I 
 
 B 
 
 ; 
 

 ^ PRINCETON, N. J. **> 
 
 Presented by Mr. Samuel Agnew of Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
 Agneiv Coll, on Baptism, No. 
 
 


OPEN COMMUNION 
 
 SHOWN TO BE 
 
 UNSCRIPTURAL AND DELETERIOUS. 
 
 BY JOHN L. WALLER, L.L. D. 
 
 WITH AN 
 
 INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 
 
 BY D. R. CAMPBELL, L.L. D. 
 
 AND AN 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 BY THE EDITOR. 
 
 TO WHICH IS ADDED, 
 
 A HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 BY JOHN L. WALLER, L.L D. 
 
 LOUISVILLE, KY: 
 PUBLISHED BY G. W. ROBERTSON, 
 
 KENTUCKY BAPTIST BOOK CONCERN. 
 
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by 
 
 J. E. FA It NAM, 
 
 Ir. the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the 
 District of Kentucky. 
 
 HANN4 <fc Co., 
 
 Triutsrs anil Stereotyp6rs. 
 
 LonsviLtz, Ky. 
 
NOTE BY THE EDITOR. 
 
 A liberal per centage upon all copies of this work that 
 shall be sold, has been secured to the orphan children of the 
 author. This fact, it is presumed, will, independent of the 
 merits of the book, procure for the publishers an extensive 
 circulation of this, and of other volumes of Dr. "Waller's 
 writings, now ready for the press. 
 
 J. E. FARNAM. 
 
 Georgetown, Ky., October, 1858. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2011 with funding from 
 
 Princeton Theological Seminary Library 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/opencommunionshoOOwall 
 
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 
 
 The leading object of the lamented author of this little 
 volume, was to furnish his own denomination with a succinct 
 defence of their practice in restricting the privilege of sacra- 
 mental communion to such as belong to their own churches. 
 As collateral justification of this practice, he has also here 
 furnished a refutation of the Pedo-baptist view of the ques- 
 tions relating to the subjects and mode of baptism, showing 
 that that view is an innovation on the spirit and teach- 
 ings of the New Testament. It is but reasonable to believe 
 that had the author himself been permitted to arrange and 
 give the finishing touch to the materials of the work, it 
 would have been, in some respects, at least, more complete 
 and satisfactory. Still, the editor has evidently prepared 
 and arranged the materials in his possession to the best 
 advantage. 
 
 The discussion on Communion, is a review of the posi- 
 tions and reasonings of Kobert Hall, who held that "each 
 particular Church is to tho Universal Church, as a part is to 
 the whole;" and, consequently, that "no Church has a right 
 to establish terms of communion which are not terms of 
 aalvation." The erroneousness of these positions, and the 
 false reasonings founded upon them, Dr. Waller has suc- 
 cessfully exposed. Nothing farther seems necessary — tho 
 overthrow is complete, final. 
 
VI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Able as is this whole discussion, however, had Dr. Waller 
 lived until the present, he would doubtless have taken a much 
 wider range on the communion question. The subject is 
 daily assuming a more imposing and important aspect. The 
 signs of the times indicate tbat it is destined to become the 
 great line of discrimination between the true and the false — 
 between the real and the nominal followers of Christ. Con- 
 centration, union, a second catholic or Universal Church, is 
 the goal to which the growing tendencies lead. The indis- 
 pensable condition of such consolidation is concession — 
 minor differences, non-essentials, must be kept in the back 
 ground. As the range of the movement widens, as the dis- 
 tinct and diverse elements sought to be combined, are 
 increased, so these non-essentials must multiply until the 
 stock of accepted truth must be small indeed. The process 
 in this direction is already actively at work. The foundations 
 are being silently laid, broad and deep, in the workings and 
 tendencies of such organizations as the British and Foreign 
 Bible Society, the American Bible Society, the American Tract 
 Society, the American Sunday School Union, the American 
 and Foreign Christian Union, and the Evangelical Alliance. 
 This last is not, improbably, the nucleus of the grand Protes- 
 tant Catholic Church, into which all the sects must finally 
 merge. All of these bodies operate on the principle of ignoring 
 what is rather freely called, non-essentials. And the amount 
 ignored among them, taken altogether, is neither small nor 
 unimportant. In the operation of such bodies, leading minds 
 become accustomed to regard the gain secured by the conces- 
 sion, and the consequent apparent increase of power, as vastly 
 more than the loss sustained in the amount of truth sacrificed. 
 These bodies, moreover, soon become sources of controlling 
 influence, modifying the views and regulating the practice not 
 
INTRODUCTION. Vll 
 
 only of those committed to them, but through them, of the 
 masses beyond them. Success becomes the watchword — 
 combination indispensable. Men, talent, learning, counsel, 
 money, agency, energy, become the real dependence — truth 
 only secondary. It can easily be accommodated to the vary- 
 ing necessities of the emergency; and men may, by and by, 
 feel as free to legislate in divine, as in secular truth. 
 
 This tendency of things has already begun to show a dis- 
 position to intrench on the principle of Scriptural Com- 
 munion. Until recently, Pedo-baptists, to a man, insisted 
 on baptism as indispensable to a place at the Lord's 
 table. There are indications now, however, of a radical 
 change in this particular. The question is already openly 
 and forcibly discussed in Presbyterian journals, whether 
 baptism should be required as a pre-requisite to communion. 
 A well known and vigorous writer maintains the negative, 
 and, evidently, not without the confidence of an existing and 
 increasing sympathy among his brethren. This writer is 
 already prepared to admit the Quaker, an avowed unbeliever 
 in baptism, to the table of the Lord. This is startling and 
 significant, coming from such a source. Many of the Meth- 
 odist clergy have for years been ignoring baptism as a con- 
 dition of communion. It has, in some places, become 
 a very common practice among them to urge the duty of 
 communing as a means of conversion. This we regard as 
 a two-fold evil. It first displaces, and then perverts, a sacred 
 institution. Even the "current reformation" seems to 
 hesitate in places whether the sacrifice of baptism might not 
 be a reasonable price for "union," provided it can not be 
 procured at a less cost. 
 
 "What, then, is the duty of Baptists in the presence of such 
 signs of defection? They have ever been the fast friends ol 
 
Viii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Scripture truth and Scripture practice. Shall they give way 
 now? May it never be. In the second and third centuries^ 
 tendencies, not unlike those now at work, matured into a 
 catholic or general church. It became catholic, however, 
 at the expense of much of the spirit and substance of truth. 
 Against these unhallowed tendencies our ancestors, in the 
 faith, had to raise a warning voice, and many of them proved 
 before the struggle was over, that they could die for the truth. 
 If the present tendencies continue, and the end aimed at is 
 reached, our posterity may not long expect to escape from 
 the like sorrows and sufferings again. 
 
 Our duty to continue faithful to our communion prin- 
 ciples, becomes urgent from another consideration. Not 
 only is communion sought at the expense of baptism, but 
 also at the expense of doctrines, which, in our view, are 
 essential to salvation. The Pelagian, who denies human 
 depravity, and consequently the renewing agency of the 
 Spirit in regeneration; the Unitarian, the Arian, and the 
 Universalist, who deny the divinity and atonement of the 
 Savior; the believer in baptismal regeneration, in baptismal 
 remission, in sprinkling for baptism, or in no baptism at all; 
 and some, whose system of faith is a compound of all these, 
 are clamorous of general communion at the Lord's table. 
 Such errorists have nothing to lose, but every thing to gain, 
 by such a course. Their cry against restricted communion 
 is a species of popular self-defence. They are anxious to 
 obtain the sanction of those who hold to a faith more pure 
 and consistent than theirs, for their errors. But shall Bap- 
 tists, a people who have ever received the whole testimony 
 of God, and who have, in every age, experienced much oppo- 
 sition for doing so, be, by any means, induced either to wink 
 at, or sanction in the least, such unscriptural and pernicious 
 
INTRODUCTION. IX 
 
 dogmas? Shall they ever surrender the only scriptural 
 position, that the true believer alone, who is immersed upon 
 a profession of his faith, and received into a church of like 
 faith and practice with their own, is a proper subject for the 
 communion table? Never, never! This "old landmark" 
 they will never "remove." They will never "sell" the truth 
 for any considerable expediency. 
 
 This little volume, an earnest of others which are to follow, 
 by our lamented brother, will tend to strengthen the people, 
 for whom he so faithfully and so ably labored, both in the 
 truth and practice of the faith in which he, himself, lived 
 and died. May it command a large sale, and be widely and 
 abundantly blessed. 
 
 D. R. CAMPBELL. 
 Georgetown, Kr., November, 1858. 
 
c 
 
 I T- 
 
 
 
 rPi. 
 
 
 i 
 
 OPEN COMMUNION 
 
 y* 
 
 - 
 
 SHOWN TO BE 
 
 UNSCRIPTURAL AND DELETERIOUS. 
 
 The world has all along been disposed to quarrel with the 
 severe simplicity of Jesus and his institutions. To the Jews 
 he was as a root springing out of dry ground, without form 
 or comeliness. There was no beauty in him that they should 
 desire him. Men love pomp and show and circumstance, 
 even in religion. Nay, they would rather endure the greatest 
 torture, perform distant and dangerous pilgrimages, inflict 
 upon themselves any pennance, and make any sacrifices, 
 under the delusion that thus they can propitiate the favor 
 of Heaven, than to be saved on the terms of the gospel, 
 which are easy and light. 
 
 The Messiah established a kingdom, not of this world. 
 He had no temple made with hands. He wore no sacerdotal 
 nor royal robes. He erected no altar, burnt no incense, 
 offered no beasts, or birds, or fruits, in sacrifice. He insti- 
 tuted no ceremonial pageantry. In this respect he discarded 
 all precedent, rejected all experience, and refused to pander 
 to the tastes and prejudices of mankind. He taught the 
 great truths of his religion, without the symbols and signs 
 which had distinguished the divine institutions of the Mosaic 
 
12 OPEN COMMUNION SHOWN TO BR 
 
 dispensation, and which imparted great lessons by sensible 
 objects. All the religions on earth gave instructions in the 
 same way. Jesus used no such methods, except in the two 
 ordinances of Baptism and the Supper. 
 
 These two ordinances have ever been too simple in the 
 mode of their administration, too plain and specific in their 
 designs, to suit that love of ostentation, and to gratify that 
 thirst for the marvelous and the mysterious, which men 
 delight to find in the visible and to fancy in the invisible. 
 Hence, a pseudo church has invested these institutions, so 
 unpretending in the Scriptures, with an immense parade of 
 ceremonial and awful and even miraculous significance. 
 The Supper, which is our theme, was perverted even in the 
 apostolic age. The Church in Corinth made it a carnal 
 instead of a spiritual feast. Its members did not discern in 
 its symbols a representation of the body and blood of the 
 Redeemer. They converted the cup of blessing into the cup 
 of foul and evil spirits. They ate and drank condemnation 
 to themselves. In the subsequent age it was regarded as a 
 mystery kindred to those of the Eleusinian, and was celebrated 
 with a secresy that could not be invaded by the uninitiated 
 without profanity and guilt. And when Popery was revealed, 
 the multitude were taught to suppose that priestly mummery 
 changed the bread and the wine into the Son of God, and 
 that they were to be worshipped and honored as the Divinity 
 upon the platter and in the cup. And to this day, blind and 
 superstitious millions, perhaps a large majority of professed 
 Christians, are the deluded victims of this gross folly and 
 idolatry. 
 
 It is important that we should observe this ordinance in 
 all things precisely as it was given to us by the Lcrd. We 
 have no right to add to or to take from it. It derives all its 
 
UNSCRIPTURAI. AND DELETERIOUS. 13 
 
 appropriateness and significancy from the fact of its being 
 instituted by a divine command. Without such a command, 
 to break bread and pour out wine as emblems of the broken 
 body and spilled blood of the Savior, would be as unauthorized 
 as a modern love-feast, and as impious as pilgrimages, or the 
 adoration of dead mens' bones. The whole intent and manner 
 of the Supper are clearly set forth in the Scriptures. These 
 are obligatory. These have the sanction of Heaven. These 
 we may receive and follow. God requires these things at our 
 hands, and nothing more. He that observes more as essential 
 to the ordinance, disobeys and insults Him who ordained the 
 Supper. He virtually charges the Savior with being incom- 
 petent or unwilling to perfect his work of mediation — of com- 
 pleting the laws and regulations of his kingdom. If we may 
 improve upon one of the divine laws, we may upon all; and 
 thus, instead of Jesus, be ourselves the law-giver in Zion. 
 
 Eloquent declamation from the pulpit, and much eulogium 
 from the press, in behalf of what is denominated Open Com- 
 munion, have been most prominent in the religious discus- 
 sions of the present century; yet it never has been shown 
 wherein the Baptists have departed from the strict letter of 
 the law which the Savior enacted for the regulation of his 
 Supper. The Bible is seldom appealed to in this controversy. 
 The advocates of Open Communion have studiously, as a 
 general thing, evaded the law in the case, and have appealed 
 to the prejudices of the masses. The cry of inconsistency, 
 uncharitablenoss, bigotry, selfishness, &c., are clamorously 
 vociferated; and the million are sought to be swayed by 
 these, rather than by the weightier matters of the law. 
 Now, we intend to examine the pretensions' of Open Com- 
 munion, and to demonstrate that Baptist Close Communion 
 is the Bible Communion. 
 
14 OPEN COMMUNION SHOWN TO BE 
 
 The buppcr was instituted by our Lord the night in which 
 he was betrayed. The Evangelists give this account of its 
 institution. Mat. xxvi. 26, 27: "Jesus took bread, and 
 blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to his disciples, and said, 
 Take, eat; this is my body. And he took the cup, and gave 
 thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; for 
 this is my blood of the New Testament which is shed for 
 many for the remission of sins." Mark xiv. 22-24: "Jesus 
 took bread, and blessed, and brake, and gave to them, and 
 said, Take, eat, this is my body. And he took the cup, and 
 when he had given thanks, he gave to them, and they all 
 drank of it. And he said unto them, This is my blood of the 
 New Testament which is shed for many." Luke xxii. 19, 20 : 
 "And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake, and gave 
 unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you ; 
 this do in remembrance of me. Likewise also the cup after 
 supper, saying, This cup is the New Testament in my blood 
 which is shed for you." The Apostle Paul thus speaks of 
 the institution, 1 Cor. xi. 23-29: "For I have received of 
 the Lord, that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord 
 Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread, 
 and when he had given thanks, he brake and said, Take, eat ; 
 this is my body, which is broken for you ; this do in remem- 
 brance of me. After the same manner also he took the cup, 
 when he had supped, saying, This cup is the New Testament 
 in my blood ; this do ye, as oft as ye drink it in remembrance 
 of me. For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, 
 ye do show the Lord's death until he come. Wherefore, 
 whosoever shall eat this bread or drink this cup of the Lord, 
 unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the 
 Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat 
 of that bread and drink of that cup; for he that eateth and 
 
tTNSCRIPTURAL AND DELETERIOUS. 15 
 
 drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh condemnation to 
 himself, not discerning the Lord's body." 
 
 The design of the ordinance is emphatically declared in 
 these passages, to be, to keep in remembrance the Savior — 
 to show forth his death until he come. Its design has just 
 this extent, and no more, the Savior and the Apostle attest. 
 But more of this herafter. 
 
 The celebrated Robert Hall, in his efforts to justify open 
 communion, employed much rhetoric and great ingenuity to 
 show that, as this institution was established before Christian 
 Baptism, therefore baptism was not essential to its participa- 
 tion. He was an open Communion Baptist, and believed 
 that we ought to invite Pedo-baptists to the Lord s table. 
 But this he knew to be impossible, if baptism is a prerequi- 
 site to the Supper. As a Baptist, he regards the baptism of 
 infants as a human invention and a papal relict; and he 
 esteemed sprinkling as a most ridiculous burlesque of a 
 sacred ordinance. Hence he was forced to discard what had 
 always been considered, by all Christians, as settled in the 
 Scriptures, that individuals must be baptized before they 
 come to the Lord's table. To sustain this novel and start- 
 ling position — a position to the maintenance of which he 
 was forced by the desperate condition of his cause — he 
 enters upon an elaborate argument to prove that the disci- 
 ples, when the Supper was instituted, had only received the 
 preparatory baptism, or the baptism of John, which was not 
 Christian baptism, and which was superseded and annulled 
 by the baptism ordained in the gospel commission. He 
 concluded, from this, that Christian baptism was not essen- 
 tial to the Supper. We will not pause here to discuss John's 
 baptism. It is not necessary to our argument. We plant 
 ourselves on the commission, and shall contend, in opposi- 
 
16 OPEN COMMUNION SHOWN TO BE 
 
 tion to all gainsayers, that in the Gospel Commission — the 
 only law in the Bible by which ministers baptize into the 
 name of the Trinity — baptism is placed before the Supper; 
 and that no one can change this order without changing a 
 divine law. The commission, Matthew xxvii. 19, 20, "Go 
 ye, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing 
 them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of 
 the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatso- 
 ever I have commanded you: and lo, I am with you always, 
 even unto the end of the world," is the divine directory, com- 
 manding, first, to "make disciples of all nations;" second, to 
 baptise them into the name of the Trinity; and third, to teach 
 them to observe what Jesus had commanded. He had now 
 arisen from the dead, and was about to ascend to heaven. 
 Among the things he had commanded, was to observe his 
 Supper — "this do in remembrance of me." This commis- 
 sion is so plain that no one can misunderstand it. He that 
 comes to the Lord's table, who is not a disciple, baptized into 
 the divine name, violates the commandment of Him to whom 
 is committed all power in heaven and upon earth. The law 
 is express, positive, and particular; and all Christians, for 
 eighteen centuries, were perfectly united in this interpreta- 
 tion of the law. The open Communion Baptists, less than 
 a century ago, were the first to call it in question. Robert 
 Hall is the only man of any note who ever seriously disputed 
 the settled practice of all Christendom, from the ascension of 
 the Messiah to the present time ; and his opposition, although 
 clothed in great vigor and beauty of language, is not remarka- 
 ble for logical acumen or elear and convincing exposition of 
 the Scriptures. His effort to prove his position, by the 
 assumption that this ordinance was instituted before that of 
 Christian baptism, utterly fails of any valuable purpose in 
 
UNSCRIPTURAL AND DELETERIOUS. 17 
 
 his argument, inasmuch as we could grant his position, and 
 then demonstrate its utter worthlessness, from the plain and 
 specific requirements of the Scriptures. But enough of Mr. 
 Hall for the present. 
 
 We have said, that from the beginning all Christians have 
 concurred in the opinion that, according to the Scriptures, 
 only the baptized disciple ought to partake of the Lord's 
 Supper. It is very certain, that all the accounts we have of 
 its administration in the New Testament, demonstrate con- 
 clusively that such was the apostolic custom. On the day of 
 Pentecost, Acts ii. 41, 42, we learn that "they that gladly 
 received his word, were baptized, and the same day there were 
 added about three thousand souls. And they continued 
 steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine, and fellowship, and in 
 breaking of bread, and in prayers." The breaking of the 
 bread was by the baptized disciples. In Acts xx. 7, we read: 
 "And upon the first day of the week, when tbe disciples 
 came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, 
 ready to depart on the morrow." They were disciples, 
 accustomed to meet together — a Church — that break bread. 
 In 1 Cor. x. 1-4, we read: "Moreover, brethren, I would not 
 that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were 
 under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and were 
 all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and all 
 ate the same spiritual meat; and all drank the same spiritual 
 drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed 
 them; and that Rock was Christ." "Now," argues the apos- 
 tle, verse 11, "all these things happened unto them for 
 examples; and they are written for our admonition, upon 
 whom the ends of the ages are come." In other words, let 
 us learn this lesson from this portion of sacred history — let 
 us, who have been baptized into the name of tbe Father, and 
 
18 OPEN COMMUNION SHOWN TO BE 
 
 of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, who eat bread and drink 
 wine in remembrance of the Savior, and to show forth his 
 death until he come, take heed unto our ways; for with many 
 of the Israelites God was not well pleased, although, by his 
 own right hand, he brought them out of Egypt, and sus- 
 tained them by miracle. The apostle clearly regarded it as 
 an ordinance in the Church, as is to be inferred from the 
 passages just quoted, and as he emphatically declares in the 
 11th chapter, 18th verse, where he reproves the Corinthians 
 for the disorderly and disgraceful manner of celebrating the 
 Lord's Supper, viz: "For first of all, when ye come together 
 in the Church, [jv to £XxX*)tfta, in the Congregation"], I hear 
 that there be divisions among you." Again, verse 22: 
 "What? have ye not houses [o^iaj] to eat and to drink in? 
 or despise ye the Church \jxx%r\dt.a,s, Congregation] of God?" 
 This settles the apostolic custom. The Lord's Supper waf 
 celebrated by members of the Church, and all Church mem 
 bors, in that age, were baptized disciples. And here we 
 might rest this part of our argument; for, with all true 
 Protestants, who regard the Bible alone as their religion, one 
 scriptural precept, or one example of apostolic practice, is 
 enough, and ample to settle every question of the sort under 
 consideration. But, as this is a matter of interpretation, 
 we must defer to precedent, and sustain our position by 
 authority. 
 
 And that authority, as before said, is the unanimous 
 opinion of all Christians, every where and in every age, until 
 within the last fifty years, that Baptism must precede the 
 Lord's Supper. Wall, in his History of Infant Baptism, 
 speaking of the practice of the ancient Christians, says: 
 "The baptized person was quickly after his baptism admitted 
 to partake of the Lord's Supper. This was always, and in 
 
UNSCRIPTURAJ, AND DELETERIOUS. J!) 
 
 all places, used in the case of adult persons. "* Further 
 along in the same chapter, he says: "Among all the absur- 
 dities that ever were held, none ever maintained that any 
 person should partake of the Communion before he was 
 baptized." f 
 
 Justin Martyr, who flourished A. D. 240, in his second 
 Apology, after describing the Supper, says: "And this food 
 is called the Eucharist, which it is unlawful for any to 
 partake of, unless he believes the things taught by us to be 
 true, and has been washed in the bath of regeneration for 
 the remission of sins." * 
 
 Lord High Chancellor King, in his History of the Primi- 
 tive Church, says: 
 
 "As for the persons communicating, they were not indif- 
 ferently all that professed the Christian faith, as Origen 
 writes: 'It doth not belong to every one to eat of this bread 
 and to drink of this cup.' But they were only such as were 
 in the number of the faithful — 'such as were baptized and 
 received both the credentials and practicals of Christianity.' 
 That is, who believed the articles of the Christian faith, and 
 led a holy and pious life. Such as these, and none else, 
 were permitted to communicate. Now, since none but the 
 faithful were admitted, it follows that the catechumens and 
 the penitents were excluded; the catechumens, because they 
 were not yet baptized, for baptism always preceded the 
 Lord's Supper, as Justin Martyr says: 'It is not lawful for 
 any one to partake of the sacramental food except he be 
 baptized;' the penitents, because for their sins they were 
 cast out of the church, and whilst excluded from the peace 
 thereof, they could not partake of that peace, but were to be 
 driven therefrom, and not admitted thereto, 'till they had 
 *Part 2, chap. 9, sect. 15. J Same sect., paragraph 4. 
 
20 OPEN COMMUNION SHOWN TO BE 
 
 fully satisfied for their faults, lest otherwise they should 
 profane the body of the Lord, and drink hiss cup unworthily, 
 and so be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.' Hence, 
 when the other parts of divine worship were ended, and the 
 celebration of the eucharist was to begin, the catechumens, 
 penitents, and all, except the communicants, were to depart, 
 as Tertullian says thereof, 'pious initiations drive away the 
 profane.' "* 
 
 Neander, in his great Church History, speaking of the 
 Lord's Supper, in the early ages of Christianity, says: 
 
 "At this celebration, as may easily be concluded, no one 
 could be present who was not a member of the Christian 
 Church, and incorporated into it by the rite of baptism. "f 
 
 Speaking of the practice of all Christians several centuries 
 later, he says : 
 
 "With reference to these two constituent portions of the 
 church assemblies, the catechumens and baptized believers, 
 the whole service was divided into two portions: one in 
 which the catechumens were allowed to join, embracing the 
 reading of the Scriptures and the sermon, the prevailing 
 didactic portion; and the other, in which the baptized alone 
 could take part, embracing whatever was designed to repre- 
 sent the fellowship of believers — the communion and all the 
 prayers of the church which preceded it. "J 
 
 But we need not multiply authorities. It is a thing made 
 out and conceded without debate, that the Christians every- 
 where and of every persuasion, in all ages, — a few free com- 
 munion Baptists alone excepted, — have declared that bap- 
 tism, according to the Scriptures, must precede the Lord's 
 Supper. The formulas of the different denominations, with- 
 
 * American edition of 1811, pp. 242, 243. 
 
 t Vol. 1. p. 327, Ind. American «dition. i Vol. 2, pp. 324, 326. 
 
UNSCRIPTURAL AND DELETERIOUS. 21 
 
 out a single exception, place Baptism before the Supper. 
 This is true of Papists, Protestants, Greeks, Armenians, and 
 Ethiopians. It would hardly seem necessary, then, to 
 pause and contest the point with those of our brethren who, 
 to sustain themselves, are forced to confront, in hostile 
 array, the long settled doctrine of the Christian world — who 
 have to trample under foot the creeds and liturgies of all 
 churches, in order to reach the tables of those with whom 
 they wish to commune. But we have no disposition to treat 
 them with contempt. We will, therefore, notice their argu- 
 ment as presented by Robert Hall, their chief captain. 
 
 Free Communion Baptists not only reject the doctrine and 
 practice of all Christians, ancient and modern, from the 
 apostolic age until the present time, but they contemn the 
 doctrine and example of the apostles themselves. Says 
 Robert Hall: "The apostles, it is acknowledged, admitted 
 uone to the Lord's supper but such as were previously bap- 
 tized;"* and he had just before declared baptism to be im- 
 mersion, of which "rational and accountable agents" are 
 "the only fit subjects." He declares that the apostles could 
 not admit an unbaptized person, because such an one in 
 that age "must either have neglected an acknowledged pre- 
 cept, and thus evinced a mind destitute of principle ; or, he 
 must have set the authority of the apostles at defiance, and 
 thus have classed with parties of the worst description. "f 
 The main question to be adjusted with Free Communion 
 Baptists is, Shall we depart from the precept and example of 
 the apostles? Here is the issue. Mr. Hall attempts to justify 
 this departure. He brings all the force of his logic, all the 
 splendor of his diction, and all the enrapturing beauty of 
 hia declamation, to sustain this solitary point. We will ex- 
 
 * Hall's Works, Harper's edition, 1838, vol. 2, p. 213. f H>- P- 214. 
 
22 OPEN COMMUNION SHOWN TO UK 
 
 amine his positions. In subverting them, we bring utter 
 destruction upon the strongholds of free communion as 
 advocated by Baptists. 
 
 Before we proceed, it becomes us to pause and check the 
 exultation of our Pedo-baptist brethren in finding so able an 
 advocate of their principles among the Baptists as Robert 
 Hall. If they will listen, we will turn their joy into sorrow. 
 Mr. Hall is no defender of their views. He mercilessly 
 decapitates their whole system. He abhors from his soul 
 infant baptism. He scorns with infinite disgust sprinkling 
 or pouring as a mode of baptism. He rejects all Pedo-bap- 
 tism with a decision as emphatic, and with a disgust as 
 supreme, as he does the other inventions and abominations 
 of Popery. If the question, in his esteem, hinged on the 
 baptismal question, no man more fearlessly than he, would 
 have defended the doctrine of close communion. Nay, as 
 already shown, he does not hesitate to argue, that if Pedo- 
 baptism had existed in the primitive and pure days of the 
 Church, it would have been spurned by the apostles from 
 communion as a monstrous evil and sin. In a word, he re- 
 garded the Pedo-baptists as nnbaptized, and as nnbaptized 
 persons, he was willing to admit them to the Lord's table, 
 scriptural precept and example to the contrary notwith- 
 standing. After stating that the Baptists regard infant 
 baptism as "a mere human invention," he says: 
 
 "It is not my intention to attempt the defense of that 
 class of Christians [the Baptists], though their views are 
 entirely in accordance with my own; one consequence, how- 
 ever, necessarily results. Wo are compelled by virtue of 
 them to look upon the great mass of our fellow-Christians as 
 unbaptized. On no other ground can we maintain our prin- 
 ciples or justify our conduct. Hence it has been inferred, 
 
UNSCRIPTURAL AND DELETERIOUS. 23 
 
 too hastily in my opinion, that we are bound to abstain from 
 their communion, whatever judgment we may form of their 
 sincerity and piety. Baptism, it is alleged, is, under all pos- 
 sible circumstances, an indispensable term of communion; 
 and however highly we may esteem many of our Pedo-baptist 
 brethren, yet, as we can not but deem them as unbaptized, we 
 must of necessity consider them as disqualified for an ap- 
 proach to the Lord's table. It is evident that this reasoning 
 rests entirely on the assumption that baptism is invariably a 
 necessary condition of communion — an opinion which it is 
 not surprising the Baptists should have embraced, since it 
 has long passed current in the Christian world, and been 
 received by nearly all denominations of Christians. * * * 
 The wide circulation of this doctrine ought undoubtedly to 
 have the effect of softening the severity of censure on that 
 conduct (however singular it may appear) which is its neces- 
 sary result. Such is that of the great majority of the Bap- 
 tists in confining their communion to those whom they deem 
 baptized; wherein they act precisely on the same principle 
 with all other Christians, who assume it for granted that 
 baptism is an essential preliminary to the reception of the 
 sacrament. The point on which they differ is the nature of 
 that institution, which we place in immersion, and of which 
 we suppose rational and accountable agents the only fit sub- 
 jects. This opinion, combined with the other generally 
 received one, that none are entitled to receive the Eucharist 
 but such as have been baptized, leads inevitably to the prac- 
 tice which seems so singular and gives so much offense — the 
 restricting of communion to our own denomination. Let it 
 be admitted that baptism is, under all circumstances, a 
 necessary condition of church-fellowship, and it is impos- 
 sible for the Baptists to act otherwise. * * * * The 
 
24 OPEN COMMUNION SHOWN TO K£ 
 
 recollection of this may suffice to rebut the ridicule mi(\ 
 silence the clamor of those who loudly condemn the Baptists 
 for a proceeding which, were they but to change their 
 opinion on the subject of baptism, their own principles 
 would compel them to adopt. They both concur in a com- 
 mon principle, from which the practice deemed so offensive 
 is the necessary result."* 
 
 If baptism is a condition of " church-fellowship" — if, with- 
 out it, no one can be a member of the Church visible, as all 
 denominations teach and believe — then Mr. Hall is the 
 champion of close communion. In other terms, he reduces 
 the Pedo-baptist churches to the condition of the Quakers; 
 he utterly regards them as unbaptized; he unchurches them 
 according to their own creed ; he leaves not, of their ecclesi- 
 astical structure, one stone upon another; and upon its 
 ruins he proposes to meet in love and celebrate holy com- 
 munion ! The close communion Baptists can not seek to do 
 more than this. They cannot be more severe and unrelent- 
 ing against the Pedo-baptists than is Mr. Hall. Before his 
 principles, their baptism and even their church existence 
 must fall, ere they can come to the Lord's table. Are they 
 prepared for this? Do they admit his terms of communion? 
 Far from it. We have shown that their opinions are in 
 direct conflict with his. Rev. F. Gr. Hibbard, of the Metho- 
 dist Church, says that the position of Mr. Hall is "an 
 anomaly and absurdity that presents a singular contrast to 
 the characteristic symmetry of Christian theology. "f But 
 more of Mr. Hibbard after a time. We will now notice some 
 of the most important arguments of Mr. Hall in support of 
 a departure from apostolic custom in the admission of un- 
 baptized persons to the Lord's Supper. On this point we 
 * Hall's Works, pp. 212. 213. f 0n Baptism, p. 175. 
 
UNSCRIPTURAL AND DELETERIOUS. 25 
 
 have no controversy with the Pedo-baptists. They admit 
 that baptism must precede the supper. Our controversy is 
 with the Free Communion Baptists alone, who depart from 
 apostolic custom and wage war against the sentiments of 
 Christendom. Mr. Hall thus explains the difference of cir- 
 cumstances in the apostolic age and now, to show why none 
 but the baptized should then have been admitted to the 
 Lord's table, and why the unbaptized may be admitted now. 
 When the apostles refused the Supper to any but the bap- 
 tized, he says : 
 
 "It was at a time when a mistake respecting the will of 
 the Supreme Lawgiver on the subject of baptism was impos- 
 sible; it was while a diversity of opinion relating to it could 
 not exist. * * * * But in declining the communion 
 of modern Pedo-baptists, however eminent their piety, there 
 is really nothing analogous to their method of proceeding. 
 The resemblance fails in its most essential features. In 
 repelling an unbaptized person from their communion, sup- 
 posing such a one to have presented himself, they would 
 have repelled the violator of a known precept: he whom we 
 refuse is at most chargeable only with mistaking it."* 
 
 There is a primary question underlying this specious 
 statement of the case which must be adjusted — Did the 
 apostles act in obedience to the Divine law? was their rejec- 
 tion of unbaptized persons in accordance with "the will of 
 the Supreme Lawgiver?" We assume the affirmative. They 
 were the agents of Heaven to establish the Church. They 
 were clothed with miracle and filled with the Holy Spirit. 
 He to whom was given all power in heaven and upon earth, 
 was with them always. Besides, they "delivered" to the 
 churches respecting what they "received of the Lord," as 
 ., *UtSuprap. 2H. 
 
26 OPEN COMMUNION SHOWN TO BE 
 
 Paul said to the Corinthians. Hence the Apostle said to 
 the churches: ''Keep the ordinances AS I delivered thern unto 
 you." This he spake by the Spirit of God. No apostle, nor 
 angel from heaven, had any right to institute practices and 
 customs in the churches only as they received power from on 
 high. They were the ambassadors of God. They were sent 
 forth of him, to make known his will to a lost world. He had 
 told them, first, to make disciples; second, to baptize them; 
 and, third, to teach them to observe whatever had been com- 
 manded. There is not upon record a solitary instance where 
 any apostle departed from this order. On the contrary, 
 throughout the New Testament, wherever they went, we 
 have multiplied instances of their faithful observance of it. 
 The supposition seems almost impious that the apostles re- 
 quired the churches to observe a custom that had no divine 
 warrant. We take it, then, for granted, as a case clearly 
 established, that in administering the Supper only to persons 
 baptized, the apostles acted in accordance with the will of 
 the Supreme Lawgiver. Indeed, the} 7 must have acted 
 agreeably to his will, or not according to it. To suppose the 
 latter, is to suggest the probability that they may have acted 
 so in all cases. And who, then, need obey their precepts 
 or walk the paths they trod? Do we not thus cut loose from 
 the New Testament as a guide, and throw ourselves on the 
 ocean of conjecture, without rudder and compass — an ocean 
 without a bottom and without a shore. 
 
 If, then, this custom of the apostolic churches was a con- 
 sequence of a divine law — in obedience to the will of the 
 Supreme Lawgiver — no dictate of human wisdom, no sug- 
 gestion of human prudence could justify its change. It 
 being a positive law, the reasons of it are known only to 
 God. Such laws we must obey, simply because they are 
 
UNSCRIPTUBAL A.ND DELETERIOUS. 27 
 
 commanded, and precisely as they are commanded. To de- 
 part from the order prescribed, is to violate the law. It 
 being a divine positive institution, the apostles would not 
 have admitted any unbaptized person to the Supper, on any 
 plea of mistake. Mistakes may serve to excuse the person in- 
 volved in them from the guilt of neglecting duty; but it can 
 furnish no sort of plea for those who are not mistaken. Had 
 a person come to the apostles who had not, and yet who sup- 
 posed he had, been baptized, they knowing this, would have 
 rejected his application for communion. The divine law 
 would have required this at their hands. They could not 
 act otherwise without violating the order instituted by the 
 Head of the Church, and in contravention of the will of the 
 Supreme Lawgiver. Nevertheless, the person mistaken, with 
 others equally mistaken, might partake of the Lord's Sup- 
 per, and perhaps be excused by the searcher of hearts. They 
 would have discharged what they supposed to be required of 
 them. The plea of ignorance, we say, might avail in this 
 case; and it certainly would in extenuation. They knew no 
 better. But the apostles would have known, that to admit 
 unbaptized persons to the Supper was contrary to the law. 
 They would, by the admission of the unbaptized, wilfully 
 have disregarded the divine mandate. 
 
 And this law is just as binding and as sacred now as it 
 was in the apostolic age. It has never been repealed or 
 modified. Those who know the law have no right to violate 
 it in deference to the mistakes of others. No matter how 
 sincere and satisfied a person may be in his errors, it fur- 
 nishes no excuse to one not mistaken, for disregarding a 
 divine law. Let us grant, then, all that Mr. Hall can claim 
 by way of premises, and still his conclusion, that because one 
 good man may ignorantly violate a divine law, another good 
 
28 OPEN COMMUNION SHOWN TO BE 
 
 man may wilfully violate it. Aye, Mr. Hall's logic must 
 even drive him farther. His doctrine is not complete with- 
 out the monstrous assumption, that it is the duty of Chris- 
 tians wilfully to disregard the express command of the 
 Supreme Lawgiver for the accommodation of those who have 
 mistaken that will. Free Communion Baptists know that 
 the Pedo-baptists are not baptized; they know, too, that in 
 the apostolic age unbaptized persons were not admitted to the 
 Lord's Supper; and yet they insist that unbaptized persons 
 ought to be admitted now. But for this they produce no 
 scriptural precept or example. A mistake is their sole autho- 
 rity. If one is not mistaken on the mode and subject of bap- 
 tism, and yet remains unbaptized, Mr. Hall says, "we have no 
 hesitation in affirming that the individual is disqualified for 
 Christian Communion." And because they could not have 
 been mistaken in relation to baptism, he asserts, was the reason 
 why the apostles refused communion to the unbaptized. He 
 clearly substitutes human mistakes for a divine law! Or 
 rather, a divine ordinance may be changed by those who 
 know it, for the benefit of those who are ignorant of it I 
 This would lead him to commune with any other unbaptized 
 persons as well as Pedo-baptists. Indeed, it seems to us, to 
 open the door for all the abominations of Popery. 
 
 But why stop with the mistake respecting baptism? Why 
 not extend it to the thousands of other points which divide 
 and distract Christendom? What "damned error" is there 
 which may not boast its sincere and conscientious devotees — 
 individuals who, so far as others are competent to ascertain, 
 are eminently pious and God-fearing men? Who will ven- 
 ture to arrogate to himself so much of the prerogative of 
 God as to say there are no regenerate and truly converted 
 men — men who have a well-grounded hope of salvation — 
 
UNSCRIPTUKA1, AND DELETERIOUS. 29 
 
 even among Unitarians, Universalists, Papists, in a word, 
 among the adherents of every creed? Then why deny the 
 Lord's Supper to these? If the rejection of one of the ordi- 
 nances of Jesus Christ— or of a mistake in relation to it 
 leading to its utter neglect, or to the use of a burlesque sub- 
 stitute — be no barrier to fellowship, why should mistakes on 
 points of theology, many of them confessedly hard to be 
 understood, be magnified into matters of sufficient pith and 
 moment to debar all approach to the Lord's table? If there 
 are any guards to the Lord's table, what are they and where 
 are they, if those be destroyed and discarded which were 
 established by the Redeemer and sacredly maintained by his 
 apostles? But we are not disposed to be more lenient to 
 mistakes than were the apostles. Mr. Hall argues as if there 
 was less excuse for misunderstanding the doctrine and ordi- 
 nances of the gospel in the apostolic than in the present 
 age. This is sheer assumption. We know from the apos- 
 tolic epistles, that among professed Christians many start- 
 ling and damnable heresies obtained. Then the Supper of 
 the Lord was made a drunken revel in Corinth — a church 
 that had enjoyed the teachings of Paul, Peter, and Apollos. 
 They made the cup of the Lord the cup of demons. They 
 did not discern the Lord's body. There were those, too, 
 who denied the resurrection. Others taught justification by 
 works. Others, again, taught that Christians should be cir- 
 cumcised and keep the whole law of Moses. In short, the 
 mystery of iniquity did already work. What abominations 
 had crept into the churches of Asia while yet John lived, 
 the first chapters of the Revelation show. Hence, the posi- 
 tion of Mr. Hall, that no one could be mistaken on the sub- 
 ject of baptism in that age, is only a conjecture. It has no 
 support from the Bible. And the assertion is nothing less 
 
30 OPEN COMMUNION SHOWN TO BE 
 
 than that the Scriptures given by inspiration of God are in- 
 sufficient for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruc- 
 tion in righteousness; that the man of God may be perfect, 
 thoroughly furnished unto all good works. It is an im- 
 peachment of the benevolence and philanthropy of God to 
 charge that he instituted ordinances for our observance in lan- 
 guage so obscure and ambiguous that we could not certainly 
 learn our duty. But the Free Communion Baptists will not 
 assume this. To them baptism, in its mode and subjects, is as 
 clear and as intelligible as if written in letters of light on 
 the archway of the heavens. None of them is so dull that he 
 can not understand it. Indeed, we do not see how the mat- 
 ter could be more plain or palpable. What other words, 
 and phrases, and illustrations could be employed, than those 
 of the inspired pensman, to make the ordinance of baptism 
 more fully understood? Mr. Hall's position is not unlike 
 that of the rich man in the parable — he would have the 
 apostles raised from the dead to correct the errors of Pedo- 
 baptists; but if they will not believe the New Testament, 
 neither would they be persuaded though one arose from the 
 dead. A mistake, forsooth! There is no mistake in the 
 case. The Pedo-baptists all know that immersion is bap- 
 tism. They know, too, that a believer is a proper subject of 
 baptism. On these points they entertain no doubts. These 
 things are conceded by all Christendom. No man has ever 
 disputed them. They admit of no discussion. The practice 
 of Baptists furnishes common ground from which the con- 
 science of no Christian repels him, where all can meet in per- 
 fect concord and with full assurance of being right. The 
 Pedo-baptists can come to this ground without any sacrifice 
 of principle; the Baptists can not leave it without renounc- 
 ing their allegiance to the King of Saints, and casting away 
 
I'NSCRIPTURAL AND DELETERIOUS. 31 
 
 fis worthless what they esteem the righteous requisitions of 
 the sacred Scriptures. And here is the true and scriptural 
 place of communion. If disunion be a sin — if separation at 
 the Lord's table be contrary to the gospel — on the Pedo- 
 baptists must rest all the consequences. They refuse to 
 come to the point where all might meet and fraternize, not 
 because they believe that the Scriptures forbid it, but simply 
 because they prefer what they call a " non-essential " to the 
 union of the body of Christ! 
 
 Mistaken as to baptism! It was thirteen hundred years 
 before any portion of the Pcdo-baptist world brought them- 
 selves fully into this mistake. It was not until 1311, at the 
 Council of Ravenna, that the Pedo-baptists declared affusion 
 to be as good as immersion. This never was declared by the 
 Church of England; but the practice of sprinkling, imported 
 from Geneva, prevailed there against the Rubric, in the reign 
 of Elizabeth. The Presbyterians were the first in the world 
 to prescribe affusion absolutely. Every church allows im- 
 mersion. Thousands in the Pedo-baptist churches at this day. 
 entered by immersion, because they would enter no other 
 way. A person may repudiate his sprinkling and his bap- 
 tism in infancy by joining the Baptists, and still retain the 
 fellowship of the Pedo-baptists. Infant baptism is falling 
 into neglect in the United States. By the more evangelical 
 Pedo-baptists it is represented merely as the solemn sprink- 
 ling of water in the faces of babes and sucklings, conferring 
 no grace or strength, and worthless to their souls and bodies. 
 Granting the mistake, then, they can not escape just and 
 severe censure for obstinate adherence to customs which 
 they hold in no great esteem, and yet cleave to them even to 
 the schism of the churches. 
 
 Mr. Hall, speaking of the immersion of believers, says: 
 
32 OPEN COMMUNION SHOWN TO BE 
 
 "The evidence by which our views are supported, though 
 sufficient for every practical purpose, is decidedly inferior to 
 that which accompanied their first promulgation. The ut- 
 most we can pretend to is a very high probability; the primi- 
 tive converts possessed an absolute certainty."* 
 
 But the primitive converts possessed no other evidence 
 than we possess. The word of God is perfect. We have a 
 sure word of prophecy. But take the concession — if we have 
 testimony sufficient for all "practical purposes," why tolerate 
 a mistake to the nullification of the law. Mr. Hall, in his 
 further efforts to evade the force of scriptural precept and 
 example, attempts to show that the circumstances surround- 
 ing the apostles were different from those surrounding us, 
 and that the spirit which actuated their conduct was the 
 same which controls Free Communion Baptists: 
 
 "The apostles refused the communion of such, and such 
 only, as were insincere — 'who held the truth in unrighte- 
 ousness,' avowing their conviction of one system and acting 
 upon another ; and wherever similar indications display 
 themselves, we do precisely the same. They admitted the 
 weak and erroneous, providing their errors were not of a 
 nature subversive of Christianity; aud so do we. They 
 tolerated men whose sentiments differed from their own, 
 providing they did not rear the standard of revolt by a de- 
 liberate resistance to the only infallible authority; and such 
 precisely is the course we pursue. We bear with those who 
 mistake the dictates of inspiration in points which are not 
 essential ; but with none who wilfully contradict or neglect 
 them."f 
 
 But it was the business of Mr. Hall to show that they 
 admitted to communion any who did not, from any cause, 
 * Ut supra, p. 213. f ut supra, pp. 215, 216. 
 
UNSCRIPTURAL AND DELETERIOUS. 33 
 
 comply with a plain and positive law of God. It is confessed 
 they admitted no unbaptized person to the Lord's Supper. 
 We have shown that this conduct was in obedience to a 
 divine law. We can not believe that any amiability of cha- 
 racter, that any sincerity in error however deep, would, in 
 their judgments, have furnished the slightest excuse for their 
 deliberate disregard of this law. The violation of a law by 
 one person, no matter from what cause, never authorized its 
 violation by another. The apostles and all the holy men of 
 old were very scrupulous in their observance of the laws of 
 Christ. We have not an example upon record where they 
 justified or excused the slightest disobedience or neglect of 
 the heavenly institutions. They never tolerated any senti- 
 ment which led them to disregard the will of the Supreme 
 Lawgiver ; nor do we believe they would have regarded in- 
 fant baptism as a trivial error or an innocent mistake. Mr. 
 Hall seems all along to take it for granted that they would. 
 In this he assumes the main point demanding proof. We 
 utterly deny the assumption. Mr. Hall had surely forgotten 
 the history of infant baptism; a system, the natural and 
 necessary tendency of which was to obliterate the lines of 
 demarkation between the church and the world — to unite 
 church and state — to remove the distinction between those 
 who served God and those who served him not. Infant bap- 
 tism is the pillar of Popery. That monstrous superstruc- 
 ture of fraud and folly could not survive two generations, if 
 infant baptism did not support it. By that rite, in each 
 generation, not less than one hundred millions of persons 
 become the subjects of the Pope. Millions per annum are 
 kidnapped in their cradles and made the vassals of other 
 churches and creeds, hy what Mr. Hall is pleased rhetori- 
 cally to class among "the points not essential." And foi 
 
34 OPEN COMMUNION SHOWN TO BE 
 
 what reason is infant baptism administered to others? Why, 
 as taught in all Pedo-baptist creeds, as a sign and a seal of 
 regeneration and salvation — to make the infant a member 
 of the church and an heir of glory, &c. And will Free 
 Communion Baptists presume to tell us, that they are walk- 
 ing in the footsteps of the apostles regarding these things as 
 matters of no serious moment? A rite that carnalizes and 
 secularizes the church; that places regeneration and justifi- 
 cation in the act of sprinkling water in the face of an uncon- 
 scious infant; that upholds Popery, and has deluged the 
 world with blood and irreligion; is this an error "not sub- 
 versive of Christianity," and would it be so regarded by the 
 apostles? 
 
 With these qualifications we subscribe unhesitatingly to 
 the declamation of Mr. Hall last quoted, respecting the for- 
 bearance and toleration to be extended to human imperfec- 
 tion. The Close Communion Baptists go the full limit 
 allowed by the Bible on this subject. No people have ex- 
 ceeded them in kindly feelings and treatment towards those 
 they believed in error. They have always gone with persons 
 of every persuasion just as far as the word of God would let 
 them. They have ever been the fearless and unwavering 
 advocates of religious and civil liberty. Their garments are 
 unstained by the blood of martyrs. But they never believed 
 it right to tolerate a disregard of a divine law, or the neglect 
 of a gospel ordinance. Even in the face of death and perse- 
 cution the most terrible and unrelenting, have they refused 
 to connive at the subversion of the most distinguishing 
 peculiarities of the New Testament dispensation, by that 
 monster engine of evil, error, and corruption, infant baptism. 
 In this, they have the warrant of Scripture and the approval 
 of heaven. They have in this but obeyed the precepts, to 
 
UNSCRIPTURAL AND DELETERIOUS. 35 
 
 observe the ordinances as delivered to them, and to contend 
 earnestly for the faith delivered to the saints. Mr. Hall, 
 however, seems disposed to change his grounds. He seems 
 to assume that the Lord's Supper ought to precede Baptism. 
 Speaking of the two ordinances, he says: 
 
 "That there is no natural connection between them is 
 obvious. They were instituted at different times and for dif- 
 ferent purposes : Baptism is a mode of professing our faith 
 in the blessed Trinity, the Lord's Supper is a commemora- 
 tion of the dying love of the Redeemer; the former is the 
 act of an individual, the latter of a society. The words 
 which contain our warrant for the celebration of the Euchar- 
 ist convey no allusion to baptism whatever ; those which 
 prescribe baptism carry no anticipative reference to the 
 Eucharist. And as it is demonstrable that John's baptism 
 was a separate institution from that which was enacted after 
 our Lord's resurrection, the Lord's Supper is evidently ante- 
 rior to Baptism, and the original communicants consisted 
 entirely of such as had not received that ordinance. To 
 all appearance, the rites in question rest on independent 
 grounds. But perhaps there is a special connection between 
 the two, arising from divine appointment. If this be the 
 case, it will be easy to point it out. Barely, if ever, are 
 they mentioned together, and on no occasion is it asserted or 
 insinuated, that the validity of the sacrament depends on the 
 previous observation of the baptismal ceremony. That there 
 was such a connection between circumcision and the pass- 
 over, we learn from the explicit declaration of Moses, who 
 asserts that ' no uncircumcised person shall eat thereof.' 
 Let a similar prohibition be produced in the present instance, 
 and the controversy is at an end."* 
 • Pp. 218, 219. 
 
36 OPEN COMMUNION SHOWN TO BE 
 
 A very plain statement of the case will dissipate this 
 specious structure of beautiful words and sentences. Bap- 
 tism and the Lord's Supper are ordinances of divine appoint- 
 ment. Being positive institutions, they are to be observed 
 precisely as commanded. If not observed as commanded, 
 they are not observed at all. Positive institutions and 
 sacramental ordinances are not founded in the nature of 
 things, but solely in the pleasure of him who ordains them. 
 He institutes them precisely as he wishes them to be ob- 
 served. To change or alter them in any respect, is to dis- 
 trust his wisdom and even to repeal his enactments. Hence 
 the Supper was to be observed by eating bread and drinking 
 wine. We have no right, therefore, to substitute cheese or 
 beefsteak for the former, or milk, or soup, or water, for the 
 latter. A supper in these elements would not be the Lord's 
 Supper; and to celebrate it thus would be to insult the Ke- 
 deemer by pouring contempt upon his commands. And so 
 of baptism. If it is commanded to be performed in the 
 name of the Trinity, it can not be performed in any other 
 name. If by immersion in water, that is no baptism which 
 is performed by sprinkling or pouring, or when any thing 
 else than water is the element. And if believers are the 
 subjects of the ordinance, then infidels and infants are not. 
 We disregard the law of the ordinance in neglecting or de- 
 parting from any thing commanded by it. To neglect the 
 law, even by mistaking its import, is no observance of the 
 law. If mistakes were admitted as a justification for depart- 
 ing from the law of a sacrament, then men's erring judg- 
 ments become the substitutes of the divine pleasure, and 
 human blunders may supercede the commands of Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 Baptism and the Lord's Supper being positive divine insti- 
 
UNSCIUPTURAL AND DELETERIOUS. 37 
 
 tutions, it follows, that it' not observed as commanded, they 
 are not observed at all. And further, as they both are com- 
 manded, they arc of equal obligation. Mr. Hall, without 
 asserting it to be so, nevertheless seems to give pre-eminence 
 to the Supper. But for this, there is no warrant in reason 
 or revelation. Jesus Christ instituted both ordinances, and 
 he emphatically commands the observance of both. No pro- 
 vision is any where made in the Scriptures for the neglect of 
 either. And if both are to be observed, it is equally clear 
 that they are not to be observed at the same time. One 
 must take precedence. The question is, Which ought to be 
 first administered, according to the Scriptures? This settled, 
 and all urged above respecting " natural connection" and 
 John's baptism, and the time of their institution, become 
 trifles light as air. And in answering this question, we must 
 again appeal to the commission and to apostolic practice. 
 By these, we learn that baptism was the first duty of a be- 
 liever. This is established by the whole tenor of the New 
 Testament. To give it any other place, to put it after any 
 other sacrament or church privilege, is to destroy its whole 
 import and design. In baptism we publicly profess our faith 
 in .Jesus Christ; we publicly put on Christ; we are buried 
 into his death, and arise to walk in newness of life; we de- 
 clare that we are dead to sin, and that our sins are remitted. 
 Hence, in the natural order of things, the Savior directed 
 that after believers were baptized into the name of the Trin- 
 ity, they should be instructed to observe all things. The 
 apostles so interpreted the commission. It can not admit of 
 any other interpretation. Such, then, is the order of heaven. 
 We can not, we dare not change that order. We have no 
 right to legislate for the church. We should gainsay an 
 angel if he should presume to alter or amend this last great 
 
38 OPEN COMMUNION SHOWN TO BE 
 
 commandment of the Savior. We will not, because we 
 need not, waste a word in comment upon Mr. Hall's views 
 of John's baptism, "natural connection," &c. We plant 
 ourselves on the commission and on the practice of the 
 apostles, and defy all the fiery darts of the adversary. The 
 gates of hell can not prevail against us. 
 
 Indeed, if baptism is not to be observed previous to the 
 Lord's Supper; if, in a word, Mr. Hall's arguments have the 
 specific gravity of a feather, why need we baptize any one? 
 He makes void this law of baptism, by his speculative 
 notions of the Supper. And if men may disregard so much 
 of the commission as relates to baptism, why not that por- 
 tion of it which requires the gospel to be preached and men 
 to believe? And if the Supper may be observed by those 
 not baptized, why not by those who do not believe? And 
 if the oblivious veil of charity must be thrown over men err- 
 ing in reference to the command respecting baptism, why 
 not over those who err respecting the divinity of Christ, the 
 nature of his atonement, &c? Whenever men depart from 
 the law of Christ — whenever they begin to legislate for God 
 — they desert the guidance of heaven, and follow an iynus 
 fatuus of earth, involving all in bewilderment and delusion. 
 
 Mr. Hall demands that a prohibition be produced from 
 the Scriptures against the unbaptized! And with equal pro- 
 priety he might demand the production of precept against 
 the communion of Infidels, Unitarians, Universalists, Qua- 
 kers, Papists, &c. If this demand be legitimate, then none 
 are prohibited the Lord's Supper. But the burden of proof 
 was on him. It was his business to produce authority for 
 the admission of the unbaptized. Until he could do this, 
 he was contending for a practice that had no scriptural war- 
 rant. He was acting without law. He was inviting per- 
 
UNSCRIPTCRAL AND DELETERIOUS. 39 
 
 sons to the Lord's table whom the Lord had not invited, and 
 whom he had told no one to invite. The presumption is, if 
 the Lord had wished such to partake, he would have said -o, 
 That he has not so done, is manifest to all men. Mr. Hall 
 does not pretend to allege any such declaration. His whole 
 effort is an attempt to apologize for the fact that neither the 
 Savior nor his apostles made any provision for the com- 
 munion of those who he insists ought to commune. He 
 seems to argue as if he had a right to fill a blank left in the 
 commission and in the acts of the Apostles. The argument, 
 however, is fallacious in the extreme, to insist that because 
 the law does not prohibit, therefore it authorizes — that an 
 act is lawful because the law is silent in relation to it. We 
 have adduced precept and example for communion of the 
 baptized; our work is done. The admission of such to the 
 Lord's Supper is settled. Their scriptural right is established. 
 If Mr. Hall, or any one else, claims that others ought to be 
 admitted, it is our right to demand the authority. "We ap- 
 peal to the law and the testimony. On them devolves the 
 duty of producing a divine warrant for their conduct. They 
 have no more right to ask us to commune with any one 
 without scriptural authority, than has the Pope to require us 
 to kiss his toe or bow in adoration of the host. These things 
 are self-evident to Protestants, and need no proof to sustain 
 them. 
 
 Granting, then, for the sake of argument (and we beg 
 leave to say, emphatically, it is only for that reason ws do 
 grant it), that in its institution, the Savior administered 
 the Supper to those who had not received Christian baptism ; 
 as that was its beginning, it proves nothing. The question 
 is, What directions did he give his disciples when its admin- 
 istration was committed to their hands? The first Supper 
 
40 OPEN COMMUNION SHOWN TO BE 
 
 was not celebrated in commemoration of the broken body 
 and spilled blood of the Saviour; for then his body had not 
 been broken nor his blood poured out. But is that any rea- 
 son against the law then enacted, that all future celebrations 
 should be for that purpose? Our legislature grants a char- 
 ter to a company. In it are enumerated a dozen men who 
 are made a company, and provisions are made to perpetuate 
 that company. It is enacted, that any one who shall contri- 
 bute one hundred dollars may become a member. Now, 
 although the men mentioned in the charter may never have 
 contributed one cent, that fact could not be urged for the 
 admission of similar persons in future; for the law provides, 
 that to become a member hereafter, one must contribute one 
 hundred dollars. So, no matter whether those who partook 
 of the first Supper were baptized or not, if the commission 
 requires baptism as the first duty of the believer — a duty 
 that must precede the Supper — the question is settled by a 
 divine statute. Why, Mr. Hall might just as well argue, 
 that inasmuch as these disciples never received any thing 
 else but John's baptism — which we have his unsupported 
 affirmation was not Christian baptism — therefore all ought 
 to receive John's baptism, or else no baptism at all! Turn 
 the matter as you will or can — say there is no "peculiar 
 connection" between Baptism and the Supper — that they 
 were instituted at different times and for different pur- 
 poses — and whatever else the ingenuity of Mr. Hall may 
 suggest or his eloquence embellish — the fact flashes in our 
 face wherever we turn in the New Testament, that to observe 
 these ordinances as established by heaven, the believer must 
 be baptized, and then he may come to the Lord's Supper. So 
 Jesus taught, and so the apostles believed and practiced. Any 
 other order is not from above. It is of man, and not of God. 
 
UNSCRIPTURAL AND DELETERIOUS. 41 
 
 "Nothing can be more evident," says Mr. Hall, "than that 
 the whole genius of Christianity is favorable to the most 
 cordial and affectionate treatment of our fellow-Christians. 
 To love them fervently, to bear with their imperfections, and 
 to cast the mantle of forgiveness over their infirmities, is to 
 fulfil the law of Christ."* 
 
 This is most true. Every strict Baptist utters a hearty 
 amen to it. It is deeply to be regretted that a departure 
 from this spirit is the most marked feature in the history of 
 infant baptism. But, of course, in extending this forbear- 
 ance, and in unfolding and spreading tbis mantle of forgive- 
 ness, it is not meant that we ought to violate a command- 
 ment of the head of the church, and blot from existence a 
 sacrament of the New Testament — that we should cover up 
 the sins of others by committing sins ourselves. If this be 
 not meant, then it furnishes no warrant for the admission of 
 the unbaptized to the Lord's Supper, contrary to the positive 
 requisition of the statute of Jesus upon earth. 
 
 "The next question is," continues our opponent, "Whether 
 a formal separation from them [pious Pedo-baptists or 
 unbaptized persons] on account of their imputed errors, 
 amounts to what the Scriptures style schism?" f And on 
 the next page he answers this question, and charges the sin 
 upon the strict Baptists: "It deserves the serious considera- 
 tion of our opponents, that are contending for that schism in 
 the body of Christ against which he so fervently prayed, so 
 anxiously guarded, and which his apostles represent as its 
 greatest calamity and reproach." 
 
 But Mr. Hall does not believe or charge, that the Baptists, 
 either by mistake or otherwise, fail in their observance of the 
 institutions of the gospel. He even grants and insists that 
 
 * P. 220. ■ t Ibid. 
 
42 OPEN COMMUNION SHOWN TO BE 
 
 they observe the New Testament order of things. He con- 
 cedes that our practice is in exact accordance with the com- 
 mand of Jesus and the custom of the apostles. Now, is it 
 not perverting all language and mocking all the proprieties 
 of speech, to call that schism which is obedience to Christ 
 and the fellowship of his apostles? He admits that our 
 practice is in accordance with that of the apostles ; that, were 
 our days rolled back to the days of the primitive Christians, 
 our action would perfectly agree with theirs; that our cus- 
 tom would produce no schism in the apostolic churches. 
 But he admits the conduct of the Pedo-baptists would have 
 produced schism in those days; that the apostles could not, 
 and did not, admit the unbaptized to the Lord's table. He 
 doubtless believed, too, that these holy and inspired men 
 would have looked upon sprinkling as mockery, and the 
 baptism of an infant as impiety. Then the schism in the 
 case, by a fair and necessary deduction from his own pre- 
 mises, falls in all the crushing weight of its iniquity upon 
 the Pedo-baptists, and not upon the Baptists. For the true 
 test of schism, we must go back to the days when men 
 taught and acted by inspiration. We must appeal to the 
 fountain sources of our religion, ere their waters were cor- 
 rupted by the wicked inventions and silly superstitions of 
 men. There we go, and we find that the Baptists would be 
 in perfect fellowship with the saints of that age, and that 
 Pedo-baptists would not. The Pedo-baptists would be 
 separated from them, Mr. Hall being witness. And yet he 
 calls the former schismatics, and the latter he holds up as 
 the sincere and anxious advocates and promoters of the 
 purity of the body of Christ. 
 
 If we understand the unity inculcated in the Bible, it con- 
 sists in "one Lord, one faith, one baptism," &c. But Mr. 
 
I NSCRIVTLRAI. AND DELETERIOUS. 43 
 
 Hall wants a union by the omission of the "one baptism." 
 He erases that item from the terms of general union as 
 established by heaven. Aye, he charges those who adhere 
 to the "one baptism" as schismatics, and claims for himself 
 the championship of union by seeking to obliterate it from 
 the gospel church ! Pedo-baptists have no baptism accord- 
 ing to our opponent. He would commune with them as 
 " unbaptized" persons. He insists that baptism is not essen- 
 tial to communion; and yet the apostle tells us that Chris- 
 tian communion consists in "one Lord, one faith, one bap- 
 tism," &c. ! But Mr. Hall has not told us why communion 
 is not as important in baptism as the Supper. If both are 
 divine sacraments, was it schismatical not to commune in 
 the latter, any more than not to commune in the former? 
 Here is the real place to seek communion. Let communion 
 obtain in baptism, and the greatest barrier to communion in 
 the Supper is subverted. And communion in baptism can 
 be effected by the Pedo-baptists without any sacrifice of con- 
 science, as before demonstrated. The exhortations against 
 schisms, so eloquently and so pathetically made by Mr. Hall, 
 ought, then, to have been pressed upon those Pedo-baptists 
 whose piety and purity he so highly commends, and whose 
 affection and fellowship he is so anxious to secure and cher- 
 ish. He builds his free communion system upon a wrong 
 foundation — his temple is constructed with the bottom 
 upwards — the monument of love and union he has so gor- 
 geously adorned is an inverted pyramid. 
 
 "Say," exclaims Mr. Hall, "did the apostles refuse the 
 communion of good men? Did they set the example of 
 dividing them into two classes, a qualified and a disqualified 
 class; and while they acknowledged the latter were objects 
 of divine favor equally with themselves, enjoin on their con- 
 
44 OPEN COMMUNION SHOWN TO BE 
 
 verts tbc duty of disowning them at the Lord's table? Are 
 any traces to be discovered in the New Testament of a 
 society of Purists, who, under the pretence of superior illu- 
 mination on one subject, kept themselves aloof from the 
 Christian world, excluding from their communion myriads 
 of those whom they believed to be heirs of salvation?"* 
 
 Mr. Hall uses the word "communion" here in the sense 
 of a joint participation of the Lord's Supper. It is never so 
 used in the Bible. This premised, we remark, in reply, 
 First. That the apostles refused to invite all good men to 
 the Lord's table who were not baptized. Jesus had so com- 
 manded, and they were not of those who would violate the 
 least of his commandmeuts to please either good or bad men. 
 They chose to obey God rather than man, even in the face 
 of persecution and death. Second. They did separate the 
 baptized from the unbaptized; admitting the former to the 
 Supper, and rejecting all the latter, whether good or bad. 
 Mr. Hall admits this in confessing that they admitted only 
 the baptized. Third. No matter how much they may have 
 esteemed an individual the object of divine favor, their whole 
 lives show that no partiality for persons and no charms of 
 popularity could seduce them into a violation of the laws of 
 their Master, or the utter disregard of the "one baptism." 
 The apostles were just such a "Society of Purists" as the 
 strict Baptists, respecting the Lord's Supper. They would 
 not have admitted an angel from heaven without the Lord's 
 authority to do so. They would have suffered any torture, 
 and met the last enemy in his most appalling shape, rather 
 than have violated the laws Jesus had instituted for his 
 kingdom — rather than break down one defense which he 
 had put up to preserve the purity of his table. Fourth. 
 • P. 222. 
 
rNSCRIPTURAL AND DELETERIOUS. 45 
 
 The apostles, under "the pretence of superior illumination" 
 on the subject of "one baptism," with which our opponent 
 sneeringly reproaches us, made it a term of Christian com- 
 munion, and separated themselves from the whole world of 
 those who did not conform to that institution. They loved 
 the word of the Lord more than popularity. They knew 
 their divine Master loved obedience more than all burnt 
 offerings. For this they were reproached, reviled, hated of 
 all men, and grievously persecuted. But they fainted not; 
 nay, they rejoiced because counted worthy of persecution for 
 the Lord's sake. 
 
 " The revival or propagation of some particular truth being 
 the avowed object of their union," argues Mr. Hall, in 
 reference to the Baptists, "the members of such a society 
 will almost inevitably attach to it an undue importance ; and 
 as their attention will be chiefly directed towards that in 
 which they differ from others, and in which they are con- 
 ceived to excel, it will be a miracle if they escape a censori- 
 ous, conceited, disputatious spirit. While their constitution 
 is founded not so much on a separation from the world as 
 from the church, they will be almost irresistibly tempted to 
 transfer to the latter a large portion of the associations and 
 feelings of which the former is the proper object."* 
 
 A Free Communion Baptist is, in spirit and feeling, no 
 Baptist at all. He not only discards whatever makes us 
 Baptists, but he can not get along without misrepresenting 
 our system and sentiments, and making it palpable to every 
 one that he cherishes for us feelings of contempt, and loves 
 all others better than those whose name he bears and to 
 whose association he affects to belong. The above extract 
 furnishes a melancholy example in proof of this, in the writ- 
 
 * Pp. 222. 223. 
 
46 OPEN COMMUNION SHOWN TO BE 
 
 ings of the most gifted and the most celebrated free com- 
 munionist. He ought to have known, that the avowed 
 object of the union of the Baptists was, not the revival and 
 propagation of the primitive baptism solely. Such an avowal 
 was never made by the Baptists. They have ever avowed 
 that their union was founded on the principles of the pro- 
 phets and apostles, Jesus Christ being the head of the 
 church. They believed that the kingdom of Christ was not 
 of this world, that the church should be entirely separate 
 from the world, and that they should reject from its govern- 
 ment all those rules of prudence which human wisdom had 
 suggested and ordained. Besides, the enmity of Mr. Hall is 
 manifest, in representing the Baptists as separate from the 
 church, simply because they follow Christ, and will not fel- 
 lowship human institutions to the subversion of the institu- 
 tions of Christ. What does Mr. Hall mean by " the 
 church?" Is it any one, or is it the combination of all the 
 Pedo-baptist establishments? And if these be the church, 
 where is it that the Baptists separate from them except 
 where the Scriptures bid them separate? Mr. Hall would 
 not sprinkle or pour water on a person in the name of the 
 Trinity. He would not baptize an unconscious babe. In 
 these things, then, he separated from "the church," in his 
 own sense of that term; and in this separation was he not 
 just as wrong and wicked as he represents his brethren to 
 be, for separating from the unbaptized at the Lord's table, 
 as Jesus commanded and the apostles practised? He con- 
 demns his brethren in the very thing which he allows. 
 And his conclusion, that the Baptists must attach too much 
 importance to baptism, is emphatically contradicted by their 
 whole history. It is notorious that they only give it the 
 same prominence which it has in the New Testament, while 
 
UN8CRIPTURAL AND DELETERIOUS. 47 
 
 the Pedo-baptists give it much more. The Baptists baptize 
 none but believers; they practice but one mode. Pedo- 
 baptists baptize believers and infants, and they practice three 
 modes. The former teach that baptism is a sign of regenera- 
 tion and remission of sins ; the latter affirm, that it is a sign 
 and a seal of these great blessings to adults and infants, and 
 that by the ordinance a person is made a member of the 
 church and an heir of God. The whole statement of Mr. 
 Hall is in conflict with the truth. 
 
 Mr. Hall quotes from the Epistle to the Komans (chapter 
 14): "We that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of 
 the weak, and not to please ourselves," &c, and thus com- 
 ments: 
 
 "A moment's attention to the connection will convince 
 the reader that the term weak in both passages denotes 
 persons whose conceptions are erroneous, for the inspired 
 writer is not adverting to the different degrees of conviction 
 with which the same truths are embraced, but to a palpable 
 difference of judgment. Thus far the case decided is pre- 
 cisely similar to that under present discussion ; our difference 
 from the Pedo-baptists turns on the nature and obligation of 
 a positive institution. The error of which St. Paul enjoined 
 the toleration consisted in adhering to certain ceremonies 
 which had been abrogated; the error with which we are con- 
 cerned consists in mistaking a ceremony which is still in 
 force. Neither of the ancient nor of the modern error is it 
 pretended that they are fundamental, or that they endanger 
 the salvation of those who hold them. Thus far they stand 
 on the same footing, and the presumption is they ought to 
 be treated in the same manner. Before we come to this 
 conclusion, however, it behooves us to examine the principle 
 upon which the apostle enjoins toleration, and if this is 
 
48 OPEN COMMUNION SHOWN TO BE 
 
 applicable in its full extent to our Pedo-baptist brethren, no 
 room is left for doubt. The principle plainly is, that the 
 error in question was not of sufficient magnitude as to pre- 
 clude him who maintained it from the favor of God. * * * 
 If such is the reason assigned for mutual toleration — and it 
 is acknowledged to be a sufficient one — which none can 
 deny without impeaching the inspiration of the writer, it is 
 so conclusive respecting the obligation of tolerating every 
 error which is consistent with a state of salvation, as if that 
 error had been mentioned by name ; and as few, if any, are 
 to be met with who doubt the piety of many Pedo-baptists, 
 it not only justifies their reception, but renders it an indis- 
 pensable duty."* 
 
 Strange that a disputant, so able and so adroit as Mr. Hall, 
 did not see that the conclusions of Paul were wholly unlike 
 his own, even granting that they were deduced from the 
 same premises. The apostle, for example, does not urge 
 those who believed it right to eat meat, to eat only herbs 
 in deference to those who believed any other food sinful. 
 Nor did he insist that those who believed one day holier 
 than another, should, as they believed, desecrate the day 
 because others esteemed every day alike. On the contrary, 
 he taught them if they did what they believed to be wrong 
 in such cases, they were condemned. "He that doubteth is 
 condemned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith; for 
 whatsoever is not of faith is sin." His exhortation was, not 
 that they should all eat together, or all observe the same 
 days, for he declares that this could not be without sin ; but 
 let them each act according to their conscience, and not one 
 party condemn the other as sinners for merely following 
 their judgments in matters very trivial at best. But not so 
 * Pp. 223, 224. 
 
UNSCRIPTURAL AND DELETERIOUS. 49 
 
 argues Mr. Hall. The Pedo-baptists believe that sprinkling 
 •water in the face of an unconscious babe, is a fulfilment 
 of the command: "Make disciples of the nations, baptizing 
 them," &c, — that is, that such a ceremony is Christian bap- 
 tism. The Baptists believe it is not baptism. Now, Mr. 
 Hall comes, but not like Paul, to urge us to mutual for- 
 bearance; but to tell us that the Pedo-baptists are not bap- 
 tized indeed, but that we ought to treat them as if they were, 
 and consider them as baptized. In other words, we ought 
 to regulate our consciences by theirs! Our convictions of 
 what is right, and what he grants to be scriptural and divine, 
 he would have us cast to the moles and the bats, that we may 
 please those in error ! Our doubts will not injure us, as the 
 apostle argues. We may act without faith, and treat as true 
 what we most assuredly believe to be false ! What could be 
 more opposite to the apostolic doctrines? 
 
 Again : The apostle is arguing in favor of a friendly 
 separation in practice. Mr. Hall quotes him as if he urged 
 them to eat the same things and observe the same days. 
 Paul urged forbearance, but not conformity, to the senti- 
 ments of the weak; Mr. Hall insists upon absolute con- 
 formity. Paul forbid any action subversive of full and 
 settled conviction, and shows that such action would involve 
 awful guilt; Mr. Hall urges that such an action is a sacred 
 duty, and commends it as divinely amiable in its ends and 
 impulses. 
 
 Nor do the conclusions of Mr. Hall, in their consequences, 
 end here. Paul was arguing in relation to matters respect- 
 ing the observance of which, there was no real obligation. 
 They were matters of indifference — of mere whim or fancy. 
 They had no divine obligation, and involved no precept or 
 practice authorized by divine sanction. Mr. Hall admits 
 
 5 
 
50 OPEN COMMUNION SHOWN TO BE 
 
 this; and concludes hence, that a divine command should 
 be esteemed as a matter of indifference — that a sacrament 
 of the New Testament ordained by Jesus Christ belongs to 
 the same category -with the meats and days mentioned by the 
 apostle as mere matters of whim or fancy! And if this is 
 true of baptism — if baptism into the name of the Father, 
 and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, may be regarded as a 
 thing indifferent; why, so may the Lord's Supper. It, too, 
 is a positive institution. It can claim no holier origin nor 
 an authority more divine than can baptism. Then why all 
 this ado about the Eucharist? Seeing there is so much con- 
 troversy about it, why not neglect its celebration altogether? 
 Why not say of it what Paul said of days: if Christians 
 regard the Supper, they regard it unto the Lord; and if 
 they regard not the Supper, to the Lord they do not regard 
 it? Upon his own principles, all Mr. Hall's earnest declama- 
 tion on the Eucharist, is a most farcical ado about nothing! 
 But upon what principles can Mr. Hall or any other man 
 insist, that the advocacy and the practice of infant sprinkling 
 is an "error consistent with the state of salvation, and 
 which, consequently, it is our indispensable duty to tolerate? 
 Do the Scriptures any where teach that the violation of any 
 of the commandments of God is a harmless error? Is not 
 the duty to believe and be baptized as sacred and as divine 
 as the duty to observe the Sabbath and to forbear the adora- 
 tion of images? And how many millions have been involved 
 in awful and guilty delusion by the mummery of infant sprink- 
 ling? Multitudes at this day — perhaps much the largest 
 proportion of those who bear the Christian name — believe 
 that the water sprinkled upon them in unconscious infancy, 
 regenerated their souls, made them members of the church 
 and heirs of salvation; and upon this fatal and monstrotie 
 
UNSCRIPTURAL AND DELETERIOUS. 51 
 
 error they are building their hopes for the eternal world of 
 joy and peace. And is it our "indispensable duty" to com- 
 mune with this delusion? to bid welcome to a system that 
 has sent its untold millions to perdition, and is still leading 
 millions more into certain and eternal destruction — a sys- 
 tem that ignores the cardinal truths of Christianity, and 
 teaches its victims that a mere rite performed upon an 
 unconscious infant, does that which the Bible assures us can 
 only be effected by the spirit of grace? The history of the 
 rite shows, that infant sprinkling has, according to its pre- 
 valence, been as pregnant in its baleful influences, and as 
 ruinous to the spiritual interests of men, as even idolatry 
 itself. It has not only mislead its millions into fatal and 
 everlasting mistakes, but it has superseded believers' bap- 
 tism, united church and state, brought reproach upon the 
 kingdom of the Messiah, and filled the world with blood and 
 errors. It is the pillar of Popery. By it whole nations 
 indiscriminately, without any regard to moral character — 
 drunkards, debauchees, liars, swearers, cheats, and knaves, 
 together with the virtuous and the good — are mingled in 
 a common membership, and regarded alike as constituent 
 portions of the true church of God visible upon earth. And 
 are we to be told that it is our "indispensable duty" to com- 
 mune with all these? And this we must do, upon the prin- 
 ciples of Mr. Hall. 
 
 Or must we draw a distinction between true and false 
 Pedo-baptism? Must we affect that puritanism so hateful 
 in the eyes of Mr. Hall, and commune with one kind of 
 infant baptism and reject another? If so, what is this but 
 close communion? Mr. H. is careful all the time to speak 
 of the "piety of many Pedo-baptists." He is eulogistic of 
 their zeal for the truth and their reverence for revelation. 
 
52 OPEN COMMUNION SHOWN TO BE 
 
 And perhaps it is only to such he would extend the emblems 
 of the Eucharist. But why should he stop here? By what 
 authority does he do these, things? Having discarded the 
 letter of the commission and the practice of the apostles, and 
 led us to seek another than the light of the Bible as the rule 
 of our conduct, by what rule would he have us observe the 
 Lord's Supper? He must become our lawgiver, and pre- 
 scribe the conduct we must adopt towards those who may 
 claim admission to the sacred table. Would he admit all 
 who profess the Christian name, and assert their right to 
 partake of the Eucharist? If not, what portion would he 
 exclude? If he would admit only the pious and the good, 
 how are we to ascertain who these are? And then there is 
 such a variety of sentiment on this particular subject. One 
 generation has canonizod some as saints, which another 
 generation has loathed and rejected as imposters, enthusiasts, 
 fanatics, or monsters of iniquity. Protestants and Baptists 
 differ immensely in their estimates of Christian character; 
 and even among the most earnest and orthodox opponents 
 of Popery, there does not exist any great harmony of senti- 
 ment in relation to this point. The Lutheran, the Episco- 
 palian, the Presbyterian, and the Methodist, could never 
 agree upon a standard of Christian deportment. And per- 
 haps the rules which may have regulated Mr. Hall's pro- 
 ceedings, would receive little favor from any other man in 
 Christendom. And we can not tell but he might draw 
 puritanical lines among the Pedo-baptists — separating the 
 precious from the vile — that even the Pedo-baptists would 
 disallow. 
 
 Baptists, we again affirm, are not mistaken on the bap- 
 tismal question. They profess to know and to do the will 
 nf God. It is their duty, of course, to be kind and forbear- 
 
UN8CRIPTURAL AND DELETERIOUS. 63 
 
 ing to those in error on this subject; but it would be crim- 
 inal in them to encourage even the most amiable and pincere 
 Christian to violate the least commandment of God. They 
 dare not teach men that it is a light thing to disregard a 
 solemn institution of the gospel. They would be recreant 
 to the truth and unfaithful stewards of the manifold riches 
 of Christ, if they were to fellowship the abominations of 
 infant baptism, or in any way sanction the burlesque rite of 
 sprinkling. Sprinkling may, to the unpracticed eye, wear 
 all the innocence and harmlessness of the lamb, but it 
 speaks like a dragon. At this hour it closes the hands of 
 thousands of benevolent Christians, who would, if not hin- 
 dered, give the Bible to the millions perishing in Burmah. 
 The sacred Scriptures, in languages of the Burmese and 
 other nations of India, have been translated, teaching the 
 heathen the way of life and salvation ; but the friends of 
 sprinkling will not aid in their circulation, because in them 
 baptism is rendered by a word signifying immersion. And 
 yet these same persons declare that the mode of baptism is a 
 non-essential, and are wont constantly to fellowship those 
 who have been immersed! So blinding are the influences 
 of sprinkling, that it makes a non-essential more important 
 than the salvation of souls. 
 
 Mr. Hall charges us with being inconsistent, because we 
 fellowship the Pcdo-baptists in some things, and yet not at 
 the Lord's table. He says: 
 
 "In a variety of instances they indulge themselves in 
 those acts of communion with Pedo-baptists which are pecu- 
 liar to Christians : they frequently make them their mouth 
 in addressing the Deity; they exchange pulpits; and even 
 engage their assistance in exercises intended as a preparation 
 for the eucharist; and after lighting the flame of devotion at 
 
64 OPEN COMMUNION SHOWN TO BE 
 
 their torch, they most preposterously turn round to inform 
 them they are not worthy to participate. It would be diffi- 
 cult to convince a stranger to our practice that it were pos- 
 sible to be guilty of such an absurdity."* 
 
 These censures are as unjust as they are unkind and 
 uncharitable. There is no inconsistency — nothing prepos- 
 terous or absurd in the instance supposed. The Baptists 
 are wont to cultivate feelings of Christian courtesy and kind- 
 ness towards all who wear the name of their Master, and 
 especially towards such as manifest his spirit. In a word, 
 they walk with every man in the things of religion, just as 
 far as the Bible permits, and no farther. There is not a 
 hint in the Scriptures that it is not the duty of the Pedo- 
 baptists, as well as every man, to pray. Is there any thing 
 absurd or preposterous, then, in Baptists inviting them to 
 pray — to discharge a sacred duty to God and their own 
 souls? And then, too, it is the duty of every man who 
 loves Jesus, and can, to preach the gospel. We are not of 
 those to hinder others from doing good in the name of the 
 Lord because they walk not with us. But rather, if the 
 gospel be preached, no matter if from envy and strife, we 
 ought to rejoice, and we do rejoice, that it is preached. This 
 is in perfect accordance with Bible precept and practice. 
 We have a divine warrant from it. There is not an intima- 
 tion in all the Bible to deter any conscientious and con- 
 sistent Christian from laboring with any and every man, 
 when he may do so without violating a divine precept. And 
 we would" cheerfully go with such persons to the Lord's 
 table, did not the Lord himself ordain otherwise. 
 
 The parallel attempted by Mr. H. is no parallel. There 
 is not the slightest analogy in the cases. The Baptists, in 
 
 • P. 225. 
 
USBCRIPTURAI. AND DELETERIOTa. 00 
 
 each case, act in perfect accordance with the Scriptures. To 
 establish the charge of inconsistency, it was incumbent upon 
 him to show that in the matter of inviting pious Pedo-bap- 
 tists to pray and preach, and engage in similar religious 
 exercises, we annulled a positive ordinance of the gospel and 
 discarded the whole tenor of apostolic practice. But this is 
 not pretended. Then we are consistent, and the charge to 
 the contrary is preposterous and absurd. We take the Bible 
 as the man of our counsel in both cases. Its light illumines 
 our pathway, and walking by it, our conduct must be right, 
 and, consequently, consistent. 
 
 But, could this charge of inconsistency be established, 
 it would not follow that unbaptized persons ought to be 
 admitted to the Lord's table. Such admission would nullify 
 the divine law, which makes it imperative that believers 
 should be baptized before entering into the church or enjoy- 
 ing its privileges. The utmost such logic could accomplish 
 would be the discontinuance of those courtesies and of so 
 much of Christian communion as more abundantly obtain 
 among the Baptists and the Pedo-baptist, than among the 
 Pedo-baptists in their associations with each other. It could 
 do this and no more. For, until the right to abolish the 
 law of baptism can be maintained, whether for communion 
 or any other purpose, Mr. Hall utterly fails to make any 
 progress in his cause, except by specious sophistry and 
 sounding declamation. He must show his authority as a 
 nullifier of a divine law — produce his right divine to obliter- 
 ate from the gospel commission the ordinance of baptism as 
 instituted by him who had all power in heaven and upon 
 earth, or his conquest is a barren heath. And if he may 
 thus "change times and laws" like the prophetical anti- 
 christ — if he may nullify this law — why not all the com- 
 
66 OPEN CoaIM UNION SHOWN TO BE 
 
 mandments of the Decalogue; aye, why not discard the 
 Bible, contemn every thing which Jesus commanded, and 
 assume to be the lawgiver and king in Zion? His consis- 
 tency will force him thus far. Baptists walk with the Pedo- 
 baptists as far as the Bible will let them. They go on in 
 friendship and fellowship until they come near to the Lord's 
 table as the Lord himself set it out. It is on the other side of 
 the water. The Baptists go through the water in obedience to 
 the divine command. The Pedo-baptists will not go through 
 the water. Mr. Hall says, that the Baptists ought to turn 
 back, and remove the table from the place where the Lord 
 placed it when he was about to ascend into heaven, to 
 accommodate those who will not go through the water. And 
 because the Baptists will not do this — because they will not 
 alter and change what God has established — Mr. Hall raises 
 the cry of inconsistency and charges that their conduct is 
 absurd and preposterous, because they walk voluntarily with 
 the Pedo-baptists where the Bible tells them to walk, but 
 will not walk where it forbids. May the Lord make them 
 yet more famous for vach inconsistency. But he charges 
 inconsistency upon the Baptists from another consideration: 
 "They acknowledge that many Pedo-baptists stand high 
 in the favor of God; enjoy intimate communion with the 
 Redeemer; and would, on their removal hence, be instan- 
 taneously admitted to glory. Now, it seems the suggestion 
 of common sense, that the greater includes the less, that 
 they who have a title to the most sublime privileges of 
 Christianity, the favor of God, the fellowship of Christ, and 
 the hope of glory, must be unquestionably entitled to that 
 ordinance whose sole design is to prepare us for the perfect 
 fruition of these blessings."* 
 
 * P. 226. 
 
l.N^CRTMTKAL AN1> DELETERIOUS. 57 
 
 This is one of those logical fallacies which prove nothing, 
 because they prove too much. We suppose it is acknow- 
 ledged, that what is here assumed as true of "many Pedo- 
 baptists," may just as well be assumed as true of "many" 
 who never belonged to any religious persuasions, and of 
 "many" who belong to all religious persuasions. Thus not 
 only is the ordinance of baptism annulled, but the church 
 itself is demolished. Persons out of the church — Papists, 
 Armenians, Greeks, and every denomination — have the 
 right to partake of the Lord's Supper if they are supposed to 
 be fit for heaven. Nay, it can not stop here. All except 
 some Pedo-baptists believe, that infants dying in infancy 
 are "instantaneously admitted to glory." As a matter of 
 course, the consistency of Mr. Hall must force him into the 
 advocacy and the practice of infant communion ! In one 
 word, Mr. Hall opposes that consistency which preserves 
 inviolate every institution of the Lord's house — which will 
 not discard the baptism of believers at any sacrifice of ease, 
 or safety, or feeling; whilst he advocates a consistency which 
 subverts at the Lord's table the ordinance of baptism, obliter- 
 ates all the landmarks of the church established by Jehovah, 
 and discards all distinctions between truth and error, between 
 those who serve God and those who serve him not in the 
 institutions of his own appointment! The former he calls 
 "party communion;" the latter he dignifies with the appella- 
 tion of "Christian communion." 
 
 Mr. Hall having thus met, as he supposed, the arguments 
 of his opponents, proceeds to enumerate his objections to 
 their practice. "The first effect," says he, page 226, "neces- 
 sarily resulting from it, is a powerful prejudice against the 
 party who adopt it. * # * # The very appellation of 
 Baptist, together with the tenets by which it is designated, 
 
58 v>pen coiiiirNioN shown xo be 
 
 become associated with the idea of bigotry ; nor will it per- 
 mit the mind which entertains that prejudice to give an 
 impartial attention to the evidence by which our sentiments 
 are supported." Admit all this to be so, and it does not 
 shake the firm foundation upon which we stand. If adhering 
 uncompromisingly to the truth, if walking in all the ordi- 
 nances and commandments of the Lord blameless, bring 
 upon us reproach and hatred, instead of ceasing from that 
 course, we should rejoice and be exceeding glad. Ours is 
 the great reward promised those persecuted for righteous- 
 ness' sake. Mr. Hall's position, legitimately pursued, would 
 pour reproach upon the primitive Christians who persisted 
 in preaching Christ crucified, although it was to the Jews a 
 stunibling-block and to the Greeks foolishness. It is one 
 part of the inheritance of the people of Christ on earth to be 
 hated for his sake. This objection only makes more per- 
 manent and more powerful our position. 
 
 Mr. Hall objects again: "By the stern rejection of the 
 members of all other denominations until they have embraced 
 our distinguishing tenets, what do we propose to effect — to 
 intimidate or convince? We can do neither."* And we 
 propose to do neither. The Supper was not instituted for 
 the purpose of proselyting. The man who partakes of the 
 mystic emblems of the body and blood of the Savior to win 
 the esteem and to secure the approval of Pedo-baptists, 
 mocks a divine institution, and partakes of it not discerning 
 the Lord's body. In celebrating the gospel ordinances, we 
 should seek to observe them as they were delivered to us by 
 divine authority, and to do so with an intent to please God 
 and not man. In approaching the Lord's table, we should 
 examine ourselves and not the Pedo-baptists. We Bhould 
 * P. 227. 
 
UN8CRIPTURAL AND DELETERIOUS. 59 
 
 partake in remembrance of the Savior to show forth his 
 death till he come, and not to gain the smiles or the applause 
 of men. And in doing this, we need not sternly reject any 
 one. It is not our business to invite or debar any per- 
 son. The Lord spread the table, and he alone invites, and 
 he alone has the right to debar from coming. His law is 
 the rule which must govern its approach. We are but his 
 servants. We have a right to invite those only whom he 
 invites. In this matter we adhere strictly to the law. If, 
 by our obeying it, any are offended, they quarrel with the 
 regulations ordained by infinite goodness. We neither 
 instituted the Supper nor prescribed its regulations. If any 
 are intimidated or convinced by these things, it is but the 
 necessary result of a divine institution. 
 
 Mr. Hall continues to object on the same page: "By this 
 preposterous conduct, we do all in our power to place our 
 Pedo-baptist brethren beyond conviction. Since it is un- 
 reasonable to expect, however attractive the ministry, that a 
 pious Pedo-baptist will statedly attend where he must despair 
 of ever becoming a member, and of enjoying the privileges 
 to which every serious person is supposed to aspire, he 
 attaches himself as a necessary consequence to a connection 
 in which there is no such impediment, but where he is cer- 
 tain of hearing nothing but what will foster his prejudices 
 and confirm his error." 
 
 Such a Pedo-baptist would be a very unreasonable man. 
 He would demand of the Baptists to do what neither he nor 
 any of his brethren ever did, viz., to admit the unbaptized 
 to communion. If he should become disgusted at the Bap- 
 tists for this, he would necessarily become disgusted with his 
 own brethren; and if he left us on this account, for the 
 eame reason he could remain in no other Pedo-baptist 
 
60 OPEN COMMUNION SHOWN TO UK 
 
 denomination ; for Mr. Hall confesses that in this matter we 
 differ not one whit from the Pedo-baptists. 
 
 But this objection is substantially the same as the other. 
 It proceeds upon the assumption that the Lord's Supper 
 should be celebrated to please and to proselyte the Pedo- 
 baptists. And admitting this to be so, what has expe- 
 rience taught in reference to the success of the plan advo- 
 cated by Mr. Hall and the one opposed by him? Why, the 
 experiment has settled the question against Mr. Hall beyond 
 all controversy. The strict Baptists, in this country espe- 
 cially, are more esteemed by the Pedo-baptists than their 
 opposing brethren. And they are far more numerous and 
 prosperous. Hundreds from the Pedo-baptists join the 
 former to one who join the latter. In the short recollection 
 of the writer of these pages, several hundred ministers of the 
 various Pedo-baptist persuasions have become strict Baptists; 
 while very few, if any, in this country, have joined the other 
 sort of Baptists. Those facts subvert utterly the theory of 
 Mr. Hall. Intelligent and reflecting men among the Pedo- 
 baptists charge error and inconsistency upon the Open 
 Communion Baptists; and, hence, throughout the United 
 States, blasting and mildew follow in their footsteps. They 
 do not get over that which they seek after — the applause 
 and affection of their Pedo-baptist neighbors. God never 
 will bless those who understandingly connive at the neglect 
 of his eoinnmndnienfs. 
 
 We have heard quoted what Mr. Hibbard says respecting 
 the course of Kobert Hall. Years ago, in our boyhood, we 
 remember to have been present on a sacramental occasion at 
 a Presbyterian church in Jessamine county, Ky. Dr. Fish- 
 back and Dr. Blackburn preached at the meeting; two of 
 the most eloquent ministers that ever adorned the Kentucky 
 
UNSCRIPTUUAL AND DELETERIOUS. 61 
 
 pulpit. Dr. Fishback was an Open Communion Baptist. 
 He had but recently separated from his brethren on that 
 question. On the Sabbath, when the Supper was about to 
 be administered, Dr. Blackburn made some remarks oji its 
 institution and design. He then extended a very qualified 
 invitation to members of other denominations, and took 
 occasion to remark, that there were some of a certain sect 
 who were willing to commune with the Presbyterians as 
 unbaptized Christians. For himself, he said, he did not 
 thank such persons for their communion. He did not know 
 how to appreciate a charity which would meet them at the 
 Lord's table by unchurching them. Dr. Fishback was then 
 sitting in the pulpit. He did not partake. He told me 
 afterwards that he regarded the remarks as intended for him, 
 and that they were in bad taste and offensive. Dr. Fishback 
 was an able, pious, and eloquent divine. He was one of the 
 most amiable and fascinating men we ever knew. Yet he 
 utterly failed in his open communion. Upon that rock he 
 made a shipwreck of his usefulness. The same is the 
 mournful history of Robert Hall himself. The most gifted 
 and powerful of contemporary ministers in England, his 
 influence was as the Lybian blast upon the Baptist churches 
 of that country. Indeed, Mr. Hall seems to advocate hia 
 system because it tends to the ultimate destruction of the 
 Baptist denomination. He says: 
 
 " Of the tendency of mixed communion to promote a more 
 candid inquiry into our principles, it is scarcely possible to 
 doubt; whether it would have the effect of rapidly extending 
 the Baptist denomination, as such, is less certain. For were 
 that practice universally to prevail, the mixture of Baptists 
 and Pedo-baptists in Christian societies would probably ere 
 long be such, that the appellation of Baptist might be found 
 
62 OPEN COMMUNION SHOWN TO BE 
 
 not so properly applicable to churches as to individuals, 
 ■while some more comprehensive term might possibly be em- 
 ployled to discriminate the views of collective bodies. But 
 what then? Are we contending for names or for things?"* 
 And upon Mr. Hall's theory, of what value are " our prin- 
 ciples?" What are they but mere speculative bubbles, 
 utterly and contemptibly worthless for all practical pur- 
 poses? With him, it matters not whether a believer be im- 
 mersed into the name of the triune God ; or whether a 
 worthless person in helpless babyhood has had some water 
 and oil poured by Papal priest, or midwife, or scullion, upon 
 its forehead and eyebrows ; or whether upon the responses 
 of ghostly parents water simply has been poured upon the 
 little head by an Episcopal prelate, priest, or deacon; or 
 whether he has had water sprinkled or poured upon him by 
 a Methodist or a Presbyterian minister ; any one of all these 
 things entitles him to membership in the church, according 
 to Mr. Hall. It is our "duty" to recognize any such per- 
 son, if pious and if fit for the kingdom of glory, as truly and 
 properly a member of the church established by the Lord in 
 the gospel ! We ask again, with an apology to our readers 
 for submitting a question so self-evident, if this is not a 
 total surrender of "our principles" — if it is not putting 
 them upon a par with every form of infant sprinkling — if it 
 does not present us to the world in the ridiculous and 
 bigoted attitude of contending for matters of empty form — 
 for a trifle light as air? And what victory can we hope for 
 ' : our principles," after thus ingloriously surrendering them? 
 And what would such a victory be worth? Who would 
 covet the renown of achieving a phantom, or conquering a 
 barren waste? It is hard to conceive of an attitude more 
 
 * P. 228. 
 
UNSCRIPTURAL AND DELETERIOUS. 63 
 
 ridiculous, preposterous, and absurd, than that in which Mr. 
 Hall proposes to place the Baptist denomination. And then 
 how visionary and dreamy his hopes of success. He antici- 
 pates great triumph . to "our principles." by ingloriously 
 yielding them to his opponents as empty trifles ! He is the 
 vanquished general, arrayed in his military costume, with 
 his glittering armor and trenchant sword, riding in the train 
 of his conquerors to whom he has surrendered, and to the 
 lustre of whose achievements his presence lends delightful 
 and delirious applause. He may still affect the feelings and 
 the part of a conqueror; but, like Bajazet in his iron cape, 
 his affectation will but afford mirth and laughter to the 
 victors. Mr. Hall, triumphant in his theory of mixed com- 
 munion, is Sampson shorn of his strength and bereft of his 
 vision — he is powerless and blind — the scorn and contempt 
 of his enemies. Nor can he hope that his locks may grow, 
 so that in one last blind struggle he may grapple the pillars 
 of his enemies' system, and destroy himself and them by a 
 final and fatal overthrow ; for his strength is hopelessly 
 gone. 
 
 But let us look at the modus operandi of his mixed com- 
 munion. Baptists and Pedo-baptists are members of the 
 same church. A Baptist minister is their pastor. A Pedo- 
 baptist member and mother solicits him to sprinkle her 
 infant. He declines, alleging the want of Bible authority. 
 "Why," she replies, "I was thus baptized when an infant, 
 and you have received me into the church, and why can not 
 you prepare my child for reception in the same way? If 
 you can receive those thus baptized, why can you not baptize 
 them in that way?" In vain does he urge her to "a more 
 candid inquiry into our principles?" She can not see why 
 those principles should receive her infant baptism, and deny 
 
64 OPEN COMMUNION SHOWN TO TSE 
 
 baptism to her sweet, precious little babe. She ia sure it is 
 just as fit a subject for baptism as herself or any b&dy else; 
 for no mother was ever blessed with an infant more lovely. 
 And then she begins to cry; and suppose her infant should 
 die without baptism — it might be lost — and what sort of a 
 pastor is he who cares nothing for the souls 01 little child- 
 ren. She is sure that Mr. Sprinkler of the Pedo-baptist 
 church will not be so unfeeling. She will go to him and 
 join his church; that she will. She tells her story to the 
 Pedo-baptists in the church, and they, of course, are awfully 
 shocked at the cruelty of their pastor. Quite a number of 
 the Baptists, especially mothers, can not see what harm it 
 would have done; and they do think the pastor might have 
 been more humane, and gratified the mother. If it did the 
 child no good, it would do it no harm. Were not some of 
 the very best members in the church baptized in infancy? 
 They could not see why their pastors should be more rigid 
 than others. There was Mr. Sprinkler; he would immerse 
 people if they desired to be immersed. They could see no 
 use in such bigotry. So, off goes quite a party to Mr. 
 Sprinkler's church. And perhaps those who remain, seeing 
 the church going down under the Baptist pastor, determine 
 upon a change. He is dismissed, and a Pedo-baptist minis- 
 ter is called in his stead; for only such a minister is adapted 
 to the wants of such a congregation. Such is the legitimate 
 and natural result of mixed communion. It is deadly 
 hostile to the peace and existence of Baptist churches. 
 It is more destructive to them than all the engines of per- 
 secution ever wielded against them. It is emphatically 
 suicidal. 
 
 Nor is this a fancy sketch. Its original may be found in 
 the history of many Baptist churches that have practiced 
 
UNSCRIPTURAL AND DELETERIOUS. 65 
 
 mixed communion. Kinghon, J. G. Fuller, and others, in 
 reply to Robert Hall, refer to such instances as the follow- 
 ing, in proof of the ruinous consequences of mixed com- 
 munion to the Baptist cause in England. 
 
 John Bunyan was an advocate of open communion. No 
 better and no more gifted minister ever occupied the Baptist 
 pulpit. The necessities of his system forced him, of course, 
 to receive Pedo-baptists as members into his church. As 
 able and as moving as he was in preaching, he did little to 
 build up the cause. He did not succeed even in winning 
 his own flock into admiration of "our principles." Upon 
 his death, a Pedo-baptist minister was called to succeed him. 
 And his pulpit was filled by Pedo-baptists for a hundred 
 years. Then one of his successors changed his sentiments 
 and became a Baptist. But this one, Mr. Symonds, was 
 permitted to retain his pastoral relation, on the condition 
 that he was not to introduce the baptismal controversy into 
 the pulpit, nor even into conversation, unless it was first 
 mentioned by others. He was succeeded by Pedo-baptists. 
 On two occasions, in the early part of the last century, this 
 church refused letters of dismission to members who wished 
 to unite with Baptist churches in London, because they 
 were strict communion churches! 
 
 And Mr. Hall commends open communion to the Baptists 
 as the most potent of all instrumentalities to win other 
 denominations over to "our principles!"* 
 
 It is beyond all question, then, that open communion 
 annuls the law of Christ, destroys the Baptists, and benefits 
 the Pedo-baptists. Just in proportion, then, as we believe 
 "our principles" worth preserving, we must resist the temp- 
 tation of falling into this spiritual maelstrom. "Our prin- 
 6 * See Howell, p. 200. et. f>q. 
 
66 OPEN COMMUNION SHOWN TO BE 
 
 ciples" are, that the church ought to be wholly separate 
 from the world; that only those who are the children of God 
 by faith are entitled to membership in the kingdom of Christ 
 on earth; that such enter visibly into that church by immer- 
 sion into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the 
 Holy Spirit; that the Bible is the only rnle of faith and 
 practice in religious matters; that the positive institutions 
 of the gospel can not be neglected without great guilt, and 
 that unless observed as commanded they are not observed 
 at all. These principles alone can free the church from 
 unholy contact with the world, emancipate man from the 
 bondage imposed by the union of church and state, over- 
 throw the Popedom and its consequents, and give the Scrip- 
 tures, faithfully translated in every word and sentence, to all 
 the nations of the earth. Such is the mission of the Bap- 
 tists. Destroy them, and we stab unto death these works of 
 light, love, and liberty in which we are engaged. And this 
 cry of open communion is the trumpet signal of our enemies 
 and of the foes to our principles, to gather them to the car- 
 nival over our destruction. Not love for our fellowship, but 
 hatred of our principles, and fears of our success, elicits 
 these pretences of affection. 
 
 Mr. Hall charges that close communion is calculated to 
 beget feelings of bigotry and to cultivate sentiments of 
 severity towards other denominations. Speaking of its 
 advocates, he says: 
 
 "Conceiving themselves to be a highly privileged class, as 
 the only legitimate members of his church, they are almost 
 invariably exposed to think more highly of themselves than 
 they ought to think; and founding their separation, not on 
 that which distinguishes the followers of Christ from the 
 world, but on a point, in which Christian* dissent from eiub. 
 
I'NSCRIPTURAL AND DELETERIOUS. 67 
 
 other, they are naturally tempted to attach superlative 
 importance to the grounds of difference. "# 
 
 The members of no denomination maintain kindlier rela- 
 tions towards others differing from them, than do the Bap- 
 tists. This is notorious to all the world. They are the 
 only denomination claiming an existence of three centuries, 
 that have not pursued dissent unto persecution and blood. 
 They, solitary and alone, advocated, against the whole reli- 
 gious world, the doctrine that the conscience should be left 
 free and untrammelled in religion. Their garments are 
 unpolluted by martyr blood. The accusing angel has no 
 record against them for wishing even that their opponents 
 should not be allowed to serve God as they pleased. And 
 better feelings exist between them and other denominations, 
 than between others and themselves. The pious members 
 of all other persuasions, upon leaving their own, are more 
 apt to join ours than any other communion. In the general, 
 the Baptist are the second choice of all other denominations. 
 
 Mr. Hall himself has given us the best refutation of his 
 own charges. He admits, and he makes it the subject of his 
 ridicule, that the Baptists acknowledge that many of the 
 Pedo-baptists stand high in the favor of God ; that they 
 are truly and really converted; that they are the children 
 of God; that Baptists invite them to pray and preach, and 
 unite with them in songs of praise and other exercises of 
 devotion. For this he tries to fix upon us the charge of 
 inconsistency, and says: 
 
 "Nothing is more certain than that the communion of 
 saints is by no means confined to a particular occasion, or 
 limited to one transaction, such as that of assembling around 
 the Lord's table; it extends to all the modes by which 
 
 * P. 229. 
 
68 OPEN COMMUNION SHOWN TO BE 
 
 believers recognize each other as the members of a common 
 head. Every expression of fraternal regard, every partici- 
 pation in the enjoyments of social worship, every instance 
 of the unity of the Spirit exerted in prayer and supplication 
 or in acts of Christian sympathy and friendship, as truly 
 belongs to the communion of saints as the celebration of the 
 Eucharist. In truth, if we are strangers to our fellow- 
 Christians on other occasions, it is impossible for us to enjoy 
 it there; for the mind is not a piece of mechanism which 
 can be set a-going at pleasure, whose movements are obedi- 
 ent to the call of time and place. Nothing short of habitual 
 sympathy of spirit, springing from the cultivation of bene- 
 volent feelings and the interchange of kind offices, will 
 secure that reciprocal delight, that social pleasure, which is 
 the soul of Christian communion. Its richest fruits are 
 frequently reserved for private conference, like that in 
 which the two disciples were engaged in their way to 
 Emniaus, when their hearts burned within them, while the 
 Lord opened to them the Scriptures; when they take sweet 
 counsel together as they go to the house of God in com- 
 pany; when they bear each other's burthens, weep with those 
 that weep, and rejoice with those that rejoice; say, have 
 Christians no mutual fellowship? Is it not surprizing that, 
 losing sight of such obvious facts, our opponents always 
 reason on the subject of communion as though it related 
 merely to the sacrament? In every other particular, they 
 act just as we do."* 
 
 Mr. Hall is unjust to his opponents. They do not regard 
 the Lord's Supper as designed to represent Christian com- 
 munion at all. Leaving out the Eucharist, the above extract 
 presents our views precisely of communion. Our chief 
 
 * Pp. 224, 226. 
 
UNSCRIPTURAL AND DELETERIOUS. 69 
 
 objection to his theory is, that individuals by it draw near 
 each other with their mouths, and honor each other with 
 their lips, while their hearts are far from each other. Surely 
 devils laugh at a manifestation, around the sacramental 
 board, of fellowship between Armenians and Calvinists, 
 Episcopalians and Calvinists, who, perhaps, at intervals few 
 and far between, make this manifestation of communion, 
 when, at all other times, the ears of all mankind are stunned 
 with the clamor of their discord; and whenever they have 
 been permitted, have settled their disputes on the tented 
 field. But enough; the sacrament apart, Mr. Hall concedes 
 that in all other matters of Christian fellowship, the Close 
 Communion Baptists act just as do himself and his adher- 
 ents. This admission is a triumphant refutation of his own 
 charge, that close communion fosters a spirit of separation in 
 feeling and fellowship from Christians of other persuasions. 
 He is answered and refuted out of his own mouth. 
 
 Mr. Hall winds up his objections to close communion 
 with the following proposition : 
 
 " In addition to all other reasons for retracing our steps, 
 we may with great propriety allege the spirit of the times, 
 the genius of the age, distinguished as it is, beyond all 
 former example, by the union of Christians in the promotion 
 of a common cause, and their merging their minor differ- 
 ences in the cultivation of great principles and the pursuit of 
 great objects. Instead of confining themselves, each to the 
 defence of his own citadel, they are sallying forth in all 
 directions, in order to make a powerful and combined attack 
 on the kingdom of darkness."* 
 
 But Mr. Hall seems to forget, that the distinguishing feature 
 in the genius of the age, has been produced by the approxima- 
 
 *Pp. 229, 230. 
 
70 OPEN COMMUNION SHOWN TO BK 
 
 tion of evangelical denominations to Baptist principles, which 
 his theory would destroy. Pedo -baptism, with many of its 
 advocates, is not now what it was formerly. Many denom- 
 inations regard only true and real Christians as members of 
 Christ's kingdom on earth, looking upon baptized infants as 
 but quasi members at best; and some of them esteem such 
 no members at all. When grown up, unless born again, 
 unless they give credible evidence of having passed from 
 death unto life, they are regarded children of wrath even as 
 others, as still in the gall of bitterness and the bonds of 
 iniquity — as baptized infidels. This was not once the case. 
 The time was when evidence of faith and conversion were 
 not required as conditions of membership. The church 
 standards of the Pedo-baptists do not now require it; and 
 yet the requisition is made in spite of the standards. 
 
 The genius of the age tends to the merging of all Chris- 
 tian denominations into two — into the church party and the 
 evangelical party — into Papists and Baptists. This spirit 
 is at work in all the denominations. Among Episcopalians, 
 it is High Church and Low Church ; the former urging their 
 sentiments onward towards Rome, and the latter towards 
 the Baptists. Neither can consistently stop short of one or 
 the other of these points. So they charge one another, and 
 so all the candid must perceive. Among the various branches 
 of Presbyterianism, some advocate the admission, as mem- 
 bers in full fellowship, of all who were baptized in infancy and 
 who having arrived at man's estate, are guilty of no immoral 
 conduct; while others insist they must be born again or 
 they have no claim to be received into the church. The 
 Methodist 'denomination is a smothered volcano. The 
 oppressed and down-trodden laity are discontented with 
 being; barred from all the privileges of *>burch membership. 
 
INSCR1PTURAL AND DELETERIOUS. 71 
 
 They are not easy under the yoke of vassalage to ministerial 
 oligarchs. The fire is smothered but not extinguished. Its 
 rumblings forbode a fearful eruption. Even among the 
 Papists there is discontent. Parties are forming in spite of 
 the ghostly anathemas of the church. Many are rising up 
 against the monstrous assumption of the Popedom. While 
 others, even in this country, going to the other extreme, are 
 fulsome in their eulogies of the grossest abominations of 
 mystical Babylon. They even denounce religious liberty as 
 heresy; urge the superiority of a monarchy over a republic; 
 maintain the divine right of popes to dispose of crowns, 
 kingdoms, and empires at their sovereign pleasure ; insist 
 that the dark ages were the noonday glory of the world; 
 and affirm that the people ought not to read the Bible; and 
 that popular education is a curse and a monster of evil. 
 These facts are significant. And the result is already seen in 
 its effects upon infant baptism. The church party, with more 
 than wonted earnestness, are clamorous for infant baptism, 
 reviving and urging all the ancient superstition in favor of its 
 importance and in proof of its saving efficacy. While the 
 evangelical party are becoming daily more indifferent to its 
 administration and careless of its prevalence. Among these 
 it is rapidly falling into disuse. They do not see why an in- 
 fant should be solemnly besprinkled in the name of the Trin- 
 ity, when the whole tenor of revelation, every dictate of reason 
 and common sense, as well as the decisive and emphatic testi- 
 mony of all history and experience, are conclusive in demon- 
 strating that it is of no benefit whatever either to the soul or 
 body, to the temporal or eternal interests of the infant. A 
 High Churchman in New York, not long since, boasted, tbat 
 in his own congregation in one year, he had baptized more 
 infants than had been baptized during the same time in tho 
 
72 OPEN COMMUNION SHOWN TO BK 
 
 bounds of several large Presbyterian synods which he speci- 
 fied; and he proved his assertion from the records. The 
 reason he assigned was palpable enough. He believed in 
 baptismal regeneration. He regarded it literally a sign and 
 a seal of the remission of sins. He taught that when an 
 infant was baptized, it became a member of the church — a 
 child of God and an heir of glory. He urged it as a vitally 
 important ordinance. And hence his people observed it, 
 because they supposed it would confer a substantial benefit 
 upon their children. But he charged that the Presbyterians 
 of the synods named had deflected from the letter of their 
 standards and the doctrines of their founders. They held 
 that baptism conferred no change upon the infant's moral 
 or spiritual condition — that it was a mere external rite; and 
 hence, said this churchman, no marvel the ceremony has 
 fallen into disuse, when its ministers have brought it into 
 contempt. Unless they give it vitality — unless they make 
 it of some spiritual efficacy to the soul — unless they insist 
 upon its regenerating power, their people will entirely cease 
 to bring their children to baptism. The churchman was 
 right. Many Presbyterian ministers have weepingly deplored 
 the decline of the custom. They have, by the pulpit and 
 the press, tried to revive it. Church courts have passed 
 resolutions to enforce it; but all in vain. It is a doomed 
 institution. The evangelical current is sweeping it into the 
 oceans of the things that were. It is rapidly passing away. 
 It must fall, ere Popery can fall. It is the chief support of 
 all that most hinders the progress of the gospel. By it is made 
 the mixture of iron and clay — of church and state — in tho 
 vision of the prophet. The mysterious stone is smiting it 
 to dust. The Lord will consume it by the brightness of his 
 coming. "Evan so, corns quickly. Amen." 
 
UNSCRIPTURAL AND DELETERIOUS. 73 
 
 And it was the Close Communion Baptists who first moved 
 in those enterprises which shed such peculiar lustre upon 
 the churches of modern times. They founded modern 
 missions. They have done more than all other Christians 
 united for the translations of the Scriptures into the lan- 
 guages of the nations. 
 
 These facts militate fatally against the system of Mr. 
 Hall. They show that the best interests of truth — the 
 ultimate overthrow of mystical Babylon — the universal pre- 
 valence of the gospel — the rescue and redemption of man 
 from the intolerable thraldom of a pseudo-Christianity, are 
 identified with the maintenance and the triumph of Baptist 
 principles. His system would destroy those principles. 
 Close communion, so called, fosters and sustains them. If, 
 then, a Baptist sincerely loves his principles and believes 
 they were ordained of God, he can not be seduced into a 
 desertion of them by the syren song of open communion. 
 He will not, to please man, offend God by disobedience; but, 
 trusting in the support of the founder of the church, he will 
 persevere in walking in all his statutes and ordinances 
 blameless, being assured that however human policy may 
 seem to conflict, the truth will prevail. 
 
 With the Pedo-baptists we really have no controversy 
 respecting communion. They agree with us that baptism is 
 a prc-requisite to all church privileges — that it is the visible 
 door into the visible church. They hold, too, that the 
 Lord's Supper is a church ordinance, and, consequently, 
 that it must be preceded by baptism. We are not unapprized 
 of the fact, that a few of the less esteemed Methodist minis- 
 ters, who have more zeal than knowledge, have, of late 
 years, assumed that the unbaptized, and even the uncon- 
 verted, may, and in certain cases ought, to partake of the 
 
 7 
 
74 OPEN COMMUNION SHOWN TO Bfc 
 
 Eucharist. But it would be unjust to notice them, since 
 neither their church nor the intelligent among their breth- 
 ren lend any countenance to their proceedings. Their 
 course is an innovation. The discipline which they vowed 
 in ordination to maintain, prescribes Baptism before the 
 Supper of the Lord. It is placed first in their Articles of 
 Religion. It is there declared to be "a sign of profession, 
 and a mark of difference, whereby Christians are distin- 
 guished from others that are not baptized." We can enter 
 into no discussion with such persons. All that we have said 
 and quoted in proof that Baptism must precede the Supper, 
 applies to their case, with simply this difference, they not 
 only disregard the plain injunctions of the Scriptures, but 
 neglect to hear their own brethren, and depart from the 
 regulations of their own church. To that church we leave 
 the judgment of their conduct. 
 
 The quarrel which the Pedo-baptists have with us, does 
 not respect our close communion, but our close baptism. 
 The evangelical portion of them require faith and baptism 
 as pre-requisites to the Lord's table. We hold that only 
 believers are scriptural subjects of baptism, and that immer- 
 sion is the only scriptural mode. In their creed they go 
 farther, and maintain that the infants of believing parents, 
 and the infants whose parents are not believers, may, and 
 ought to be baptized; and that baptism is rightly adminis- 
 tered by pouring or by sprinkling. 
 
 Believing as we do, that the churches planted by the 
 apostles were composed of penitent believers who had been 
 immersed into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and 
 of the Holy Spirit, we can not, by inviting them to the Lord's 
 table, recognize Pedo-baptist societies a* gospel churches. 
 'Tor can we invite to the Lord's table any other body rf 
 
UNSCRIPTURAL AND DELETERIOUS. 75 
 
 professed Christians, though they may have been impressed, 
 unless they hold to all the essential doctrines of Chris- 
 tianity — the divinity of Christ, the depravity of human 
 nature, justification by faith alone without the works of the 
 law, the final perseverance of the saints, the endless punish- 
 ment of the finally impenitent, the plenary inspiration of the 
 holy Scriptures. Nor can we, by communing with them, 
 recognize as gospel churches those religious associations that 
 have departed from the pattern of church organization given 
 us by the apostles in the constitution of the first Christian 
 churches. Were a Baptist church to surrender its inde- 
 pendency and acknowledge the right of any other church or 
 any ecclesiastical hierarchy, to legislate for it, or to sit in 
 judgment upon its acts, we should regard it as having so far 
 departed from the law of Christ, as to require us to withdraw 
 from its communion. Nor could we invite to our communion 
 individual Christians, however pious they might be, who 
 would retain their membership in such a church. In short, 
 we can not invite into our churches, to unite with us in 
 celebrating a church rite, any whom we could not receive to 
 full membership in the church. Nor can any society claim- 
 ing to be a gospel church, consistently do this. Yet Pres- 
 byterians and Methodists, who would not receive into their 
 churches applicants for admission who should avow and 
 refuse to surrender Baptist views of church polity, complain 
 most piteously, that we do not come into their churches and 
 enjoy the privilege of joining with them in celebrating a 
 rite of their churches! And Reformers, too, who do not 
 regard Presbyterians or Methodists, if unimmersed, as quali- 
 fied for membership in their churches, are offended because 
 Presbyterians and Methodists will not commune with theml 
 The Episcopalians and the Catholics are more consistent. 
 
76 OPEN COMMUNION SHOWN TO BE 
 
 The inquiry respecting the propriety of holding sacra- 
 mental communion with our neighbors of "the currrent 
 reformation," is one of more difficulty, in the estimation of 
 some, than that Vespecting the Pedo-baptists. But to our 
 mind the path of duty is very plain and obvious. The 
 Reformers do not regard the Baptists as members of the 
 church of Christ. They proclaim us to be schismatics or 
 sectarians. They affirm that we have built upon another 
 foundation than the Sacred Scriptures — that we are one of 
 the daughters of mystical Babylon. Hence their chief work 
 has been to reform us and to construct us into a veritable 
 church. They call upon us to forsake our evil ways and to 
 follow them in the paths which they honor with their foot- 
 prints. And whenever they can get a Baptist to join them, 
 they rejoice more over him than over ninety and nine wicked 
 persons who need repentance. If they regard ours as 
 churches of God, then they are guilty of egregious wrong in 
 producing schism in the body of Christ, which they every- 
 where attempt, and which in many cases they have but too 
 successfully accomplished; and if they do not regard ours 
 as churches of God, then they can not, according to that 
 Bible which they profess so dearly to reverence, wish sacra- 
 mental communion with us. According to the first suppo- 
 sition, they are too sinful for our fellowship; and according 
 to the last, we are too sinful for theirs. Either way, and 
 intercommunion is wholly out of the question — is but the 
 communion of light and darkness. 
 
 In many of the reformed "congregations," too, are per- 
 sons who have been excluded from the Baptist churches for 
 sundry misdemeanors and immoralties, and yet have been 
 taken into the brotherhood of the reformation without any 
 regard to our feelings or discipline in the premises. This, 
 
UNSCRIPTURAL AND DELETERIOUS. 77 
 
 our readers will bear witness, is no mere fancy supposition 
 to serve a purpose. Such examples, unfortunately, exist too 
 abundantly. Do not Baptists, then, in fellowshipping such 
 at the Lord's table and as true church members, proclaim, 
 to all intents and purposes, their own want of ecclesiastical 
 existence — that to them belong none of the rights and 
 privileges of a Christian church? Is it not an admission 
 that they have no scriptural right to receive and exclude 
 members? Is it not, in short, an acknowledgment, as pal- 
 pable as it is humiliating, that everything which the reformed 
 "proclaimers" have preached and published respecting our 
 sectarianism and our kindredship to the papal harlot, is just 
 and true? As matters now stand between ourselves and the 
 Reformers, it would be far better for us to become members 
 with them than to commune with them. That would be 
 more consistent and manly. It is better and more honor- 
 able to surrender our cause than to betray it. Let us be 
 open enemies rather than traitors. 
 
 For many of the Reformers, individually, we cherish the 
 kindest Christian feelings ; but when we are called upon to 
 recognize them as a body, the case is materially altered. To 
 say nothing further respecting their course as a denomina- 
 tion towards us, in declaring that we are not churches of 
 Christ, and openly waging a war of extermination upon us, 
 we are told by their founder, "that all sorts of doctrine, by 
 almost all sorts of men, are proclaimed under the broad 
 banners and with the supposed sanction of the begun refor- 
 mation." This is high authority, and comes from one who 
 had every opportunity to ascertain the truth in the case, 
 combined with every inducement to speak only what he did 
 know, and to testify only what he had seen. Indeed, the 
 author of the remark just quoted, seems to have very little 
 
78 OPEN COMMUNION SHOWN TO BE 
 
 relish for this strange mixture himself, and has more than 
 once given vent to expressions of unmixed loathing and dis- 
 gust respecting it. He regards its existence as a stench in 
 the nostrils of all intelligent and respectable Christians. 
 We should wait, therefore, until our reformation fishermen, 
 who have been dragging their net through the murky waters 
 of mystical Babylon, and have confessedly gathered every 
 kind, shall sever the good from among the bad, before we, 
 in indecent haste, seek sacramental union with them. We 
 have enough unworthy members of our own, without running 
 in hot haste to embrace those of other denominations. And 
 if we must fellowship the "all sorts of doctrine" proclaimed 
 under the banners of reformation, can we discard those of 
 Universalism, Unitarianism, or any other of the myriad 
 isms which are the dark spots in the sky of modern Chris- 
 tendom? 
 
 In conclusion, it is our hope to convince all Free Com- 
 munion Baptists, if this article should fall into the hands of 
 any such, of the inconsistency of their course, and of the 
 mistakes into which they have fallen. The following pro- 
 positions, we think, have been demonstrated: 
 
 I. That the principles op Free Communion Baptists 
 
 ARE CONDEMNED BY ALL THOSE WITH WHOM THEY PROPOSE 
 TO COMMUNE — THEY STAND ON A PLATFORM CONDEMNED 
 BY THE ENTIRE WORLD. 
 
 II. That Free Communion Baptists are dupes and 
 
 VICTIMS, BLINDLY LED INTO THE BETRAYAL AND SURRENDER 
 OP GREAT FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF TRUTH. 
 
 III. That Free Communion Baptists virtually sub- 
 vert THEIR OWN ECCLESIASTICAL EXISTENCE. 
 
 IV. Free Communion Baptists degrade the Supper 
 of the Lord, by allowing those to partake of it 
 
UNSCBIPTURAL AND DELETERIOUS. 79 
 
 WHOM THEY DEEM UNWORTHY OF THEIR ASSOCIATION IN 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 V. Free Communion Baptists pervert the design op 
 the Lord's Supper — making it a test op Christian 
 fellowship, instead of a memorial of hls death. 
 
 VI. Free Communion Baptists encourage those they 
 
 BELIEVE TO BE IN ERROR TO PERSIST IN THAT ERROR. 
 
 VII. Free Communion Baptists are insisting upon a 
 practice wnoLLY uncalled for. The Baptists have 
 enough to do to attend to their own communion. Few of 
 them ever commune with all their brethren of the same 
 faith and order in their own vicinage; and, as a general 
 thing, the members of other denominations, most clamorous 
 for free communion, very seldom practice what they insist 
 upon, 
 
A.FF E :n ~ D I X 
 
 BY THE EDITOR. 
 
 Alexander Campbell's declaration against open com- 
 munion, and his reasons for restricting the partaking of the 
 "loaf and the cup" to immersed believers, as set forth in 
 his "Christian System," published in 1839. 
 
 DECLARATION. 
 
 "As for myself and my brethren, I never believed, taught, 
 or practiced what is called ' open communion.' " — Millenial 
 Harbinger, Nov., 1858. 
 
 REASONS. 
 
 "Christians are persons pardoned, justified, sanctified, 
 adopted, saved." — Christian System, p. 64. 
 
 "As the disciples of Christ are declared to be in a par- 
 doned, justified, sanctified, reconciled, adopted, and. saved 
 state, they are the only persons in such a state; and all 
 others are in an unpardoned, unjustified, unsanctified, unre- 
 conciled, unadopted, and lost state. When, then, is a change 
 of state effected, and by what means? 
 
 "We are constrained to admit that a change in any one of 
 tbese states necessarily implies, because it involves, a change 
 in all the others. Every one who is pardoned is justified, 
 sanctified, reconciled, adopted, and saved, and so every one 
 
82 APPENDIX. 
 
 that is saved, is adopted, reconciled, sanctified, justified, and 
 pardoned." — Christian System, p. 196. 
 
 "That it is not faith, but an act resulting from faith, 
 which changes our state, we shall now attempt to prove. 
 
 * * * * That faith by itself neither justifies, sanctifies, 
 nor purifies, is admitted by those who oppose immersion for 
 the forgiveness of sins. * * * * If they admit that 
 faith, apart from the blood of Christ, can not obtain pardon, 
 they admit all that is necessary to prove them inconsistent 
 with themselves in opposing immersion for the remission of 
 sins, or immersion as that act by which our state is changed. 
 
 * * * * The Apostle Peter, when first publishing the 
 gospel to the Jews, taught them that they were not forgiven 
 their sins by faith, but by an act of faith — by a believing 
 immersion into the Lord Jesus. * * * * They inquired 
 of Peter and the other apostles, what they ought to do to 
 obtain remission. They were informed, that though they 
 now believed and repented, they were not pardoned; but 
 must ' reform and be immersed for the remission of sins. 
 
 * * # * This act of faith was presented as that act by 
 which a change in their state could be effected; or, in other 
 words, by which alone they could be pardoned." — Christian 
 System, pp. 202, 203. 
 
 "It [immersion] necessarily becomes the line of discrim- 
 ination between the two states before described. On this 
 side, and on that, mankind are in quite different states. On 
 the one side, they are pardoned, justified, sanctified, recon- 
 ciled, adopted, and saved; on the other, they are in a state 
 of condemnation." — Christian System, p. 201. 
 
 "All Christians are members of the house or family of 
 God, are called and constituted a holy and royal priesthood, 
 and may, therefore, bless God for the Lord's table, its loaf, 
 
APPENDIX. 83 
 
 and cup — approach it without fear and partake of it with 
 joy, as often as they please in remembrance of the death of 
 their Lord and Savior." — Christian System, p. 318. 
 
 Mr. Campbell's argument abridged is this: The Lord's 
 Supper is for Christians only ; Christians are those who have 
 been pardoned, justified, sanctified, adopted, saved ; the 
 apostles taught the Jews at Pentecost, that it was not by 
 faith, but by an act of faith — by a believing immersion, that 
 they could be pardoned, justified, sanctified, adopted, and 
 saved; that, before immersion, even a penitent believer is in 
 a state of condemnation — unpardoned, unjustified, unrecon- 
 ciled, unadopted, and lost, and, consequently, not Chris- 
 tians; and that, therefore, unimmersed persons, not being 
 members of the house or family of God, may not approach 
 the table "without fear and partake of it with joy." 
 
 How any one holding Mr. Campbell's views, as above 
 written, can welcome to the Lord's table immersed persons, 
 or how, if he be a preacher of the gospel, he can conscien- 
 tiously refrain from warning the unimmersed of their unfit- 
 ness to partake of the "loaf and cup," it is not our province 
 to explain. Baptists agree with Mr. Campbell in maintaining 
 that none but immersed believers in Jesus Christ have a 
 right to come to his table, because only such are fit for mem- 
 bership in his visible churches, and because the Supper was 
 ordained by him to be a church ordinance ; but they believe 
 his theory of the plan of salvation to be unscriptural and 
 pernicious. Thus believing, they can not, by inviting Re- 
 formers to their communion, recognize their congregation as 
 gospel churches. 
 
 In the "Millenial Harbinger," of November, 1858, Mr. 
 Campbell denies that he has ever believed in baptismal 
 remission. To the declaration already quoted, he adds: 
 
84 APPENDIX. 
 
 "Nor have I ever taught baptismal remission." For an 
 exposition of his views he refers his readers to his "Christian 
 System," from which work we have extracted his argument 
 in support of restricted communion. The passages already 
 quoted seem to us to teach the doctrine of baptismal remis- 
 sion; but as Mr. C. affirms that he has never taught this 
 doctrine, we shall be excused for making a few more extracts 
 from his book. 
 
 "The propositions now proved and illustrated, must con- 
 vince all, that there is some connection between immersion 
 and the forgiveness of sins. * * * * Nothing remains, 
 but that it he considered, what it is in truth — the accom- 
 panying sign of an accompanying remission; the sign and 
 seal, or the means and the seal, of remission then granted 
 through the water, connected with the blood of Christ by 
 divine appointment, and through our faith in it." — Christian 
 System, p. 240. 
 
 "Down into the water you were led. Then the name of 
 the Holy One upon your faith and upon your person, was 
 pronounced. You were then buried in the water under that 
 name. It closed itself upon you. In its womb you were 
 concealed. Into the Lord, as into the water, you were 
 immersed. But in the water you continued not. Of it you 
 were born, and from it you came forth, raised with Jesus, 
 and rising in his strength. There your consciences were 
 released; for there your old sins were washed away." — Page 
 247. 
 
 " He [Cornelius] was immersed, and unto the kingdom of 
 God he came. He was then saved. You need not ask, how 
 or why these things are bo. Do as Cornelius did, and then 
 you will think of it in another light." — Page 249. 
 
 "As well, as reasonably might you pray for loaves from 
 
APPENDIX. 85 
 
 heaven, or manna, because Israel ate it in the desert, as to 
 pray for pardon, while you refuse the remission of sins by 
 immersion." — Page 251. 
 
 "The Master knew that to wait for health before we went 
 to the physician — to seek for warmth before we approached 
 the fire — to wait till we ceased to be hungry before we 
 approached the table — was not reasonable. And, therefore, 
 he never asked, as he never expected, any one to feel like a 
 Christian before he was immersed, and began to live like a 
 Christian. * * * * Arise, then, and be immersed, and 
 wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord." — 
 Page 254. 
 
 "Christian experience can never be enjoyed by any human 
 being previous to his faith, repentance, and baptism." — 
 Millenial Harbinger, Nov., 1858. 
 
 PEDO-BAPTIST CONCESSIONS. 
 
 Although it is certain, as has been shown by Dr. Waller 
 in the foregoing discussion of the terms of church com- 
 munion, that all Pedo-baptist denominations have required 
 baptism as a prc-requisite to admission to the Lord's Supper, 
 very few of their writers have been candid enough to affirm, 
 what they know to be true, that Baptists are consistent in 
 limiting their invitations to the communion table, to im- 
 mersed believers. Of such unkind treatment Baptists have 
 had much reason to complain. They have been represented 
 as "ignorant," "illiberal," and "bigoted," by Pedo-baptist 
 authors, and by editors of Pedo-baptist periodicals, who had 
 not honesty enough to admit what they will all acknowledge 
 when pressed to the point — that the only question to be 
 
86 APPENDIX. 
 
 discussed by them and us, in order to settle the terms of 
 communion is, What is Christian baptism? 
 
 It is gratifying to witness, occasionally, a disposition to 
 do us justice in this respect. The late Dr. Griffin, formerly 
 President of Williams College, Mass., and one of the most 
 talented and erudite of the Congregational clergy of New- 
 England, in his celebrated letter on communion, says: 
 
 "I agree with the advocates of close communion on two 
 things: 1. That baptism is an initiating ordinance, which 
 introduces into the visible church. Of course, where there 
 is no baptism, there are no visible churches. 2. That we 
 ought not to commune with those who are not baptized, and, 
 of course, are not church members, even if we regard them 
 as Christians. Should a pious Quaker so far depart from his 
 principles as to wish to commune with me at the Lord's 
 table, while he yet refused to be baptized, I could not receive 
 him; because there is such a relation established between 
 the two ordinances, that I have no right to separate them ; 
 or, in other words, I have no right to send the sacred ele- 
 ments out of the church." 
 
 The Baltimore Christian Advocate, an organ of the Metho- 
 dist Episcopal Church, South, holds the following lan- 
 guage : 
 
 " That a good man may be a firm believer in the necessity 
 of adult immersion, we do not, for a moment, doubt; and 
 that they who do believe this, should decline communion 
 with the unbaptized, is reasonable and consistent. To be 
 offended with the refusal of these to commune with us, is 
 absurd; to reproach them for it, unkind and unjustifiable." 
 
 The Boston Recorder, Congregationalist, in a late issue, 
 
 "If we receive people to the communion without baptism, 
 
APPENDIX. 87 
 
 we shall practically treat baptism as a nullity, and contribute 
 to its being wholly abandoned." 
 
 "If our Baptist brethren," said Dr. Beecher, "are right 
 on the mode and the subjects of baptism, they are right on 
 the question of communion." 
 
 Kev. F. G. Hibbard, of the Genessee Conference, in a 
 "Treatise on Infant Baptism," published "for the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church," remarks: 
 
 "The Baptists, in passing the sweeping sentence of dis- 
 franchisement upon all other Christian churches, have only 
 acted upon a principle held in common with all other Chris- 
 tian churches, viz., that baptism is essential to church mem- 
 bership. * * * * Of course they must be their own 
 judges as to what baptism is. It is evident that, according 
 to our views of baptism, we can admit them to our com- 
 munion ; but with their views of baptism, it is equally evi- 
 dent, they can never reciprocate the courtesy. And the 
 charge of close communion is no more applicable to the Bap- 
 tists than to us, inasmuch as the question of church fellow- 
 ship with them is determined by as liberal principles as it is 
 with any other Protestant churches, so far, I mean, as the 
 present subject is concerned — i. e., it is determined by valid 
 baptism. * - * * . * They [Open Communion Baptists] 
 have held to exclusive immersion, and at the same time have 
 held to Catholic communion, or communion with persons 
 who have not been immersed — an anomaly and absurdity 
 that present a singular contrast with the characteristic sym- 
 metry of Christian theology. * * * * It is far less 
 responsible, in our estimation, to hold that baptism may be 
 administered by sprinkling or pouring, than to hold fellow- 
 ship, at the Lord's table, with persons we do not believe 
 have received Christian baptism." — Page 174. 
 
88 APPENDIX. 
 
 Such utterances as these — and the number might be mul- 
 tiplied — are honorable exceptions to the general rule. Let 
 our Pedo-baptist brethren generally exhibit a like spirit of 
 candor; let them cease to reproach us for not doing what 
 they themselves would scorn to do; let them, instead of 
 denouncing us as illiberal and bigoted, admit that we are 
 consistent, but wrong in reference to baptism ; let them show 
 that we are illiterate, by demonstrating that baptizo, in 
 Greek, means to pour and to sprinkle, as well as to immerse — 
 that all lexicographers, ancient and modern, are wrong in 
 not thus defining the word — that Calvin, and Luther, and 
 Beza, and Melancthon, and Doddridge, and Chalmers, were 
 mistaken in supposing that Christ was immersed in the Jor- 
 dan, and that the apostles immersed their disciples; let them 
 show us scriptural authority — either precept or example — 
 for baptizing infants on the faith of parent or sponsor; let 
 them endeavor to convince us that we are in error, either 
 from misrepresenting the Holy Scriptures or in receiving 
 them as our only rule of faith and practice; let them thus, 
 in the spirit of their Master, address themselves to the task 
 of reclaiming us from the error of our ways, and they will 
 command our respect, even if they should fail to convince 
 our judgments. 
 
 It by no means follows, however, that Baptists could com- 
 mune with Pedo-baptist churches, even if they should be 
 persuaded that infant sprinkling is valid baptism. Baptist 
 churches would withhold church fellowship from any Bap- 
 tist church that should set aside and ignore, or ascribe saving 
 efficacy to either Baptism or the Lord's Supper. Should 
 any Baptist church tolerate in its members a persistent 
 refusal to observe the Lord's Supper, or a persistent refusal 
 to permit their believing children to be baptized until they 
 
APPENDIX. 89 
 
 should have arrived at a specified age, such a church would 
 thereby forfeit all claim to be regarded by other Baptist 
 churches as in good standing in the denomination, and would 
 be treated accordingly. But Pedo-baptist churches do toler- 
 ate in their members these very things. In their confes- 
 sions of faith they affirm that infant baptism is an ordinance 
 of the New Testament, ordained by Jesus Christ; and yet 
 they permit their members to treat it as if it were a human 
 invention — to trample it under their feet as they would the 
 sacrament of "Extreme Unction" or the "Mass." The 
 Presbyterian Church, though solemnly affirming, in its 
 "Confession of Faith," that "baptism is a sacrament of the 
 New Testament, ordained by Jesus Christ," and "by Christ's 
 own appointment, to be continued in his church until the 
 end of the world," and that "the infants of one or both 
 believing parents are to be baptized," and that it is "a great 
 sin to contemn or neglect this ordinance," does tolerate in 
 its membership those who both contemn and neglect it. 
 Whatever may have been their practice half a century ago, 
 they do not now exclude members for the "great sin" of 
 neglecting or refusing to have their infants baptized. And 
 could Baptists consistently exercise less "charity" towards 
 their own than towards Presbyterian churches? 
 
 Again. Should any Baptist church establish a rule re- 
 quiring its members, or any portion of them, to defer com- 
 munion until a specified number of years after their baptism, 
 such a church would be regarded, by other Baptist churches, 
 as subverting the order of God's house, and would be treated 
 as a disorderly church ; and, should said church persist in 
 enforcing the rule, the certain result would be the with- 
 holding of church fellowship from it by all regular Baptist 
 ehurehes. 
 
90 APPENDIX. 
 
 But Presbyterians, Methodists, Congregationalists, and 
 Episcopalians, do this when they require their baptized 
 members to abstain from the communion until they are old 
 enough "to discern the Lord's Supper" — that is, until they 
 can understand the significance of the ordinance. Why not 
 withhold baptism also, until the subject is old enough to 
 understand its significance? Infant baptism and infant 
 communion were not thus severed from each other in the 
 earliest history of infant church membership. 
 
 Suppose, again, a Baptist church should receive applicants 
 for membership on a sort of probation for six months; 
 should, during this period, admit them to the communion of 
 the church, as a means of grace; and at the expiration of 
 the six month, should admit them, by baptism, to full mem- 
 bership, without satisfactory evidence of conversion; could 
 regular Baptist churches consistently fellowship such a 
 church? Surely not. With what propriety, then, can Bap- 
 tist churches extend to Methodist churches an invitation to 
 the Lord's Supper, whilst, at the same time, they refuse to 
 commune with a Baptist church for practicing a Methodist 
 custom? Baptist churches are independent, acknowledging 
 allegiance to no earthly tribunal, and claiming no ecclesi- 
 astical power, singly or associationally, to prescribe rules 
 for each other. As the members of a single church with- 
 hold church fellowship from one of their own number whilst 
 not in "good standing," and suspend him from church privi- 
 leges until restored, so they refuse to commune with any 
 church whose faith or whose organization is essentially 
 unevangelical. The system of probationary membership 
 in the Methodist Church is thus commented upon by 
 the Bev. Dr. Pierce of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
 South : 
 
APPENDIX. 91 
 
 "If things are to continue as they now are, we must 
 cease to receive seekers into the probationary membership 
 of the church. Else we will accumulate such a mass of 
 members, without the benefits of spiritual regeneration, as 
 to bury the spiritual power of our once pure form of godli- 
 ness under a mass of attractive formalism, which will make 
 Methodism a gorgeous exhibition of mere outward cere- 
 monies." 
 
 It is charged by our opponents that we confine the com- 
 munion to Baptist churches. This is not true. The usual 
 formula of invitation — if any invitation be extended — is 
 this: "All members in good standing in churches of tho 
 same faith and order with us, are invited to seats with us at 
 the Lord's table." This invitation embraces all churches, 
 of whatever name, that are of the same faith and order with 
 Baptist churches. If the Congregational churches would 
 cease to practice, what they do not require — viz., affusion 
 and infant baptism — and recognize the immersion of believers 
 as the only scriptural and valid baptism, the terms of our 
 formula of invitation would include them, and they would 
 still be "Congregational" churches. As they now are, we 
 regard their faith as evangelical; but their admission of 
 infants to church membership places them beyond the scope 
 of our invitation. The same may be said, perhaps, of the 
 faith held by the Presbyterian and the Methodist churches ; 
 but their unscriptural forms of church government, as well 
 as their infant membership and their substitution of sprink- 
 ling for baptism, exclude them from the terms of the invita- 
 tion to the Lord's table, as extended by Baptist churches. 
 On the other hand, the faith of the Reformed or "Chris- 
 tian" churches — that the penitent believer is "not saved by 
 faith, but by an net of faith, immersion into the Father, and 
 
92 APPENDIX. 
 
 the Son, and the Holy Spirit — excludes them from our 
 communion, though they practice, as we do, only adult im- 
 mersion for the Christian baptism. 
 
 Has it never occurred to our Presbyterian brethren that 
 they act inconsistently in communing with Baptist churches? 
 If they do not regard communion as a test of Christian fel- 
 lowship, as they certainly do not, how can they recognize as 
 evangelical a church that is guilty of the "great sin" of 
 "contemning and neglecting" infant baptism, which their 
 Confession of Faith (p. 144) affirms to be "a sacrament of the 
 New Testament, ordained by Jesus Christ — which sacra- 
 ment is, by Christ's own appointment, to be continued in his 
 church until the end of the world?" Would they invite to 
 their communion a denomination of professed Christians that 
 should wholly neglect the observance, among themselves, of 
 the sacrament of the Supper? However orthodox, in other 
 respects, such a church might be, would our Presbyterian 
 brethren regard and treat it as a gospel church whilst it per- 
 sistently refused to permit a sacrament of Christ's church to 
 be observed within its own body? If not, how can they 
 consistently or conscientiously regard and treat Baptist 
 churches as evangelical, whilst the latter "contemn and 
 neglect," and repudiate as a human invention, a solemn ordi- 
 nance of the New Testament "ordained by Jesus Christ?" 
 Or, does immersion wash from the garments of Baptist 
 parents the stain of this "great sin" which affusion can not 
 remove from the garments of Pedo-baptist parents? Or, can 
 it bo that, in spite of the solemn avowals of their Confessions 
 of Faith, their Catechisms, and their Disciplines, the "mem- 
 bership" of Pedo-baptist churches have so little faith in the 
 divine appointment of the "sacrament" of infant baptism, 
 and are, consequently, so blinded to the "great gin" of 
 
APPENDIX. 98 
 
 "neglecting" it, that their ecclesiastical judicatories dare not 
 enforce its observance? 
 
 The history of American Pedo -baptist churches (tho 
 Episcopal, perhaps, excepted) indicates an alarming deca- 
 dence from the elevated position occupied by them, on this 
 subject, fifty years ago. Then the Christian parent who 
 persistently refused to bring his infant children to the "bap- 
 tismal font" of his church was excluded from its communion ; 
 and the pastor who did not see to it, that all the lambs of his 
 flock were seasonably brought into the fold by baptism, 
 where, "by the right use of this ordinance, the grace pro- 
 mised is not only offered, but really exhibited and conferred 
 by the Holy Ghost, to such (whether of age or infants) as 
 that grace belongeth unto," was deemed unworthy of the 
 sacred office of a bishop of the church of Christ. 
 
 A Boston correspondent of the Jonrnal of Commerce thus 
 wrote in 1855: 
 
 "In one of the oldest churches in this State there had not 
 been, a few years since, an instance of infant baptism for the 
 seven preceding years. Last year there were seventy Con- 
 gregational churches rn New Hampshire that reported no 
 infant baptism. This year, ninety-six churches, or about one 
 half in the State, report none. If this indifference continues, 
 the ordinance will become extinct in the Congregational 
 churches." 
 
 The New York Independent, edited by an association of 
 Congregational clergymen, thus complains of the neglect of 
 this "sacrament" among their churches in New York: 
 
 "In some cases it is affirmed that this neglect has spread 
 so widely, and has become so habitual in the absence of a 
 pastor, or through his tacit consent to the omission, that the 
 instances of baptism among the children of church mambera 
 
94 APPENDIX. 
 
 are the exception rather than the general rule, and that the 
 efforts to revive it meet with coolness or opposition. The 
 members of such churches doubt the propriety of adminis- 
 tering the ordinance to any but adults, and in their own 
 practice conform to their convictions." 
 
 The confidence of our Pedo -baptist brethren in sprinkling 
 for baptism, is, in like manner, becoming weaker and weaker, 
 and baptisteries are beginning to be required in some of 
 their churches for the accommodation of the increasing num- 
 ber of applicants for immersion among them. But as there 
 is no conceivable reason why one who regards sprinkling as 
 scriptural baptism, should prefer immersion, the current his- 
 tory of American Pedo-baptist churches unmistakably indi- 
 cates a gradual but certain progress towards Baptist views 
 and practice in reference to the "mode" as well as to the 
 subjects of Christian baptism. The barriers to open com- 
 munion are thus being removed by their own hands ; and we 
 are encouraged to hope that the period is not far distant, 
 when all Christians will be seen standing, side by side, on 
 the Bible platform — one Lord, one faith, one baptism. 
 
 Among the Baptist churches of the United States, but 
 very few practice open communion — in Kentucky, probably 
 not one. In the British American provinces open com- 
 munion, until recently, was, perhaps, the general rule among 
 Baptist churches. But the pernicious effects of this unscrip- 
 tural practice has become so obvious, that the utter extinc- 
 tion of Baptist principles was foreseen to be the inevitable 
 result of its continuance; and our Baptist brethren there 
 have returned to the scriptural rule, and they are now expe- 
 riencing its conservative and vitalizing power. A corres- 
 pondent of the Christian Watchman, writing from Montreal, 
 »ay»: 
 
APPENDIX. 95 
 
 "In Canada we have been dreadfully troubled with this 
 vexed subject, and our experience ought to warn the Baptist 
 churches in the States to have nothing to do with open com- 
 munion, for if they do, assuredly their power and the influ- 
 ence of their testimony in favor of the New Testament 
 teaching on the subject of the ordinances will be greatly 
 weakened. We are getting rid of it in Canada; though 
 originally many of the churches were established upon this 
 baneful principle, yet its evil effects have been so manifest, 
 that there is only one Open Communion Baptist church 
 east of Kingston, and one or two west of it, and none of 
 them in a very flourishing condition." 
 
HISTORY 
 
 INFANT BAPTISM, 
 
 REV. J. L. WALLER, LL.D. 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 A History of Infant Baptism, designed as a defence of 
 the rite, was put forth early in the last century, by William 
 Wall, Vicar of Shoreham, Kent, in England. This work 
 has obtained great celebrity j and its author received the 
 thanks of the clergy of England in convocation assembled, 
 and also the honor of Doctor of Divinity's degree from the 
 University of Oxford — so many were the obligations under 
 which the Pedo-baptists felt themselves laid by his defence 
 of their favorite doctrine ! No Baptist has ever undertaken 
 a history of the same subject. For some years past our 
 reading has led us to the investigation of the rise and spread 
 of Infant Baptism, and we have been called upon by breth- 
 ren in diiferent quarters of the United States to prepare its 
 history. This we propose now to do, in a review of Dr. 
 Wall's History of Infant Baptism; traversing his grounds 
 and examining his conclusions, and also presenting other 
 
 proofs and arguments calculated to lead the mind to a pro- 
 
 9 
 
2 HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 per appreciation of the subject, and of the great issues 
 involved in its adjustment. 
 
 Infant Baptism is intimately associated with interests of 
 vital importance to the purity, harmony, and efficiency of 
 the Redeemer's kingdom, and to the dearest and most sacred 
 rights and privileges of man. By it millions of the human 
 family every year are initiated into churches and made vas- 
 sals to systems and establishments without their knowledge 
 and consent. By this rite, all the national churches of the 
 world have been sustained; and it is the means by which the 
 Pope of Borne has marked and claimed as his subjects and 
 slaves the millions that have composed his dominions. If 
 Infant Baptism be all that is claimed for it by the great 
 majority of its advocates, then the visible church of Christ is 
 no longer a "congregation of faithful men." It ceases to 
 be "a voluntary society of men, joining themselves together 
 of their own accord, in order to the public worshipping of 
 God, in such manner as they judge most acceptable to him, 
 and effectual to the salvation of their souls." Infant Bap- 
 tism teaches that individuals are born members of the 
 church! Beligious privileges are claimed to be hereditary, 
 descending by the sanctions of divine law from parents to 
 their children; and, consequently, that membership and all 
 the rights in the house of God are inherited by children as 
 they inherit temporal estates! Dr. Miller, in his work on 
 Baptism, published by the Presbyterian Tract and Sunday- 
 School Society, says: 
 
 "Can it be, my friends, that when the stem is in the 
 church, the branch is out of it? Can it be that when the 
 parent is in the visible kingdom of the Redeemer, his off- 
 spring, bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, have no con- 
 nection with it? It is not eo in any other society that the 
 
HISTORY OF INFANT BArTISM. 3 
 
 great moral Governor of the world ever formed. It is not so 
 in civil society. Children are born citizens of the State in 
 which their parents resided at the time of their birth. In 
 virtue of their birth they are plenary citizens, bound by all 
 the duties, and entitled to all the privileges of that relation, 
 whenever they become capable of exercising them. From 
 these duties they can not be liberated. Of these privileges 
 they can not be deprived, but by the commission of crime. 
 But why should this great principle be set aside in the 
 church of God? Surely it is not less obvious or less power- 
 ful in grace than in nature. The analogies which pervade 
 all the works and dispensations of God are too uniform and 
 striking to be disregarded in an inquiry like the present." — 
 Page 8. 
 
 Moral character, then, has nothing to do necessarily with 
 the pre-requisites of citizenship in the gospel kingdom; and 
 hence, at this hour, according to Infant Baptism, almost all 
 the inhabitants of the civilized world are actual members of 
 the visible church of Christ! 
 
 This rite, too, is supposed to confer far greater and more 
 enduring blessings than mere membership in the church 
 militant. The great majority of Pedo-baptists contend, that 
 infants dying unbaptized will be driven away into everlast- 
 ing punishment — that by baptism their souls are regenerated 
 and their sins forgiven ! Hence in some of the nominal 
 Christian nations, it is a penal offence against the State for 
 parents to neglect the baptism of their children. In others, 
 it is made the duty of the magistrate to take by force of 
 arms, and to have baptism administered to, the children of 
 such parents as conscientiously believe this rite to be a 
 human invention. A great number of persons have been 
 put to death for opposing Infant Baptism ; and everywhere, 
 
4 HI8T0RY OF INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 by the great mass of professing Christians, the Baptists are 
 regarded as wickedly callous to the spiritual interests of their 
 offspring, and for many ages they were esteemed as unworthy 
 of life, and were pursued and persecuted as monsters of 
 impiety; and even now, on the continent of Europe, they 
 are suffering imprisonment and confiscation of goods — 
 inflicted by Protestants! The baptism of an adult is rarely, 
 if ever, performed by the majority of those who profess to 
 have received a commission from the Lord to disciple and 
 baptize the nations. Comparatively few persons are now bap- 
 tized upon their own profession of faith; the overwhelming 
 mass are baptized in infancy. 
 
 For the reason of these opinions and practices, we look in 
 vain to the Scriptures. In them, the church of the Redeemer 
 stands exalted by the moral grandeur of its membership and 
 the benign spirit of its principles. How, then, became the 
 beauty of the gospel so marred? This question history alone 
 can answer; and the annals of Infant Baptism, written in 
 lines of blood and folly, will reveal many of the mournful 
 causes of those corruptions, and superstitions, and persecu- 
 tions, which have brought reproach upon the name and now 
 hinder the triumphs of our holy religion. History will 
 vindicate the Bible from the suspicion of giving birth to the 
 abominations, practical and theoretical, which we have men- 
 tioned, and demonstrate that they are the hideous production 
 of ignorance and error, of darkness and perdition. 
 
 Let us not be suspected of ascribing the sentiments and 
 practices alluded to above to all the adherents of Infant 
 Baptism. Far from it. There are whole denominations 
 who baptize infants, but who loathe and detest many of 
 these things, looking upon them with a contempt as sovereign 
 and supreme as our own. But among such, Infant Baptism 
 
HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM. 5 
 
 is little else than the Bolemn sprinkling of water in children's 
 faces in the name of the Trinity. Trne, they call it dedica- 
 tion to God, giving the seal of the covenant, and by other 
 pompous and high sounding appellations, which mean very 
 little, if any thing at all, when fully explained, and are cal- 
 culated rather to provoke a smile than any serious remark. 
 These denominations do not believe that baptism regenerates 
 infants, or in any way improves their moral condition, and 
 the most they can plead in behalf of the rite is, that it can 
 do no harm, or, that it binds parents to train their children 
 in the nurture and admonition of the Lord; as if that were 
 not an obligation independent of all ceremonial observances, 
 as binding from the birth of the first infant to the present 
 time, as it was possible to be made by the cords of parental 
 affection and the mandate of the Almighty — as if Baptists 
 were not as much bound by the requisition, and could not 
 as well observe it, as the Pedo-baptists! But history proves 
 that this system of Infant Baptism is a novelty, that its advo- 
 cates are few and comparatively modern ; and that except in 
 the naked article, that infants should be baptized, this system 
 can claim but little affinity, as it bears scarcely any resem- 
 blance, to that great tree of Infant Baptism whose roots have 
 been striking downwards for centuries, and whose branches 
 have shut out from nations the sunlight of the gospel. We 
 are to judge of Infant Baptism, not by its exceptions — by 
 the few who are entitled to some degree of credit for decency 
 and propriety of sentiment in their reasons for its adminis- 
 tration — but by the mass of its defenders; and especially 
 ought its merits to be determined by reference to those ages 
 and countries where it flourished almost without an oppo- 
 nent in all the pride of its strength. 
 
 An argument for the truth of Infant Baptism has been 
 
6 HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 derived by Dr. Wall from its general prevalence ; and a dis- 
 tinguished advocate of the system has recently said, that 
 "this rite has commanded the firm belief of almost the 
 whole of Christendom in all ages; not of the ignorant and 
 superstitious only or chiefly, but of the wise and good — of 
 those who have taken the Bible as their only infallible rule 
 of faith and practice. The overwhelming mass of those who 
 have diligently sought to know their duty, as connected with 
 this interesting subject, have understood the Scriptures to 
 teach, that the children of believing parents ought to be 
 baptized. The exceptions to this are less than one to a 
 thousand. The opposers of this doctrine, compared even 
 with Protestant Christendom, are a mere handful. Now, if 
 the Bible be a plain book, easily to be understood on all 
 important points, how could the great majority of Bible 
 readers believe that it taught what it does not? How unac- 
 countable has been the infatuation of almost the whole 
 Christian world, on the supposition that this doctrine is false 
 and absurd."* 
 
 Whenever it is fairly shown that a doctrine has always 
 and everywhere been received as scriptural by the mass of 
 pious, intelligent, and careful readers of the Bible, we 
 frankly confess that it presents to our mind a most powerful 
 presumption of its truth; and whether adduced by Papist 
 or Protestant, we feel no disposition to disparage its force. 
 The Bible was given to be read and understood by men, 
 which would not be true if the great majority of its most 
 careful and critical readers — unswayed by other motives 
 than to learn what it teaches and to obey what it enjoins — 
 were wholly to mistake its requisitions in relation to one of 
 the most important ordinances of the gospel. If it were 
 • Dr. Rice, in his Debate with Mr. Campbell. 
 
niSTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM. 7 
 
 made to appear, then, that there has been perfect unanimity 
 among the Pedo-baptists, present and past, in their affirma- 
 tions respecting the Bible authority for Infant Baptism; or 
 even if it were shown, that there had been a general concur- 
 rence of views among them on this subject, we should regard 
 their cause as presenting a most formidable front to the 
 boldest opponent, and, for one, we should almost tremble to 
 raise a finger against it. 
 
 But have the Pedo-baptists uttered one voice in relation 
 to Infant Baptism? Have they all testified the same things? 
 Have their declarations respecting the scriptural warrant for 
 their practice been uncontradictory and harmonious? No — 
 emphatically, NO ! God has confounded the language of the 
 builders of this moral Babel, and every variety of speech — 
 confused, discordant, and contradictory — has been uttered 
 upon the subject. Some of them say, that Infant Baptism 
 is taught in the Bible; others, that it is not, that tradition 
 teaches it. Those who contend that the Scriptures authorize 
 it, can not agree where the passages in its favor are to be 
 found; and if we take all their statements in the case equally 
 worthy of credit, then all the authority for it in the word of 
 God, is a vagrant warrant, constantly wandering from place 
 to place in the Bible, and never to be overtaken by turning 
 over its leaves ! No Pedo-baptist has ever adduced a pas- 
 sage sufficiently obvious to satisfy the consciences of his 
 brethren. Every text of Scripture ever brought to prove 
 this doctrine, has been shown by Pedo-baptists themselves 
 not to prove it at all ! We challenge the production of 
 one exception. With their own hands they have pulled 
 down their own temple, not leaving one stone upon another. 
 They have torn up its very foundations. Indeed, until the 
 days of the great Genevan Reformer, the Pedo-baptists with 
 
8 HISTORY OP 1NPANT BAPTISM. 
 
 united voice testified, that the Scriptures required a profes- 
 sion of faith and repentance of every candidate of baptism; 
 and not even the most helpless infant was admitted to the 
 ordinance without a solemn renunciation of the world and 
 avowal of faith in Jesus Christ, made by it through its spon- 
 sors. If the testimony of the religious world, therefore, 
 proves any thing, it proves that the Bible teaches, that pro- 
 fessed believers are the only proper subjects of baptism. So 
 the great mass of Christians do now and have ever declared. 
 This was a point undisputed, until the days of John Calvin. 
 The advocates of Infant Baptism find great difficulty in 
 fixing upon the period of its commencement. It is a matter 
 on which a great diversity of sentiment exists. They agree 
 only in affirming, that the point of time when the founda- 
 tions of this system were laid is to be found somewhere in 
 the long lapse of ages intervening between the call of Abra- 
 ham out of Ur of the Chaldees, and the third century of the 
 Christian era, when certain Africans were laboring to engraft 
 upon the institutions of the New Testament the wildest 
 vagaries of superstition. All Pedo-baptists agree that bap- 
 tism is a sacrament of the New Testament, ordained by Jesus 
 Christ; yet not one of them pretends that the most eagle 
 optics with which any man was ever blessed, are adequate to 
 the perception of Infant Baptism in the writings of the 
 apostles and evangelists, if these writings be examined with- 
 out extraneous helps. They are constrained to confess that 
 infants and baptism are distinct words, no where joined 
 together in the New Testament. God has put them 
 asunder. Hence the most lynx-eyed Pedo-baptists have to 
 obtain lights outside of the New Testament to enable them 
 to perceive even an apparition of their doctrine on its sacred 
 pages. Some obtain their lights on this, and some on the 
 
HISTORY OP INFANT BAPTISM. 9 
 
 other side of the apostolic age. One party tells us that 
 Infant Baptism was general in the third, or at least in the 
 fourth century; that history gives no account of its origin 
 this side of the apostles; and, therefore, it must be taught 
 in the New Testament! But another party, aware that this 
 is enchanted ground, and conscious if such reasoning be 
 admitted, it would clothe with divine sanction all the most 
 important mummeries and inventions of the papacy, utterly 
 reject it; and passing nearly nineteen centuries beyond the 
 apostles, on the plains of Mamre, they create such a flood of 
 refulgence in favor of their doctrine out of the command of 
 God to Abraham in relation to circumcision, as to feel that 
 they need no light whatever from the New Testament. 
 Hence they not only admit the silence of the New Testa- 
 ment, but rejoice in that silence! Dr. Miller, in the tract 
 before cited, says: "Instead of our Baptist brethren having 
 a right to call upon us to find a direct warrant in the New 
 Testament, in favor of infant membership, we have a right 
 to call upon them to produce a direct warrant for the great 
 and sudden change which they allege took place. If it be, 
 as they say, that the New Testament is silent on this sub- 
 ject, this very silence is quite sufficient to destroy their 
 cause, and to establish ours."* How wonderful the ear that 
 catches the sounds of silence! How sweet to one blessed 
 with such a rare possession, must be the music of stillness, 
 echoed by the hills of nonentity! To such persons, of 
 course, the silence of the New Testament is as the voice of 
 many waters in favor of Infant Baptism ! 
 
 But Dr. Wall seemed to think that the days of Abraham 
 were too remote to suit the exigencies of Infant Baptism. 
 He and a host with him appear to be of opinion, that rays 
 * Page 35. 
 
10 HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 emitted from such a distance fall too feebly upon the New 
 Testament to impart much light or heat to their favorite 
 system. Hence they travel down the pathway of centuries, 
 and fix upon an indefinite point of time subsequent to 
 Moses and anterior to the Messiah's advent, when some one 
 first perpetrated the folly and wickedness of baptizing a 
 proselyte to the Jewish religion; and by means of this 
 human invention, they fancy that they are able to see Infant 
 Baptism practised by John the Baptist, the apostles, and all 
 primitive ministers, and from them spreading out over all 
 nations, through all generations, to the present time! But 
 this theory has one capital defect at least — it has 710 founda- 
 tion! Proselyte baptism, before the days of Messiah, did 
 not exist. But more of this hereafter. In this practice, 
 according to Dr. Wall, was laid the foundation of Infant 
 Baptism. With that, then, is our first business; and we arc 
 content to commence the history of Infant Baptism with it, 
 and leave the issue with the candid of every persuasion. 
 
HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM. 11 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Scriptures say nothing of Infant Baptism — The Commission of Christ the law of 
 Baptism — That the question turns upon this law, confessed by Dr. Wall — Dr. 
 Wall concedes that from the Bible alone we can not learn Infant Baptism — Derives 
 it from Jewish proselyte baptism — The nature of that baptism — Dr. Wall's argu- 
 ment upon it — Predicates Infant Baptism on a Jewish custom and not on the Com- 
 mission — His illustration by substituting circumcision shown to be illogical — 
 Jewish proselyte baptism could not prove Infant Baptism, even if it existed — Proved 
 not to have existed in the days of the Savior's incarnation — The writers adduced as 
 witnesses not worthy of credit on such a point — Eminent Pedo-baptists deny the 
 existence of such a custom — Prof. Stuart and Dr. Owen quoted as denying it. 
 
 * 
 
 The historian of Infant Baptism can gather no materials 
 for his subject from the New Testament. That rite has the 
 sanction of neither precept nor example in the writings of 
 the evangelists and apostles. The gloom and the silence of 
 the grave brood over it. This is confessed on all hands, as 
 might be shown from the writings of the most distinguished 
 Pedo-baptists. But we discard the concessions of opponents 
 on such a question. This is a point which every one can 
 settle for himself. The Bible is in the hands of the people ; 
 they can examine and see that not one word is said about 
 the baptism of infants in all the Scriptures. Every minis- 
 ter who gives this rite to unconscious babes professes to act 
 by the authority of the great commission — "Go ye there- 
 fore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the 
 name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: 
 teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have com- 
 manded you; and lo, I am with you always, even unto the 
 end of the world." Mat. xxviii. 19, 20. This passage is 
 
12 HISTORY OP INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 all the authority in the Scriptures for the use of the solemn 
 and awful name of the Trinity in baptism, and all who bap- 
 tize infants use this name in their ministration. The true 
 question is, Does this commission authorize the baptism of 
 infants? If it does not, the minister who baptizes an infant 
 in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
 Spirit, acts without divine warrant, and performs as much 
 an act of will-worship as if he baptized a bell in this name. 
 But if this commission does warrant Infant Baptism, then 
 the inference may legitimately be drawn that it was practiced 
 by the apostles and their co-laborers, although no instance 
 of their having done so may be upon record. The commis- 
 sion, then, must settle the controversy. 
 
 Dr. Wall so understands the matter; and hence his first 
 business is to show that the commission allows Infant Bap- 
 tism. This he attempts to infer from Jewish proselyte bap- 
 tism. He admits that the commission, independent of 
 extraneous proof — of proof derived outside of the Bible — 
 does not favor Infant Baptism. In his Preface, he says : 
 
 "Forasmuch as the commission given by our Savior to his 
 disciples, in the time of his mortal life, to baptize in the 
 country of Judea, is not at all set down in Scripture; only 
 it is said, that they baptized a great many, and the enlarge- 
 ment of that commission given them afterwards, Mat. xxviii. 
 19, to perform the same office among all the heathen nations, 
 is set down in such brief words, that there is no particular 
 direction given what they were to do in reference to the 
 children of those that received the faith ; and among all the 
 persons that are recorded as baptized by the apostles, there 
 is no express mention of any infant; nor is there, on tbe 
 other side, any account of any Christians child, whose bap- 
 tism was put off until he was grown up, or who was baptized 
 
HISTORY OF INFANT BATTISM. 13 
 
 at man's age : (for all the persons that are mentioned in Scrip- 
 ture to have been baptized, were the children of heathens, or 
 else of Jews, who did not believe in Christ at that time when 
 those their children were born :) and since the proofs drawn by 
 consequences from some places of Scripture, for any one side 
 of this question, are not so plain as to hinder the arguments 
 drawn from other places for the other side, from seeming 
 still considerable to those that have no help from the history 
 of the Scripture times for the better understanding of the 
 rules of Scripture; it is no wonder that the readers of Scrip- 
 ture, at this distance from the apostles' times, have fallen 
 into contrary sentiments about the meaning of our Savior's 
 command, and the practice of the apostles in reference to the 
 baptizing of infants."* 
 
 Here it is conceded, that the commission furnishes no 
 authority for Infant Baptism, and that if we were to derive 
 proof alone from the Scriptures, the baptism of infants could 
 not be established; and hence Dr. Wall urges the necessity. 
 of seeking other lights in order to ascertain the mind of the 
 Spirit on this subject. In his Introduction, he says: 
 
 "Now our Savior's law concerning baptizing all the 
 nations, is, as I showed in the preface, set down in Scripture 
 in very short and general words; and many people of later 
 times have doubted whether it is to be understood to reach 
 to the baptizing of infants or only of adult persons. All 
 that have any doubt, ought to learn, as well as they can, what 
 was the state of the Jewish religion as to baptism, at and 
 before that time when our Savior gave his order for baptizing 
 all the nations ; and what we must suppose the apostles did 
 of themselves already know concerning its being proper or 
 improper for infants, which it might not be so needful for 
 
 * Pp. 29, 30. 
 
li HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 our Savior to express in his new direction to them. And 
 also they ought to learn as well as they can, how the first 
 Christians did practice in this matter ; whether they baptized 
 their infants or not."* 
 
 With respect to the practice of professed Christians subse- 
 quent to the apostolic age, we make no remark at present: 
 that will receive attention in due time. The existence of bap- 
 tism among the Jews prior to and at the time of John and 
 and of Jesus, and independent of them, is the matter now in 
 hand. If that furnishes no aid in our interpretation of the 
 commission, then this resource of Infant Baptism is cut off, 
 and the whole scheme, according to Dr. Wall, must crumble 
 to dust. Dr. Wall asserts, and attempts to prove, that long 
 before John came baptizing, a custom prevailed among the 
 Jews of baptizing proselytes. That is, when one from the 
 heathen wished to profess the Jewish religion, if a male, he 
 was initiated by circumcision, immersion, and bringing a 
 sacrifice ; if a female, by immersion and bringing a sacrifice. 
 The rule in relation to infants was: "Any male child of 
 such a proselyte, that was under the age of thirteen years 
 and a day, and females that were under twelve years and a 
 day, they baptized as infants at the request and by the assent 
 of the father or the authority of the court; because such a 
 one was not yet the son of assent, as they phrase it — i. e., not 
 capable to give assent for himself, but the thing is for his 
 good. If they were above that age, they consented for them- 
 selves." f 
 
 From this custom, Dr. Wall argues as follows: 
 " Now this gives great light for the better understanding 
 the meaning of our Savior, when he bids his apostles 'go and 
 disciple all the nations, and baptize them.' For when a 
 
 * Pp. 2, 3. f Introduction, p. 17. 
 
HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM. 15 
 
 commission is given in such short words, and there is no 
 express direction what they shall do with the infants of those 
 who become proselytes, the natural and obvious interpreta- 
 tion is, that they must do in that matter as they and the 
 church in which they lived always used to do. 
 
 "As now at this time, if an island or country of heathens 
 be discovered, and a minister be sent out to them by the 
 bishops of the church of England, who should say, 'Go and 
 convert such a nation, and baptize them;' he would know, 
 without asking any question, that he must baptize the 
 infants of those who, being converted, offered them to bap- 
 tism; because he knows that to be the meaning and the 
 custom of that church or bishop by which he is sent. And, 
 on the contrary, if any one were sent from a church or con- 
 gregation of anti-Pedo-baptists, with a commission of the 
 same words, 'Go and convert such a nation, and baptize 
 them ; ' he would take it for granted that he must baptize 
 none of their infants, because he knows that to be contrary 
 to the meaning and custom of the church that sends him."* 
 
 This concedes that infants could not be baptized by the 
 commission, but by the custom which existed when the com- 
 mission was given. The commission itself requires that dis- 
 ciples should be baptized, and, of course, not infants; so, by 
 the commission alone no one would baptize infants. And 
 Dr. "Wall represents that those who bear this commission, 
 obtain authority for Infant Baptism not from it, but from 
 the custom. Hence, he argues, that a missionary of the 
 Church of England, sent out by this commission, would bap- 
 tize infants, not because the commission told him to do so, 
 but because the custom of his church required it. The 
 apostles, then, by a law to baptize disciples, did not baptize 
 * Introduction, pp. 21, 22. 
 
16 HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 infants. It" they baptized infanta at all, they derived author- 
 ity not from the law of the Savior but from a tradition of the 
 Jews. This is Dr. Wall's position. Infant Baptism is 
 derived from a Jewish custom, and not from the commission 
 to baptize. It is not of heaven, but of men. 
 
 Dr. Wall further argues: 
 
 "But if they would put this case: suppose our Savior had 
 bid the apostles go and disciple all the nations, and (instead 
 of baptizing, had said) eircumcise them; an anti-Pedo-baptist 
 will grant, in that case, without any more words, that the 
 apostles must have circumcised the infants of the nations as 
 well as the grown men, though there had been no express 
 mention of infants in the commission."* 
 
 But an anti-Pedo-baptist will grant no such thing, Dr. 
 Wall. The conclusion is illogical and far-fetched. A com- 
 mand to circumcise disciples no more includes infants than a 
 command to baptize disciples. The term disciple can not be 
 made to mean an infant, by merely putting circumcise before 
 it. The man who went out under a law to circumcise dis- 
 ciples only, could never circumcise infants by that law. If 
 he circumcised infants at all, he must have done so by some 
 other law, or else wholly without law. 
 
 But granting the existence of the custom in the days of 
 John the Baptist and of Jesus, still Jewish proselyte baptism 
 bears not the slightest resemblance to Christian baptism. 
 The Almighty never gave proselyte baptism to the Jews. It 
 was a human invention — a foolish tradition — sheer will- 
 worship — an impious institution. It is nowhere intimated 
 in the Scriptures that Christian baptism was borrowed from 
 this silly and wicked tradition ; as silly and wicked as the 
 baptism of bells and the festival of the ass among the 
 * Ut supra., p. 23. 
 
HISTORY OP INFANT BAPTISM. 17 
 
 Papists. And why suppose that Jesus borrowed only the 
 baptism of infants from this superstition? Why did he not 
 adopt the whole custom? If Infant Baptism, as now prac- 
 ticed, is right by this custom without any warrant of law, 
 why any command to baptize at all? The custom could have 
 established the baptism of adults as well as of infants. And 
 why should we construe the law by this custom to favor 
 Infant Baptism merely? We should take the whole custom 
 or none. Why then baptize children born of baptized parents, 
 or whose ancestors had been baptized, seeing that this tradi- 
 tion of the Jews positively forbid their baptism? And why 
 dispense with the sacrifice required of male and female? 
 Surely these were as much parts of the custom — as sacred 
 and as obligatory — as that of the baptism of infants. 
 
 But, according to Jewish proselyte baptism, neither John 
 nor the disciples of Jesus should have baptized the Jews. 
 No Jew could receive this baptism ; it was to be administered 
 only to heathens proselyted to the Jewish religion. John 
 was sent of heaven to violate this custom, for he was sent 
 expressly to baptize Jews. The Savior, before his crucifixion, 
 sent out his disciples, and ordered them to disregard this 
 tradition, for he sent them to baptize Jews only. In his 
 great commission, he commanded Jews as well as Gentiles to 
 be baptized; thus proving by this last solemn command, as 
 he had proved in his prior conduct, that he utterly con- 
 temned this human invention — that he, and not weak and 
 superstitious Jewish rabbins, was the lawgiver in Zion. It 
 is a strange inference, then, to conclude that he expected his 
 disciples to practice Infant Baptism in obedience to a custom 
 which he had taught them constantly to violate and despise. 
 
 But there was no such custom existing when the commis- 
 sion was given. No writer within several centuries of the 
 
 10 
 
18 HISTORY OP INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 birth of the Savior mentions it. There is no allusion to it 
 in the Bible. Josephus, although a Jew, and one who wrote 
 extensively of Jewish customs, knows nothing of its exis- 
 tence. Philo makes no mention of such a custom. And on 
 such a question as this, are we to disregard the silence of 
 contemporary writers, and implicitly follow the testimony of 
 men who affirm of matters centuries after they transpired — 
 and men too who have testified to the most improbable false- 
 hoods? We will quote from Dr. Gale some matters which 
 these Jewish retailers of old wives' fables relate, with the 
 same gravity of narration that they relate proselyte baptism. 
 They relate the following story: 
 
 "David, the king, in digging the foundation, found a 
 stone laid over the mouth of a pit, on which was inscribed 
 the proper name of God; this he caused to be taken up and 
 placed in the holy of holies. And the wise men, fearing 
 lest some over-curious young men might learn this name, 
 and by the power of it cause great disturbances in the world, 
 made, by their magic art, two brazen lions, which they set at 
 the door of the holy of holies, one on the right hand and 
 the other on the left; that if any should enter in, and learn 
 this secret name, the lions, as he came out again, should, by 
 roaring, strike him with such terror and confusion, as to 
 cause him entirely to forget the name he had learned. [Now 
 Jesus] left the upper Galilee, and came privately to Jeru- 
 salem, and entering into the temple, learned the holy letters, 
 and writ the incomprehensible name on parchment; and first 
 uttering the name as a charm that he might not feel pain, he 
 cut a gash in his flesh, and put into it the parchment which 
 contained the mysterious name, and then immediately pro- 
 nouncing the name again, the flesh was perfectly healed up 
 as at first. As ho oarua out, tho brazan lions set up their 
 
HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM. 19 
 
 roar, and frightened the name quite out of his mind. Upon 
 which he went immediately without the city, and, opening 
 the flesh, took out the hidden parchment, and by these 
 means again learned the powerful name. After this, he 
 went into Bethlehem Judea, the place of his nativity, and 
 began to cry with a loud voice, &c. * * * * Upon this, 
 some asked him, saying, Show us by some sign or wonder 
 that thou art God. To whom he answered, saying, Bring 
 hither a dead body and I will raise it to life. With that 
 they fell to digging up a grave with all expedition; and 
 finding nothing but dry bones, they told him, We have found 
 here only the bones. Well, bring them here into the midst, 
 says he. And when they had brought them, he fitted every 
 bone to its place, covered them with skin, and flesh, and 
 nerves; and the body became alive, and arose and stood on 
 its feet; and the whole company saw the wonder, and was 
 amazed. * * * * Bring hither a leper, says he, and I 
 will heal him. And when they brought one to him, he in 
 like manner healed him by the incomprehensible name; 
 which when they that were with him saw, they fell down 
 before him, and worshipped him, saying, Thou art indeed the. 
 Son of God. 
 
 "One of the wise men proposed to the rest, if it may be 
 thought fit, let one of us also learn the name, and thereby 
 be enabled to do these wonders as well as he. The Sanhed- 
 rim approved the advice, and decreed, that whosoever should 
 learn the name, and thereby discover and expose Jesus, he 
 should receive a double reward in the other world. Then 
 one of the wise men, whose name was Judas, stood up, and 
 said, I will learn it. * * * * Jesus said, Does not 
 Esaias prophesy of me? and my great forefather David like- 
 wise says of me, Th* Lord $aid unto my Lord, die; and 
 
20 HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 again, Thou art my Son, this day have J begotten thee. And 
 now I will ascend to my Father who is in heaven, and I 
 will sit at his right hand ; and this will I do before your 
 faces, but thou, Judas, shalt never come there. Then Jesus 
 immediately pronouncing the mighty name, a sudden wind 
 arose and carried him into the air, where he remained 
 between heaven and earth. Judas, in like manner pro- 
 nouncing the name, was also carried up, and so they both 
 flew about in the air, to the great amazement of all specta- 
 tors. But Judas again pronouncing the name, falls on 
 Jesus, designing to cast him down headlong; while Jesus 
 also pronouncing the name, endeavored to cast down Judas, 
 and thus they continued struggling together," &c* 
 
 But enough: these silly and wicked falsehoods sufficiently 
 evince the credit due to the testimony of such writers. 
 Whatman, who honors the institutions of the gospel, will' 
 seriously plead to have attached to them a rite, the exis~ 
 tence of which rests upon the testimony of such witnesses as 
 these? 
 
 But some of the most eminent Pedo-baptist scholars and 
 divines wholly deny that proselyte baptism existed in the 
 days of John the Baptist and the Savior. Professor Stuart 
 winds up an elaborate examination of this subject by saying: 
 
 "In fine, we are destitute of any early testimony to the 
 practice of proselyte baptism, antecedently to the Christian 
 era. The original institution of admitting Jews to the 
 covenant, and stangers to the same, prescribed no other rite 
 than that of circumcision. No account of any other is found 
 in the Old Testament; none in the Apocrypha, New Testa- 
 ment, Targums of Onkelos, Jonathan, Joseph the Blind, 
 or in the work of any other Targumist, excepting pseudo- 
 * Reflections on Dr. Wall, pp. 25&-7. 
 
HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM. 21 
 
 Jonathan, whose work belongs to the seventh or eighth cen- 
 tury. No evidence is found in Philo, Josephus, or any of 
 the earlier Christian writers. How could an allusion to such 
 a rite have escaped them all, if it were as common, and as 
 much required by usage, as circumcision?"* 
 
 The great Dr. Owen says : " The opinion of some learned 
 men about the transferring of a Jewish baptismal rite (which, 
 in reality, did not then exist), by the Lord Jesus, for the 
 use of his disciples, is destitute of all probability." We 
 might quote numerous other great names; but these may 
 suffice. It is enough that the witnesses relied upon lived 
 too many centuries from the times of our Savior to testify to 
 the existence of the rite then, and that their testimony on 
 any subject is suspicious and can not impart complete satis- 
 faction as to its truth. 
 
 We have demonstrated that, admitting the existence of 
 Jewish proselyte baptism, it could establish nothing respect- 
 ing Christian baptism; and we have proved also that such a 
 rite did not exist when Christ gave his commission to his 
 apostles. So that, any way, Infant Baptism can derive no sup- 
 port from this wicked and superstitious custom. Yet without 
 this rite, according to Dr. Wall, no proof can be derived 
 from the New Testament in favor of Infant Baptism; and; 
 with it, it is equally clear, not a shadow of foundation is 
 furnished to Infant Baptism! Thus crumbles the main 
 pillar in the superstructure of the great champion and his- 
 torian of Pedo -baptism ! 
 
 * On Christian Baptism, p. 69. 
 
22 HISTORY OP INFANT BAPTISM, 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Proselyte baptism does not explain the commission — The baptism of John and of 
 Jesus unlike proselyte baptism — The Jews did not bring their infants to John to 
 be baptized — Proselyte baptism did not require the Jows to baptize their infants — 
 No proof that the Savior borrowed Mb baptism from the Jews, and the position 
 that he did, proves too much — It is confessed by Dr. Lightfoot and Dr. Wall that 
 Infant Baptism is derived from tradition, and confirmed by the "silence" of the 
 Bible — John the Baptist baptized no infants — The disciples, before the great com- 
 mission, did not baptize infants — And yet Dr. Wall relates it as history that John 
 and the disciples did baptize infants ! 
 
 It has been shown that Jewish proselyte baptism can not 
 furnish any aid in our interpretation of the commission given 
 by our Savior to disciple and baptize the nations; that the 
 Jews were not wont to baptize proselytes previous to and 
 during our Lord's incarnation; and that, granting the exis- 
 tence of such a superstitious custom, it is wholly incredible 
 to suppose that John the Baptist and the apostles borrowed 
 Infant Baptism from it, seeing they wholly disregarded it 
 by constant violation. And this custom aside, where else 
 may we derive aid to learn the import of the commission? 
 Dr. Wall answers: 
 
 "The baptism indeed of the nations by the apostles ought 
 to be regulated by the practice of John and of Christ him- 
 self (who by the hands of his disciples baptized many Jews), 
 rather than by any preceding custom of the Jewish nation ; 
 if we had any good ground to believe that they did in the 
 case of infants differ or alter anything from the usual way. 
 But we have no kind of proof that they made any such 
 
 alteration."* 
 
 * Pagt jr. 
 
HISTORY OP INFANT BAPTISM. 23 
 
 But Dr. Wall wholly failed to prove the existence of the 
 custom. And the baptism of John and of Jesus did differ 
 from Jewish proselyte baptism. By the latter, no Jew was 
 to be baptized: John baptized only Jews. The apostles, by 
 the first commission, were sent only to the lost sheep of the 
 house of Israel, and under that commission they baptized 
 only Jews. They, therefore, were sent expressly to do what, 
 by the law of proselyte baptism, could not be done, viz., to 
 baptize the Jews. John baptized a great many Jews; and 
 Jesus, by his disciples, baptized more than John. How, 
 then, could Br. Wall say, that "we have no kind of proof 
 that they made any alteration" in this custom? Bid his 
 prejudices put out the eyes of his understanding? But we 
 will proceed in the examination of his reasoning: 
 
 "There is no express mention indeed of any children bap- 
 tized by him [John] ; but to those that consider the com- 
 monness of the thing (which I have here shown) for people 
 that came to be baptized to bring their children along with 
 them, that is no more a cause to think that he baptized no 
 children, than one's minding that in the history of the Old 
 Testament there is some five hundred years together without 
 the mention of any child circumcised, is a cause to think 
 that none were circumcised all that while." * 
 
 We can readily conceive it possible that the Jews observed 
 the law of circumcision during the five hundred years alluded 
 to. God had commanded them to do so, and he has nowhere 
 charged them with disobedience in this particular. But 
 what analogy is there between such a supposition and the 
 assertion that John, who was sent of Grod to baptize, bor- 
 rowed his practice from an act of will-worship — a wicked 
 and foolish superstition? Because the Jews obeyed a divine 
 
 • Pp. 27, 28. 
 
24 HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 law, does it follow hence that the harbinger of our blessed 
 Savior observed a tradition of the Jewish elders? But we 
 have seen he did not observe it; that, even admitting its 
 existence, he habitually violated it. But Dr. W. proceeds: 
 
 "And whereas it is said of the multitudes that came to 
 John, that they were baptized by him confessing their sins 
 (which confession can be understood only of the grown per- 
 sons), that is no more than would be said in the case of a 
 minister of the Church of England — going and converting 
 a heathen nation. For in a short account which should be 
 sent of his success, it would be said that multitudes came 
 and were baptized, confessing their sins; and there would 
 need no mention of their bringing their children with them, 
 because the converting of the grown persons was the princi- 
 pal and most difficult thing, and it would be supposed they 
 brought their children of course."* 
 
 Yes, they might "suppose" they brought their children, 
 but they could find no ground for such a supposition in tho 
 language of the communication ; for it is admitted that the 
 "confession can be understood only of the grown persons." 
 The supposition would be mere idle conjecture, or at least 
 conjecture wholly independent of the letter of the minister. 
 The concession of Dr. Wall is this : that the New Testament 
 states that John baptized adults only — that he baptized 
 those who confessed their sins, "which confession can be 
 understood only of the grown persons;" and we can only 
 "suppose" he baptized infants by what the writers of Jewish 
 fables and traditions have said about proselyte baptism! 
 Adult Baptism is taught in the sacred Scriptures; Infant 
 Baptism by a doubtful tradition ! It is enough for our pur- 
 poses, that it is here confessed that we can not even "sup- 
 * Page 28. 
 
HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM. 25 
 
 pose," from any record of the New Testament, that John 
 baptized infants. If he baptized infants, it is not in proof. 
 God did not command him to baptize them; and no com- 
 petent witness, whether Jewish, Pagan, or Christian, has 
 ever testified that he did baptize them. But he quotes Dr. 
 Lightfoot as saying: 
 
 "I do not believe the people that flocked to John's bap- 
 tism were so forgetful of the manner and custom of the 
 nation, as not to bring their little children along with them 
 to be baptized."* 
 
 But it was not the custom of the Jews to bring "their 
 little children along with them to be baptized." By the 
 custom of proselyte baptism, no Jew or his children were to 
 be baptized. Dr. Lightfoot and Dr. Wall both bear testi- 
 mony to this. It was one from among the heathen prose- 
 lyted to the Jewish religion, who, according to their showing, 
 was the subject, with his children, of tbis traditional rite. 
 No Jewish writer pretends to the existence of any custom 
 requiring the baptism of the Jews and their children. This 
 argument, therefore, recoils. The Jews would not have 
 brought their little children with them to be baptized. They 
 had no such custom. To have done so would have violated 
 their traditions. They could not be proselyted to their own 
 religion, and, consequently, could not receive proselyte bap- 
 tism. Had John proposed to administer proselyte baptism 
 to them and their children, it would have been the grossest 
 insult. It would have been to brand them with heathenism. 
 It would have been asking them to nullify their tradition, 
 and to submit to what their custom emphatically disallowed. 
 Here is the dilemma of Dr. Wall and Dr. Lightfoot: If pro- 
 selyte baptism did not exist in the beginning of the gospel 
 j j * Page 28. 
 
26 HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 of Jesus Christ, then John did not baptize infants ; and if it 
 did exist, John did not practice it, for he baptized no Gen- 
 tiles, but only Jews, who could not be baptized according to 
 the custom, and, therefore, he did not baptize infants ! And 
 what is true of John, is true of the disciples before the 
 resurrection of their Lord! Thus these great doctors are 
 buried in the ruins of their own favorite fortification ! 
 
 But Dr. Lightfoot argues still further. He feels that 
 Infant Baptism can not stand without this prop. He says: 
 
 "If baptism and baptizing infants had been a new thing, 
 and unheard of until John the Baptist came, as circumcision 
 was until God appointed it to Abraham, there would have 
 been, no doubt, as express command for baptizing infants, as 
 there was for circumcising them. But when the baptizing 
 of infants was a thing commonly known and used, as appears 
 by incontestible evidence from their writers, there need not 
 be express assertions that such and such persons were to be 
 the subjects of baptism, when it was as well known before 
 the gospel began that men, women, and children were bap- 
 tized, as it is to be known that the sun is up, when," &c * 
 
 Dr. Lightfoot is right in the position that baptism, if not 
 instituted before, must have been instituted at the time of 
 the Savior, by express command. A command for one thing 
 is no command for another and a different thing. The com- 
 mand of God to the Jews to circumcise their infants does 
 not afford the slightest ground to infer that Jesus com- 
 manded his ministers to baptize infants. Dr. Lightfoot, we 
 repeat, thus far reasons like one learned in the Scriptures. 
 But proselyte baptism was never commanded — it was never 
 instituted properly, Dr. Lightfoot being witness. Besides, 
 his position proves too much for his purposes. If it was not 
 * Te.ge 29. 
 
HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM. 27 
 
 necessary to command the baptism of infants, why was it 
 necessary to command the baptism of any one? Why would 
 not the custom avail without a command for the baptism of 
 adults as well as of infants, seeing that he contends that 
 their baptism was known and used too? And if there was 
 no need of a precept, why was a precept given? If infants 
 were baptized among the Jews, so were men and women; 
 and if the former may be baptized by the custom without 
 precept, so may the latter. There was no more necessity for 
 a law to baptize adults than to baptize infants. 
 
 But Dr. Lightfoot illustrates his position further; and we 
 continue our quotations, that this support of Infant Baptism 
 may appear in all its strength: 
 
 "Suppose there should at this time come out a proclama- 
 tion in these words: Every one on the Lord's day shall 
 repair to the public assembly in the church. That man 
 would dote, who should in times to come conclude that there 
 were no prayers, sermons, psalms, &c, in the public assem- 
 blies on the Lord's day, for this reason, because there was 
 no mention of them in this proclamation. For the pro- 
 clamation ordered the keeping of the Lord's day in the pub- 
 lic assemblies in general; and there was no need that men- 
 tion should be made of the particular kinds of divine worship 
 there to be used, since they were both before and at the time 
 of the said proclamation known to every body, and in com- 
 mon use."* 
 
 Very true; and he would equally dote, who should con- 
 tend that a proclamation simply requiring every one to repair 
 to the public assembly in the church, enjoined and required 
 "prayers, sermons, psalms," &c. A proclamation to observe 
 the Sabbath is not a proclamation for singing psalms. This, 
 
 * Pp. 29, 30. 
 
28 HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 if done at all, must be done without authority from the pro- 
 clamation. So the Savior's proclamation to baptize disciples 
 furnishes no authority for the baptism of infants. Autho- 
 rity for that must be derived elsewhere; and, according to 
 Dr. Lightfoot, it is derived from a stale Jewish tradition ; for 
 he thus applies the case supposed: 
 
 "Just so the case stood as to baptism. Christ ordered it 
 to be for a sacrament of the New Testament, by which all 
 should be admitted to the profession of the gospel, as they 
 were formerly to proselytism in the Jews' religion. The 
 particular circumstances of it, as the manner of baptizing, 
 the age of receiving it, which sex was capable of it, &o., had 
 no need of being regulated or set down, because they were 
 known to every body by common usage."* 
 
 It is not in proof that Christ ordered Jewish proselyte 
 baptism to be for a sacrament of the New Testament. Dr. 
 Lightfoot begs the question. So important a fact as this 
 can not be assumed — it ought and must be proved. There 
 is not the slightest foundation for it in any ancient writer, 
 Jewish or Christian, sacred or profane. Besides, as we have 
 seen already, there is no similarity between the two rites, for 
 the Lord commanded his disciples to do what proselyte bap- 
 tism forbid to be done. And the apostolic commission does 
 prescribe the character of persons to be baptized. They are 
 disciples: make disciples, baptizing them, are the words of 
 the law. But let us hear Dr. Lightfoot once more : 
 
 "It was therefore necessary, on the other side, that thero 
 should have been an express and plain order that infants 
 and little children should not be baptized, if our Savior 
 meant that they should not. For since it was ordinary in 
 all ages before to have infants baptized, if Christ would have 
 * Page 30. 
 
HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM. 29 
 
 had that usage to be abolished, he would have expressly for- 
 bidden it. So that his and the Scripture's silence in this 
 matter does confirm and establish Infant Baptism for- 
 ever."* 
 
 An ordinance of the New Testament confirmed and estab- 
 lished by the silence of the Savior and the Scriptures I Such 
 sophistry is too gross to be expected from so great a man as 
 Dr. Lightfoot. But his cause betrayed him. He loved Infant 
 Baptism with intense affection, and hence clung to it to the 
 injury of his powers of perception. On any other subject, 
 he would have shrunk appalled at the monstrous position, 
 that all the customs of the Jews were sanctioned by the 
 Savior, except those he expressly and plainly abolished, and 
 that they were perpetuated and enjoined by his silence! 
 And yet this is the plain import of the last passage quoted. 
 If the silence of Scripture ratifies one Jewish custom, it may 
 ratify all; and it is our duty forthwith to enter upon an 
 investigation of the Jewish traditions and customs in exis- 
 tence during the days of the Savior's incarnation, and of 
 which he is silent, for they are as much confirmed and estab- 
 lished of heaven as the baptism of infants. There were 
 thousands of rites and customs of the Jews of which the 
 Scriptures make no mention, and which, according to this 
 logic, it is our duty to regard as sacred and divine ! We can 
 bring no "express and plain order" of the Savior against 
 them, therefore, like Infant Baptism, they are confirmed and 
 established through all generations of the gospel church by 
 the awful voice of his "silence!!" Dr. Lightfoot, on any 
 other subject, would have taken a different position. He 
 would have asserted the obvious and common sense prin- 
 ciple, that we should receive as sacred no Jewish customs 
 * Page 30. 
 
30 HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 except those expressly sanctioned and ordered in the Scrip- 
 tures. 
 
 It is clear, then, "that the baptism of the nations by the 
 apostles ought to be regulated by the practice of John and 
 of Christ himself (who by the hands of his disciples baptized 
 many Jews), rather than by any preceding custom of the 
 Jewish nation; because we have good grounds to believe 
 that if the Jewish nation had any custom of baptism at all, 
 John and the Savior wholly disregarded it, practising alto- 
 gether a different baptism." Thus Dr. Wall advises; and to 
 the examination of baptism as instituted by divine authority 
 and existing before the commission was given, we now turn 
 our attention. We wish to ascertain the state of baptism as 
 it existed by the appointment of heaven previous to the com- 
 mand, "Go, and disciple all nations, baptizing them," under 
 which all gospel ministers now profess to act. 
 
 John the Baptist was sent of God to baptize. His bap- 
 tism, unlike the traditions of the Jews, was of heaven and 
 not of men. He came in the spirit and power of Elijah, and 
 was sent to "turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, 
 and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just: to make 
 ready a people prepared for the Lord." His baptism was 
 unto repentance. He baptized the pepple, "confessing their 
 sins." He required that they should bring forth fruits meet 
 for repentance. He baptized professed believers — "John 
 verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto 
 the people that they should believe on him who should come 
 after him, that is, on Christ Jesus." Acts xix. 4. He bap- 
 tized professed disciples — "When therefore the Lord knew 
 how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and bap- 
 tized more disciples than John," (John iv. 1) — that is, 
 than John made and baptized. So he made disciples and 
 
HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM. 31 
 
 baptized thein. He baptized no infants, unless he had a 
 baptism not "unto repentance," which did not require a con- 
 fession of sins ; unless he baptized some who were not made 
 disciples, and without saying to them, they should believe 
 on him who should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus. 
 But he had but one baptism. The Scriptures no where 
 intimate that he baptized more than one class of subjects. 
 If he baptized infants, the Scriptures have failed to leave 
 an intimation of the kind, as is confessed on all hands. 
 He could not have baptized them by a baptism unto repen- 
 tance. To have baptized them at all, he must have had 
 another baptism, which he had not, so far as we have any 
 testimony to conduct us to conclusions. So far as the 
 Bible, then, furnishes us any light upon the subject, we 
 may set it down as undenied, that John baptized no infants. 
 Dr. Wall and Dr. Lightfoot pretend to no authority from 
 the Bible in support of their position that John baptized 
 infants, except its "silence." To them the "silence" of the 
 Savior and the Scriptures is the voice of God in thunder- 
 tones engrafting upon the institutions of the gospel a human 
 invention. 
 
 The apostles, previous to their receiving the commission, 
 were sent by the Savior to preach the gospel and to baptize. 
 In this work they had successfully and extensively engaged 
 among the Jews to whom they were sent. Their labors 
 were more blessed than even those of the zealous and 
 devoted Baptist: "When therefore the Lord knew how the 
 Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more 
 disciples than John (though Jesus himself baptized not, but 
 his disciples), he left Judea, and departed again into Gali- 
 lee." John iv. 1-3. The baptism administered by the dis- 
 ciples under the first commission, it is evident from this 
 
32 HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 passage, corresponded, in its main features, to the baptism 
 administered by John. Like him, they made disciples and 
 baptized them. They did not baptize any other class of 
 subjects, so far as we can learn from the divine record; and 
 we have no other guide to direct our investigations. If we 
 leave this, and venture upon a sea of conjecture, we may as 
 legitimately infer that they baptized bells or dead persons, 
 as that they baptized infants. When we desert the light of 
 the Scriptures, in a search of this nature, we are enveloped 
 in darkness as fearful as that which prevailed in that long 
 night of Egypt when no man knew his brother — we ven- 
 ture forth on a tempestuous ocean without a bottom or a 
 shore. We know from the Scriptures that they baptized 
 disciples; but we can not know that they baptized any others, 
 for there is no proof, human or divine, that they did. 
 
 But Dr. Wall, in writing the history of Infant Baptism, 
 gravely takes it for granted that John, and Jesus, by his 
 disciples, baptized thousands of infants I He tells us that 
 the Jews who nocked to John's baptism at Jordan and at 
 Enon must have brought their young children with them to 
 be baptized; and that they brought them also to the dis- 
 ciples for the same purpose ! But he quotes no author that 
 testifies to the fact. Even the Jewish rabbis, whom he 
 presses into his service, fail him as witnesses on this point. 
 He draws on his imagination for his facts, and, in the face 
 of the plain and positive declarations of Scripture, asserts 
 that Infant Baptism was the common practice of John and 
 of the blessed Savior! This is the History of Infant 
 Baptism! It is sheer fiction. Its foundation is vapor. It 
 is built of dreams. 
 
 We have now seen the state of baptism, as it existed 
 among those divinely authorized to administer it, up to the 
 
HISTORY OP INFANT BAPTISM. 33 
 
 giving of the great commission. In our next chapter we 
 shall commence at that point, and endeavor to ascertain 
 from it whether it furnishes any authority for baptizing 
 infants in the awful and solemn names of the Father, and 
 of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. 
 
34 HISTORY OP INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The apostolic commission — It is not to be explained by chwuucision — No allusion to 
 infants in the commission — It commands the baptism of disciples or believers only 
 — It requires baptism into the name of the Trinity, which is applicable only to dis- 
 ciples — It requires the baptized to be taught the commandments of Jesus — It makes 
 the same requisition of all — All nations to be made disciples — " To make disciples " 
 can not include infants — Not made disciples by baptism — Infant damnation not to 
 be inferred — Even infant church-membership does not prove Infant Baptism — The 
 apostles baptized according to the commission — Lydia's household — The jailor's 
 household — Household of Crispus — Of Stephanus — No Infant Baptism in the New 
 Testament. 
 
 Having shown that there was no such custom as Infant 
 Baptism among the Jews previous to the giving of the 
 apostolic commission, and that neither John the Baptist, nor 
 Jesus, by his disciples, baptized any infants, we now enter 
 upon the examination of the commission itself, and the prac- 
 tice of the apostles under it. From what we have already 
 said, it must be evident to all, that we have a right to 
 demand, according to the concessions of Dr. Lightfoot and 
 Dr. Wall, a law as expressly enjoining the baptism, as of old 
 was given for the circumcision, of infants. But we care not 
 to avail ourselves of the concession. We do not need it. 
 We plant ourselves upon the great commission, and main- 
 tain that it does not authorize the baptism of infants, and, 
 therefore, that no minister can by it baptize an infant. The 
 commission of the Savior to his apostles reads thus: "All 
 
 POWER IS GIVEN UNTO ME IN HEAVEN AND IN EARTH : Go YE, 
 THEREFORE, AND TEACH ALL NATIONS, BAPTIZING THEM IN 
 THE NAME OF THE FATHER, AND OF THE SON, AND OF THE 
 
 Hr 7 Ghost; teaching them to observe all things 
 
HISTORY OP INFANT BAPTISM. 35 
 
 WHATSOEVER I HAVE COMMANDED YOU; AND LO, I AM 
 WITH YOU ALWAYS, EVEN UNTO THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Amen." Mat. xxviii. 18-20. The word "teach," occurring 
 in the first instance above, is translated from a word (mathe- 
 teuo) which signifies to make disciples or scholars. This is 
 universally conceded. The command is, then, "make dis- 
 ciples, baptizing them." Those to be baptized, according to 
 this commission, are disciples, persons taught in the school of 
 Christ, believers. This is further evident from the substance 
 of the commission as recorded by Mark: "Go ye into all 
 
 THE WORLD, AND PREACH THE GOSPEL TO EVERY CREATURE : 
 HE THAT BELIEVETH AND IS BAPTIZED, SHALL BE SAVED; 
 BUT HE THAT BELIEVETH NOT, SHALL BE DAMNED." Mark 
 
 xvi. 15, 16. 
 
 Dr. Wall and Dr. Lightfoot, as we have seen, did not pre- 
 tend that the apostolic commission authorizes Infant Bap- 
 tism. Their dependence for authority was upon a Jewish 
 tradition. This they supposed would shed light upon the 
 design of the commission; but we have proved that this 
 supposition has no foundation. Other Pedo-baptists appeal 
 to the law of circumcision, and contend that inasmuch as by 
 divine law, the male infants of the Jews were circumcised, 
 therefore all the infants of believing parents ought to be 
 baptized. But the premises and conclusions are too far 
 asunder for any rational purpose. The law requiring the 
 circumcision of infants of eight days old, and the law 
 requiring the baptism of disciples or believers, can never, by 
 any legerdemain of logic or learning, be converted into one 
 and the same law. And the very fact that the Pedo-baptists 
 alluded to, appeal to the law of circumcision, given nineteen 
 centuries before the commission, is demonstration as strong 
 as text of Holy Writ, that they know that there is no war- 
 
3£ HISTORY OP INTANT BAPTISM. 
 
 rant for Infant Baptism in the commission. If they could 
 find their doctrine in the last instructions of the Savior to 
 his disciples, they would never appeal to the language of 
 God to Abraham nineteen hundred years before that time. 
 They plead the law of circumcision, and not the apostolic com- 
 mission, in- support of their practice. This is to surrender the 
 commission. This is to concede all that we contend for — that 
 the commission has nothing whatever to do with infants. We 
 could grant Infant Baptism in the place of circumcision, and 
 still successfully maintain that this would be another bap- 
 tism, wholly distinct from that commanded by the commis- 
 sion; and that the subjects of it, when they became believers 
 or disciples, would be called upon, by their solemn obligations 
 to the head of the church, to be baptized in the name of the 
 Trinity. Their being baptized by a law binding by reason 
 of descent, would not release them from a law binding by 
 reason of faith and discipleship. To baptize according to 
 the law of circumcision, would not be the same as to baptize 
 according to the law of the Savior in the commission. The 
 former would be administered by virtue of a natural birth, 
 of descent simply from an earthly parent; the latter, by vir- 
 tue of a birth from above, and of relationship to the great 
 head of the church. The commission commands the baptism 
 of believers or disciples; now this can not be nullified by 
 baptism of infants. He that is baptized in infancy can not 
 obey this law until he is baptized as a disciple. This is as 
 plain as the sun in the heavens. Until this commission be 
 repealed, the command of the Son of Grod to every disciple 
 is, Be baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and 
 of the Holy Ghost. So if we were to grant Infant Baptism 
 by the law of circumcision, still our opponents would gain 
 nothing to their cause; for by it they can never escape the 
 
HISTORY OF INFAN1 BAPTISM. 37 
 
 solemn obligation resting upon every disciple of Jesus, 
 imposed by his last and solemn injunction, to be baptized in 
 his name. Infant Baptism is not believer baptism, and can 
 never supersede it. 
 
 Who can look at the commission, and imagine for a 
 moment that it has the slightest allusion to infants? We 
 care not for circumcision, nor Jewish proselyte baptism, nor 
 any thing else that the minds of men may fancy to have 
 existed at the time among the Jews ; we defy the ingenuity 
 of men and devils to torture the slightest allusion to infanta 
 out of the apostolic commission. The eleven disciples to 
 whom it was addressed could never have understood him to 
 refer to infants. They had never seen the Jews baptize any 
 infants; for, as we have demonstrated, the Jews had no such 
 custom. They never saw John the Baptist baptize an infant, 
 for his baptism was unto repentance; and he said to those 
 he baptized, that they should believe on him that should 
 come after him — that is, on Christ Jesus. He made dis- 
 ciples and baptized them. They had, by the command of the 
 Savior, preached the gospel to the Jews ; and although they 
 baptized great multitudes, yet they baptized no infants. 
 They made and baptized more disciples than John. And 
 their Lord did not change the subjects of baptism in his last 
 instructions to them; but he sent them into all the world to 
 do what they had hitherto done in the narrow precincts of 
 Palestine, viz., to MAKE disciples, baptizing them. It is 
 impossible, then, that they could understand him to have 
 reference to infants — that they could imagine that he meant 
 to instruct them to baptize parents because they believed, 
 and infants because they believed not — that parents were to 
 be taken into the kingdom voluntarily, and their infants by 
 stratagem. 
 
38 HISTORY OF INFAJST BAPTISM. 
 
 The commission not only commands that they should be 
 made disciples, that they should be believers before baptism, 
 but that they should be baptized into the name of the Father, 
 and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Prof. Stuart says: 
 " The word baptize may be followed by a person or a thing 
 (doctrine) which has eis before it. In the first case, when it is 
 followed by a person, it means, 'by the sacred rite of baptism 
 to bind one's self to be a disciple or follower of a person, to 
 receive or obey his doctrines or laws' — e. g., 1 Cor. x. 2, 
 'And were baptized into (ets) Moses;' Gal. iii. 27, 'For as 
 many of you as have been baptized into (eis) Christ, having 
 put on Christ;' Rom. vi. 3, 'Know ye not that so many of 
 us as were baptized into (eis) Christ, were baptized into (eis) 
 his death;' 1 Cor. i. 13, 'Were ye baptized into (ets) the 
 name of Paul;' verses 14, 15, 'I thank God that I baptized 
 none of you but Crispus and Gaius, lest any should say I 
 baptized into (eis) mine own name.' Or it means, to acknow- 
 ledge him as Sovereign, Lord, and Sanctifier — e. p., Mat. 
 xxviii. 19, 'Baptizing them into (ets) the name of the Father, 
 and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; ' Acts viii. 16, 'Only 
 they were baptized into (eis) the name of the Lord;' Acts 
 xix. 5, ' When they heard this, they were baptized into (eis) 
 the name of the Lord.'"* And so Greenfield, in his lexicon 
 of the New Testament: "To be baptized to any one, [is] to 
 bind one's self to honor, obey, and follow any one." To the 
 same point we might quote Robinson, Schleusner, and a host 
 of other eminent lexicographers and critics; but let these 
 suffice, since, so far as we know, this interpretation is not 
 disputed. But infants can not be baptized into the name of 
 the Lord. They can not bind thentselves to receive and 
 obey his doctrines and laws. They can not profess any 
 * Letter to Dr. FiBhback. 
 
HISTORY OP INFANT BAPTISM. 39 
 
 thing, and of course are never baptized upon a profession of 
 obedience to the will of God. But this is required by the 
 express letter of the commission; then by the commission 
 they can not be baptized. You might, with as much pro- 
 priety, baptize a bell, or an image of the Virgin Mary, into 
 the name of the Trinity! Who has required it at your 
 hands? 
 
 But it is further evident that the commission has no allu- 
 sion to infants, from the fact, that the baptized are to be 
 taught to observe whatsoever Christ has commanded. This 
 supposes that the subjects of the commission are capable of 
 being instructed into the obedience of all the ordinances of 
 the church militant. Of course this can not allude to 
 infants. They are incompetent to receive any such instruc- 
 tion. In no way, then, can infants be comprehended in the 
 commission. 
 
 There can be no excuse for misunderstanding this com- 
 mission. No language can be more plain — none less in- 
 vested with ambiguity. He that runs may read. It enjoins 
 the baptism of disciples or believers. It knows no others. 
 No minister with this commission in his hands would bap- 
 tize an idolater or an unbeliever. He would require him to 
 renounce idolatry and believe in Jesus. And what the 
 commission requires of one, it requires of all. It has refer- 
 ence to character — to disciples or believers — and not to age, 
 or sex, or color. If, by the commission, you may baptize an 
 infant that is not a disciple and not a believer, you may, 
 with the same propriety, baptize an adult that is not a dis- 
 ciple and not a believer. What the commission requires of 
 one, it requires of all. It knows no distinction, and makes 
 no difference. It either requires faith and discipleship abso- 
 lutely, or it does not. If it docs, then it furnishes no war- 
 
40 HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 rant for Infant Baptism, for infants can not believe, they 
 can not be made disciples. If it does not, then adults are not 
 required to profess faith, or to be disciples. This is self- 
 evident, and defies every effort at evasion. 
 
 But some have said that the command extends to all 
 nations: and are not infants, it is asked, included in that 
 phrase? Certainly they are; and so are drunkards, and 
 liars, and swearers, and 'whoremongers, and infidels, and 
 atheists, and idolaters, and every wicked and abominable 
 person upon the face of the whole earth; and if the phrase 
 "all nations," includes infants, so it does the others, and 
 there is just the same warrant for the baptism of the one as 
 the other — that is, no warrant at all! But such objectors 
 have paid very little attention to the language of the commis- 
 sion. If the command is to baptize all nations, it is also to 
 make disciples of all nations, and to teach all nations to 
 observe the ordinances of Christ. They must be made dis- 
 ciples, then baptized, and then taught the other duties of 
 religion. This is the divine order. Man has no authority 
 to change it. It is as permanent as the heavens. And by 
 it, neither infants nor infidels can be baptized, but disciples 
 or believers only. The objection vanishes as the mists of 
 the morning before the sun in his strength. 
 
 But Dr. Wall intimates, but with great hesitation, as if 
 conscious of treading upon enchanted ground, that the com- 
 mission, in commanding the baptism of disciples or "prose- 
 lytes" intended infants as well as adults; for the Jews, he 
 says, were wont to denominate their baptized infants prose- 
 lytes. Were this even so among the Jews (which, however, 
 we have shown to be wholly destitute of proof), still we 
 would not recede one inch from our position. Matheteuo, 
 "to make disciples," never can imply infants. Every lexi- 
 
HISTORY OP INFANT BAPTISM. 41 
 
 con upon earth will tell you that it necessarily involves 
 instruction, and presupposes one that can be taught. The 
 connection in which it stands, as already proved, enables the 
 plainest Christian, with the Bible in his hand, to put to 
 silence and to shame the most giant defenders of the oppo- 
 site opinion. The term disciple, every where in the New 
 Testament, is used in a sense utterly incompatible with 
 infants. Any one can test this by means of a concordance 
 and the common version of the Scriptures. It shocks all 
 propriety of speech and all common sense, to call an uncon- 
 scious babe a disciple or learner. It would be folly to waste 
 time in exposing a position so monstrous and absurd. We 
 would feel about as well employed in refuting the papal 
 legends respecting the exploits of St. Anthony with the 
 fishes, or of St. Patrick with the frogs and toads of Ireland! 
 The criticism is crushed by the weight of its own absurdity. 
 Dr. Wall argues, that the Jews made infants disciples or 
 proselytes by baptizing them; and hence he and others have 
 argued that infants may be included in the commission, 
 since it enjoins that disciples be made by baptizing them. 
 This means that a person can be made a believer by baptizing 
 him ; for a believer and a disciple are the same in the Scrip- 
 tures. Aye, much more: this criticism teaches that an 
 infant may be made a believer in Jesus, a disciple of the 
 Lord, by baptism. Now, it is possible that the superstitious 
 Jews were capable of perpetrating such supreme nonsense as 
 this; but we protest against its being imputed to the Savior. 
 He never uttered such puerile nonsense. But if persons are 
 made believers or disciples by baptizing, why require faith 
 of adults in order to their admission to the ordinance, seeing 
 they would receive faith by being baptized? And let us 
 carry out the doctrine; and fcince the thine may be done, let 
 
42 HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 us look at the results of its operation : an infidel, by being 
 baptized, becomes a believer in Jesus! Idolaters and Jews, 
 as was done by order of some of the Roman emperors and 
 of Charlemagne, being taken by force and baptized, become 
 disciples! Those infants in Germany who, not long since, 
 were torn from the arms of their Baptist parents, and bap- 
 tized by order of the civil magistrate, were made disciples of 
 Christ! The untold millions of the unconverted now living 
 and that have lived, who were baptized in infancy, were all 
 made, in their baptism, disciples or believers ! And a Turk, 
 a worshipper of Juggernaut, or of Boodh, would become a 
 disciple by simply baptizing him! We should really be 
 ashamed to look one of our intelligent readers in the face, 
 if we were seriously to set about a refutation of such a criti- 
 cism. It must work out its own destruction in every well 
 regulated mind. It is conclusive proof that Infant Baptism 
 is worse than old wives' fables, when it is compelled to seek 
 such defences, and resort to such subterfuges. If infants 
 are made disciples by baptizing, they are made disciples also 
 by teaching; for the command is, baptizing them, teaching 
 them. No one can be a disciple without teaching. An 
 untaught disciple is a contradiction. An adult, as all agree, 
 must be a believer before baptism ; and if a believer, then a 
 disciple, for a believer who is not a disciple can not exist. 
 And what is true of adults, is true of all by the commission. 
 This we have abundantly proved. Let us look, then, at the 
 absurdity of this criticism from another point. It is uni- 
 versally conceded that an adult should be a believer before 
 baptism ; and yet he is not a disciple until baptized ! That 
 is, he is a believing non-disciple!! A singular species in the 
 moral kingdom ! But a baptized infant is a disciple but not 
 a believer; and this introduces to our admiring eyes another 
 
HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM. 43 
 
 moral monstrosity — a disciple who believes not! Oh, the 
 follies of Infant Baptism ! Your name is legion ! 
 
 Again it is said, that if infants, because they are not 
 believers, must not be baptized, then it follows, that because 
 they believe not, they must be damned! That if want of 
 faith debars them from baptism, it debars them from salva- 
 tion! But these are false conclusions from our premises. 
 Nothing of the sort follows from what we have said. The 
 commission knows nothing of infants. As it says nothing 
 about them, of course it teaches nothing respecting their 
 salvation, their damnation, or their baptism. Who ever 
 quoted the commission to prove infant salvation? And how 
 could such a doctrine be even inferred from it, seeing that it 
 says nothing whatever about them? But if infants are in 
 the commission, then we say, they must believe, or be lost; 
 for what it says to one, it says to all its subjects, "He that 
 believeth not shall be damned." But infants can not be put 
 into the commission without interpolation of God's word. 
 They are, therefore, neither saved nor condemned by the 
 commission. With the same propriety we might have a bell 
 presented to us for baptism, and be told, if you deny it bap- 
 tism by the commission, then you must hold that bells are 
 lost; and whoever heard of the damnation of a bell? (!) But 
 we can not be shaken by such appeals. The commission 
 says nothing of bells or of infants. It knows only disciples 
 or believers. 
 
 But it is contended by some of the advocates of Pedo-bap- 
 tism, that infants were in the church before the Savior's incar- 
 nation, and that the commission does not put them out of the 
 church! Granting this to be so, still our position is un- 
 touched. We contend that the commission does not put 
 them in the church — that it does not authorize their bap- 
 
44 HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 tism — that it provides in no way for them. It neither puts 
 them in nor out of the church. The ingenuity of the prince 
 of darkness can find no allusion to infants in the commis- 
 sion. We care nothing for infant membership, so far as this 
 controversy is concerned. That may be as true, as we know 
 and can prove it to be false and unscriptural, and still it 
 would not prove that the Savior commanded the baptism of 
 infants when he told his apostles to make disciples, baptizing 
 them. Our Presbyterian brethren, who are the authors of 
 this argument, do not, indeed, initiate infants into the church 
 by baptism. Their doctrine is, that the infants of believers 
 (and they baptize no others) are born members of the 
 church. They can not baptize an infant that is not in the 
 church. Their Larger Catechism says: "Baptism is not to 
 be administered to any that are out of the visible church, 
 and so strangers from the covenant of promise, till they pro- 
 fess their faith in Christ, and obedience to him; but infants 
 descending from parents, either both or but one of them, 
 professing faith in Christ, and obedience to him, are, in that 
 respect, within the covenant, and are to be baptized."* 
 Their Confession of Faith tells us, that the baptism ordained 
 by Jesus Christ (and by this reference is had to the com- 
 mission) is for the solemn admission of the party baptized into 
 the visible church, and of course can have no allusion to the 
 baptism of infants, who are not admitted into the church by 
 baptism, but are in the church previous to the reception of 
 that rite. By their own showing, no persons can be admitted 
 into the church, " till they profess their faith in Christ and 
 obedience to him." So infants are not baptized by the com- 
 mission, our opponents being witnesses. It is the baptism 
 of infants by the commission, and not their membership by 
 :;: Ana. to Quest., 166. 
 
HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM. 15 
 
 birth, which is the matter in hand. The commission cer- 
 tainly turns no one out of the church ; nor was it ever 
 given for the baptism of church members. A law to baptize 
 disciples is not a law for the admission of infants into the 
 church. This is self-evident; it is also conceded by the 
 standards of the Presbyterian church. It is superfluous, 
 then, to waste ink in its proof. 
 
 It is clearly evident, then, that infants can not be bap- 
 tized by the commission. This was the great law under 
 which the apostles and primitive ministers acted in their 
 administrations of baptism. The Acts of the Apostles show 
 that their plan was to make disciples, then to baptize them, 
 then to teach them to observe all things whatsoever Jesus 
 had commanded. Every where, we read that he that believed 
 was baptized. Every church that they organized was com- 
 posed of disciples or believers, and not of believers and their 
 children. There is not the remotest allusion to an infant in 
 any baptism recorded in the Bible. Our Pedo-baptist friends 
 have searched in vain for a passage of Scripture which men- 
 tions their practice. They all concede that there is no 
 express precept or example to favor it in the Bible. As the 
 apostles were governed solely by the commission, in all their 
 baptisms, of course they did not baptize infants. If the age 
 and character of their subjects were in no case recorded, we 
 would know that they were disciples or believers, because 
 they were authorized to baptize no others in the name of 
 the Trinity. In this way, we could meet and confound our 
 opponents respecting the several cases of household baptisms 
 mentioned in the New Testament. The household of Cor- 
 nelius is the first that is mentioned. True, we have the 
 clear testimony of the inspired penman that they were all 
 disciples before baptism. It is written concerning them: 
 
46 HISTORY OP INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 "Can any man forbid water, that these should not be bap- 
 tized who have received the Holy Ghost as well as we? And 
 he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord." 
 But would we not have been compelled to conclude from the 
 commission, even if this had not been written, that they were 
 disciples or believers? Most assuredly, unless we were pre- 
 pared to charge upon the apostle a most flagrant violation of 
 the last instructions of his divine Master. 
 
 And- so with the vaunted case of the baptism of Lydia 
 and her household. That case is thus recorded: "And on 
 the Sabbath we went out of the city by a river side, where 
 prayer was wont to be made, and we sat down and spake unto 
 the women ivho resorted thither. [And the commission says, 
 preach the gospel to every creature.] And a certain woman, 
 named Lydia, of the city of Thyatira, who worshipped God, 
 heard us; whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended 
 unto the things that were spoken of Paul. [She was made a 
 disciple.] And when she was baptized [and the commission 
 commands the baptism of disciples], and her household, she 
 besought us, saying, If ye have judged me to be faithful to 
 the Lord, come into my house and abide there." Acts xvi. 
 13—15. There is no controversy respecting the baptism of 
 Lydia. It is confessed on all hands that she was baptized 
 agreeably to the commission ; the only question of inquiry 
 is respecting her household. Who composed her family we 
 are not told ; and Pedo-baptists, eager to find something to 
 favor their cause, have imagined it was made up of infants! 
 But one thing is certain, if her family were baptized by the 
 same law that she was, then they were disciples or believers; 
 and if they were not baptized by this law, by what law were 
 they baptized? That nothing is said about their faith or 
 discipleship signifies nothing, if it be true that they were 
 
HISTORY OP INFANT BAPTISM. 47 
 
 baptized according to the commission. We are just as cer- 
 tain that John baptized the people in Enon, confessing their 
 sins, as that he thus baptized in Jordan, although the Scrip- 
 tures are silent upon the subject; because his baptism was 
 unto repentance, and the law governing it required a con- 
 fession of sins. Even Pedo-baptists do not hesitate to 
 believe that G-aius, whom Paul baptized at Corinth (1 Cor. i. 
 4), was a believer before baptism, although it is not so stated 
 any where in the New Testament. And why? Because, 
 say they, the commission requires faith of adults, and Gaius 
 was an adult. But we have shown that the commission 
 knows nothing of any subjects of baptism except disciples or 
 believers — that its requisitions of every one are the same; 
 and that, consequently, every one baptized according to the 
 commission, is a disciple or believer. We grant that it is 
 not said that Lydia's family believed, nor is it said that she 
 believed for them — that they were baptized upon her faith 
 or the faith of godfathers or godmothers. Baptists suppose 
 that they believed for themselves ; but Pedo-baptists suppose 
 that Lydia or some of her friends believed for them. The 
 Baptists predicate their supposition upon the fact that the 
 apostles did not disregard the commission, and hence did not 
 baptize those who were not disciples or believers ; but the 
 Pedo-baptists presume that Lydia's household were baptized 
 by a law which did not require personal faith or discipleship, 
 but by a law that allowed of faith and discipleship by proxy ! 
 The simple question then, is, By what law were they 
 baptized? If by the commission, then they were disciples 
 or believers; for it authorizes the baptism of no others, and 
 is wholly silent respecting vicarious discipleship, or faith by 
 imputation. And what other law for baptism besides the 
 commission has God ordained? If there is any law for the 
 
18 HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 baptism of those who believe by proxy, or who have their 
 parents' faith imputed to them, then we demand its produc- 
 tion. We deny its existence. This would be another bap- 
 tism, wholly distinct in its character from that ordained in 
 the commission. But there is but "one baptism." 
 
 We have, indeed, ample testimony that Lydia's household 
 was not composed of infants; for it is recorded in the 40th 
 verse of this chapter, that Paul and Silas "entered into the 
 house of Lydia, and when they had seen the brethren, they 
 comforted them and departed." They were "brethren," 
 capable of being "comforted," and of course not infanta. 
 But we do not need this testimony; for if it had never been 
 given, we would plant ourselves upon the commission, and 
 quench all the fiery darts of our adversaries. Our feet would 
 be upon a rock that could not be moved. The apostles did 
 not violate the commission. They were faithful servants of 
 their divine Master. You command your servant to go and 
 collect in a certain house, twelve boys of not more than ten 
 years of age; he goes, and after a time returns, and says, 
 "the boys are in the house; " would you not understand him 
 to mean that he had obeyed your orders? and would you not 
 expect to find twelve boys of not more than ten years of age 
 in the house? Jesus sent his apostles to preach the gospel, 
 to baptize disciples; and they report that they baptized cer- 
 tain persons at Philippi; and we know, if they did what 
 they were commanded, that the persons baptized were disci- 
 ples. This is too plain a proposition — it is too common a 
 principle of every day life, to need further illustration. All 
 must feel its force, and the most ingenious can not evade its 
 point. 
 
 Those who adduce the household of Lydia to sustain 
 Infant Baptism have a great work to perform to make it 
 
HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM. 49 
 
 subserve their purposes. They must prove not only that she 
 had infants, but that they were baptized upon her faith, or 
 upon the faith of sponsors, which no one has ever done. 
 Indeed, it is a task which the most strenuous advocates of 
 Infant Baptism have never undertaken. Had Lydia any 
 children? It is no where said that she had. If she had 
 children, were they infants? The Scriptures are silent on 
 this point. If she had infants, did she bring them with her 
 several hundred miles to Philippi? If she did, it is not in 
 evidence. But admitting all these things, is it in proof that 
 they were baptized upon her faith, or the faith of sponsors? 
 Why then should this case ever be adverted to in proof of 
 Infant Baptism? It can prove nothing for it, even if we 
 had not the positive testimony of the apostolic commission 
 against it. 
 
 The inspired writers, as if foreseeing that in the latter 
 days an improper use would be made of the household bap- 
 tisms which occurred in the apostolic age, have been careful 
 to show that they were in exact accordance with the instruc- 
 tions of the Savior, or at least that there were no infants in 
 them. The case of the Philippian jailer and his household 
 is in point: Paul and Silas "spake unto him the word of the 
 Lord, and to all that were in his house [preached the gospel 
 to them]. And he took them the same hour of the night 
 and washed their stripes ; and was baptized, he and all his, 
 straightway. And when he had brought them into his house, 
 he set meat before them, and rejoiced believing in Grod, with 
 all his house." Acts xvi. 30-34. This was apostolic prac- 
 tice. The households they baptized were believers or dis- 
 ciples, as the Lord commanded. Again we read: "And 
 Crispus, the chief ruler of the synagogue, believed on the 
 
 Lord with all his house; and many of the Corinthians hear- 
 
 13 J 
 
50 HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTI8M. 
 
 ing, believed and were baptized." Acts xviii. 8. Here is 
 another household of disciples or believers. 
 
 Paul says to the Corinthians : " I baptized also the house 
 of Stephanus." 1 Cor. i. 16. The faith of this household is 
 not mentioned any more than that of Lydia's; and yet it 
 was not composed of infants, for in another part of the same 
 epistle, Paul says: "Ye know the house of Stephanus, that 
 it is the first fruits of Achaia, and that they have addicted 
 themselves to the ministry of the saints." 1 Cor. xvi. 15. 
 Did these persons believe by proxy? Were they baptized on 
 vicarious faith? Or can any one doubt that their baptism 
 was in accordance with the commission — that they were 
 made disciples and baptized? 
 
 We deem it unnecessary to pursue this subject further. 
 Our opponents admit that the New Testament sheds no light 
 upon their cause. They represent it as an opaque body, 
 and try to irradiate it by throwing upon it the light of the 
 Old Testament, or of Jewish superstition. But this we have 
 shown to be insufficient — their light comes from too great a 
 distance, and falls short of the object. The fact which all 
 must concede, that baptism in the apostolic age was admin- 
 istered according to the commission, renders abortive every 
 effort to prove that Infant Baptism then prevailed. And 
 hence Dr. Wall, in his History of Infant Baptism, pretends 
 to find no instance of its practice by the apostles or primi- 
 tive ministers. The utmost that he attempts to prove is, 
 that inasmuch as the Jews baptized the infants of proselytes, 
 therefore, it is possible that John the Baptist and the apos- 
 tles might have baptized infants ! And such reasoning, 
 which has no foundation in truth or sound logic, he was 
 forced to substitute for history. He could not find the first 
 instance of Infant Baptism in all the apostolic age, and 
 
HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM. 51 
 
 hence his history of that period is sheer fancy and conjec- 
 ture. The whole New Testament record of baptism is that 
 of disciples or believers. It gives no law for its administra- 
 tion to any others, and it relates the baptism of no others. 
 If others were baptized, it should have been recorded, that 
 the man of God might, from the Scriptures, be thoroughly 
 furnished unto all good works. If it was right to baptize 
 them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the 
 Holy Ghost, then our Savior would have said so when he 
 sent his ministers into all the world, to preach the gospel to 
 every creature. But in the absence of both of these, 
 where there is neither New Testament precept nor example, 
 we can not receive any thing as an ordinance of the gospel 
 church. 
 
62 HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Hitherto we have walked in the light. We have had a 
 sure word of prophecy to conduct us to conclusions. We 
 have sat at the feet of masters divinely inspired to teach us 
 every good word and work. Celestial splendor has illumined 
 our pathway. We traversed the early history of the church, 
 conducted by apostles and other holy men, full of the Spirit 
 of God. But we have now to depend upon other guides. 
 The light of inspiration no longer shines upon us. Men as 
 fallible as ourselves, their minds directed only by the uncer- 
 tain and unassisted guidance of human reason, are now to be 
 our leaders. We no longer remain disciples. We can not, 
 and dare not, yield implicit credence to whatever our new 
 masters may choose to utter. We stand boldly in their pre- 
 sence, feeling that they are men as liable to err as ourselves, 
 and resolved to receive nothing that they may tell us is from 
 God, which is not to be found in the Scriptures. We are 
 sure that whatever the Almighty esteemed important to com- 
 municate to man, he has given us in his holy word. The 
 Bible contains every line and syllable written by inspiration ; 
 and by means of the Scriptures, "the man of God may be 
 perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." We 
 scorn as an imposter every man that has lived since the days 
 of the apostles, who professes to come with a new message 
 from heaven. Though all men since the "amen" was affixed 
 to the Revelation should tell us that Infant Baptism should 
 be practiced as a divine institution, although not commanded 
 
HISTORT OP INFANT BAPTISM. 53 
 
 in the Bible, we should disregard their mandate. Aye, we 
 would gainsay an angel from heaven, if he brought to us 
 any other doctrine than that which is delivered in the Scrip- 
 tures. God speaks to us in the Scriptures, and whatever is 
 not in accordance with his word, whether spoken by men, 
 angels, or devils, is unto us as the idle wind. To his will we 
 bow with the utmost submission ; but to the will of man on 
 matters pertaining to the soul's salvation — to the kingdom 
 of the Son of God — we give place by subjection, no, not for 
 a moment! 
 
 We premise, then, that no matter who defends Infant 
 Baptism this side of the apostolic age — no matter how early 
 nor how many its defenders — it must be proved by the 
 Scriptures. Those proofs, we claim the perfect right critically 
 and carefully to examine: if they are sufficient, we will bow 
 down to them; if they are not, though urged by some one 
 who flourished centuries ago and was famous for his zeal 
 and knowledge, we shall reject them and cast them from us 
 without the slightest hesitation. Falsehood, though as old 
 as time, is but falsehood. Besides, God addresses himself to 
 all men. It is the duty of all to search the Scriptures. He 
 has not instituted an order between himself and us, to think 
 for us, and to learn for us our duty from his word. The 
 privilege of interpreting the Scriptures for ourselves, we will 
 resign to no one alive or dead, of ancient or modern times. 
 We may invoke their assistance, but we must ultimately 
 determine for ourselves. Of course, then, when an indi- 
 vidual alleges that a doctrine or practice is according to the 
 Scriptures, he must show it; if he speak not according to 
 the law and the testimony, no matter how near the apostles 
 he lived, we regard him not. 
 
 In passing from the writers of the New Testament to 
 
54 HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 those that succeeded theru, we are astounded at the change! 
 It is as if an individual had gone from Goshen to Egypt 
 during that long night when no man knew his brother. 
 "While in other cases such a transition is usually quite 
 gradual," says Dr. Neander, "in this case we find a sudden 
 one. Here there is no gradual transition, but a sudden 
 spring; a remark which is calculated to lead us to a recog- 
 nition of the peculiar activity of the divine Spirit in the 
 souls of the apostles."* We envy no man his independence 
 or strength of mind, who submits himself to be tamely led 
 by the opinions of the apostolic fathers. The Papists and 
 Puseyites, who contend that the Scriptures can not be 
 understood without the aids of these and similar writers, 
 manifest as much simplicity as those who would assert the 
 necessity of taper light amid the dazzling radiance of the 
 noon- day sun. It will be necessary to give many specimens 
 from the writings of the fathers in the progress of our 
 researches, and our readers can judge for themselves as to 
 the validity of the claim to pre-eminence in divine know- 
 ledge, set up for them by the advocates of prelacy and papacy 
 in this age. We pause now to present one extract from 
 Clement of Rome, the most eminent of the Patres Apostolici. 
 He is speaking of the resurrection, and says: 
 
 "Let us consider that wonderful type of the resurrection, 
 which is seen in the eastern countries — that is to say, 
 in Arabia. There is a certain bird called a phoenix ; of this 
 there is never but one at a time, and that lives five hundred 
 years. And when the time of its dissolution draws near, 
 that it must die, it makes itself a nest of frankincense, and 
 myrrh, and other spices, into which, when its time is ful- 
 filled, it enters and dies. But its flesh, putrefying, breeds a 
 * Church History, p. 407. 
 
HISTORY OP INFANT BAPTISM. 55 
 
 certain worm, which, being nourished with the juice of the 
 dead bird, brings forth feathers; and when it is grown to a 
 perfect state, it takes up the nest in which the bones of its 
 parent lie, and carries it from Arabia into Egypt, to a city 
 called Heliopolis; and flying in open day in the sight of all 
 men, lays it upon the altar of the sun, and so returns from 
 whence it came. The priests then search into the records 
 of the time, and find that it returned precisely at the end of 
 five hundred years. And shall we then think it to be any 
 great and strange thing for the Lord of all to raise up those 
 that religiously serve him in the assurance of a good faith, 
 when even by a bird he shows us the greatness of his power 
 to fulfil his promise?"* 
 
 This is a mere specimen. Absurdities more gross abound 
 in the writings of others, now commended to us as our neces- 
 sary guides in the work of rightly dividing God's word ! 
 And are the Christians of this age asked to bow submissively 
 to the instructions of such babes in knowledge? Are we to 
 be insultingly told, that our minds are inadequate to under- 
 stand the Scriptures, unless possessed of the instructions 
 imparted by the victims of such monstrous fables? 
 
 Of the writings of the immediate successors of the apostles, 
 but few have escaped the ravages of time. The writings of 
 only five, called 'Apostolic Fathers," are claimed by the 
 learned to have come down to us, viz., Clement of Rome, 
 Ignatius, Polycarp, Barnabas, and Hermas. And it is much 
 debated whether we have indeed the writings of these men, 
 or of impostors and pretenders who assumed their names — 
 a fraud of general prevalence and considered quite innocent, 
 a few centuries subsequent to the apostolic age. It is gener- 
 ally conceded that most of what bears the names of some of 
 
 * 1 Corinthians, section 12. 
 
56 HISTORY OP INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 these fathers, is not theirs; while some small pieces are 
 believed by a majority of the learned to be authentic. 
 These latter we shall consider and qnote as genuine. The 
 providence which has suffered so little to escape destruction, 
 was prompted perhaps by a foresight of the mischievous uses 
 that would be made of them, and to lead the church of Christ 
 to depend alone upon that volume which is able to make us 
 wise unto salvation. 
 
 But while we refuse, emphatically, to follow with blind 
 faith whatever the apostolic fathers may say; while our feel- 
 ings — prompted alike by reason and religion — revolt at 
 such servileness, we are far from rejecting their writings as 
 wholly unworthy of attention and credit. Although to 
 minds endued with Christian knowledge, as all minds in 
 Christendom might be now, many of their mistakes as to the 
 meaning of the Scriptures must appear puerile and even con- 
 temptible; yet all will recognize much gospel truth irradiat- 
 ing their pages, making them appear bright indeed, when 
 contrasted with the ebon nonsense of pagan superstition and 
 Jewish tradition. Their writings are valuable, too, as fur- 
 nishing us the means to ascertain the secret springs to that 
 mass of corruption and monstrous mistakes, which for so 
 many centuries brought reproach upon the name of our reli- 
 gion. And many allowances, too, should be made on account 
 of their education, and for their want of being thoroughly 
 indoctrinated in the Christian religion. The early training 
 of the mind — the principles it first imbibes — will ever 
 retain an influence. That influence may be weakened, it 
 may be subdued, and even imprisoned and bound, but it 
 can never be utterly destroyed. 
 
 The Patres Apostolici were trained in the schools of 
 heathen philosopy or of Jewish rabbinicalism. The religion 
 
HISTORY OP INFANT BAPTISM. 57 
 
 amid which they were reared, was gross materialism. The 
 gods of the heathen, at whose shrines the million bowed, 
 were "gods whose attributes were rage, revenge, or lust." 
 They were beings or creatures possessed of the parts and 
 passions of men ; while the masses looked upon the material 
 of which their idols were composed — the wood, the brass, 
 the silver, or the gold — as endowed with intelligence, and 
 capable of hearing and answering their supplications. And 
 the Jews, too, had corrupted the purity and simplicity of 
 their original institutions. They observed the law with a 
 confident expectation, that by rites and ceremonies merely, 
 they would become righteous in the sight of God. The 
 fathers had learned that the kingdom which the Lord Jesus 
 set up, was not of this world — that it came not by observa- 
 tion — that it consisted not "in meat and drink; but righte- 
 ousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost" — and that 
 God was a spirit, and must be worshipped in spirit and in 
 truth. To combat the errors of their education, and to sub- 
 vert the materialism which was hurrying so many around 
 them, through folly and superstition, to an eternal over- 
 throw, they ran to the opposite extreme, and advocated an 
 idealism, which led them into the wildest theories of inter- 
 pretation. 
 
 And the schools of pagan philosophy furnished them 
 with fellow-champions against the grovelling doctrine of the 
 materialists. Many learned men among the heathen were 
 compelled, by good sense, to rise up and condemn the follies 
 and frauds of the prevailing religion. Former theories were 
 falling rapidly before their attacks. Some were opposing 
 wholly, and others were re-modeling only, the systems of 
 religion, time-honored among them. The exterminator and 
 the reformer used the weapons of idealism in support of 
 
68 HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTI8M. 
 
 their sentiments, and thus the learning, the wit, and the 
 eloquence of the world were brought to bear in one united 
 assault upon the materialism which had so long prevailed, 
 and it was rapidly falling before the attack. The apostolic 
 fathers, unused to the Christian armor, readily availed them- 
 selves of the weapons so ingeniously and successfully wielded 
 by the philosophers, and in the exercise of which they had 
 been trained from their infancy. The simple truths of the 
 gospel, so mighty in the hands of the apostles, were discarded 
 as inadequate to meet the giant form of error, stalking in 
 horrid strides over the nations; and the Christian champion 
 entered the lists against him, brandishing the weapons of 
 this world — the theories and speculations of a vain philoso- 
 phy! It was David in the armor of Saul. In their ren- 
 counter with the enemy — in attacking and defending — 
 we discover the want of fitness and adaptation in their 
 weapons. 
 
 Some of the philosophers, as we have said, in opposing the 
 sensualism of the times, believed it necessary to vindicate 
 the propriety of religion. They were unwilling that every 
 altar should be thrown down. They wanted the moral cour- 
 age to charge folly upon all the past generations of men. 
 Hence they affirmed that the prevailing religion was once 
 strictly spiritual, but had degenerated into sensualism; and 
 that a reform, and not an overthrow, was all that was called 
 for. To establish this startling proposition, required all 
 their ingenuity; but the sophistry of the schools was suffi- 
 cient to answer their purposes. They assumed that all the 
 forms of religion were originally adopted solely as symbols 
 of spiritual things — as hieroglyphical representations of a 
 pure idealism — and were resorted to by some unknown 
 philosophers, in ages of which no record existed, for the 
 
HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM. 59 
 
 benefit of the masses. This enabled Porphyry to defend the 
 use of images, pretty much as the Papists do : 
 
 "By forms perceptible to the senses the ancients repre- 
 sented God and his powers, and they imaged the invisible 
 by the visible, for those who had learnt to read, in images 
 as in books, a writing which treats of God. We can not, 
 therefore, wonder if the most ignorant can see in statues 
 nothing but wood and stone, just as those who are ignorant 
 of the art of writing can see nothing but stone and monu- 
 ments, nothing but wood in tables, and nothing but a scroll 
 of papyrus in books."* 
 
 The effort of this class of philosophers was to impart vital- 
 ity to the pagan religion by a refined spiritualization. In 
 this respect, they were imitated by the fathers relative to the 
 rites of the Old Testament. The fathers looked upon Chris- 
 tianity as the realization of the philosophers' dreams — as 
 the true idealism, sent of heaven to subvert the materialism 
 which had disgraced the pagans and led astray the Jews. 
 But they were met at the outset by numerous Jewish doc- 
 tors, appealing to the Old Testament, and alleging that the 
 rites and ceremonies established there, and which of them- 
 selves purified the soul, plainly taught that the extreme 
 idealism then so popular was not countenanced by the word 
 of God. The fathers met and answered this objection, by 
 applying those rules of interpretation used by the Platonists 
 in defence of the pagan worship. They spiritualized the 
 rites of the Old Testament. This, in their judgment, was 
 necessary in order to establish the divine original of that 
 Testament. They asserted that the religion of the New 
 Testament was adapted to the principles of the true philoso- 
 phy, and that Judaism was only a symbol of it, and capable 
 * Neander's Church History, p. 21. 
 
60 HISTORY OP INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 of the same spiritual meaning. In the following "Frag 
 ment," imputed to Clement of Rome, who is usually placed 
 at the head of the Patres Apostolici, you will see how far he 
 was infected with the idealism of the age : 
 
 "For the Lord himself being asked by a certain person, 
 when his kingdom should come? answered, When two shall 
 be one, and that which was without as that which is within ; 
 and the male with the female, neither male nor female. 
 Now, two are one, when we speak the truth to each other, 
 and there is, without hypocrisy, one soul in two bodies. 
 And that which is without as that which is within; — He means 
 this : he calls the soul that which is within, and the body 
 that which is without. As therefore the body appears, so let 
 thy soul be seen by its good works. And the male with the 
 female, neither male nor female; — He means this: he calls 
 our anger the male, our concupiscence the female. When, 
 therefore, a man is come to such a pass that he is subject 
 neither to the one nor the other of these (both of which, 
 through the prevalence of custom, and an evil education, 
 cloud and darken the reason), but rather, having dispelled 
 the mists arising from them, and being full of shame, shall 
 by repentance have united both his soul and spirit in the 
 obedience of reason; and then, as Paul says, there is in us 
 neither male nor female." 
 
 We will present a few specimens from Barnabas, to show 
 the mode of spiritualizing the Old Testament. He says : 
 
 "Forasmuch then as our Savior was to appear in the flesh, 
 and suffer, his passion was hereby foretold. For thus saith 
 the prophet against Israel: Wo be to their soul, because 
 they have taken wicked counsel against themselves, saying, 
 Let us lay snares for the righteous, because he is unprofit- 
 able to us. Moses also in like manner speaketh to them : 
 
HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM. 61 
 
 Behold, thus saith the Lord God: Enter ye into the good 
 land of which the Lord hath sworn to Abraham, and Isaac, 
 and Jacob, that he would give it to you, and possess it, a 
 land flowing with milk and honey. Now, what the spiritual 
 meaning of this is, learn ; it is as if it had been said : Put 
 your trust in Jesus, who shall be manifested to you in the 
 flesh. For man is the earth which suffers; forasmuch as out 
 of the substance of the earth Adam was formed. What, 
 therefore, does he mean when he says, into a good land flow- 
 ing with milk and honey? Blessed be our Lord, who has 
 given us wisdom, and a heart to understand his secrets. 
 For so says the prophet: Who shall understand the hard 
 saying of the Lord? But he that is wise, and intelligent, 
 and that loves his Lord. Seeing therefore he has renewed 
 us by the remission of our sins, he has put us into another 
 frame, that we should have souls like those of children, 
 forming us again himself by the Spirit."* 
 
 <; And therefore the Scripture again speaks concerning our 
 ears, that God has circumcised them, together with our hearts. 
 For thus saith the Lord by the holy prophets: By the hear- 
 ing of the ear they obeyed me. And again : They who are 
 afar off, shall hear and understand what things I have done. 
 And again: Circumcise your hearts, saith the Lord. And 
 again he saith: Hear, Israel! for thus saith the Lord thy 
 God. And again the Spirit of God prophesieth, saying: 
 Who is there that would live for ever, let him hear the voice 
 of my Son. And again: Hear, O heaven, and give ear, 
 earth ! because the Lord has spoken these things for a wit- 
 ness. And again he saith: Hear the word of the Lord, ye 
 princes of the people. And again : Hear, children ! the 
 voice of one crying in the wilderness. Wherefore he has 
 * Section 5. 
 
62 HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 circumcised our ears, that we should hear his word and 
 believe. But as for that circumcision, in which the Jews 
 trust, it is abolished. For the circumcision of which God 
 spake, was not of the flesh. But they have trangressed his 
 commands, because the evil one hath deceived them. For 
 thus God bespeaks them : Thus saith the Lord your God 
 (here I find the new law), sow not among thorns; but cir- 
 cumcise yourselves to the Lord your God. And what doth 
 he mean by this saying? Hearken unto your Lord. And 
 again he saith : Circumcise the hardness of your heart, and 
 harden not your neck. And again : Behold, saith the Lord, 
 all the nations are uncircumcised (they have not lost their 
 foreskin) ; but this people is uncircumcised in heart. But 
 you will say, the Jews were circumcised for a sign. And so 
 are all the Syrians and Arabians, and all the idolatrous priests, 
 but are they therefore of the covenant of Israel? And even the 
 Egyptians themselves are circumcised. Understand, there- 
 fore, children, these things more fully, that Abraham, who 
 was the first that brought in circumcision, looked forward in 
 the Spirit to Jesus, having received the mystery of three 
 letters. For the Scripture says, that Abraham circumcised 
 three hundred and eighteen men of his house. But what, 
 therefore, was the mystery that was made known unto him? 
 Mark, first the eighteen, and next the three hundred. For 
 the numeral letters of ten and eight are J. H. And these 
 denote Jesus. And because the cross was that by which we 
 were to find grace, therefore he adds three hundred; the 
 note of which is T (the figure of his cross). Wherefore, by 
 two letters, he signified Jesus, and by the third his cross. 
 He who has put the engrafted gift of his doctrine within us, 
 knows that I never taught to any one a more certain truth ; 
 but I trust ye are worthy of it."* — Section 10. 
 
HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM. 63 
 
 "But why did Moses say, Ye shall not eat the swine, 
 neither the eagle, nor the hawk, nor the crow, nor any fish 
 that hath not a scale upon him? I answer, that in the 
 spiritual sense, he comprehended three doctrines that were 
 to be gathered from thence. Besides which he says to them 
 in the book of Deuteronomy, And I will give my statutes 
 unto this people. Wherefore it is not the command of God 
 that they should not eat these things; but Moses in the 
 Spirit spake unto them. Now the sow he forbade them to 
 eat; meaning thus much : thou shalt not join thyself to such 
 persons as are like unto swine; who, whilst they live in 
 pleasure, forget their God, but when any want pinches them, 
 then they know the Lord; as the sow, when she is full, 
 knows not her master, but when she is hungry, she makes a 
 noise, and being again fed, is silent. Neither, says he, shalt 
 thou eat the eagle, nor the hawk, nor the kite, nor the crow; 
 that is, thou shalt not keep company with such kind of men 
 as know not how, by their labor and sweat, to get themselves 
 food, but injuriously ravish away the things of others, and 
 watch how to lay snares for them, when at the same time 
 they appear to live in perfect innocence. ***** 
 Moses therefore, speaking as concerning meats, delivered 
 indeed three great precepts to them in the spiritual significa- 
 tion of those commands. But they, according to the desires 
 of the flesh, understood him as if he only meant it of meats. 
 And, therefore, David took aright the knowledge of his 
 threefold command, saying, in like manner, 'Blessed is the 
 man thatwalketh not in the counsel of the ungodly;' as the 
 fishes before mentioned, in the bottom of the deep in darkness. 
 'Nor stood in the way of sinners,' as they who seem to fear 
 the Lord, but yet sin, as the sow. 'And hath not sat in the 
 seat of the scorners,' as those birds who sit and watch that 
 
64 HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 they may devour. Here you have the law concerning meat 
 perfectly set forth, and according to the true knowledge of 
 it."* 
 
 These examples might be greatly multiplied; but these 
 are enough for our purpose, which was simply to show the 
 extremes to which opposition to materialism carried even 
 good meaning men, leading them most grossly to pervert the 
 Scriptures, and to contemn the plainest principles of common 
 sense. 
 
 But the apostolic fathers found that baptism was mani- 
 festly enjoined in the Scriptures, and was every where prac- 
 ticed by all Christians. How was this ordinance to be 
 adjusted to their idealistic system? They were not prepared 
 to reject it (as some afterwards did) for the accommodation 
 of their doctrine. The obligation to observe the ordinance 
 could not be denied or evaded by them; and how did this 
 comport with their ultra notions respecting a purely spiritual 
 religion? They did not long hesitate. Indeed, they felt in 
 no dilemma. Their system of interpretation was omnipotent. 
 It was adequate to the removal of any difficulty, no matter 
 how great. They retained the ordinance, but relaxed nothing 
 of their doctrine, by assuming that baptism was a great 
 mystery — a pure idealism! It was not what it seemed to be 
 to vulgar eyes ! It was a spiritual pool — a laver of regenera- 
 tion! All the great mysteries of our faith and salvation 
 met and mingled in it! It was the spiritual door into the 
 ineffable kingdom of the Savior ! It was necessary to salva- 
 tion; it comprised the Spirit of God and the blood of the 
 Redeemer! They did not esteem it a symbol. Their reli- 
 gion had no symbols — all these had been abolished by 
 
 * Section 9. 
 
HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM. 65 
 
 Jesus, in blotting out the handwriting of ordinances! But 
 we will quote them to this point: 
 
 "Let us now inquire whether the Lord took care to mani- 
 fest any thing beforehand concerning water and the cross. 
 Now, for the former of these, it is written to the people of 
 Israel how they shall not receive that baptism which bring9 
 to the forgiveness of sins; but shall institute another to 
 themselves, that can not. For thus saith the prophet: Be 
 astonished, heaven ! and let the earth tremble at it, because 
 the people have done two great and wicked things: they 
 have left me, the fountain of living waters, and have digged 
 for themselves broken cisterns that can hold no water. Is 
 my holy mountain Zion a desolate wilderness? For ye shall 
 be as a young bird when its nest is taken away. And again 
 the prophet saith: I will go before thee, and will make plain 
 the mountains, and will break the gates of brass, and will 
 snap in sunder the bars of iron ; and will give the dark, and 
 hidden, and invisible treasures, that they may know that I 
 am the Lord God. And again : He shall dwell in the high 
 den of the strong rock. And then, what follows in the same 
 prophet? His water is faithful: ye shall see the king with 
 glory, and your soul shall learn the fear of the Lord. And 
 again he saith in another prophet: 'He that does these 
 things shall be like a tree planted by the currents of water, 
 which shall give its fruit in its season. Its leaf also shall 
 not wither, and whatsoever he doth it shall prosper. As 
 for the wicked it is not so with them ; but they are as the 
 dust which the wind scattereth away from the face of the 
 earth. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judg- 
 ment, neither the sinners in the council of the righteous: 
 for the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, and the 
 way of the ungodly shall perish. Consider bow he has 
 
 14 
 
66 HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 joined both the cross and the water together. For thus he 
 saith: 'Blessed are they who put their trust in the cross, 
 descend into the water; for they shall have their reward in 
 due time; then,' saith he, 'will I give it them.' But as con- 
 cerning the present time, he saith, their leaves shall not fall ; 
 meaning thereby, that every word that shall go out of your 
 mouth, shall through faith and charity be to the conversion 
 and hope of many. In like manner doth another prophet 
 speak: 'And the land of Jacob was the praise of all the 
 earth,' magnifying thereby the vessel of his spirit. And 
 what follows? 'And there was a river running on the right 
 hand, and beautiful trees grew up by it; and he that shall 
 eat of them shall live for ever. The signification of which 
 is this: that we go down into the water full of sins and 
 pollutions, but come up again bringing forth fruit; having 
 in our hearts the fear and hope which is in Jesus by the 
 Spirit. 'And whosoever shall eat of them shall live for 
 ever ; ' that is, whosoever shall hearken to those who call 
 them, shall live for ever."* 
 
 "Please him under whom ye war, and from whom ye 
 receive your wages. Let none of you be found a deserter; 
 but let your baptism remain as your arms, your faith as your 
 helmet, your charity as your spear, your patience as your 
 whole armor." f 
 
 "Hear, therefore, why the tower is built upon the water; 
 because your life is and shall be saved by water. For it is 
 founded by the almighty and honorable name, and is sup- 
 ported by the invisible power and virtue of Grod."J 
 
 "And I said unto him : I have even now heard from cer- 
 tain teachers that there is no other repentance beside that 
 
 * Barnabas, Section 10. f Ignatius to Polycarp, Section 2. 
 
 % Hennas, Vision 3. 
 
HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM. 67 
 
 of baptism, when we go down into the water and receive the 
 forgiveness of our sins; and that after that, we must sin no 
 more, but live in purity. And he said unto me, Thou hast 
 been rightly informed."* 
 
 "He answered, What dost thou ask? Why did these 
 stones come out of the deep, and were placed into the build- 
 ing of this tower, seeing that they long ago carried these 
 holy spirits? It was necessary, said he, for them to ascend 
 by water, that they might be at rest. For they could not 
 otherwise enter into the kingdom of God, but by laying 
 aside the morality of their former life. They, therefore, 
 being dead, were nevertheless sealed with the seal of the Son 
 of God, and so entered into the kingdom of God. For 
 before a man receives the name of the Son of God, he is 
 ordained unto death ; but when he receives that seal, he is 
 freed from death, and assigned unto life. Now that seal is 
 the water of baptism, into which men go down under the 
 obligation unto death, but come up appointed unto life. 
 Wherefore to those also was the seal preached, and they 
 made use of it, that they might enter into the kingdom of 
 God. And I said: Why then, sir, did these forty stones also 
 ascend with them out of the deep, having already received 
 that seal? He answered: Because these apostles and teach- 
 ers, who preached the name of the Son of God, dying after 
 he had received his faith and power, preached to them who 
 were dead before, and they gave this seal to them. They 
 went down therefore into the water with them, and again 
 came up. But these went down whilst they were alive, and 
 came up again alive; whereas those who were before dead, 
 went down dead, and came up alive; through these therefore 
 they received life, and knew the Son of God. for which cause 
 * Hernias, Command 4. 
 
68 HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 they came up with them, and were fit to come into the build- 
 ing of the tower, and were not cut, but put in entire, because 
 they died in righteousness, and in great purity, only this 
 seal was wanting to them."* 
 
 Thus we see the first step in error in relation to baptism, 
 the cause of which we have given, and all can readily per- 
 ceive. But this was only the first step; the apostolic fathers 
 did not go far enough into error to reach Infant Baptism. 
 Over their writings, on this subject, the same silence reigns, 
 as over those of the New Testament. They make not the 
 slightest allusion to such a custom. The eagle eyes of 
 Dr. Wall could discover no support for his cause in any 
 thing that they have said. He does not produce from 
 them the first particle of proof to sustain his darling 
 system. 
 
 It is not our purpose, in this chapter, to cite other autho- 
 rities than these fathers. With them we leave our readers 
 for the present. We have taken but the first step from the 
 apostles. We have but entered the threshold of that gloom 
 which sat for centuries, dark as the pall of death, upon the 
 minds of Christendom. We must, however, penetrate fur- 
 ther and group longer in the darkness, before we find 
 Infant Baptism. We have passed over the first century, 
 and have entered considerably into the second, and Infant 
 Baptism is still invisible. True, we begin to see the work- 
 ings of that system — of that mystery of iniquity, which 
 ultimately developed it; but the institution itself is yet 
 unborn. Our readers should note, too, the lamentable 
 degeneracy in doctrine already too manifest. Great ravages 
 were committed upon the simplicity of the faith; mon- 
 strous absurdities, as our readers have seen, were already 
 * Hermas, Similitude 9. 
 
HISTORY OP INFANT BAPTISM. 69 
 
 advanced and vindicated; but others still more startling 
 are to appear. A still darker cloud must hover in the 
 moral heavens ; wilder whims and fancies must possess the 
 minds of professing Christians, and then the era of Infant 
 Baptism begins.