shall be able to place in a just light the formidable nature of the objections to the practice, we shall in so far account for the increasing neglect of it, and at the same time contribute something to the establishment of the truth. We trust that no word of sectarian bitterness will escape us, and no feeling of mere sectarian triumph be indulged or excited. When any of our Christian brethren become convinced of their errors, and abandon them, they, and not we, are the chief gainers; and both we and they should rejoice together with a common and unselfish joy.

The most formidable of the difficulties that pertain to this subject, unfortunately for the Protestant defenders of infant baptism, are connected with the scriptural argument.

There is a serious negative difficulty in the utter silence of Scripture, as to the baptism of infants. The references to baptism are frequent in the New Testament, especially in the Acts of the Apostles. The subjects of baptism are always described as men and women, never as children. Several of the men are mentioned by name, and one of the women; but no infant child is any where mentioned among the baptized. The sacred historian, in recording the success of Philip's preaching in Samaria, takes pains to tell us explicitly that both men and women were baptized (Acts viii. 12); but infant children are never mentioned in any such connection.

But is not the baptism of infant children implied in those passages which mention the baptism of households?

There are but three cases of this sort mentioned in the New Testament,-those of Lydia, the Philippian jailor, and Stephanas of Corinth. In only one of these cases is it expressly said that all the members of the family were baptized; and in that one case it is equally said of all that the gospel was preached to them, and that they believed and rejoiced in God. (Acts xvi. 32-34.) In each of the other two cases there are specific reasons for believing that the household was composed of adult persons ;-in the case of Lydia, the nature of her occupation, as a merchant-woman, travelling at a distance from her home (Acts xvi. 14), and the mention of her household afterwards as brethren (v. 40); and in the case of Stephanas, the way in which his family is spoken of in I Corinthians xvi. 15, 16. Now when it is remembered that in the majority of households there' are no infant children, that only one household is mentioned in which it is expressly affirmed that all were baptized, and that in all the three cases of baptized households there are specific reasons against the supposition that they were composed of infants,-the claim that infants are included by implication in these cases must plainly be

abandoned. As to the alleged implication in what our Lord said concerning the little children that were brought to him, and in what the apostle Paul says of the federal holiness of children in I Corinthians vii. 14, we shall examine in another place the bearing of these passages upon our subject. Children, and even little children, are repeatedly addressed in the epistles of Paul and John; but the latter tells us what sort of children these were. They were of God; they had known the Father; they were in Christ; their sins were forgiven, and they had overcome the world. (iii. 12, 13; iv. 4.) No one can rightly object to the baptism of such children, however little they may be.

Nor can this difficulty from the silence of Scripture be fairly evaded by claiming that the presumption is in favor of the baptism of children with their parents, and that therefore this silence is a difficulty to be met and explained by those who reject infant baptism,.rather than by those who receive it; for every ground on which such a presumption can be alleged is fallacious. The Abrahamic covenant will not answer the purpose; for the apostle Paul tells us that only believers in Christ are, in the evangelical sense, children of Abraham, and heirs according to the promise. (Galatians iii. 7, 29.) It is true that children were reckoned with their parents under the old covenant, and received its sign; but the new covenant is expressly distinguished from the old in this particular, among others, that all who are embraced in it know the Lord, from the least even unto the greatest. (Hebrews viii. 7-12.) The proselyte baptism of the Jews cannot be relied on to establish such a presumption; for there is no proof that any such custom existed until centuries after Christian baptism was instituted. Still less can John's baptism be referred to as constituting a precedent, or creating a presumption in favor of infant baptism; for there is no shadow of evidence that children had any part in that baptism of repentance which he preached and practised. And the bearing of this precedent on the question, whether the a priori

1 Ephesians vi. 1; Colossians iv. 4; I John ii. 1, 12, 13, 18. 28; iii. 7, 18; iv. 4; v. 21. 2 The evangelical defenders of household baptism seem to be little aware of the precipice on the brink of which they stand, when they speak of household baptism, on the faith of the head of the family, after the analogy of the law of circumcision. Dr. Kendrick, in his review of Wolff on Baptism (Christian Review, April, 1863), has described the practical result of carrying out that theory in language that cannot be improved: "That a wife fresh from a sacrifice to Juno; that daughters who had just been rendering their vows to Venus; that sons whose hands were reeking with offerings to Mars; that servants who daily invoked Mercury, the patron god of thieves; that all these, on the strength of the faith of one or two genuine converts to Christianity, might pour a fresh tide of unrepented heathenism into the bosom of the infant church, has seemed so revolting, that we confess we have not supposed that one in a thousand of the professed believers in primitive household baptism really believed it."

presumption is in favor or against the inclusion of infants in the Christian rite is very significant. If it be conceded, that John's baptism did not embrace infants,-and this concession cannot on any reasonable ground be withheld,—then it follows, that the apostles were familiar with a baptism that was limited to adults, and that they would therefore naturally practice according to the same rule, when they received from Christ the permanent commission to baptize, unless they were expressly instructed to do otherwise. If then we find no such contrary instruction in the formal and final commission, we must regard the alleged presumption in favor of infant baptism as altogether reversed. The burden of proof will then rest wholly on those who defend the practice. What is the fact, in regard to the commission from which baptism, as a permanent ordinance in the Christian church, derives all its authority? Certainly it contains no word favorable to the extension of the rite to infants; but quite the contrary. As recorded in Mark xvi. 16, it implies that none but those who believe have any part in baptism. As given by Matthew (xxviii. 19), it makes instruction precedent to baptism. The Lord there directs the apostles to go and make disciples in all nations, baptizing such as are made disciples. The word "them" can have no other antecedent than the disciples implied in the previous verb; and the word disciple always implies instruction, and an intelligent learner. Thus every ground fails, on which any presumption in favor of infant baptism could be argued; and the silence of Scripture on this subject is a serious difficulty for its advocates to explain.

But this negative difficulty is only a small part of the trouble which its advocates have to encounter in dealing with the scriptural argument. There is much indirect positive testimony of Scripture, which bears very unfavorably upon the practice. As we have already seen, the commission by which baptism, as a permanent divine rite, was originally sanctioned, not only omits all reference to infants, but virtually excludes them, by prescribing qualifications for the rite which they do not possess. According to Matthew only disciples, according to Mark only believers, are to be baptized. But infants are neither disciples nor believers; they are excluded, therefore, not merely by not being mentioned, but by not having the qualifications which are mentioned.

There is a class of texts which speak of baptism in intimate connection with the things that accompany salvation, as pardon, regeneration, and sanctification. The words of our Lord himself in Mark xvi. 16 and John iii. 5, may be taken as representative of these passages. "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved." "Except

a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." Other passages of the same nature are found in Acts xxii. 16; Romans vi. 2-6; Galatians iii. 27; Ephesians v. 26; Colossians ii. 12, 13; Titus iii. 5; I Peter iii. 21. All these passages distinctly imply, in varied forms of expression, that baptized persons are in the way of salvation,-in a state of grace, as the older divines used to say. Now to all those who believe in the regenerating efficacy of the rite, these texts are so far from making any difficulty that they are perpetually quoted by them as the strongest supports of infant baptism, and proofs of its necessity. But to evangelical pedobaptists, who reject this doctrine of a regenerating virtue in the rite itself, all these passages are so many difficulties to be explained. The Greek, the Roman Catholic, and the High Anglican,—all who defend infant baptism on the old historic ground,-find a pertinent sense in these passages (though we think it an erroneous one), a sense in harmony with their belief and practice. But the comparatively small minority, who undertake to find a place for infant baptism in a reformed and evangelical theology, find these passages hard to reconcile with their system. This class of texts seems to attribute altogether too much importance to baptism. The Baptist explanation of them is the only one that can stand or be maintained in opposition to the plausible interpretation of the believers in effectual sacramental grace, supported as that interpretation is by the sanction of all antiquity. If regeneration comes through baptism," ex opere operato," this explains the passages in question, without doing violence to their language. If baptism comes after regeneration, following closely upon it, as its appointed sign and formal testimonial, this too explains the passages equally well, and without any violence. But there is no middle ground on which they can be explained without wresting the language from its natural sense. They are a serious embarrassment to evangelical pedobaptists.

Besides this important class of passages, there are many other particular incidents, principles, and expressions of Scripture, which are hard to reconcile with any theory of infant baptism. Prominent among these is the case of the infants brought to Christ. (Matthew xix. 1315; Mark x. 13-16; Luke xviii. 15-17.) When the defenders of the practice trust to these texts for support, they lean upon a broken reed which pierces their own hand. For while a single expression used by our Lord in this connection might seem to suggest an inference favorable to the practice, the narrative as a whole plainly assumes that no such practice was then known to the apostles. The very mistake into which they fell, in supposing that the bringing of these children

would not be acceptable to their Master, is a proof that this was something new in their experience. Such a mistake could not have occurred, if the disciples had been pedobaptists. They had themselves baptized large numbers of adults, on a personal profession of repentance (John iv. 1, 2); but they had never baptized any infants on a vicarious profession of faith; and consequently they did not know how to behave when little children were brought to Christ for his blessing. They were not to blame for not having had any experience to teach them what to do in this unprecedented case; but they need not have been so hasty in assuming that Jesus would not be pleased with the act of these Jewish parents, in seeking his blessing upon their infant offspring. But we may be the wiser for their blunder; for it shows conclusively that their minds were utterly vacant of all the ideas that are now associated with infant baptism. And it is important to note, that this incident occurred very late in our Lord's ministry; it was while he was on the way up to Jerusalem for the last time before his crucifixion, and only a few weeks, at farthest, before he gave them their commission to baptize disciples in all nations. They certainly knew nothing of any other baptism than that of adults at this time; they certainly learned nothing of any other from the terms of the commission; and there is not the slightest evidence that they had any instruction on the subject in the short interval between the two. Of course then they would do, what the whole subsequent history testifies that they did, namely, administer baptism only to the penitent and believing. We are entirely at a loss to understand how this narrative can be consistently explained by any believer in infant baptism as a primitive usage. The words of the Lord, "of such is the kingdom of heaven," weigh very little in favor of the practice, in comparison with the weight of the narrative as a whole in the opposite scale. Indeed these words are sufficiently explained by our Lord himself, in the same connection, when he says, "Verily I say unto you, whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein." (Mark x. 15; Luke xviii. 17.)

The apostle Paul's admonition to ministers of the gospel in I Corinthians iii. 9-17 (see especially the last clause of v. 10), presents, if we do not misapprehend its meaning, another serious difficulty to the believers in infant baptism. This passage has been very generally misapplied. The gold, silver, and precious stones have been taken to represent the true doctrines of the gospel, and the wood, hay, and stubble to denote heresies and false doctrines. But the apostle is speaking of the materials out of which the church is built; and these