When Abraham and the persons comprising his household were circumcised, the church was formed. Now, in connection with every organised body of men, intended for perpetuity, there must be some form of recognition. Circumcision was the form given to Abraham, and to whomsoever was desirous of belonging to the household of faith. Of necessity every command must be given to men, though children be included in the things commanded. Infants could not circumcise themselves, nor could they receive an order of circumcision save through their fathers. And yet infants were the only persons to be circumcised, after the first cases, excepting the proselytes. If Abraham and his servants had been sent forth to propagate the faith, the formula given to them would undoubtedly have been similar to the one afterwards given to the apostles. The persons in the Trinity might not have been specified, but still the form would probably have been-Go, teach all nations, circumcising them in the name of God. And when the head of a family believed the preachers would unquestionably, and immediately, have circumcised all the male persons in his house.

In the days of the apostles the rite of introduction to church membership was changed, but the constitution of the church was not changed. Circumcision was abolished, but infant membership was not abolished. Some of the customs of the church were discontinued, others were introduced, but the church was the same. The difference between the church itself and the circumstantials of the church, is as clear and obvious as is the difference between beauty and dress.

It is scarcely necessary to formally prove the identity of the church of God from the days of Abraham; but lest such an omission should be considered a defect, we will refer to Scripture for proof of that identity.

Abraham believed God, and his faith was imputed to him for righteousness. Circumcision did not make, it simply declared him to be a servant of God. St. Paul states that his faith preceded his circumcision, and that he was justified before he was circumcised. Faith, before the advent of Jesus, was essential to membership; faith, since that advent, has been necessary to membership. This alone would establish the identity of the church of God. Circum-, cision was the sign of that faith; baptism is the sign of the Christian faith; but both are as distinct from the faith itself as the kernel is distinct from the shell that encloses it.

Jesus Christ was a member of the Jewish church-all his disciples were members of that church. Their membership continued but did not commence when they became his disciples. Previous to his calling them they were in covenant with God, and believed that God would send a Deliverer into the world. In recognising Jesus as that deliverer they became his disciples. And if the whole Jewish nation had received Jesus, they would have continued in

covenant with God. They unchurched themselves by rejecting the Messiah.

By St. Paul the ancient church was regarded as an olive tree, and members were considered as branches. Those members which rejected the Saviour were broken off, and unnatural branches, because they received Jesus, were grafted into the olive tree. Here the identity of the church is set forth by the most favoured and most able of all the apostles. Even the rejected branches were to be re-united if the cause of their having been cast away should be discontinued. If, then, in the organization of the church infants were made members by the same right as their fathers, if infant membership has not been discontinued, should they not be so made now? But in the word of God there is no record of infant membership having been discontinued. And if God has not discarded infants, the church has no power to discard them. As, then, the command to make them members is still in force, and as when for two thousand years circumcision was the rite of introduction to the church infants were made members by that rite, so now, baptism being the rite of introduction, infants should be made members by baptism.

Jesus Christ recognised children as belonging to God: "But," Jesus said, "suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven." Now, whichever sense be attributed to the phrase "kingdom of heaven," whether it be said to mean the church state in heaven or the church state on earth, the conclusion is the same, that is, that children in the Christian sense belong to God. And all persons who are the Lord's should be in the church, but none should be admitted to membership but by baptism. "Little children," then, should be baptised. It has been said that Jesus did not mean that infants were members of the church, but that such as children, or such like, were of the "kingdom of heaven." But TOIOUTOS is not in any part of the New Testament rendered either "such like," or "such as." every instance where such phrases occur either TOIOUTOS is not used, or some other word is used with it.

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But if the only fitness of men for church membership arises from child-likeness, why should children be rejected? What should exclude them but a want of fitness? For what was the guest bound hand and foot and cast into outer darkness but a want of the proper garment? If children belong to God, if when dead they become members of the church triumphant, why should they not be members of the church militant? If God receives them to himself and glorifies them, should pardoned sinners reject them? No persons go to heaven who have not been the Lord's on earth. It is an axiom in physics, in logic, in philosophy, that the less is contained in the greater. The church in heaven is greater than

the church on earth. The church state here is a preparation, an introduction to the church state there. All deceased infants go to heaven. Are then such persons as God receives into heaven to be refused by man the privilege of church membership on earth? That would be strange indeed for man to reject such persons as God himself receives and crowns with everlasting felicity and glory.

It is proper before we pass from this part of the subject to notice the usual and principal objections to infant baptism.

It is said by some that instruction, repentance, and faith should precede baptism, and that as infants are incapable of these things, they should not be baptised. Those who exclude infants from baptism, because of incapacity, generally alledge as a reason the commission given to the apostles. Jesus commanded them to go into all the world, to teach and baptise all nations. "He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned." It is suprising that the obvious fallacy of this objection has not prevented its frequent use. Little discernment is required to discover that if because in collating the first two gospels in connection with the great commission, the words teach and believe are found to precede the word baptise, that therefore no persons who cannot receive instruction and exercise faith should be baptised, that all the three words, teach, believe, and baptise, precede the word save. If the words be taken as they stand, and if it be demanded that instruction and faith must precede baptism, then all the three, instruction, faith, and baptism, must precede salvation. But do those who urge this form of words against infant baptism believe in the soundness of their own objection? What! with the utmost severity of logic, that no person who has not been instructed, who has not believed, and who has not been baptised, can be saved. If they do not they should be honest and give up the objection. For if because an infant cannot believe, it should not be baptised, then, because it cannot believe it will certainly be damned; for "he that believeth not shall be damned." But the objection, if sound, would ruin infants doubly. First, it refuses to baptize them because they cannot believe; secondly, it refuses to save them because they have not been baptized. But we will leave this form of words to the maturer cogitations of the objectors.

Another classification of words used in the New Testament, is, "repent and be baptised." From this some have inferred that in all cases repentance should precede baptism. Here again, of course, infants are to be kept at a distance, for certainly they cannot repent. And if they could, why should they? Of what should they repent? How those persons who are bent on chasing the "little children" out of every pew, and aisle, and corner, and vestibule of the church, perpetually confound things that differ. It is men

tally, morally, and theologically impossible for any persons to repent of sins of which they are not guilty. Of what, then, we ask again, should infants repent? They are not sinners. They have broken no law. Unconscious babes, with minds that never thought sinfully, with hearts that never felt angry, with tongues that never spoke rudely, are classified with sinners of Jerusalem, with men whose hearts were full of all evil, and whose hands were stained with the blood of the Son of God. Notwithstanding all the variation of thought and strife of sentiment existing in the world, such strange associations are nowhere else to be found. It is said that misery makes strange bed-fellows, and the fallacy that places children, who are as free from transgression as the mountain air is from deadly miasma, in juxtaposition with the sinners of Jerusalem, is miserable indeed.

Another objection to infant baptism is, that infants understand nothing, that they cannot make engagements. Infants can, unquestionably, understand as much now as they could three thousand years since, and they are quite as able to make engagements now as they were then. Their incapacity was no bar to their circumcision, and yet St. Paul says that a person circumcised is bound to keep the whole law. The Gospel is far more simple than the rituals of Moses, and faith is more easily understood than the inflexions of the law. Why then should incapacity be urged in connection with what is simple, when it was never urged in connection with what was complex? Children, in olden times, became debtors to the law when they were eight days old. Then why should not persons now, during infancy, become recognised heirs of the promises of the Gospel?

Again, it has been urged against infants that baptism is a positive institution, and that persons observing such an institution should be authorised to do so by a positive precept. Now, when a conclusion is true, both its premises are true. Assertion needs proof. But it is nowhere in the Bible stated, that a positive precept is necessary to authorise the observance of a positive institution; while the practice of the entire church shews the fallacy of the assertion. The Lord's Supper is a positive institution. Females are nowhere commanded to observe that institution, and yet there is no section of the church in which the females do not, equally with the males, receive the emblems of the body and blood of the Lord.

The last objection which we shall notice, and which we consider as altogether favourable to our view of the subject, is the silence of the New Testament respecting infant baptism. Now, it is impossible that silence, a mere nothing, should be against dedicating children to God by baptism. Indeed, the objection destroys itself. The case stands thus the New Testament does not command the baptism.

of infants; the New Testament does not forbid the baptism of infants. Whether silence will make for or against a thing depends altogether on circumstances.

The New Testament is silent about infant circumcision, and yet infants were the only persons to be circumcised, excepting in the cases of proselytes. Men were commanded to be baptised; men were forbidden to be circumcised. Nothing is said about infants in either case; but who doubts that infants were included in the proscription of circumcision? Why, then, should they be excluded from the command respecting baptism? There was more need for a specific precept to forbid infant circumcision than there was for such a precept to authorise infant baptism.

But would the New Testament have been silent if the apostles had not baptised the children with their parents? The Scribes, the Parisees, the Saducees, were ever ready to make objections to innovations. Would they dispute about washing hands and forget their children? Would they firmly insist on their Abrahamic descent and silently witness the setting aside of one of the principal features of Abraham's covenant? If John, if Jesus, if the apostles had unnaturally thrust away the children, the whole Jewish nation would have burst forth into uncontrollable indignation. Nay, an exclusion of the little ones would have been an enormous stone of stumbling to the apostles themselves. For two thousand years every infant in the community had been received into the bosom of the church on the eighth day of its existence. And now, according to the objection, a father is to be in the church, and his children among the Gentiles. The time of reformation is come; the Messiah, long expected, has at length appeared, and one of his principal actions, they find, is to unchurch their children. They had been taught that the days of Messiah would be days of mercy and glory, of transcendant displays of goodness to their country; and he commences his work by placing their infant offspring amongst strangers and aliens. What! and the Pharisees say nothing, nor the Scribes, nor the Sadducees, the authorized instructors and guardians of the privileges of the people? He who can believe so must be credulous almost to fatuity.

We have now given some reasons for baptising infants; we have answered the principal objections to that practice; we now proceed to consider the manner of Christian baptism. Sometimes the manner of observing a thing is important, but in no instance can the manner be as important as the thing itself. Sometimes the mode of observance is exalted, so as to depreciate the thing observed. Jesus Christ and his apostles were not at all ritualistic, and they never laid much stress on circumstantials. Preaching the gospel, for instance, is of the first importance; but the New Testament contains no regulations about the manner of preaching,