sively with the church, and who had good opportunity to know the practice of the apostles, as his great grandfather was a Christian, and cotemporary with the apostles, says, "Infants, by the usage of the church, are baptized. The church had a tradition, or command, from the apostles, to give baptism to infants."—Wall's Defence, pp. 372, 383; Dr. Doddridge's Lect., p. 9. Mr. Judson tried in vain to overturn this testimony.

Cyprian, and the council of Carthage, in the year 253, where sixty-six bishops met, not to decide whether infants were to be baptized, but whether they might be baptized before the eighth day; and they were unanimously of opinion, "that they (infants) might be baptized as soon as they were born."-Cyprian, epist. 66. Lord Chancellor King, in his account of the primitive church, remarks, "Here, then, is a synodical decree for the baptism of infants, as formal as can possibly be expected, which is of more weight than the private judgment of a father, and more authentic; as he might give his own opinion only, but this (the decision of a synod) denotes the common practice and usage of the whole church."-Inquiry into the Constitution, &c., part ii, ch. 3.

Pelagius maintained infant baptism, although the practice made against his heresy. He denied original sin-and was the author of what is called Pelagianism. He lived three hundred years after the apostles. He says, "Men slander me, as if I denied the sacrament of baptism

to infants. I never heard of any, not even the most impious heretic, who denied baptism to infants." Wall's Hist. of Inf. Bapt., p. 62.

This man had every inducement to deny infant baptism, if he could have found a shadow of evidence to have borne him out. The usage of the church in this respect was a standing, irrefragable argument against his heresy.

So much for the "testimony of the fathers." You can judge, candid reader, whether it is to be passed over as nothing worth, in view of the fact, that those who "deny infant baptism” havé no evidence to put in bar.

The Christian church was early divided in sentiment, on doctrine, and split into sects, who ever kept upon each other a watchful eye; and the "pattern" could not have been so altered as to admit the universal prevalence of such an innovation, without an alarm being given.

Our Baptist friends try to make out their relationship with the Waldenses, those witnesses for the truth in the dark ages. I confess I was a little amused at the attempt of Mr. Benedict, in his History, on this subject.

That Peter de Bruis, and his followers, (who were only a small fraction of the people called Waldenses,) did deny infant baptism is undeniable, but on different grounds from our Baptist friends. This man arose in France about twelve hundred years after Christ, and held that infants could not be saved, and therefore ought not to be baptized," as they could not work out their own salvation."

They held about the same proportion to the great body of the Waldenses, who held infant baptism, as the "Seventh-day" Baptists do to the great body of the Baptists, who hold "the Lord's day" as the sabbath. If I were to report that the Baptists in the United States keep the "seventh day" as their sabbath, I should be about as near right as Baptist writers are when they say that the Waldenses "denied infant baptism," for those who have denied it among them have been as about one to thirty.— Dr. Miller on Baptism, pp. 40-43.

In an expose of the views of the Waldenses, made as early as the twelfth century, although they oppose many errors of the Romish Church --such as praying to saints, purgatory, masses, &c., and say that there are but two sacraments, baptism and the Lord's supper-yet they utter not one word against "infant baptism."-Watson's Dict., art. Waldenses. They had bishops. among them; "and after the opening of the reformation under Luther, the Waldenses sought intercourse with the reformed churches of Geneva and France; held communion with them; received ministers from them; acknowledged them as brethren in the Lord, &c. Now it is well known that those churches held infant baptism; and this fact alone we think sufficient to show that those pious people were Pedobaptists."Dr. Miller, p. 43.

Why should those who deny infant baptism wish to prove that the Waldenses were their predecessors or ancestors? If they could make

this out, they would then be nine hundred years from the days of John the Baptist; for Mr. Benedict, in his History, can furnish no certain evidence that the Waldenses had any existence earlier than the ninth century. Let our opposing brethren give the world a "Thus saith the Lord" for rejecting infants, and then there is an end to the controversy. No doubt, from the earliest history of the Waldenses, Albigenses, &c., there was a difference of opinion among them on many points, as there is now among different denominations of Christians, not excepting the Baptists. There may have been some, besides the followers of Peter de Bruis, who differed with the great body of their brethren, for some reason, about infant baptism; but surely this does not justify an effort to make out that that people, as a people, were not Pedobaptists. I know a number of Baptists who are in favour of free communion, and some who communed with Christians of other denominations, until they endangered their membership in their own church thereby; and I might show from the works of that celebrated man, John Bunyan, that he admitted members to his communion who had been baptized in infancy, and had never received what is called "believers' baptism."-Bunyan's Works, vol. ii, pp. 216-219. But would it be fair and honourable in me to draw a general conclusion from these particular cases? and then say, "The Baptists in Virginia are in favour of free communion; and the Baptists in Europe, in the days of Bunyan, admitted

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persons to church fellowship without believers' baptism?” Surely nothing would be more un

fair.

We have seen, from historical evidence, that the church, for twelve hundred years, (not to say for fifteen hundred and twenty-two years,) always held infant baptism, and during all that time none ever rejected it, on any such grounds as are now urged by our Baptist brethren. He who can, in view of all this evidence, persist in his opposition to the baptism of children, must, it appears to me, be prepared to make a sacrifice of all historical evidence, at the altar of a prejudice that is both deaf and blind; too deaf to hear the voice of reason, and too blind to see the light of truth. This language is strong; because it is the result of strong conviction on my own mind. I have long since learned, that where men can laugh, and sneer, at the conscientious conduct of people as pious as themselves, because they choose to dedicate their children to God in baptism; and can make sport with the feelings of a mother, who wishes to have her child given to God in his ordinance before it dies; (Mr. B.'s Sermon, p. 26 ;)—I say I have long since learned, that with such (at least) no other language will make any impression. You had as well attempt to "draw out leviathan with a hook," Job xli. Such, in the language of St. Paul, (Titus i, 13,) need to be "rebuked sharply;" and though they may not be induced to be "sound in faith," they may, perhaps, be taught to treat with Christian courtesy those