at baptism; and from other parts of Scripture I have been led also to consider that this necessary rite should be performed at the earliest possible period after the natural birth.” "In this I cannot possibly agree with you," said Mr. Jordan, " for it is our characteristic principle to adopt no religious opinion, and to perform no religious rite, but such as are positively sanctioned by apostolical precept or example. Now where do you find in the Testament any persons baptized but such as were adults, such as could give security for their faith? If it be said, that baptism was an institution of the Jewish Church, I readily admit it, but then you are to bear in mind, that only such proselytes were baptized into it as had renounced their former belief: and accordingly, we hold that in the Christian Church, he who enters must previously give assurance of his faith in Christ. When the Eunuch, pointing to the water, asked Philip, · What does hinder me from being baptized?' Philip answered, Be If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest.' lief in God and in his Son, therefore, is the only condition upon which baptism can now be rightly received; and as none can enter into such : conditions who are not come to years of discretion, we are bound to conclude, in the absence both of example and precept, to the contrary, that infant baptism was not only not practised by the Apostles, but has no warrant from Scripture and we have also to observe further, that no other mode of performing the rite than that of total immersion, as we practise it, is agreeable to apostolical usage; for by baptizing was meant the dipping of the person, and this is the sense and force of the Greek word, from which the doctrine has its name." "I readily admit," I replied, "that proselytes to Judaism were not baptized until they renounced their former erroneous notions on the subject; and that none, whether Jews or Gentiles, were admitted by the Apostles within the pale of Christianity, but such as confessed Christ; still it remains for you to show me that the children of these proselytes, or of these converted Jews and Gentiles were not baptized at the same time with their parents. It is surely fair to infer that such as offered themselves as candidates for the rite, in so doing were not without the desire that their households should be included in the same privileges and blessings; and thtfrom such desire being expressed, Lydia and her household,' and 'the Jailor and all his,' were baptized at the same time, as mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles; and I think, indeed, that this inference is confirmed by what St. Paul said of his Corinthian converts - The unbelieving husband is sanctified by his wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by her husband, else were your children unclean, but now they are holy.' So that such children, instead of being considered as heathens, or unclean (by which was meant those who might not be taken into the Church of God), for the sake of their believing parents, are reckoned holy, having a title, by birth, to be admitted into the Christian Covenant by the rite of baptism; which is the outward form made instrumental to the inward grace.* You require, you say, a personal profession of faith from the candidate for baptism. This we know infants * This interpretation of 1 Cor. vii. 14. is sanctioned by the great majority of commentators, and that the Baptists are mistaken in supposing holy to mean legitimate, and unclean, illegitimate, seems evident from a very little consideration of the passage, and more so, from reference to Slade's Annotations" on the text. are unable themselves to give; but still looking to the nature of baptism, and considering, as I do, that it is a federal rite, instituted for the benefit of those who receive it; and that parents, whose acknowledged duty it is to provide for the temporal wants of their children, cannot be less bound to look to their eternal welfare, I cannot see any thing which should justly prevent, and in the law of nature I see every thing which should empower, a parent to cause their children to enter into this engagement, which they may themselves hereafter ratify and confirm. And this I conceive to be no less consonant with Christianity than with the practice of the Jews requiring the infant children of proselytes to be baptized; for if our children are to be trained up in the way they are afterwards to go, if parents are commanded to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord;-if childhood be described as a state which, by reason of its simplicity and innocence, is more particularly fitted for admission into the kingdom of heaven; — and if Christ himself said, Suffer little children to come unto me and forbid them not ;'- I cannot understand why they should not from their earliest years be made members of that religion, in the precepts and doctrines of which they are to be instructed, and more particularly after the above admonition respecting them delivered by Christ and his Apostles. A further confirmation of this opinion may be found also in the manner in which we read that Moses was afflicted by a deadly disease for neglecting to circumcise his child; and in the punishment which he thus suffered for the injury that might have been occasioned to his child by this neglect, the Almighty should seem to give us also to understand that they whom his own mercy both can and will save without us, are yet, as much as in us lieth, even destroyed when by insufficient pretences or palpable neglect we defraud them of such ordinary outward helps as we are bound to give them? Again, as to what you say concerning the practice of the Apostles, I think that you will find it harder to prove, that infant baptism was not their custom, than that it was. You say that the Scriptures do not mention the baptizing of infants, and they certainly do not in express terms; but neither do they record the baptism of the Apostles themselves; you would not, * *Hooker's Ecc. Pol. lib. v. § 60, |