been baptized when the gospel was introduced into these cities, is it not strange that the apostle, in urging upon them obedience, presented no motive derived from their dedication to God in baptism? There is no allusion to any "vows, promises, and obligations made and assumed for them by their parents or sponsors at their baptism. There is nothing said that bears a resemblance to a personal acceptance of a draft drawn upon them in anticipation of their intelligence and responsibility. Here a query may be presented: Would a Pedobaptist apostle have pursued this course? To bring the matter nearer home: Would a Pedobaptist missionary write a letter to a Pedobaptist church, making special mention of parents and children, urging both to a faithful performance of relative duties, and say nothing about the obligations of either parents or children as connected with infant baptism or growing out of it? No one will answer this question affirmatively. The apostle of the Gentiles, therefore, did what we cannot reasonably imagine a Pedobaptist missionary or minister to do. This is a very suggestive fact.

I have now noticed the usual arguments supposed to be furnished by the New Testament in favor of infant baptism. Not one has been intentionally omitted. Is there precept or example to justify it? Celebrated Pedobaptist authors shall answer this question. Dr.

Wall of the Church of England, in his History of Infant Baptism, on the very first page of his "Preface," says that, "among all the persons that are recorded as baptized by the apostles, there is no express mention of any infant." Neander of Germany-the first church historian of his generation-referring to "the latter part of the apostolic age," expresses himself thus: "As baptism was closely united with a conscious entrance on Christian communion, faith and baptism were always connected with one another; and thus it is in the highest degree probable that baptism was performed only in instances where both could meet together, and that the practice of infant baptism was unknown at this period. We cannot infer the existence of infant baptism from the instance of the baptism of whole families, for the passage in 1 Cor. xvi. 15 shows the fallacy of such a conclusion, as from that it appears that the whole family of Stephanas, who were baptized by Paul, consisted of adults." * Professor Moses Stuart, for many years the glory of the Andover Theological Seminary, in his Essay on Baptism (p. 101), says, in his reference to infant baptism, "Commands or plain and certain examples, in the New Testament, relative to it, I do not find. Nor, with my views of it, do I need them." Dr. Woods, long a colleague of Professor Stuart, in his Lectures on

*Planting and Training of the Church, pp. 101, 102.

Infant Baptism, remarks as follows: "It is a plain case that there is no express precept respecting infant baptism in our sacred writings. The proof, then, that infant baptism is a divine institution must be made out in another way." These are important concessions, made by men whose celebrity is coextensive with Christendom.

Now, if the New Testament does not sustain the cause of infant baptism, ought it not to be given up? If, as the Westminster Confession affirms, "baptism is a sacrament of the New Testament, ordained by Jesus Christ," it is self-evident that we should go to the New Testament to learn who are proper subjects of baptism. If it was ordained by Jesus Christ, we should allow him to decide who are to be baptized, and not refer the matter to either Abraham or Moses. But Pedobaptists, unable to prove infant baptism from the New Testament, go to the Old, and try to sustain it by reasoning, analogy, inference. Was there ever before such a course adopted to establish a divine ordinance? Ask a Jew why his ancestors for so many centuries observed the feasts of the Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles, and he will tell you that God commanded them to do so. Ask a Christian why believers should be baptized and partake of the Lord's Supper, and his response will be that these are injunctions of Jesus Christ. Ask a Pedobaptist, how

It

ever, why infants should be baptized, and he will at once plunge into the mazes of Judaism and argue the identity of the old "Jewish Church" and the gospel church, insisting, meanwhile, on the substitution of baptism for circumcision. This is a strange method of proving that infants ought to be baptized. argues a consciousness of the utter absence of NewTestament authority for infant baptism. It indicates that there is no command to baptize infants; for a command would supersede the necessity of argument to show the propriety of the practice. No man enters into an argument to prove that believers should be baptized. The positive injunction of Christ renders it superfluous. Strange as it is for Pedobaptists to go to the Old Testament for justification of one of their practices under the New-Testament economy, yet, as they do so, it is necessary to follow them. This will now be done.

SECTION VII.

The argument from the supposed identity of the Jewish commonwealth and the gospel church of no force. This identity is assumed, and on it the propriety :f I shall infant church-membership is thought to rest. permit distinguished Pedobaptist writers-representative men-to speak for themselves. Dr. Hibbard, a very able Methodist author, in his work on Christian Baptism, says: "Our next proper position relates to

the substantial oneness or identity of the Jewish and Christian churches. I say substantial oneness, because, although in many secondary and adventitious points they differ, still, in all the essential features of the real church of God, they are one and the same. And here it is proper to admonish the reader of the importance of this position. It is upon this ground that we rest the weight of the Bible argument for infant baptism" (pp. 31, 32).

This language is plain and easily understood, though any one familiar with the baptismal controversy will detect in the phrase "substantial oneness an unwillingness to endorse the "identity" theory without qualification.

Dr. Samuel Miller, for many years Professor of Ecclesiastical History in Princeton Theological Seminary, in his Sermons on Baptism, expresses himself thus: "As the infant seed of the people of God are acknowledged on all hands to have been members of the church equally with their parents under the OldTestament Dispensation, so it is equally certain that the church of God is the same in substance now that it was then." The italics are the Doctor's. Here, also, is a disposition to recoil from a bold avowal of the doctrine of identity. "The same in substance is the convenient phrase selected to meet the logical exigences that may possibly occur. Again, Dr. Miller