adam ceased when he fell ; the covenant 
 of safety with Noah extended not to the antediluvians, 
 and can not be said, in any proper sense, to affect us; 
 the covenant at Sinai lasted only 1481 years, and 
 ceased upon the coming of the Messiah ; and the cov- 
 enant of royalty with David fell with his house. This 
 exhausts the Bible covenants, and shows that of none 
 but that of Abraham could it be affirmed that they 
 were universal'm their bearing and benefits. Let us, 
 therefore, examine the evidences for the universality 
 of the benefits of the Abrahamic covenant. Gal. iii. 
 16. '' Now to Abraham and his seed were the prom- 
 ises made. He saith not, and to seeds, as of many, 
 but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christy I ad- 
 mire Tyndale's translation of this and the following 
 verse, made in 1534, more than any I have seen, aad 
 wdll give it in the quaint orthography of that period : 
 " To Abraham and his seed were the promises made. 
 He seyth not, in the seeds, as in many ; but in thy sede, 
 as in one, which is Christ. This I saye, that the laws 
 which beganne afterwards, beyond iiii. c. and xxx. 
 yeares [430 years] doth not disannul the testament that 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 83 
 
 was confermediafore of God unto Christward, to make 
 the promes of none effect." Now, let the tollowing 
 items in this statement of the Apostle be examined, 
 which show the spirituality and universality ot this 
 covenant : " Not to seeds as of many i^ i. e., this cov- 
 enant was not made simply with reference to Abra- 
 ham's natural progeny, such as Isaac, Jacob, &c. ; 
 but it was with reference to Christ, through whom "all 
 the nations of the earth" were to be "blessed." 
 Hence it was made with reference to " thy seed, which 
 is Christ." Therefore, the covenant could no more 
 be local and temporary than Christ, as an atonement 
 for sin, could be local and temporary. That he was 
 not such is affirmed in every declaration of Scripture 
 concerning him. He " loved the world," and is " as 
 a lamb slain from the foundation of the world." This 
 covenant with Abraham, therefore, is as really imiver- 
 sal in its bearings and benefits as is the atoning death 
 of Christ in whom it was confirmed, and concerning 
 whom it was made. No provision of it, consequent- 
 ly, can ever cease to be in force while Christ is a Sa- 
 vior. Strike from its place as the Constitution of God's 
 Church this covenant and you rend away the last 
 beam in the edifice of human salvation. 
 
 We proceed to notice (U): That this covenant is 
 unalterable — it can never be changed or abrogated. 
 
 A little reflection will make this manifest. The 
 
84 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 Apostle argues the truth of it from \\\'^nahire of cove- 
 nants in general. He says : " Though it be but a 
 man's covenant, yet if it be conJi?'??ied, no man disan- 
 nuleth or addeth thereto." (Gal. iii. 15.) The illus- 
 tration is as follows : NoJie but the parties to a cove- 
 nant can change or annul it when it has been con- 
 firmed or ratified. Either of the parties may make 
 covenants with other parties afterward, but they can 
 insert no provision which would annul or weaken any 
 item in the covenant already ratified. Now, in this 
 Abrahamic covenant God was one of the parties and 
 Abraham the other. They never came together as 
 covenanting parties after this covenant was ratified. 
 " Four hundred and thirty years " afterward God and 
 Moses came together as covenanting parties at Sinai, 
 but Abraham, one of the parties to the former cove- 
 nant, was absent, hence no clause could be inserted 
 in the Sinaitic covenant which would clash with that 
 made with Abraham. Hence, says the xApostle: 
 "And this I say, that the covenant that was confirmed 
 before of God in Christ, \i. e., the Abrahamic] the 
 law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, 
 can 7iot disannul, that it should make the promise 
 of none effect." (Gal. iii. 17.) The facts, then, con- 
 cerning these covenants are simply as follows : The 
 one made with Abraham was 191 1 years before Christ 
 was born ; 430 years after that covenant was ratified, 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 85 
 
 /. <?., 1 48 1 years before Christ was born, God made a 
 covenant with Moses at Sinai concerning the tempo- 
 ral affairs of the Hebrews ; no transaction in this cov- 
 enant could possibly set aside any provision in that 
 made with Abraham without a flagrant disregard of the 
 very nature of a covenant; hence these two cove- 
 nants ran along side by side for 1481 years, when the 
 Sinaitic expired by limitation, and the Abrahamic 
 swept out over all nations, and over all time, holding 
 Jesus Christ as its central figure. Hence the great 
 truth is established, that 710 transactions made with 
 Moses or any one else, after this covenant with Abra- 
 ham was ratified, could set aside afiy provision of that 
 covenant. I beg leave to submit here a most remarka- 
 ble concession upon this point, made by the most distin- 
 guished opponent of infant baptism this country ever 
 had. I mean Alexander Campbell. It is most man- 
 ifest that in the following statement he was so hot in 
 pursuit of a Jeiv that he forgot infant baptism, else 
 he never would have written these lines. He is 
 commenting upon Gal. iii. He says: i. " In the 
 covenant with Abraham, which was solemnly ratified, 
 God had promised salvaiio?i to the Gentiles, before the 
 nation of Israel existed, or the national covefiant was 
 instituted. From this fact Paul argues that the Gen- 
 tiles should not hearken to the Judaisers; that they 
 should not practice any of the Jewish peculiarities. 
 
86 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 The gospel which he now proclaimed to the Gentiles 
 was substantially announced to Abraham when first 
 called. 
 
 " 2. But after expatiating upon this fact and con- 
 firming it with other considerations, the Apostle founds 
 his argument upon the nature of covenants in general 
 among men, and from one promise made to Abra- 
 ham. It is notorious that when a covenant between 
 two parties is ratified, no person, except the parties 
 themselves, can disannul it. Now, God, one of the 
 parties in the covenant, made the promises to Abra- 
 ham and the seed of Abraham. This seed was a 
 unity; not all the descendants of Abraham, but one of 
 them, namely, the Messiah. This covejtanf, then, was 
 ratified with Abraham concerning the Messiah and un- 
 alterably settled. 
 
 " 3. Consequently, the law, or covenant wdth the 
 whole nation of Israel, 430 years after this time, could 
 not disannul the promise in another covenant, con- 
 cerning persons not present, and, therefore, no party 
 in that covenant. 
 
 "4. Here the Jew is introduced with his objection. 
 'To what purpose, then, was the law?' Paul shows 
 that it was introduced for another purpose than to be- 
 stow or secure the inheritance promised 430 before it 
 was promulgated ; and, from the circumstances of its 
 promulgation, completes his argument not yet brought 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 87 
 
 to a legitimate close. This law, or covenant, was, 
 says he, introduced by angels, through the hands of a 
 mediator, and could not affect the promises of the cov- 
 enant with Abraham, for this plain reason, that the 
 parties to that covenant, 430 years ratified, were not 
 present. And the covenant at Sinai was ordained in 
 the hands of a mediator, namely, Moses. There was 
 no mediator between God and Abraham, which proves 
 the superiority of that coveJiani to the Sinaitic. But 
 the stress rests upon this fact, that this Moses, this 
 mediator, was not one of the parties of that covenant 
 concerning the seed. God, it is true, was one of 
 them ; but the covenant could not be disannulled, 
 'though it were but a man's,' unless both the parties 
 were present. . . . But God was one of the par- 
 ties, and might make with the fleshly seed of Abra- 
 ham, by means of a mediator, any covenant he pleased, 
 which would ?iot coimtervail any item in the former. 
 But as he was one party, he could not insert one 
 clause in the Sinaitic covenant which would clash with 
 that already ratified; so could not by any promise, or 
 after act, exclude the nations of the earth from partici- 
 pating in the blessings of the promised seed r (Appen- 
 dix to N. T. of 1828, p. 435.) Thus it i? acknowl- 
 edged that the covenant with Abraham is the univer- 
 sal covenant of grace, that no subsequent legislation or 
 covenant could annul one item contained in it ; and 
 hence, it can never be abrogated. 
 
SS INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 I will simply add, that this covenant alone, of all the 
 covenants made, was ratified or confirmed in Christ, 
 (Gal. iii. 17.) 
 
 We have, therefore, in this, the Magna Charta of the 
 Church — the Constitution of God's kingdom. It can 
 never be annulled while the promise of salvation 
 through Christ is made to humanity; "no item" of it, 
 says Mr. Campbell, can be annulled by any subse- 
 quent covenant. 
 
 Now, suppose that we appeal to this divine Consti- 
 tution to ascertain the rights of infants in the Church 
 of God. We turn to Genesis xvii. 1-14, where this 
 covenant is recorded, and we find that infants at the 
 tenderest age were to be brought to God and the 
 token of the covenant given to them. When was this 
 law of the covenant abrogated ? We answer. Never. 
 Is that covenant in force io-day as truly as when made 
 with Abraham ? We have seen that it is, and that 
 even A. Campbell declared as much. If, then, that 
 covenant is noiv in full force, and if this law of it with 
 reference to infants has never been annulled, as we 
 have seen it has noi^ and could not be, then does the 
 unalterable Constitution of God's Church as impera- 
 tively demand that infants be brought into his Church 
 now, and the token thereof given to them, as it did in 
 the days of Abraham. There is no escape from this. 
 Our opponents feel the crushing force of it, and fly to 
 ridiculous cavils. We will notice them in due time. 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 89 
 
 Here we plant our banner. Here is the Constitution 
 of God's Church. Here is fundamental, primordial, 
 law for infant baptism and Church membership. Let 
 our opponents show when this was repealed, or how 
 in the nature of the case // could be repealed; and if 
 they fail to do so, then let them cease their war upon 
 God's appointment. 
 
 The intelhgent opponents of infant baptism never 
 fail to exhibit the utmost alarm at this point, and they 
 have accordingly tortured themselves in the effort to 
 bring forward something to break the force of this ar- 
 gument. We shall here examine their cavils — better 
 than tkat we can not characterize them, (i.) It is 
 objected by them that the appointment of circum- 
 cision, and consequently infant church-membership 
 (Gen. xvii.) was in the year of the world 2107; and 
 that the covenant concerning the Messiah (Gen. xxii.) 
 was in the year 2141; that, consequently, this " cove- 
 nant of circumcision," as they express it, was separated 
 from that covenant which was "confirmed in Christ" 
 by about thirty-four years, and was, therefore, no part 
 of it. This is a mere cavil, and one ot comparatively 
 recent origin. It has no foundation in fact. The 
 covenant with Abraham is a development. It was 
 not made as a whole at any one time or place. It be- 
 gan when God called Abraham from Ur of the Chal- 
 dees (Gen. xi.), was resumed upon the separation of 
 
9© INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 Abraham and Lot (Gen. xiii.), was again taken up in 
 Gen. xvii., and was then broken off until the events 
 narrated in Gen. xvii, and was resumed and com- 
 pleted at the offering of Isaac. (Gen. xxii.) It is 
 the sheerest caviling imaginable to take these several 
 stages in the development of this covenant, and out of 
 them attempt to carve three or four covenants. A 
 Rabbi in Campbellism, and perhaps one of the most 
 scholarly men they have (President Milligan), virtually 
 ignores this dodge of his brethren. He says : " In Gen. 
 xvii. 2, 4, 7, the word covenant has reference to both 
 the families of Abraham, and it is simply equivalent to 
 the twofold and somewhat amplified /r^w/j-^ iJiat God 
 had made to him before he left Ur of C ha/dee ^ 
 (Scheme of Redemption, p. 76.) On page 79 he 
 speaks of the Abrahamic covenant as a development 
 from the call of Abraham in Ur. When their own 
 positions are thus destroyed by their own friends we 
 need not pause to argue against them. You have only 
 to read one opponent of infant baptism against an- 
 other when on this question. There has never been 
 any union among them on this question, except in 
 their unreasoning opposition. We confidently affirm, 
 in view of the above facts, that the Abrahamic cove- 
 nant, as recorded from Gen. xii. to xxii., is 07ie. 
 
 Again (2.): It is objected that God had promised 
 by Jeremiah (xxxi. 31-35) that he would "make a new 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 91 
 
 covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house 
 of Judah," and that St. Paul reiterates the same 
 promise (Heb. viii. 8), and then it is assumed that this 
 is a covenant which is to 'take the place of that made 
 with Abraham. Now, we have clearly seen that the 
 covenant with Abraham could not be " disaanulled " 
 without a flagrant disregard of the nature of a cove- 
 nant, and that Mr. Campbell so argues. Yet our op- 
 ponents, in their desperation, seize upon such radically 
 erroneous assumptions in the face of the teachings of 
 their own bi other Campbell, not to mention the Apos- 
 tle Paul. This is done because they think some popu- 
 lar effect in their favor can be made out of the expres- 
 sions, "new covenant," &c. We will meet them here. 
 And (i) if it could be shown that God intended a 
 "new covenant" by what is said Jer. xxxi. 31, and 
 Heb. viii. 8, it has already been demonstrated that 
 though a thousand " new covenants " might have been 
 made after that with Abraham, still the very nature of 
 covenants would forbid either the insertion of one 
 item which would have clashed with any provision in 
 that ratified with Abraham, or the annulling by the 
 " new covenant " of any stipulation in the Abrahamic. 
 For the parties not being present, the Abrahamic cov- 
 enant was forever beyond the possibility of change or 
 amendment. We might admit, therefore, all our op- 
 ponents say about " a new covenant," and it ca7i riot 
 
92 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 affect our position. Until they show where God and 
 Abraham came together and " annulled " infant 
 church-membership or anything else in that covenant, 
 it can not be made to appear that any subsequent cov- 
 enant, with entirely different parties, effected this. To 
 talk, therefore, of " new covenants " as they do is 
 simply to delude themselves and those who follow 
 their teachings. 
 
 But (2) our opponents use the expressions, ^^ old 
 covenant " and " 7iew covenant," as found in Jer. 
 xxxi. and Heb. viii., in an utterly contradictory sense 
 to that in which these inspired writers use them. Thus, 
 our opponents mean by " old covenant " the Abra- 
 hamic covenant ; and by " fieiv covenant " they mean 
 the covenant of salvation which was confirmed in 
 Christ. Now, the simple truth is, that by " old cove- 
 nant," which was " to vanish away," the Apostle 
 means the Sinaitic covenant, as any one can see by 
 reading the eighth and ninth chapters of Hebrews. 
 There the ''^fz-i-/ covenant " and the ^' old'' covenant 
 are one and the same, and there designated that cove- 
 nant which had a worldly sanctuary — " the taberna- 
 cle," " the candlestick," "the table" and " shew bread," 
 " the holy of holies," the " golden censer," and what- 
 ever else pertained to the Levitical ritual given at 
 Sinai. This is called by Paul "///(? old'' covenant* 
 The " new covenant," as used by Paul and Jeremiah, 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 93 
 
 is the Abrahainic covenant, which was confirmed in 
 Christ, and is called the " 7iew covenant " because it 
 was never to become a?itiqiiated like the Sinaitic. 
 Now, when writing upon other topics, our opponents 
 themselves have admitted all this, and thus destroyed 
 with their own hands their arguments upon the '■' 7iew 
 covenant." 
 
 I quote on this head fi-om Mr. Campbell's Appen- 
 dix to his translation of the New Testament, 1828, 
 page 432. He says : " The term new is added to dis- 
 tinguish it from the old cove?iafit, that is, the dispensa- 
 tio?i of Moses. . . . The tzao covenants are always 
 in Scripture the two dispensations or religious institu- 
 tions ; that under Moses is the old.'' Also, Milhgan's 
 Sche?ne of Redemption, p. 75. " This [the Abrahamic 
 covenant] is the same which is also f-eqiiently called 
 the new covejiant, and which is fully developed in the 
 New Testament." Thus out of their own mouth we 
 condemn their position. Milligan and Campbell af- 
 firm that the ^' new cove.nant^^ is the Abrahamic cove- 
 nant, and consequently not a different covenant which 
 "disannuls" it, and that the ^^ old covenant^' is the 
 Sinaitic, made 430 years after that with Abraham. 
 Nothing need be added. I will simply say, in con- 
 cluding this matter, that the expression. " / will make 
 a new covenaiit^' in Heb. viii. 8, does not mean to 
 make new, de novo, or to originate. It simply means 
 
94 
 
 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 to complete. The Greek word is avvTeXeau) — sunteleso^ 
 which Campbell translates in that verse thus : " / will 
 complete a iieiv institution with the house of Israel ^^ 
 &c. It is also defined by the best lexicons. The 
 meaning simply is, that the promise of a redeeming 
 Messiah, made in the covenant with Abraham, should 
 be completed, or fulfilled, by the coming of his Son 
 Jesus Christ. Thus their cavils melt and disappear 
 and we are left with the broad, eternal Constitution of 
 God's Church — the covenant with Abraham — provid- 
 ing for infant membership in the Church, which ne- 
 cessarily involves their baptism. 
 
 We might safely leave the whole matter here, de- 
 manding of our opponents to show when this law was 
 abrogated — when this Constitution was so amended or 
 changed as to exclude infanis from the privileges of 
 the Church. The onus probandi here turns upon th em 
 But we shall proceed to show that the Church founded 
 upon this divine Constitution never failed to recognize 
 the eligibility of infants to the privileges of the Churchy 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 95 
 
 ARTICLE VI I. 
 
 BAPTISM IN THE ROOM OF CIRCUMCISION ST. PETER 
 
 DECLARES THE CONTINUED ELIGIBILITY OF CHIL- 
 DREN — UNITY AND CONTINUANCE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 There are two points in connection with the argu- 
 ment from the covenant of grace, developed in our 
 last, which we will notice : 
 
 (i.) Circumcision, which, under the former econ- 
 omy, was the rite of initiation into the Church, and 
 the token of the covenant, is, under the present 
 economy, substituted by baptism. 
 
 Let the facts already established be remembered, 
 and it will be seen that the above statement is of itself 
 conclusive in proof of infant baptism. We have al- 
 ready shown that that covenant, which is universal, 
 eternal, unalterable — the Constitution of the Church 
 to-day — provides for the admission of infants at the 
 tenderest age. According to it, the Church for cen- 
 turies received infants as members. Now, suppose it 
 can be established that baptism takes the place in this 
 covenant which circumcision formerly occupied, with 
 no change of subjects specified. Will not that demand 
 infant baptism as infallibly as infant circumcision was 
 demanded before this change in the rite ? We would 
 
g6 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 observe here, that to substitute baptism for circumci- 
 sion would be no violation of covenant rights. It is 
 very evident that among other offices of circumcision 
 in the Church, it had a typical reference to the prom- 
 ised " Seed " — Christ, and, consequently, his coming 
 was the limit of the continuance of that rite. Ac- 
 cordingly, the Apostles desisted unanimously from the 
 practice of it. (Acts xv.) In its relation to church 
 membership it was simply " the token " of the cove- 
 nant, and, consequently, it was legitimate at any time 
 to displace it by the appointment of another " token," 
 and still the' great covenant law not be affected. 
 
 It is not a little remarkable that the same change in 
 the outward form of both sacraments in the Church 
 did take place. For example, under the former econ- 
 omy, the sacrament relating to atonement — namely, 
 the Passover, had as its outward form the paschal lamb, 
 unleavened bread, bitter herbs and wine (which latter 
 was introduced at some unknown time.) Now, when 
 this sacrament of atonement was adjusted to the pres- 
 ent economy, the Saviour threw off the lamb and the 
 bitter herbs, and took the remaining items — namely, 
 bread and wine, and under these forms perpetuated 
 the sacrament of atonement. This change in the out- 
 ward form did not affect the great law of atonement. 
 
 In like manner, the sacrament relating to Church 
 membership — namely, circumcision, had as its outward 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 97 
 
 form a prescribed cutting in the flesh, and, as has been 
 abundantly proven in a former number, baptism, 
 though, Hke the " wine " in the Passover, the time of 
 its mtroduction is not definitely known. When this 
 sacrament relating to Church membership was ad- 
 justed to the present economy, the Savior threw oft 
 the cutting in the flesh, and took the remaining item — 
 namely, baptism, and under this form perpetuated this 
 sacrament, without affecting the covenant law. In the 
 Hght of these truths, St. Paul's language (Gal. iii. 27- 
 28), becomes luminous. As has already been shown? 
 when a Gentile family was proselyted under the former 
 economy, the males were circumcised and baptized, 
 and the females were baptized. Alluding to that re- 
 adjustment of this sacrament which now makes the 
 form of it practicable for all, he says, " For as many of 
 you as have been baptized into Christ, have put on 
 Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is 
 neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor 
 female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." Christ 
 has so adjusted the elements of this sacrament under 
 the present economy as to make it alike applicable 
 to all. 
 
 Now, nothing can be plainer than that St. Paul al- 
 ludes to this change of baptism for circumcision in 
 Col. ii. 10-12, "And ye are complete in him, which is 
 the head of all principality and power; in whom also 
 7 
 
9^ INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 ye are circumcised with the circumcision made with- 
 out hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the 
 flesh by the circumcision of Christ; buried with him 
 in baptism," &c. Here it is manifest that circum- 
 cision and baptism are used interchangeably, and bap- 
 tism is referred to as Christian circumcision. 
 
 The early writers in the Church thought and wrote 
 conformably to this opinion. Thus, Justin Martyr : 
 " And we, who have approached God through Him, 
 have received not carnal, but spiritual circumcision, 
 which Enoch and those like him observed. And we 
 have received it through baptism, since we were sin- 
 ners, by God's mercy ; and all men may equally ob- 
 tain it." (Dialogue with Trypho., chap. xHii.) Chry- 
 sostom says: "There was pain and trouble in the 
 practice of Jewish circumcision; but our circumcision, 
 I mean the grace of baptism, gives cure without pain; 
 and this is fcrr infants as well as men." We need not 
 multiply quotations here. It is plain that the Church 
 from the earliest times believed that baptism is in the 
 room of circumcision. 
 
 These facts established, and the friends of infant 
 baptism need not travel an inch further in the argu- 
 ment. Here is the Constitution of the Church provid- 
 ing for infant Church membership. For 191 1 years 
 the Church received infants, upon this Constitution, 
 and gave them the initiatory rite and token — circum- 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 cision. That Constitution remains as the fundamental 
 law of the Church to-day, and the circumcision which, 
 according to its provisions, was given to infants dur- 
 ing nineteen hundred years, is now substituted by bap- 
 tism. The conclusion is irresistible. 
 
 (2.) The second point to be noticed is the state- 
 ment of the Apostle Peter with reference to the con- 
 tinuation of these covenant privileges to children. On 
 the memorable day of Pentecost, Peter was addres- 
 sing a multitude of Jews (Acts ii. 5), who had been 
 educated to receive infants into the Church and give 
 to them the token of covenant relation. In the course 
 of his address to them he said : " For the promise is 
 unto you, and to your children, and to all that are 
 afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall 
 call." (V. 39.) Let us now examine this statement 
 a little. The phrase, " to you and to your children," 
 means adults and infants. This is indisputable. The 
 word teknois — children — means, it is true, posterity, 
 but it means infant as well as adult posterity, and is 
 often restricted in its sense to infants. The phraseology 
 here agrees exactly with that in Gen. xvii. 7, " to be a 
 God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee." While 
 " thy seed" was a phrase by which the whole posterity 
 of Abraham was expressed, it also narrowed itself 
 down so absolutely to infancy that it enjoined circum- 
 cision upon the child eight days old. Let the same- 
 
lOO INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 ness of the phraseology be considered. When God 
 makes the covenant with Abraham by which infants 
 are brought into the Church, the promise that he 
 makes is '' to thee, and to thy seed." When Peter at 
 Pentecost, the very time when it is assumed that this 
 covenant and all things appertaining to it was forever 
 abrogated, stood up to proclaim the kingdom of Christ 
 to the Jews, he said, "the promise is unto you, and to 
 your children." When God said, " to thee, and to^ 
 thy seed," the Church understood that infants were in- 
 cluded, and for nineteen centuries she received them. 
 What else could it mean, then, to Jews, when Peter, 
 in the exact language of the covenant, said, " to you, 
 and to your children ?" Now, in both instances 
 (Gen. xvii. 7, and Acts ii. 39) this phrase stands con- 
 nected with an ordinance by which persons were to 
 be admitted into the Church. When " to thee, and to 
 thy seed," was said to Abraham (Gen. xvii. 7), it stood 
 connected with circumcision; when "unto you, and to 
 your children," was said by Peter, it stood connected 
 with baptism. This language to Abraham, in con- 
 nection with " the promise," brought infants into the 
 Church for nineteen hundred years. The same lan- 
 guage is now uttered in connection with " the prom- 
 ise " by an inspired Apostle. How would a congre- 
 gation of Hebrews, such as that he addressed, under- 
 stand it ? There could be but one meaning, and that 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. lOI 
 
 is, that infants are placed in the same relation to bap- 
 tism under the present economy, that they sustained 
 to circumcision under the former economy. In both 
 instances (Gen. xvii 7, and Acts ii 29), parents and 
 children are united in the same way. There it is, " to 
 thee, and to thy seed ;" here it is, " to you, and to 
 your children." The promise in both instances is 
 connected with the initiatory rite into the Church — 
 circumcision, baptism. In both instances the ordi- 
 nance is made to result from the promise — the one is 
 set down as a reason for the other (Gen. xvii. 9), 
 "Thou shalt keep my covenant, therefore, thou and 
 thy seed after thee ;" that is, because God had given a 
 promise. So, in Acts ii. 38-39, " Repent and be bap- 
 tized every one of you ... tor [because] the 
 promise is unto you, and to your children.'' Children 
 are, therefore, placed in the same relation to both 
 these ordinances. From these facts I deduce the fol- 
 lowing principle : When a positive institute is con- 
 nected with a promise, all who are contained in the 
 promise have a right to the institute. In Gen. xvii. a 
 positive institute — circumcision — is connected with a 
 promise, " to be a God to thee, and to thy seed." All 
 mentioned in that promise were entitled to the insti- 
 tute circumcision. The Church so understood it for 
 nineteen hundred years. In Acts ii. 38-39 a positive 
 institute — baptism — is connected with a "promise," 
 
I02 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 and children are named in that promise. Therefore, 
 they have a right to baptism. Let our opponents 
 disprove it if they can. Let it be remembered that 
 both Peter and his audience had been educated in the 
 beUef of these truths, had themselves been brought 
 into the Church in infancy, and no one can reasonably 
 doubt that both the speaker and his hearers under- 
 stood that infants were to continue in the same rela- 
 tion to the Church and baptism that they had for- 
 merly occupied to the Church and circumcision. 
 
 These points being established, we shall now pro- 
 ceed to demonstrate the fact, that the Church founded 
 upon this covenant, and into which infants were ad- 
 mitted by the rite of circumcision, continues to this 
 day as " the commonwealth of Israel," " the body of 
 Christ." The opponents of infant baptism know of 
 but one method of escape from the logic of this fact ; 
 and that is, by one remorseless blow, to sweep from 
 the four thousand years preceding Christ's nativity 
 every thing that has the semblance of a Church* 
 Their entire theory goes upon the assumption that 
 during four thousand years the infinitely wise God was 
 experimenting upon the awful question of salvation. 
 Immortal souls by the miUion were appearing upon 
 the stage, and then gliding into eternity ; hell was 
 " enlarging" itself; heaven hung black with the storms 
 of wrath, portending the doom of sin ; along the fun- 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. IO3 
 
 eral column of humanity, which, amid the blackness 
 of darkness, was melting away and disappearing at the 
 mouth of the grave continually, the anxious inquiries 
 Tolled from age to age, '' If a man die. shall he live 
 again ?" " What shall I do to be saved ?" And still 
 He who sees the end from the beginning was experi- 
 menting — setting up one economy and tearing down 
 another — and never reached the right thing, until, on 
 the day of Pentecost, four thousand years after hu- 
 manity began its march to the grave I In all those 
 sad centuries our opponents can see no Church for 
 fostering piety, no Christ for the remission of sin. 
 Elder Wilkes says : "It is not reasonable that there 
 could be remission of sins before the shedding of that 
 blood on which alone remission of sins depends. The 
 shedding of Christ's blood is lor the remission of sins, 
 and that blood takes its effect after its shedding, not 
 before. ... I told you that there was no final 
 remission of sins under the Jewish economy." 
 (Wilkes-Ditzler Debate, pp. 59-60.) All this is ne- 
 cessary to get rid of infant baptism; for whenever it is 
 made to appear that God's Church did, according to 
 the provisions of its unalterable Constitution, receive 
 infants then, and gave to them the initiatory rite, and 
 that that Church, resting upon the same Constitution, 
 is the Church of God to-day, infant baptism follows as 
 an inevitable consequence. Hence the anxiety, and 
 
I04 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 even desperation, of our opponents to get rid of these 
 facts. We shall proceed to establish them. 
 
 Our first work will be to show that the Church of 
 God did then exist, as really and truly as it now ex- 
 ists. Not that there was a "fleshly institution," in 
 which "neither faith nor piety was contemplated." 
 (A. Campbell, debate with Rice, p. 309); but that a 
 Church, having every essential fact and feature that 
 the Church of Christ now possesses, did then exist. 
 
 Then (i), there was a Church centuries before "the 
 day of Pentecost." Let us establish this fact, and 
 then proceed to show its Christian character. Acts 
 vii. 37-38 : " This is that Moses, which said unto the 
 children of Israel, A prophet shall the Lord your God 
 raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him 
 shall ye hear. This is he, that was in the Church in 
 the wilderness, with the angel which spake to him in 
 the Mount Sinai, and with our fathers; who received 
 the lively oracles to give unto us." Here, then, was 
 the Church, in the days of Moses, who is said to have 
 been a member of it. The fact that there was a 
 Church then can not be doubted, for inspiration de- 
 clares it. The word rendered Church here is eKKXrjGLa 
 {ekklesid)^ which, though sometimes used for a pro- 
 miscuous assembly (but when so used is indicated as 
 having that sense by the accompanying circumstances), 
 is the word almost always employed to signify God's 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. I05 
 
 separated people. It occurs 115 times in the New 
 Testament, and is translated "Church" 112 times out 
 of 115. A few examples of its use will not be out of 
 place. Matt. xvi. 18, "build my Church;" xviii. 17, 
 "tell it to the Church." Acts xx. 28, "feed the 
 Church of God." Rom. xvi. 16, "the Churches of 
 Christ." ist Cor. i. 2, "unto the Church of God." 
 2d Cor. i. I, "unto the Church of God." Gal. i. 13, 
 " persecuted the Church of God." Eph. v. 25, 
 " Christ also loved the Church." 2d Thess. i. 4, " in 
 the Churches of God." Thus this word is used 
 through the whole New Testament to designate God's 
 separated people — the Church of Christ. Thus it is 
 used in the text we have quoted, Acts vii. 37-38. 
 What Stephen, in Acts vii., called the Church 
 {ekklesia), Paul, speaking of the same time and cir- 
 cumstances, calls a "house," Heb. iii. 5. "Whose 
 [ /. €., Christ's ] house," says he, "are we, if we hold 
 fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm 
 unto the end," Heb. iii. 6. This " Church," then, 
 " in the wilderness," fifteen hundred years before " the 
 Pentecost " of Acts ii., in which Moses was a member, 
 Paul declares to be Christ's " house," which he thus 
 explains : " Whose house are we " This " Church," 
 therefore, was the "house" of Christ. 
 
 Having thus established the fact that there was a 
 " Church " then, by all rules which are relied on to 
 
I06 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 prove that there is a Church now, let us proceed to 
 examine its character, and ascertain if it had the essen- 
 tials of a Church of Christ. 
 
 2. We affirm that Christ was with that Church, and 
 known to its members. That he was with that Church 
 is indubitable. That is made manifest by a text al- 
 ready cited, viz: Heb. iii. 5, 6, "And Moses verily 
 was faithful in all his house as a servant, for a testi- 
 mony ot those things which were to be spoken after ; 
 but Christ as a Son over his own house ; whose house 
 are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoic- 
 ing of the hope firm unto the end." Let it be ob- 
 served that St. Paul is, in this chapter, showing the 
 superiority of Christ over Moses, and he makes the 
 following points: {a.) Moses did not build the 
 '* house;" Christ did. {d.) Moses was only in the 
 "house;" Christ was over it, as its ruler, [c.) Moses 
 was a servant in this " house ;" Christ was the Son 
 and heir. This " house," therefore, which was " the 
 Church" (Acts vii. 37, ^S), which Moses was "in," 
 had Christ " over " it as the ruler ol " his own house." 
 
 But the fact that. Christ was with this Church is 
 made manifest by various other Scriptures, some of 
 which we give : 
 
 ist Cor. X. 4. Speaking of the "fathers" who 
 " passed through the sea " in coming out of Egypt, 
 Paul says, "And did all drink the same spiritual drink; 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. IO7 
 
 tor they drank of that Spiritual Rock that followed 
 them ; and that Rock was Christ." Christ was with 
 them, and they knew him, and had intimate commu- 
 nion with him, expressed by " drinking of that Spirit- 
 ual Rock." In verse 9, continuing the same subject, 
 he says, " neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them 
 also tempted." They " tempted Christ," as we do 
 now when we murmur and disobey. 
 
 Heb. xi. 26. It is said of Moses, " Esteeming the 
 reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in 
 Egypt." Moses, who was in that " Church " as a dis- 
 tinguished "servant," knew "Christ," and his "re- 
 proach," and chose him in preference to " the treasures 
 in Egypt." The same fact presents itself in all subse- 
 quent ages of " the Church." Christ was with it, and 
 known to the members of it. Thus, St. Peter (ist 
 Peter i. 10, 11), " Of which salvation the prophets 
 have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied 
 of the grace that should come unto you ; searching 
 what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ 
 which was in them did signiiy, when it testified before- 
 hand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should 
 follow." 
 
 Again, Acts x. 43. " To him [Jesus Christ] give all 
 the prophets witness, that through his name whoso- 
 ever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins." 
 Not only was he with " the Church," and known to 
 
Io8 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 the members thereof, but "remission of sins" was 
 declared, by every inspired teacher whom God raised 
 up, to be through " failh in his name." How htde 
 truth, therefore, is there in Mr. Campbell's assertion, 
 that in that Church " neither faith nor piety was con- 
 templated !" 
 
 Here we have established the fact that there was a 
 " Church," and have seen that Christ, as the head, 
 was with that Church and known to the members 
 thereof. But one item remains — namely : 
 
 3. The Gospel was preached in that Church. To 
 the proof of this we at once proceed: Heb. iii. 16- 
 19, and iv. 1,2: " For some, when they had heard, 
 did provoke ; howbeit, not all that came out of Egypt 
 by Moses. But with whom was he grieved forty 
 years ? Was it not with them that had sinned, whose 
 carcasses fell in the wilderness ? And to whom sware 
 he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them 
 that believed not? So we see they could not enter 
 in because of unbelief. Let us therefore fear, lest a 
 promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of 
 you should seem to come short of it. For unto us 
 was the Gospel preached, as well as unto them ; but 
 the word preached did not profit them, not being 
 mixed with faith in them that heard it." 
 
 Here it is declared that " the Gospel was preached ' 
 to those who were in this " Church in the wilderness,' 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 :o9 
 
 and that some then, as ever since, failed of its ben- 
 efits through " unbelief;" " howbeit not all that came 
 out of Egypt by Moses." Many heard, believed, were 
 saved by it, just as men here believe, and are saved 
 by it now. The same Apostle declares that the Gos- 
 pel was preached " to Abraham," Gal. iii. 8, which 
 the Gefieva version of 1557 thus renders: "For the 
 Scripture sawe afore hande, that God wolde justifie 
 the Gentiles through faith, and therefore preached 
 beforehand the Gospel unto Abraham," &c. 
 
 Let us now sum up these facts. We have seen (j) 
 That there was a Church fifteen centuries before the 
 time at which our opponents say it was "set up." (2) 
 That Christ, " the head " and ruler, was with that 
 Church, known to its members, who had communion 
 with him, and dispensing " remission of sins through 
 faith in his name." Acts x. 43. (3) That the Gospel 
 was preached in that Church, was rejected by some 
 " who heard it," and believed by others who were 
 saved through it. Now, let me ask, what more have 
 we to- day making up the Church of Christ? The 
 Church as "the body," Christ as "the head," and 
 the Gospel as the rule ol faith and practice, each in 
 their divinely appointed relation, the one to the other, 
 is all that our opponents themselves claim as necessa- 
 ry to constitute " the Church of Christ." This we 
 had in " the wilderness," fifteen hundred years before 
 
no INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 he nativity, built upon the covenant with Abraham 
 as its Constitution, and infants received into it at the 
 tenderest age, and the initiatory rite thereof given to 
 them ! Our opponents claim that this Church, which 
 they are pleased to call " a fleshly institution," was 
 abolished, and " the Church of Christ " set up after 
 the crucifixion. But if the Scriptures which we adduce 
 depose correctly, why abolish " the Church of Christ" 
 to set up " the Church of Christ ?" Could anything 
 more be done toward making it " the Church of 
 Christ," when Christ was already with it as its head — 
 known, loved and adored by its members, and his 
 Gospel preached in it ? Nothing could be more ab- 
 surd than the position of our opponents here. 
 
 We close this number with a brief glance at the 
 points of unity which have always existed, and must 
 continue to exist, in the Church of God. 
 
 (i) "One body." ist Cor. xii. 12, 13, -'For as 
 the body is one, and hath many members, and all the 
 members of that one body, being many, are one body ; 
 so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all bap- 
 tized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles." 
 "The body," which is the Church (Col. i. 17, 18), "is 
 one " through all time and all economies, and the 
 pious Hebrews, or "Jews," were in this "one body." 
 
 (2) One system of doctrine. We have only space 
 to name these. We shall notice them more at length 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. Ill 
 
 hereafter. In the time of which Stephen speaks, Acts 
 vii. and Paul, Heb. iii. and iv., " the Church " had the 
 same doctrines it now has, according to the Scriptures, 
 such as "Atonement," " Repentance," " Faith," " Par- 
 don," " Resurrection," " Judgment," " Heaven," 
 " Hell," &c., &c. In the very first sermon that Christ 
 preached after his resurrection it is said, "And begin- 
 ning at Moses, and all the prophets, he expounded 
 unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning 
 himself." Luke xxiv. 27. 
 
 Into this Church, we re-affirm, which had all the 
 facts and essentials of the Church of Jesus Christ, in- 
 fants were brought by the Constitution thereof. Let 
 our opponents show when they were legislated out. 
 
112 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 ARTICLE VIII. 
 
 UNITY OF THE CHURCH, AND OF INFANT MEMBER- 
 SHIP IN IT (continued). 
 
 It has been seen that in the time of Moses, and on 
 afterward, there was a Churchy possessing all the facts 
 and elements which make up " the Church of God " 
 to-day. Christ was with it. Its members knew him 
 and had communion with him. Remission of sins was 
 then, as now, through faith in his name. The Gospel 
 was preached in it. And all the doctrines which the 
 Church has now, it had then. That many of its mem- 
 bers did, from time to time, become degenerate in 
 life and doctrine is a sad fact ; but it is a fact which 
 also characterized the Church in the Apostolic age, 
 and has been a blot upon her escutcheon in every age 
 since. But who ever dreamed of arguing that God 
 had no Church in the Apostolic age because profliga- 
 cy of life and heresy in doctrine characterized the 
 Church at Corinth, and at Laodicea, and in Galatia, 
 and, in fact, almost everywhere to a greater or less 
 extent? When a portion of the Church becomes 
 faithless, apostatizes, it will not do to assume that all 
 are like them. This would disprove the existence of 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. II3 
 
 the Church to-day as well as a thousand years before 
 the nativity. In fact, inspiration attempts to save us 
 from such delusive assumptions. St. Paul takes up 
 one of the most degenerate periods in the history of 
 the Church before the birth of Jesus, and shows that 
 even then there were those who remained faithful and 
 pure amid an almost overwhelming apostasy : " Wot 
 ye not what the Scripture saith of Elias ? How he 
 maketh mtercession to God against Israel, saying, 
 Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down 
 thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my 
 life. But what saith the answer of God unto him ? 
 I have reserved to myself seven thousand men, who 
 have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal. 
 Even so then at this present time also there is a rem- 
 nant according to the election of grace." (Rom. xi. 
 2-5.) Here was one of the darkest periods in the 
 history of the Church. God's altars were " digged 
 down," his prophets were " killed," the dismal rites of 
 Baal were observed on every mountain and in every 
 vale ; even Elias supposed the apostasy was universal 
 and complete. But even then " seven thousand men " 
 (by which expression an indefinite but large number 
 is intended), remained faithful and true. Paul surveys 
 a similar scene in his own day. He saw defection 
 and apostasy everywhere, yet did not conclude that, 
 therefore, God's Church had fallen and the covenant 
 8 
 
114 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 failed; but, on the contrary, shows that then, as in 
 the days of EHas, there was " a remnant " who re- 
 mained true. There could, therefore, be no more fal- 
 lacious process of argumentation than that of our op- 
 ponents who assume that because the " rulers of the 
 people " and multitudes of their creatures rejected 
 Christ when he came, or were heretical and impure 
 centuries before he came, therefore God had no 
 Church then. " The rulers " and their minions did 
 the same in the days of Elias, and still God had a true 
 people left. Now, one of the great benefits of Mes- 
 siah's coming was to be the cleansing and purifying of 
 his Church from these evils. Thus saith the prophet : 
 "And the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to 
 his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom 
 ye dehght in ; behold, he shall come, saith the Lord 
 of hosts. But who may abide the day of his coming ? 
 and who shall stand when he appeareth ? for he is 
 like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap. And he 
 shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver ; and he shall 
 purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and 
 silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in 
 righteousness. Then shall the offering of Judah and 
 Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord, as in the days of 
 old, and as in former times." (Malachi iii. 1-4.) 
 This prophet, standing upon the utmost verge of the 
 old prophetic period, and looking across a chasm of 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. II5 
 
 four hundred years, during which time no prophet 
 should arise, sees the Messiah at the great work of 
 purifying his Church from heresy and degeneracy, 
 thus anticipating the glorious work which John the 
 Baptist saw inaugurated when he said : " His fan is 
 in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, 
 and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will 
 burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." (Matt. iii. 
 12.) The Church, therefore, was not to be disman- 
 tled and a new experiment entered upon. But it was 
 to be absterged and purified from erroneous doctrines 
 and degenerate members. We ask the reader to turn 
 to Matthew xxi. 33-46, and read it carefully in this 
 connection. Under the parable of " the Vineyard " 
 Christ fully sets forth the fact that his Church, which 
 was often likened to a vineyard (see Isa. v.) was 
 not to be torn down and a new institution erected be- 
 cause of the apostasy of so many of its members, but 
 it was " to be taken from " those who had proved un- 
 true to it — the apostate portion of Israel — and " given 
 to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof" (V. 43.) 
 The apostates who heard him did not misunderstand 
 him on this point, for " when the Chief Priests and 
 Pharisees had heard his parables, they perceived that 
 he spake of them " (V. 45); "and when they heard 
 it, they said, God forbid." (Luke xx. 16.) 
 
 St. Paul argues the same thing under a different 
 
Il6 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 figure. In Roman xi. he likens the Church to "a 
 good oHve tree," firom which some of the " branches " 
 or members were broken off through " unbehef," and 
 the Gentiles were " grafted in." " And if some of the 
 branches be broken oft", and thou, being a wild olive 
 tree, wert grafted in among them, and with them par- 
 takest of the root and fatness of the ohve tree ; boast 
 not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou 
 bearest not the root, but the root thee." It is mani- 
 fest that by this " good olive tree " he means the 
 Church. This will be made plain. Bloomfield, on 
 verse 17, says : " Of the olive tree, /, <*., of the prom- 
 ises to Abraham, and the privileges of God's Church." 
 Moses Stuart, on verse 17, says: " The image which 
 he here employs is a very vivid one. The Gentiles 
 had been grafted in upon the Jewish Church, and had 
 caused this decayed tree to revive and flourish.'' 
 Tholuck, on the same verse, says : " By Christianity, 
 he says, Judaism is not properly done away ; that 
 was rather the veil by which Christianity was once 
 concealed. So little, then, ought the Gentile to look 
 down upon the Jew, as the follower of a false religion, 
 that he must rather regard him as one belonging to 
 the true rehgion, but who does not appreciate that as 
 he ought, and so is in error regarding his own faith. 
 On the contrary, the Gentile, instructed in Christiani- 
 ty, becomes thereby a true Jew." It is needless to 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. II7 
 
 multiply citations of this kind. The voice of learned 
 criticism has not one discordant note at this point. 
 All acknowledge that by " the good olive tree " the 
 Church of God, as it existed among the Hebrews, is 
 meant. This being established, observe the following 
 points made by the Apostle : 
 
 (i) The unbelieving Jews, as fruitless branches, are 
 "broken off" (V. 17); "some of the branches be 
 broken off" (V. 20); " because of unbelief they were 
 broken off;" for rejecting the Messiah and corrupting 
 the faith. But this did not destroy " the good olive 
 tree." Its " root and fatness " remained, and the 
 Gentiles were grafted in among the branches which 
 remained. 
 
 (2) That the Gentiles, when converted to Christi- 
 anity, were " graffed into this good olive tree " — the 
 Church — not formed into a new organization. Ad- 
 dressing these Gentile converts, St. Paul says : " If 
 some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a 
 wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with 
 them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive 
 tree; boast not against the branches." (V. 17.) This 
 can not be misunderstood. The Church of God bad 
 remained, based upon the " everlasting covenant " 
 made with Abraham ; many Jews had been thrust out 
 because of "unbelief" and unholiness of life; and 
 those who were converted to Christ from among the 
 Gentiles were brought into this Church. 
 
Il8 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 (3) That when the Jews, now in unbeHef, are re- 
 claimed and brought to recognize the Messiah in Jesus 
 of Nazareth, they will be restored to their original 
 Church and covenant relation — not introduced into a 
 new institution. So saith the Apostle, verse 23, "And 
 they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be 
 grafted in ; for God is able to graft them in again," V. 
 24 ; " how much more shall these, which be the natu- 
 ral branches, be graffed into their own olive tree ?" 
 But let us suppose that the position of our opponents, 
 with reference to the Church, be correct. Then, when 
 che Jews are converted (as the Scriptures assuredly 
 indicate they will be), and brought into the Church of 
 God, instead of bemg returned to " their own olive 
 tree," or Church, they will find themselves in an or- 
 ganization utterly at variance with the Church from 
 which they had been cut off. Our opponents say that 
 the Church set up on Pentecost had "new principles;" 
 that it rests upon a " new covenant " — a different Con- 
 stitution — that it is radically difterent in its " terms of 
 membership," its " doctrines," and its " members." 
 How would this be a restoration of the converted 
 Israelite to his own olive tree. The absurdity of the 
 position is most manifest. Here, then, as in many 
 other places, the Apostle, in harmony w^ith the Saviour's 
 teachings on the subject, declares the unity and con- 
 tinuance of the Church through all dispensations. 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. II9 
 
 These facts being established, let us now return to 
 the point from which we digressed. One of the great 
 benefits of Messiah's coming, we have said, was 
 to be the cleansing and purifying of this Church. 
 Accordingly, before that ever memorable day of Pen- 
 tecost, the Church, purged from the accumulated 
 abuses of ages, and separated from the faithless multi- 
 tude who had crowded her courts, appears all glori- 
 ous. Acts i. 15, 16. "And in those days Peter 
 stood up in the midst of the disciples, and said (the 
 number of the names together were about an hundred 
 and twenty), men and brethren, this Scripture must 
 needs have been fulfilled," &c. 
 
 Here was the Church of God, called by one of its 
 most common appellations — " disciples." Now, with 
 reference to this Church, we observe the following 
 facts : 
 
 (i) It performed, at this point in its history, one of 
 the most solemn duties the Church was ever called 
 upon to discharge — namely, to elect an Apostle. 
 (Verses i6 and 26.) Surely if it had not been the 
 Church of God it would not have presumed to do 
 such a thing. 
 
 (2) To this Church the "three thousand" were 
 " added " on the day of Pentecost, and the millions 
 who were afterward converted to Christ. So we read, 
 Acts ii. 41, " Then they that gladly received his word 
 
I20 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 were baptized ; and the same day there were added 
 unto them about three thousand souls." To whom, 
 or to what, were these three thousand added ? Most 
 manifestly to that Church, which, as we have seen, a 
 few days before, had elected an Apostle, whose num- 
 ber is stated to have been " an hundred and twenty," 
 and which bore the common name of the Church — 
 disciples. In the 47th verse these are called the Church 
 — "And the Lord added to the Church daily such as 
 should be saved." Instead, therefore, of finding a 
 new organization set up on the day of Pentecost, we 
 find the converts made on that day " added " to a 
 previously existing and regularly constituted "Church." 
 
 (3) The " one hundred and twenty " who composed 
 this Church never received Christian baptism on or 
 after the day of Pentecost. They had been brought 
 into the Church by circumcision in infancy, and had 
 not gone off in the apostasy. They were, in part at 
 least, " the remnant according to the election of 
 grace," to which St. Paul refers in Romans xi. 5. 
 This was the " good olive tree " from which the fruit- 
 less branches had been broken off, and into which the 
 vast multitudes converted from among the Gentiles 
 " were grafifed." 
 
 Let not our opponents cavil at the smallness of the 
 number of this Church as it appears in Acts i. 15-16. 
 The eye of prophecy had looked down through many 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 121 
 
 centuries upon this little company, and the tongue of 
 prophets had been divinely moved to utter " exceed- 
 ing great and precious promises " to them. We will 
 read some of those promises, and thereby still further 
 see that it never was the intention of Jehovah to de- 
 stroy the Church founded upon his covenant with 
 Abraham, but, on the contrary, to bring the Gentiles 
 to it. " But Zion said, The Lord hath forsaken me, 
 and my Lord hath forgotten me. Can a woman for- 
 get her sucking child, that she should not have com- 
 passion on the son of her womb ? Yea, they may 
 forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have 
 graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls 
 are continually before me. Thy children shall make 
 haste ; thy destroyers and they that make thee waste 
 shall go forth of thee." When the Church was so 
 fearfully diminished by the apostasy, she is represented 
 as exclaiming, " The Lord hath forsaken me, and my 
 Lord hath forgotten me " — the very thing which our 
 opponents say was done. But God says to his weep- 
 ing Church, '- Behold, I have graven thee upon the 
 palms of my hands," and assures her that even though 
 a mother should forget her child, " yet I will not for- 
 get thee." But how could he promise this if he inten- 
 ded to lay her utterly waste, and throw her aside as a 
 " fleshly " thing which " contemplated neither faith 
 nor piety ! " But he proceeds to show her the en- 
 
122 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 largement and glory which he would bring to her in 
 the days of her desolation. " Lift up thine eyes round 
 about, and behold; all these gather themselves 
 together, and come to thee. As I live, saith the 
 Lord, thou shalt surely clothe thee with them all, as 
 with an ornament, and bind them on thee as a bride 
 doeth." Here the promise is that the Gentiles shall 
 come to Zion — the Church — and the desolation made 
 by the apostasy of so many Jews shall be repaired by 
 the ingathering of the nations. But the promise pro- 
 ceeds : " The children which thou shalt have, after 
 thou hast lost the other [ after the apostasy J, shall say 
 again in thine ears. The place is too strait for me ; give 
 place to me that I may dwell. Then shalt thou say 
 in thine heart. Who hath begotten me these, seeing I 
 have lost my children, and am desolate, a captive, and 
 removing to and fro ? and who hath brought up these ? 
 Behold I was left alone ; these, where had they been ? 
 Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I will lift up mine 
 hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the 
 people ; and they shall bring thy sons in their arms, 
 and thy daughters shall be carried upon their should- 
 ers. And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their 
 queens thy nursing mothers ; they shall bow down to 
 thee with their faces toward the earth, and lick up the 
 dust of thy feet ; and thou shalt know that I am the 
 Lord ; for thev shall not be ashamed that wait for me." 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 1 23 
 
 (Isa. xlix.) Here was the assurance — not that the 
 Church should be dismantled and obliterated because 
 " the Chief Priests, and Scribes, and rulers of the 
 people" rejected the Messiah and apostatized from 
 the faith, but that the Church should arise from the 
 pressure of these calamities and the woe of these deso- 
 lations, and " clothe " herself with the nations of the 
 earth. The history of the past eighteen hundred 
 years has verified these promises. But the promise 
 continues : " Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; 
 break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that 
 didst not travail with child ; for more are the children 
 of the desolate than the children of the married wife, 
 saith the Lord. Enlarge the place ot thy tent, and 
 let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations; 
 spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy 
 stakes ; for thou shalt break forth on the right hand 
 and on the left; and thy seed shall inherit the Gen- 
 tiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited. 
 In a little wrath I hid my face from thee 
 for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I 
 have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer." 
 (Isa. liv. I, 3, 8.) 
 
 It is needless to copy more of these assurances of 
 continuance and increase of the Church. They glitter 
 like the stars of morning upon almost every page of 
 prophecy. Instead, therefore, of abolishing his 
 
124 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 Church, and setting up on the day of Pentecost " a 
 new institution," with " new principles and new terms 
 of membership," every promise that God had given 
 the Church was to the effect that she should survive 
 the apostasy, and pass on to " inherit the Gentiles," 
 with her Constitution unchanged and her organization 
 unbroken. Accordingly, we see the Church before 
 the day of Pentecost (Acts i. 15-16) in the discharge 
 of her high functions, and on that memorable day 
 3,000 were " added " to it, and 5,000 a few days after, 
 and then she sweeps out over all tribal metes and 
 bounds and gathers into her embrace the millions that 
 are " beyond." Triumphing over the desolations of 
 all ages, and passing unbroken over prostrate empires 
 and crumbled thrones, she has come grandly down from 
 the remotest antiquity. She was venerable with years 
 when the pyramids of Egypt were begun; she was all 
 glorious as the City of God when the foundations of 
 Babylon were laid ; the martial tread of her hosts was 
 felt upon this earth before Sesostris shook the plains of 
 Asia, or Xerxes stormed the defenses of Greece. As 
 we stand in her venerable presence to-day, we may 
 properly address to her the splendid lines of the poet : 
 
 " But thou of temples old, or altars new, 
 
 Standest alone — with nothing like to thee — 
 Worthiest of God, the holy and the true ! 
 Since Zion's desolation, when that He 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. I 25 
 
 Forsook his former City, what could be 
 Of earthly structures in his honor pil'd 
 
 Of a sublimer aspect ? Majesty, 
 
 Power, glory, strength, and beauty, all are aisl'd 
 In this eternal ark of worship undefil'd. " 
 
 If we look back now along the line of development 
 we have pursued we shall see that the following facts 
 have been estabhshed : 
 
 (i) The covenant made with Abraham, which in 
 the very nature of the case is unalterable, and which 
 " was confirmed in Christ," does, as the eternal Con- 
 stitution of the Church, provide that infants shall be 
 received into membership by the Church and the ini- 
 tiatory rite thereof given them. This is the Constitu- 
 tion of the Church to-day. 
 
 (2) That the initiatory rite, which under a former 
 economy was circumcision, and was given to infants, 
 has, under the present economy, been changed to bap- 
 tism, with no change specified as to the subjects there- 
 of Hence the constitutional provisions with reference 
 to children not being changed, their rights remain the 
 same. 
 
 And (3) that the Church, founded upon this Con- 
 stitution, and illustrating its meaning by her adminis- 
 tration in receiving infants to membership for nearly 
 two thousand years before the birth of Christ, con- 
 tinues to this dav the same Church — the same in her 
 
126 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 " Head, which is Christ," the same in her Constitution, 
 in her doctrines, terms of membership, &c. From 
 these facts, sustained at every point by the exphcit 
 declarations of God's word, the conclusion comes as 
 inevitably as the effect flows from its cause — infant 
 baptism is authorized by the word of God. 
 
 The Scriptures by which our opponents attempt to 
 disprove the unity of the Church in all ages, will be 
 next considered. 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 127 
 
 ARTICLE IX. 
 
 THE TEXTS SUPPOSED TO MILITATE AGAINST THE 
 UNITY OF THE CHURCH, CONSIDERED (jER. XXXI. 
 31-34; HEB. VIII. 8-12 j AMOS IX. II ; ACTS XV. 
 14, ETC.) 
 
 It has been supposed by our opponents that the 
 above texts disprove the position that the Church and 
 its Constitution have remained one and the same 
 through all dispensations. Now, if there were a con- 
 flict between the above texts, on this question, and 
 the numerous plain and unequivocal declarations of 
 Scripture which we have produced to establish the 
 unity of the Church, all the rules of Biblical interpre- 
 tation would demand that these texts relied on by our 
 opponents be interpreted in harmony with those we 
 have adduced. Our position is sustained by plain 
 declarations which appear all through the Bible; by 
 processes of reasoning by inspired prophets and Apos- 
 tles; by parables and illustrations by the Savior, until 
 a demonstration is made which no separate and iso- 
 lated text can displace without establishing a prece- 
 dent which would lay the very heart of Christianity 
 bare to the thrusts of infidelity. 
 
128 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 But no such conflict exists here. These passages, 
 rehed on by our opponents, when calmly considered, 
 fall into line and support our claim. Let us, there- 
 fore, take them up, one by one, and examine them. 
 
 Jer. xxxi. 31-34. This is quoted by St. Paul, Heb. 
 viii. 8-12. Let the reader turn to them and read 
 them carefully. In both these places the promise of 
 " a new covenant " is given, and that the law of God 
 should be " put in their inward parts, and written in 
 their hearts." 
 
 From this our opponents attempt to show, that by 
 " a new covenant " is meant one different from that 
 made with Abraham — a new Constitution for a new 
 Church. " He tells us not only that it will be a new 
 covenant, but that it will be unlike the old covenant " 
 (Wilkes in the W. D. Debate, p. 49) ; that the terms 
 of membership under this new covenant are radically 
 different from those of the old. Under the new, God's 
 law is to be put in the inward part, and his law written 
 in the heart. This, say our opponents, can not be 
 done to infants, and that, consequently, they are no 
 longer eligible to covenant relation. It ought to be a 
 sufficient answer to all this to say that it contradicts all 
 St. Paul says concerning the covenant with Abraham. 
 Gal. iii. 15. It is there shown, as also in other places, 
 that the covenant with Abraham could not be dis- 
 placed by any subsequent arrangement, and that no 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 1 29 
 
 item of any new covenant could clash with the items 
 of that without a palpable violation of all covenant 
 rights. Once a covenant is ratified by the parties, it 
 becomes unalterable in all subsequent time, except by 
 the parties to it. God might make a covenant with 
 any of the people of Israel at any time, and he might 
 multiply these " new covenants " a thousandfold, but 
 no one of them could contravene that made with 
 Abraham and "confirmed in Christ." 
 
 Again : It is plain from the quotation above from 
 Mr. Wilkes, and also from the statements of others in 
 sympathy with him, that there is a continual con- 
 founding of the terms old and new with reference to 
 these covenants. We have already shown, what is 
 admitted by Mr. Campbell and President Milligan, 
 that in these places the " old covenant " is that made 
 with Moses at Sinai, and that the " new covenant " is 
 the Abrahamic. But Mr. Wilkes and others make 
 the "old" mean the Abrahamic covenant, and the 
 " new " something which they imagine was inaugu- 
 rated after the crucifixion. This is a miserable per- 
 version, and lies at the foundation of all their fallacies 
 on this point. Neither Jeremiah nor Paul contem- 
 plated such a thing in making " a new covenant " as 
 that which our opponents assume. They assume that 
 those inspired men meant to originate a covenant, to 
 create that which had no previous existence. But a 
 9 
 
130 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 moment's examination must convince the unprejudiced 
 that they contemplated no such thing. 
 
 The Hebrew word used by Jeremiah, and translated 
 "new" in our version, is hhdash, which Furst defines 
 " to renew, to set up anew," and he refers, as exam- 
 ples of its use in this sense, to ist Sam. xi. 14, "Then 
 said Samuel to his people, Come, and let us go to 
 Gilgal, and 7'enew the kingdom there ;" and 2d Chron. 
 XV. 8, "And Asa . . . re7iewed the altar of the 
 Lord that was before the porch of the Lord ;" xxiv. 4, 
 "And it came to pass after this, that Joash was mind- 
 ed to repair the house of the Lord;" Isa. Ixi. 4, "And 
 they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of 
 many generations." 
 
 Julius Bates (Critica Hebraea, of 1767,) also defines 
 it " to renew," and cites the examples above given, 
 with the addition of Ps. ciii. 5, " Thy youth is refiew- 
 ed" The word which Jeremiah employs does not, 
 therefore, mean to originate in this passage. When 
 the seventy rendered this word in Greek, they trans- 
 lated it by diadrjooiiat [diathesomai)^ which is never 
 defined by the lexicons in the sense of to originate, 
 but "to dispose, arrange, settle mutually." (Liddell 
 and Scott.) Or, as Robinson defines, "to appoint, to 
 assign, to covenant " When St. Paul quotes this pas- 
 sage from Jeremiah (Heb. viii. 8), he uses, not the 
 word which the Seventy used, but avvrtXtoiy) {simte- 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 131 
 
 leso), which Robinson defines thus, " to finish wholly, 
 to complete, to fulfill," and refers to many examples 
 of its use in the Scriptures in this sense. Now, a re- 
 mark will be sufiicient to show the bearing of all this. 
 Under the accumulated rites and ceremonies of the 
 Levitical ritual the spirituality of religion, and of the 
 Church founded upon the covenant with Abraham, 
 had been greatly lost sight of. God, therefore, points 
 to the time, in this language of Jeremiah, when these 
 rites and ceremonies of that ritual — the Sinaitic cove- 
 nant — should be removed, and when the pure spiritu- 
 ality of the Church and of religion, as contemplated 
 in the Abrahamic covenant, should be restored. Hence 
 it is called a renewal, a restoration, a completion, of 
 that begun with Abraham. It is not a little remarka- 
 ble that all our old English translations render St. 
 Paul's language in Heb. viii. 8 in perfect accordance 
 with this statement. I will here give them in paral- 
 lel columns : 
 
 WicUf— 1380— Heb. viii. 8, 
 ** For he repremynge them : 
 Seith, lo daies comer seith the 
 lord ; and I schal make perfect 
 a newe testament on the hous 
 of Israel and on the hous of 
 juda." 
 
 Cranmer 1539 Heb. viii, 8, 
 *' For in rebukinge them, he 
 sayth unto them, Behold the 
 days come (sayth the Lord) 
 and I will fynisshe upon the 
 
 Tyndale — 1534 — Heb. viii. 
 8, " For in rebukynge them he 
 sayth, Behold the days will 
 come (sayth the lorde) and I 
 will fynnyshe [finish] upon the 
 housse of Israhel and upon the 
 housse of Juda a newe testa- 
 ment." 
 
 Rheims— 1582— Heb. viii. 8, 
 "For blaming them he saith: 
 Behold the dai ;s shal come, 
 saith our Lord; and I will con- 
 
132 
 
 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 house of Israel, and iipon the 
 house of Juda, a new testa- 
 ment." 
 
 summate upon the house of 
 Israel, and upon the house of 
 Juda a new Testament." 
 
 These venerable translators, following the real 
 meaning of the words of Jeremiah and Paul, in every 
 instance render them according to the definitions and 
 use of them which we have shown. In fact, the idea 
 of renewal or restoration pervades the entire 31st 
 chapter of Jeremiah. Thus, verse 28th, "And it shall 
 come to pass, that like as I have watched over them 
 [i. e., the house of Judah and of Israel, verse 27] to 
 pluck up, and to break down, and to throw down, 
 and to destroy, and to afflict ; so will I watch over them, 
 to build, and to plant, saith the Lord." 
 
 Instead, therefore, of a new covenant and a new 
 Church, in which conditions of membership should 
 exist impossible for an infant to comply with, the lan- 
 guage is a promise of a perfect renewal of that cove- 
 nant which provides for infants, and of that Church 
 which had always received them. God's law was in 
 the mind and written in the hearts of the faithful 
 members of tke Church centuries before the crucifixion, 
 as really as at any time since. Thus the pious Psalm- 
 ist exclaims, " Thy word have I hid in mine heart, 
 
 that I might not sin against thee O how 
 
 I love thy law ; it is my meditation all the day . 
 . . for thy testimonies are my meditation. . . 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 133 
 
 How sweet are thy words unto my taste ! yea, sweeter 
 than h©ney to my mouth Thy testimo- 
 nies have I taken as an heritage forever ; for they 
 are the rejoicing of my heart." (Ps. 119.) Has any 
 one, under the present economy, a happier experience 
 in the law of God than this ? David did not regard^ 
 it impossible for adults to have the law of God written 
 in their hearts in a Church which received infants. 
 Why should we ? The reasonings of our opponents 
 upon the texts under consideration is a tissue of soph- 
 istry from beginning to end. 
 
 As the idea ot a " new Church," and a new order 
 of things in it, is the point around which the oppo- 
 nents of infant baptism make their hottest and most 
 determined fight, it may not be improper to elaborate 
 a litde further the Biblical idea of restoration or reno- 
 vation with reference to the Church. The idea every- 
 where presented in the Bible on this subject is that 
 God would, at the coming of the Messiah, relieve the 
 Church of the numerous and oppressive rites which 
 the Sinaitic covenant placed upon it, and restore to it 
 the simple spiritual worship which it had before. We 
 will take one prominent presentation of this idea as 
 an illustration of the truth of this position : 
 
 The prophet Amos (ix. 11), referring to that much 
 desired period, said : " In that day will I raise up the 
 tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the 
 
134 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I 
 will build it as in the days of old." A httle consider- 
 ation will disclose the fact, that by " the tabernacle of 
 David," and the building of it " as in the days of old," 
 is meant that renovation of the Church and restora- 
 tion of a pure, comparatively non-ritual, worship which 
 we have seen foretold by Jeremiah. To this end let 
 us examine the several particulars of this prophecy in 
 their proper order : 
 
 (i) The word "tabernacle" used by Amos means 
 the Church, not the lineage or family of David, as 
 some suppose. Whitby, perhaps, is more responsible 
 than any other commentator for this error. As a dis- 
 tinguished critic (Dr. Smith) says: " Seeing the word 
 
 * tabernacle ' in the English version, he (Whitby) has- 
 tily concluded that the usual word for ' tabernacle ' in 
 the original — namely, mishkan, was the word employ- 
 ed by Amos, without troubling himself to examine 
 the Hebrew text of the prophet, to verify his conjec- 
 ture. He has, consequently, misled his readers." 
 (Harmony, p. io6.) Mr. Wilkes, ignorant of the He- 
 brew, submitted himself to the unsafe guidance of 
 Whitby in this particular, and fell into the same egre- 
 gious error. He said : " The tabernacle of David 
 means the family of David, the hneage of David." 
 (W. D. Debate, p. 6i.) The word here rendered 
 
 * * tabernacle" is sukkath^ which never is used to signify 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 135 
 
 a " house" in the sense of a "family." Furst defines 
 this word, "A booth, hut, a tent," &c. Amos passed 
 by the word {mishka?i) which ordinarily means " fam- 
 ily," and took this word siikkath to express, first, the 
 house which David built for the w^orship of God, and, 
 secondly, the spiritual, non-ritual worship which was 
 offered there. The prophecy, therefore, declares the 
 restoration of this Church. 
 
 (2) Let us now examine the history of the " taber- 
 nacle of David." The facts concerning it are briefly 
 as follows : When the Hebrews crossed the Jordan, 
 the tabernacle built in the wilderness was set up at 
 Gilgal, and after the death of Joshua it was removed 
 to Shiloh in the tribe of Ephraim. Here the Leviti- 
 cal ritual was observed in all the departments of wor- 
 ship. In the days of Eli's high-priesthood the He- 
 brews took the Ark of the Covenant from this taber- 
 nacle and carried it before them to a great battle with 
 the Philistines, in which they were slaughtered and 
 the Ark captured. It remained in Philistia seven 
 months, and was then returned to the Israelites, but 
 was never restored to the tabernacle at Shiloh — the 
 Mosaic tabernacle. On its return from Philistia it 
 was placed in the house of Abinadab, whose son Elea- 
 zar was " sanctified to keep the Ark of the Lord," and 
 there it remained for eighty years. In the meantime 
 the Mosaic tabernacle was removed from Shiloh to 
 
136 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 Gibeon in the tribe of Benjamin. When, therefore, 
 David came to the throne, the Ark was at the house 
 of Abinadab in the tribe of Judah, and the tabernacle 
 of Moses at Gibeon in the tribe of Benjamin. When 
 David had subdued his enemies on every hand, his 
 pious heart turned toward the Ark of the Lord which 
 he determined to remove. He accordingly built a 
 new tabernacle — sukkath — near his own house on 
 Mount Zion for its reception. When he attempted to 
 remove it thither the folly of Uzzah provoked the 
 anger of God, who " smote him for his error, and there 
 he died by the Ark of God." This caused a delay in 
 its removal, and it was left in the house of Obed-Edom 
 for three months. At the end of that time David re- 
 moved it, and amid great rejoicing placed it in the tab- 
 ernacle which he had built on Mount Zion. There it 
 remained about thirty years, until the third year of 
 the reign of Solomon, who removed it to the temple 
 which he built. Now, the use which we make of 
 these facts is this : During all this time that the Ark 
 of the Covenant was in the tabernacle on Mount Zion, 
 the numerous services, sacrifices, etc., prescribed by 
 the Levitical ritual were duly performed in the Mosaic 
 tabernacle at Gibeon in the tribe of Benjamin, while 
 David and the pious Hebrews of his day offered a 
 simple spiritual worship to God in the tabernacle on 
 Mount Zion. In the midst of that tabernacle the Ark 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. I37 
 
 was placed. (21 Sam. vi. 17.) It was not veiled or 
 concealed from the view of the people, as it had been 
 in the tabernacle of Moses, and afterward was in the 
 Holy of Holies in the temple. But, with its golden 
 cherubim, and the glorious shekinah of God, it was 
 placed in the sight of the worshipers who had imme- 
 diate and free access to it. There a gloriously spiritual 
 worship was offered. ''And he appointed certain of 
 the Levites to minister before the Ark of the Lord, 
 and to record, and to thank, and praise the Lord God 
 ot Israel." (ist Chron. xvi. 4.) Mark this worship. 
 It had ministers in the fullest sense of that term ; and 
 "to record," i. e., to preach and teach; " to thank 
 and praise the Lord God of Israel," i. <?., to celebrate 
 the divine goodness in song. For this " service of 
 song" David provided a large choir of singers, and 
 the splendid Psalms of David, so rich in the experi- 
 ence of divine grace, so grand in their melody, and so 
 subduing in their tenderness, composed the hymnology 
 employed. Here was a pure spiritual worship, free 
 from " bleeding bird and bleeding beast," — " from 
 hyssop branch and sprinkling priest." The attendants 
 here were not simply the royal family, but " the great 
 congregation " so often referred to. Holiness of life 
 was essential to communion in that worship. Con- 
 cerning the character that would be accepted there, 
 David says : '• Who shall ascend into the hill of the 
 
138 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 Lord, or who shall stand in his holy place ? He that hath 
 clean hands and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his 
 soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceittully." Ps. xxiv. 
 
 There is no evidence that this tabernacle and its 
 spiritual worship were abandoned when Solomon re- 
 moved the Ark to the temple. On the contrary, it is 
 altogether probable that it still remained as a place of 
 devotion to the deeply pious, and that it was imitated 
 in other parts of the land. Here probably originated 
 the idea of the synagogue which afterward went into 
 such extensive use. 
 
 But the sad day came in the history of Israel when 
 wickedness and degeneracy fell upon the people. 
 They forsook the worship of God, until, like in the 
 days of Elias, only a remnant remained true, and these, 
 perchance, met in secret and " waited for the promise." 
 Amid this degeneracy, the senseless devotion to ordi- 
 nances, God raised up Amos to prophesy. Standing 
 in the place where so many prophecies had been de- 
 livered — near the gate of the temple on Mount Mo- 
 riah — this holy man first arraigned, exposed and con- 
 demned the sin^ of the people in forsaking the only 
 acceptable worship of God. This done, he turned 
 his eyes to Mount Zion, which was separated from 
 Mount Moriah by a narrow valley, and there beheld 
 the ruins of the tabernacle of David. Its history was 
 well known to Israel. Pointing with one hand to the 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 139 
 
 place where a pure spiritual worship had been offered 
 to God in other days, and with the other hand point- 
 ing down the stream of time to the coming Messiah, 
 and the glorious restoration to be effected by him, he 
 exclaimed : " In that day will I raise up the taberna- 
 cle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches 
 thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build 
 it as in the days of old." 
 
 (3) Let us now consider the application of this 
 prophecy to the Church, showing that the inspired 
 Apostles understood it to mean the restoration of the 
 Church to a simple and pure spiritual worship. If 
 this can be shown, it forever destroys the claims of our 
 opponents for the setting up, de novo, of a new Church. 
 This we proceed to do. The Messiah had come and 
 completed his great mission ; he had ascended up- on 
 high and sent the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles ; the 
 Gospel had been preached, and thousands, both Jews 
 and Gentiles, had been gathered into the Church, 
 when a serious trouble arose concerning the ceremo- 
 nial duties of the Levitical ritual. Certain mistaken 
 teachers had gone to the Gentile convert and said : 
 " Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, 
 ye can not be saved." (Acts xv. 1-5.) A question 
 of vital importance thus arose, and " the Apostles and 
 elders came together," in the first Christian Council, 
 " to consider this matter." Paul and Barnabas went 
 
I40 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 from Antioch to Jerusalem to take part in the deliber- 
 ations upon this important question, and, together 
 with Peter, declared the wonderful results of the Gos- 
 pel among the Gentiles. Let us assume ourselves 
 present before that venerable body of inspired men, 
 and propound to them the three questions concerning 
 the Church which have agitated the world for ages. 
 The first is the question of the Jew — the representa- 
 tive of the Ritualist — namely, " Do not the Levitical 
 ceremonies, rites and ordinances perpetuate themselves 
 in the Church and continue obligatory in all time ?" 
 The second is the question of the opponent of infant 
 baptism — namely, " Has not a new Church, with new 
 principles, a new Constitution, &c., been set up since 
 the resurrection ?" The third is the question which 
 the advocates of infant baptism and of Church unity 
 maintain — namely, " Has not the Church, founded 
 upon the Abrahamic covenant, and ofifering a pure 
 spiritual worship to God, continued through all ages 
 and dispensations ?" 
 
 Now, let us seek the answer to these questions at 
 the mouth of that inspired Council The Apostle 
 James gives it : " Men and brethren, hearken unto 
 me. Simeon hath declared how God at the first did 
 visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his 
 name. And to this agree the words of the prophets 
 [ Amos ix. II ], as it is written : after this I will re- 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 14I 
 
 turn, and will build again the tabernacle of David 
 which is fallen down ; and I will build again the ruins 
 thereof, and I will set it up ; that the residue of men 
 might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon 
 whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth 
 all things well." Acts xv. 13-17. This shows the 
 Jew, in answer to his question, that the Mosaic ritual 
 formed no essential part of the Church of God at any 
 time. The Church existed before that was given ; it 
 existed as a pure, spiritual, non-ritual Church on 
 Mount Zion while that ritual, with all that appertained 
 to it, was observed at Gibeon ; and that the utter ces- 
 sation of that ritual could not affect it in any wise for 
 evil. Neither the coming in of these ordinances nor 
 their departure affected the Church. The period of 
 1400 years, during which that ritual was of obligation, 
 was but a brief parenthesis in the Church. The 
 Church on Mount Zion — the tabernacle of David — 
 holding on in its spiritual, non-ritual worship in the 
 midst of an infinite ritualism, was a sublime expose of 
 the character and Constitution of the Church of God 
 in all ages. Thus fell forever sacrifice, a human 
 priesthood, and an imposing ceremonial; and the 
 Church resumes her simple forms of preaching, song, 
 and praise, which characterized her in the tabernacle 
 of David. The answer to the opponent of infant bap- 
 tism, as to whether " a new Church, with new princi- 
 
142 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 pies and a new Constitution, was to be set up," is 
 equally explicit. Instead of originating a new Church 
 and a new worship, this inspired Council informs him 
 that the Church, as it existed on Mount Zion, was to 
 be simply restored and its ruins built up as in the days 
 of old ; and this is to be done " that the residue of 
 men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, 
 upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord." Into 
 its ample folds the Gentiles, as seen in other prophe- 
 cies quoted, are to be gathered. This answers the 
 third question affirmatively, while it disproves both the 
 former. 
 
 Thus it is shown that the Church of God continues 
 one and the same through all economies. Rites may 
 change, ordinances may be suspended, introduced, or 
 cancelled ; subordinate covenants may come in and be 
 obligatory for centuries and then expire by limitation ; 
 but the Church, planted upon the immutable cove- 
 nant with Abraham, which was confirmed in Christ, 
 •abides unchanged forever. The unalterable Constitu- 
 tion of this Church makes infants eligible to her mem- 
 bership and the initiatory rite thereof Where do our 
 opponents show the abrogation of this law ? Nowhere ! 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. I43 
 
 ARTICLE X . 
 
 THE TEXTS SUPPOSED TO MILITATE AGAINST THE 
 UNITY OF THE CHURCH CONSIDERED (CONTINUED). 
 DAN. II. 44; MAT. XVI. 18. 
 
 We shall close this investigation with the present 
 number, in which we shall briefly examine the remain- 
 ing texts relied on by the opponents of Church unity. 
 
 Daniel ii. 44. — " And in the days of these kings 
 shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall 
 never be destroyed ; and the kingdom shall not be left 
 to other people, but it shall break in pieces and con- 
 sume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever." 
 
 Here, it is assumed by our opponents, that the set- 
 ting up a kingdom by the God of heaven means the 
 founding or originating the Church of God after the 
 crucifixion. The whole position is false, and the pro- 
 cess of argumentation by which it is attempted to sus- 
 tain it is at war with the teachings of Scripture and 
 history. This assertion will be made plain by a brief 
 examination of the passage, which we now propose. 
 
 Nebuchadnezzar dreamed that a great image stood 
 before him, which is thus described : The head was 
 of fine gold, the breast and arms of silver, the belly 
 and thighs of brass, the legs of iron, the feet and toes 
 
144 INFANT BAPTISxM. 
 
 part of potters' clay and part iron. (Dan. ii. 31-41.) 
 Here was a grand chronological image of monarchy, 
 and is thus explained by all. The " head " is the 
 Babylonian kingdom ; the " breast and arms " is the 
 Medo-Persian ; the "belly and thighs" is the Mace- 
 donian under Alexander the Great; and the " legs and 
 feet " is the Roman kingdom. Now, as a fact of his- 
 tory, which destroys the assumption of our opponents 
 on this text, we observe : 
 
 (i) That these were all secular kingdoms, and each 
 one in its turn was destroyed by a secular kingdom — 
 not by the Church of God. Hence, whatever " the 
 kingdom" which the God of heaven was to " set up in 
 the days of these kings " may mean, one thing is cer- 
 tain, it can not mean the Church. For, in the first 
 place, a work is assigned to this "kingdom" of the 
 God of heaven which is utterly at variance with the 
 oft proclaimed character of the Church. It is here 
 declared that this " kingdom " " shall break in pieces 
 and consume all these kingdoms " — a work which is ut- 
 terly at war with what Christ said of his kingdom — 
 namely: " My kingdom is not of this world; if my 
 kmgdom were of this world, then would my servants 
 fight." (John xviii. 36.) It would not be compatible 
 with the character of such a kingdom to " break in 
 pieces and consume " the governments of this world 
 To attempt it would forfeit the character of the 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 1 45 
 
 Church. But, in the second place, it is an undeniable 
 fact of history that each of the kingdoms symbolized 
 in this image was overthrown and destroyed by secu- 
 lar kingdoms. Thus, the Babylonian kingdom, the 
 head of the image, was destroyed by Cyrus about 560 
 years before Christ; the Medo-Persian kingdom, the 
 " breast and arms " of the image, was destroyed by 
 Alexander at the battle of Arbela, B. C. 331 ; the 
 Macedonian kingdom, " the belly and thighs" of the 
 image, was overthrown by the death of Alexander and 
 the divisions and wars which ensued between his gen- 
 erals; and the Roman kingdom, the " legs and feet" 
 of the image, was destroyed by the Northern hordes, 
 who finished their work of ruin under the walls of 
 Constantinople on the 29th May, 1453, at which time 
 the last vestige of that empire was swept away. In 
 point of fact, the " Church," which our opponents be- 
 lieve to be meant by the "kingdom" in this prophecy, 
 never had any part in the overthrow of any of these 
 kingdoms. This is sufficient to refute their claim, that 
 the setting up of the Church is meant in this prophecy. 
 (2) The time for the setting up of this " kingdom " 
 is too late to answer the purpose of the theory we op- 
 pose. It is generally conceded by the interpreters of 
 this prophecy, that " the feet and toes, part of potters' 
 clay and part of iron," (vr. 41) in this chronological 
 image, symbolizes the politico-ecclesiastical papal 
 10 
 
146 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 power. There are many things to justify this conclu- 
 sion. As {a) there is perfect chronological order ob- 
 served in this image — the " head," " breast," "thighs," 
 " legs," and " feet," symbolizing successive periods 
 from 560 B. C. to 1053 A. D., the "feet and toes," 
 therefore, symbolize the last period in the Roman em- 
 pire. And (^) the weakness in this empire, indicated 
 by the " clay and iron " mixed rogether, was not rea- 
 lized until after the union of Church and State, conse- 
 quent upon the conversion of Constantine in 313 A. 
 D. Interpreters generally agree that the " clay and 
 iron " period in the image symbolized the union of 
 Church and State in the Roman empire. But this 
 did not take place, as above seen, until in the fourth 
 century. Hence this image of monarchy was not 
 prepared for destruction until this period in its devel- 
 opment was reached. 
 
 Lastly, {c) The " stone " was not " cut out of the 
 mountain," nor was " the kingdom set up," until the 
 chronological image was completed. This is manifest 
 from the statement in verse 34. Daniel said to the 
 King : " Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out 
 without hands, which smote the image upon his feet 
 that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces." 
 Mark the expression — " thou sawest till that," /. e.y 
 " thou continuedst to look along down the stream of 
 time until, the image being completed, thou sawest a 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 147 
 
 Stone cut out without hands." Now, the kingdom 
 was not set up until the image was completed and the 
 " stone cut out." But this brings us to the fourth cen- 
 tury of the Christian era, and consequently too late 
 for the purposes of the theory we oppose. 
 
 (3) The word employed by Daniel, rendered " set 
 up," does not signify to oiiginate. Our opponents 
 assume it does. Let us now to the proof This part 
 of Daniel's prophecy is written in the Chaldee lan- 
 guage, and the word used by him is y' kim, which 
 Furst defines " to raise out of misfortune ; commonly 
 to confirm, to establish ; to rebuild ; to make, revive, 
 to awaken to life; to reanimate; to give a firm posi- 
 tion to ; to restore, to erect again ; to be established ; 
 to endure, to remain," (S:c. When Daniel's book was 
 translated into Greek, the word avaarrjcet [anastesei) 
 was employed to translate the Chaldee word. Lid- 
 dell and Scott thus define it : " To make to stand up, 
 wake up, restore, rouse to action, to build up again." 
 Here, as we have seen in other instances, a restora- 
 tion simply is contemplated, not a creation. If it re- 
 fers to the Church at all, it contemplates simply a 
 reformation from abuses. Whether it does so refer or 
 not, the period at which the event seen by Nebuchad- 
 nezzar is centuries too late for the cause of our oppo- 
 nents. This " kingdom " was " set up " in the days of 
 the weakness of the Roman empire when its " iron " 
 
148 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 power had been weakened by ecclesiastical union and 
 broils. But at the time of the crucifixion, the period 
 when our opponents assume the Church was origi- 
 nated, the Roman empire was at the zenith of its 
 strength and glory. The splendor of the Augustan 
 age then rested upon her invincible arms and trium- 
 phant laws. This text, therefore, gives them no sup- 
 port whatever. 
 
 There is one other — namely. Matt. xvi. 18: "And 
 I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon 
 this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell 
 shall not prevail against it." After what has been 
 shown concerning similar passages we need not dwell 
 on this. The theory which we oppose assumes that 
 by the words " I will build my Church," Christ meant 
 to say he would originate a church, or would bring 
 into existence that which had no previous existence. 
 There never was an assumption more utterly ground- 
 less. Out of such assumption concerning these words 
 many of the grossest errors and most blasphemous 
 pretensions of the Church of Rome have arisen. Our 
 opponents have not fallen far behind Rome in the 
 abuse of this text. An examination ot it will show 
 that it furnishes them no support. The word rendered 
 " build " in this verse is oLKodoin'jou) {pikodomeso)^ and 
 is defined by the lexicons thus : Liddell and Scott, 
 *' to edify," N. T. Groves, " to edify, instruct, im- 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 :49 
 
 prove, profit, to embolden, encourage." R.obinson 
 ** to rebuild, to renew, to build up, to establish, to con 
 firm, spoken of the Christian Church and its members, 
 who are tlius compared to a building, a temple of God 
 erected upon the one only foundation Jesus Christ, 
 and ever built up progressively and unceasingly more 
 and more from the foundation." This is the prevail- 
 ing sense in which the word is used. We give a few 
 examples. Jer. xxx. i8 : "And the city shall be 
 builded {oikodoDieo) upon her own heap." Here was 
 restoration, not origin. Matt. xxvi. 6i : " I am able 
 to destroy the templeof God, and to build it {oikodomeo) 
 in three days." Acts ix. 31 : " Then had the Churches 
 
 rest and were edified " — [oikodomeo). 
 
 The word used by the Savior, it is thus seen, means 
 to rebuild, restore, establish. If we now consider the 
 circumstances under which this language 'was used, 
 this meaning 01 the word must be apparent. There 
 had been a great apostasy on the part of the rulers 
 and many of the people. Degeneracy and corrup- 
 tion lifted their heads every where. In the midst of 
 this terrible state of affairs the Messiah appeared in 
 the person of Jesus of Nazareth. But the apostates 
 rejected him and sought his life. Every where he met 
 with a powerful, organized resistance. Looked at 
 from' a merely human stand-point, his fortunes seemed 
 hopeless. " Many ot his disciples went back, and 
 
150 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 walked no more with him," (John vi. 66.) But in 
 this day of gloom Peter stood up and said, " Thou 
 art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus re- 
 plied, '' Upon this rock [/. ^., upon the truth here con- 
 fessed] I will build [restore, reanimate, establish] my 
 Church." Hopeless as seemed the enterprise, when 
 considered from a human stand-point, yet the truth 
 that Jesus of Nazareth is " the Christ, the Son of the 
 living God," shall be the rallying point of the Church, 
 and irom it she shall derive strength which " the gates 
 of hell " can not resist. This is the import of this 
 text. It contains no intimation of a new organization. 
 It simply announces the restoration to power and 
 glory of the already existing Church of God, effected 
 by the great truth which Peter had confessed. 
 
 Thus we have examined the only texts upon which 
 our opponents rely to disprove the unity and same- 
 ness of the Church, and have seen that, instead of re- 
 futing this position, they all declare a restoration, a 
 renewal, of the Church of God to power and glory at 
 the coming of the Messiah. Xo " new Church " was 
 erected. This is but a waking dream of those who 
 despise the Bible truth of infant baptism. It thus ap- 
 pears that tlie Church founded upon the covenant 
 with Abraham, and which for nineteen hundred years, 
 in administering the law of that covenant, received in- 
 fants to membership and gave them the token thereof, 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. I5I 
 
 is the Church of God to-day, with no change in her 
 great constitutional law or in her subjects. This be- 
 ing true, infant baptism follows inevitably as the law 
 of God's Church now. 
 
 We shall close this investigation by showing that a 
 contrary supposition, i. e., that infant baptism and in- 
 fant church-membership is not the law of God's 
 Church, is a modern invention, the child of fanaticism, 
 born of the wildest heresy of modern times and nursed 
 upon the bosom of hate toward everything pure and 
 good m the Church of God. Where does the first or- 
 ganized resistance to infant baptism appear in the his- 
 tory of the past? We answer, in Germany, among 
 the fanatical Anabaptists, about the beginning of the 
 sixteenth century. We fix this as the first organized 
 resistance to infant baptism. For while it is true that 
 some spasmodic instances of resistance to this apostolic 
 custom of the Church do appear a little before this, it 
 is also true that those instances fell without an echo. 
 The Petrobrussians had opposed it in A. D. 1150, but 
 not upon the ground which the present opponents of 
 It assign for their opposition. . They (the Petrobrus- 
 sians) opposed it upon the ground that infants, bap- 
 tized or unbaptized, are not fit for the kingdom of 
 God. Wall says of them : "The first body of men 
 we read of that did deny baptism to infants, which 
 were the Petrobrussians, Anno Domini 11 50, did it 
 
152 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 upon a ground or reason which they held common 
 with these men, viz.: that infants, baptized or unbap- 
 tized, are incapable of the kingdom of heaven." (I. 
 
 318.) 
 
 Concerning the author ot this sect, Peter de Bruys, 
 Mosheim thus speaks : " The whole system of doc- 
 trines which this unhappy martyr, whose zeal was not 
 without a considerable mixture of fanaticism, taught 
 to the Petrobrussians, his disciples, is not known." 
 (Ch. Hist. Pt. II, p. 289.) Like those who followed 
 him in his opposition to infant baptism, he was a fan- 
 atic, as faithful history deposes. Among other evi- 
 dences of this the following is conclusive : " He main- 
 tained that it is superstitious to build churches, and 
 that those erected ought to be demolished." (Wat- 
 son's Bib. Die.) With Peter de Bruys this opposition 
 was a part of an extensive fanaticism. But his oppo- 
 sition fell without an echo, and the silence on this 
 question of opposition which had rested upon the 
 Church from the Apostolic age was resumed and 
 reigned supreme for three hundred and fifty years 
 longer. This brings us to the origin of this opposi- 
 tion which, under one form and another, has contin- 
 ued to the present time. The great Reformation 
 under Luther began about the opening of the six- 
 teenth century. Grand and glorious as was that work, 
 yet it was the occasion (innocent) of many excesses 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. I53 
 
 in doctrine and practice. Once the human mind is 
 loosened from the moorings of centuries, it is to be 
 expected that ignorcnt and fanatical men will plunge 
 into the wildest extremes. So it was in this Reforma- 
 tion. While Luther and his co-laborers held grandly 
 on in their work of redeeming the Church from papal 
 abuses, many ignorant men plunged into excesses 
 which threatened to thwart the labors of the great 
 Reformer. Prominent among these were Louis Het- 
 zer, Balthazar Hubmeyer, Felix Mentz, Conrad Gre- 
 bel, Melchior Hoffman, and George Jacob. These 
 men were the fathers of the Anabaptist sect, in which 
 the present opposition to infant baptism originated. 
 There is but one voice in history concerning that sect, 
 and that is, they were a lawless, licentious, turbulent 
 body ot fanatics, whose lives were filled up w ith the 
 most revolting enormities and flagitious villainies. 
 Mosheim says of them : " It is difficult to determine, 
 with certainty, the particular spot that gave birth to 
 that seditious and pestilential sect of Anabaptists, 
 whose tumultuous and desperate attempts were equally 
 pernicious to the cause of religion and the civil inter- 
 ests of mankind. . . . The most pernicious fac- 
 tion of all those that composed this modey muldtude 
 was the sect which pretended that the founders of the 
 new and perfect Church, already mentioned, were 
 under the direction of a divine impulse, and were 
 
154 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 armed against all opposition by the power of working 
 miracles. It was this detestable faction that, m 1521, 
 began their fanatical work, under the guidance of 
 Munzer, Stubner, Stork, and other leaders of the same 
 furious complexion in Saxony and adjacent countries. 
 They employed at first the various arts of persuasion, 
 in order to propagate their doctrine. They preached, 
 exhorted, admonished, and reasoned, in a manner that 
 seemed proper to gain the multitude, and related a 
 great number of visions and revelations, with which 
 they pretended to have been favored from above. 
 But when they saw that these methods of making 
 proselytes were not attended with such rapid success 
 as they fondly expected, and that the ministry of Lu- 
 ther and other eminent reformers proved detrimental 
 to their cause, they had recourse to more expeditious 
 measures, and madly attempted to propagate their 
 fanatical doctrine by force of arms. Munzer and his 
 associates assembled in 1525 a numerous army, chiefly 
 composed of the peasants of Suabia, Thuringia, Fran- 
 conia, and Saxony, and, at the head of this credulous 
 and deluded rabble, declared war against all laws, 
 governments, and magistrates of every kind, under 
 the chimerical pretext that Christ was now to take the 
 reins of civil and ecclesiastical government into his 
 own hands, and to rule alone over the nations. 
 Those who distinguished themselves by the enormity 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 '55 
 
 of their conduct in this infamous sect, were Louis 
 Hetzer, Balthazar Hubmeyer, Feliz Mentz, Conrad 
 Grebel, Melchior Hoffman, and George Jacob, who, 
 if their power had seconded their designs, would have 
 involved all Switzerland, Holland, and Germany in 
 tumult and bloodshed. A great part of this rabble 
 seemed really delirious-; and nothing more extrava- 
 gant and incredible can be imagined than the dreams 
 and visions that were constantly arising in their dis- 
 ordered brains." (Mosh. Church Hist. Pt. H. p. 492, 
 493.) This was the origin of the Baptist Church and 
 of organized opposition to infant baptism. The pages 
 of history show no instance before this of a body that 
 opposed it, except the spasmodic and ephemeral op- 
 position of the Petrobrussians in the twelfth century. 
 The facts, therefore, furnished by the history of the 
 past with reference to infant baptism, are, that during 
 the first twelve hundred years of the Christian era no 
 body styling itself a Church ever lifted a voice against 
 it. A few followers of a fanatic in Provence and Lan- 
 guedoc, Peter de Bruys, did, about the opening of the 
 twelfth century, oppose it, as they opposed many 
 other things most sacred and essential to the Church. 
 But this body sunk into oblivion with its ill-fated 
 leader, and for three hundred and fifty years there- 
 after no one echoed the opposition of this sect. Then, 
 in the first half of the sixteenth century, arose the ec- 
 
156 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 clesiastico -political sect of Anabaptists, from whom 
 the present Baptist Church has descended, whose tur- 
 bulence and crimes ultimately brought the arm of civil 
 authority upon them, to save the country from blood- 
 shed and ruin, and by them the present opposition to 
 infant baptism was originated ! Let our opponents 
 disprove this if they can. 
 
 We have now passed over the field of investigation 
 which we marked out in the beginning. The argu- 
 ment is before the reader. It might have been elabo- 
 rated more, but we doubt whether this would have 
 added to the clear and comprehensive view which we 
 wished the reader to have. Let him now w^eigh the 
 facts presented from Scripture and history, and then 
 ask himself on which side of the question is the truth. 
 After some little experience in the investigation of the 
 customs and practices of the Church of God, we hesi- 
 tate not to say, that there are many matters of doc- 
 trine and practice held to be true and sacred by all 
 denominations which, if assailed, could not array in 
 their behalf as much testimony as we have here ad- 
 duced lor infant baptism, to save the world. 
 
 In conclusion, let me address one word to those 
 whose Church furnishes the privilege of dedicating 
 their children to God as the Bible has authorized. 
 In many places the failure of the pulpit to instruct the 
 congregation upon this duty, and in other places the 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 1 57 
 
 Storm of relentless persecution against this duty, has 
 caused it to be greatly and shamefully neglected. Let 
 me exhort those who have this privilege allowed them 
 to bring their " little children " to Christ " and forbid 
 them not." Lay them confidingly in the arms of 
 Jesus ; carefully place them in the fold of the great 
 Shepherd. Let bigots rave and fanatics hiss. Thus 
 they raved and hissed at the man who, on his way to 
 the block and the ax, said, " I am ready to be offered 
 up." Thus they have raved and hissed at the men 
 and women in all the past who preferred the ax, the 
 stake, and the gibbet to a compromise with infidelity. 
 As well might these holy men and women have quailed 
 before the storm and abandoned duty, as for you, be- 
 cause of opposition. Do your duty. And as you 
 hope to press these dear little ones back to your heart, 
 warm with eternal life, when the night of the grave 
 yields to the morning of heaven, so now consecrate 
 them to God in holy baptism, and then train them up 
 '*in the nurture and admonition of the Lord."