name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost."

Tertullian flourished one hundred years after the apostles. He witnessed to the fact of the common practice of infant baptism? He asks: "Why that innocent age made such haste to baptism." He admits its propriety in some cases of necessity, of sickness, and danger of death. He does not declare it unlawful in any case, but advises to defer it not only until adult age, but until after marriage. He is the only man in all antiquity whose writings have come down to us, who has said any thing at all against the practice of baptizing infants.

Origen, who flourished in the beginning of the third century, and was for some time contemporary with Tertullian, says: "Infants are baptized for the remission of sins." "The church had a tradition or command from the apostles to give baptism to infants." Origen and the ancient fathers do not speak of infant baptism as though it was denied or opposed by any one; they mention it as a practice generally known and approved, and for the purpose of illustrating and confirming other points that were disputed.

Cyprian, and the rest of the Council of Carthage, A.D. 253, on a question whether an infant might be baptized before the eighth day, decided: "That an infant might be baptized on the second or third day, or at any time after its birth."

Ambrose, who wrote about 274 years after the

apostles, declares expressly-" that infant baptism was practiced in his time, and in the time of the apostles."

Chrysostom observes-" that persons may be baptized either in infancy, in middle age, or in old age."

Jerome says: "If infants be not baptized, the sin of omitting their baptism is laid to the parent's charge."

Augustine, who wrote at the same time, about 280 years after the apostles, speaks "of infant baptism as one of those practices which was not instituted by any council, but had always been in use." The whole church of Christ, he informs us, had constantly held that infants were baptized for the forgiveness of sins; that he had never heard or read of any Christian, Catholic or sectary, who held otherwise; that no Christians of any sect ever denied it to be useful or necessary.

Pelagius owns "that baptism ought to be administered to infants, and affirms that he never heard of any, not even the most impious heretic, that would say such a thing of infants; he had said that men slander him as if he denied the sacrament of baptism to infants."

Dr. Wall, who enjoyed the best advantages for being acquainted with infant baptism, and who made this the principal subject of his studies and inquiries, briefly sums up the evidence on both sides in the following words: "For the first four hundred

years there appears only one man, Tertullian, who advised the delay of infant baptism in some cases, and one Gregory, who did perhaps practice such delay in the case of his own children, but no society of men, so thinking, so practicing, or any one man, saying it was unlawful to baptize infants. So in the next seven hundred years there is not so much as one man to be found who either spoke for or practiced any such delay, but all the contrary. And when about the year 1130 one sect among the Waldenses or Albigenses declared against the baptizing of infants as being incapable of salvation, the main body of that people rejected their opinion, and they of them who held that opinion quickly dwindled away and disappeared, there being no more persons heard of holding that tenet until the rising of the German Anti-Pædobaptists, in the year 1522." [Reed's Apology in Ridgely.]

The objections to infant baptism are mainly the following:

I. "It is useless and improper to administer an ordinance to an infant that can not understand it, nor consent to the duties which it binds upon its subjects." The case is the same in these respects with circumcision, and therefore not to be reasoned. against, but rebuked as constructive blasphemy against the only true God. "O man, who art thou that repliest against God?" Does the moral law wait for man's consent before it binds him to obedience?

2. Faith and repentance are required in order to baptism. "He that believes and is baptized shall be saved."-Mark xvi., 16; Acts ii., 38.

This and kindred passages either respect the case of infants or they do not. If they do not, they are to be regarded as out of consideration on this point. If they do, then they teach the doctrine of infant perdition, for faith is a prerequisite to salvation, and they are incapable of faith. "He that believeth shall be saved, he that believeth not shall be damned." The sect among the Waldenses who rejected infant baptism were the only consistent Baptists, for they rejected the baptism of infants because they were incapable of salvation. Nobody believes that now, not even the Baptists themselves. They are not as bad as their scheme, nor as cruel as their argument.

3. They contend that a positive institution requires an explicit warrant, by express command or approved example. They will admit nothing which depends on reasoning from the Scriptures. In this they condemn the Saviour and the apostles, who prove their doctrines by reasoning out of the Scriptures. They are inconsistent with themselves, for they admit females to the Lord's Supper without an explicit warrant. They appeal to the word ανθρώπος, which they say means both man and woman. (Let a man examine himself.) This is their inference, and not the explicit warrant which they require. This word is used nineteen times in Scripture to distinguish man from woman: "There

fore shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife." They have no explicit warrant for baptistries in their churches or immersion of their converts, and it has been proved that they have no warrant for them at all.

A great social principle is at stake, and in its most important exercise, that children follow the condition of their parents. The Baptist scheme would expunge that principle from the moral and religious code, and denounce the wisdom of God as folly. If the question were, shall the children of American citizens, born in the country, be accounted citizens or aliens, entitled by their birth to the privileges and bound by the obligations of citizens, or neither entitled to the former nor bound by the latter, there would rise from the great heart of the nation a response so loud and universal, and overwhelming, in favor of the citizenship, the privileges, and the duties of the native-born children of our loyal citizens, as would never allow the question to be mooted again. And is a birthright in the kingdom of God, his church on earth, less valuable than American citizenship, or less influential to enforce, on obedient and grateful hearts, devotion to its interests and obedience to its laws?

Fourthly. The uses of this ordinance.

I. It condenses to a bright and burning focus the great truths of the everlasting covenant, the Trinity, man's apostacy from God, his condemnation and pollution, the mediation of Jesus, regeneration by the