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nion; but they prove it by INFERENCE, and not by any EXPRESS Command or precept. I admit the proof to be valid: but neither our Baptist brethren nor anybody else can make it out, without at the same time sweeping away the very foundation of their argument against Infant Baptisın.

I only insist that the same sort of proof be considered equally valid to prove the authority for Infant Baptism. I am willing to have it required that that proof be ample. I have no fear for the issue, if the condition of receiving Infant Baptism be ten times the amount of proof required to substantiate the change of the Sabbath, or to make out the Scriptural warrant for female communion.

You perceive that I have here made a concession;" if it be proper to call that a concession, which concerns a thing that we never attempted to hold; and which is a simple statement of a truth that every Pædo-baptist in the world was always free to acknowledge. The " concession" is, that the law of baptism makes no EXPRESS mention of infants.

But having made this concession, I must be allowed to enter my protest against. being understood or reported to have conceded that the Scriptures furnish no warrant for Infant Baptism. I concede no such thing. I maintain the contrary. Nor will it be deemed a matter of wonder to those who know what use is sometimes made of concessions, that I should deem it necessary to enter this protest.

Thus, a concession of Dr. Woods is sometimes quoted in such a way as to leave those who hear it, under the impression, that Dr. Woods admits that the Scriptures

furnish no warrant for Infant Baptism.* So far as his words are quoted, they are quoted correctly from p. 11 of his work on Infant Baptism : "Whatever may have been the precepts of Christ or his apostles to those who enjoyed their personal instructions, it is a plain case that there is no express precept respecting Infant Baptism in our sacred writings."

Here the matter is left. The quotation is truth as far as it goes but what is essential to THE truth is omitted; and the omission causes Dr. Woods to be understood as giving up all claim of a Scriptural warrant for Infant Baptism; whereas, in truth, Dr. Woods gives his testimony directly to the contrary. His "concession" refers only to an EXPRESS precept." His work was written for the very purpose of proving the SCRIPTURAL WARRANT for Infant Baptism. He is very explicit (p. 42), to take his position in the most formal words; and he prints them in italics that this position may be well noted and understood; and these are his words:

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"But I shall now proceed to argue the point from the INSPIRED RECORDS just as they are. My position is, that the Scriptures of the New Testament, understood according to the just rules of interpretation, IMPLY THAT THE CHILDREN OF BELIEVERS ARE TO BE BAPTIZED."

In the same manner, in a tract published by the " General Baptist Tract Society," entitled "THE SCRipture GUIDE TO BAPTISM, by Pengilly," and widely circulated both here and elsewhere, MR. BAXTER is introduced as speaking in the strongest terms against Infant Baptism. One long quotation from his writings introduced for this

*The writer has himself heard Dr. Woods quoted in this manner before a full congregation.

purpose, ends with these words: "I profess my conscience is fully satisfied from this text, that it is one sort of faith, even saving, THAT MUST GO BEFORE BAPTISM." The last words are printed in capitals. JEWETT, in his work on Baptism, has introduced the same quotation for the same purpose; to make RICHARD BAXTER bear his witness against Infant Baptism.

And again," The Scripture Guide to Baptism, by Pengilly" (p. 44), after asserting in italics, "that we have nowhere found a single place or passage that describes, re-. cords, or implies the baptism of any infants;" says, "the reader will not suppose this a hasty conclusion when he hears the following PEDO-BAPTISTS." Under this, he quotes again MR. BAXTER, thus: "I conclude that all examples of baptism in Scripture do mention only the administration of it to the professors of saving faith and the precepts give us no other direction. And I provoke Mr. Blake, as far as is seemly for me to do, to name ONE precept or example for any other, and make it good if he

can.

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Here is a point in question, and witnesses are called. Richard Baxter is brought upon the stand. Mr. Baxter, Is Infant Baptism right according to the word of God? An answer is put into his mouth, taken from his works, in which he is reasoning,-not concerning infants,-but concerning adults; and showing that "it is one sort of faith, even saving" (and not simply the intellectual belief of an unconverted man), " that must go before baptism." And so, Richard Baxter is by this process made to bear witness against Infant Baptism!

But, Mr. Baxter, you were a Pædo-baptist : did you not baptize children, and so teach and exhort in the house

of God? O yes: and dearly prized the ordinance, and would not have given it up sooner than I would have given up my life. But, Mr. Baxter, what is this then that they say of you? Your name is spread abroad in tracts upon tracts, and in books upon books, and goes out to the four winds of heaven; and your own strong language is printed in the boldest relief, as. though the author of the "Saint's Rest," and of the "Call to the Unconverted," had borne his testimony most decidedly against Infant Baptism! Are you so opposed, Mr. Baxter? Is this witness true of you? What say you of Infants, Mr. Baxter? Do you cut these off from the Church of God?

To be so quoted is well nigh enough to call the dead "Saint" from his "Rest." He answers on this point: and it is Baxter's own strong emotion and burning words that speak: "GOD," says Mr. Baxter, "GOD HAD NEVER A CHURCH ON EARTH, OF WHICH INFANTS WERE NOT INFANT MEMBERS, SINCE THERE WERE INFANTS IN THE WORLD."*

* Baxter's Comment, on Matt. xxviii. 19 (in GRAY on the Authority for Infant Baptism, Halifax, 1837, p. 200).

The hottest controversy which Mr. Baxter ever had was with the Baptists. A Mr. Tombes had written a book against Infant Baptism, and thought that Baxter was "the chief hinderer" of its success: Though," says Mr. Baxter, "I never meddled with that point." "He had," says Baxter, "so high a conceit of his writings that he thought them unanswerable, and that none could deal with them in that way." "At last, somehow, he urged me to give my judgment of them; when I let him know they did not satisfy me to be of his mind, but went no further with him." "But he unavoidably contrived to bring me into the controversy which I shunned." In the end Baxter agreed to hold a public discussion in Mr. Tombes' church, Jan. 1, 1649. "This dispute,"

But enough of these "concessions." Enough of these clouds of quotations from Pædo-baptist writers to make them say what, quoted in such connections and for such purposes, is heaven-wide from the faith in which they lived and in which they died. What is done to the living Woods and to the dead Baxter, is done to Calvin, and to a host of others. These men went to the word of God for their doctrine. Whatever would not stand by that rule they scrupulously rejected, with loathing and abhorrence," hating even the garment spotted by the flesh." They taught and practised sprinkling and pouring for baptism: they taught and practised the baptism of infants-for the warrant of both they went to the word of God. And now, the influence of their names and the weight of their piety is attempted to be laid into the scale against the doctrines which they practised and taught,

says Baxter," satisfied all my own people, and the country that came in, and Mr. Tombes' own townsmen, except about twenty whom he had perverted, who gathered into his church; which never increased to above twenty-two, that I could learn.”

Not long after, Baxter published his work, entitled, "PLAIN SCRIPTURE PROOF OF INFANTS' CHURCH MEMBERSHIP AND BAPTISM." This work passed through several editions. "The book," says Baxter, " God blessed with unexpected success to stop abundance from turning Anabaptists, and reclaiming many.”

Nineteen years after, Baxter published another work, entitled MORE PROOFS OF INFANT CHURCH MEMBERSHIP, AND CONSEQUENTLY THEIR RIGHTS TO BAPTISM. This book is divided into three parts, which contain, he tells us, " The plain proof of God's statute or covenant for Infants' church membership from the creation, and the continuance of it till the institution of Baptism; with the defence of that proof against the frivolous exceptions of Mr. Tombes."-( Ormes' Life and Times of Baxter, Vol. ii., p. 252.)

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