And, as the reality of a gracious state is the reason of their admitting a man into their communion, it must for ever remain a sufficient reason for retaining him: for those with whom we now contend, hold the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. How, then, can they ever justify the exclusion of any of their members? For as the possession of grace is the ground of his admission, nothing but the want of it can be a ground of his expulsion. Thus, in every case of excommunication, they stand self-convicted of having mistaken a man's character either when they took him in, or when they cast him out. From this alternative they have no escape but an acknowledgment that they were either faithless in the first instance, or tyrannical in the second. In so far, therefore, as they have ever had their communion, members, who, when "weighed in the balances, were found wanting," it is impossible not to perceive that they are in very same predicament with those whom they reproach as lax and carnal, that in the same proportion their own sacraments are nullities and mockeries; and that their blow at the advocates of the one visible church, recoils, with all its force, upon their own heads.

2. Their objections to our doctrine, are equally conclusive against an appointment unquestionably divine: we mean the ordinance of circumcision.

!

We must repeat, that as .circumcision is expressly declared to be a "seal of the righteousness of faith;" and as it was applied by God's own commandment to infants eight days old, if the baptism of infants who know nothing of believing. in Christ, is nullity and mockery; an absurd and foolish ceremony: then, the circumcision of infants who knew nothing of that righteousness of faith which it sealed, was also a nullity and a mockery; was also an absurd and foolish ceremony; and the divine commandment which enjoined it, a foolish and an absurd commandment.

3. These same objections are applicable to the scriptural doctrine of eternal life. "He that BELIEVETH and is BAPTIZED, shall be saved," quotes We continue the quotation:

the Anabaptist.

"But he that Believeth not, shall be DAMNED.*

His argument is this:

Faith is required in order to baptism :

But infants cannot exercise faith:

Therefore, infants cannot be baptised.

We turn his argument thus:

Faith is required in order to salvation :
But infants cannot exercise faith:

Therefore, infants cannot be saved.

And so this famous syllogism begins with shut

* Mark xvi. 16.

ting out our children from the church of God; and ends with consigning all of them who die in infancy to the damnation of hell!*

We are quite weary and almost ashamed of repeating answers so trite as those which we are compelled to repeat, against still more trite objections; but it is of importance to show that the heaviest stroke which the enemies of our doctrine level at us, is leveled, with equal strength, at themselves, their bible, and their God.

These remarks belong to that sort of argument which is called argumentum ad hominem: that is, an argument drawn from a man's own principles against himself. Its use is, not so much to prove the truth, as to disprove errour: not to show that our own cause is good; but that our adversary's reasoning is bad; by showing that his weapon cannot pierce us but at the expense of transfixing himself: so that if he prevail against us, he will,

* We do not say that the opposers of infant baptism hold such an opinion. Their most distinguished writers disown and repel it. But we say, that it necessarily results from their requiring faith, in all cases, as a qualification for baptism. They do not follow out their own position. They stop short at the point which suits their system. We take it up where they leave it, and conduct it to its direct and inevitable conclusion. Therefore, though we do not charge the men with maintaining that those who die in infancy, perish; yet we charge this consequence upon their argument: For it certainly proves this, or it proves nothing at all.

in the moment of his victory, meet his own death

on the point of his own sword.

We owe our readers more. sion on the merits of the case.

We owe a deci

Which we shall

attempt by pointing out the true use of the sacramental seal.

We observed, in an early part of the discussion, that the difficulty which produces objections like those we have been exposing, is created by erroneous notions of the church of God; by confounding visible members with his elect; and his covenant to the church with his covenant of grace in Christ Jesus; and that a proper application of this distinction will remove the difficulty. *

The sacramental seal has appropriate relations to these covenants respectively, and thus we distinguish them.

1. It has visible relations to the visible church. Particularly,

(1.) It certifies, that the covenant of her God to her abides, and secures to her the perpetual enjoyment of her covenanted privileges.

(2.) It certifies, that the righteousness of faith and the salvation connected with it, are dispensed in the church; and that there, and there alone, they are to be expected and sought.

(3.) It certifies, that the church is under the consecration of the redeemer's blood; has an un

No. IV. p. 83.

ceasing interest in his mediation; and access in her public character, and in the acts of direct worship, to "the holiest of all."

(4.) It certifies, that the covenanted seed shall never be extinct; but that "a seed shall serve the Lord Jesus, and shall be accounted to him for a generation, so long as the sun and the moon endure."

(5.) It certifies that in the ordinary course of his providence, God will cause his saving mercy to run in the channel of his people's families.

(6.) It certifies, that the individual sealed is himself a link in the great chain for transmitting down, from generation to generation, the knowledge and execution of God's plan of grace.

(7.) It certifies, that the individual sealed has a right to the prayers, the instruction, the protection, and the discipline of the house of God.

(8.) In the baptism of infants, it certifies, that even they need the purification of that blood "which cleanses from all sin ;" and that it can be applied to them for their salvation. So that infant baptism is a visible testimony, incorporated with the ordinances of God's worship, both to the guilt and depravity of our nature independently on actual transgression, and to the only remedy through our Lord Jesus Christ. If you reject it, you throw away the only ordinance which directly asserts the principle upon which the whole fabric of redemp