manifested bitter enmity to Christ, and said, “We will not have this man to reign over us." They charged him with being in league with Satan in casting out demons. When he was condemned to death they said, "His blood be on us and on our children " (Matt. xxvii. 25). Strange language for church-members to employ! Who can believe that they were members of a church "the same in substance" with the Christian Church? If the Pedobaptist position is tenable, the three thousand converts on the day of Pentecost were added to the church, though they were in it before! The Lord added daily to the church not only the saved (Acts ii. 47), but those already members! When a great company of priests became obedient to the faith, they joined themselves to the apostles and were put out of the synagogues, though the Jews putting them out were of the same church! Saul of Tarsus "persecuted the church and wasted it

-“ made havoc" of it—and when converted became a member of the church, though he had always been one! Ay, more, he obtained his authority to persecute from official members of the church. These and many other absurdities and impossibilities are involved in the supposition that the Jewish Church and the Christian Church are the same. They are not the same. The phrases "same in substance," "substantial identity,” cannot avail Pedobaptists; for there is no sort of

identity. A "substantial sameness" cannot be discovered with a theological microscope. Paul's teaching is that Jesus Christ makes "of twain one new man " (Eph. ii. 15)—that is, regenerated Jews and Gentiles are the materials of which the new man, or church, is composed. There is reference to an organization, and the descriptive epithet "new" is applied to it. Pedobaptists virtually say that the Lord Jesus did not make a "( new man." They advocate the claims of the "old man," admitting, however, that he is changed in some unimportant respect; so that his "substantial identity" remains unimpaired.

What effect would have been produced in apostolic times on the minds of unbelieving Jews if it had been intimated that their church was identical with the Christian Church? They would have been highly offended. Paul exemplified the most indignant eloquence whenever false teachers attempted to corrupt the purity of the Christian Church with the leaven of Judaism. The old Jewish Church and the church of the New Testament were regarded by believers and by unbelievers as essentially distinct. No one thought of their "substantial identity;" for infant baptism was unknown, and there was nothing to suggest the "identity" doctrine. It is as easy for a camel to go through the eye of a needle as for the identity of the Jewish and the Christian churches to be maintained. If there

is no identity, infant membership in the Jewish commonwealth is no authority for infant membership in the Christian Church; and it is perfectly gratuitous to insist that baptism has come in the place of circumcision. Still, the advocates of infant baptism argue that circumcision is superseded by baptism, and that, as infants were circumcised under the Jewish economy, they should be baptized under the Christian Dispensation.

SECTION VIII.

The argument from circumcision fails.

The position advocated by Pedobaptists will be seen from the following extracts.

Dr. Miller-already referred to-says: "Our next step is to show that baptism has come in the room of circumcision, and therefore that the former is rightfully and properly applied to the same subjects as the latter." Again: "There is the best foundation for asserting that baptism has come in the place of circumcision . . Yet, though baptism manifestly comes in the place of circumcision, there are points in regard to which the former differs materially from the latter."* Here the doctrine is stated unequivocally that "baptism has come in the place of circumcision." How it takes its place, and yet "differs materially from it" * Sermons on Baptism, pp. 22, 23.

on some "points," must ever be a mystery to persons of ordinary mental penetration.

Dr. Rice says: "It is certain that baptism came in place of circumcision; that it answers the same ends in the church now that were answered by circumcision under the former dispensation." *

Dr. Summers affirms: "That baptism is the ordinance of initiation into the church, and the sign and seal of the covenant now, as circumcision was formerly, is evident." +

I find in Dr. Hodge's Theology no statements so positive as those now quoted, but he so expresses himself that it is impossible not to infer his belief in the sub stitution of baptism for circumcision.

But is this view, though held by great and learned men, defensible? I shall attempt to show that it is not, for the following reasons:

1. It was necessary for the circumcised to be baptized before they could become members of the church of Christ. How was this, if baptism came in the place of circumcision and is a seal of the same covenant? Was the covenant first sealed by circumcision, and subsequently sealed by baptism? Were there two seals? If so, away goes the substitution theory. If the same persons were both circumcised and baptized, there was, * Debate with Campbell, p. 302. + Summers on Baptism, pp. 25, 26.

so far as they were concerned, no substitution of baptism for circumcision. In their case circumcision was not abolished, and nothing could take its place. It occupied its own place, and it was necessary for that place to be vacated before anything else could occupy it. Dr. Miller refers to baptism as coming "in the room" of circumcision; but there was no room" till the non-observance of circumcision made room. Why, then, were those who had been circumcised baptized? Why was Jesus himself both circumcised and baptized? These are unanswerable questions if baptism came in the place of circumcision.

Dr. Miller's views involve another difficulty. He says: "The children of professing Christians are already in the church. They were born members; their baptism did not make them members. It was a public ratification and recognition of their membership. They were baptized because they were members " (p. 74). The position here assumed is demolished by one fact. That fact is that the New-Testament subjects of baptism are never represented as baptized because they are in the church, but that they may enter into it. Dr. Miller's reason for administering baptism to infants labors. under the misfortune of being remarkably unscriptural; for if "the children of professing Christians are already in the church," this is a very good reason for not baptizing them at all.