Besides these exegetical and historical difficulties of the subject, there are others of a doctrinal, ecclesiastical, and miscellaneous nature. To these we must refer briefly, as the fuller development of them would swell this article beyond the limits suitable to the pages of this periodical.

Infant baptism tends to obscure and corrupt some of the most important doctrines of the gospel. Among these is the doctrine of personal regeneration by the Holy Spirit. Throughout the greater part of Christendom, the baptism of infant children has long since usurped the place and the name of regeneration, and undermined and abolished all right views of that great spiritual change. And among those who still hold evangelical views of regeneration, it tends to weaken their conception of the magnitude and necessity of that inward renewal. For wherever it is held with any tenacity, it must be practically conceived of as something which puts the subjects of it in some new relation to God, brings them somewhat nearer to him, puts them in a condition more favorable to salvation. If it is not regarded as effecting something of this kind, it comes to be nothing more than a family festivity at the naming of a child, which is all that it is in some parts of the old world, or a humanly devised form of dedicating the child to God, as it is among many evangelical pedobaptists in this country. The infant dedication is right and acceptable to God; but they have no right to employ for this purpose a divine ordinance which God appointed to express a different meaning. In fact, so far as the rite is regarded as making any real distinction between the children that have received it and the children that have not, it must tend to modify the view of regeneration as needed by the former. And history bears witness to this tendency of the practice. To a believer in the unadulterated Scripture doctrine of regeneration, it is difficult to answer the question, What is the precise benefit conferred by infant baptism?

This practice also makes a difficulty in relation to the place which divine truth occupies in Christ's kingdom. According to his own. declaration to Pilate, he is King in the realm of Truth, and the subjects of his kingdom are those who know, believe, love, speak, act, defend, and propagate the truth. "To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice." (John xviii. 37.) The connection of the passage shows that he said this as an explanation of that kingly office which he claimed, and of the nature of that spiritual kingdom which he had just before declared not to be of this world. (v. 36.) These principles are received by all evangelical

Christians. But, according to these principles, what part or place can those have in His kingdom, who are naturally incapable of any intelligent apprehension of religious truth? Here is a difficulty for the evangelical pedobaptist.

According to the belief of all evangelical Christians, the efficacy of all religious acts, in respect both to their acceptance with God and to their profitableness to men, depends on the moral disposition, the faith, of those who perform them, or are the subjects of them. The ordinances which God has appointed are means of grace only to the believing. These principles are dear to evangelical pedobaptists; but how can they reconcile these principles with any theory which attributes any sacredness or importance to infant baptism? The clear, unqualified statement of them is tantamount to a condemnation of infant baptism. Take, as an illustration, a few sentences from that excellent and evangelical work of Dr. Hodge, "The Way of Life."

They (the Scriptures) teach that the sacraments are thus efficacious, not to every recipient, but to the believer; to those who already have the grace which these ordinances represent. [p. 267.] In like manner we are said to be saved by baptism, because baptism implies faith. If this faith be wanting, baptism can do us no more good than a heartless confession. [p. 274,] . When an unbeliever receives these ordinances, he no more obtains a title to the blessings which they represent, than a man obtains a title to an estate by falsely assuming the name of the person for whom it is intended. The sacraments have no inherent efficacy of their own, but become efficacious means of grace to those who believe. [p. 276.]

Similar expressions might be quoted from Jonathan Edwards and many other evangelical divines. They cannot be thoroughly evangelical on this subject of faith, in connection with the ordinances, without being for the moment anti-pedobaptists. Yet they sincerely believe in infant baptism; but they hold it under a serious difficulty, and the more evangelical they are, the greater the difficulty.

The sufficiency and sole authority of Scripture is another fundamental principle of evangelical Protestant theology. But infant baptism very much needs more decisive support than it can find in Scripture; and hence its advocacy is always a temptation to ascribe undue weight to tradition, to post-apostolical usage and uninspired testimony. It is true that not much is gained by this course in the long run. History, when critically examined, confirms Scripture and condemns infant baptism. But then the historical argument is more effective than the scriptural with many, because they are not so well acquainted with early Christian history as they are with the Scriptures,

and therefore cannot so readily detect a sophism or a fallacy here. There is in fact here a double difficulty for the evangelical pedobaptist, a Scylla and a Charybdis, between which there is no safe navigation. On the one hand, the deficiency of scriptural evidence is constantly tempting him to have recourse, contrary to his Protestant principles, to post-apostolical authority, and to concede tacitly at least, the dangerous principle of gradual, post-apostolical development of Christian doctrine; and on the other hand he gets at last more hurt than help from this expedient. For, as we have already seen, it is coming to be generally admitted by the ablest church historians and antiquarians, that the existence of infant baptism in the first two Christian centuries cannot be proved.

some.

It belongs to the nature of the evangelical system, that all acts of obedience and all rites of worship should be intelligent, free, and voluntary. Christ asks no blind, compulsory, or involuntary service. He asks the service of the mind that understands, the heart that loves, the will that chooses. No coercion can compel a man to be a Christian-nothing but his own intelligent and free choice can rightfully make him profess himself a Christian. Let us hear Dr. Hodge once more: "If, however, the sacraments are seals on the part of God, the reception of them implies a voluntary engagement on the part of the Christian to devote himself to the service of Christ." [Way of Life, p. 263.] The consistent application of this principle would put an end to infant baptism. The reception of the rite, in the case of infants, is neither intelligent, free, nor voluntary. Indeed the protest of the candidate is sometimes vigorous, persistent, and troubleHow can the prayer, which the Episcopal service prescribes, be consistently offered after such a baptism,—that the child "may lead the rest of his life according to this beginning"? Is it well to pray that the child may go through life making a hollow and false profession of being a Christian? Is it well that such an involuntary baptism should be interposed as an obstacle in the way of his future intelligent and free reception of the rite? Every infringement of this important principle of intelligent choice in our religious acts tends to lower the value of a Christian profession, to undermine Christian freedom, to perplex the moral sense. Baptismal vows made under such circumstances cannot be felt to be binding by an unsophisticated conscience; and every attempt to enforce their fulfilment is an outrage against soul-liberty, a spiritual tyranny not to be endured. Christianity is a spiritual religion, and protests against all such involuntary and enforced vows, as the inroad of a worldly power and policy into her unworldly kingdom, as tending to justify the coercion

of consciences, and all the enormities of spiritual tyranny. But for this abandonment of the voluntary principle in religion, there would have been no invoking of the civil power to punish heresies, no alliance of church and state, no persecution for conscience' sake. The unquestionable tendency of infant baptism to favor these doctrinal and practical abuses is a difficulty which its defenders have to meet. The difficulties which it introduces into ecclesiastical questions are not imaginary nor inconsiderable. What is the relation of baptized children to the church? Are they members, or are they not? There is a notable want of agreement on this point among the upholders of the practice. Their written standards, we believe, generally answer the question in the affirmative, in accordance with ancient belief and practice; and the present drift of opinion, among those who are most zealous for the perpetuation of the custom, seems to be in the same direction, to the manifest peril of doctrinal soundness and ecclesiastical purity. Yet if they are not members of the church, by virtue of their baptism, some new way of making them so must be invented, for which there is neither precept nor precedent in the New Testament.

The difficulty which infant baptism introduces into the relations of the two ordinances is another serious burden to its defenders. It disturbs, and indeed abolishes, their scriptural relation and sequence. There is no Scripture for requiring higher spiritual qualifications for the Lord's Supper than are required for baptism. There is no Scripture, and no precedent in Christian antiquity, for denying the Lord's Supper to any of the baptized not under discipline. There is no more Scripture for regarding the Lord's Supper as a sign of Christian character, or as an expression of the unity of all Christ's people, than there is for regarding baptism as a sign of regeneration and an expression of unity. If the faith of the parent avails to entitle the child to baptism, why does it not equally avail to entitle the baptized child to the communion? No satisfactory answer has ever been given to this question. None can be given. The Greek Church is consistently wrong, in adhering to the practice of antiquity, and giving the communion to baptized infants. The evangelical Protestant churches are inconsistently right in withholding it from them till they are converted.

Nor even in respect to baptism itself do evangelical pedobaptists carry out their principles consistently, in relation to other bodies of professed Christians. They receive as valid- the baptism of Greeks and Roman Catholics, of Armenians and Nestorians, to say nothing of some Protestant state churches in Europe, that are nearly as desti

tute of spiritual life as the former. Yet they do not regard the members of these churches as baptized on any recognized faith of their parents. On what ground then is their baptism valid? How can the recognition of it be justified on their own principles ?

One more difficulty, which presses heavily upon infant baptism, is the inconsistency and antagonism between the different grounds on which it is defended. Not only do some of its defenders uphold it on grounds irreconcilable with those on which it is advocated by others, but the same persons often bring forward different arguments which overthrow each other. If Christ's words, "of such is the kingdom of heaven," are the warrant for baptizing infants, then the arguments from circumcision and from I Corinthians vii. 14, are of no force. If they are baptized on the ground of what they are in themselves, then neither the Abrahamic covenant, nor their federal holiness have any thing to do with their title to baptism. If the defenders of the practice could only agree upon one line of defence, or upon two or more that did not cross each other, they would be able to do the cause much more effectual service. But so long as they are at variance among themselves, as to the substantial grounds of the practice,— whether the baptism of infants is justified and demanded by their natural innocence, their inherited depravity, or their federal holiness, whether their title to the rite is founded on their own character, their parent's piety, or the church's faith,—whether they are baptized because they are already heirs of salvation, or in order to make them so, their work will be very difficult, and they must not expect to be very successful in their efforts to extend, or even to maintain, the practice.

Having these many and varied difficulties to contend with, scriptural and historical, doctrinal and ecclesiastical, it is no wonder that infant baptism is declining more and more in our day, and declining most rapidly among the most intelligent and evangelical. The drift of modern scholarship is plainly against its divine institution. The current of modern evangelical thought is opposed to its continuance, and is gradually but surely undermining it. It will not cease to be practiced in our day, even among evangelical Christians; but its defence, on grounds compatible with evangelical Protestant theology, is growing continually more and more difficult, and its doom was pronounced by Him who said, "every plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up."

HAMILTON, N. Y.

A. N. ARNOLD.