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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2011 with funding from 
 
 Princeton Theological Seminary Library 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/infantbaptismordOOsew 
 
Infant Baptism. 
 
INFANT BAPTISM 
 
 ORDINANCE OF THE GOSPEL 
 
 By Key. JOTHAM SEWALL. 
 
 ArPEOYED BY THE COMMITTEE OF PUBLICATION. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 MASSACHUSETTS SABBATH SCHOOL SOCIETY, 
 Depository Xo. 13 CoRyniLL. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by the 
 
 Massachusetts Sabbath School Society, 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE : 
 
 Allen and Farnham, Printers, 
 
Note. — The following essay is the substance of 
 four sermons prepared and preached to the people of 
 my present charge, and also to a neighboring church. 
 Some of the hearers expressed a wish that they 
 should be given to the public through the press ; and 
 I have been disposed to comply "with this wish, 
 especially as some points connected with the subject, 
 which tend to illustrate it, are not presented in other 
 treatises of the kind. And should this humble effort 
 be the means of confirming the faith of any of the 
 people of God in an important truth, and of stimulat- 
 ing them to a more faithful discharge of parental 
 duties, the labor involved will be abundantly repaid. 
 
 J. SEWALL. 
 
 North Granville, N. Y., March 28, 1859. 
 
%■ <^Z'" ^/^fy 
 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP TEE I. 
 
 Church defined. — Jewish church formed. — That church in 
 the nation, but seldom embraced the whole. — The 
 Christian church a continuation of the Jewish. — Proof. — 
 Language of prophecy. — The work which Christ came 
 to perform for that church. — The action of the Apostolic 
 Council. — The reasoning of Paul in the eleventh of 
 Eomans. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The covenant with Abraham constitutes the charter of the 
 church's rights. — This charter not annulled or altered at 
 the commencement of the Christian dispensation. — An- 
 nulling the ceremonial law did not affect it. — Why the 
 covenant with Abraham was sealed. — A seal still needful. 
 — Why circumcision was abolished. — Baptism substituted 
 for circumcision. 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Objections. — Apostles required belief before baptism. — 
 Those who had been circumcised required to be baptized. 
 — Further arguments. — Christ and his apostles taught 
 and practised just as we should have expected if children 
 were still regarded as in covenant with their parents, 
 and just as we should not have expected on the contrary 
 supposition. — No complaints were made by the converted 
 Jews. — Testimony from history. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Relation of baptized children to the church. — Utility of 
 Infant Baptism. — It tends to increase the faithfulness of 
 parents; to secure to children the prayers and counsels 
 of the church ; and to soothe the grief occasioned by 
 their death. 
 
INFANT BAPTISM 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 CHURCH DEFINED. — JEWISH CHURCH FORMED. — 
 LIMITED. — JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN CHURCH THE 
 SAME. 
 
 Ax important feature of the government 
 of God is placed before us in the passage, 
 " The mercy of the Lord is from everlast- 
 ing to everlasting upon them that fear him, 
 and his righteousness unto children's chil- 
 dren ; to such as keep his covenant, and to 
 those that remember his commandments to 
 do them." (Psalms 103 : 17-18.) On the 
 principle here expressed, an institution was 
 founded, under the former dispensation, in 
 1 
 
d INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 which, by a religions rite, children were 
 consecrated to God. And the same prin- 
 ciple, under the present, involves the pro- 
 priety and duty of a similar consecration in 
 a solemn religious ordinance. 
 
 In our view. Infant Baptism occupies a 
 place in the system of God's mercy to men, 
 which invests it with unspeakable impor- 
 tance ; and the best good of the church and 
 the world, we think, requires that it be un- 
 derstood and appreciated. Christians, we 
 know, who are equally pious and conscien- 
 tious in their opinions, may differ on this 
 subject. We love our brethren who dissent 
 from us respecting it. We cheerfully accord 
 to them the right of private judgment. It 
 is man's inalienable birthright, — an un- 
 questionable attribute of intelligent exist- 
 ence. And should these pages fall under 
 the eye of any such, — or any who have 
 doubted whether infant baptism is an or- 
 
INFANT BAI'TISM. d 
 
 dinance of the gospel, — they are requested 
 kindly and cordially to weigh what may 
 now be offered. Possibly, there are views 
 of the subject which they have not taken, 
 or facts and arguments possessing greater 
 importance than they have supposed. Truth 
 and duty lie on one side or the other of the 
 question now to be considered ; and it is 
 certainly important to understand which. 
 
 The common belief of those who reject 
 the doctrine of infant baptism, is, that the 
 Christian church was instituted and organ- 
 ized at the commencement of the present 
 dispensation, and that, hence, all its ordi- 
 nances are to be found in positive New Tes- 
 tament enactments. If they are right in 
 the premises, they are undoubtedly right in 
 the conclusion. But, in our view, they are 
 wrong in the premises, and hence the con- 
 clusion is erroneous. 
 
 The point, then, which first demands our 
 
4 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 attention is, Is the Christian church a con- 
 tinuation of the Jewish church ? This 
 question deserves full and careful attention ; 
 for, in fact, it is the hinge on which the 
 whole argument turns. 
 
 We here take the affirmative, which we 
 think capable of being sustained beyond 
 successful contradiction. But before exhib- 
 iting the proofs, it is proper to raise and 
 briefly answer the question. What is a 
 church ? 
 
 We answer : A church is -a company of 
 persons ivhom God takes into covenant ivith 
 himself as his professed servants and ivor- 
 shippers, securing to them certain j^rivileges 
 and blessings. This was the idea under 
 the former dispensation. Such a commu- 
 nity was instituted in the family of Abra- 
 ham. He was required to separate himself 
 from the world, and be a worshipper and 
 servant of Jehovah. E-eligious institutions 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. O 
 
 were to be observed by him and his house- 
 hold, and on condition of obedience, certain 
 privileges and blessings were secured to 
 him, some of which were temporal, but the 
 more important of which were spiritual. 
 In process of time, a code of laws was 
 given to his descendants for the regulation 
 of their civil and religious affairs ; a regu- 
 lar priesthood was instituted ; and a sys- 
 tem of religious instruction, and more of 
 set and outward formality in religious or- 
 dinances and worship, was introduced. 
 When these laws were propounded to 
 them from Sinai, they said, " All that the 
 Lord hath said will we do." (Ex. 19 : 
 8.) To render their engagement to be the 
 Lord's still more formal and solemn, Moses 
 wrote the law and ordinances which they 
 had received on Sinai in a book, which was 
 termed " the book of the covenant." This 
 he read in the audience of the people, and 
 
6 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 they replied, "All that the Lord hath spo- 
 ken will we do, and be obedient." To seal 
 this solemn engagement, " Moses took the 
 blood [of sacrifices which had been offered] 
 and sprinkled it on the people, and said, 
 Behold the blood of the covenant which the 
 Lord hath made with you concerning 
 all these words." (Ex. 24: 5-8.) Here 
 was a solemn engagement by which the 
 nation became the professed servants and 
 worshippers of Jehovah. And, toward the 
 close of Moses' life, when a strict adherence 
 to the divine commands and ordinances 
 was enjoined, he said, " This day the Lord 
 thy God hath commanded thee to do 
 these statutes and judgments ; thou shalt 
 therefore keep and do them with all thy 
 heart and with all thy soul." He then 
 added, " Thou hast avouched the Lord this 
 day to be thy God, and to walk in his ways, 
 and to keep his statutes, and his command- 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 7 
 
 ments, and his judgments, and to hearken 
 unto his voice ; and the Lord hath avouched 
 thee this day to be his peculiar people, as 
 he hath promised thee, and that thou 
 shouldest keep all his commandments." 
 (Deut. 26 : 16-18.) 
 
 These transactions constituted the people 
 of Israel a church, — an organized body of 
 professed servants and worshippers of Je- 
 hovah. And so they are styled in the New 
 Testament. Stephen says of Moses, " This 
 is he that was in the church in the wilder- 
 ness." (Acts 7 : 38.) And Paul, in his epistle 
 to the Hebrews, quotes David, in one of 
 the Psalms, as saying, " I will declare thy 
 name unto my brethren ; in the midst of tlie 
 church will I sing praise unto thee." (Hebr. 
 2: 12.) And this church, collectively and 
 individually, in view of the relation into 
 which God had thus taken it to himself, 
 was required to be holy, — as really so as 
 
8 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 the church under the Christian dispensa- 
 tion ; — " Sanctify yourselves, therefore, and 
 be ye holy ; for I am the Lord your God." 
 — " Ye shall be holy ; for I the Lord your 
 God am holy." (Lev. 20 : 7. 19 : 2.) 
 
 But, advancing from this point in the 
 history of Israel, to avoid an error, we must 
 distinguish between the church and the na- 
 tion. By surrounding communities, the 
 nation, as a whole, were regarded as wor- 
 shippers of Jehovah (just as Christian na- 
 tions are regarded by heathen as made up 
 of Christians) ; but nothing is more evident 
 from their history, than that, for the greater 
 part of the time, most of them were not. 
 
 From the transactions of God with Abra- 
 ham, and with his descendents at Sinai, it is 
 obvious, that to have been strictly a member 
 of the Jewish church, one must not only have 
 been circumcised, but have professed to be a 
 worshipper of God, and obedient to his re- 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. Vl 
 
 quirements. If an Israelite was not circum- 
 cised, he had broken God's covenant, — that 
 is, was not in covenant with God; was not a 
 member of the church. If, having been cir- 
 cumcised, he became an idolater, he was not a 
 worshipper of Jehovah, and hence was not a 
 member of the church ; and for his idolatry 
 he was required to be put to death. In 
 completing their national and religious ar- 
 rangements, certain feasts and other observ- 
 ances were instituted, in which they were 
 to profess their adherence to the worship 
 and service of God. (See Ex. 34: 18-23, 
 and Deut. 26 : 1-15.) Those who neglect- 
 ed these were not worshippers of Jehovah, 
 and, strictly speaking, were not members of 
 the church ; they did not belong to the 
 company of God's professed people. True, 
 the civil and ecclesiastial laws and institu- 
 tions of the nation were interwoven with 
 each other, and hence the church and 
 
10 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 the nation were intimately connected, — 
 more so, probably, than in any civil 
 community since. Still, a portion of the 
 people were worshippers of Jehovah, and 
 cleaved to his ordinances, and another 
 portion were not. The former were, in real- 
 ity, the church ; the latter did not strictly 
 belong to it. Hence Paul says, " They are 
 not all Israel which are of Israel ; neither 
 because they are the seed of Abraham, are 
 they all children." (Rom. 9: 6, 7.) The 
 church was in the nation ; but there were 
 only a few points in its history in which it 
 embraced the nation generally. A few re- 
 marks hereafter to be made, will further 
 illustrate this point. 
 
 Now it is easy to conceive that the same 
 body, regulated by the same general princi- 
 ples, but with ordinances and rites accommo- 
 dated to materially different circumstances, 
 may exist under different dispensations. 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 11 
 
 This, we maintain, is the fact. The church, 
 under both dispensations, is the same. Tiiis 
 is evident, — 
 
 1. From the language of prophecij. — The 
 predictions which I shall here introduce, are 
 only a few of the many which might be 
 cited. 
 
 In the forty-fom'th and forty-fifth chapters 
 of Isaiah, the restoration of the Jews from 
 the Babylonish captivity is foretold, and the 
 prediction asserts, "But Israel shall be saved 
 in the Lord with an everlasting salvation : 
 ye shall not be ashamed nor confounded 
 world without end." (45:17.) This could 
 not apply to Israel as a nation, because, as 
 a nation, they have been confounded and 
 ashamed. It must therefore apply to them 
 as a charch ; that is, to the church in the 
 nation. And it is a solemn assurance that 
 the Israelitish church should never be reject- 
 ed or destroyed. In the fiftieth and fifty- 
 
12 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 first chapters, the prophet is addressing ex- 
 plicitly the people of Israel: " Where is 
 the bill of your mother's divorcement." — 
 "Look unto Abraham your father, and to 
 Sarah that bare you." Continuing his ad- 
 dress, but referring undeniably to gospel 
 times, he thus commences the fifty-second 
 chapter : " Awake, awake, put on thy 
 strength, O Zion ; put on thy beautiful gar- 
 ments, O Jerusalem, the holy city ; for 
 henceforth there shall no more come into 
 thee the uncircumcised and the unclean," — 
 an evident prediction, not of the ceasing or 
 destruction of the Jewish church when 
 Messiah came, but of its being purified and 
 continued. In the fifty-fourth chapter, per- 
 sonifying Israel as a desolate woman, the 
 prophet says, " For the Lord hath called 
 thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in 
 spirit, and a wife of youth, when thou wast 
 refused, saith thy God. For a small mo- 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 13 
 
 ment I have forsaken thee ; but in great 
 mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath 
 I hid my face from thee for a moment ; but 
 with everlasting kindness will I have mercy 
 upon thee, saith the Lord, thy Redeemer." 
 Mark what follows : ''^For this is as the 
 ivaters of Noah unto me ; for as 1 have 
 siuorn that the ivaters of Noah should no 
 more go over the earth ; so have I sworn that 
 I will not be ivroth luith thee nor rebuke thee. 
 For the mountains shall depart^ and the hills 
 be removed; but my kindness shall not depart 
 from thee^ neither shall the covenant of my 
 PEACE BE KEMOVED, saith the Lord that hath 
 mercy on theeP God was wroth with the 
 nation and rebuked it. He utterly rooted it 
 up, and destroyed it, and scattered its re- 
 maining elements to the four winds. This 
 assurance, then, applies to the church. For 
 a time, before the coming of Christ, God 
 hid his face from it. But its perpetu- 
 
14 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 ity and prosperity he here secured with an 
 oath. In the fifty-sixth chapter, referring to 
 gospel times, the prophet says, " The Lord 
 God, which gathereth the outcasts of Israel, 
 saith. Yet will I gather others to him, be- 
 sides those that are gathered unto him ; " — 
 a plain intimation of the continuance of the 
 Jewish church, and that the Gentiles were 
 to be gathered into it. In the latter part of 
 the fifty-ninth chapter, the prophet predicts 
 the coming of Christ : " The Redeemer 
 shall come to Zion, and unto them that 
 turn from transgression in Jacob." He then 
 breaks out, " Arise, shine; for thy light is 
 come, and the glory of the Lord is risen 
 upon thee." A body then existing, surely, 
 was addressed ; and if any think that it was 
 the nation and not the church, let them no- 
 tice what follows : " But the Lord shall rise 
 upon thee^ and his glory shall be seen upon 
 thee. And the Gentiles shall come to thy 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 15 
 
 light, and kings to the brightness of thy 
 rising. Lift up thine eyes round about and 
 see, theij come to thee ; thy sons shall come 
 from far, and thy daughters shall be nursed 
 at thy side. Then thou shalt see, and flow 
 together, and thine heart shall be enlarged ; 
 because the abundance of the sea shall be 
 converted unto thee, and the forces of the 
 Gentiles shall come unto thee. — And the 
 sons of strangers shall build thy walls, and 
 their kings shall minister unto thee : for in 
 my wrath I smote thee, but in my favor 
 have I had mercy on thee. — Therefore thy 
 gates shall not be shut day or night ; that 
 men may bring unto thee the forces of 
 the Gentiles, and that their kings may be 
 brought." All this, as it cannot apply to 
 the nation, must apply to the church. And 
 a few verses onward it is said, " Whereas 
 thou hast been forsaken and hated, so that 
 no man went through thee, I ivill make thee 
 
16 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 an eternal excellency^ a joy of many gener- 
 ations,^^ And then again ; " For the Lord 
 shall be thine everlasting lights and the days 
 of thy mourning shall he endedP — No lan- 
 guage could more plainly teach that the 
 Jewish church was to be continued under 
 the Christian dispensation. 
 
 Other similar predictions could be collect- 
 ed in great numbers from this book ; but I will 
 introduce only one more. In the sixty-second 
 chapter, the prophet, looking forward to the 
 new dispensation, predicts that the church 
 of God should be called by a new name. 
 And then, further on, he says, " Go through, 
 go through the gates, prepare ye the way of 
 the people [those, who, from other nations, 
 were to come into the church], cast up, cast 
 up the high way ; gather out the stones ; lift 
 up a standard for the people. Behold thy 
 salvation cometh [He who should save the 
 Jewish church] ; behold his reward is with 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 17 
 
 him, and his work before him. And thou 
 [the Jewish church addressed — thoii] shalt 
 be called, Sought out^ a city not forsaken.^'' 
 
 It would be easy to add other similar 
 predictions from Jeremiah and the shorter 
 prophets. But these are sufficient. And 
 they certainly show that the Jewish church 
 was not rejected at the coming of Christ 
 and a new one formed. 
 
 2. The same appears /ro?;i the work ivhich 
 Christ is represented as performing' for that 
 church. The natural meaning of the figure 
 which his forerunner applied to him, when 
 he said, " Whose fan is in bis hand, and he 
 will thoroughly purge his floor," is, the 
 cleansing of the Jewish church ; not its de- 
 struction. Isaiah, predicting the coming of 
 Christ in the passage, " Unto us a child is 
 born, unto us a son is given," represents the 
 Messiah as sitting '^iipon the throne of David, 
 and upon his kingdom.^ to order it, and to 
 2 
 
18 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 establish it with judgment and with justice 
 from henceforth and forever" (Isa. 9:7), — 
 meaning, evidently, that he was to defend 
 and perpetuate the Jewish church. In the 
 fifteenth chapter of the Acts, the apostle 
 James, before the first Christian council, 
 speaking of the calling of the Gentiles into 
 the church, and referring to a prophecy of 
 Amos, says, " And to this agree the words 
 of the prophet ; as it is written. After this I 
 will return, and I ivill build again the taber- 
 nacle of David which is fallen down ; and I 
 will build again the ruins thereof, and I will 
 set it up ; that the residue of men may seek 
 the Lord, and all the Gentiles upon whom 
 my name is called, saith the Lord who 
 doeth these things." The w^ork which 
 Christ performed by extending the blessings 
 of salvation to the Gentiles, and gathering 
 them into the church, is here called, a build- 
 ing again of the tabernacle of David — a 
 
INFANT BArTISM. 19 
 
 figure obviously meaning the revivifying and 
 enlargement of the Jewish church : — and it 
 seems to be introduced purposely to guard 
 us against the error that he intended to 
 destroy that church and constitute another. 
 Said Christ to the Scribes and Pharisees, 
 " Other sheep I have which are not of this 
 fold; them also must I bring ; and they shall 
 hear my voice, and there shall be one fold 
 and one shepherd." (John 10 : 16.) Christ 
 was here speaking of his true church, which, 
 as we have seen, had existed in the Jewish 
 nation. And he teaches us that the work 
 which he came to perform, was, to gather 
 the Gentiles into it. Said Paul to the 
 Ephesian Christians : '^ Wherefore remem- 
 ber, that ye, being in time past Gentiles in 
 the flesh, were without Christ, being aliens 
 from the commonwealth of Israel, and 
 strangers from the covenants of promise : — 
 but now, in Christ Jesus, ye who sometime 
 
20 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 were far off, are made nigh by the blood of 
 Christ." The obvious import of this passage 
 is, that the converts at Ephesus, by becom- 
 ing Christians, had been introduced into the 
 Jewish church, and had become partakers of 
 the blessins^s covenanted to them. And as 
 the result of his reasoning on this topic, 
 within a few verses, the apostle comes to 
 this conclusion : " Now therefore ye are no 
 more strangers and foreigners, but fellow- 
 citizens with the saints, and of the household 
 of God ; and are built upon the foundation 
 of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ 
 himself being the chief corner-stone " ; — 
 language which strongly implies the unity 
 of the church under both dispensations. 
 The same idea was evidently before the 
 apostle's mind, when, in the next chapter, he 
 says, " That the Gentiles should be fellow 
 heirs, and of the same body, and partakers 
 of his promise in Christ by the gospel." 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 21 
 
 They were to be fellow heirs with some 
 previously existing body to which God had. 
 covenanted blessings capable of being in- 
 herited, and were to be partakers in Christ 
 by the gospel of the promises made to that 
 body : and we have already seen with whom 
 the covenant constituting a church was 
 formed. 
 
 The work, then, which Christ came to 
 perform for the Jewish church was, to purify 
 and enlarge it, and bring the Gentiles 
 into it. 
 
 3. The continuance of the Jewish church 
 appears from the action of the apostolical 
 council at Jerusalem^ as recorded in the fif- 
 teenth chapter of the Acts. That council was 
 called to decide on the question whether the 
 Gentile converts should be circumcised, and 
 keep the ritual law. After free discussion, 
 in which there was some variance of opinion, 
 the negative of the question was unanimous- 
 ly sustained. 
 
22 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 Now what was the argument by which 
 that conclusion was reached ? Was it that 
 the Jewish church, with all its rites and 
 ceremonies, had been abolished, and a new 
 church established in its stead ? If Christ 
 had given such instructions, his disciples 
 must have known it. And here was the 
 time, and this the place, to bring out the 
 fact. This would have covered the whole 
 ground, and settled the question at once. 
 But not a hint of the kind appears. Not 
 the slightest intimation was given that it 
 was the will of Christ that the old church 
 should be regarded as abolished, and a new 
 one formed. The inference is plain : no 
 such thing had been done. Had the fact 
 been otherwise, the calling of that council 
 would have been needless. The apostles 
 might and would have said to the churches 
 they formed, " You have nothing to do with 
 the old establishment ; it is all done away ; 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 23 
 
 its rites and observances have ceased ; and 
 you are on an entirely new foundation." All 
 trouble had thus been spared. 
 
 4. The continuance of the Jewish church 
 iras cvidenlhj the argument of Paul in the 
 eleventh of Romans. He begins with the in- 
 quiry, " Hath God cast away his people ? " 
 [the Jews.] This he answers with an em- 
 phatic negative : '* God forbid." He then 
 proceeds to illustrate the truth thus an- 
 nounced. Blindness in part had happened 
 to Israel ; they had stumbled and fallen : 
 and, in consequence of this, salvation had 
 come to the Gentiles. The persons thus re- 
 jected, he represented as branches broken off 
 from an olive-tree, and the believing Gentiles 
 as engrafted in their stead. Now what did 
 he mean by " the good olive-tree ? " Not, 
 surely, the Jewish nation ; for, becoming 
 Christians did not incorporate the Gentiles 
 with that. The church, as existing under 
 
24 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 the Jewish dispensation, was evidently in- 
 tended. From this, the pious Jews were 
 not broken off: and among them, the believ- 
 ing Gentiles were grafted in, and partook 
 " of the root and fatness of the olive-tree " — 
 because " Abraham's seed, and heirs accord- 
 ing to the promise," and inheritors of the 
 spiritual privileges and blessings covenanted 
 to him and his posterity. This is obviously 
 the meaning of the passage. 
 
 Should any pretend that the good olive- 
 tree is Christ, this equally proves the iden- 
 tity of the church under both dispensations, 
 since the members of both are represented 
 as being in him. The truly pious are never, 
 in any age of the world, broken off from 
 Christ. It is only those who are nominally 
 such. And those whom the apostle repre- 
 sents as being broken off were nominally in 
 Christ by being nominally in the church. 
 But being nominally in Christ now, is being 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 25 
 
 nominally in the cliiirch. On this ground, 
 then, the church is the same under both dis- 
 pensations, since the same thing constituted 
 membership in the one as in the other. 
 
 These are a few of the arguments which 
 prove that the Christian church is a continua- 
 tion of the Jewish church. I see not how 
 the force of them can be evaded. I see not, 
 indeed, how any one, with this question be- 
 fore him, can read attentively the book of 
 Isaiah, and believe otherwise. Christ, as 
 man, was a member of that church. He 
 was " made under the law " (Gal. 4:4); and 
 " was a minister of the circumcision." (Rom, 
 15 : 8.) He submitted to the ordinances of 
 that church ; and endorsed its validity. To 
 the multitude and his disciples he said : 
 " The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' 
 seat. All therefore whatsoever they bid you 
 observe, that observe and do." (Matt. 23 : 2, 
 3.) There were in it, when he came, some 
 
26 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 living members, who " walked in all the 
 commandments and ordinances of the Lord 
 blameless," and " waited for the consolation 
 of Israel." Christ came, as we have seen, 
 to enlarge and beautify it. The object of 
 his "being made a curse for us," as Paul 
 expressly declares, was, "that the blessing 
 of Abraham might come on the Gentiles 
 through " him. And here we see how it 
 was that Abraham became " the father of all 
 them that believe." It was not because he 
 was the first believer ; for he was not. It 
 was not because he was a more eminent 
 saint than such men as Enoch and Elijah ; 
 for we have no reason to regard him as such. 
 It was because he was constituted the head 
 of the visible church. It was because the 
 covenant was made with him which consti- 
 tuted the first regularly organized commu- 
 nity of God's worshippers, from which all 
 others are derived. " He received the sign 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 27 
 
 of circumcision," (says Paul,) — "that he 
 mio-ht be the father of all them that be- 
 lieve," both of Jews and Gentiles; — that Is, 
 the head of the visible church. (Rom. 4 : 11.) 
 Let the truth which has now been before 
 us be a fixed fact in our minds. And let us 
 accustom ourselves to feel and speak of the 
 Jewish church with respect. It was God's 
 church ; one which he loved ; and for the 
 sake of which he reproved kings ; and of 
 which he said, " Every tongue that shall rise 
 against thee in judgment, thou shalt con- 
 demn." (Isa. 54: 17.) It was never, as 
 some have styled it, a legal church. A legal 
 church among those who have sinned is an 
 impossibility. The Israelites were no more 
 expected to acquire merit before God by re- 
 ligious and other observances, than any per- 
 son or community now is. The religion of 
 a sinner, to be acceptable to God, in any 
 age of the world, must embrace the same 
 
28 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 elements. And happy will it be for ns, if a 
 portion of the piety and grace which adorn- 
 ed the worthies of the Jewish church is 
 ours. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE CHARTER OF THE CHURCH. ■ — THIS SEALED. 
 — THE SEAL CHANGED. 
 
 The church, as we have defined it, is a 
 company of persons whom God takes into 
 covenant ivith himself as his professed ser- 
 vants and lu or shippers^ and to ivhom he stipu- 
 lates certain privileges and blessings. — The 
 covenant which God made with Abraham, 
 by which a church was instituted in his fam- 
 ily, is therefore the charter of that church's 
 rights. It specifies what he and the church 
 thus formed might expect from God by vir- 
 tue of that transaction. 
 
 It is, then, an important inquiry (and the 
 more so, since, as we have seen, the church 
 under both dispensations is the same). What 
 
30 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 blessings did God promise to Abraham? 
 What ivas embraced in the charter of rights 
 given to the church ivhich ivas organized 
 amo7ig his descendants? 
 
 The engagement with Abraham included 
 some temporal things ; — such as a numer- 
 ous posterity, the possession of the land 
 of Canaan by his posterity, and outward 
 national prosperity on condition of adhering 
 to the divine commands. But the more im- 
 portant were spiritual blessings. The first 
 recorded specification, which was made 
 when he was called to leave his native 
 country, was, that he should be a blessing, 
 and that in him all the families of the earth 
 should be blessed. (Gen. 12: 2, 3.) This 
 was a promise of all that grace and favor to 
 him and his posterity by which this should 
 be accomplished. Some twenty-five years 
 afterward, a more formal and solemn en- 
 gagement was made. " And — the Lord 
 
I 
 
 INFANT BAPTISM. 31 
 
 appeared unto Abraham, and said unto him, 
 I am the Ahnighty God ; walk thou before 
 me, and be thou perfect — and I will estab- 
 lish my covenant between me and thee, and 
 thy seed after thee in their generations, for 
 an everlasting covenant ; to be a God unto 
 thee, and to thy seed after thee." (Gen. 
 17 : 1, 7.) This covenant was then sealed 
 by the institution and performance of the 
 rite of circumcision. And of this God said, 
 " it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt 
 me and you" (v. 11). — Afterward God 
 promised him, " In thy seed shall all the na- 
 tions of the earth be blessed" (Gen. 22: 
 18) ; referring, as an apostle informs us, 
 specifically to Christ ; and meaning that he 
 should come in the line of Abraham's pos- 
 terity, and that through him, and the church, 
 of which he is the head and the representa- 
 tive, the world should be blessed. 
 
 But the point at which the covenant was 
 
32 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 formally announced and sealed, embodies 
 the grand transaction. All other things 
 were virtaally embraced in this, and were 
 only specified as defining some of its partic- 
 ulars. 
 
 When God thus solemnly engaged to 
 Abraham, "I will be a God to thee;" less 
 cannot be meant than that God would be 
 his spiritual father and friend, and fulfil the 
 high import of that sacred relation by im- 
 parting to him all needful protection, and 
 bestowing upon him all needful grace, for 
 time and eternity. The promise was an as- 
 surance of his acceptance with God as a 
 penitent believer. Hence an apostle says, 
 " He received the seal of circumcision, a seal 
 of the righteousness of the faith ivhich he had, 
 yet being iiyicircumcisedy (Rom. 4: 11.) 
 And the promise made to him in behalf of 
 his children was the same as that made to 
 himself. The same language was used ; and 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 33 
 
 no intimation is given that it is employed 
 in an inferior sense. And, indeed, the holy 
 man would have felt it to be a mockery of 
 his highest desires to have temporal bless- 
 ings only engaged to his children and pos- 
 terity, while spiritual blessings were engag- 
 ed to himself. This could not be ; because, 
 as the covenant secured the existence of the 
 church among his descendants, it secured 
 the existence of piety ; for, where the church 
 is, there piety must be. The promise, " I 
 will establish my covenant between me and 
 thee, and thy seed after thee, in their gener- 
 ations, for an everlasting covenant; to be a 
 God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee," 
 was an engagement that they should be 
 brought into the same relation to God in 
 which himself stood. It was a promise of 
 the bestowment upon them of saving grace. 
 It could mean nothing less than this. 
 Here, indeed, a condition was involved. 
 3 
 
84 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 Abraham must be faithfal. He must be 
 simply and sincerely devoted to God. He 
 must be a priest of Jehovah in his house, 
 maintaining the worship of God in it, and 
 governing his household aright, and instruct- 
 ing them in the things of God. And in 
 proportion to his fidelity in these respects 
 might he claim the fulfilment of the promise 
 to his children, in its high spiritual meaning ; 
 and through them to succeeding generations. 
 It was a promise that God would bless 
 his efforts, by the bestowment of saving 
 grace upon his offspring, and so downward 
 in the line of his posterity. And hence we 
 hear God saying of Abraham, " I know him, 
 that he will command his children and his 
 household after him, and they shall keep 
 the right way of the Lord, to do justice 
 and judgment, that the Lord may bring 
 upon Abraham that which he hath spoken 
 of him." (Gen. 18 : 19.) Such was the 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 35 
 
 charter of privileges given to the Jewish 
 church. 
 
 Another question here arises : Was this 
 charter revoked or altered at the commence- 
 ment of the Christian dispensation ? — The 
 fact, ah'eady proved, that the church remains 
 the same, is, in itself, presumptive evidence 
 that the charter is not annulled; for, the an- 
 nulling or withdrawing of a charter, unless 
 a new one is given, dissolves the body which 
 it had created. But, has it ceased to be a 
 law of- God's moral administration, through 
 Christ and the church to bless the world ? 
 Is it no longer a fact, that God blesses 
 children through their parents ? Is not the 
 truth written on every page of the church's 
 history, that the prayers, instructions, and 
 example of pious parents are one of his 
 chosen instrumentalities for the conversion 
 and salvation of their offspring? As well 
 may we expect the laws of nature to cease 
 
36 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 as that principle to cease, which has run 
 through the whole of God's moral govern- 
 ment of the world, which he expressed to 
 Abraham in the points before us, and which, 
 through him, he solemnly covenanted to the 
 church. 
 
 But perhaps it is here said, The Jewish 
 ceremonial law is abolished, and with it went 
 the Abrahamic covenant ; — all these Old 
 Testament transactions w^ere swept away. 
 Has the law of the ten commandment s^ then, 
 become null and void? And how came 
 Paul to say that " Christ v/as a minister of 
 the circumcision for the truth of God, to 
 confirm the promises made unto the fathers ? " 
 and that " all the promises of God in him are 
 yea^ and in him, Amen, to the glory of God 
 by us? " (Rom. 15 : 8, and 2 Cor. 1 : 20.) 
 The ceremonial law, indeed, has ceased; but 
 the covenant with Abraham formed no part 
 of that law. The promise that Christ should 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 37 
 
 come and bless the world, surely, was no 
 part of it. None of the promises made to 
 Abraham were any part of it. They were 
 as distinct from it as any transaction could 
 possibly be. So the apostle reasons in the 
 third chapter of Galatians. " Brethren, I 
 speak after the manner of men : Though it 
 be but a man's covenant, yet if it be con- 
 firmed, no man disannulleth or addeth there- 
 unto. Now to Abraham and his seed were 
 the promises made. He saith not. And to 
 seeds, as of many ; but as of one. And thy 
 seed, which is Christ. And this I say, that 
 the covenant which was confirmed before of 
 God in Christ, the law, which was four 
 hundred and thirty years after, cannot dis- 
 annul, that it should make the promise of 
 none effect." The reasoning of the apostle 
 is, that the law, which was given at Sinai 
 430 years after the covenant made with 
 Abraham, was an entirely distinct thing, and 
 
38 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 did not, in the least, affect it. That cove- 
 nant was confirmed by God in Christ ; and, 
 according to the apostle's showing, being 
 thus established, could not be disannulled. 
 It was God's covenant, and hence unspeak- 
 ably more firm and less mutable than any 
 human engagement. " The law," he says, 
 "was added because of transgression, till 
 the seed sliould come to whom the promise 
 was made." (v. 19.) It was added [ap- 
 pended] to the promises made to Abraham 
 till Christ should come ; and then the cere- 
 monial part of it was to be taken away. 
 The ceremonial law was the "hand-writing 
 of ordinances " which Christ blotted out and 
 took away by naiUng it to his cross. (Col. 
 2 : 14.) It " was added " and " taken away," 
 leaving the Abrahamic covenant just as it 
 was. That covenant, in all the fulness of 
 its promises, is still the rich inheritance of 
 the church. It was never God's design, 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 39 
 
 under the Christian dispensation, to abridge 
 the privileges of his people. The very idea, 
 that, under a better economy, these were to 
 be diminished, is preposterous. Christ did 
 not abolish one of the promises made unto 
 the fathers. He came to confirm and fulfil 
 them — to fulfil some of them in his own 
 person, and others in the bestowments of his 
 spirit and grace. And the apostle, at the 
 commencement of his argument in the third 
 of Galatians, is careful to assure us that the 
 object of Christ's death was, that the blessing 
 of Abraham might come on the Gentiles. 
 Christ, he says, " was made a curse for us 
 — that the blessing of Abraham might come 
 on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ ; — that 
 we might receive the promise of the spirit 
 by faith." Justification by faith, and the 
 Spirit to effect all the blessings, personal and 
 relative, promised to Abraham, are here an- 
 nounced as coming on the Gentiles through 
 
40 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 Christ ; and the design of his death was to 
 secure this effect. And hence the conclu- 
 sion to which the argument of the apostle 
 conducts hiin : " If ye be Christ's, then are 
 ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to 
 the promise : " — " heirs " — inheritors of the 
 blessings covenanted to him. The charter 
 of the church, then, remains unchanged. 
 
 It has been already remarked that the 
 covenant with Abraham was sealed by the 
 instituting of circumcision. This ordinance 
 was commanded to be strictly observed by 
 all his descendants. And so important did 
 God regard this seal, that he threatened the 
 delinquent with being " cut off from among 
 his people." (Gen. 17: 14.) 
 
 But why did God affix a seal to his cove- 
 nant with Abraham ? and why did he con- 
 sider it so important that its neglect should 
 incur the forfeiture of the subject's life ? — 
 for such is probably the meaning of the 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 41 
 
 threatening. (See Ex. 81: 14.) God's 
 word of promise, surely, needs no additional 
 security. His veracity is not to be doubted. 
 The seal was intended to meet an infirmity 
 of humanity — to confirm to men God's 
 fidelity to his engagements, and remind them 
 of implied obligations and duties. God 
 knew man's proneness to forget. Even Abra- 
 ham needed to have his faith in the divine 
 promises strengthened. And his posterity 
 would need to be reminded of the solemn 
 transactions between God and their progen- 
 itor; and of the relation into which they 
 were brought to God, and of what he con- 
 sequently expected of them. This would 
 tend to secure them to his service ; to re- 
 claim them when they wandered ; and to in- 
 spire them with confidence in his promises 
 in seasons of calamity and trial. It was 
 given to Abraham for the same reason that 
 a token was given to Noah and the post- 
 
42 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 diluvian world, that a flood should not 
 again destroy the earth. It was given on 
 the same principle, that, under the Jewish 
 dispensation, types prefigured blessings to 
 come ; and, under the Christian, ordinances 
 are remembrances and seals of blessings 
 bestowed. Every outward institution is 
 intended to meet some necessity of our 
 nature : and such memorials will be re- 
 quisite while that nature remains what it 
 has been, and what it is. 
 
 If, then, the covenant with Abraham — 
 the great charter of the church's rights — 
 remains, a seal is to be expected. It would 
 be preposterous to suppose that a covenant, 
 once sealed, and still in force, has had its 
 seal removed. When the testimony of 
 validity is removed from an instrument, it 
 becomes void. Unless, therefore, God is 
 less benevolent than he once was — less 
 desirous of human welfare — or man has 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 43 
 
 become more observant of his Maker's will, 
 
 and needs less reminding; we may be sure 
 that his covenant has still a seal. Can we 
 for a moment admit, that, under the Chris- 
 tian dispensation, faith has less to encourage 
 and strengthen it, less to feed and live upon, 
 than under the Jewish ? Can w^e admit that 
 it has a narrower range of promise, or less 
 security for the fulfilment of divine engage- 
 ments? Such a supposition would be at 
 war with all the representations of increased 
 advantages under the present economy. It 
 would be little less than a libel on that dis- 
 pensation itself. Or can any pretend that 
 parents are so much more careful of the 
 religious training of their children as to need 
 less reminding; or that they have so much 
 more confidence in the fulfilment of God's 
 promises than even Abraham had, that they 
 need no encouragement from an outward 
 and impressive rite? Such inquiries need 
 no replies. 
 
44 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 But here it may be asked, If the Abra- 
 hamic covenant remains, why is not its 
 original seal continued ? I reply : The per- 
 petuity of that covenant is unaffected by the 
 question whether or not we can see the rea- 
 son of the discontinuance of circumcision. 
 But further; that rite, though instituted 
 long before the giving of ceremonial law, 
 had come to be regarded as a pledge to ful- 
 fil it. Said Paul to the Galatians, " I testi- 
 fy again to every man that is circumcised, 
 that he is a debtor to do the whole law." 
 (Gal. 5 : 3.) The Judaizing teachers insist- 
 ed that unless the Gentile converts were 
 circumcised and kept the law of Moses, i. e. 
 the ceremonial law, they could not be saved ; 
 thus subverting the very foundation prin- 
 ciple of the gospel, justification by faith 
 in Christ alone. Hence the sharp conten- 
 tion which arose respecting this question, 
 and the calling of the council at Jerusalem 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 45 
 
 to decide it. If the Gentile converts were 
 circumcised, they would be virtually prose- 
 lyted to the Jewish religion, and be pledged 
 to all its observances as requisite for accept- 
 ance with God. It hence became indis- 
 pensable that circumcision should be laid 
 aside. If this was not the only way in 
 which the evil could be corrected, it was the 
 readiest way, and the one which the Holy 
 Ghost designated. And it should be 
 specially noticed that this connection be- 
 tween circumcision and the ceremonial law 
 was the sole ground of argument before the 
 council at Jerusalem, and the reason on 
 which its decision was based. The question 
 was not. Circumcision as the seal of the 
 Abrahamic covenant; but, Circumcision as 
 connected ivith the Jewish ceremonial laiv. 
 And if any should ask why, if that rite as a 
 seal of the covenant had given place to an- 
 other, nothing was said about the change, 
 
46 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 we reply : That nothing was said respecting 
 this, we do not know. But this was not the 
 point at issue ; and, therefore, the brief result 
 is silent respecting it. Nor was it needful 
 to raise that question, since, as we contend, 
 another rite had been substituted, and was 
 generally observed. 
 
 This leads us to the next point in order : 
 Was the form of the seal of the Abrahamic 
 covenant changed at the introduction of the 
 gospel dispensation ? — If no other reason 
 for such a change had existed but the 
 Saviour's foresight of the abuse to which 
 circumcision would be subjected, this was 
 sufficient. And, further, it is not unnatural 
 to expect, that, with the introduction of a 
 milder dispensation, and one suited to a 
 more highly civilized state of the world, and 
 with the ceasing of sacrifices when the great 
 sacrifice which they prefigured had been of- 
 fered ; all bloody rites would cease, and a 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 47 
 
 rite of similar moral significancy would take 
 the place of circumcision. A rite of similar 
 significance existed ; and had from time im- 
 memorial. Those, who, from other nations, 
 were proselyted to the Jewish religion, were 
 circumcised and baptized, — males submit- 
 ting to both rites, and females to the latter. 
 The latter rite [baptism] the Saviour 
 adopted as a token of discipleship to him, 
 by commanding it to be applied to all who 
 should embrace the gospel. " Go teach all 
 nations, baptizing them in the name of the 
 Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
 Ghost." He thus placed baptism^ as an 
 initiatory rite, in the same relation to the 
 Christian church in ivhich circumcision had 
 stood to the Jeivish. It became a necessary 
 prerequisite to membership. And, to adult 
 receivers, it became precisely luhat circum- 
 cision teas to Abraham, " a seal of the right- 
 eousness offaith'^ — a seal of acceptance and 
 justification by faith. 
 
48 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 In emblematic significancy, circumcision 
 and baptism are precisely similar. The 
 typical import of circumcision is, the renew- 
 al of the heart to holiness — cleansing from 
 moral defilement. " Circumcise therefore 
 the foreskin of your heart, and be no more 
 stiff-necked;" " And the Lord thy God will 
 circumcise thy heart, and the heart of thy 
 seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thy 
 heart, and with all thy soul." (Deut. 10 : 16. 
 30 : 6.) And Paul speaks of the Chris- 
 tians at Colosse as '' circumcised with the 
 circumcision made without hands, in putting 
 off the body of the sins of the flesh." The 
 typical import of baptism is the same — the 
 renewal of the heart to holiness — cleansins^ 
 from the defilement of sin. Hence the fol- 
 lowing declarations ; " For as many of you 
 as have been baptized into Christ, have put 
 on Christ ; " — have become morally like 
 him. (Gal. 3: 27.) " Know ye not that so 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 49 
 
 many of you as were baptized into Jesus 
 Christ, were baptized into his death:" i. e. 
 have become dead to sin. (Rom. 6 : 3.) The 
 direction of Ananias to Saul expresses the 
 typical import of this rite : " Arise, and be 
 baptized, and wasli away thy sins." (Acts 
 22 : 16.) Literal circumcision and literal 
 baptism are emblems of spiritual circumcis- 
 ion and spiritual baptism. But in the fol- 
 lowing passage, the two latter are placed 
 before us as being precisely similar in nature 
 and effect : " In whom 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 ; buried 
 with him by baptism, wherein also ye are 
 risen with him through the faith of the oper- 
 ation of God, who hath raised him from 
 the dead." (Col. 2: 11,12.) 
 
 These two rites, then, mean the same 
 thing; and the latter, by Christ's express 
 4 
 
50 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 command, stands in the same relation to the 
 Christian chm'ch in which the former did to 
 the Jewish. Bat we have seen that the 
 church is the continuation of the Jewish 
 church. It follows, then, that by Christ's 
 express command, baptism takes the place 
 of circumcision. It is a token of the same 
 covenant and a seal of the same spiritual 
 blessings. This result has been reached 
 by a process of reasoning which we think is 
 legitimate and conclusive. We see not how 
 any position we have taken can be disprov- 
 ed. And here we might rest the propriety 
 of applying baptism to the children of be- 
 lievers. But a few additional arguments 
 should receive attention ; and some objec- 
 tions to the conclusion we have reached de- 
 serve to be considered. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 TWO OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. — FURTHER ARGU- 
 MENTS. — THE CONDUCT OF CHRIST AND THE 
 APOSTLES. — NO COMPLAINTS FROM CONVERTED 
 JEWS. TESTIMONY FROM HISTORY. 
 
 OuPt inference from the foregoing reason- 
 ing is; that, unless a limitation has been 
 introduced, the seal of the covenant should 
 now be applied as extensively as under the 
 former dispensation ; i. e. to the children of 
 God's professed people. If the covenant re- 
 mains unchanged, the seal, in its new form, 
 should be applied by the same rule as be- 
 fore, unless a different rule has been in- 
 troduced. 
 
 Some pretend that a different rule has 
 been given — that the doctrine of the New 
 
52 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 Testament is, that a person must believe 
 before he is baptized. In support of this, it 
 is said, that the multitude on the day of 
 Pentecost were directed : " Repent and be 
 baptized every one of you in the name of 
 the Lord Jesus ;" " and they that gladly re- 
 ceived the word were baptized ; " that Philip 
 required faith in the eunuch as a prerequi- 
 site to baptism ; and that Lydia, and the 
 jailer, and Saul of Tarsus, believed before 
 they were baptized. 
 
 All this is trne ; but the facts do not touch 
 the question of Infant Baptism at all. This 
 is easily shown. The missionaries to the 
 Sandwich Islands, when those who had been 
 trained in heathenism, gave evidence of 
 piety, required every one of them to be 
 baptized in the name of Christ. And why ? 
 Did not those missionaries believe in Infant 
 Baptism ? They certainly did. And the 
 fact, that, for a number of years, they re- 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 53 
 
 quired all the adults who professed faith in 
 Christ to be baptized was not, in the least, 
 inconsistent with that belief. The reason is 
 plain : The gospel was then just intro- 
 duced ; and, from the nature of the case, those 
 persons could not have been baptized in 
 their infancy. Just so it w^as in the case 
 before us. The nuiltitude on the day of 
 Pentecost, the eunuch, Lydia, the jailer, 
 Saul, and others, could not have received 
 baptism, w^hen young, because baptism, as 
 a Christian rite, did not then exist : the 
 gospel dispensation had just commenced. 
 The facts thus adduced to disprove the 
 propriety of applying baptism to infants are 
 entirely irrelevant. They have not the most 
 distant bearing on the question. Admit the 
 apostles to have been the firmest believers 
 in this doctrine, and they would have done, 
 in all these cases, precisely as they did. 
 There may, indeed, be a degree of plausi- 
 
54 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 bility in the idea of purging the church by- 
 rejecting infants from the covenant, under 
 the pretence that retaining them tends to 
 corrupt it by introducing unconverted mem- 
 bers. But we deny that Infant Baptism, 
 properly understood and practised, has any 
 such tendency. The rite, as we shall here- 
 after show, does not constitute them 
 members ; and none are more watchful to 
 admit only the converted than those who 
 understandingly practise it. God's method 
 of purifying the church was not to do it by 
 reducing the number of his promises. It 
 was never his intention to recall some of 
 them, and give to faith a narrower scope of 
 divine engagements, and less food and en- 
 couragement. Such an idea is utterly in- 
 consistent with the declaration that all the 
 promises are " Yea," and "Amen," in Christ, 
 and should be at once and forever dis- 
 carded. 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 55 
 
 In this place it is proper to notice anotlier 
 objection to the idea that baptism takes the 
 place of circumcision. It is, that, on cm- 
 bracing Christianity, those who had been 
 circumcised were required to submit to bap- 
 tism. To this I reply. There was a specific 
 meaning in baptism, over and above what 
 was implied in circumcision. Circumcision 
 was an acknowledgment of Jehovah as the 
 only true God, and a profession of subjec- 
 tion to him as such in the character of wor- 
 shippers and servants. Baptism includes 
 all this ; and is also a specific profession of 
 discipleship to Christ. It involves a definite 
 acknowledgment that Jesus of Nazareth is 
 the true Messiah, a profession of faith in 
 him as such, and a consecration to his ser- 
 vice.* Hence the multitude on the day of 
 
 * Should any suppose that this remark conflicts 
 ■with the application of baptism to infants, it is suf- 
 
56 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 Pentecost were required to be baptized " in 
 the name of the Lord JesusP The converts 
 at Samaria also, and Cornelius, and others, 
 are said to have been " baptized in the name of 
 the Lord JcsusP Not that the name of the 
 Trinity was not placed upon them ; but that 
 a leading and specific idea ^^^^ a profession 
 of discipleship to Christ. At the introduc- 
 tion of the new dispensation, it was proper 
 that the rite of initiation, while it had the 
 same emblematic significance as the one 
 which preceded it, should imply more, and 
 hence be required of those who had submitted 
 to the other. Those, generally, who had been 
 circumcised, hated and rejected Christ. It 
 was therefore proper, that, in a specific rite 
 they should be required to acknowledge him 
 
 ficient to reply that the baptism of an infant is an act 
 of the parent, and not an act of the child. It implies 
 all this in the parent, and a consecration of his child 
 to Christ. 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 57 
 
 as the promised Messiah, and engage alle- 
 giance to him as their rightful sovereign. 
 This was God's method of purifying the 
 chm'ch. By introducing a new test, he vir- 
 tually broke off the unfruitful branches, and 
 cleansed the church of unworthy members. 
 The believing Jews submitted to Christ, and 
 believing Gentiles were added ; and thus, 
 out of twain, upon the previous foundation, 
 was formed a more pure and spiritual body 
 than the previous organization had been. 
 
 I now proceed to adduce a few additional 
 arguments in support of the sentiment that 
 Infant Baptism is an ordinance of the 
 gospel. 
 
 1. Christ and his apostles taught and 
 practised just as lue should have expected^ 
 if children luere still to be regarded as in 
 covenant with their parents^ and just as ice 
 should not have expected on the contrary 
 supposition. We should bear in mind that 
 
58 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 Christ and his apostles belonged to a nation, 
 who, during their whole history, had been 
 taught to dedicate their children to God by 
 a solemn religious rite, and this, because, 
 with their parents, they were entitled to cer- 
 tain specific blessings. These facts were 
 associated with all their ideas of true relig- 
 ion and the principles of the divine ad- 
 ministration. In conformity to an express 
 divine injunction, they had been accustomed 
 to see Jewish children receive the token of 
 the covenant made with their early progeni- 
 tor. When any from among the Gentiles 
 were disposed to embrace their religion, 
 they had seen the children of such families 
 embraced in the covenant transaction by 
 which the parents consecrated themselves 
 to the service of Jehovah. The practice of 
 receiving children with their parents to the 
 blessings of the same covenant, was rooted 
 in their minds as among the fundamental 
 principles of propriety and right. 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 59 
 
 Now if Christ intended to introduce a 
 new order of things in this respect, it is ob- 
 vious that much instruction would have 
 been requisite to subdue the prejudices, and 
 modify the opinions of his disciples, and 
 prepare their minds for so great a change. 
 But while he severely criticized the abuses 
 which had crept into that dispensation, and 
 the principles and practices of the Scribes 
 and Pharisees, — while he spared nothing 
 which required rebuke or censure, and while 
 he carefully taught the disciples the spiritual 
 nature of his kingdom ; we hear him giving 
 no such instructions, nor even hinting at the 
 intention of a change. On the contrary, he 
 encouraged the bringing of children to him 
 for his blessing, and rebuked those who 
 would have hindered the practice, and 
 because Zaccheus himself was a son of 
 Abraham, pronounced blessings on his fam- 
 ily. And after seeing such things in their 
 
60 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 Master, and being reproved by him for an 
 unwillingness that children should be 
 brought to him, and hearing him declare 
 that of such were the kingdom of heaven ; 
 would the disciples be likely to infer, that, 
 under the Christian dispensation, he intend- 
 ed to exclude children from the covenant 
 with God into which their parents were 
 brought ? And would they not have waited 
 for an order from him to inaugurate a 
 practice exactly the opposite of that in 
 which they had been trained ? And, strong 
 as were their Jewish prejudices, and slow as 
 they were to relinquish the idea of a tem- 
 poral kingdom, or yield any of the opinions 
 they had cherished; would not such an 
 order, plain and oft repeated, have been 
 needful to induce them to regard and treat 
 children as no longer in covenant with their 
 parents ? Would not such an order have 
 awaked strange thoughts in their minds, and 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 61 
 
 occasioned conversation and discussion, and 
 excited some manifestation of hostility to 
 such an arrangement ? But no such direc- 
 tion appears, nor even an intimation that 
 such a change was intended ; nor is there 
 anywhere betrayed, in the intercourse of the 
 disciples, a hint that such a direction had 
 been received. This is just what we should 
 have expected of the Saviour^ and thus far 
 of the disciples^ if children ivere still to be 
 considered as objects of God's covenant favor ; 
 and just what we shoidd 7iot have expected 
 if the?/ IV ere not. 
 
 Commissioned by their Redeemer, the 
 apostles went forth to propagate his religion. 
 The Spirit, which had been promised to 
 guide them into all truth, had been given. 
 They acted under his guidance. What 
 was their practice in relation to the point 
 before us ? To adults, they administered 
 baptism on a profession of their faith. But 
 
62 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 did they baptize none beside ? This ques- 
 tion must be answered by carefully examin- 
 ing the history of their proceedings as given 
 us by the pen of inspiration. Paul and 
 Silas went to Philippi, and preached. Lydia 
 was converted.' " She was baptized, and 
 her household." But nothing is said of the 
 conversion of its members. This, had it 
 taken place, and almost simultaneously 
 with her own, would have been a remark- 
 able occurrence, and far more worthy of 
 being noted, than the circumstance of their 
 baptism. When it is said that the Lord 
 opened her heart, why is it not added, "and 
 the hearts of her household," if, indeed, the 
 fact occurred ? This is not said. But it is 
 said that they were baptized. Why the 
 record of the less to the omission of the 
 greater ? Is it assumed that their conver- 
 sion is implied in the fact of their baptism ? 
 This is assumption without proof. It is 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 63 
 
 begging the question at issue. It is no- 
 where asserted in the New Testament that 
 none but believers are to be baptized. As 
 has been before remarked, converts from the 
 Gentiles to the Jewish church were received 
 with their households. And if no counter 
 order had been given, it would have been 
 perfectly natural for Paul and Silas to re- 
 ceive the household of Lydia with herself. 
 All their views of the stability of the cove- 
 nant made with their fathers would have 
 led to this. Besides, if the whole household 
 of Lydia was converted with herself, she 
 would have been far more likely to rejoice 
 in the wonderful fact, and to speak of it, 
 than simply to refer to her own. And yet 
 she said to the apostles, " If ye have judged 
 me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my 
 house, and abide there," — strongly imply- 
 ing that she was the only believer in the 
 family. If all with herself were believers, 
 
64 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 the strongest inducement which the apostles 
 could have had to comply with her invita- 
 tion was omitted. And this is the more 
 singular, as she had to "constrain" them 
 before they consented. To the remark 
 sometimes adduced as proof that all her 
 household were believers — " And they [the 
 apostles] went out of the prison, and enter- 
 ed into the house of Lydia; and when they 
 had seen the brethren, and comforted them, 
 they departed," it is sufficient to reply. 
 No intimation is given that they saw them 
 at the house of Lydia, much less that they 
 belonged to her family. The meaning is 
 simply, that they saw them before they left 
 the city. Here, then, is a household bap- 
 tized by the apostles without any evidence 
 that any but its head was pious, and where 
 all the evidence which the Holy Ghost has 
 seen fit to give us goes against the idea that 
 any but herself had received the Saviour. 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 65 
 
 In the same city, Philippi, the jailor, to 
 whose care Paul and Silas were committed, 
 was suddenly converted ; and it is said of 
 him that he and all his were baptized 
 straightway. From its being said that the 
 apostles preached " to all that were in his 
 house," and that he "rejoiced, believing in 
 God, with all his house," some maintain 
 that all his household were believers. But 
 the language in the original gives a different 
 idea. One well qualified to judge says : " If 
 there is any ambiguity in this English 
 phrase, there is none in the original. It is 
 certain from the Greek, as every one ac- 
 quainted with the language must perceive, 
 that the believing and rejoicing here spoken 
 of, being in the singular number, can refer 
 to the jailor only." (Pond on Baptism, p. 
 96, Edition of 1833.) — The commentator 
 Scott says that the word for believed is sin- 
 gular — thus implying that the jailor only 
 5 
 
66 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 believed, and that his household were bap- 
 tized on the ground of his faith. Mr. Scott 
 renders the passage thus, " He [the jailor] 
 rejoiced through all his house, having be- 
 lieved in God." 
 
 Here, then, is evidence which a mind 
 open to conviction and inquiring after truth 
 would be slow to disregard, that two house- 
 holds w^ere baptized on the faith of their 
 heads. The very mentioning, indeed, of the 
 baptism of households, is strong presumptive 
 evidence that the apostles believed and 
 practised infant baptism. The journals of 
 missionaries who reject this doctrine may 
 be searched in vain for such records as are 
 here made respecting the apostles. And 
 knowing, as my readers do, that evangelical 
 Christians are divided on this point, were 
 they to find, in the journal of any mission- 
 ary, of whose opinion in this respect they 
 knew nothing, such entries as these : — "A 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 67 
 
 certain woman, hearing me preach, believ- 
 ed, and I baptized her and her family ; " " A 
 man embraced the Saviour, and I baptized 
 him and all his," — they would not hesitate 
 a moment on which side of the line that 
 divides Christians on this subject to rank 
 that missionary. Why judge differently of 
 the apostles and of him? Were not the 
 apostles inspired men, whose example and 
 practice every one wishes should correspond 
 with his own views, the fact of their bap- 
 tizing households would be deemed good 
 reason for believing that they practised in- 
 fant baptism. No one would be likely to 
 call this in question in the case of any other, 
 the record of whose proceedings correspond- 
 ed with the record of theirs. The account 
 given us of the apostles is just such as ive 
 should have expected on the supposition that 
 they practised Infant Baptism^ and just such 
 as we should not have expected if they did 
 not practise it. 
 
68 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 2. If children are not to he retained in cov- 
 enant under the Christian dispensation^ we 
 should have heard loud complaints from the 
 converted Jews, — That the children of God's 
 peculiar people were entitled to covenant 
 blessings with their parents, was a fact 
 which had run along the whole history of 
 the Hebrew nation, and was strongly as- 
 sociated with the religious principles and 
 feelings of every Jewish mind. And every 
 one, at all acquainted with the history of 
 that people, knows that they were peculiar- 
 ly tenacious of their rites and ceremonies, 
 and strongly opposed to innovation. Mul- 
 titudes of them believed, and were brought 
 into the Christian church. But conversion 
 to Christianity did not free their minds from 
 their national prejudices. It was extremely 
 difficult for them to indulge the opinion that 
 any change was to take place in the customs 
 in which they had been trained. They 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 69 
 
 were " zealous of the law," and disposed to 
 enforce its observance on the Gentile con- 
 verts. 
 
 In the new order of things introduced by 
 the gospel dispensation, had the children 
 been stricken out from their covenant rela- 
 tion to God, the change to the Jews would 
 have been great. It would have been an 
 innovation upon their previous habits of 
 thought and feeling to which no Jewish 
 mind would have quietly submitted. A 
 clamor would have been raised, and discus- 
 sion would have been long and sharp ; and 
 much opposition would have been manifest- 
 ed, before a change could have been effect- 
 ed. How is it, then, that we hear not a 
 w^ord of such discussion? How is it that the 
 question is not even raised ? When many 
 other things are discussed, and deviations 
 from the ceremonial law were strenuously 
 opposed, by the Jewish converts, how is it 
 
70 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 that not a word is said about this ? Any 
 one who can believe that such a change 
 could have been effected without a syllable 
 of controversy, must be strangely ignorant 
 of the strength of Jewish prejudices, or must 
 strangely overlook them. The entire silence 
 of the New Testament on this subject is 
 evidence, which no unbiased mind will feel 
 at liberty to disregard, that no such change 
 occurred at the commencement of the Chris- 
 tian dispensation. 
 
 3. History teaches that Infant Baptism ivas 
 universally practised in the churches soon 
 after the apostolic age. — I shall trouble 
 the reader with only a few quotations. 
 Irenseus, who wrote about sixty-seven years 
 after the apostles, and who was a disciple 
 of Polycarp, the disciple of John, says, 
 " Christ came to save all persons who by 
 him are regenerated unto God ; infants and 
 little ones, and children and youths, and 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 71 
 
 older persons." (Wall, Vol. I. p. 25.) The 
 fathers of that day used the term " regener- 
 ate " for " baptize " — thus putting the 
 thing signified for that which denoted it. 
 This was evidently the sense in which 
 Irenceus used the word ; for, in relation to 
 Christ's command (Matt. 28: 19), he says, 
 " When Christ gave his apostles the com- 
 mand of regenerating unto God^ he said, 
 Go teach all nations, baptizing them." Jus- 
 tin Martyr (a cotemporary with Ireneeus), 
 says of certain persons, " They are regenerat- 
 ed in the same way of regeneration in which 
 we were regenerated ; for they are washed 
 ivith ivater in the name of the Father, the 
 Son, and the Holy Ghost." (Pond, p. 99.) 
 Origen, whose father was a Christian 
 martyr, was a very learned man, and flour- 
 ished about one hundred and ten years after 
 the apostles. He travelled quite extensive- 
 ly, and had the best means of knowing 
 
72 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 the practice of the churches. He says, 
 " According to the usage of the church, 
 baptism is given to infants." Again he 
 says, " Infants are baptized for the forgive- 
 ness of sins ; " and again, " The church had 
 a tradition from- the apostles to give baptism 
 to infants." (Pond, p. 102.) In the year 
 253, about 153 years subsequent to the 
 apostles, a council of sixty-six bishops was 
 convened in Carthage, with the learned 
 Cyprian at its head, — a man, who, with 
 many others of that day, braved the fires of 
 persecution, and finally died a martyr to 
 the religion of Clirist. Fidus addressed a 
 letter to that council, wishing to know 
 whether the baptism of infants should be 
 delayed till the eighth day, according to the 
 law of circumcision, or might be admin- 
 istered at an earlier date. That council 
 unanimously decided that it was not need- 
 ful to delay it to that time. (Milner's Ch. 
 
 I 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 73 
 
 Hist., Vol. I. p. 320.) No question was 
 raised whether infants should be baptized. 
 This, it seems, no one in that venerable 
 body doubted. The point was only, 
 whether it was requisite to regard the law 
 of circumcision as to the time of admin- 
 istering it. That council decided the ques- 
 tion submitted to them in the negative ; and 
 the whole case shows the opinion of the 
 fathers respecting baptism's taking the place 
 of circumcision. Augustine, whom Mil- 
 ner styles " the great luminary of the cen- 
 tury in which he lived," flourished 283 years 
 after the apostles. (Pond, p. 106.) He says, 
 " The whole church practises infant bap- 
 tism ; it was not instituted by councils, but 
 was always in use." He also says, " That 
 he did not remember ever to have read of 
 any person, whether catholic or heretic, w^ho 
 maintained that baptism ought to be denied 
 to infants." And further, " This the church 
 
74 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 has always maintained." (Dwight's Theo. 
 Vol. IV. p. 336.) Pelagius, who was a co- 
 temporary with Augustine, " was born in 
 Britain, and had travelled through France, 
 Italy, Africa Proper, and Egypt to Jerusa- 
 lem." (Dwight.) He rejected the doctrine 
 of original sin. Augustine urged against 
 him the doctrine of infant baptism, inquir- 
 ing why, if infants were not sinful, they 
 were baptized. Pelagius, of course, had the 
 strongest temptation to deny the doctrine 
 and practice of infant baptism, if he could. 
 But instead of this, he says, " Baptism ought 
 to be administered to infants with the 
 same sacramental words which are used in 
 the case of adult persons." " Men slander 
 me, as if I denied the sacrament of bap- 
 tism to infants." " I never heard of any 
 one, not even the most impious heretic, 
 who denied baptism to infants." (Pond, 
 p. 108.) 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 75 
 
 The apostles were under the special guid- 
 ance of the Holy Spirit ; and they practised 
 infant baptism, or they did not. There 
 must have been uniformity among them : 
 and they introduced the practice in the 
 churches they instituted ; or they did not. 
 Irenaeus, the pupil of Polycarp, who had 
 been the disciple of John, must have known 
 what the instructions and practice of the 
 apostles had been ; and yet he testifies for 
 infant baptism. So did Origen, Augustine, 
 Pelagius, the council of Carthage, and 
 others whose testimony might be introduc- 
 ed. These witnesses show conclusively 
 that infant baptism was universal in the 
 church soon after the apostolic age. If. 
 then, the apostles did not practise it, a uni- 
 versal change must have taken place soon 
 after their time. This could not have been 
 effected without much discussion. Multi- 
 tudes must have seen the innovation ; and 
 
76 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 many would have lifted their voices against 
 it. Human nature must have been far 
 more pliant then than now, if much warm 
 and angry disputing had not occurred. How 
 is it, then, that not a syllable of this reaches 
 us on the page of history ? How is it, that, 
 when other schisms and disputes existed, 
 and the record of them is preserved, not a 
 word is said about this ? How is it, that in 
 a council of sixty-six learned and pious bish- 
 ops, only a century and a half after the 
 apostles, no one lifted his voice against a 
 practice which must have been known to be 
 against apostolic instructions and usage, if 
 the apostles did not believe and practise in- 
 fant baptism ? And how is it that such 
 men as Origen and Pelagius never heard, 
 not simply of any church, but of any 
 individual^ who denied the propriety of 
 infant baptism ? If these are reliable testi- 
 monies (and we are not aware that any 
 
I 
 
 INFANT BAPTISM. 77 
 
 attempt has ever been made to disprove 
 them), the inference is unavoidable, that the 
 apostles taught and practised infant bap- 
 tism.* 
 
 I close this point of the argument by a 
 qjciotation from the late learned Dr. Dwight. 
 " A person who employed himself extensive- 
 ly in examining this subject, gives the fol- 
 lowing result of all his inquiries. First. 
 During the first 400 years from the forma- 
 tion of the Christian church, Tertullian only 
 urged the delay of baptism to infants, and 
 that only in some cases ; and Gregory only 
 
 * Infant baptism has been denied to exist in the 
 early ages of the church, and arguments have been 
 employed to sustain the denial. The testimony of 
 these fathers has been ignored ; but I am not aware of 
 any attempt to disprove it. It stands on the page of 
 history ; and there it will stand, an unanswerable proof 
 of the usage of the churches which the apostles and 
 their successors planted. 
 
78 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 delayed it, perhaps, to his own children. 
 But neither any society of men, nor any in- 
 dividual, denied the lawfulness of baptizing 
 infants. — Secondly. In the next 700 years, 
 there was not a society nor an individual 
 who even pleaded for this delay ; much less 
 any who denied the right or the duty of in- 
 fant baptism. — Thirdly. In the year 1120, 
 one sect of the Waldenses declared against 
 the baptism of infants, because they suppos- 
 ed them incapable of salvation. But the 
 main body of that people rejected the opin- 
 ion as heretical; and the sect which held it 
 soon came to nothing. — Fourthly. The next 
 appearance of this opinion was in the year 
 1522." He adds: "Had the baptism of 
 infants ever been discontinued by the 
 church, or had it been introduced in any age 
 subsequent to that of the apostles, these 
 things could not have been, nor could the 
 history of them been found." (Vol. IV. p. 
 337.) 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 79 
 
 Let US now glance at the points which 
 have been proved, — and proved, we think, 
 beyond the power of successful refutation : 
 — The Christian church is a continuation 
 of the Jewish church ; — The charter of the 
 church's privileges was not annulled or alter- 
 ed at the commencement of the Christian 
 dispensation, — it embraced children before, 
 and it embraces them still ; — At the change 
 of dispensations, baptism, as the seal of the 
 covenant, succeeded to circumcision ; — We 
 hence need no special command to baptize 
 infants — the command, " Go teach all na- 
 tions, baptizing them in the name of the 
 Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost," since 
 no qualification or restriction was intro- 
 duced, involves the duty. We have seen 
 that Christ and his apostles acted just as we 
 should have expected them to act if they be- 
 lieved that children were still to be regarded 
 as embraced in the covenant made with 
 
80 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 their parents, and were to receive the seal 
 of that covenant ; — That the rejection of 
 children would have produced loud com- 
 plaints from the converted Jews, whereas 
 not a whisper of such complaint appears ; — 
 and, That history shows the universal prac- 
 tice of infant baptism in the churches soon 
 after the apostolic age. 
 
 What more proof do we want that Infant 
 Baptism is an ordinance of the gospel ? 
 "What more can any reasonable person ask ? 
 We hope, then, to be excused from the 
 charge of bigotry or undue positiveness 
 while we express the feeling that the doctrine 
 rests on the sure foundation of the word of 
 God, and will there remain, unmoved by all 
 the power which may be arrayed against it. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 RELATION OF BAPTIZED CHILDREN TO THE 
 CHURCH. — UTILITY OF INFANT BAPTISM ; — IT 
 TENDS TO INCREASE THE FAITHFULNESS OF 
 
 PARENTS TO SECURE TO CHILDREN THE 
 
 PRAYERS AND COUNSELS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 AND TO SOOTHE THE GRIEF OCCASIONED BY 
 THEIR DEATH. 
 
 Havixg, as we think, fairly and conclu- 
 sively established the doctrine of Infant 
 Baptism, the question naturally arises, 
 " What is the relation of baptized children 
 to the church ? " Are they strictly and 
 properly members, entitled to its peculiar 
 ordinances and privileges ? Since, in estab- 
 lishing this doctrine, we reason from the 
 former dispensation, it may be thought 
 6 
 
82 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 that, without any other qualification, they 
 should come to the Lord's table. To this 
 I reply, that analogy, which, at first sight, 
 may be thought to lead to this conclusion, 
 sustains the opposite. It has been already 
 shown that the Jewish church was not strict- 
 ly national, and that only at a few points in 
 its history did it embrace the entire nation. 
 Something more than circumcision was re- 
 quisite to constitute a member of that church. 
 A person must be — and, by his own act, 
 he must profess to be — a worshipper of 
 Jehovah. All Jewish males were required 
 to attend the three great national feasts, and 
 there present offerings to God, and worship. 
 (See Deut. 16: 16. 26: 10.) Obedience 
 to this requirement was a practical personal 
 profession that one was a worshipper and 
 servant of Jehovah. If he refused thus to 
 do, he virtually separated himself from the 
 company of God's worshippers, or rather, 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 83 
 
 did not join himself to it — was not in form 
 or in fact, truly and strictly a member of 
 that church. The passover, it will be re- 
 membered, was one of those feasts, and was 
 forbidden to be eaten at any place except at 
 the tabernacle or temple. The injunction 
 was, " Thou mayest not sacrifice the pass- 
 over within any of thy gates which the Lord 
 thy God giveth thee ; but at the place which 
 the Lord thy God shall choose to place his 
 name in, there thou shalt sacrifice the pass- 
 over." (Deut. 16 : 5, 6.) Those who did 
 not go up to the feasts, and profess them- 
 selves the worshippers of Jehovah, were 
 thus forbidden to eat it. The practical pro- 
 fession of being his worshippers must be 
 made by going up to the feast, before the 
 privilege could be enjoyed. — St. Luke says 
 that Christ went up to the passover at 
 Jerusalem, with his parents, when he was 
 twelve years old, " after the custom of the 
 
84 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 feast." (Luke 2 : 41, 42.) And the state- 
 ment of commentators, such as Calvin, Bp. 
 Patrick, Poole, RosenmuUer, and others, is, 
 that children at the age of twelve years were 
 brought by their parents to the temple ; and 
 from that time, they began to eat the pass- 
 over and other sacrifices. Bloomfield says : 
 " The custom was, not to take them to the 
 passover, until they should have attained 
 the age of puberty, a period which the Rab- 
 bins tell us was fixed at the twelfth year, 
 when they were held amenable to the law, 
 and were called sons of precept. They 
 were then also introduced into the church, 
 initiated into its doctrines and ceremonies, 
 and consequently were taken, with their 
 relatives, to Jerusalem at the festivals." Dr. 
 Gill, a learned Baptist commentator, says 
 (on Luke 2 : 42) : " According to the maxims 
 of the Jews, persons were not obliged to the 
 duties of the law, or subject to the penalties 
 
INFANT BAPTISar. 85 
 
 of it in case of non-performance, until they 
 were, a female, at the age of twelve years 
 and one day, and a male, at the age of thir- 
 teen years and one day." He adds, as his 
 own comment on the passage : " They were 
 not properly nnder the law until they arriv- 
 ed at that age ; nor were they reckoned 
 adult church-members till then, nor then 
 neither, unless worthy persons : for so it is 
 said, ' he that is worthy, at thirteen years of 
 age, is called a son of the congregations,' 
 that is, a member of the church." 
 
 We see, then, to what conclusion the 
 argument from analogy conducts us. There 
 is no rule which entitles baptized children 
 to the peculiar privileges and ordinances of 
 the church, till they publicly profess faith in 
 Christ. They are brought only within the 
 outer enclosure of the church, and, through 
 the covenanted mercies of God, are peculiar- 
 ly its hope. 
 
86 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 We now proceed to another topic, — The 
 utility of Infant Baptism. Every divinely 
 instituted ordinance is founded upon prin- 
 ciples of our nature which created a ne- 
 cessity for its existence, and render it, when 
 rightly understood and practised, highly 
 beneficial. This, we think, is eminently 
 true of the ordinance we are now consider- 
 ing. 
 
 It is scarcely needful to premise, that an 
 important part of the Divine plan is to per- 
 petuate and promote religion in the world 
 by means of parental instruction and in- 
 fluence. Every reader of the Bible must be 
 aware of this. Numerous injunctions, both 
 in the Old and New Testament, teach the 
 important truth. The fact, too, is written 
 upon the very constitution of our natures. 
 In our younger years, we instinctively cher- 
 ish feelings of respect toward those who sur- 
 round us with the arms of parental affection 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 87 
 
 and kindness. We look to them for instruc- 
 tion and guidance ; and our plastic natures 
 are moulded materially by their agency 
 upon us. Tlie principles which they instil 
 sink deep in our memories, and outlive 
 many subsequent impressions. The effects 
 of our early training remain with us, and 
 generally do more than any other cause, and, 
 probably, more than all other causes, to 
 frame our characters, and point out, like the 
 finger of an index, our future and final des- 
 tinies. 
 
 The parental relation was instituted, and 
 the affections it involves bestowed, — not 
 that the body simply, nor yet the mind in 
 its temporal relations, should be the chief 
 object of solicitude and care, — but that so- 
 licitude for the welfare of the undying spirit 
 should be cherished, and that the instruction 
 should be given, and the influence exerted, 
 which, with the blessing of God, will cause 
 
88 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 the principles of holiness to spring up with- 
 in, and advance in strength to the govern- 
 ment and sanctification of the soul, and to 
 its ultimate perfection and felicity in heaven. 
 And here, as in every other undertaking, 
 success will, in general, be proportioned to 
 the diligence and faithfulness with which 
 the means are employed. The parent who 
 feels his responsibility, and labors and prays 
 to be qualified to meet it, and carefully and 
 diligently imparts instruction to his tender 
 charge, and fervently seeks the Divine bless- 
 ing upon them, and accompanies his efforts 
 with a godly example in other respects, will 
 be instrumental of their salvation. He is 
 sowing seed in a susceptible soil ; and, as 
 surely as the husbandman reaps a harvest 
 as the result of his toil, will a rich harvest 
 unto eternal life be realized from the germs 
 of truth and hohness which he deposits. 
 He shall ultimately appear before the throne 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 89 
 
 of God, with unspeakable joy, surrounded 
 by those for whom he has toiled and wept. 
 On the contrary, if he is negligent, his off- 
 spring may rise into life without those im- 
 pressions of truth which their state and ne- 
 cessities require, may pass through the years 
 allotted them on earth without religion, and 
 may be found on the left hand at the day 
 of final account. This is as certain as that 
 the neglect of means in any other depart- 
 ment of the divine government will result in 
 the failure of the ends which means are in- 
 tended to secure. Means and ends, in the 
 government of God, have a sure connection. 
 And they are no more surely connected in 
 any other department than in the moral and 
 spiritual. Here it is more certain than in 
 any other, that " whatsoever a man soweth, 
 that shall he also reap." 
 
 It follows, that whatever tends to promote 
 faithfulness in the religious education of 
 
90 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 children, tends to their salvation and to the 
 promotion of piety in the world. Here, 
 then, is my first argmiient for the utility of 
 the doctrine and practice of Infant Bap- 
 tism : — 
 
 It tends to increase parental faithfulness in 
 the religious instruction and training of chil- 
 dren. 
 
 No man is so ignorant of the principles of 
 our nature as entirely to discard the use of 
 forms. In pecuniary affairs, why is a 
 promise or a note better than a simple 
 purpose of the mind ? and why is a written 
 agreement better than a mere understand- 
 ing ? An important part of the benefit is, 
 that the act of thus formally binding in- 
 creases a sense of obligation. 
 
 On this principle — the usefulness of 
 forms — God has dealt largely with our 
 race from the beginning. The patriarchs 
 and the Israelites were more likely to feel 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 91 
 
 their guilt and their desert at the divine 
 hand when they saw the sacrifice offered to 
 expiate their guilt, first bleeding and then 
 smoking upon the altar, than if no such rite 
 had been instituted. The Jewish parent, as 
 he saw the painful ceremony which the law 
 required, administered to his child, would 
 be more likely to feel, than he otherwise 
 would have been, that that child possessed 
 a corrupt nature, which needed to be taken 
 away, and corrupt passions and affections 
 which it might cost painful effort to mortify 
 and exterminate. So, under the Christian 
 dispensation, the ordinance of the Supper 
 was instituted, and attendance on it requir- 
 ed, because the solemnity of the service 
 tends to bring near to the mind, and impress 
 on the heart, the important truths which 
 cluster round the cross of the expiring Sav- 
 iour. One reason, why the act of outward- 
 ly and solemnly covenanting with God in a 
 
92 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 public profession of religion is a duty, is, 
 that it tends to impress on the mind one's 
 obligations to be God's, and to live for him 
 in the world. The outward offering of 
 prayer is better than the mere desires of the 
 heart, because it tends to fix the thoughts 
 and add intensity to the desires. Public 
 worship is a duty, because its several forms 
 tend to beget and foster in the soul the feel- 
 ings of devotion. And he who fancies that 
 one may be just as good a Christian without 
 outward forms — without prayer, without 
 public worship, without open profession and 
 attendance on special ordinances — as with 
 them, is astonishingly ignorant or careless 
 or perverse. He applies a principle in the 
 high concerns of religion which he knows to 
 be unsound, and which he would not trust 
 in any other department. 
 
 On the same ground of utility, which 
 underlies other religious ordinances, do we 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 93 
 
 maintain that Infant Baptism is impressive- 
 ly significant and highly salutary. In this 
 rite, the parent is solemnly reminded that in 
 his child (so young, perhaps, as to be almost 
 unconscious of its own existence), are wrap- 
 ped the germs of immortality, that these will 
 be developed and matured, and that heaven 
 or hell will be the certain and amazing issue 
 of its individual being. He is reminded of 
 the pollution of its nature, — that from its 
 earliest infancy it needs cleansing, and 
 must have it, or never be admitted to 
 heaven. He is reminded that the little crea- 
 ture whose very being twines so strongly 
 around his heart is not his, but God's, — 
 that his Creator claims it as his own peculiar 
 property, and commits it to him to be cared 
 for and trained witli special reference to his 
 service and kingdom both here and here- 
 after. He is thus reminded of his solemn 
 responsibility — that if he is faithful in 
 
94 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 prayer and effort — if he guides and guards 
 and instructs, and pleads for, his now help- 
 less offspring as he should, its usefulness 
 and blessedness will be the happy result; 
 and if he is negligent, disaster and ruin, here 
 and hereafter, may be the consequence. He 
 is also reminded of God's promised aid to 
 his endeavors, and the certainty of success, 
 if his efforts are made in humble and perse- 
 vering faith. 
 
 Fix your eye, then, upon a parent who 
 has recently received the precious gift of a 
 " second self." See him bringing this ob- 
 ject of his tenderest affection into the house 
 of God, before a solemn assembly of wor- 
 shippers, that he may consecrate it to the 
 Lord and Saviour to whom he has given 
 himself. The solemnity of the duty presup- 
 poses the existence of thought and prayer 
 respecting his obligations, and the necessi- 
 ties and destiny of his child. He brings it 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 95 
 
 and devotes it to God, and prays for its ac- 
 ceptance, and for the bestowment upon it of 
 the purifying influences of the Spirit so im- 
 pressively signified by the ordinance admin- 
 istered. He enters into solemn covenant 
 with God respecting that child. He pledges 
 himself, there, in the presence of God and 
 his people, to train and educate that child 
 for Christ, — that the instructions he gives 
 in any thing useful, and the privileges and 
 advantages he procures for it, shall be with 
 the express design of fitting it to be a good 
 and useful subject of His kingdom. He 
 pledges his own daily, humble, earnest, per- 
 severing prayers to God in its behalf, and 
 that he will store its opening mind with 
 divine truth, and surround it with motives 
 to godliness. And he takes hold of God's 
 covenant engagements to bless his efforts 
 and save his child. 
 
 Now we ask, will all this have no good 
 
96 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 effect upon a Christian parent's heart ? Can 
 he have distinctly placed before his mind, 
 and pressed upon his heart, all the solemn 
 truths and facts involved in this ordinance, 
 and pass from such a scene with no increas- 
 ed impression of the state and necessities 
 of his child, and his own responsibilities and 
 duties ? Will he be moved to no more ear- 
 nestness of prayer by having an ordinance 
 indicative of its true relation to the govern- 
 ment of God, placed, as it were, at the very 
 threshold of its being ? Will he be stimulat- 
 ed to no more diUgence of effort by thus 
 seeing how much depends on him, and what 
 he has solemnly engaged to do? And will 
 his faith derive no encouragement and 
 strength from God's promised assistance, 
 assured to him in the covenant of which he 
 has taken hold ? To say that all this is use- 
 less, is to contradict some of the plainest 
 principles of our nature. It is not useless. 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 97 
 
 When properly understood and performed, 
 it cannot be. The parent, who, with a right 
 apprehension of the nature of the transac- 
 tion, and with true piety of feeling and pur- 
 pose, thus consecrates his child, is benefited 
 himself by being brought into a closer cov- 
 enant relation to God, and by being render- 
 ed more faithful in duty ; and the richest 
 blessings will result to the precious object 
 of his affection and solicitude. And to ob- 
 ject to the utility of this ordinance by say- 
 ing that the happy results, as here indicated, 
 are seldom, if ever, fully seen, would be just 
 as valid as to object against the Lord's sup- 
 per by saying that it exerts not all the in- 
 fluence on Christian hearts and lives which 
 it should. The very fact that there is ground 
 for such an objection against Infant Bap- 
 tism, shows the necessity of such an insti- 
 tution. It shows that parents need all the 
 helps to faith and duty which the ordinance 
 7. 
 
98 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 involves. At best, they are apt to be forget- 
 ful and negligent. At best, too many of 
 their children perish through their neglect. 
 God foresaw the necessities of the case, and, 
 in mercy to them and their offspring, institu- 
 ted an ordinance most happily calculated 
 to help their infirmities, and lead to blessed 
 results. 
 
 2. Infant Baptism tends to procure for 
 children the prayers and pious co-operation 
 of the church. Few things are more solemn 
 and impressive than to see a little infant, 
 scarcely conscious of its own existence, pub- 
 licly presented to God in this ordinance, 
 and then to have the prayers of the whole 
 congregation centred on the spiritual and 
 immortal welfare of that tender and beauti- 
 ful object. Who that has any sense of the 
 worth and importance of religion, or any 
 belief in God as a hearer of prayer, would 
 not value an interest in such supplications 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 99 
 
 ill behalf of his own children ? Any Chris- 
 tian, surely, has few parental sympathies 
 whose heart is not warm, and his supplica- 
 tions fervent, on such an occasion. And 
 the ear of Him who said, " Suffer the little 
 children to come unto me, and forbid them 
 not," must be open to such requests. Few 
 petitions accord better with the tenderness 
 of his nature as thus expressed, or are more 
 sure to receive answers of peace. 
 
 But the influence of infant dedication 
 ends not with the act or the hour of its per- 
 formance. That which tends to strengthen 
 the faith, and encourage the hope, and 
 stimulate the effort, of individual parents, is 
 a blessing to the church as a whole. And 
 we hazard nothing in saying that those 
 churches which place the highest and most 
 enlightened estimate on Infant Baptism, 
 pray most, and most fervently, for the chil- 
 dren of the church. They view the offspring 
 
100 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 of the household of faith as standing in a 
 covenant relation to God and the church, 
 and the body as being the depositary of 
 promises and blessings in their behalf, and 
 as sustaining an important responsibility 
 respecting their character and destiny. If 
 they see such children entering the paths of 
 vice or error, they feel an additional induce- 
 ment, and a stronger obligation, to admon- 
 ish and save them from ruin. The con- 
 sciences of children, too, by proper instruc- 
 tion may be made to feel that the fact of 
 having been consecrated to God is incon- 
 sistent with indulgence in carelessness, folly, 
 and sin ; and imposes upon them increased 
 obligation to second the wishes of their 
 pious and anxious parents by consecrating 
 themselves to Christ. And we believe that 
 the lime is coming when Christians will 
 better understand, and more deeply feel, the 
 duties and obligations involved in infant 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 101 
 
 dedication, and will be more faithful to 
 Christ and his cause in this respect; and 
 that, as a consequence, children will be con- 
 verted while young; and that thus the glo- 
 rious period w^ill be introduced when "all 
 shall know the Lord from the least to the 
 greatest." 
 
 3. The act of giving children to God in 
 baptism tends to soothe a parent's heart, if 
 called to lay them in an early grave. Many 
 a father and mother, as they have stood by 
 the bedside of a dying child, have been 
 quieted into sweet submission to the divine 
 will, by remembering the consecration of it 
 to God which they made in baptism. They 
 then surrendered it to him, as its Creator 
 and Sovereign ; and it is his. Strong as 
 may have been their desires for its recovery, 
 they have felt that it belonged not to them 
 to dictate whether he should restore or re- 
 move it. They have keenly felt the rod, 
 
102 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 but have kissed it, and bowed, and from the 
 heart have said, " Thy will be done." 
 
 The writer here speaks from experience. 
 In troubles of this kind (and often has the 
 bitter cup been put into his hand — and he 
 cannot pen this remark without pausing for 
 a tear over recollections of the past), he has 
 experienced consolation from the fact of 
 having given his children to God in bap- 
 tism. At such times he has felt that the 
 ordinance is a blessed privilege. When he 
 has looked on a dying child, it has calmed 
 an almost bursting heart to remember that 
 the child ivas not his — that he did surrender 
 it to God in that specific and sole^nn act. 
 Thousands of parents have felt the same. 
 Rightly understood and practised, the act of 
 dedicating children to God is full of heaven- 
 ly consolation. It is fraught with many 
 advantages while children live ; it yields 
 sweet peace and comfort if they die. Eter- 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 103 
 
 nity alone can unfold what benefits it has 
 conferred on parents ; and how many chil- 
 dren, by the influences it involves, have been 
 rescued from sin, and raised to the felicities 
 and honors of heaven. 
 
 Such are some of the benefits of Infant 
 Baptism. It is infinitely too sacred and im- 
 portant ever to be treated with lightness. 
 Every Christian parent should cleave to it, as 
 of inestimable value ; and he should pray 
 for grace to realize upon himself and his off- 
 spring the fulness of its blessings. 
 
 The eyes of some, who have thus conse- 
 crated their children to God, will fall on 
 these pages. That act, my friends, was only 
 the commencement of your duty. In a 
 solemn covenant transaction, you gave them 
 to God, and solemnly pledged yourselves to 
 a faithful endeavor to train them for Him. 
 Think often of the engagement which you 
 bound upon your souls, and how much it 
 
104 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 constantly requires of you. Think much of 
 the consequences connected with fidelity or 
 neglect. God is faithful to his promises ; 
 and you may expect success, if you address 
 yourselves, humbly and earnestly, to your 
 work. The prospect of success should fire 
 your hearts and inspire your endeavors ; for, 
 what greater blessedness can you have than 
 to appear before the throne at length, sur- 
 rounded by the objects of your tenderest af- 
 fection. Thousands of children will bless 
 God forever for the prayers and faithfulness 
 of their parents. How delightfnl the thought 
 that yours — all of them — may be of this 
 happy number. Labor and pray, with 
 constant and tearful assiduity, that so it 
 may be. The blessedness of the result will 
 more than repay all your anxiety and toil. 
 
 Multitudes of children will find their por- 
 tion with " hypocrites and unbelievers," be- 
 cause the unfaithfulness of their parents 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 105 
 
 suffers them to perish in their sins. The 
 hallowed paternal influences, which would 
 reclaim and save them, are wanting ; and 
 they go down to the abodes of darkness as 
 the natural result of their own transgres- 
 sions. Many of these, it is feared, will go 
 from the families of professedly pious 
 parents. Many more will go from families 
 whose heads are not pious. Do I address 
 any parents of the latter class ? I pray you, 
 respected friends, to remember that the same 
 great duties grow out of the relations sub- 
 sisting between you and your children, as 
 result from those existing between the relig- 
 ious and their offspring. The same conse- 
 quences, also, are connected with fidelity or 
 neglect. Slumber not over the pressing ne- 
 cessities of your offspring. Their souls are 
 infinitely precious ; and the same agencies 
 and influences are requisite for their salva- 
 tion as are needful for that of others. If 
 
106 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 you have any care for their immortal wel- 
 fare, give yourselves to Christ, and com- 
 mence the labor you have too long neglect- 
 ed. The connection between you and your 
 children will be endless in its consequences. 
 Oh, think of this. Ponder it well. There 
 is no escaping from the solemn fact. Awake, 
 then, to your own necessities and theirs. 
 Pray for them. Pray with them. Instruct 
 and exhort them, and do what you can to 
 bring them to Christ. God may bless the 
 effort, and give you cause of everlasting 
 
 Many of the dear children who constitute 
 our Sabbath Schools are the subjects of 
 pious parental solicitude and care. Not a 
 few of you, young friends, have been devot- 
 ed to God in that solemn rite which we 
 have now considered. Have you devoted 
 yourselves ? Should you not ? What more 
 reasonable than that those who have receiv- 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 107 
 
 ed so many instructions, and for whom so 
 many prayers have been offered, should give 
 the morning of their days to Christ ? God 
 has brought you into a peculiar relation to 
 himself and his church, and surrounded you 
 with many influences to draw you toward 
 himself and heaven. Yield to their sweetly 
 constraining power, and give your hearts to 
 Him who died to cleanse them with his 
 blood. 
 
 There is no more beautiful sight on earth 
 than to see the young turning to the Lord. 
 And if any of you have not pious parents 
 to feel and labor for your good, the Saviour's 
 arms are, notwithstanding, open to receive 
 you. To you, his invitation is, " come unto 
 me, and I will cleanse and guide and save 
 you." There is room enough in heaven for 
 you. There angels wait to rejoice over your 
 repentance, and to welcome you among the 
 followers of the Lamb. If your parents 
 
108 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 pray not for you, pray the more earnestly 
 for yourselves. If they care not for your 
 souls, you should feel the deeper solicitude, 
 and exercise the greater care yourselves. 
 We know not how many may have felt 
 their way alone to heaven. May the Lord 
 enable you to reach that happy place I 
 
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