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 1884. 
 
 
 Infant baptism 
 
 
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 INFANT BAPTISM, 
 
 SCRIPTURAL ORDINANCE 
 
 BAPTISM BY SPRINKLING 
 
 LAWFUL, 
 
 BY WM. T. HAMILTON, A.M. 
 
 I'Afe.TOB OF THE FIKST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, NEWARK, N.J. 
 
 NEWARK: 
 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM TLTTLE. 
 
 1831. 
 
9^^^^«mV 
 
 District of XeiD- Jersey, ss. 
 
 BE IT REMEMBERED, That on the eleventh day of February, in tha 
 year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty-one, and in tho 
 fifty -fifth year of the Independence of the United States of America, William 
 T. Hamilton, of the said District, hath deposited in this office the title of a 
 book, the right whereof he claims as author, in the words following, to wit: 
 
 "Infant Baptism, a Scriptural Ordinance: and Baptism bv Sprinkling 
 Lawful. By VVm. T. Hamilton, A M. Pastor of the First Presbyterian 
 Church, Newark, N.J." 
 
 In conformity to an Act of the Congress of the United States, entitled " an 
 act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, 
 and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times 
 therein mentioned." And also to an Act, entitled " An act supplementary to 
 au Act, entitled an Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the 
 copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such 
 copies, during the times therein mentioned, and extending the benefits thereof 
 to the arts of designing, etching and engraving, historical and other prints." 
 
 \Vm. PENNINGTON, 
 Clerk of the Diitrici of New-Jergey, 
 
f' 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 About two years since, the writer of this Httle tract 
 had his attention called by circumstances of pecu- 
 liar interest to the subject of baptism. Doubts 
 would occasionally arise in his mind in relation to 
 one and another point connected with this sub- 
 ject, which, together with his duties as a minister, 
 frequently called upon to administer baptism to in- 
 fants, laid him under strong obligations to examine 
 the whole subject anew. He consulted every au- 
 thor, both poedobaptist and antipccdobaptist, to 
 whose works he could obtain access. He believes 
 that truth was the obje.ct at which he aimed. He 
 entered on the investigation, determined to search 
 for the truth, to embrace it on whicli side soever he 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 should find it ; and when once satisfied that he 
 had found it, openly to profess it ; even though it 
 should be by offering himself as a candidate for 
 immersion among his Baptist brethren. The re- 
 sult of his research, is a complete removal of his 
 doubts, and a firmer conviction than ever, that In- 
 fant Baptism is an ordinance of God — pregnant 
 with blessings, to the church, and to the world. He 
 is, however, well aware of the influence which 
 preconceived opinions will be supposed to have 
 exerted on the result of his inquiries ; and of the 
 abatement with which, on that account, his reason- 
 ings will be received. When his mind was satified 
 on the subject, he expressed his views to the people 
 of his charge in a short series of sermons. These 
 were shown to some of his brethren, in whose 
 judgment and candour he places confidence. It 
 was thought that their circulation might promote the 
 cause of truth, especially in the region of country 
 where the writer is best knov^^n. Accordingly, at 
 the suggestion of a much-esteemed brother in the 
 ministry, the sermons were laid aside, and this trea- 
 tise was written, embracing the same train of rea- 
 soning, and embodying a few brief remarks on the 
 mode of baptism, which had not been touched on 
 
TRETAClt. r 
 
 in the sermons. It is only justice to remark, that 
 from the perusal of the late Dr. John Mason's 
 Strictures on " the Church of God, '—of Dr. Wood's 
 Lectures on Infant Baptism — of Letters on Infant 
 Baptism, by Dr. Ralston, of Williamsport, Wash- 
 ington county, Pennsylvania, first published in the 
 Christian Advocate — and of Dr. Worcester, on In- 
 fant Baptism, he has obtained several valuable hints. 
 Nor has he failed to consult on the Baptist side of 
 the question. Dr. Ryland's Sermon — Mr. Booth's 
 Pcedobaptism Examined — Gibb's Defence of the 
 Baptists — Frey's Essays on Baptism — Letters of 
 David and John — Jones' Church History — and se- 
 veral other writers. Defects, perhaps glaring de- 
 fecls, this treatise ,may contain : an honest exposi- 
 tion of the reasons that weigh in his own mind, the 
 writer is sure it presents. 
 
 Believing that it meets the wants of this region 
 of country more nearly than any thing he has yet 
 found, the writer commits this little treatise to the 
 press with fervent prayers for the blessing of the 
 church's glorious Head to accompany it ; and in 
 so doing, he offers it to the people of his charge, and 
 to the Session of the church he serves, with pecu- 
 liar interest, as a token of his earnest desire that 
 1* 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 they may be rooted and grounded in the faith, and 
 that their children after them may prize the privi- 
 leges of that covenant, the apphcation of whose 
 seal in baptism brings them also w^ithin the purview 
 of its promise, " I will be a God to thee and to thy 
 seed after thee." 
 
 WM. T. HAMILTON. 
 
 Newark, January 19j 133 1> 
 
ON INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 A BRIEF EXPOSITION OF THE SCRIPTURAL WARRANT FOR THE 
 PRACTICE OF INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 TfiE great body of Christians in our day believe 
 that it is right to baptize infants ; and they act accord- 
 ingly. One denomination, justly esteemed for their 
 evangelical spirit, and their zealous labours in the field 
 of missionary o{>erations, condemn this practice : yet 
 both profess to be guided by the scriptures alone. It 
 becomes then an object deeply interesting to a serious 
 mind, to ascertain where the truth lies in relation to 
 this long contested subject. The design of the fol- 
 lowing pages is to furnish a plain statement of the rea- 
 sons which satisfy the minds of very many, that the 
 baptism of infants is no device of man, no unmeaning 
 rehc of popish superstition, but a scriptural and most 
 important practice. Before entering on the more im- 
 mediate consideration of this subject, it will be neces, 
 sary to offer some preliminary remarks. 
 
 It cannot fail to have struck every one at all conver. 
 
8 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 sant with the writings of those who deny the doctrine 
 of infant baptism, that they commonly adduce a variety 
 of directions and examples from Scripture, which teach 
 that all who believe in Christ are entitled to baptism ; 
 and then, having made out satisfactorily, that believers' 
 baptism is scriptural, they set it down as an argument 
 in their favour and against us. — This does at least 
 carry the appearance of being disingenuous. The 
 evidence deduced from Scripture, in support of adult 
 baptism, or rather believers' baptism, is common pro- 
 perty. We value it as highly, and act on it as, con- 
 stantly, as do our anti-poedobaptist brethren ; never 
 refusing baptism to an adult who makes a credible 
 profession of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, never 
 baptizing any adults who do not make such profession. 
 But all this has nothing to do with infant baptism, and 
 should be left wholly out of view in this discussion ; 
 unless it can be shown, that because certain persons 
 have a right to an ordinance, therefore no others have. 
 What relates to believers, and them alone, has nothing 
 to do with the question of infant baptism. The simple 
 point of inquiry should be, What grounds do the scrip- 
 tures furnish us to conclude that infants may or may 
 not be baptized ? and if five hundred precepts and as 
 many examples could be gathered from the bible, 
 which, on examination, are found to relate only to adults 
 or to believers, they do not touch the question ; any 
 more than do the precepts against murder and adulte- 
 ry ; and should be equally passed over in this inquiry. 
 What, then, is the proper kind of evidence admissible 
 in this case 1 It is indeed greatly to be desired that the 
 decision of this preliminary question were amicably 
 
INFANT HAPTISM. D 
 
 agreed on by both parties. Till this is done, the dis- 
 pute can never be brought to a close. While one party 
 insist upon one kind of evidence, which is not to be 
 found, and which, in the nature of the case, could not 
 be looked for, and refuse peremptorily to listen to any 
 arguments drawn from other sources ; unanimity of 
 sentiment is impossible, and the dispute can never 
 cease. The advocates of infant baptism cheerfully 
 admit that the Scriptures furnishes no express com- 
 mand, nor any plain and undeniable example of the 
 baptism of infants. But while making this admission, 
 we contend that the examples of household baptism, 
 (though it is not expressly said of any one of those 
 iiouseholds, that it contained young infants,) are yet 
 directly favourable to the doctrine of infant baptism ; 
 the probability being stronger that they did contain in- 
 tants than that they did not ; while the case of the 
 jailer's household, furnishes no light ground for the 
 baptism of some, on a profession of the faith of others, 
 not their own. At the same time we contend, that an 
 express command for the baptism of infants was un- 
 necessary, since they had for ages been received into 
 the Jewish church by circumcision. When, under the 
 Old Testament dispensation a gentile, not of the seed 
 of Abraham, forsook his idols, and joined himself to 
 the people of God, he was circumcised, and his chil- 
 dren with him, on the strength of his profession to 
 serve God. Suppose then that circumcision had been 
 continued, and baptism had not been appointed, but 
 that the commission had been — " Go ye into all the 
 world, and teach all nations, circumcising them in the 
 name, &c." who can doubt that the Apostles would 
 
10 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 have understood their commission to require the cir- 
 cumcision of the infants of their converts, as well as of 
 the converts themselves ? To Jews, accustomed to 
 regard the infants of those who avouched Jehovah to be 
 their God, as the proper subjects of circumcision, no 
 repetition of the command to circumcise infants was 
 needed : if infants were not to be circumcised, they 
 would look for an express prohibition in the case. In 
 like manner, when baptize was the command, instead 
 of circumcise, it is inevitable, that without an express 
 prohibition in relation to infants, they must have re- 
 garded the commission as requiring them to baptize 
 infants as well as adults : and with this, their baptizing 
 whole households, on the conversion of the head of the 
 family, and recording it in the history of their proceed- 
 ings, without any mark of peculiarity in the case, well 
 comports ; while, if the right of infants to this ordi» 
 nance had been withheld, it is impossible that Jewish 
 Apostles, and Jewish historians, should not have been 
 more careful to guard against a misconstruction of their 
 conduct in the case. 
 
 It is admitted that baptism is a positive ordinance, 
 not a moral precept : that independently of the posi- 
 tive appointment of God to baptize, there is nothing in 
 the nature of things, (so far as we can discover) that 
 renders baptism obhgatory : and consequently, that our 
 warrant must be found only in the word of God. We 
 acknowledge that the obligation to baptize rests solely 
 on the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, the head of 
 the church ; that the law of the institution is the only 
 rule of obedience ; so that we may neither add to, nor 
 take away from, that law : and we conceive it but rea- 
 
tNFANT BAPTlStf. H 
 
 sonable to expect that that law will be found so plain, 
 that on a diligent and impartial consideration of it, 
 (judging of its meaning as we suppose the apostles, to 
 whom as Jews it was first addressed, must have under- 
 stood it,) it will be found sufficient to guide us safely. 
 But what then ? Does all this prove that the mere 
 words uttered by our Lord at the time of his delivering 
 the commission to his disciples, " Go ye into all the 
 world, teach all nations, baptizing them," &c. are the 
 only part of scripture which is to be regarded as the 
 law ? It proves nothing more than that the authority 
 of Christ is the only ground of duty in baptism, and 
 that from the sacred scriptures — not from mere tradi- 
 tion, or the opinions of men, or our ideas of expedien- 
 cy — we must gather direction : — but it does not show- 
 that by the mere words of the institution, and by scrip- 
 tural examples alone, we are to be guided, to the ex- 
 elusion of inferential reasoning from other parts of the 
 word of God. The whole word of God is the law of 
 his institutions, and we are bound to collect from it all 
 the light we can to explain their nature and design. 
 No man has a right, when inquiring into an appoint* 
 ment of God, or an ordinance of his church, to say 
 that the Old Testament, or any other part of his word, 
 has nothing to do with the subject, and must be laid 
 wholly aside in treating of it. If the words of insti- 
 tution are the only law of a positive ordinance, then 
 the seventh day, and not the first of the week, must 
 still be observed as a sabbath : or rather, as.no express 
 command for sabbatic observance is found in the New 
 Testament, the christian church has no sabbath at all ; 
 and some baptists are consistent enough to maintain 
 
12 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 this. Then too, guided only by the law of the institu. 
 lion of the Lord's supper, thus understood, no woman, 
 however pious, must sit down at the Lord's table ; as 
 will be shown more at large hereafter. It is by com- 
 paring scripture with scripture, that we learn the mean- 
 ing of any one passage, and the true design of God's 
 ordinances. Whatever can be thus lawfully inferred, 
 is as much a part of divine revelation, as if stated in so 
 many words in fifty different passages of scripture. 
 And on every subject but baptism, baptists themselves 
 reason and infer just as we do ; else would they never 
 admit a female to communion in their churches, nor 
 observe the first day of the week as a holy sabbath. 
 
 These remarks will prepare the reader to appreciate 
 the course of argument pursued in this treatise. We 
 contend, that as Jews, accustomed to the membership 
 of infants in the church of God under the Old Testa- 
 ment dispensation, the apostles must have considered 
 themselves bound to admit the infants of believers into 
 the gospel church by baptism, just as of old they were 
 admitted by circumcision, — because no direction to 
 the contrary was given by our Lord. The right of in- 
 fants to admission to the church by baptism, rests, then, 
 on the truth of these few propositions : 
 
 1st. Before the advent of our Lord, God had a true 
 church on earth ; and for many ages, that church had 
 subsisted under a regular organization provided in the 
 Abrahamic covenant. 
 
 2nd. The Abrahamic covenant is still in force, and 
 consequently, the Christian church is but a continu- 
 ance of the Jev/ish. 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 13 
 
 3d. Infant membership in the church, once estab- 
 lished of God, never revoked, still remains. 
 
 4th. Under the gospel dispensation, baptism is sub- 
 stituted in the room of circumcision, as the seal of 
 God's covenant. 
 
 From all which, once established, it will follow, that 
 infant baptism is a scriptural practice,to avail ourselves 
 of it for our children, at once a duty and a privilege : 
 ?md with this conclusion, the language and the conduct 
 of Christ and of his Apostles, and the testimony of 
 church history, will be found on examination, exactly 
 to accord ; while all the objections that can be urged, 
 will be seen to be void of force. 
 
 It is then asserted : — 1st. God had a true church on 
 earth before the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, which 
 had for many ages enjoyed a regular organization 
 under the Abrahamic covenant. 
 
 By a church is meant, not the company of real 
 saints alone ; these never will be beheld together, with- 
 out an admixture of ungodly men, till the exhibition 
 made at the last day ; but a church is made up o{ those 
 who take God's revealed loiU as their guide, and ostensihlu 
 render him the worship he has therein 'prescribed.^ In the 
 
 * Or it is the company of credible professors of the tnie re- 
 ligion : — "J'he mention of children is designedly omitted here, 
 just as we omit children when describing any other public soci- 
 ety, or a nation : — It might have been said — a church consists of 
 those who professedly render to God the icorship he requires, to- 
 gether with the children who have been consecrated to God after 
 the manner he ha* prescribed : — but then this definition might 
 
 2 
 
14 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 family of Adam God established a church ; he gave* 
 them promises, and appointed the way in which he 
 would be worshipped. This we infer from the fact 
 that worship was offered, probably by the first pair, 
 whose clothing of skins was most likely obtained from 
 animals slain in sacrifice. Gen. iii. 21, since no grant 
 of animal food is recorded as having been made till 
 after the deluge. It is certain that worship was at- 
 tempted both by Cain and Abel : now an act of wor- 
 ship performed without authority from God, is what 
 
 possibly exclude all who lived before Abraham, since we have no 
 certain evidence that their children were then publicly dedicated 
 to God in any specific manner ; although the writer believes it 
 probable, that then already, such infant consecration was made, 
 and made, most likely, in the act of taking the child to attend, 
 for the first time, on a solemn sacrifice. 
 
 A definition more satisfactory to some would be, " the visi- 
 ble church consists of the credible professors of the true religion, to- 
 gether with their children.'''' The same uncertainty as to the ante 
 Abrahamic church would accompany this definition that attends 
 the precdeing, since, though it is probable, that a provision for the 
 seed of God's people, made in all subsequent ages, was not then 
 unknown, yet we have no direct evidence of that provision prior 
 to the time of Abraham. Moreover, by defining the church to 
 be " credible professors of the true religion and their children," 
 it seems to be conceded, that the children of such professors are 
 from their birth, members of the visible church, and that baptism 
 is only a public acknowledgment of that membership ; while in 
 the writer's view, such children have from their birth a right only 
 to admission ; but they do not actually become members until 
 they receive baptism, the initiary ordinance of the church : and 
 yet perhaps, these two difficulties are of little weight, and if so, 
 this definition is quite admissible. 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 15 
 
 the scriptures denominate wUl toorship, which God will 
 not accept. Abel's offering of a bloody sacrifice, 
 presented by faith, Heb. xi. 4, was accepted of God. 
 Gen. iv. 4, Cain's offering of the fruits of the ground 
 was rejected, v. 5 ; and he was reminded of beasts 
 for a sin-offering, crouching at his very door, Gen. iv. 
 7. (Such appears to be the true import of the expres- 
 sion. If thou doest not well — sin lieth at the door: 
 i. e. a sin-offering — an animal proper to be employed 
 as such, lies' crouching near thy door. Gen. iv. 7.) 
 Obviously then, the worship of God by the sacrifice of 
 slaughtered animals, and in that way alone, had been 
 divinely appointed: and if so, all who worshipped 
 God in that manner during the antediluvian and patri- 
 archal ages, prior to the calling of Abraham, were the 
 church of God. To this, confirmation is lent by what 
 is recorded Gen. iv. 26, and vi. 2. At length, univer- 
 sal' corruption spread over the whole world, and the 
 deluge was sent to sweep away the impious race, leav- 
 ing Noah and his family alone to continue the church, 
 and hand down true religion. 
 
 But inasmuch as, after the flood, wickedness again 
 increased with the multiplication of mankind, and 
 threatened the utter extinction of genuine religion, 
 God was pleased to call Abraham out of Ur of the 
 Chaldees, with designs the most gracious. In Gen. 
 xii. 1 — 3, we have an account of the call of Abraham 
 and the communication then made to him, in which by 
 promise, (not by covenant*) he was informed of all 
 
 * The writer is aware that the term covenant is used in the 
 
16 iNFAjrr baptism:.. 
 
 those blessings to himself personally, to his lineal de- 
 scendants, and to all the families of the earth through 
 
 scriptures with some latitude of meaning, sometimes denoting 
 an agreement between two parties, Gen. xxi. 20 — 32. Job ix. 
 15 — 24. Sometimes a kind of gracious compact into which God 
 enters with men, promising mercies on his part, and requiring the 
 performance of certain conditions on theirs, as Gen. xv. 8 — 18, 
 Exod. xxiv. 1 — 8. Sometimes it denotes simply God's purpose 
 or appointment, without any stipulation, Gen. ix. 10, 11. Jer. 
 xxxiii. 20, 25. Sometimes an absolute promise made by God to 
 his people, Isa. lix. 21. Jer. xxxi. 31 — 35. Hos. ii. 18. 
 
 In promising to Noah that no second flood should happen, 
 God appointed the bow as a token of his faithfulness, and this 
 promise is called God's covenant. Gen. ix. 8—19. The rainbow 
 might be called the seal of that covenant — a seal which God 
 himself affixed, no conditions being exacted of men. 
 
 In the covenants with Abraham, in both cases, God promised 
 blessings to Abraham, and required conditions to be performed by 
 Abraham ; in the one case slaughtering animals in a certain man- 
 ner; Gen. xv. 8 — 18; in the other, circumcising himself and his 
 ofispring. Gen. xvii. 9 — 14 : this circumcision was the seal of this 
 covenant ;-— on God's part that he accepted /ai7/i as a substitute 
 for perfect righteousness, and would send blessings upon his cir- 
 cumcised seed — on Abraham's, that he did believe God, and would 
 await the fulfilment of his promise : hence to circumcise was to 
 keep God's covenant. Gen. xvii. 10. 
 
 Now as every covenant contained a promise, the blessing i« 
 often referred to under the name of the promise, not being called 
 a covenant, Gal. iii. 14 — 18. And in Paul's writings the blessings 
 secured to Abraham and his seed in this gracious covenant are 
 frequently spoken of as the promise to Abraham, probably be- 
 cause all that was afterwards confirmed in the two covenants 
 was expressed in the general promise given at the time of his call 
 out of Ur. 
 
 I have made a distinction between the promise first given and 
 the covenants afterwards confirmed -^ not that I doubt that God'a 
 
INFANT I.APTISM. IT 
 
 him, which were afterwards more particularly explain- 
 €cl, amplified, and confirmed in two distincts covenants. 
 
 In Gen. XV. we have an account of God's appearing 
 to Ahram in vision, and ratifying a covenant with him. 
 Abram offered certain animals, according to the direc- 
 tions given him, and then we read, " In that same day 
 the Lord made a covenant with Abraham, saying, Unto 
 thy seed have I given this land, from the river of 
 Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates,''' v. 13. 
 On this occasion, the first part of the promise made to 
 Abram at the time of his call when in Ur, securing to 
 his posterity possession of the land of Canaan and 
 great national prosperity, was renewed and confirmed 
 by covenant. This promise has exclusive respect to 
 temporal favours, and being now "sealed in the cove- 
 nant," is never again mentioned by itself. 
 
 About fourteen or fifteen years after this transaction 
 (some indeed make it twenty. five years) God appeared 
 again to Abram, and made another covenant with him, 
 as recorded in Gen. xvii. 1 — 14. Lest the former cove- 
 nant should appear to be annulled by this — the promise 
 therein made to Abraham's descendants is recognised. 
 But still, this is an entirely different covenant, and rati- 
 fied by a distinct seal. In addition to the temporal 
 blessings before promised, the promise is now given 
 that Abram should be the father of many nations, v. 4, 
 in token of which, his name is changed to Ahraham : 
 
 promises and even his commands are sometimes called covenants 
 in scripture ; but because there was an obvious difference between 
 the simple assurance first given to Abraham in Ur, and the for- 
 mal manner in which the two covenants were afterwards con- 
 firmed. 
 
 2* 
 
IS INFANT BAPTISM- 
 
 and then is superadded that most gracious promise;, 
 ^* I will be a God unto thee, and to thy seed af ten hee,'' y.l . 
 This, then, was not a mere carnal covenant, securing 
 only temporal blessings. Those who would so repre- 
 sent it, not only degrade, but confound it with the pre- 
 vious covenant recorded in Gen. xv. 
 
 Nor is this covenant the same as the covenant of 
 grace,* i. e. it does not convey a promise of salvation 
 
 * To avoid misapprehension, I would state, that by the cove- 
 nant of grace, I mean that transaction which takes place between 
 God and an individual of our race, in which personal salvation is 
 secured to him, as distinguished from the covenant of redemp- 
 tion, ratified between God the Father and the Son, for the salva- 
 tion of all the elect. When a sinner repents and believes on 
 Christ, he consents to the covenant of grace, and God on liis part 
 pardons his sins, and confers on him a title to eternal life. 
 
 la my view, the covenant with Abraham was something dif- 
 ferent from this ; when God proposes a covenant, saying, I will 
 be a God to thee and to thy seed after thee, and requires from man a 
 token of his consent, such a token e. g. — as circumcision, or 
 baptism, no sooner is that token given by man in his becoming 
 circumcised or baptized, than all that is covered by that promise 
 is secured to him ; and if that promise include saving blessings, 
 then I see not but that every circumcised person must have been 
 saved ; and then also, under the gospel, every baptized peison must 
 be sure of salvation ; a doctrine none are prepared to receive. 
 And in this sense it is that I contend this ancient covenant was 
 not the covenant of gi-ace. There is a sense in which God was 
 the God of Abraham, and of all his circumcised seed, equally and 
 alike ; a sense in which he is to this day the God of the baptized 
 seed ; not for salvation — (for all the baptized are not saved,) but 
 for important purposes, as developed in the course of this trea- 
 tise ; yet inasmuch as circumcision formerly, (a seal of the right- 
 eousness of faith,) and baptism now, are a token that God wilt 
 account fwth for righteousness, when a man believes as Abraham 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 19 
 
 to Abraham and the seed specified in this covenant, 
 nor to either of them. Ot" this covenant circmncision 
 was the original seal, now we all know that to whom- 
 soever any covenant or contract is sealed, that seal 
 absolutely secures to him the full benefit of all the 
 stipulations contained in that covenant. If then this 
 covenant be the same as the covenant of grace, since 
 circumcision was God's seal, not man's, then every 
 circumcised person must have been infallibly sure of 
 salvation : the ancient Jews held this opinion, but the 
 language of Christ and his apostles has taught us dif- 
 ferently. Abraham was a believer long before this 
 event, and as such was justified, for he had believed 
 God (at least fourteen years before,) and his faith was 
 then counted to him for righteousness, Gen. xv. 6. and 
 circumcision was appointed a seal of the righteousness 
 of Xhe faith which he had, being yet uncircumciscd, 
 ( Rom. iv. 1 1 ) ; so that neither the salvation of Abraham, 
 nor of any of his seed, was determined by this cove- 
 nant. 
 
 But herein God brought Abraham and all his seed, 
 whether natural or adopted, (on whom the seal of 
 circumcision should be placed,) into a new and pecu- 
 liar relation, so as to be his God and their God in their 
 generations, in one and the same sense ; they were 
 hereby brought into a more immediate relation to God, 
 than the rest of mankind, as his people. 
 
 (lid, he then becomes a son of Abraham in the higher and spi- 
 ritual sense, he 13 Christ's, and Abraham's seed, according to the 
 promise, in its large and saving sense. There are external and 
 aUo internal blessinga covered by that promise. 
 
 \ 
 
20 INFANT BAPTISSr. 
 
 The seed to whom the promise was given, meant 
 not Abraham's natural descendants as such, for Ish« 
 mael and Keturah's children were expressly excepted. 
 In Isaac shall thy seed be called, Rom. ix. 7. Gen. 
 xxi. 12. nay Esau, Isaac's son, was also cut off, Rom. 
 xiii. Moreover, provision was made in this very cove- 
 nant, for the admission of others, not of Abraham's 
 descendants : Gen. xvii. 10 — 12. And at the supple- 
 ment added to this covenant at Mount Sinai 430 years 
 after, this provision for the admission of strangers and 
 their offspring among the people of God, was still 
 kept in view. 
 
 Besides, Abraham was to be made the father of 
 many nations : this cannot respect his natural descen- 
 dants merely, for those of his posterity who were in- 
 terested in this covenant constituted only one nation : 
 the promise that he should be \he father of many na- 
 tions, Gen. xvii. 5. is obviously equivalent to that first 
 made to him when called out of Ur : in thee shall all 
 the families of the earth he blessed, Gen. xii. 3. In so 
 wide a sense did Paul understand this promise, that he 
 tells us, Abraham was to be the heir of the world : 
 Rom. iv. 13. Now since all of whom Abraham is 
 counted the father are his seed, the seed to whom God 
 promises to be a father equally as to Abraham, must 
 include all these many nations, and must ultimately 
 embrace all the families of the earth. 
 
 Of this gracious covenant circumcision was the seal : 
 — showing, that as Abraham had been justified by 
 faith, not by works, so every one that believes as 
 Abraham did, shall like him be justified by faith. And 
 consequently, to every one who walked as Abraham 
 
IHFANT BAPTISM. 21 
 
 did, by faith, his circumcision was thenceforth a pledge 
 of liis own personal interest in the same righteousness 
 by which Abraham had been justified : — and lience 
 the apostle tells us that the gospel was before preached 
 unto Abj'oham, Gal. iii. 8. because it was foreseen that 
 God would justify the heathen thrcugh faith : and justifi- 
 cation by faith, which is the very marrow of the gospel, 
 — was the grand doctrine taught — and the chief pri- 
 vilege tendered, in the covenant ratified w ith Abraham, 
 and signified by its seal. The covenant ratified with 
 Abraham and sealed with circumcision, was, therefore, 
 evidently, a covenant ecclesiastical ; by which God 
 appointed Abraham to be the father of all believers, 
 i. e. the head and representative of the church in 
 all succeeding ages ; and conferred upon his family 
 high and peculiar privileges, in which they received 
 a more complete organization than had before been 
 granted to God's people ; marking them out more dis- 
 tinctly as' one spiritual society, and promising to per- 
 petuate the visible church in that family by lineal 
 descent; with the restriction made by cutting oflTIsh- 
 mael, Keturah's children, and Esau ; and the admis- 
 sion of any others who voluntarily chose the God of 
 Abraham as their God, and submitted to circumcision. 
 To them and to their seed after them Jehovah pro- 
 mised to be a God, in which promise he virtually 
 engaged to furnish them with every needful revelation 
 of his will, and with the ordinances of his worship, 
 and from among them, chiefly, to take the election of 
 grace. Accordingly Paul says — what advantage then 
 hath the Jew, and what profit is there of circumcision ^ 
 Much every way, chiefly because that unto them itr€r$ 
 
22 INFANT BAPTISM, 
 
 committed the oracles of God : Rom. iii. 1, 2. The 
 Holy Ghost has thus decided by Paul, that the most 
 prominent benefit certainly accruing from this cove- 
 nant, was, that it marked out the visible church, and 
 ensured to them the means of grace.* Accordingly 
 
 * Against the interpretation of this passage given in our version 
 — it has been said, the true sense of it is " much every way — be- 
 cause that by them were believed the oracles of God, — but what if 
 some did not believer" and that though Trtg-mu) and Trig-iviysii — are 
 sometimes rendered committed, entrusted, ^c. — yet the antithesis 
 with ATrig-iu- — forbids that rendering here. This criticism appears 
 to me incorrect ; different verbs are employed in the different 
 parts of this antithesis : the idea seems to be, that the Jews en- 
 joyed peculiar advantages in the possession of revealed truth, — 
 and though by many this truth was disbelieved — yet the truth 
 itself remained unimpaired in worth, unshaken in stabihty, suffi- 
 cient to render wise unto salvation its possessors, had they rightly 
 improved it. An idea similar to that expressed by the psalmist 
 cxlvii. 19. He hath showed his word unto Jacob, and his statutes and 
 judgments unto Israel ; he hath not dealt so with any nation. The 
 sense given by our translators is adopted and defended by Dod- 
 dridge and McKnight ; — Rosenmiiller maintains the same : Etti?^ 
 Binrnv Ti{ Koyu T8 6s5i, Oracula divina concredita sunt iis :— and on 
 
 the next verse ^lydig Kx-raeyf^fru : Quid enim (inde sequitur) si 
 
 quidam non habuerunt fidem (oraculis divinis,) num istorum per- 
 fidia fidelitatem Dei (in servandis promissis) sustulerit ? — Fateor, 
 inquit Apostolus, non digni erant Judcei hoc beneficio ; — nam 
 major eorum pars semper fuit et nunc est perfida, denegans Deo 
 fidem et obsequium. Sed hoc non impedivit, quo minus Deus 
 staret promissis. Misit Messiam e gente Israeletica oriundum, et 
 nunc etiam Judasi fruuntur hoc commodo, ut ex vaticiniis V. T. 
 facilius discere possint quam Pagani — qualis sit Messias, et qua- 
 lis vera religio. Matt. xv. 24. — Acts xiii. 45. 
 
 In these views the most eminent commentators about the time 
 pf the reformation, and the most respectable versions concur, 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 'ZZ 
 
 we find God delighting to make himself known as the 
 covenant God of his people, and of their children 
 with them, since he styles himself the God of Abraham, 
 Isaac, and Jacob, rather than the God of Enoch, 
 Noah, and Job, though these were equally good and 
 pious men. The seal of this ancient covenant formed 
 
 Beza remarks on this passage, " Intellige vero sic illis commissa 
 Dei cloqiiia, non ut alicnae rei dcpositum, set ut proprium ipso- 
 rum thesaurum quo utcrentur et fruerentur ; unde factum ut reli- 
 quos populos ante Christi adveiitum apostolus ideam a. Baa vocarit, 
 Eph. ii. 12. Et hue respicit nomen t^^* x3tTa9>;x«j quo utitur. 1 
 Tim. vi. 20." 
 
 In the marginal analysis this venerable reformer gives of tlie 
 2d, 3d, and 4th verses, he expresses more distinctly yet the views 
 I have advanced in the text, as conveyed in this passage. Pool, 
 in his Synopsis, after citing Grotius, Hoc Judaji habent procipuum 
 quod illis in custodiam data sunt oracula, &c. thus comments on 
 this passage : Eximio hoc honore eos dignatus est Deus, ut as- 
 sent Verbi sui dispensatores, cusiodcs, depositarii ; idque ad 
 aliorum usum et commodum, ut solent depositarii. Sic Evan- 
 geliumapud Paulum et Petrum depositum erat (Gal. ii. 7.) ad 
 usum gentium, etJudajorum. See also, 1 Tim. i. 11, "the glorious 
 gospel of the blessed God wliich was committed to my trust," 
 ( £T/rsy9w e>a. In both these passages the same word is used as 
 in Rom. iii. 2, and it is translated in the same manner. 
 
 The same view of Rom. iii. 2, 3, is taken by Jaspis, in his La- 
 tin version-of the New Testament epistles : his version reads, 
 " Quorsum igitur juvat esse natione Judteus, aut quis redit ex 
 circumcisionc fructus ? Multus sane ; maxime quod Judieis doc- 
 trina divma concredita est. Qnid eniin inde efficitur, si quidam 
 perfide egerunt ?" &c. And in a note, he remarks — " Hanc per- 
 lidiam declararunt vita scelesta, inclinando ad idolatriam, repudi- 
 ando, vexando et interficiendo prophetas. Quae vero non obstant, 
 ut Deus s^cf promi^^^ ac totam tueatur gentem." See the edi- 
 tion of his " Versio Latina," &c. printed at Leipsic, 1793, yoI. I. 
 p. 9. This view of Rom. iii. 2, is adopted also by Whitby. 
 
24 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 for 2000 years a line of separation, distinguishing the 
 visible church from the world ; within which alone the 
 light of heaven was made to pour down in repeated 
 revelations, while the world around lay shrouded in 
 midnight darkness ; where alone the voice of prophecy 
 was heard — the temple worship was maintained ; where 
 was found the peculiar people — the holy nation — the 
 royal priesthood — whose God was the living Jehovah ; 
 and among whom, perhaps exclusively, was sent down, 
 for so long a period, God's renovating grace : — where 
 alone true piety was found — true saints appeared, such 
 as Samuel, and David, and Daniel, and thousands 
 among the mass of the circumcised : — Hence God 
 says to circumcised Israelites — you only have I known 
 of all the families of the earth, Amos iii. 2. Hence by 
 Stephen, the Holy Ghost speaks of the church in the 
 wilderness, Acts vii. 38. and hence Paul says of the 
 circumcised seed of Abraham, Rom. ix. 4. to whom 
 pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants , 
 and the giving of the laze, arid the service of God and 
 the promises. Here the apostle states the privileges 
 consequent on their interest in this covenant, as in- 
 cluding the revelation of God's will — the enjoyment 
 of his appointed worship, the means of grace, and 
 the advantages of adoption, i. e. they were all regard- 
 ed as God's visible people, and from among them, al- 
 most exclusively, he selected the heirs of life. The 
 Jews then, marked with circumcision, the seal of this 
 covenant, enjoying the revelation and ordinances of 
 God, and spoken of in scripture as the king's daughter, 
 to whom Jehovahwas married, Jer. iii. 14. — Isa. liv. 5. 
 were a true church. Every circumcised person was 
 
INFANT HAPTISM. 25 
 
 bound to keep God's law, (Jal. v. 3. and to be holy ; 
 his attending the temple worship, and eating of the 
 passover, was equivalent to a public profession of re- 
 ligion. And accordingly we find that when Jews prov- 
 ed disobedient and wicked, God reproached them by 
 his prophets as covenant breakers and hypocrites, 
 (Hos. xvi. 6. 9. 17.— Ps. Ixxviii. 34—37.) The fact 
 then that all Jews were not truly pious, no more proves 
 that the circumcised, as a body, were not the true 
 church of God, than the fact that all communicants at 
 the Lord's table now are not real christians — proves 
 that the body of such communicants, are not God's 
 visible church. Every Jew, in coming forwards to eat 
 the passover, publicly avouched Jehovah to be his 
 God, and promised to observe his statutes ; he put his 
 own seal to God's covenant ; and a christian in coming 
 forwards to the Lord's table, does just the same thing. 
 Accordingly we find, that God required true holiness- 
 of every Israelite — " Be ye holy for I am holy !" and 
 he requires no more of christians now, Lev. xi. 44, 46. 
 When they rendered a heartless service, God upbraids 
 them as hypocrites. " Your new moons and sabbaths, 
 your calling of assemblies, I cannot away with. It is 
 iniquity, even the solemn meeting. When ye spread 
 forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you ; when 
 ye make many prayers, 1 will not hear !" Isa. i. 13. 15. 
 All which shows that God required holiness of heart, 
 and spiritual worship, of every Israelite ; that they who 
 rendered it not were hypocrites, false to their cove, 
 nant engagements. From which it follows that the 
 covenant was spiritual, in its obligations and its pro- 
 mises, and consequently, that the Jewish church, for 
 3 
 
26 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 whose continuance and more regular organization 
 provision was made in the Abrahamic covenant, was 
 the true church of God, just as the gospel church now 
 is. All this is rendered yet further apparent from the 
 variety of metaphors employed by our Lord and his 
 apostles, to show the identity of the Christian and 
 Jewish churches ; such as the kingdom taken from 
 one people and given to another, Matt. xxi. 43 ; the 
 vineyard taken from one set of husbandmen and let 
 out to another, v. 41 ; the olive tree, from which some 
 branches were cut out and into which others are 
 grafted, leaving the tree itself unchanged and the 
 same, Rom. xi. 16 — 24 ; as will afterwards more fully 
 appear. It is not more evident, then, that the gospel 
 church is a true church of God, than it is that the 
 Jewish church, blessed in the Abrahamic covenant 
 and marked with the seal of circumcision, was the 
 true church of God. 
 
 Having thus shown that before the time of our Lord 
 a true church was in existence among the Jews,deriv. 
 ing vast benefits from the Abrahamic covenant, I pro- 
 ceed to the second proposition — The christian church 
 is hut a continuation of the Jewish, under the same Abra- 
 hamic covenant still in full force. 
 
 The identity of the church under the Old and New 
 Testament dispensations will appear if we consider, 
 
 1st. The covenant with Abraham, in which the Jewish 
 church found provision for its continuance and regular 
 organization, has never been revoked. 
 
 In no part of God's word can a single passagfe be 
 found to prove that God has set aside this ancient co- 
 venant. On the contrary, it is spoken of and reasoned 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 27 
 
 from in various parts of the New Testament, as un- 
 doubtedly continuing in force. The giving of the ce- 
 remonial law at Mount Sinai did not repeal this cove- 
 nant ; for Paul tells the Galatians, iii. 17, "the law 
 given by Moses cannot disannul" the covenant made 
 with Abraham, which was four hundred and thirty 
 years before it, and which he declares was confirmed 
 of God in Christ. Nay he asserts that this law was 
 added to further the attainment of things contemplated 
 in that covenant. " The law was added because of 
 transgression, till the seed should come to whom the 
 promise was made," v. 19. Nothing can be plainer 
 than this testimony : Christ is the head of all those 
 who by faith become the spiritual seed of Abraham, 
 Gal. iii. 29; and till he should come, the law was added 
 to the original covenant, to mark more distinctly the 
 people from whom he should spring. He being come, 
 the necessity for that distinction is done away, and 
 Gentiles are admitted to membership in the visible 
 church ; that the blessing of Abraham may come on the 
 Gentiles through Jesus Christ, Gal. iii. 14 : i. e. that 
 Gentiles may partake of those spiritual blessings se- 
 cured to all interested in that covenant, of which cir- 
 cumcision was the seal. For circumcision was no 
 appendage to the Mosaic law, but to the Abrahamic 
 covenant — " circumcision is not of Moses, but of the 
 fathers,^^ John vii. 22 — the patriarchs. The com- 
 mencement of the Mosaic economy did not annul the 
 Abrahamic covenant ; how then can its close affect it ? 
 Nay, since the Mosaic law, with its solemn rites and 
 splendid ritual, was an addition subsequently made to 
 the Abrahamic covenant, for the express purpose of the 
 
28 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 better securing one particular object proposed in that 
 covenant, (viz. the coming of Christ, the head of the 
 spiritual seed, that through him Gentiles might have 
 access to the privileges of this covenant, be counted as 
 the seed, and partake of the promise,) the termination 
 of that law, and the abolition of its rites, instead of 
 annulling that ancient covenant, furnish fresh evidence 
 of its stability and its gracious design. 
 
 But, it is said, the prophets foretold the establish- 
 ment of a new covenant, under the gospel, and the 
 abrogation of the old one under which the Jews were ; 
 and this old one, it is said, could only be the Abraha- 
 mic covenant, which must consequently have ceased, 
 see Jer. xxxi. 32. " Behold the day cometh, saiili tJie 
 Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of 
 Israel, and with the house of Judah ; not according to 
 ike covenant that I made with their fathers in the day 
 that I took them by the hand to bring them out of Egypt, 
 which my covenant they brake," and we are then refer- 
 red to Heb. viii. where the apostle quotes this pas- 
 sage, and argues from it. 
 
 It is true the apostle does from this passage ar- 
 gue the abolition of a covenant, which he tells us 
 is now made old and ready to vanish away. But 
 what is that old covenant, of which the apostle 
 speaks? Not the Abrahamic covenant assuredly! 
 the prophet furnishes unequivocal proof of this. It 
 was the covevant made with Israel when God took 
 them by the hand to bring them out of Egypt. It was a 
 covenant that had ordinances of divine service, a 
 wordly sanctuary, a tabernacle, altars, tables, candle- 
 sticks, priests, &c. as the apostle shows in the eighth 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 20 
 
 and ninth chapters of Hebrews. These things appc3r. 
 tain to the covenant established with Israel at Mount 
 Sinai ; to the ceremonial law, given by Moses four hun- 
 dred and thirty years after the covenant with Abra- 
 ham ; but they have nothing to do with this ancient 
 Abrahamic covenant, except as supplements added for 
 a time ; they expired therefore by their own limitation, 
 when the seed should come ; leaving, at their abolition, 
 the Abrahamic covenant, to which they had been sub- 
 sidiary, unrepealed and unaffected, as their estabhsh- 
 ment at Sinai left it. 
 
 And when the prophet speaks of a new covenant to 
 be established, in which God promises to "pour his spi- 
 rit upon all flesh, and write his law upon our inward 
 parts," this does not abolish the preceding Abrahamic 
 covenant,anymore than the establishment of a covenant 
 at Sinai abolished that covenant; which Paul expressly 
 denies. The term new is applied in this passage in a 
 comparative sense, denoting merely the change made 
 in the administration of the covenant under the gospel 
 dispensation, in the greater spirituality of its privileges, 
 and their extension to all nations. In a similar man- 
 ner the prophet Daniel tells us, ii. 44, " In the days of 
 these kings, (i. e. under the fourth or Roman power,) 
 shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom that shall ne- 
 ver be destroyed.^^ It is undoubtedly the kingdom of 
 Christ,or the gospel church, that is here intended ; and 
 some have not hesitated to argue, that inasmuch as it 
 was then to be set up, it could not have existed before ; 
 which would show that no true church was till Christ 
 came. But now it is certain Christ did not speak of his 
 3* 
 
30 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 kingdom, as essentially different from what had before 
 existed, but the same, only differently administered: his 
 was the kingdom of God taken from the Jews and given 
 la another nation, Matth. xxi. 43. The kingdom spoken 
 of by Daniel, therefore, is not, strictly speaking, a new 
 kingdom, but a kingdom then to be set up among a 
 different people, viz. Gentiles, whereas it had before 
 been found only among the Jews. 
 
 Another objection against the perpetuity of the 
 Abrahamic covenant is drawn from Gal. iv. 21 — 25, 
 where Paul argues that the old covenant which gen- 
 dereth to bondage is of no more force. But the cove- 
 nant of bondage, of which the apostle here speaks, is 
 the covenant made at Sinai with the Jewish nation* 
 not that established with Abraham ; as the apostle ex- 
 pressly asserts, v. 2. That covenant of bondage made 
 at Sinai is abolished, the law connected with it is done 
 away. But this (as already shown) affects not the per- 
 petuity of the Abrahamic covenant. On the contrary, 
 in the very spirit of the doctrine here contended for, 
 the apostle proceeds (in the fifth chapter) to show that 
 God's people are delivered from the bondage of that 
 law, and made children of the free-woman, (i. e. heirs 
 of the promise made by covenant to Abraham, as was 
 Isaac, the son of the free-woman,) " wailing for the 
 hope of righteousness through faith," chap. v. ver. 6 ; 
 in other words, permitted to entertain the hope of that 
 gospel before preached to Abraham in the covenant 
 made with him, the substance of whose promise is 
 "justification by faith." For, a covenant that was con^ 
 firmed before of God in Christ (for the benefit of the 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 31 
 
 children of the free-woman,) the /aw (of bondage) 
 which was (given at Sinai) 430 years after ^ cannot dis- 
 annul, that it should make the promise of none effect,'^ 
 Gal. iii. 17. A fair examination of this common ob- 
 jection, only ends as before, in showing more fully, 
 that the abolition of the ceremonial law, and the ter- 
 mination of the covenant of bondage connected with 
 it at Sinai, impair not, but establish the perpetuity of 
 the Abrahamic covenant. No where, then, can evi- 
 dence be found in the word of God, that this ancient 
 covenant is annulled ; and if so, it must still remain in 
 force. — iii. 18, 19. 
 
 This is yet further apparent — Because that covenant 
 contains promises which could never he fulfilled, but un- 
 der the Christian dispensation. 
 
 " In thee shall all the families of the earth be bless- 
 ed," Gen. xii. 3 — a father of many nations have I 
 made thee!" xvii. 5, never could be fully accomplish- 
 ed, so long as the administration of the covenant was 
 confined to one small nation. In Gal. iii. the apostle 
 tells us plainly this promise respected the Gentiles, 
 " the scriptures foreseeing that God would justify the 
 heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto 
 Abraham, saying. In thee shall all nations be blessed," 
 Gal. iii. 8. Accordingly the apostle asserts that Christ 
 came and delivered us from the curse, that the bless- 
 ing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles ; drawing 
 this conclusion, which must be pertinent so long as a 
 gospel church remains on earth. " If ye be Christ's, 
 then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to 
 the promise." If, then, the people of Clirist are the 
 
32 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 seed and heirs of Abraham according to the promise^ 
 the Abrahamic covenant to which that promise was 
 annexed, is still in force, and must continue in force so 
 long as there shall be found on earth those who are 
 Christ's, whether Jew or Gentile. But if believers 
 now are interested in the same covenant, and entitled 
 to participate in the same blessing, as believers of old, 
 the church now is the same, as under the Old Testa- 
 ment dispensation, however changed its external ordi- 
 nances. It stands deeply interested in the same cove- 
 nant, and is essentially the same church. 
 
 But the identity of the church under the Jewish and 
 christian dispensation, is argued not only from the per- 
 petuity of the covenant with Abraham, but also, 
 
 2d. From the several figures used by our Lord and 
 his apostles, manifestly intended to teach this very truth. 
 
 The prophets of old already intimated this, in the 
 promises they recorded of the enlargement of Zionby 
 the bringing in of the Gentiles, Isai. xlix. 14. 22, liv. 
 
 5. Gal. iv. 27; promises never fulfilled if the christian 
 church be not the same as Zion of old. Our Lord 
 shows that the change of dispensation leaves the church, 
 or kingdom of heaven, essentially the same, when he 
 compares the church to a vineyard, taken from one 
 set of husbandmen and let out to another, Matth. xxi. 
 41, to a kingdom, taken from one people and given to 
 another, Matth. xxi. 43. So the apostle, Heb. iii. 1 — 
 
 6, compares the church to a house, in which Moses was 
 faithful as a servant, but Christ as a son. 
 
 In Gal. iv. Paul compares the church to an heir 
 who continues the same through all the disciplinary 
 process of his pupilage, till he arrive at maturity. He 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 88 
 
 is not one person while under tutors, and a different 
 person when entering on his inheritance ; but the same. 
 So the church, founded on the covenant with Abraham, 
 is the same church, whether under the law as a 
 schoolmaster, with carnal ordinances, or enjoying the 
 perfect liberty of the gospel of Christ.* 
 
 The same truth the apostle teaches the Ephe- 
 sians : when writing to them he says, Eph. ii. 12. of 
 the Gentiles, they were aliens from the commonwealth 
 of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, 
 and represents them as divided by a partition wall, 
 V. 14. from the church of God among the Jews : — 
 this middle wall of partition, the apostle tells us, is 
 now broken down by Christ, v. 14. — the Gentiles 
 are brought nigh, v. 13. — they are no more strangers 
 and foreigners, hut fellow- citizens with the saints, of 
 the household of God, v. 19. — growing together into 
 one holy temple, v. 21. — Eph. ii. 18,20. 
 
 * The celebrated Robert Hall, late minister of the Baptist So- 
 ciety of Cambridge, England — and now pastor of the Baptist 
 Society worshiping at Broadmead chapel, Bristol, — a man de- 
 servedly admired for his profound thought, his commanding elo- 
 quence, and the unrivalled richness and beauty of his writings, 
 virtually admits the existence of a true church among the Jews, 
 and the identity of the church, under the former and the present 
 dispensation, agreeably to what is here contended for — when, 
 after stating the points of resemblance, and of dilTerence, between 
 the Jewish purifications, the baptism of John, and christian bap- 
 tism, he remarks, towards the close of section 1. part I. of his 
 piece on Terms of Communion, " It seemed suitable to his (our 
 Lord's) wisdom, by such gentle gradations, to conduct his church 
 from an infantine state, to a state of maturity and perfection /" — In 
 the New-York edition of works of Rev. Robert Hall, &c. 1830.— 
 Vol. I. p. 40. 
 
34 Ilrt^ANT BAPTISM. 
 
 The church that had so long enjoyed the advanta- 
 ges provided in the Abrahamic covenant, is not here 
 spoken of as destroyed, and succeeded by another ; 
 but her limits are removed, her boundaries extended, 
 and those who before were strangers to her privileges 
 are brought near, introduced among her saints, and 
 made fellow-heirs with them ; which is precisely the 
 reverse of that mode of speaking that would be appro- 
 priate, if the ancient covenant, by which the church 
 had so long enjoyed the advantages of regular orga- 
 nization as a visible body, had been annulled, and a 
 new church now set up. 
 
 The same truth is taught in Rom. xi. where, under 
 the emblem of an olive tree, the church is denoted. 
 That nothing else can be meant by the emblem of the 
 olive tree, is plain ; for, under the same emblem, 
 the visible church is spoken of by Jeremiah, xi. 16. 
 The Lord hath called thy name a green olive tree ; fair 
 and of goodly fruit. With the noise of a great tumult 
 he hath kindled a fire upon it, and the branches thereof 
 are broken," It is the sin of forsaking the true God 
 for Baal, to which the prophet refers ; and the sin of 
 unbelief is noticed by the apostle in the use he makes 
 of this figure in Rom. xi. where he is treating of the 
 rejection of the Jews for unbelief and the calling of 
 the Gentiles by faith into the church. This good 
 olive tree cannot be intended to denote the ceremonial 
 law, for that was done away ; and there can be no 
 excision from privileges that have come to an end ; 
 moreover to the privileges of the ceremonial law 
 Gentiles have not been admitted, for those privileges 
 have ceased. By this figure nothing else can be in- 
 
TNPANT BAPTISM. 36 
 
 tended but the peculiar relation of the Jews to God, 
 as his people, the visible church, enjoying the means 
 of grace, in virtue of the Abrahamic covenant. The 
 natural branches of this good olive tree were the 
 Jews : these arc broken olF on account of unbe- 
 lief. The Gentiles, as branches of a wild olive tree, 
 are grafted into this good olive tree among the natural 
 branches, and with them partake of the root and fat- 
 ness of the tree ; i. e. of the privileges secured to the 
 church by the Abrahamic covenant. The change of 
 dispensation under the gospel is here then compared 
 to pruning out dead or unfruitful branches, and insert- 
 ing others ; but the tree is not rooted up ; no other 
 is planted in its place ; it still remains the same tree ; 
 natural and ingrafted branches now grow on it to- 
 gether ; — i. e. the same church continues : some Jews 
 are rejected for unbelief; — in their room Gentiles 
 have been admitted to the church ; and the time will 
 yet come when the Jews will believe, and by faith be 
 reinstated in the same church. But if the gospel 
 church be not essentially the same with the Jewish, 
 founded on the same ancient Abrahamic covenant, it 
 must be quite another church, and in that case, the 
 Jews can never be reinstated in their ancient privile- 
 ges in the church; they must, on believing, be intro- 
 duced into a church in which they never had a place. 
 Which certainly would not be like grafting them back 
 again into their own olive tree. No language could 
 more unequivocally show than does the figure of the 
 olive tree, employed by the apostle, that the church 
 of God continues essentially the same, notwithstand- 
 ing the change of dispensation, partaking, to this day, 
 
^ INFANT BAPTISM.' 
 
 of the privileges secured by the ancient Abrahamic. 
 covenant.* 
 
 * The sameness of the church under the Old and New Testa- 
 ment economy, notwithstanding the change of dispensation, is 
 a vital point ; it is indeed the turning point of the whole con- 
 troversy. Little more than fifty years ago, the opposers of infant 
 baptism did not deny that the Jews were a true church : they 
 then rested their cause exclusively on the want of a plain scrip- 
 tural warrant for infant baptism, and the incapabiUty of infants 
 to repent and believe. But when by the celebrated Peter Ed- 
 wards, the instability of this ground was shown, a Mr. Jones 
 (as it is said,) first denied the existence of a church before the 
 day of pentecost ; and baptist writers have followed in his track 
 ever since , denying at the same lime, the interest of the chris- 
 tian church in the covenant with Abraham. This strikes against 
 the very vitals of religion ; it strips us at once of all right to every 
 single promise of the Old Testament, which were all but parts of 
 the benefits accruing to the seed of Abraham in virtue of that 
 covenant. But it is vain to deny the existence of a church of God 
 under lae Old Testament dispensation, or its continued existence 
 now, though under a new dispensation ; like an heir released by 
 his coming of age, from the restraints of pupilage. The apos. 
 tolic emblem of the good olive tree, undergoing a change only in 
 its branches, clearly shows this. So plainly is this the meaning 
 of that figure, that a recent baptist writer,* who denies that there 
 was any visible church before the day of pentecost, but onlyf the 
 visible state of the Jews, formed into a peculiar nation at the foot 
 of Mount Sinai, entrusted loith the oracles of God, with public 
 means of grace, a7id regular religious instruction, tells us when 
 speaking of the metaphor of an olive tree.J " This good olive 
 tree denotes the visible state of the Jews, as a nation worshiping 
 the true God in the enjoyment of the means of grace, which may 
 well be styled the root and the fatness. " 
 
 From this many of the Jews were cut off, and have continued 
 
 Prey's Essays on Baptism, first edition p. 67. r p. 93. : p. 94. 
 
INFANT PAPTISIH. 87 
 
 That the christian church is but a continuation of 
 the Jewisli, is argued, thirdly : from the absurdities 
 
 " for ages destitute both of pubhc and private means of religious 
 instruction, whilst multitudes of the gentiles were united with 
 those Jews who embraced the christian religion. The olive 
 tree or congregation of Israel, was neither plucked up by the 
 roots nor cut ofi", but only underwent a change in some of its 
 branches. Since this change took j.lace, the olive tree is no 
 longer called the cougregation of Israel or of the Lord, but th« 
 christian icorld ; for it includes all that are horn of christian pa- 
 rents or become proselytes, without respect to their moral cha- 
 racter,* just as it was with the Jewish nation. But here is the 
 ditference : since the change has taken place in the olive tree, 
 the King of Sion has given instructions to his disciples to separate 
 themselves from the congregation^ and to form themselves into a 
 distinct society called the church, and thus openly and visibly 
 profess their devotedness to Christ." 
 
 In this remarkable paragraph we have granted all that we want ; 
 the olive tree, he asserts, denotes the visible state of the Jews as a 
 peculiar people entrusted with the oracles of God, with public means 
 of grace, and regular religious instruction, n. p. 93. But what is 
 a visible church, if a peculiar people entrusted with God's oracles, 
 with public means of grace and regular religious instruction, be not 
 such a church ? More especially, when these privileges have been 
 granted under a covenant, in which God promises to be the God 
 of that people, and of their seed? This visible society was the 
 olive tree. The same tree subsists, changed only in its branches, 
 by the admission of Gentiles. The Gentiles therefore, having 
 now the oracles of God, means of grace and religious instruc- 
 tion, are at this day the olive tree, still partaking of the root and 
 tatness, just as did the Jews of old ; and all their children are 
 with them partakers of the same fatness, as among the Jews 
 
 * It may be worth while to compare this assertion wit)i the known fact, 
 ihalall Israelitps gnulty of gross offences, were to be cut off from thechurck. 
 KeeEx, xxii. 2t». Lev. xxiv. 15, 16, 17, xviii. 29. Ex. xxxi. 14. Ex. xxi. If. 17. 
 L«vjt. xxiii. 29, 30. Num. ix. 13. xix. 20. Num. xv. 30, 31. Deut. xvii. 12, 18. 
 
 4 
 
38 trvJAIvr BAPTISM. 
 
 that follow its denial ; for then the christian church has 
 no connexion with the people of God before the coming 
 
 formerly. This is all that we contend for, and it only remains to 
 ascertain how the children formerly becarne visibly incorporated 
 in the same tree, (viz. by circumcision,) and then, further, to see 
 that baptism is the christian circumcision, as will soon be shown ; 
 and then we have the full concession even of a baptist writer, to the 
 identity of the visible christian and Jewish church state ; the 
 membership of infants, and the scriptural warrant for infant 
 baptism. The thing- is granted, simply from the overwhelming 
 weight of evidence ; the 7ia7ne alone is denied, simply from love 
 of hypothesis. After granting that the olive tree denotes the 
 Jews as a visible society, enjoying divine oracles, and ordinances, 
 and instruction, it is a mere play on words to call them the con- 
 gregation of the Lord, deny that they were a church, and then 
 assert that the olive tree, as now including gentile branches, is 
 the christian icorld, not the gospel church. It might call for 
 some ingenuity to expUin what is meant by the christian v^orld. 
 The truth is, the term church, church of God as used in the New 
 Testament, answers exactly to the Old Testament phraseology, 
 congregation of Israel, congregation of the Lord. The apostles 
 were Jews, who applied Jewish phrases to gospel things ; and we 
 cannot obtain a correct understanding of New Testament terms, 
 but by comparing them with the correspondent ones found in the 
 Old Testament. 
 
 Mark now the absurdities which follow a denial that the olive 
 tree denotes the visible church itself. This writer tells us, since 
 the change has taken place in the olive tree, the King of Sion 
 has given instructions to his disciples, to separate themselves 
 from the congregation, and form themselves into a distinct so- 
 ciety, called the church, p. 94. The ohve tree, you remember, he 
 told us, denotes the congregation, the disciples are the branches. 
 Therefore, these branches are grafted by God into the olive tree, 
 not to remain there, (by no means, its fatness is not enough for 
 ihem,) they are to separate themselves from the tree into which 
 they have just been grafted, and form themselves into another 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 90 
 
 of Clifist, and can claim no interest in any of the pri- 
 vileges tliey enjoyed, or in any of the promises made to 
 them. 
 
 It was in conseqiirnce of llicir covenant relation to 
 God as the seed ol" Abraliam, marked witli the discri- 
 minating seal of tliat covenant, tliat the Jews were 
 treated and spoken ot" as God's people ; hence to thcni 
 as one visible society revelations were sent, ordinances 
 of divine worship were appointed, and promises were 
 given. These were not given to the elect as such ; 
 (this were impossible Avithout a special revelation to 
 each individual,) it was to the church, as a visible 
 society in covenant with God ; no man, nor company 
 of men, could ever claim an interest in any of the 
 promises or blessings, but as a part of the one visible 
 church. But if the gospel church be not essentially 
 the same as the Jewish, it must be, either because the 
 Abrahamic covenant applied to the Jews alone ; and 
 then none but a Jew can have a right to a single Old 
 Testament promise (which is manifestly untrue, be- 
 cause that covenant expressly included all nations :) 
 
 distinct society, i. e. into another tree ! How natural an interpre- 
 tation ! Brandies grafted into a tree, that, self-moved, they may 
 forthwith separate themselves from the tree, provide themselves 
 with a trunk and root and fatness, and becoms another tree ! 
 A conclusion, to avoid which, such absurdities must be resorted 
 to, is irresistible. The Jewish congregation was the true visible 
 church of God. That churcli still subsists, enlarged it is true by 
 the admission of the gentiles ; but its root is the same, the cove- 
 nant with Abraham; its fatness the same, the privileges secured 
 by that covenant; only, now made richer Btill, by the clearer 
 light, stronger motives, and freer grace of the gospel ! 
 
40 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 or else it must be because that covenant has ceased to 
 be in force. But if so, all the promises made under 
 the operation of that covenant (and made surely to 
 those alone who were interested in that covenant,) are 
 come to an end : in that case, they have no longer any 
 force ; they can be claimed by no soul living, Jew or 
 Gentile. If this be true, then no promise found in 
 the psalms, or the prophets, or any where in the Old 
 Testament, can be pleaded any more. The widow 
 cannot plead that Jehovah will be a God to the widow, or 
 that he will be a father to her orphan children. If this 
 is so, the dying father has often pleaded without au- 
 thority, and in vain, the promise, leave thy fatherles^s 
 children to me, Jer. xlix. 11. I will keep them alive! 
 Then too, christians plead in vain the promise, that the 
 time shall come, when the whole earth shall be filled 
 vnth the knowledge of the Lord, Isa. xi. 9. If that 
 ancient covenant be repealed, then believers are not 
 Abraham^s seed and heirs according to the promise. 
 Gal. iii. 29. They can have no connexion with Abra- 
 ham at all ; contrary to the apostle's assertion. If so, 
 the church is not a holy temple, including both Jews 
 and Gentiles, built upon the foundation of the apostles 
 and prophets, Eph. ii. 20, 21. Jesus Christ being the 
 chief corner-stone. She is built on the apostles, but 
 not on the prophets : notwithstanding what Paul says. 
 And if so, she has nothing to do with the promises 
 given under the Old Testament dispensation ; though 
 Paul assures us, all the promises are to believers, yea 
 and amen in Christ Jesus ; because he teaches us that 
 all who are in Christ, are of consequence Abraham's 
 seed, and heirs according to the promise. To such 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 41 
 
 absurdities, unscriptural and appalliiifr, arc wo driven, 
 by denying the perpetuity of tlic Abrahamic covenant, 
 and the identity of the gospel and the Jewish church. 
 
 To sum up the wliolc argument at one view. The 
 church received her fuller organization by the cove- 
 nant ratified with Abraham, about four thousand years 
 since. Tiiat covenant has never been annulled : it re- 
 mained unaflectcd, alike by the institution of the cere- 
 monial law of peculiarity among the Jews at Mount 
 Sinai, and by the abrogation of that law at the death 
 of Christ : and it contains promises which can never 
 be fulfilled, unless it be still in force. That covenant, 
 then, stands good : the church found therein, provision 
 made for her continuance, and for her being supplied 
 with outward ordinances, and with special grace. So 
 long as that covenant stands, the church founded 
 thereon is the same. A conclusion borne out by the 
 reasoning and the various expressive figures employed 
 by our Lord and his apostles ; and further confirmed 
 by the absurdities apparent on denying that the chris- 
 tian church is essentially the same as the Jewish : 
 since it would strip us at once of all right to the pro- 
 mises contained in the Old Testament. The church 
 of God, therefore, survives all the changes of dispen- 
 sation uninjured, and unaltered as to her essential 
 features. 
 
 We advance now to the third argument for infant 
 baptism, viz : 
 
 III. Infant membership in the church of God once 
 established, never revoked, is still in force. Once grant- 
 ed that the gospel church is only a continuance of the 
 Jewish, and this conclusion follows irresistibly. Some 
 4* 
 
42 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 privileges may be enlarged, and others added ; but the 
 church is unaltered, her rights remain unimpaired ; 
 unless God her king himself repeal them.* God did 
 once confer on the children of his visible people, the 
 right of admission into the visible church in early in- 
 fancy ; for in making the covenant with Abraham, 
 God expressly required its seal, circumcision, to be 
 fixed to infants ; Gen. xvii. 12. Now Paul teaches the 
 spiritual meaning, and binding force of circumcision. It 
 bound all the circumcised to keep the law, Gal. v. iii. 
 Of course every one circumcised in infancy by God's 
 command, was bound, as soon as he attained a suitable 
 age, to keep God's whole law. At a suitable age they 
 must go up to Jerusalem and keep the passover, or be 
 cut off as breakers of God's covenant. They were, 
 therefore, by circumcision introduced into the visible 
 church, and laid under obligation to perform all the 
 duties of churcii members. Lev. xxii. 9. Num. ix. 13. 
 And into this church membership they were, by divine 
 direction, brought in infancy. As the church continues 
 still the same, this privilege, so many ages ago con- 
 ferred on the infant seed of the church, is still theirs 
 of right : and it must continue theirs, till an enactment 
 shall be produced, from the statute book of heaven, 
 rescinding that right. Never yet has such prohibitioa 
 
 * On the exodus of Israel from Egypt, the ordinance of the 
 pa3sover was instituted ; but this affected not at all the obliga- 
 tion to receive circumcision, nor the right of any to admission 
 into the church, to whom that right had once been granted, /or 
 tht gifts and calling of God are without repentance, i. e. God is not 
 fickle, nor inconstant : he does not change his mind j first confer- 
 ring, and then wantonly recalling his favours. 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 4.^ 
 
 been found; Not a hint is given in the New Testament 
 that the right of infants to church membership is taken 
 away. As it had already long existed in the church, if 
 it was to continue, no new direction on that head was 
 needed. If it was to cease, explicit directions to that 
 eticct must have been given. The silence of the 
 New Testament on this subject, is, therefore, equiva- 
 lent to a full proof, that the infant children of God's 
 people are not only capable of church membership, 
 just as they were of old, but that they are entitled to 
 such membership, by the appointment of God, unde- 
 niably made, never revoked. How infants are to be 
 admitted, is a question afterwards to be examined ; the 
 decision of which, however, can no way affect their 
 right to admission. 
 
 IV. A fourth argument for infant baptism is, that 
 since the infant children of believers are still to be ad- 
 mitted to membership in the church of God ; they must 
 be baptized : for baptism is the christian circumcision : 
 If circumcision had not been abolished, the argu- 
 ments thus far adduced would show, our children ought 
 to be circumcised. That they must be baptized, not 
 circumcised, rests for its authority on the proof that 
 baptism is substituted for circumcision. 
 
 That this is true, appears, first, because baptismis now, 
 aa circumcision was under the former dispensation, the 
 discriminating mark applied to the members of God's 
 visible church. So familiar was the idea of the distinc- 
 tive nature of this ordinance, as pointing out the differ- 
 ence between the church of God, and the world lying 
 in wickedness ; the kingdom of God, and the kingdom 
 of Satan ; that not only was every male Israelite to be 
 
44 INFANT BAPTISBT. 
 
 circumcised, the uncircumcised were to be cut off as 
 breakers of God's coyenant ; not only do we find cir- 
 cumcision spoken of as rolling away the reproach of 
 Egypt, a heathen land, from the Israelites when they 
 came under Joshua to Gilgal, Josh. v. 9. but through- 
 out the scriptures, we find the visible people of God 
 called the circumcision, heathen the uncircumcision* So 
 Paul says, '^ the apostles at Jerusalem saw that the 
 gospel of the uncircumcision was committed unto 
 me, as the gospel of the circumcision was unto 
 Peter," Gal. ii. 7. i. e. that I was commissioned to 
 preach the gospel to the heathen, as Peter was unto 
 the Jews ; and in the two following verses, the cir- 
 cumcision, is a term again used, as synonymous with 
 Jews, or the visible church of God ; the ujicircumcision, 
 as interchangeable with gentiles, or heathen sustaining 
 no such covenant relation to God. But under the 
 New Testament also, the church has, from the first, 
 applied to her members, a discriminating mark in 
 baptism. The members of the visible gospel church 
 are persons who have been baptized into the name of 
 the Holy Trinity. For disobedience to God's pre- 
 cepts, baptized persons may be cut off from participa- 
 tion in the privileges of the church ; their baptism is 
 not indeed thereby rendered invalid, they are not re- 
 baptized on their return with penitence ; no more were 
 persons who had been excommunicated for sin from 
 the Jewish church, thereby rendered uncircumcised : 
 if readmitted on their repentance, circumcision could 
 not be renewed on them. Still, the circumcised, as a 
 body, were God's visible church ; and the baptized, as 
 a body, are now the church. The uncircumcised of old, 
 
INFAItT BAPTISM. 45 
 
 had no connexion with God's church : the unbaplizod 
 now, have no connexion with the church. As circum- 
 cision was of old, baptism is now, the distinctive 
 badge, to mark the church of God from the kingdom 
 of Satan. 
 
 But further, As clrcumciswn was of old^ so bapLism 
 now is, the initiaiory rile of the church of God. It is 
 not merely a mark found on all the visible church ; it 
 is an ordinance, the administration of which introduces 
 them into the church. Under the former dispensation, 
 before he was circumcised, no man had any right 
 either to eat the passover, Exod. xii. 48. or to enter 
 mto the sanctuary, Ezek. xliv. 9. or to offer sacrifice 
 to the Most High. But the passover, and worship in 
 the sanctuary, were privileges appertaining to the 
 church : while uncircumcised, no man had access to 
 them, for he was still out of the church. Circumci- 
 gion entitled him to participate in them ; because by 
 circumcision he was brought into a covenant relation 
 to God, and became a member of the church. In 
 like manner, no unbaptized person has access to the 
 christian passover, the Lord's supper ; for he is not of 
 the church. To approach that ordinance, among chris- 
 tians of any denomination he must be baptized. When 
 Christ commanded his apostles to go, preach the gos- 
 pel, and make disciples ; they must baptize them into 
 the name of the Holy Trinity. And we find that 
 wherever they went, when men professed faith in 
 Christ, they baptized them, men and women. Cor- 
 nelius, Saul of Tarsus, Lydia, the Philippian jailer, and 
 the 3000 on the day of pentecost, although many of 
 them (like the twelve believers Paul found at Ephesua, 
 
46 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 Acts. xix. 1 — 5.) had doubtless been baptized by John 
 the baptist, yot on their professing faith in Christ, 
 they must all be baptized into the name of the Holy 
 Trinity. Then, and not before, they became members 
 of the christian church, and had thenceforth access 
 to all its privileges. So that, just as circumcision was 
 of old, baptism now is, the initiatory ordinance of the 
 church. It is, as one has well expressed it, su'earing 
 them in, to be citizens of that community, of which God 
 is the king and lawgiver. 
 
 But this substitution is argued, thirdly From the re- 
 vealed fact, that baptism, in the gospel church, denotes 
 precisely the same spiritual change that circumcision 
 did, in the Jewish, 
 
 Some would degrade the rite of circumcision to a 
 mere carnal ordinance, a sign of carnal descent, a 
 mark of national distinction, a token of interest in 
 temporal promises only ; and they assure us, that its 
 design was chief y, to distinguish the Jews from all 
 other nations. It did, indeed, answer all these ends ; 
 vet not only, nor chiefly. The chief design was 
 spiritual, it imported the putting away the body of the 
 sins of the flesh. Col. ii. 11. and baptism imports the 
 same thing now, as the same text shows us.* 
 
 Circumcision denoted inward holiness ; it was a seal 
 of the righteousness of faith ; a token to every Jew, 
 
 ♦ Indeed a recent baptist writer has felt himself constrained 
 to admit that Col. ii. 11, 12. teaches that baptism and circum- 
 cision answer one another, their design is the same. This con- 
 cession he makes, in saying that Venema, though a pccdobaptist. 
 acknowledges it, Frey p. 55, This is in fact too plain to be denied. 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 47 
 
 that he was required to attain tliat righteousness which 
 IS by faitli, as Abraham did ; to acquire and maintain 
 that imritij of hearty which is the iVuit of true faith : 
 Hence the promise found in Deut. xxx. G. "The Lord 
 thy Godwin circumcise thine heart, and the heart of 
 thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thine 
 heart and with all thy soul, that thou maycst live." 
 This gracious promise every true Jew could claim ; 
 for Paul tells us " he is a Jew which is one inwardly ; 
 and circumcision is that of the heart ; in the spirit, and 
 not in the letter, Rom. ii. 29. In short, circumcision 
 denotes neither more nor less than regeneration : and 
 baptism now denotes the very same thing. Thus 
 Ananias said to Paul, " arise, be baptized and wash 
 aicay thy sins, Acts. xxii. 16. Implying that baptism 
 denotes purification from sin ; So Peter (IP. iii. 2.) 
 tells us " baptism is not the putting away of the filth 
 of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience to- 
 wards God,''"' i. e. baptism is not an unmeaning cere- 
 mony, a mere external washing, but it is significative 
 of inward purification. Hence christians are said to 
 be baptized icith the Holy Ghost : buried with Christ 
 by baptism into death, Rom. vi. 4. raised to newness 
 of life : crucified unto sin, 6 ; They are said, by bap- 
 tism to have put on Christ, Gal. iii. 27. Paul tells the 
 Ephesians (v. 26.) Christ loved the church and gave 
 himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it 
 with the washing of water by the word ; and to Titus 
 (iii. 5.) he declares, " God saved us by the washing 
 of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost. 
 All which goes clearly to show, that baptism is design- 
 ed to represent regeneration, or the purification of the 
 
48 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 heart by the Holy Ghost ; just as circumcision did of 
 old. Indeed, so obvious is this design of baptism, that 
 most of the early christian writers call baptism rege- 
 neration ; and they seem often to have regarded bap- 
 tism as being rather regeneration itself, than the 
 sacramental sign of it. An error which some ar« 
 said to hold to this very day. 
 
 But let it be observed, 4thly. Circumcision is now laid 
 aside by the avtiiorityof God, and baptism is appointed 
 by the same authority. That circumcision is abolished, 
 none will deny. The Holy Ghost saith, is any called in 
 uncircum,cision ? let him not become circumcised ! Cor. 
 vii. 18. And on the authority of the head of the church, 
 by whom circumcision was appointed, and then abolish- 
 ed, much about the time of its abolition, baptism, inti. 
 mating the same things, and answering the same ends^ 
 was appointed, as the ordinance by which alone persona 
 are introduced into the church ; representing symbol- 
 lically, as circumcision did of old, that spiritual cleans, 
 ing which is wrought in the true Israel by the Holy 
 Ghost. Surely this shows something like the substi- 
 tution of baptism for circumcision. 
 
 Observe then, 5thly, Circumcision was to the Old 
 Testament church the seal of the covenant on which her 
 blessings were founded, and the gospel church is estab- 
 lished on the same covenant. If, then, baptism be not 
 substituted in the place of circumcision, the covenant of 
 God with his church is left without a seal. 
 
 We have the authority of Paul for calling circum- 
 cision a seal, Rom. iv. 11. a token of the righteousness 
 of faith ; which was the grand doctrine taught, the 
 grand blessing conveyed, in that covenant, to which 
 
IISFANT KAPTISM. 49 
 
 circumcision was appended as a seal. Under the 
 Old Testament, circumcision was a significant token 
 appointed of God, to remind every member of the 
 visible church of this grand doctrine : and to every 
 Israelite who became a true believer as Abraham was, 
 his circumcision was to him God's seal, assuring him 
 that he was blessed with faithful Abraham ; like him 
 freely justified by faith. 
 
 The church still lives. We gentiles are noV/ ad- 
 mitted to membership, and to a participation in all 
 the privileges of the sajne covenant : but circumcision 
 is no more ! Is then that covenant, the blessing of 
 which is come on the gentiles, now destitute of a 
 seal ? It cannot be ! The same authority that laid 
 aside circumcision, has appointed baptism ; the abro- 
 gation of the former, and the institution of the latter, 
 were simultaneous : as the one was laid aside, the 
 other was introduced. The same things intimated by 
 the former are denoted by the latter. As the former 
 when applied to any person introduced him within the 
 bonds of God's covenant, so the latter introduces per- 
 sons to a participation in the privileges of the same 
 covenant. As the latter is spiritual in its import, 
 equally spiritual was the former; and though the for- 
 mer was frequently abused, misunderstood and mis- 
 applied, equally capable of abuse is the latter. Every 
 thing which could be imagined necessary to consti- 
 tute the one a substitute for the other is here found ; 
 leaving it next to impossible to doubt, on attentive 
 consideration, that baptism is verily the appointed 
 seal of God's covenant with the gospel church, as 
 circumcision was with the Jewish. Accordingly we 
 5 
 
50 l^-^A^-T baptism:. 
 
 find the Apostle Paul reasoning in a manner accor- 
 dant with this idea. Under the Old Testament, it 
 was by circumcision that men became members of one 
 body, the visible church ; under the new, hy baptism , 
 as in 1 Cor. xii. 13. by one spirit ye are all baptized into 
 one body, i. e. just as baptism brings us into the visible 
 church, the thing signified by baptism, gives us mem- 
 bership in the invisible. Again Gal. iii. 27. as ma?iy 
 of you as have been baptized into Christ, have put on 
 Christ ; i. e. the thing signified by baptism renders us 
 members of Christ's spiritual body, just as the out- 
 ward ordinance of baptism brings us into membership 
 in his visible body, the church; and he adds. If ye 
 he Christ's, tJien are ye Abraham^s seed, and heirs 
 according to the promise. Baptism, as we have just 
 seen, is a visible putting on of Christ : it is by bap- 
 tism we become Christ's, as members of his visible 
 body ; by baptism then we are introduced among the 
 visible seed of Abraham, and are marked or visibly 
 sealed as heirs of the promise made to them as a 
 visible society ; i. e. baptism is now the seal of th^ 
 covenant originally made with Abraham, and still in 
 force in the church, just as of old circumcision was 
 that seal. That this being Christ's by baptism, and 
 this heirship with him, are properly spiritual in their 
 meaning, no more aflfects the reasoning which shows 
 baptism to be a seal of the covenant, substituted in 
 place of circumcision, than the fact that outward cir- 
 cumcision was not circumcision of the heart, and that 
 without inward circumcisior^ Jews were not all Israel, 
 that were of Israel, (Rom. ix.) not heirs to the spi- 
 ritual blessings of Abraham's covenant, would show 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 51 
 
 that circumcision was not the visiblo seal of that 
 covenant. The two ordinances are strictly parallel ; 
 outward as administered bj- men, and outward seals 
 of the same covenant ; but denoting spiritual affections, 
 to which alone the fulness of the spiritual blessings 
 appertained. This close parallelism only shows the 
 more clearly that baptism is noic siibstihited for cir- 
 cumcision, as a seal of God^s covenant with his visible 
 church. 
 
 But Gthly, analog}/ furnishes us with another argu- 
 ment for this substitution. In the Old Testament 
 church were two standing ordinances ; circumcision, 
 once to be administered to every one at his introduc- 
 tion to the church ; and the passovcr, to which every 
 circumcised person, and such alone, were to be ad- 
 mitted ; and which was frequently to be celebrated. 
 
 In like manner, in tho gospel rbnrch are two ordi- 
 nances only ; baptism to be administered but once to 
 each individual on his admission to the church ; and 
 the Lord's supper to be frequently celebrated by those 
 only who have been baptized. The passover prefi- 
 gured redemption to be wrought by the death of 
 Christ, as well as commemorated the deliverance of 
 Israel from Egyptian bondage. The Lord's supper 
 commemorates the same redemption accomplished by 
 the death of Christ, and it prefigures the fuller en- 
 joyment of its benefits by believers in the kingdom 
 of God above. Now the Lord's supper has, in the 
 gospel church, taken the place of the Jewish passover, 
 as Paul shows, in calling it the christian passover, 
 (I Cor. V. 7.) We might then infer that as the Lord's 
 'Bupper is the christian passover, so the ordinance 
 
52 INFANT BAPTIS:^, 
 
 which must be received prior to a participation of 
 the supper, must have been appointed in place of that 
 necessarily prior to the passover of old ; more espe- 
 cially when these two ordinances, more manifestly 
 than the two former, signify the same thing ; and bap- 
 tism was instituted as an initiatory ordinance, just at 
 the time when the other ceased. The probability 
 appears strong, therefore, that as the eucharist is the 
 christian passover, baptism must be the christian cir- 
 cumcision : 
 
 But we have more than probability for, 
 7. We find that once at least in the Scriptures, bap- 
 tism is expressly called circumcision ; thus in Col. ii. 
 11, 12. we read, "In whom (i. e. Christ) also ye are 
 circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, 
 in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the 
 circumcision of Christ, huried mith him in haptlsm :'' 
 The context shows, that the apostle is opposing the 
 sentiment of those who taught the continued necessity 
 of circumcision ; this necessity he denies, on the ground 
 that believers are already circumcised, with christian 
 circumcision, or baptism : for by the circumcision 
 made without hands, Jewish circumcision cannot be 
 meant ; because that was, of course, performed by the 
 hands of the priests : his meaning he himself explains, 
 telling us that the circumcision of which he is speak- 
 ing consists in ^'putting off the sins of the flesh" i. e. 
 regeneration, or that inward cleansing which is signi- 
 lied by baptism, and which is actually found in every 
 beUever, " circumcised with the circumcision of Christ, 
 buried with him in baptism :" According to all the es.- 
 tablished laws of interpretation, the latter clause must 
 
INFATrr UATTISM. ^^ 
 
 be regarded as exegeticul of the former ; and the 
 passage not only teaches that baptism answers to 
 circumcision, (which even baptists admit, as wc have 
 ^een,) not only that the design of the two ordinances 
 is the same, baptism being now the appointed token 
 of the same inward purity which circumcision for- 
 merly represented ; but it does positively call baptism, 
 the circumcision of Christ, or christian circumcision ; 
 and on this substitution of baptism for circumcision, 
 rests the argument of the apostle in that passage, 
 which is this ; that since christians arc spiritually cir- 
 cumcised in baptism, they have no need of the out- 
 ward circumcision made with hands, to be a type of 
 that purity.* 
 
 =^ We have already noticed the admission of a baptist writer, 
 that baptism answers to circumcision : And yet it is painful to 
 observe the disingenuousness of some who would evade the 
 force of scriptural evidence. The same writer, when comment- 
 ing on the phraise (Col. ii. 12.) risen with him through faith, 4-c. 
 remarks, p. 54. " the persons here spoken of were adults, who 
 believed, and this passage has therefore nothing to do with infant 
 baptism." This remark the writer makes while attempting to 
 show thai baptism is not a substitute for circumcision, although, 
 we contend, that very passage virtually asserts that it is. The 
 simple question here at issue is, does the Apostle in that passage 
 speak of baptism as importing the same as circumcision ? Does 
 he call it circumcision ? No matter whether in the particular case 
 of which he is speaking, baptism were administered to adults or 
 infants, to believers or to those who could give no evidence of 
 faith, if he calls this ordinance christian circumcision, (as he 
 plainly docs) that is enough, the point is settled ; the question 
 respecting the application of baptism to infants, is an entireljr 
 distinct thing, to be settled on other ground. 
 
 Au instance of similar inattention to the proper point of in- 
 5* 
 
54 
 
 I^'FA^T BAPTISM^ 
 
 And hence also we find, that just as of old, God's 
 people were called the circumcision, as we have 
 already seen, so, as if purposely to show that in be- 
 coming Christ's by baptism, we become the seed of 
 Abraham, and heirs according to the promige, just as 
 of old. men did by circumcision; i. e, to show that 
 baptism now takes the place of circumcision ; Paul 
 says, (Phil. iii. 3.) " beware of evil icorkers, beware of 
 the concision, (i. e. of those who insist on continuing 
 circumcision in the flesh, though we are circumcised 
 with christian circumcision, which is baptism, )jror we 
 are the circumcision." As if the Apostle would say, 
 though to obtain a title to the blessings promised in 
 
 quiry we have in the same writer, (Frey p. 54, 55.) when refer- 
 ring to 1 Pet. iii. 21. he remarks, "There was some similarity 
 between circumcision and baptism ; and some infer that there- 
 fore baptism takes the place of circumcision. We know too 
 there was some similarity between Noah's ark and the ordinance 
 of baptism : do any of our brethren therefore believe that bap- 
 tism is come in place of Noah's ark .'" Such strokes may do to 
 catch the inconsiderate ; but they weigh nothing with sober in- 
 quirers after truth. The difference between the two cases is 
 wide. Noah's ark, though an emblem of the shelter found for 
 the church in Christ, with whom baptism brings her members 
 into visible connexion, was no ordinance of the church : but 
 circumcision and baptism are two ordinances of God's appoint- 
 ment ; the former ceasing as soon as the latter was instituted ; 
 the latter denoting the same things, substantially, that the for- 
 mer did ; and the latter called in Scripture, by the name of the 
 former ; for baptism is by Paul expressly called circumcision ; but 
 Peter never so calls Noah's ark. If baptism be called christian 
 drcumcision, plainly it holds the same place in the christian 
 church, that circumcision did in the Jewish. It is the seal of 
 Qod'i covenant substituted in place of circumcision. 
 
INFANT BAPTISif. OO 
 
 the covenant, its seal, (which was circumcision,) must 
 be affixed to us ; yet the bloody rite is no longer ne- 
 cessary, for gospel circumcision has been applied to 
 us in our baptism ; we are theretbre, the circumcision ; 
 the church, sealed with that ordinance appointed 
 under the gospel instead of circumcision ; the chris- 
 lian circumcision, which is baptism. Avoid, then, the 
 concision ; those who would impose on you a second 
 circumcision, rendered needless by the first. This 
 passage derives its whole point from the truth that 
 baptism is the christian circumcision, the gospel seal 
 of the Abrahamic covenant. But to the admission of 
 this substitution it is objected. 
 
 1st. The Jews who were converted to the gospel 
 faith were baptized, though they had been previously 
 circumcised, which would seem to imply that baptism 
 was not appointed a substitute for circumcision. 
 
 True it is that circumcised Jews, on embracing 
 Christianity, were baptized ; but the conclusion does 
 not follow. When they were circumcised, circum- 
 cision was the proper initiatory rite of the church ; 
 when by God's authority circumcision was laid aside, 
 and baptism appointed, they submitted of course to 
 this new mode of initiation. Had they not been re. 
 quired to receive baptism, it would have shown that 
 baptism had not superseded the old rite. A new 
 ordinance was now substhuted in place of an old, by 
 the head of the church : had they refused submission 
 to this new law, on the ground of their compliance 
 with the former, this would have been rebeUion that 
 must have cast them out of God's church, as it did 
 the unbeUeving Jews. Abraham was a member of 
 
56 INFAKT SAPTISM. 
 
 God's church, before circumcision was made the ini- 
 tiatory rite ; yet he received circumcision, just as if, 
 before, he had been an unbeliever, no way connected 
 with the church. As members of God's church, cir- 
 cumcised Jews were bound to obey the laws of the 
 church ; and when new truths were revealed, and 
 new ordinances appointed, they must believe the for- 
 mer, and submit to the latter. It may as well be 
 argued that the Lord's supper is not substituted for 
 the passover, because they who had partaken of the 
 passover, sat down to the supper, and yet often cele- 
 brated, afterwards, the Jewish passover. Also, 
 
 It is objected, 2dly. Timothy was circumcised after he 
 had been baptized; surely this shows the substitution 
 contended for is not true, Act. xvi. 3. 
 
 I answer, there is no evidence at all that Timothy 
 ever was baptized. He was young, the son of a 
 Greek or heathen man. Paul found him well instruct- 
 ed in the Scriptures, and pious. Designing to take 
 him with him and employ him in gospel labours, on a 
 profession of his faith he received him into the church, 
 initiating him by circumcision instead of baptism, (on 
 account of the strong prejudices of the Jews, whose 
 souls he would benefit ;) applying, in this case, the old 
 seal, instead of the new. The case of Timothy, 
 therefore, furnishes evidence in favour of the same- 
 ness of baptism and circumcision, not against it ; 
 since it shows, that althoiigh baptism is now the pro- 
 per ordinance, yet the administration of circumcision, 
 as of old, was still tolerated in certain cases. 
 
 It is objected, 3dly. This substitution cannot be true, 
 for women are baptized, but were never circumcised. 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 57 
 
 Tiic answer is obvious, the nature of the ancient 
 ordinance forbade its application to them : but they 
 were always considered as included in the male head, 
 and circumcised with him ; for it was expressly said 
 '' no uncircumcised person shall eat of the passover ;" 
 Exod. xii. 48. yet women ate of it : which shows, 
 undeniably, that they were regarded as circumcised 
 persons, and as such entitled to all the privileges of 
 the covenant. 
 
 It is objected, 4thly, If haptism he really substi- 
 tuted for circumcision, how comes it that when the churches 
 •rent up to Jerusalem, to inquire whether Christians ought, 
 to keep the law and be circumcised, the Apostles in an- 
 swer said nothing about this substitution ? — Acts, xv. 
 2'2 — 30. If they had only told them, baptism is novj 
 come in the place of circumcision, it would have settled 
 the whole dispute at once and for ever. But this objec- 
 tion, formidable as it is in appearance, has no real 
 force. If the Apostles had returned such an answer, 
 it would have met only half the inquiry, which re- 
 spected the whole ceremonial law, not circumcision 
 alone. They gave a wiser, because a more appropri- 
 ate answer : " It seemeth good to the Holy Ghost and 
 to us, i6 lay on you no greater burden than these neces- 
 sary things^^ — Acts xv. 28 : then declaring circum- 
 cision and all mere legal rites no longer needful : and 
 from this very answer, the substitution here spoken of 
 might be fairly inferred. In its proper place, this 
 substitution is plainly taught by the Holy Ghost, when 
 baptism is called christian circumcision. (Col. ii. 11, 
 12) and the christian church is designated the circum. 
 cision, Phil, iii, 3, 
 
58 INFANT LAPTISSl. 
 
 To deny the doctrine, because not expressly as- 
 serted in that one particular place, is hardly consistent 
 with the reverence due to the divine Author of the 
 Scriptures. So satisfactory to the ancients was the 
 evidence of this substitution, that Justin Martyr (who 
 flourished about a century after the Apostles) tells us 
 expressly, that baptism is to the christian church, the 
 same thing that circumcision was to the Jews ; and he 
 makes particular mention of some who had been bap- 
 tized in infancy. 
 
 Let us then bring the whole train of argument in 
 review before us. The church of God hcfs continued 
 identically the same, notwithstanding the change of 
 dispensation : she has always applied a discriminating 
 mark to her members, in circumcision of old, in bap- 
 tism now. As circumcision was formerly the initiatory 
 ordinance of the church, so baptism now is : baptism 
 now denotes the same inward purification, of which 
 circumcision was formerly the appointed token : cir- 
 cumcision was abolished, and much about the same 
 time, baptism (answering the same ends) was appointed 
 by divine authority. Further, since the church is 
 organized under the very covenant of which cir- 
 cumcision was formerly the seal ; that rite being 
 laid aside, if baptism be not its substitute, the church 
 is now organized under a covenant destitute of a 
 seal ; while Paul reasons from baptism, just as if it 
 were the seal. Moreover, the Lord's supper, being 
 substituted for the Jewish passover, analogy would 
 seem to require that baptism, an ordinance prior to the 
 former, must be a substitute for circumcision, which 
 was an indispensable preparation for the latter. And 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. M 
 
 Still further, the Holy Ghost styles baptism the cliristian 
 circumcision, and calls the christian charch the civ- 
 cumcision, just as the Old Testament church was called 
 the circumcision ; and afhrms that her members need 
 no Jewish circumcision to entitle them to a participa- 
 tion in the benefits of the great Abrahamic covenant, 
 because they are already circumcised in being bap- 
 tized. Each of these arguments has its weight ; 
 several of them are individually strong, and nearly 
 satisfactory. But the evidence of this cheering truth, 
 hke that of the inspiration of the Scriptures, is cumu- 
 lative ; it proceeds step by step ; and the effect of the 
 whole combined, is quite satisfactory. The conclusion 
 is clear and undeniable. — " Baptism is to the gospel 
 church, what circumcision was to the Jewish — a seal of 
 the Abrahamic covenant ;'' and few are the truths borne 
 out by clearer or more copious evidence. 
 
 Some have said, show us a single passage of Scrip- 
 ture which asserts that baptism is a substitute for 
 circumcision, and we will believe it ; not otherwise I 
 I answer : the substitution in question is asserted as a 
 truth of revelation. Like any other truth, it may be 
 shown in any of the various modes of reasoning em- 
 ployed to gather truth from the sacred oracles. To 
 demand an express assertion of it in so many words, 
 is an impious attempt to prescribe to God in what way 
 he shall make known his will. The Sadducees might 
 as well have demanded of Christ an express assertion 
 of the doctrine of the resurrection, in the books of 
 Moses. The Saviour proved it by inferential reason- 
 ing ; and blamed the Sadducees for not having inferred 
 it also. And by many and various proofs we iiave 
 
60 
 
 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 shown that the doctrine of the substitution of baptism 
 for circumcision, is scriptural and true : and if so, as 
 the children of believers were, of old, admitted to the 
 church by circumcision, so must they now be admitted 
 by baptism. For if it be right to admit them at all, it 
 must be done either by baptizing them, or without it. 
 But none can be admitted into the christian church 
 without baptism : therefore, to admit children to mem- 
 bership in the visible gospel church, they must be 
 baptized. 
 
 A 5th argument for infant baptism, is found in the 
 language of Christ, the conduct of the Apostles, and 
 various allusions found in the epistles. 
 
 On one occasion our Lord said, suffer little children 
 to come unto me, and forhid them not, for of such is the 
 kingdom of heaven — Matth. xix. 14. Oh, but Christ 
 did not baptize these children, say some, he only 
 blessed them, so that this passage of scripture has no- 
 thing at all to do with baptism ! True, our Lord did 
 not baptize these children ; but he did more than bless 
 them : he declared that children must not be kept from 
 Christ ; and the reason he assigns is, of such is the 
 kingdom of heaven ! If this mean the church in glory, 
 then, since infants are fit to be admitted there, whv 
 not to the church on earth ? But the phrase, kingdom 
 ofJieaven, usually denotes the visible church ; and sucli 
 appears to be its meaning here. If so, then in this 
 passage Christ does declare that the visible gospel 
 church includes infants, (these were infants, ver\ 
 young children, I3^£cp'>], such as he could take in his 
 arms — Mark, ix. 56, and Matt. xix. 13 — 15,) which 
 certainly favours the doctrine of infant baptism ; for. 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 61 
 
 how can those be of the church, wlio liuve no riglit to 
 be baptized ? 
 
 We do not build infant baptism on this insulated 
 passage, (as some of its opposers would insinuate :) 
 but when we find, where no immediate reference to 
 baptism could have been intended, such incidental re- 
 marks so plainly falling in with our views of baptism, 
 where is the absurdity, or the uealness, of pointing it 
 out, as " conjirmation strong,''^ that we are right ? 
 
 The conduct of the Apostles in baptizing whole house- 
 holds at once, better accords with the views of those 
 who practise, than of those who reject infant baptism. 
 When we find recorded the baptism of Lydia's house- 
 hold on her believing, and of the jailer's on his be- 
 lieving, no hint is given of any thing extraordinary in 
 these cases. The record is made just as if it were 
 the ordinary custom of the i\postles, on baptizing the 
 head of a family, to baptize with him his whole house- 
 hold of children. But now, in the accounts received 
 from baptist missionaries to the heathen in our day, 
 do we ever hear of similar baptisms of whole house- 
 holds ? How long might we wait, before the excellent 
 missionaries of that denomination would send us intelli- 
 gence, that on preaching the word in such a place, 
 such a man believed and was baptized, he and all his 
 household, straightway ? If a case occurred, in which, 
 consistently with their views, they could baptize a 
 whole household at once, how explicit would be their 
 statements to show that each member of that family 
 professed faith in Christ ! Equally explicit, we should 
 suppose, would be the statements furnished in the New 
 Testament on this point, to guard against mistakes, if 
 6 
 
62 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 after believers in the true God had, for so many ages, 
 been permitted to consecrate their children to God in 
 a solemn religious ordinance, they were permitted to 
 do so no more. The several accounts found in the 
 New Testament of the baptism of households, without 
 any hint of such restriction to believers alone, does, 
 therefore, strongly corroborate the opinion of those who 
 hold infant baptism to be scriptural. 
 
 But again : in the writings of the Apostles, we find 
 passages sustaining these sentiments. Thus Paul tells 
 us he baptized the household of Stephanus — 1 Cor. i. 
 16 : and to the Corinthians (1 Cor. vii. 14) he speaks 
 of children in a manner accordant with the sentiment 
 expressed concerning them by our Lord — ^^ of such is 
 the kingdom of heaven.^' He supposes the case of a 
 family in which one parent alone is a believer. The 
 children of parents, both of whom are heathen, are 
 manifestly heathen, unconnected with the church. 
 Where both parents are believers, their offspring are 
 children of the covenant, and entitled to the privilege 
 of consecration to God. But if one parent be an un. 
 believer, the faith of the other parent affects the un- 
 believing parent so far, that the offspring of both are 
 holy ; and the unbelieving parent is so far to be re- 
 garded as holy, that he may, by this marriage, be the 
 parent of children who shall be consecrated to God. 
 Dr. Gill, and most baptist writers with him, maintain 
 that the holiness here spoken of, respects the lawful, 
 uess of the marriage, and the legitimacy of the children. 
 The answer is obvious. The word is never known to 
 be used in that sense elsewhere ; besides, it would be 
 making the Apostle argue the lawfulness of the mar- 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 63 
 
 nage from the legitimacy of tlic children ; which were, 
 in fact, proving a thing hy itself! 
 
 The word holy is often employed by the New 
 Testament writers as equivalent to clean : to denote 
 what is, or may be, consecrated to God : unclean, what 
 may not. So in Peter's vision on the house-top, by 
 the words, " what God hath cleansed, that call not thou 
 common nor unclean'^ — Acts x. 15, he was taught that 
 gentiles migiit be admitted to the gospel church and 
 its ordinances. They were no longer unclean, or to 
 be debarred from those ordinances. 
 
 Paul teaches also, that the faith of even one parent, 
 takes away from the unbelieving parent, that unclean- 
 ness which would else debar his children from being 
 consecrated to God ; and from the children, that un- 
 cleanness, which, without the faith of one parent, the 
 unbelief of the other would entail upon them, to de- 
 prive them of that right. Yet it by no means follows, 
 that if, in this passage, holiness in the children means 
 a right to baptism, holiness in the unbelieving partner 
 must imply a similar right. The sanctification here 
 spoken of, is a meetness for the purposes appertaining 
 to each. In the unbelieving parent, to be a channel 
 through whom the children may receive unimpaired, 
 for the believing parents' sake, the right of admission 
 to the privileges of the covenant : and in the children, 
 to be personally consecrated to God in the initiatory 
 ordinance of his church. Another interpretation has 
 recently been given to this text,* in which no little 
 
 • Dagg'a note in Pengilly's Scriptural Guide to Baptism. 
 
64 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 labour and some ingenuity have been employed to 
 show, that in this passage, holy means merely, no? 
 liable to pollute ; or to impart ceremonial uncleanness. 
 There is, however, one small objection to this inter- 
 pretation ; which is, that it deprives the Apostle's lan- 
 guage of ail meaning : it makes the holiness he speaks 
 of, mean just nothing at all. For, under the gospel, 
 no such defilement is contracted by intercourse with 
 any man, heathen or infidel, more than with a Chris- 
 tian. And if this be all the Apostle here teaches, that 
 tlie holiness of the unbelieving husband of a believing 
 wife, consists in not polluting'tlie believing parent or 
 their children, with ceremonial uncleanness, then this 
 iioliness is no more than what the most degraded pa- 
 gans possess ; and if so, it is really an unmeaning 
 sentence — " Thfi nnhelifiving wifft is sanctified by the 
 believing husband, else were your children unclean, 
 but now are they holy" — for, on this supposition, the 
 parties have no more influence on each other than on 
 any other persons on the globe, or any other persons 
 on them. The only rational interpretation is that of 
 federal holiness, as the people of God, admitted, (the 
 unbelieving parent in his children, the children for 
 themselves) to an interest in the covenant and its pri- 
 vileges. If so, this passage fully accords with the 
 views of those who hold to infant baptism. 
 
 The language of our Lord, the conduct of his apostles, 
 and various allusions found in the epistles, do, therefore, 
 all accord with the doctrine of infant church-member- 
 ship, and consequently, of infant baptism. So also does. 
 Lastly, The testimony of church history as to the 
 practice of early Christians. 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 65 
 
 In treating of this topic, I must necessarily take my 
 authorities from others, on whose judgment and ho- 
 nesty reliance may safely be placed ; since the works 
 of the early christian fathers are now rarely to be 
 found but in the libraries of public institutions ; to 
 which few, comparatively, can have access : yet are 
 they sufficiently accessible to every inquirer, to render 
 the detection of imposition certain. 
 
 Justin Martyr, about the middle of the second cen- 
 tury, tells us of some of both sexes, then sixty or 
 seventy years old, who had been made disciples in 
 childhood : doubtless he means baptized. He also 
 speaks of baptism as having come in place of circum- 
 cision, and to be received instead of it. 
 
 Irenaeus, a disciple of Polycarp, who was the com- 
 panion of the apostle John, and who was born before 
 the close of the first century, tells us of infants who 
 were born again unto God. By horn again, Irenaeus, 
 with nearly all the early fathers, means baptized : this, 
 no one acquainted with church history will deny. He 
 testifies, therefore, to the fact, that then persons were 
 baptized in infancy ; and whether his views of the 
 efficacy of baptism be right or wrong, his testimony to 
 the fact of infant baptism remains unimpeached. 
 
 Tertullian, about a hundred years after the Apostles, 
 speaks of the custom of baptizing young children : he 
 advises to delay it, on account of the temptations to 
 which young people are exposed : for Tertullian evi- 
 dently had an idea, that sins committed after baptism 
 are more' heinous than before. But his whole manner 
 of speaking of infant baptism, shows that it was then 
 the prevailing practice. If Tertullian could have 
 6* 
 
66 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 shown that infant baptism was unscriptural, not war- 
 ranted by the example of the Apostles, he would un- 
 questionably have done so. 
 
 Origen, a very learned christian writer, born to- 
 wards the close of the second century, declares, '^ac- 
 cording to the usage of the church, baptism is given 
 even to infants. ^^ He expressly asserts, that the cus- 
 torn was received from the Apostles. 
 
 Some of our baptist brethren, I CEinnot but think, 
 employ unfairness in the use they make of the testi- 
 mony of the early Christians. Thus one asserts,* 
 " Origen is the first who declares infant baptism founded 
 on apostolic authority." Perhaps, literally, it is true, 
 that Origen is the first who makes this formal decla- 
 ration. But the manner in which this is stated, is 
 such as to leave an impression on the minds of the 
 incautious, that Origen, in the third century, is the first 
 who mentions infant baptism ; whence the conclusion 
 is easily drawn, if infant baptism is not mentioned be- 
 fore the third century after Christ, it must be a new 
 thing ; it is an innovation. But this conclusion is false. 
 The truth is, infant baptism is very plainly alluded to, 
 and expressly mentioned, very soon after the times of 
 the Apostles, and in such a way as to show that it was 
 a general custom in the churches. If infant baptism 
 had been a new thing, unknown in the apostolic 
 churches, it is utterly incredible that no where should 
 there have been found any one to lift up his voice 
 
 + Frey'o Essays, first edition, p. 69. The fact is, that the very 
 first mention found of baptism in christian writers, shows that 
 it was then the prevailing practice. 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 07 
 
 against it. And yet, Pelagius, ill the fourth century, 
 whose peculiar sentiments the denial of intant baptism, 
 would have greatly countenanced, could that denial 
 have been safely made, unhesitatingly declares, " Men 
 calumniate me, by charging me with a denial of infant 
 baptism. 7 have never heard infant baptism denied 
 even by the worst heretics,'' Pelagius was not only a 
 very profound scholar, and a very acute rcasoner, but 
 he had also travelled extensively through Britain, 
 (4aul, Italy, Africa, Egypt, and Palestine ; yet he so- 
 lemnly declared he had never heard infant baptism 
 denied.* Who then shall decide what was the primi- 
 tive practice, if these christian writers, from almost 
 the time of the Apostles, till the middle of the fourth 
 century, shall not do it ? They, as with one voice, 
 assure us, that from the first, infant baptism was prac- 
 tised, and continued to prevail : not a single denial, 
 not a single dissenting voice, from those early ages, 
 has come down to us. All this is utterly inexplicable, 
 
 * The writer has examined the "Letters of David and John," 
 containing animadversions on Dr. Woods' Lectures on Infant 
 Baptism; and while he admires the excellent spirit pervading 
 that production, he cannot but think that injustice is done, unin- 
 tentionally he believes, to some of the writers there alluded to, 
 and to the subject discussed. Whatever errors may have been 
 held by some of the ancient fathers, they surely are competent 
 witnesses in relation to facts. If abuses had already crept into 
 the church, and the ordinances were perverted by admixture with 
 these abuses, that is surely no reason why, if we receive their 
 testimony as to the suhjeds to whom those ordinances were ap- 
 plied, wc should perpetuate also the abuses into which they had 
 fallen. 
 
68 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 unless it had been customary in the churches planted 
 by the Apostles themselves, to recognise the interest 
 of infants in God's covenant with his people, and re- 
 ceive them into the church by baptizing them ; a 
 custom which prevailed universally in the church till 
 a little before the middle of the twelfth century, when 
 one sect of the Waldenses declared against infant 
 baptism, because they believed them incapable of 
 salvation ; yet the great body of that people rejected 
 this new tenet. This opinion was again embraced by 
 the Mennonists, or Anabaptists, a fanatical sect that 
 arose in Germany about A. D. 1530. The denial of 
 infant baptism was never heard of in the christian 
 church, (saving only by some wild enthusiasts, who 
 rejected nearly the whole gospel,) till the twelfth cen- 
 tury ; and that tenet never spread beyond the territory 
 of the Waldenses, till the sixteenth century. {See 
 Dwight, Vol. IV. p. 337.) 
 
 Since, then, it has been shown that God had a true 
 church on earth before the coming of our Lord, to 
 which many valuable privileges were secured by the 
 Abrahamic covenant ; that that covenant being still in 
 force, the christian church is but a continuance of the 
 Jewish ; that infant membership, having been once di- 
 vinely established in the church, and never laid aside, 
 must still be in force ; and that, under the gospel, baptism 
 has been appointed as a substitute for circumcision ; the 
 conclusion is abundantly plain, that Infants must now 
 be baptized, as of old they icere circumcised. A con- 
 clusion which is fully sustained by the language of our 
 Lord respecting little children ; by the baptism of 
 households, as recorded in the New Testament ; and 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 00 
 
 by the directions given to tlie Corintliians respecting 
 those children, one only of whose parents was a be- 
 liever : a conclusion that is further corroborated by 
 the unequivocal testimony of christian writers relative 
 to the practice of the primitive churches, during the 
 first four centuries ; — all showing, that the refusal of 
 the Waldenses in the twelfth century, and of the 
 Mennonists and Anabaptists, in Germany, in the six- 
 teenth century, to baptize infants, was an unheard-of 
 and unscriptural innovation, which is not rendered 
 right or scriptural by its having been more extensively 
 spread during the last three hundred years ; nor by the 
 general excellence of that body of Christians who now 
 maintain it, nor by their strict adherence to scripture 
 in other respects. 
 
 I proceed then to notice the objections usually 
 urged against the practice of baptizing infants. 
 
 It is objected, first, Baptism is a positive institution. 
 Of all positive institutions, (the obligation to observe 
 which rests, not on the nature of things, but solely on 
 the authority of the lawgiver,) the law of the institution 
 is the only rule of obedience. Hence, whoever has a 
 right to a positive ordinance, must be expressly mentioned 
 as having that right. But infants are not so mentioned 
 with respect to baptism ; therefore infants are not to 
 be baptized. 
 
 If this argument have any real force, it will exclude 
 all females from the ordinance of the Lord's supper ; 
 since there is no mention made of females admitted 
 to this ordinance, either in the words of the institution, 
 or in any part of the New Testament. Their right can 
 indeed be clearly made out ; but it is done by inferen- 
 
70 INFANT BAPTISM 
 
 tial reasoning, which, if this objection be valid, is 
 completely excluded. Yet in baptist churches they are 
 admitted, just as they are in others, though there is no 
 warrant for it in the law of the institution, nor any 
 command for it, nor any clear example of it, in all the 
 New Testament. The truth is, this objection is so- 
 phistical. The authority of God is indeed the sole 
 foundation of a positive ordinance, but the mere words 
 of the institution are not the only law. The whole 
 word of God is that law, and whatever can be gathered 
 from any part of the whole Bible respecting any posi- 
 tive institution, is the law of that institution : it is God's 
 revealed will respecting it. When light has thus been 
 collected from various parts of the lively oracles, and 
 brought to one focus for the elucidation of any institu- 
 tion, we are not adding to, nor taking from, nor. any 
 way altering a positive institution. All the show of 
 argument which is sometimes exhibited on the subject 
 of positive institutions, is nothing to the purpose. The 
 most that it can do, is to show that Christ's authority is 
 our only guide. We have no right to set up an insti- 
 tution not appointed in Scripture ;*nor to neglect, or 
 alter, after our own fancy, any one that is appointed. 
 It shows, that from the Scriptures alone we must gather 
 direction ; but it does not show, that from the mere 
 words used at the time of instituting the ordinance, nor 
 even from scriptural examples alone, we are to be 
 guided, to the exclusion of inferential reasoning. 
 
 It has been said, " the law of a positive institution 
 must be so plain and explicit as to stand in no need of 
 any other assistance to understand it, but the mere 
 letter of the law : and that it is blasphemy to suppose 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 71 
 
 that Christ delivered his mind in ambiguous words. ^* 
 \{ the law licre spoken of, denote the whole word of 
 God, it is substantially true ; though the expression, the 
 mere letter, must be taken in a modified sense : but if, 
 as was doubtless designed, the mere words of the insti- 
 tution be intended by that law, it is not true ; and the 
 history of the Apostles shows that it is not. In the 
 commission to baptize, Christ, as his apostles under- 
 stood him at the time, said nothing about baptizing 
 Gentiles. The book of Acts shows, that the Apostles 
 understood the charge, " teach all nations, baptizing 
 them," <Sfc. to mean only Jews, as parts of the different 
 nations among whom they lived, and whose languages 
 they spoke. But when they found Gentiles believing, 
 and on Gentiles the Holy Ghost poured out, they ga- 
 thered, not from the words of the institution, but by 
 inference from these facts, that Gentiles, on believing, 
 were fit subjects for baptism. In like manner, if we 
 take the law of the institution, in the only proper sense, 
 for the scriptures of truth, we have, in the very law of 
 the institution, what is equivalent to an express warrant 
 for the baptism of infants, when we are told, that the 
 blessing of Abraham (which respected infants with 
 their parents) is now come on the Gentiles — Gal. iii. 
 14 : and when we are further assured, that baptism 
 is christian circumcision — Col. ii. 11, 12. If baptism 
 had not been appointed, and the Apostles had been 
 commEoided, " circumcise all nations," unquestionably 
 they would have circumcised infants as well as adults, 
 unless expressly prohibited ; because they had always 
 
 ♦Frey, p. 13, 14. 
 
72 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 seen children dedicated to God in this ordinance ; and 
 when commanded, " baptize all nations ;" and one of 
 the apostles declares that baptism is christian circum- 
 cision — Col. ii. 11, 12; what room is left for doubt, 
 (no direction being given against baptizing infants,) 
 that the Apostles did baptize infants, just as they would, 
 in the former case, have circumcised them ? 
 
 An objection, then, which would vacate at the sacra- 
 mental board the seat of every female communicant : 
 which would condemn the conduct of Peter, and the 
 other apostles ; an objection, which derives even its 
 show of force from a subtle sophism, is not very for- 
 midable. 
 
 A second objection is, The Scriptures require faith 
 and repentance in order to baptism ; but infants have 
 not faith nor repentance^ therefore infants are not proper 
 subjects of baptism. 
 
 This argument, like the former, overshoots the mark, 
 and proves too much. If, because faith is sometimes 
 placed before baptism, as when it is said, he that he. 
 lieveth, and is baptized, shall be saved — Mark xvi. 16 ; 
 infants must be excluded from baptism, because they 
 are incapable of faith ; then, for the same reason, be- 
 cause in another place it is said, (2 Thess. iii. 10) 
 '* If any man will not work, neither shall he eat," it 
 follows undeniably, that sustenance must be refused 
 to the sick, and to all infants, because they are inca- 
 pable of labour ; and the command is explicit, requiring 
 labour before a person may eat. This reasoning, every 
 one sees to be absurd in the case of sustenance, and 
 it is equally absurd in relation to baptism. 
 
 It follows also, if the argument urged in this objection 
 be valid, that all dying in infancy will be eternally 
 
INFANT BAPTWM. 
 
 73 
 
 lost ; for it is said, •* He that believcth, shall be saved, 
 he tliat beheveth not, shall be damned." Faith is here 
 placed before salvation ; the want of it is expressly 
 declared to entail perdition : so that by this reasoning, 
 all who die before ihey become capable of believing, 
 are inevitably lost. Nay, if some who have not been 
 baptized in infiincy, should in early life, repent and 
 believe, but should die before they could receive bap. 
 tism, this argument would consign them too, to perdi- 
 tion ; for the Scripture says " He that believeth and is 
 baptized, shall be saved"— Mark xvi. 16 : and althougli 
 in other places faith alone is mentioned as a prerequi- 
 site to salvation, yet inasmuch as baptism is once, at 
 least, expressly so mentioned, it must, like repentance, 
 be always understood as being required, even though 
 not mentioned. Moreover, on the ground assumed in 
 this objection, it would follow, that if, as some main- 
 tain, there be but one only scriptural mode of baptism, 
 and that mode be immersion ; then all who have not 
 been baptized by immersion, are not baptized at all ; 
 and not being baptized, must be inevitably lost, be 
 they never so eminently holy and devoted to God ; a 
 conclusion that would seal over to destruction such 
 men as Owen, and Baxter, and Brainerd, and Henry 
 Martyn. 
 
 We might as well undertake to argue, that no man 
 can be regenerated till he has been baptized, because 
 in John iii. 5, we read, " Except a man be born of 
 water, and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the king- 
 dom of God," where water is mentioned before the 
 Spirit ; as to argue, that none but believers ought t© 
 7 
 
74 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 be baptized, because it is said, " He that believeth and 
 is baptized, shall be saved." 
 
 The truth is, this whole objection is based on an 
 argument radically defective, because, like the preced- 
 ing one, it brings into the conclusion, infants, with 
 whom the premises have nothing to do. 
 
 " He that believeth and is baptized" shows, that all 
 believers may be baptized : it does not show that no 
 others may : "7/* thou believest with all thine heart, thoxi 
 mayest," respects, and it can only respect, those capa- 
 ble of exercising faith, i. e. adults. It has nothing to 
 do with infants, and ought never to be adduced in a 
 discussion relating to infant baptism alone. 
 
 A 3d objection is. There is no scriptural example of 
 the baptism of any but on their own profession of faith. 
 
 In answer, I would remark, that the very principle 
 on which this objection is based is erroneous ; that 
 principle is the assumption that " ive are not at liberty 
 to do that for which we have no scriptural example,'^ 
 which is manifestly untrue. We have no scriptural 
 example for the admission of believing women to the 
 Lord's table ; yet who doubts the propriety of admit- 
 ting them ? But if this objection has any force, they 
 ought all to be excluded. Throughout the whole 
 New Testament can be found no example plain and 
 undeniable, of a woman's partaking of the Lord's 
 supper. I know it has been asserted that such exam- 
 ple is found ; but let it be shown where. That such 
 example cannot be found, is abundantly plain, if it 
 were only from the ridiculous, and of course abortive 
 effort so often made, to prove, that when Paul says, 
 let a man examine himself, and so let him eat, &c. 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. *75 
 
 1 Cor. xi. 28, he does in the term man include wo- 
 men ! This is sometliing like inferential reasoning 
 respecting^ a positive institution ; and I most cheer- 
 fully acknowledge the propriety of inferential reason- 
 ing respecting positive institutions, and the subjects of 
 them, if such reasoning be properly conducted. But 
 reasoning is not producing a plain undeniable example 
 from the sacred record. 
 
 Again, we have no example in Scripture for even the 
 baptism of any female who is not the head of a house- 
 hold. Lydia was the- head of a household : and though 
 at Samaria, on the preaching of Philip, (Acts. viii. 12.) 
 they were baptized both men and women, how can we 
 decide that any other women than heads of families, 
 like Lydia, were among them ? We may suppose so ; 
 we may reason, and infer that it was probably so ; but 
 this is not producing a plain scriptural example. Are 
 we then to refuse baptism to single women, even though 
 they give good evidence of faith ? If the principle on 
 which this and the preceding objection are founded be 
 true, then no woman, however firm her faith and exem- 
 plary her life, can be lawfully baptized, unless she be 
 the head of a household like Lydia ; and if she be not 
 baptized she cannot be saved. This is very much 
 like determining, with the papists, that marriage is a 
 sacrament ; yea going beyond them, and making it a 
 sacrament indispensable to salvation ; a necessary 
 preliminary. 
 
 But, even were the principle correct on which this 
 objection rests, still the objection itself is a gratuitous 
 assumption ; it is in fact a mere denial of one of the 
 jnain points in debate. For if any one of the house- 
 
76* INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 holds whose baptism is mentioned in the New Testa- 
 ment, did contain children under age, the objection 
 falls at once. This is therefore reduced, in great 
 measure, to a question of probabilities ; and it is cer- 
 tainly more probable that in the four households so 
 mentioned, there should have been persons too young 
 to act for themselves, than that there should not. The 
 history of the baptism of whole households, when 
 nothing is said of the faith of any except of the head 
 of that household, is certainly more favourable to the 
 views of those who practise, than of those who denj^ 
 infant baptism. 
 
 The case of the Philippian jailer. Acts. xvi. 34. 
 deserves examination. Paul preached to him and to 
 all in his house ; but not a word is said of any one 
 believing, except the jailer himself; yet he was bap. 
 tized, he and all his straightway. Our version reads, 
 " and he rejoiced, believing in God with all his house /" 
 Acts. xvi. 34; but in the original the participle believ- 
 ing is singular, it relates only to the jailer ; it can 
 relate to no other : he himself believing, leaped for joy, 
 his family sympathizing in his joy ; for they with him, 
 and as a consequence of his professing faith, had been 
 admitted by baptism, to membership in the visible 
 church. If this view of the passage be correct, then 
 it is not true that we have no example in Scripture of 
 the baptism of any, except on a profession of their 
 own faith in Christ ; and the objection dies.* 
 
 * As to the phrase, Acts xvi. 34, xa; ytya.WKtcstl'i Trctvom TrtriTi- 
 uMii^ I am aware that a different construction is given to it by 
 many eminent critics, even among pcedobaptists, in accordancfe 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 77 
 
 It has been asserted that Lydia's household, who 
 were baptized with lier, must have been adult be- 
 lievers,, because it is said (Acts xvi. 40.) that when 
 released from prison, Paul and Silas entered into Ly- 
 dia's house, and saw and comforted the brethren before 
 they departed. But it does not follow that these 
 brethren were those of her household, there is no 
 evidence that they were. Under the peculiar circum- 
 stances in which Paul and Silas were about to depart, 
 it would have been strange indeed, if they had not 
 collected around them the young converts from dif- 
 ferent parts of the city to the house of Lydia, where 
 they staid, to give them a parting exhortation. This 
 account is throuffhout consistent with the doctrine of 
 
 with our version. Rosenmiiller says, *' Participiam hie caussam 
 reddit, (viz. gaudii janitoris.) Ideo, (adds this author,) gavisus 
 est, quod non ipse tantum, sed et tola ejus farnilia tanta luce 
 perfusa esset." This expression is equivocal, luce perfusa esse, is 
 not precisely to beheve, but to be surrounded with the truth as 
 with hght. Yet I doubt not the opinion of this learned writer i?, 
 that the adverb Trctvax.!, bears on TrtTig-i-jKO)!, rather than on nyoi.}.- 
 i^isL^oOo, a construction not uncommon in the New Testament. In 
 this interpretation I find tiiat Erasmus and Grotius concur: 
 Doddridge also seems to favour this interpretation. To autho- 
 rity so respectable, great deference is certainly due ; and yet I 
 acknowledge that I am not satisfied by it; the construction 
 appears to me forced and unnatural ; and I find that Dr. Guyse 
 felt the same difficulties against its adoption. His note on this 
 pjissage is, " one sense that I have given of this passage, is ac' 
 cording to Mr. Henry's observation that it may be read, 'He 
 believing in God, rejoiced all the house over,'' vAvoixt. he went into 
 every apartment expressing his joy. And it is evident that the 
 words (>f>*xx*A(7-ai7o Tfczje/s-fvxa'') he having believed, rejoiced, express 
 only his own, and not his family's faith and joy." 
 
 7* 
 
79 INFANT BAPTISH. 
 
 infant baptism. While the case of the jailer, affords, 
 at least, strong presumption of the baptism of members 
 of a family of whose faith we know nothings in con- 
 sequence of the faith of the head of that family. 
 
 It is objected, 4thly, Infants can derive no benefit 
 from baptism ; their baptism is of no use, and there- 
 fore cannot be of God's appointment. But this objec- 
 tion bears with equal force against infant circumci- 
 sion. Baptism now denotes inward cleansing, so of 
 old did circumcision. No more is said of baptism, 
 than is said of circumcision : it was a seal of the 
 righteousness of faith. Paul says, " circumcision 
 verily profiteth if thou keep the law ; but if thou break 
 the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision." 
 Rom. iii. 25. For I certify to every one that is circum- 
 cised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law. Gal. iv. 3. 
 No stronger language is any where employed respect- 
 ing baptism. How plausibly, then, might it have been 
 argued, that infant circumcision was needless, because 
 it must be unprofitable, since infants could not keep 
 the law. But God decided otherwise, in directing 
 that infants be circumcised : and in so doing, God has 
 decided that infants may be proper subjects for the 
 reception of an ordinance, even though many things 
 connected with that ordinance apply only to adults, 
 and not at all to persons in infancy. An objection 
 which thus charges foolishness on God; must be pow- 
 erless. 
 
 It is objected, 5thly, Infant baptism is professedly 
 founded on the perpetuity of the Abrahamic covenant, a 
 transaction recorded in Genesis, which can have no rtf 
 lation to a New Testament ordinance. 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 70 
 
 This objection is gravely urged by Dr. Ryland, a 
 Baptist minister at Bristol, (Eng.) a learned, and ge- 
 nerally a candid man. But this objection is really 
 founded on the same fallacious argument before no- 
 ticed, viz. : that the mere Utter of the law is our only 
 guide in regard to positive institutions. If, by the mere 
 letter of the law, be meant the testimony of God in his 
 word, the maxim is true ; but then Genesis is a part 
 of that law. But if it mean, merely the words uttered 
 at the time of the institution of the ordinance, then it is 
 not true. Our Lord once washed his disciples' feet, 
 concluding with saying, " If I, your Lord and master, 
 have washed your feet, ye ought also to wash one ana- 
 therms feet ; for I have given you an example, that ye 
 should do as I have done unto you" — John xiii. 14, 15. 
 Here is the plain letter of a command for a positive 
 institution. Do, then, they who contend for the mere 
 letter as our only guide, regard this as a third ordinance 
 in the christian church, and follow the administration 
 of the Lord's supper by the pedilavium, or washing of 
 each other's feet ? No, they reason, that the design 
 was simply to teach Christians a lesson of humihty 
 and mutual kindness ; and in this reasoning we coin, 
 cide. But such reasoning is not obeying the mere 
 letter of the command : it sets the letter wholly aside. 
 Again, Peter had heard the command to teach and 
 baptize all nations : but the mere letter was not suffi. 
 ciently plain to direct him. He did not suppose that 
 it authorized him to baptize gentiles. So that, when he 
 was to go to Cornelius, God sent a vision to teach 
 him. But even that vision did not bring to him a 
 plain command, respecting either teaching, or bapti^ 
 
§0 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 ing gentiles. What God hath cleansed that call not thou 
 common, Acts x. 15, was the voice from heaven. 
 Presently, messengers from Caesarea, summoned him 
 to Cornelius ; and he must infer, first from the vision, 
 that he might preach to and baptize gentiles ; and 
 then, from the gift of the Holy Ghost poured out on 
 Cornelius's household, that to them the ordinance 
 might properly be applied. God himself, then, re- 
 quired Peter to reason and to infer respecting the 
 subjects of baptism, where the mere letter of the in- 
 stitution failed to guide him. But if it was lawful for 
 Peter thus to be guided by inferential reasoning, w4iy 
 not for us ? And why may we not reason from the 
 Abrahamic covenant, to the ordinance of baptism ; or 
 from any part of the Bible whatever, if it can be 
 shown to have a bearing on the subject, as well as 
 Peter might from^. the vision of the sheet, in which 
 not one syllable was uttered respecting either preach- 
 ing or baptism? We may also add, that if those who 
 now deny infant baptism, cannot, (as they tell us) feel 
 the force of an argument drawn for it from the Abra- 
 hamic covenant, or from the book of Genesis, Paul 
 could. In Galatians, third chapter, he reasons from 
 the perpetuity of the Abrahamic covenant, and the 
 effect of baptism as an open union with Christ, to 
 show that baptism entitles us to a share in the blessing 
 promised, in that covenant, to Abraham's seed. The 
 blessing of Abraham is come upon the gentiles through 
 Jesus Christ ; for as many of you as have been bap- 
 tized into Christ, have put on Christ : and if ye be 
 Chrisfs, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs ac- 
 cording to the promise ! Every way then the objection 
 
INFANT BAFTI8M. 
 
 81 
 
 is without foundation ; and so long as the third chap- 
 ter of Galatians stands in my Bible, I must beheve 
 that there is a connexion between baptism and the 
 covenant with Abraham, and that to argue from the 
 one to the other, is scriptural and safe. 
 
 One more objection is sometimes urged, viz. : 
 (5. That the advocates of infant baphm are very 
 much divided among thenmhes, as to the relation in 
 which baptized children stand to the church. 
 
 But it is abundantly clear, that difference of opin- 
 ion as to the practical consequences of any doctrme, 
 can never affect the truth of the doctrine itself; can- 
 not invalidate a single argument by which it is sup- 
 ported. Difference of opinion among men on some 
 points, does not prove that the doctrines they hold in 
 common are not true. Else the papists are right, when 
 they assert that the divisions among protestants, prove 
 all protestants alike in error, in their renunciation of 
 
 popery. 
 
 The arguments usually urged against infant bap- 
 tism have now been honestly and fairly stated ; and it 
 has been shown that they are, without exception, void 
 of force, and for the most part sophistical. All objec 
 tions being thus removed, every argument that has 
 been adduced, bears with undiminished weight di- 
 rectly in support of infant baptism. And since the 
 objections against infant baptism are literally of no 
 force, even if the arguments in its favour were not 
 absolutely conclusive, if they amounted only to a pro- 
 hability, that probability weighing only on one side, 
 with nothing, absolutely nothing, to oppose it on the 
 other, ought to decide every conscientious christian t« 
 
83 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 seek, by consecrating his children to the God of Abra- 
 ham in baptism, to obtain for them a participation in 
 that covenant blessing secured to the faithful, in the 
 promise, / will be a God to thee and to thy seed after 
 thee in their generations. Lest haply, he be found a con- 
 temner of God's own ordinance, and a covenant 
 breaker, in violating, (ignorantly, perhaps, through pre- 
 judice, but still guiltily.) the engagements implied in 
 his own baptism. 
 
THE MODE OF BAPTISM, 
 
 1 PROCEED now to consider the mode of baptism, or 
 the iiumner of applying water in this ordinance. 
 
 Baptists contend that immersion, or plunging the 
 whole body under water, is the only scriptural mode : 
 and they appeal to the meaning of the word baptize, 
 to the cases of baptism recorded in the New Testa- 
 ment, and to allusions found in the apostolic writings. 
 Let us examine each of these points separately. 
 
 The word baptize does not mean to immerse only ; 
 there is indeed a word in Scripture, ^ctirru, which pro- 
 perly signifies to dip or immerse ; and had that word 
 been used by our Lord, dipping in water would have 
 been the only proper mode of administering the ini- 
 tiatory ordinance of the church. But our Lord uses 
 baptize, ^w^ti^u, which is a different word ; the proper 
 meaning of which seems to be, to wet, to cleanse by 
 wetting, or to wash ; which may be done in any one 
 of the ways of plunging, pouring, or sprinkling. In 
 Heb. ix. 10, we read of divers washings, (Greek, — 
 divers baptisms,) which refer to the various ablutions, 
 or ceremonial cleansings, prescribed in the Mosaic 
 law ; but these we know were performed in different 
 ways, chiefly however by sprinkling, Numb. viii. 7. 
 
P4 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 xix. 18 — 21. Lev. xiv. 7. It has indeed been said by 
 one recently,* " Every Jew knows, that whatever is to 
 be purified by water, whether cups, tables, beds, (Sfc. it 
 must be by immersion.^' And in another place he says, 
 p. 103, "The purifications by water, to which the apos- 
 tle alludes, were all by immersion," referring us to 
 Lev. xi. 32. Now compare this assertion with Numb, 
 viii. 7. which describes how the Levites were to be 
 purified, " Sprinkle water of purifying upon them, and 
 let them shave all their flesh, and let them icash their 
 clothes, and so make themselves clean." Here the per- 
 sons themselves are to be shaved and sprinkled only, 
 not immersed ; their clothes alone were to be washed : 
 So in Lev. xiv. 7, the leper when cured, in order to 
 be cleansed, must go to the priest, who " shall sprinkle 
 upon him that is to be cleansed from the leprosy seven 
 times, and shall pronounce him clean," Here then are 
 at least two cases in which cleansing was to be per- 
 formed by sprinkling, not by immersion. Again, when 
 vessels and tents, &c. had been polluted by a dead 
 body, a clean person must sprinkle the tent, vessels, <^c. 
 with water containing the ashes of a red heiler, and 
 thus were they cleansed, Numb. xix. 18. But the 
 Apostle had in view especially that purging, or cleans, 
 ing which was performed by sprinkling with blood,8.s 
 appears from v. 19. 21. These sprinklings, as well as 
 ablutions of all other kinds, the Apostle calls baptisms : 
 which could not be, if baptism were never any thing 
 but immersion. 
 
 * Fr«7 p. 101. 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 86 
 
 In Mark vii. 4. wc read of the washing of cuju and 
 pots J brazen vessels and Uihles ; the Greek word here 
 translated, washings, is baptisms. Cii])s and pots and 
 brazen vessels might have been washed by iinniersion ; 
 though it is not likely that even these would always 
 be plunged wholly under water : but as to the tables, 
 or rather beds or couches, used to sleep on at night, 
 and lie on at full length, at meals, and on each of 
 which three persons usually reclined at once ; it is 
 utterly incredible that they should have been cleansed 
 by immersion. The law prescribed sprinkling for tents; 
 and the Jews often practised washing by a sponge. 
 But this washing of beds, whether by sprinkling or 
 sponging, Mark calls baptism ! It certainly was not 
 immersion : Mr. Frey quotes (p. iOl.) a saying from 
 the Jewish rabbins, ''A bed that is wholly d<Jiled, if 
 he dips it part by part, it is pure.'' Obviously this refers 
 to extraordinary cases, not to the purification com- 
 monly employed. But would such dipping, by part at 
 a time, be regarded by Baptists as proper immersion ? 
 Would they baptize by dipping first one part of the 
 body, and then another ? Would this comport with 
 their favourite language, going down into a waterv 
 grave ? Most plainly, the baptism of the tables, here 
 spoken of, is not the immersion for which Baptists 
 contend. 
 
 Luke tells us, xi. 3S, that the Pharisees marvelled 
 that Christ had not first washed (the Greek is, had not 
 first been baptized,) before dinner. Now what kind of 
 washmg, before eating, was practised by the Pharisees? 
 Mark tells us vii. 3. the Pharisees and all the Jews, 
 except they wash their hands oft, eat not. A compari- 
 8 
 
86 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 son of these two passages clearly shows, that a person 
 who had washed only his hands, was yet baptized ; for 
 Luke expressly says of such a person, he is baptized. 
 Assuredly, then, to baptize does not, (in the New Tes- 
 tament at least,) mean merely to immerse. 
 
 And it is remarkable that Origen, a most accurate 
 Greek scholar, when speaking of Elijah's (1 Kings 
 xviii. 33,) pouring water on the altar in presence of 
 all Israel, and the priests of Baal, says he baptized it : 
 Homer also in a mock-heroic poem, when speaking 
 of a lake tinged or discoloured with the blood of frogs, 
 uses the same word, it was baptized with blood. To 
 baptize cannot, then, mean only to immerse ; its true 
 meaning is to tinge, to dye, to wet ; and because wash- 
 ing or cleansing is performed by wetting, it is used to 
 express all the various modes of washing, whether by 
 plunging, pouring, or sprinkling ; and baptism may with 
 propriety be administered in any one of these ways. 
 
 This further appears from the signification of this 
 ordinance, and the figures employed in Scripture to 
 express the thing signified. Baptism, we have seen, 
 denotes inward cleansing, which is effected by the 
 Holy Ghost ; " by one spirit tee are all baptized into 
 one body,''^ 1 Cor. xii. 13. He shall baptize you with 
 the Holy Ghost, Matt. iii. 11. Now the gift of the 
 Spirit is never spoken of as immersion, but as a pour- 
 ing or shedding forth, a sprinkling, a coming down 
 like rain. I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, Isa. xliv. 
 3. Then will / sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye 
 shall be clean. Renewing of the Holy Ghost, which 
 was shed on us abundantly, Ezek. xxxvi. 25, 26. He 
 shall come down like rain upon the mown grass. Tit. 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 87 
 
 iii. 5, 0. The Holy CJhost is said to be poured out, 
 shed down, Ps. Ixxii. 6. sent like rain upon men, 
 sprinkled like water ; and they who thus receive the 
 Holy Ghost are said to be baptized, with the Holy 
 Ghost. What does this teach, if not that poijrin<; or 
 sprinkling is baptism ? And if the sign should repre- 
 sent the tiling signified, water may properly be pour- 
 ed or sprinkled in baptism, to represent truly the 
 cleansing influences of the Holy Spirit, which are 
 said to be poured, shed down or sprinkled on men ; 
 but never are men said to be immersed in the Holy 
 Ghost. 
 
 To the same purpose is that prophecy respecting 
 Christ, " so shall he sprinkle many nations, Isa. Iii. 15. 
 As it respects spiritual mercies, it denotes the gift of 
 the Spirit, and the sprinkling of Christ's blood on 
 men's hearts for purification. As it denotes the out- 
 ward sign of this blessing, the prophecy is descriptive 
 of the admission of people of various nations to the 
 gospel church, in their being baptized by sprinUing. 
 Except in this way of baptism by sprinkling, this pro- 
 phecy has not been, and never will be, literally ful- 
 filled. It seems, viewed in connexion with the other 
 prophecies just adduced, to show that sprinkling is 
 the preferable mode of baptizing : especially as this 
 mode directly reminds all beholders of the ancient 
 mode of purifying the unclean under the law ; and 
 also of the application of Christ's precious blood, 
 which is said to be done by sprinkling, Heb. xii. 24. 
 1 Pet. i. 2. 
 
 It cannot, then, be shown that immersion is the only 
 meaning affixed, in the New Testament at least, to the 
 
88 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 word baptize ; or that the Scriptures require immersion 
 in this ordinance. We conclude, therefore, that the par- 
 ticular mode in which water is to be applied in baptism, 
 is a matter of secondary importance. Had this been 
 essential, doubtless the directions would have been as 
 clear and minute, as the prescriptions for any rite un- 
 der the ceremonial law. For any men to insist so 
 strenuously on a particular mode, when God has left 
 it undecided in his word, is not in the spirit of the 
 gospel. 
 
 But it is said, the circumstances attending the bap- 
 tisms recorded in the New Testament, show that bap- 
 tism must then have been performed by immersion ! 
 
 Jesus himself was baptized by John in the river Jor- 
 dan, Matt. iii. 15. John had already baptized in 
 Jordan the multitudes who came to him from Jerusa- 
 lem, and all Judea, and the region round about, con- 
 fessing their sins ; and we are told expressly, v. 16, 
 Jesus, when he icas baptized, went vp straightway out of 
 the water ; and Baptist writers, when adducing these 
 passages, generally take care to have printed, in large 
 letters, the words in Jordan ; went down into the icater, 
 and came up out of the water ; that their readers may 
 be sure to notice them. This is unworthy of a chris- 
 tian writer. The river Jordan had very high banks ; 
 after the rainy season the river rose so as to fill its 
 outer banks. In summer it was a shallow stream, con- 
 fined within the inner or lower banks. Those who ap- 
 proached the river in dry weather, must of necessity 
 descend these outer banks to get to the water's edge, 
 even if they only entered a few steps. To baptize 
 in the river, comported with John's habits as a dweller 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 89 
 
 in retired places ; it was suitable to the climate, the 
 heat of which rendered frequent wetting of the feet 
 agreeable. But if he baptized, by pouring, or sprink- 
 ling in the river, all that is said about goijig down to 
 or into the water, and coming up out of the water, 
 would be equally natural and proper, as if he baptized 
 by plunging. And I hesitate not to assert, no man can 
 prove that either John or the Apostles baptized by im- 
 mersion. Men may regard it as probable ; but proba- 
 bility is not proof : and for any to assume that one 
 mode only was employed, and then demand that all 
 should comply with that mode, while they can produce 
 neither express command, nor an undeniable example 
 of baptism by immersion in all the Bible, is rather a 
 bold stand to take ; especially for those who insist that, 
 in a positive ordinance, the law of institution must be 
 our only guide ! Show from the Scripture, that im- 
 mersion is positively required as the only proper mode 
 of baptism, and we will receive it and abide by it. 
 Show that Jesus was baptized by immersicm, or that 
 the eunuch was, and we will admit that there is a 
 plain scriptural example of it. But till then, we must 
 be permitted to doubt ; especially as we find no men- 
 tion made of change of raiment, nor any allusion to 
 a provision for such change, in all the New Testament 
 account of baptisms. 
 
 But should we admit that John baptized our Lord 
 by immersing him in Jordan, this is no guide for us ; 
 and when our Baptist brethren call on men to imitate 
 their Lord, by going down into a watery grave, as they 
 often express it, they are calling on them to do what 
 the Scriptures no where require. We are to follow 
 
^0 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 Christ's example, it is true, but not in all things. Christ 
 was circumcised, he ate the passover, he lived a single 
 life, he fasted forty days continuously, he was not 
 baptized till thirty years of age ; are we then to follow 
 his example in all these respects ? If we are to be 
 immersed because Christ was immersed, (supposing 
 that he was really immersed) I cannot see why bap- 
 tism must not always be administered to a person at 
 thirty years of age, as well as by immersion : his age 
 was one circumstance attending Christ's baptism, as 
 well as the manner in which the water was applied. 
 The truth is, the baptism of John was quite a different 
 thing from christian baptism. It was appointed of God, 
 doubtless as a token of the purification professedly 
 desired by those who came confessing their sins. It 
 was not administered in the name of the Trinity. It 
 was not administered under the commission of Christ. 
 It was begun and ended before christian baptism was 
 instituted. Those whom John had baptized, afterwards 
 received .christian baptism. Acts xix. 1 — 5 ; and pro- 
 bably not a fev/ of those baptized by the Apostles on 
 the day of Pentecost, had before been baptized by 
 John. Our Lord submitted to John's baptism, as an 
 Ordinance of divine appointment ; and he was also 
 thereby inducted into his office as a priest. Aaron and 
 his sons were thus set apart to the priest's office, by 
 being washed. Lev. viii. 6, and Christ was a high 
 priest over the house of God, Heb. x. 21. vii. 11. there- 
 fore it was performed when he was thirty years of 
 age. Luke iii. 23, compare Numb. iv. 3. Whether, 
 therefore, Christ was immersed or not, it furnishes no 
 guide for us. His was not christian baptism ; and we are 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 91 
 
 no where referred to it as an example for our imitation 
 in baptism. 
 
 Nor does the account of the baptism of the Ethiopi- 
 an eunuch, furnish decisive evidence that he was im- 
 mersed, Acts viii. 38, 39. " He commanded the chariot 
 to stand still, and they went down both into the water, both 
 Philip and the eunuch : and he baptized him. And 
 when they had come up out of the icatcr, the Spirit of 
 the Lord caught away Philip, that the eunuch saw him 
 no more ; and he went on his way rejoicing^ 
 
 There is here nothing that should lead us to sup- 
 pose the eunuch's baptism was by immersion.* In 
 that warm climate, and loosely clad, with the feet pro- 
 tected only by sandals, (a kind of sole, of wood or 
 leather fastened to the sole of the foot,) to dip the 
 feet in water would be easy, and pleasant ; and if 
 they only went up to the knees in water, the into and 
 out of the water are natural and appropriate. The 
 truth is, the words translated into and out of, may just 
 
 * On the contrary, as Philip was expounding, Isa. liii. 7, 8, 
 which describes the sufferings of Christ, and the blessings of the 
 gospel ; and the eunuch addressed himself to Philip, " see here 
 is water, what doth hinder me to be baptized :" This address seema 
 very abrupt till we turn to Isaiah, and find a few verses before 
 the passage mentioned, these words, " so shall he sprinkle many 
 nations." On this Philip had doubtless spoken. If he explained 
 it to mean spiritual blessings, as these blessings are represented 
 by baptism, he would doubtless explain that ordinance. Or if, a3 
 is most probable, he explained the pasisage as denoting the ordi- 
 nance of christian baptism itself; in either case we perceive the 
 appropriateness of the eunuch's inquiry, and tind strong ground 
 to believe that the eunuch was baptized by sprinkling, in fulfil- 
 ment of this prophecy, not by immersion. 
 
92 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 as well be rendered to and from : as when John said 
 flee from the wrath to cojne, who would think of saying 
 flee out of the wrath to come ? yet the word is the 
 same as when it is said of our Lord, Matt. iii. 16 ; 
 Jesus when he was baptized came vp straightway out of 
 the water. If these passages be translated, John was 
 baptizing at the Jordan ; they went down to the water, 
 and came up from the water ; where would be the 
 evidence of immersion ? 
 
 When it is said John was baptizing in ^non near 
 to Salem, because there was much water there, the 
 words are literally many waters, i. e. streams or foun- 
 tains of water ; which were necessary for the comfort 
 of his hearers in the desert ; but cannot show that he 
 baptized by immersion. Sandys, a traveller who has 
 been on the spot, assures us it is a sandy region ; the 
 little springs gushing out there, being soon absorbed 
 by the sands. Nothing like water suitable for im- 
 mersion, can, now at least, be found there. But if the 
 Apostles could baptize three thousand in one day at 
 Jerusalem, who can believe that John must go to 
 ^Enon, merely to have water sufficient to baptize with ? 
 
 The baptism of the three thousand on the day of 
 pentecost at Jerusalem, could not, as it would seem, 
 have been performed by immersion, as Dr. Woods of 
 Andover has recently shown. Acts ii. 41. It was the 
 third hour, or about nine o'clock a. m. when Peter 
 began to speak. Much was said and much done ; and 
 before three thousand persons could have received 
 suitable instruction, and satisfied the Apostles of the 
 genuineness of their conversion, a great part of the 
 day must have been spent. Doubtless all the twelve 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 93 
 
 Apostles engaged in baptizing. It was at Pentecost, 
 in May, the dry season ; the brook Kedron was no 
 doubt dry ; and no pool or reservoir of water did the 
 city furnish, except the pool of Siloam, (sec Jahn. 
 §335.) Yet no hint is given of their going away; 
 nothinjr of chanffintr garments. Baths there doubtless 
 were in the houses of the wealthy ; but how unlikely 
 that the disciples of the crucified Jesus, and this great 
 multitude should be admitted to these baths ? Suppos- 
 ing however all these difficulties got over, and that 
 abundance of water was to be had for immersion, 
 and admitting that each of the twelve Apostles could 
 find a suitable place to baptize in by immersion, and 
 that five hours were employed solely in baptizmg, 
 (all which is highly improbable) there must have been 
 five hundred baptized each hour ; that is, fifty to each 
 apostle, for one hour, or little more than a minute for 
 baptizing each ; and that for five hours in succession ! 
 It is incredible ! To do it by immersion were impossible, 
 without a series of miracles to aid them. A sober 
 examination of the baptism of the three thousand on 
 the day of pentecost, leaves no room to believe that 
 immersion could have been the mode practised. If 
 sprinkling or pouring water were the mode, the trans- 
 action might have taken place in the time specified. 
 
 The baptism of Simon Magus, and other Samari- 
 tans, Acts viii. 12, 13, that of the Corinthians record- 
 ed Acts xviii. 8, and of twelve mentioned Acts xix. 
 5. 7, whom Paul baptized, furnish no evidence as to 
 the mode, since it is merely said they were baptized. 
 Paul's baptism is recorded Acts ix. 17, 18. When 
 Ananias came to him and laid his hands on him. it is 
 
94 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 said, *' he arose and icas baptized, and when he had 
 received meat he was strengthened.^^ All this took 
 place in Paul's chamber, he arose, and was baptized, 
 (standing no doubt,) either by sprinkling or pouring, 
 and then took nourishment ; for he had been three 
 days without food. Nothing is said about his going 
 out to be immersed in a stream or a bath ; and his 
 weakness after so long fasting and so much mental 
 anguish, renders it extremely unlikely that he should 
 have done so. From the record all appears to have 
 taken place on the spot ; compare Acts xxii. 16. 
 
 The baptism of Lydia and her household is next 
 recorded. She appears to have been converted and 
 baptized in a proseuchoe, an oratory or place for prayer, 
 on the bank of a river near Philippi ; Acts xvi. 15, 
 compare v. 12, 13 : but not a word is said about 
 going to the river, or changing her dress, or any 
 thing that looks like immersion. She came to worship, 
 not expecting baptism ; and on her conversion was 
 there baptized, without preparation or delay. The 
 same chapter, v. 25 — 34, contains an account of the 
 baptism of the jailer and his family. He took the 
 prisoners out of the inner prison, or dungeon, and 
 brought them out, i. e. doubtless into the outer prison. 
 There they preached, there he believed, and there he 
 was baptized ; after which he took them into his house, 
 i. e. the apartments in the prison building occupied by 
 his own family, and set meat before them. All this was 
 done in the night. It is very improbable that at that 
 hour they should have gone out to a stream: the 
 guards outside would have prevented them : it would 
 have been a violation of the jailer's trust to lead them 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 95 
 
 out of prison into the city. And in the prison itself, it 
 is highly improbable that conveniences should have 
 been found, to immerse this whole family. The whole 
 history renders it highly improbable that they should 
 have been baptized by inmiersion ; it was most likely 
 done by pouring or sprinkling. 
 
 The baptism of Cornelius and his household is re- 
 corded, Acts X. 44 — 47 : " the Holy Ghost fell an all 
 that heard Peter." The Jews present were astonished, 
 because that on the gentiles was poured out the gift 
 of the Holy Ghost. Tliis induced Peter to propose 
 baptism ; their baptism, was to represent this spiritual 
 work : baptizing them by pouring water, would fitly 
 represent it, but immersing them would not. Accord- 
 ingly Peter asks, " who can forbid water that these 
 should not be baptized .^" These words plainly imply that 
 water was to be brought to them, not that they were to 
 be conducted to the water. Well accordmg, not with im- 
 mersion, but with pouring or sprinkling ; a fit emblem 
 of the shedding forth of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 These are all the instances of baptism recorded in 
 the New Testament. In not one case is it clear that 
 baptism was administered by immersion : in several 
 of them it is almost certain it must have been done 
 by sprinkling or by affusion. And since God no where 
 prescribes any one mode exclusively, we ought not to 
 regard the mode as essential, or even of much impor. 
 tance ; although the evidence in favour of sprinkling 
 or pouring, greatly preponderates. Wherever men 
 were when converted, there they were baptized, whe- 
 ther in the streets of a city, in a place of prayer, at 
 home, or even in a prison. No preparation, no 
 
96 INFAT^T BAPTISM. 
 
 change of place, no change of garments, is ever halt- 
 ed at. In no instance recorded in the New Testa- 
 ment, could the person baptized have expected to re- 
 ceive this ordinance, when he came to the place where 
 it was administered to him ; and of course preparation 
 was out of the question. 
 
 The expression found in Rom. vi. 4. buried with him 
 (i. e. Christ) by baptism, unto death, is often quoted to 
 prove that immersion is the only proper mode of bap- 
 tism ; since no other mode represents burial, compare 
 Col. ii. 12. The language is figurative ; the Apostle 
 refers to the thing signified by baptism, not at all to 
 the mode of administering that ordinance. The Jews 
 did not always bury as we do by covering the body un- 
 der ground, but often by laying it in a niche, or cave, 
 hewn out of a rock. What resemblance is there between 
 a man's being plunged in water, and Christ's body be- 
 ing placed in a niche cut out of a rock ? Robinson 
 the Baptist historian, and Mr. Judson the Baptist mis. 
 sionary in the East, both admit that this passage is 
 misapplied, when used as evidence of the mode of 
 baptism. And that it is so, is apparent ; because, the 
 Apostle goes on to declare that believers are, in bap- 
 tism, also planted into the likeness of Christ's death, 
 and crucified with him. If the mode of baptism be 
 in the Apostle's view, that mode must be equally a 
 resemblance of planting, and crucifying, as of burying. 
 But who will pretend that immersion represents the 
 act of planting, or of crucifying ? Plainly, the Apostle 
 means, that in regeneration, which baptism represents, 
 believers become mortified to sin : they are, as to the 
 
INFANT HAfTISM. 
 
 9T 
 
 love and practice of their former sins, as though they 
 were dead and buried. 
 
 That baptism, as an ordinance, is not designed to 
 represent or commemorate the death of Christ, is 
 plain ; for baptism is a washing, which always denotes 
 purification, not death. Besides, the Lord's supper 
 is the ordinance appointed expressly to commemorate 
 Christ's death ; and if baptism be intended to repre- 
 sent it also, then two distinct ordinances are appointed 
 to represent the same thing. The expression buried 
 with him by baptism into death, has therefore no refer- 
 ence to immersion at all. 
 
 We mav now understand how to appreciate the 
 suggestion which some baptist writers have made, 
 that in the various places where baptism is mentioned, 
 the expression with water should be translated in water, 
 e. g. " / indeed baptize you lolth water, but ye shall be 
 baptized with the Holy Ghost," Acts xi. 16. It would 
 be manifestly absurd to say, ye shall be baptized in 
 the Holy Ghost, since the Holy Ghost is usually re- 
 presented as poured out upon men ; the baptists would 
 translate baptize immerse, and then immerse you with 
 water does not sound well ; immerse in water suits 
 them better : but immerse in the Holy Ghost, and im- 
 merse you in fire, is just as inappropriate. 
 
 The little word here in dispute is sometimes trans- 
 lated in, sometimes at, and sometimes with; the connex- 
 ion must determine which version is appropriate. In 
 the passage, " they that take the sword, shall perish with 
 the sword," Matt. xxvi. 52; to say perish in the sxcord 
 would be absurd ; and inasmuch as it were equally 
 absurd to say he shall baptize you in the Holy Ghost, 
 9 
 
98 INFANT BAPTISM* 
 
 propriety requires that the corresponding clause should 
 read, baptize you with water, which shows that immer* 
 sion could not have been the mode intended. 
 
 One more passage only will I adduce— -1 Cor. x. 1, 
 2 : *' Our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed 
 through the sea ; and were all baptized unto Moses in 
 the cloud, and in the sea ;" compare with Exod. xiv. 
 22. 28, 29 ; where we learn that the children of Israel 
 walked on dry land. Now, say some, the cloud above, 
 which poured out water upon them, (see Ps. Ixxvii, 
 16 — 20,) and the sea on each side, show they were 
 completely enveloped in water, or immersed ; and that 
 this immersion is the baptism here spoken of. But 
 they walked on dry land ; they were not flooded by 
 descending waters : so far as they were wet at all, it 
 must have been by sprinkling, from the clouds, and 
 from the spray of the waves ; and if any reference be 
 here intended to the mode of baptism, the passage lends 
 no evidence in support of immersion, but rather of 
 sprinkling. But, probably, no thought of the mode of 
 baptism was before the Apostle's mind. As a religious 
 ordinance, baptism v>'as not instituted in the time of 
 Moses. But as baptism implies a special obligation 
 laid on the baptized, to serve the liord Jesus Christ, 
 into whose name they are baptized ; so, by the signal 
 deliverance wrought for Israel, by the hand of Moses, 
 at the time of their passage through the Red Sea, God 
 laid Israel under special obligation to obey Moses, 
 their leader, as God's messenger to them. A strong, 
 but impressive figure, is here used, when it is said, 
 " were all baptized unto Moses in the sea." 
 
 Since, then, the word baptize can by no means be 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 99 
 
 shown to denote immersion only ; since there is no 
 decisive evidence that cither the baptism of our Lord, or 
 any of the baptisms recorded in the book of Acts, was 
 performed by immersion ; but strong ground to believe, 
 that the ordinance was usually administered by pour- 
 ing or sprinkling ; and, since no one of the passages 
 in the epistles, in which baptism is mentioned, docs, 
 when candidly examined, appear to relate to the mode 
 of baptism at all ; and, consequently, not the shadow 
 of an argument can be derived from them in favour of 
 immersion ; it is plain the Scriptures no where teach, 
 either by precept or by example, that immersion is the 
 only proper mode of baptism : no stress is laid upon 
 this point in any part of the word of God. We con- 
 elude, therefore, that baptism is rightly administered, 
 either by immersion, by pouring, or by sprinkling ; 
 while convenience, and its obvious resemblance to the 
 ancient method of puritying, and its agreement with 
 the prophecy, found in Isd. lii. 15, induce us rather 
 to prefer sprinkling. 
 
 If the circumstances attending the application of 
 water in baptism, be so important, we cannot see why 
 equal importance should not be attached to an exact 
 compliance with the primitive mode of receiving and 
 administering the Lord's supper : that is a positive or- 
 dinance, and we are as much bound to exact conformity 
 with the scriptural method of administering that ordi- 
 nance, as in the case of baptism. Why, then, do not 
 Baptists administer the Lord's supper at the close of a 
 festive entertainment, in an upper chamber, and in the 
 evening ? Why do they not partake of it, all reclining 
 at full length on couches or beds, spread around on© 
 
100 
 
 INFANT BAPTIS>r. 
 
 common table ? They answer, these were unimportant 
 circumstances, never insisted on in the word of God. 
 Right. And we reply, the mode in which water is 
 administered in baptism, whether by immersing, pour- 
 ing, or sprinkling, is an unimportant circumstance, no 
 where insisted on, or particularly required, in the 
 whole word of God. Let every one take heed, then, 
 lest, in opposing and denying infant baptism, or bap- 
 tism as administered by sprinkling, he be found fight- 
 ing against God I* 
 
 PRACTICAL REMARKS. 
 
 I cannot consent wholly to dismiss this subject^ 
 without requesting the reader's serious attention to a 
 few closing remarks. 
 
 It has, 1 think, been shown, not only that baptism, 
 when administered by sprinkling water in the name of 
 the Holy Trinity, is a valid christian ordinance, but 
 also that the infant children of God's people are pro- 
 per subjects of baptism, and ought to be consecrated 
 
 * Since this work went to the press, a pamphlet, entitled " The 
 Scriptural Directory to Baptism," by a Layman, pubhshed at N.Y. 
 1330, has been put into my hands, and perused with great pleasure ; 
 and while I should dissent from some few positions laid down 
 by the author, I regard it as an ingenious exposition of the 
 improbability that immersion could have been the mode in which 
 baptism was administered, either by John the Baptist, or by the 
 Apostles. See particularly the remarks on the mode of John's 
 baptism, p. 12 — 15 ; on the baptism of Jesus Christ, p. 15-^17 ; 
 and on the baptism at the feast of Pentecost, p. 24—27. 
 
INFANT BAPTISir. 101 
 
 to the Most High in that sacred ordinance ; so that all 
 the witticisms in which some writers have indulged on 
 what they are pleased to term, '* baby sprinkling j^* are 
 nothing less than ^^ profane ridicule!'^ 
 
 Infant baptism, rightly viewed, is not only a scrip- 
 tural rite, but one full of meaning, full of interest, to 
 children, to parents, to the church, and to society at 
 large. 
 
 On christian parents I would affectionately call to 
 consider dispassionately, and seriously, the interesting 
 confirmation lent to the conclusion at which we have 
 arrived, that infant baptism is of God's appointment, 
 by the accordance found in this institution with the 
 general course of God's dealings with mankind, and 
 with his church in all ages ; and by its falling in so 
 admirably with the finest feelings of our nature ; and 
 rendering parental affection subsidiary to the attain- 
 ment of the great end proposed in tho maintenance of 
 a church on earth. Infant baptism is practised on the 
 belief, that God has a peculiar regard to the children 
 of his people, more than to other children ; that he is 
 still engaged, by promise, to be their God ; to continue 
 to them the revelation of his will, the ordinances of 
 his worship, and among them, especially, to shower 
 down the renewing and sanctifying influences of his 
 Holy Spirit ; so that the piety of parents is, by God's 
 gracious appointment, their ground of right to their 
 children, for the reception of an ordinance, which 
 marks those children as that visible society, to wham 
 are. committed the oracles of God — Rom. iii. 2; and to 
 whom pertaineth the adoptiony and the service of God, 
 9* 
 
102 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 and the promises — ix. 4. It is based on the conviction, 
 that the children are beloved for their fathers' sake. 
 
 Now, that the condition of children should be af- 
 fected by the character of the parents, appears to be 
 a principle constantly acted on in God's government 
 of the world. The dispensations of his providence 
 towards the world at large, discover it. The charac- 
 ter of parents has usually a potent influence on the 
 destiny of their children, for life. The children of 
 parents who are indolent, dissipated, or grossly wicked, 
 we expect to see growing up, for the most part, un- 
 educated and undisciplined. Their habits, we expect, 
 will be vicious ; their portion, poverty ; and frequently, 
 wretchedness and infamy for life. But who fails to 
 regard industry, sobriety, and virtue, in the parents, 
 as a happy pledge to the children of a virtuous educa- 
 tion, industrious habits, and fair prospects, for life ? 
 And the event usually justifies these expectations. 
 Now, he who directs the affairs of providence, is the 
 God of the Bible and of religion ; and it were only 
 reasonable to expect, that in the organization of the 
 church, there should be a special provision for chil- 
 dren, analogical to that found in the arrangements of 
 providence ; so that they who become God's people, 
 should find their piety a pledge of tender mercies to 
 their children. Such analogy we discover in the bap- 
 tismal covenant, wherein, while the parent publicly 
 recognises the child to be the sole property of Jeho- 
 vah, and engages to bring it up for him ; God, also, 
 engages, by covenant promise, to be a God to the 
 child, and furnish it, as one of his visible people, 
 with all the means requisite to make it acquainted 
 
INPANT BAPTISM. 103 
 
 with his character, and his will, and adapted to effect 
 a thorough rcconcihation between it and himself. 
 
 In the very dawn of man's history, we find this same 
 principle acted on in God's treatment of Adam, the 
 first man. On the character of the common parent of 
 mankind, the moral character of all his posterity was 
 suspended. Adam fell by sin ; and we know that, By 
 one Juan's disobedience, the many were made sinners — 
 Rom. V. 19. 
 
 In God's deahngs with his church, from the age of 
 Abraham to the coming of Christ, we find the same 
 principle still kept in view. When God would confer 
 on his church a more regular organization, he selected 
 Abraham, and entered into covenant with him. From 
 that time, for the sake of Abraham's faith, blessings 
 flowed largely on his posterity, for many generations. 
 Among them, true religion was established and main- 
 tained ; among them, the true church was found ; from 
 among them, also, the heirs of life were taken. These 
 are historical facts, plain and undeniable ; all bespeak- 
 ing peculiar favours bestowed on children for the pa- 
 rents' sake, during the entire continuance of the Old 
 Testament dispensation. Now, what was there in the 
 conduct of our adorable Redeemer, which could inti- 
 mate, that at the opening of the gospel dispensation, 
 this great principle should be abandoned ? Nothing, 
 assuredly, nothing ! But his condescending notice of 
 little children, (Matt. xix. 14. Mark x. 14. Luke xviii. 
 16,) seemed plainly to intimate the contrary. The 
 permission granted to christian parents to consecrate 
 their children to the God of Abraham, (in whose time 
 already the gospel was in substance made known,) and 
 
104 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 the engagement of Jehovah to be their God, are there^ 
 fore, in beautiful keeping with God's treatment of men 
 in all ages, whether of the church or of the world. 
 
 Ungodly men, who refuse to serve their Maker, 
 cannot be supposed to desire that their children should 
 serve the Lord ; and we find in Scripture no provision 
 made, no promise given, to their children. 
 
 But Christians do love God ; and parental feehng 
 causes them to desire, with peculiar earnestness, that 
 their children should love and serve him too. True 
 it is, that piety is not hereditary ; salvation is not to 
 be secured by entail. But in permitting his people to 
 consecrate to him their children in baptism, the ap- 
 pointed seal of a covenant, in which God promises to 
 be the God of believers, and of their seed with them ; 
 a promise, which secures the maintenance of a visible 
 church, in the line of the consecrated seed, and the 
 continuance among them, of religious instruction, of 
 revealed truth, and divine ordinances, with all their 
 inestimable benefits, as means of salvation ; we see 
 a provision, that renders parental affection subsidiary 
 to the best interests of children, and to the maintenance 
 of true religion on earth, just as it was in ancient 
 times, and just as we might suppose it ought to be ; a 
 provision, consequently, that commends itself to the 
 tenderest feeling of our hearts. 
 
 If we perceived that infant baptism was, in its spirit, 
 opposed to the general course of God's dealings with 
 mankind, and with his church in past ages ; or that it 
 contained provisions revolting to the strong feeling of 
 parental affection, we might well pause. But, when 
 we perceive that it is, throughout, in strict unisoa 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 105 
 
 With God's general treatment of men, in other cases ; 
 and that it enlists parental tenderness in the hallowed 
 cause of piety ; strong confirmation is thereby added 
 to our faith, tiiat it is truly of Cod ; a privilege greatly 
 desirable for our children. 
 
 If christian parents would carefully weigh this con- 
 sideration, they could scarcely fail to regard it as an 
 inestimable privilege, to bring their children, by bap- 
 tism, within the operation of that covenant, which alone 
 enjoins it on parents to " train up their children in the 
 nurture and admonition of the Lord f^ and which alone 
 conveys the promise, " I will be a God to your seed 
 after you in their generations." For to his people 
 alone, God's promises apply ; because his people alone 
 acknowledge his authority, and engage to obey all his 
 commands. The provision found in Scripture for the 
 religious education of children, is one of the blessings 
 of that covenant, of which infant baptism is the seal. 
 And no one, who does not, by presenting his children 
 to God in baptism, become a party to that covenant, 
 can, on scriptural grounds, plead the promise of God 
 for his children, or look with confidence for the divine 
 blessing on his labours, and instructions for their good. 
 Of the baptized, as a body, Jehovah engages to be 
 their God in a peculiar sense, above that in which he 
 is the God of all others, as their creator and judge. 
 By baptism, a child is incorporated into a society who 
 are now the visible people of God, enjoying the know- 
 ledge of true religion, and the means of grace for sal- 
 vation ; and not only so, but a society whom God 
 graciously engages, in the baptismal covenant, to con, 
 tinue as his visible church on earth, in the line of their 
 successors, added to them by baptism. 
 
106 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 Baptism is not conversion : baptism is not an infal- 
 lible pledge of conversion ; but it is a pledge to the 
 baptized, that among them the means of grace and 
 the ordinances of true religion shall be perpetuated. 
 Without these ordinances, what hope could we have of 
 men's salvation? Where they are among a people, 
 regenerating influence is usually sent down, and souls 
 are born again unto God. 
 
 In a world lying in wickedness, full of changes and 
 revolutions, every unconverted inhabitant of which has 
 a heart replete with infidelity, and enmity against God, 
 and impatient of the restraints imposed by his laws ; a 
 world, whose inhabitants, but for God's restraining 
 providence, would speedily combine to extirpate the 
 church, and banish true religion from the earth ; it 
 must surely be an invaluable privilege to be numbered 
 with a society, to whom the omnipotent God pledges the 
 continuance of true rehgion, and its ordinances, for sal- 
 vation. It surely is desirable to have our children 
 thus housed as it were, by baptism among the people 
 of God ; provided with means adapted to keep them 
 above the reach of those billows of wickedness, that 
 else would drown true piety, extinguish the hope of 
 life, and inundate the world with atheism, and infidelity, 
 and death. 
 
 God will always have a church on earth, and he will 
 bless his preached word to men's conversion. But if 
 you blot out the promise, " / will be the God of Ihy seed 
 after thee in their generations," and annul the covenant 
 which seals to our children that promise in baptism, 
 you have no certainty, no divine warrant to sustain 
 ibe hope, that God will not restrain his gra<je to-mor. 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. lOT 
 
 row ; convert no more among us ; continue the ordi- 
 nances of his worship liere, only just long enough to 
 prepare for heaven, all who are now true saints among 
 us ; and then leave the rest to follow the impulse of 
 their native enmity against him, renounce Christianity, 
 destroy the bible, desecrate his altars, tear down his 
 temples, and plunge back again into the midnight 
 darkness of paganism and atheism, hurrying away 
 our children along with them ; while the light of 
 heavenly truth shall be made to beam, and heavenly 
 grace shall be made to stream down with saving power, 
 upon nations now walking in darkness, and on lands 
 now lying in the shadow of death. No certain pro- 
 mise of the continuance of religion in our land, or 
 among our children can be found, if infant baptism be 
 not of God. But if it be, and if it seal to the bap- 
 tized that covenant, which conveys the promise that 
 God will be their God; and which, of course, secures the 
 continuance of all the means of grace among them, 
 that they may know and serve him as their God ; then 
 the fear of our children returning as a body to gross 
 heathenism, and utterly perishing without hope, is 
 taken away. Every unrenewed man's heart is prone 
 to atheism, and but for the restraints God imposes, the 
 unconverted, would, as a body, plunge into atheism : 
 and our children with them. These restraints are no 
 where promised to any particular community ; and of 
 consequence are not promised to this community ; but 
 in that very covenant, of which infant baptism is the 
 gracious seal. Let parents consider, then. Is it desi- 
 rable that their children should dwell where the gospel 
 is ? That they should sit under its sound, and enjoy its 
 
108 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 ordinances 7 Amid all the vicissitudes of this wicked 
 world nothing furnishes us with an infallible certainty 
 of these blessings being continued to them, but their 
 being joined to the visible people of the omnipotent 
 God in baptism : for to the baptized alone does he 
 absolutely pledge the continuance of the lively ora- 
 cles, the services of God, and the promises. 
 
 Once more, infant baptism commends itself to pious 
 parents with peculiar force, in view of our entire depra- 
 vity, and the absolute sovereignty of God^s grace. 
 
 All men lie involved in one common condemnation, 
 without any title to the favour of God ; and even they 
 to whom the gospel offer is made, if left to themselves, 
 will madly reject the offer and perish. With hearts 
 thus at enmity against God, and bent on destruction, 
 are the children of christians, just as truly as others •" 
 while God asserts his right to dispense his renovating 
 grace according to his sovereign will : " He will have 
 mercy on whom he will have mercy. ^^ But when we 
 find from among the fallen children of men, some 
 who, by divine authority, are organized into one visible 
 society, under the provisions of a covenant conveying 
 the promise that Jehovah will he their God ; when we 
 find that in times of old, it was from among these, the 
 children of his covenant, that God selected the heirs 
 of life ; when we find that in his holy word, God shows 
 his regard to the covenant of lineally descending 
 blessing, by styling himself the God of Abraham, 
 Isaac and Jacob ; is there not ample ground to hope 
 that God, though sovereign in the bestowment of his 
 favours, will nevertheless, in selecting from among 
 those who are all justly condemned, the recipients c^ 
 
INFANT BAI'TISM, 109 
 
 his saving morcy, continue, as of old, to manifest pe- 
 culiar regard to that covenant, still in force, still be- 
 Jieved in, and pleaded by his people, by pouring down 
 the unmerited favour of his renovating grace, most 
 richly, within the line formed by the covenant seal f 
 Hitherto God has done this in a remarkable manner. 
 For in every age, from the time of Abraham, m almost 
 every christian church, and every revival of religion. 
 a vast majority of those hopefully converted, have 
 been such as had had the seal of God's covenant af- 
 fixed to them in their childhood. So long, then, as the 
 covenant with Abraham is still in force, and diffuses 
 its blessings on the gentiles ; so long as God still pro- 
 mises to be a God to his people and their seed ; so long 
 as the Bible records him as the God of Abraham, 
 Isaac and Jacob ; so long as, in the dealings of his 
 providence with his church, a regard so marked to 
 the baptized seed of the covenant, is undeniably dis. 
 covered, in the conversion of a large proportion of 
 such, rather than of the unbaptized ; christian parents 
 have reason to regard baptism, in the midst of a world 
 inundated with wickedness, ever inclining to atheism, 
 and inveterate in hostility against the blessed gospel^ 
 as opening, like Noah's ark of old, an asylum for the 
 children of the church ; securing them, as a body, from 
 utter ignorance of the true God ; and affording a 
 •cheering prospect of probability for their conversion 
 to God. No christian parent can duly ponder these 
 considerations, as it would seem, without feehng de- 
 sirous to see his children added to the visible people 
 of God by baptism, even in early infancy. 
 
 Parents who have dedicated their children to God. are 
 10 
 
110 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 especially called upon to consider the duties incumbent 
 on them. 
 
 Such parents, it is to be presumed, are themselves 
 behevers, professing faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 The cases recorded in the New Testament, of house- 
 holds baptized, are such as followed the evidence of 
 faith furnished by the head of the house. The chil- 
 dren, declared by the apostle Paul to be holy, (i. e. fit 
 to be consecrated to God,) are those, of whose parents, 
 one, at least, is regarded by the church as a believer. 
 The child has no right in itself, but in its parent, as a 
 believer ; as one who comes before the church, de- 
 claring that he personally trusts in God's promise, " 1 
 will he a God to thee ,-" and desires to claim, for his 
 child, the application of that ordinance appointed as a 
 covenant seal, to interest it in the same blessing ; ac- 
 cording to the other part of the promise, '• I will he a 
 God to thy seed.''' 
 
 Every parent, therefore, who comes forward intel- 
 ligently, to ask baptism for a child, asks it as a seal of 
 the covenant with Abraham ; and in so doing, he 
 publicly assents to the terms of that gracious covenant ; 
 i. e. he avouches the Lord to be his God ; which is 
 virtually making a full profession of piety. Let every 
 parent, who has presented his children to God in bap- 
 tism, bear this in mind. Whether he intended it or not, 
 he did in that act openly declare the Lord to be his 
 God, and acknowledge himself bound to obey all God's 
 commandments. Can he, after this, refuse to sit down 
 at the Lord's table ? Or refuse to prepare himself to 
 partake, in the manner God requires? Or refuse to train 
 up his children prayerfully for God, without proving 
 himself a covenant-breaker ? 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. Ill 
 
 Moreover, tlic truths rcj)resciite(l, and tl>e promises 
 implied, in presenting a child to CJod in haptisni, ren- 
 der the duly of parents to labour assiduously and 
 prayerfully, for the conversion of their baptized chil- 
 dren, too plain to be doubted. I'he parent, by the 
 very act of presenting his child for baptism, (if he un- 
 derstand what he is doing,) significantly intimates, 
 that he regards his child as a depraved being, needing 
 renovation, and an interest in Christ for salvation ; as 
 one cut off from all hope on any ground, other than the 
 sovereign mercy of God, dispensed through Jesus 
 Christ ; the application of whose cleansing blood is 
 herein typically exhibited. This act plainly intimates, 
 that the parent believes God has a peculiarly gracious 
 regard for the seed of his people ; that them God 
 claims as his own ; for them, God has provided reli- 
 gious instruction ; and from among them, chiefly, as 
 marked by baptism, God will take his chosen race. 
 Now, how can that parent, who, in sincere belief of 
 all this, presents his children for baptism, afterwards 
 neglect any known means for their conversion ? If, 
 by the truth, God renovates the heart, the believing 
 parent will assiduously seek to imbue the minds of his 
 children with the truth ; and so to present it, embodied 
 in his life, and sustained by his example,. as may pro- 
 mise best to reach the heart, and rouse the consciences 
 of his children. And one great advantage accruing 
 from infant baptism, lies in its tendency to impress 
 parents with a sense of their obligations to train up 
 their children for God, and incite them to do it. It 
 does not create that obligation, but it deepens it ; and it 
 is well calculated to imprint a sense of that obligation 
 
112 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 on the parent's heart. It is a solemn, religious ordi- 
 nance ; symboUcally setting forth the most affecting 
 truths of the gospel ; implying the most solemn profes- 
 sions and promises on the part of the parent ; an ordi- 
 nance usually performed in the house of God, in the 
 presence of his assembled church, and in the view of 
 hundreds of spectators. It is an era distinctly marked 
 in the history of parent and child ; every recollection 
 of which, speaks to the parent's conscience, of God's 
 claim to that child ; and of obligations publicly recog- 
 nised, to train it up for him. And, consequently, in- 
 fant baptism is a pledge to baptized children of a more 
 careful religious education than they could enjoy with- 
 out it. And it affords to parents no light ground of 
 hope, that their prayerful and believing efforts for their 
 children's conversion to God, will be crowned with his 
 blessing. 
 
 Lastly, Baptized persons should consider the relations 
 into which they are brought hy their baptism, and the 
 duties thence devolving upon them. 
 
 By your baptism in infancy, you were brought into 
 a near and peculiar relation to the church of God ; 
 you were numbered among the lambs of the flock : 
 you obtained an interest in the prayers of God's peo- 
 ple ; and a right to the enjoyment of all those ordinances 
 of Christ, and those means of grace, which Christ has 
 appointed for infant members of his church. These 
 are, the instruction and godly example of parents ; 
 their watchfulness over the children's conduct, reproof 
 of their errors, and prayers for their welfare ; together 
 with attendance on public worship, and on the duties 
 of family religion. But the great end of all these means 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 113 
 
 was to lead you to embrace religion of your own free 
 choice ; to lead you, in genuine repentance, to a Saviour's 
 feet ; to lead you to acknowledge, by a living faith, 
 the God of your fathers as your God ; and, on a pro- 
 fession of that faith, to take your place with the church 
 at the Lord's table. Every circumcised person, under 
 the law, was bound, on arriving at a suitable age, to 
 recognise, by his own act, the covenant, God of Abra- 
 ham as his God, by taking part in the solemn services 
 of the passover, as the law directed ; or he forfeited 
 his interest in the covenant mercies of Abraham's 
 God. His refusal cut him off from God's people. 
 (Compare Numb. ix. 13.) 
 
 In like manner, every baptized person, on reaching 
 years of discretion, is bound to become a voluntary 
 party to the baptismal covenant, by taking for his God. 
 the God, who in his baptism, sealed him as His own,: 
 yielding submission to his claims ; accepting the pro- 
 vision made for him through Christ, the promised seed ; 
 and openly avowing the Lord to be his God, by sitting 
 down with a penitent and believing heart at the Lord's 
 table. If he fail to do this, he refuses obedience to 
 God's known will ; and thus voluntarily deprives him- 
 self of all further advantages provided in the covenant 
 he despises. Circumcision did not, of itself, entitle 
 the Jew to eat the passover, till he satisfied those ap- 
 pointed by the law to preside at that solemnity, that 
 he was legally purified. In like manner, baptism does 
 not of itself qualify a person to participate of the gospel 
 passover, the Lord's supper, till he give evidence to the 
 church that he is clean as the gospel prescribes ; i. e. 
 penitent for sin, and purified by faith in Christ, and by 
 
] 14 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 the Holy Ghost shed abroad in his heart. Baptism 
 under the gospel, like circumcision under the law, 
 confers membership in the visible church. But, as in 
 the Old Testament church, (a comparatively dark 
 dispensation,) outward purification was an indispensa- 
 ble preparation for participation in the further privi- 
 leges of the church, and his circumcision laid a man 
 under solemn obligation to secure that preparation 
 before he could participate, and that, too, on pain of 
 excision from all those church privileges. So, under 
 the more perfect dispensation in the gospel church, 
 inward purification, by a living faith, is the preparation 
 required of baptized persons, for participation in the 
 further privileges of the church, provided in the Lord's 
 supper ; and his baptism lays every baptized person 
 under the highest obligation to secure that preparation, 
 in unfeigned repentance ; and to give evidence of it to 
 the church, in a godly and consistent life. 
 
 All who hear the gospel, are bound to repent, and 
 to consecrate themselves to God. But they who have 
 been dedicated to God in baptism, by believing parents, 
 have this obligation pressing upon them with peculiar 
 force. You are the Lord's, my baptized reader ; he 
 claims you as his. His seal, the token of his covenant 
 right to you, has by his own authority been placed upon 
 you. It is your privilege, your birthright, to avail 
 yourself of the means of grace, that you may know 
 God's will ; seek him as your Lord, and obtain an 
 interest in his saving favour, by surrendering your 
 heart to him in early youth. 
 
 You can never divest yourself of God's seal. If 
 you are licentious, or profane, or infidel, or coldly 
 
INFANT BAPTISir. 115 
 
 moral, turning a deaf ear to tlic blessed Saviour's call, 
 still you are baptized. And is it not enougb to nnake 
 angels weep, and saints in glory weep, to behold bap- 
 tized sabbath-breakers, baptized swearers, baj)tized 
 profligates, baptized rejecters of a Saviour's grace, in 
 the midst of gospel light and gospel motives ? Every 
 baptized person, who continues impenitent, is like 
 profane Esau — he despises his birthright. 
 
 Does any baptized sinner say within himself, " If 
 my baptism lays me under such obligations, I will re- 
 nounce it. I was baptized without my consent being 
 asked, and I will not hold myself bound by such a 
 transaction." Stay! This is, indeed, despising your 
 birthright, and the guilt of profane Esau undeniably 
 rests upon you. What, a sinner renounce his baptism ! 
 Shake off the obligations it imposes ! You may as well 
 attempt to renounce your allegiance to God, shake off 
 your responsibility to his judgment bar, and determine 
 that your life shall not be a probation for eternity ! 
 
 The God who created you, and created you a subject 
 of his moral government, bound to obey his laws, on 
 your responsibility at his dread tribunal, placed you on 
 trial under christian privileges. He gave you to 
 christian parents, commanded them to affix on you the 
 seal of his covenant ; and he holds you personally 
 bound to accept the terms of that covenant, and to 
 become one of the spiritual seed of Abraham, by true 
 and living faith ; as fully and as truly as he holds you 
 bound to be honest, and to speak the truth. As many 
 of you as have been baptized into Christ, have put on 
 Christ. You are given to Christ, marked as his pro- 
 perty, bound to obey him, to confide in him by faith. 
 
IIG INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 and serve him with affectionate zeal, under the high 
 sanctions of eternal life on your obedience, everlasting 
 wretchedness the fruit of disobedience. 
 
 May the God of Abraham, the God and Father of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, crown with his approbation this 
 humble attempt to vindicate his blessed covenant, ren- 
 der it conducive to the advancement of the cause of 
 truth, and the edification and enlargement of his church 
 — Amen ! 
 
 NzwARK, Feb. 12, 1831. 
 
 ERRATA. 
 
 Page 5, line 9,/or "furnishes," read furnish. 
 p. 22, note, 13th line from bottom, for "t» xoytx,^^ read t± A6yii< 
 p. 24, 4th line of note, for " Apostolus ideam," read idem Apos- 
 tolus, 
 p. 24, note, line 10, /or "procipuum," read praecipuum. 
 p. 53, 5th line of note, /or '* phraise," read phrase, 
 pv 93j line I7th from foot, /or "jfive hundred," read sii hundred.