"and he commanded them to be baptized." So the adults in the house of the jailer at Philippi were persons to whom "the word of the Lord" was spoken; and although nothing is said of the faith of any but the jailer himself,-for the words are more properly rendered, "and he, believing in God, rejoiced with all his house,"-yet is the joy which appears to have been felt by the adult part of his house, as well as by himself, to be attributed to their faith. Now, as it does not appear that the Apostles, although they baptized infant children, baptized unbelieving adult servants because their masters or mistresses believed, and yet the house of Lydia were baptized along with herself, when no mention at all is made of the Lord "opening the heart" of these adult domestics, nor of their believing, the fair inference is, that "the house" of Lydia means her children only, and that being of immature years they were baptized with their mother according to the common custom of the Jews, to baptize the children of proselyted Gentiles along with their parents, from which practice Christian baptism appears to have been taken.

In

But if it be a proof in this case that there were no infant children in the jailer's family, that it is said, he believed and all his house; this is not the only believing family mentioned in Scripture from which infants must be excluded. For, to say nothing of the houses of Lydia and Stephanas, the nobleman at Capernaum is said to have believed "and all his house," John iv. 53; so that we are to conclude that there were no infant children in this house also, although his sick son is not said to be his only offspring, and that son is called by him a child, the diminutive term audiov being used. Again, Cornelius is said, Acts x. 2, to be "one that feared God, and all his house." Infant children therefore must be excluded from his family also; and also from that of Crispus, who is said to have "believed on the Lord with all his house;" which house appears, from what immediately follows, to have been baptized. These instances make it much more probable that the phrases "fearing God with all his house," and "believing with all his house," include young children under the believing adults, whose religious profession they would follow, and whose sentiments they would im- The third instance is that of "the house of Stephabibe, so that they might be called a Christian family, nas," mentioned by St. Paul, 1 Cor. i. 16, as having than that so many houses or families should have been been baptized by himself. This family also, it is constituted only of adult persons, to the entire exclu- argued, must have been all adults, because they are sion of children of tender years. In the case of the said in the same Epistle, chap. xvi. 15, to have "adjailer's house, however, the Baptist argument mani-dicted themselves to the ministry of the saints," and festly halts; for it is not said, that they only to whom farther, because they were persons who took "a lead" the word of the Lord was spoken were baptized; nor in the affairs of the Church, the Corinthians being exthat they only who "believed" and "rejoiced" with the horted to "submit themselves unto such, and to every jailer were baptized. The account of the baptism is one that helpeth with us and laboureth." To undergiven in a separate verse, and in different phrase: stand this passage rightly, it is however necessary to "And he took them the same hour of the night, and observe, that Stephanas, the head of this family, had washed their stripes, and was baptized, he, and all his," been sent by the Church of Corinth to St. Paul at all belonging to him, "straightway;" where there is Ephesus, along with Fortunatus and Achaicus. no limitation of the persons who were baptized to the the absence of the head of the family, the Apostle comadults only by any terms which designate them as per- mends "the house," the family of Stephanas to the sons "hearing" or "believing." regard of the Corinthian believers, and perhaps also the houses of the two other brethren who had come with him; for in several MSS. marked by Griesbach, and in some of the versions, the text reads, "Ye know the house of Stephanas and Fortunatus," and one reads, also, "and of Achaicus." By the house or family of Stephanus, the Apostle must mean his children, or, along with them, his near relations dwelling together in the same family; for, since they are commended for their hospitality to the saints, servants, who have no power to show hospitality, are of course excluded. But, in the absence of the head of the family, it is very improbable that the Apostle should exhort the Corinthian Church to " submit," ecclesiastically, to the wife, sons, daughters, and near relations of Stephanas, and if the reading of Griesbach's MSS. be followed, to the family of Fortunatus, and that of Achaicus also. In respect of government, therefore, they cannot be supposed "to have had a lead in the Church," according to the Baptist notion, and especially as the heads of these families were absent. They were, however, the oldest Christian families in Corinth, the house of Stephanas at least being called "the first fruits of Achaia," and eminently distinguished for" addicting themselves," setting themselves on system, to the work of ministering to the saints, that is, of communicating to the poor saints; entertaining stranger Christians, which was an important branch of practical duty in the primitive Church, that in every place those who professed Christ might be kept out of the society of idolaters; and receiving the ministers of Christ. On these accounts the Apostle commends them to the special regard of the Corinthian Church, and exhorts "va kat vμεis vπотασonσle Tots Tourous, that you range yourselves under and co-operate with them, and with every one," also, "who helpeth with us, and laboureth;" the military metaphor contained in eratav in the preceding verse being here carried forward. These families were the oldest Christians in Corinth; and as they were foremost in every good word and work, they were not only to be commended, but the rest were to be exhorted to serve under them as leaders in these works of charity. This appears to be the obvious sense of this otherwise obscure passage. But in this, or indeed in any other sense which can be given to it, it proves no more than that there were adult persons in the family of Stephanas, his wife, and sons, and daughters, who were distinguished for their charity and hospitality. Still it is to be remembered, that the baptism of the oldest of the children took place several years before. The house of Stephanas "was the first fruits of Achaia," in which

The next instance is that of Lydia. The words of the writer of the Acts are, "Who when she was baptised, and her house." The great difficulty of the Baptist is, to make a house for Lydia without any children at all, young or old. This, however, cannot be proved from the term itself, since the same word is that commonly used in the Scripture to include children residing at home with their parents: "One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity." It is however conjectured, first, that she had come a trading voyage, from Thyatira to Philippi, to sell purple; as if a woman of Thyatira might not be settled in business at Philippi as a seller of this article. Then, as if to mark more strikingly the hopelessness of the attempt to torture this passage to favour an opinion, "her house" is made to consist of journeymen dyers, "employed in preparing the purple she sold" which, however, is a notion at variance with the former; for if she was on a mere tading voyage, if she had brought her purple goods from Thyatira to Philippi to sell, she most probably brought them ready dyed, and would have no need of a dying establishment. To complete the whole, these journeymen dyers, although not word is said of their conversion, nor even of their existence, in the whole story, are raised into "the brethren" (a term which manifestly denotes the members of the Philippian Church), whom Paul and Silas are said to have seen and comforted in the house of Lydia, before they departed!

All, however, that the history states is, that "the Lord opened Lydia's heart, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul," and that she was therefore "baptized, and her house." From this house no one has the least authority to exclude children, even young children, since there is nothing in the history to warrant the above-mentioned conjectures, and the word is in Scripture used expressly to include them. All is perfectly gratuitous on the part of the Baptists; but, while there is nothing to sanction the manner in which they deal with this text, there is a circumstance strongly confirmatory of the probability that the house of Lydia, according to the natural import of the word rendered house or family, contained children, and that in an infantile state. This is, that in all the other instances in which adults are mentioned as having been baptized along with the head of a family, they are mentioned as "hearing" and "believing," or in some terms which amount to this. Cornelius had called together "his kinsmen and near friends;" and while Peter spake, "the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word,"

St. Paul began to preach not later than A. D. 51, while | baptism to that day; and that the grace of God, or this Epistle could not be written earlier at least than A. D. 57, and might be later. Six or eight years, taken from the age of the sons and daughters of Stephanas, might bring the oldest to the state of early youth, and as to the younger branches would descend to the term of infancy, properly so called. Still farther, all that the Apostle affirms of the benevolence and hospitality of the family of Stephanas is perfectly consistent with a part of his children being still very young when he wrote the Epistle. An equal commendation for hospitality and charity might be given in the present day, with perfect propriety, to many pious families, several members of which are still in a state of infancy. It was sufficient to warrant the use of such expressions as those of the Apostle, that there were in these Corinthian families a few adults, whose conduct gave a decided character to the whole "house." Thus the argument used to prove that in these three instances of family baptism, there were no young children, are evidently very unsatisfactory; and they leave us to the conclusion, which perhaps all would come to in reading the sacred history, were they quite free from the bias of a theory, that "houses," or "families," as in the commonly received import of the term, must be understood to comprise children of all ages, unless some explicit note of the contrary appears, which is not the case in any of the instances in question.

5. The last argument may be drawn from the antiquity of the practice of infant baptism.

baptism, should be given to all, and especially to infants." This decision was communicated in a letter from Cyprian to Fidus.(4) We trace the practice also downwards. In the fourth century, Ambrose says, that "infants who are baptized, are reformed from wickedness to the primitive state of their nature;"(5) and at the end of that century, the famous controversy took place between Augustine and Pelagius concerning origi nal sin, in which the uniform practice of baptizing infants from the days of the Apostles was admitted by both parties, although they assigned different reasons for it. So little indeed were Tertullian's absurdities regarded, that he appears to have been quite forgotten by this time; for Augustine says he never heard of any Christian, catholic or sectary, who taught any other doctrine than that infants are to be baptized.(6) Infant baptism is not mentioned in the canons of any Council; nor is it insisted upon as an object of faith in any creed: and thence we infer that it was a point not controverted at any period of the ancient Church, and we know that it was the practice in all established Churches. Wall says, that Peter Bruis, a Frenchman, who lived about the year 1030, whose followers were called Petrobrus sians, was the first Antipædobaptist teacher who had a regular congregation.(7) The Anabaptists of Germany took their rise in the beginning of the fifteenth century; but it does not appear that there was any congregation of Anabaptists in England, till the year 1640.(8) That a practice which can be traced up to the very first periods of the Church, and has been, till within very modern times, its uncontradicted practice, should have a lower authority than Apostolic usage and appointment, may be pronounced impossible. It is not like one of those trifling, though somewhat superstitious additions, which even in very early times began to be made to the sacraments; on the contrary, it involves a principle so important as to alter the very nature of the sacrament itself. For if personal faith be an essential requisite of baptism in all cases, if baptism be a visible declaration of this, and is vicious withserious a nature, that it must have attracted attention, and provoked controversy, which would have led, if not to the suppression of the error, yet to a diversity of practice in the ancient Churches, which in point of fact did not exist, Tertullian himself aliowing infant baptism in extreme cases.

The BENEFITS of this sacrament require to be briefly exhibited. Baptism introduces the adult believer into the covenant of grace, and the Church of Christ; and is the seal, the pledge to him, on the part of God, of the fulfilment of all its provisions, in time and in eternity; while, on his part, he takes upon himself the obligations of steadfast faith and obedience.

If the baptism of the infant children of believers was not practised by the Apostles and by the primitive Churches, when and where did the practice commence? To this question the Baptist writers can give no answer. It is an innovation, according to them, not upon the circumstances of a sacrament, but upon its essential principle; and yet its introduction produced no struggle; was never noticed by any general or provincial council; and excited no controversy! This itself is strong presumptive proof of its early antiquity. On the other hand, we can point out the only ancient writer who opposed infant baptism. This was Tertul-out it; then infant baptism was an innovation of so lian, who lived late in the second century: but his very opposition to the practice proves that that practice was more ancient than himself; and the principles on which he impugns it, farther show that it was so. He regarded this sacrament superstitiously; he appended to it the trine immersion in the name of each of the persons of the Trinity; he gives it gravely as a reason why infants should not be baptized, that Christ says, "Suffer the little children to come unto me," therefore they must stay till they are able to come, that is, till they are grown up; " and he would prohibit the unmarried, and all in a widowed state, from baptism, because of the temptations to which they may be liable." The whole of this is solved by adverting to that notion of the efficacy of this sacrament in taking away all previous sins, which then began to prevail, so that an inducement was held out for delaying baptism as long as possible, till at length, in many cases, it was postponed to the article of death, under the belief that the dying who received this sacrament were the more secure of salvation. Tertullian, accordingly, with all his zeal, allowed that infants ought to be baptized if their lives be in danger, and thus evidently shows that his opposition to the baptism of infants in ordinary, rested upon a very different principle from that of the modern Antipædobaptists. Amid all his arguments against this practice, Tertullian, however, never ventures upon one which would have been most to his purpose, and which might most forcibly have been urged had not baptism been administered to infants by the Apostles and their immediate successors. That argument would have been the novelty of the practice, which he never asserts, and which, as he lived so early, he might have proved, had he had any ground for it. On the contrary, Justin Martyr and Irenæus, in the second century, and Origen in the beginning of the third, expressly mention infant baptism as the practice of their times, and, by the latter, this is assigned to apostolical injunction. Fidus, an African bishop, applied to Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, to know, not whether infants were to be baptized, but whether their baptism might take place before the eighth day after their birth, that being the day on which cumcision was performed by the law of Moses. This question was considered in an African Synod, held A. D. 254, at which sixty-six bishops were present, and "it was Hnanimously decreed, "that it was not necessary to defer

To the infant child, it is a visible reception into the same covenant and Church,-a pledge of acceptance through Christ,-the bestowment of a title to all the grace of the covenant as circumstances may require, and as the mind of the child may be capable, or made capable, of receiving it; and as it may be sought in future life by prayer, when the period of reason and moral choice shall arrive. It conveys also the present "blessing" of Christ, of which we are assured by his taking children in his arms and blessing them; which blessing cannot be merely nominal, but must be substantial and efficacious. It secures, too, the gift of the Holy Spirit in those secret spiritual influences, by which the actual regeneration of those children who die in infancy is effected; and which are a seed of life in those who are spared, to prepare them for instruction in the word of God, as they are taught it by parental care, to incline their will and affections to good, and to begin and maintain in them the war against inward and outward evil, so that they may be divinely assisted, as reason strengthens, to make their calling and election sure. In a word, it is both as to infants and to adults, the sign and pledge of that inward grace, which, although modified in its operations by the difference of their circumstances, has respect to, and flows from, a covenant relation to each of the three persons in whose one name they are baptized,-acceptance by the FATHER,-union with CHRIST as the head of his mystical body, the Church,-and "the communion of the HOLY GHOST." To these advantages must be

(4) Cyp. Ep. 59. (5) Comment. in Lucan, c. 10. (6) De Pecc. Mor. cap. 6. (7) Hist. Part 2, c. 7. (8) BISHOP TOULINE'S Elements.

offensive circumstance of baptizing naked, which was considered of as much importance as the other; and then we may safely leave it for any one to say, whether he really believes that the three thousand persons mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles were baptized naked? and whether, when St. Paul baptized Lydia, she was put into the water naked by her women, and that the Apostle then hastened "to put her head under water also, using the form of baptism, and retired, leaving her to the women" to take her away to dress! Immersion, with all its appendages, dipping three times, nakedness, unction, the eating of milk and honey, exorcism, &c., bears manifest marks of that disposition to improve upon God's ordinances, for which even the close of the second century was remarkable, and which laid the foundation of that general corruption which so speedily followed.

But we proceed to the New Testament itself, and deny that a single clear case of baptism by immersion can be produced from it.

tized by sprinkling, or at most by pouring; and that there is an allusion to the latter circumstance, is made almost certain by a passage in the song of Deborah, and other expressions in the Psalms, which speak of "rain," and the" pouring out of water," and " droppings" from the "cloud" which directed the march of the Jews in the wilderness. Whatever, therefore, the primary meaning of the verb "to baptize" may be, is a question of no importance on one side or the other. Leaving the mode of administering baptism as a religious rite out of the question, it is used generally, at least in the New Testament, not to express immersion in water, but for the act of pouring or sprinkling it; and that baptism, when spoken of as a religious rite, is to be understood as administered by iminersion, no satisfactory instance can be adduced.

The baptism of John is the first instance usually adduced in proof of this practice:-The multitudes who went out to him were "baptized of him IN Jordan ;" they were therefore immersed.

To say nothing here of the laborious, and apparently impossible, task imposed upon John, of plunging the multitudes who flocked to him day by day into the river, and the indecency of the whole proceeding when women were also concerned, it is plain that the principal object of the evangelist, in making this statement, was to point out the place where John exercised his ministry and baptized, and not to describe the mode; if the latter is at all referred to, it must be acknowledged that this was incidental to the other design. Now it so happens, that we have a passage which relates to John's baptism, and which can only be fairly interpreted by referring to HIS MODE OF BAPTIZING, as the FIRST consideration; a passage, too, which John himself uttered at the very time he was baptizing “in pentance; but he that cometh after me is mightier than I he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire." Our translators, in this passage, aware of the absurdity of translating the preposition ɛv, in, have properly rendered it with; but the advocates of immersion do not stumble at trifles, and boldly rush into the absurdity of Campbell's translation: "I indeed baptize you in water; he will baptize you in the Holy Ghost and fire." Unfortunately for this translation, we have not only the utter senselessness of the phrases baptized, plunged in the Holy Ghost, and plunged in fire, to set against it; but also the very history of the completion of this prophetic declaration, and that not only as to the fact that Christ did indeed baptize his disciples with the Holy Ghost and with fire, but also as to the mode in which this baptism was effected; "And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it SAT UPON each of them. And they were all filled with THE HOLY GHOST." Thus the baptism of the Holy Ghost and of fire was a descent UPON, and not an immersion INTO. With this, too, agree all the accounts of the baptism of the Holy Spirit: they are all from above, like the pouring out or shedding of water upon the head; nor is there any expression in Scripture which bears the most remote resemblance to immersing, plunging in the Holy Ghost. When our Lord received the baptism of the Holy Ghost, "the Spirit of God DESCENDED like a dove, and LIGHTED upon him." When Cornelius and his family received the same gift, "the Holy Ghost FELL on all them which heard the word;" "and they of the circumcision that believed were astonished, because that on the Gentiles also was POURED OUT the gift of the Holy Ghost," which, as the words imply, had been in like manner "poured out on them." The common phrase,

The word itself, as it has been often shown, proves nothing. The verb, with its derivatives, signifies to dip the hand into a dish, Matt. xxvi. 23; to stain a vesture with blood, Rev. xix. 13; to wet the body with dew, Dan. iv. 33; to paint or smear the face with colours; to stain the hand by pressing a substance; to be overwhelmed in the waters as a sunken ship; to be drowned by falling into water; to sink in the neuter sense; to immerse totally; to plunge up to the neck; to be immersed up to the middle; to be drunken with wine; to be dyed, tinged, and imbued; to wash by effusion of water; to pour water upon the hauds, or any other part of the body; to sprinkle. A word then, of such large application affords as good proof for sprinkling, or partial dipping, or washing with water, as for immersion in it. The controversy on this accommo-Jordan." "I indeed baptize you with water unto redating word has been carried on to weariness; and if even the advocates of immersion could prove, what they have not been able to do, that plunging is the primary meaning of the term, they would gain nothing, since, in Scripture, it is notoriously used to express other applications of water. The Jews had "divers baptisms" in their service; but these washings of the Dody in or with water, were not immersions, and in some instances they were mere sprinklings. The Pharisees" baptized before they ate," but this baptism was "the washing of hands," which, in eastern countries, is done by servants pouring water over them, and not by dipping:-" Here is Elisha, the son of Schaphat, who poured water on the hands of Elijah," 2 Kings iii. 11; that is, who acted as his servant. In the same manner the feet were washed: "Thou gavest me no water upon, ɛri, my feet," Luke vii. 44. Again, the Pharisees are said to have held the "washing" or baptism "of cups and pots, brazen vessels, and of tables;" not certainly for the sake of cleanliness (for all people hold the washing or baptism of such utensils for this purpose), but from superstitious notions of purification. Now, as "sprinkling" is prescribed in the law of Moses, and was familiar to the Jews, as the mode of purification from uncleanness, as in the case of the sprinkling of the water of separation, Num. xix. 19, it is for this reason much more probable that the baptism of these vessels was effected by sprinkling, than by either pouring or immersion. But that they were not immersed, at least not the whole of them, may be easily made to appear; and if." baptism" as to any of these utensils does not signify immersion, the argument from the use of the word must be abandoned. Suppose, then, the pots, cups, and brazen vessels to have been baptized by immersion; the "beds" or couches used to recline upon at their meals, which they ate in an accum-to "receive" the Holy Ghost, is also inconsistent with bent posture, couches which were constructed for three the idea of being immersed, plunged into the Holy or five persons each to lie down upon, must certainly Ghost; and finally, when St. Paul connects the baphave been exempted from the operation of a “baptism" tism with water and the baptism with the Holy Ghost toby dipping, which was probably practised, like the gether, as in the words of John the Baptist just quoted, "baptism" of their hands, before every meal. The word he expresses the mode of the baptism of the Spirit in is also used by the LXX. in Dan. iv. 33, where Nebuchad- the same manner: "According to his mercy, he saved nezzar is said to have been wet with the dew of heaven, us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the which was plainly effected, not by his immersion in Holy Ghost, which HE SHED ON US abundantly through dew, but by its descent upon him. Finally, it occurs Jesus Christ our Saviour," Titus iii. 5, 6. That the in 1 Cor. x. 2, And were baptized unto Moses in the mode, therefore, in which John baptized was by pourcloud and in the sea;" where also immersion is outing water upon his disciples, may be concluded from of the case. The Israelites were not immersed in the his using the same word to express the pouring out, sea, for they went through it "as on dry land;" and the descent, of the Spirit upon the disciples of Jesus. they were not immersed in the cloud, which was above For if baptism necessarily means immersion, and John them. In this case, if the spray of the sea is referred baptized by immersion, then did not Jesus baptize his to, or the descent of rain froin the cloud, they were bap-disciples with the Holy Ghost. He might bestow it