own appointment sometimes cuts them off from this privilege. But while my Opponent may be marshalling objections, I would remind him that his own argument, which is admitted to be good, is liable to as serious objections as any which he urges against ours. When we give divine authority for the administration of the seal of the righteousness of faith to infant disciples as well as adult believers, he objects that circumcision never was the seal of the righteousness of faith in any case except that of Abraham only, because the only instance in which this expression is used is in connexion with his name. If this mode of expounding the scriptures be admitted, how will my Opponent's argument for female communion fare in the hands of a bold objector? Recollect that it rests upon female discipleship, and female discipleship, according to my Opponent, rests upon the discipleship of Tabitha. The objector, therefore, would take my Opponent on his own ground, and say, As circumcision was a seal of the righteousness of faith to Abraham only, and to no other male, so discipleship was attached to Tabitha only, and to no other female !! Again; when we say, If disciples should be baptized, and if the infants of believers are disciples, then these infants should be baptized, my logical Opponent laughs at our ifs, and would make you believe that sound logic does not recognize hypothetical syllogisms at all! Yet, strange to tell! his boasted argument for female communion is virtually a hypothetical syllogism. It is as follows: If disciples should commune; and Now in all this, where is my Opponent's express command for female communion? His vapouring argument does not even assert it: but only says that he has an express warrant for all disciples to participate of "the Lord's supper;" after which he has to shew that females are disciples. So we have an express warrant for baptizing disciples; and we prove from scripture that believers and their infants are subjects of this discipleing and baptizing. When my Opponent pursues this method of reasoning to establish the duty and privilege of female communion, he would think it a breach of the ninth commandment, for any one to tell him that he held "a positive ordinance or institution, founded solely upon inference or reason," "without à positive precept." a His argument proves that there is a divine precept, though not what he calls an express command. He proves that the duty in question is not founded solely upon reason, but upon revelation. That there is the same authority for infant-baptism, must be fairly concluded from the establishment of the following propositions. 1. Abraham and his seed were divinely constituted a visible church of God. 2. The Christian Church is a branch of the Abrahamic Church: or, in other words, the Jewish Society before Christ, and the Christian Society after Christ, are one and the same Church, in different dispensations. 3. Jewish Circumcision before Christ, and Christian Baptism, after Christ, are one and the same seal in substance, though in different forms. 4. The administration of this seal to infants was once enjoined by divine authority; that is, God once commanded it. 5. The administration of this seal to infants has never since been prohibited by divine authority; that is, this command of God, originally given in the Old Testament, is not repealed in the New Testament, but rather confirmed. Therefore, this command is still in force. And as it is a command to administer to infants the initiatory seal of the church, which, under the Christian dispensation, is baptism, there is now a divine command for baptizing the infants of believers. Admit the premises, and the conclusion is inevitable. Whether these propositions be loved or feared, hated or revered, derided or respected, they necessarily involve the conclusion. Logic may exhibit its sophistry, rhetoric its rage, satire its wit, and vulgarity its scurrility, but if these premises be true, infant-baptism is a duty. My Opponent knows that if he were to admit the truth of these propositions, he would lose his cause at once. He therefore disputes them; and I therefore, with a good conscience, and depending on divine help, proceed to prove them. PROPOSITION I. ABRAHAM AND HIS SEED WERE DIVINELY CONSTITUTED A VISIBLE CHURCH OF GOD. Many Baptists, such as Booth, Butterworth, and Judson, appear as if they could adopt this proposition just as it stands. The second of these writers, in his Concordance, gives, as the fourth meaning of the word Church, "The people of the Jews, who was the CHURCH and people of God." In proof of this he refers to Acts vii. 38, which says, "This is he that was in the church in the wilderness." A person who is unacquainted with the ways of my Opponent, might suppose, from some of his declarations, that he also believed this doctrine. He has even accused Dr. Rallston of misrepresentation for denying it. In his Strictures at the end of his spurious Debate with Mr. Walker,(7) he speaks as follows, viz. “Mr. R. affirms that I deny that there was a visible. "church in the world until the day of Pentecost.' He "refers to no page in the Debate, nor could he, for there " is not such a declaration in the whole book. Nay, so "far is the above from fact, that I again and again speak "of a visible church in the world from Moses' time to "the day of Pentecost. Page 26, I called the Jews "God's people, and spoke of their visible church state : "so also in pages 40, 41, 43, 44, 53, 98, I spoke of the "Jewish church, and of their visible church state; and 66 "repeatedly contrasted the Jewish Church with the "Christian Church-Yet Mr R. affirms that I denied "there was a visible church on earth till the day of "Pentecost!!" From this, one would suppose that it was a settled opinion with my Opponent that the Jewish people were long the visible church of God, and that he was much in the habit of insisting upon this point; and that he had especially urged this doctrine in the many pages to which he refers. The last of these references must be a mistake, as it does not contain a word upon the subject. If the first of them prove the ecclesiastical state of the Jews, it goes far to shew their identity with the Christian church. But this could not have been his meaning, since it is in direct opposition to the two succeding references. His second and third are occupied about Stephen's "church in the wilderness," which Butterworth, an eminent Baptist preacher, agrees with Mr. Walker, in considering "the people of the Jews, who was the church and people of God." This my Opponent disputes in the places referred to, by trying to prove that the word translated church may mean a mob, like that of Demetrius, at Ephesus, instead of a church of God! This is a curious way to prove the visible church state of the Jews. The only remaining reference in the whole list is of a piece with these. Instead of saying, as he pretends, that the Jews were the visible church of God, he tries to prove that they were not the Church of Christ, by an argument which, if true, must go equally to prove that they could not be the church of God, unless he could shew that the latter was a different and inferior being to the former. It is evident |