IV.

Christ.

state of infancy. The declaration of the apostle is that CHAP. as many as had been baptized had "put on" (endusasthe) Christ. The force of this term will be apprehended by Putting on referring to Romans xiii. 12, 14: "Let us therefore cast Gal. iii. 27. off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of ¶dvoɑol». light;" "not in strife and envying, but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof:" and Eph. iv. 24, "Put ye on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." I ask then, is it not the affirmation of Paul, that "as many" as had been baptized in the congregation he was addressing had professed to be "new creatures in Christ Jesus?" In the verse preceding he affirms that they were "all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus."-Can any podobaptist minister address his congregation thus? Can he say, "As many of us as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ?" On the contrary, except in a very few instances, the members of podobaptist churches have never " put on Christ" in baptism. Could we believe, what the more corrupt churches tell us, that Christ was put on their members in their infant baptism, it still would not be their act of putting on Christ, which is the act Christ requires of every believer. But few who will read this book believe that monstrous and soul-deceiving error of baptismal regeneration. Evangelical podobaptists do not profess either that their members have put on Christ, or that Christ has been put on them in baptism; and to any mind, that can free itself from the shackles of prejudice sufficiently to let common sense have free course," it will be apparent, that any person who has not "put on Christ" in baptism has not been baptized at all. Oh! that the scales might fall from

IV.

CHAP. every eye, and the lamentable fact that so many sincere Christians remain without Christian baptism might no longer stain the page of ecclesiastical history! If these brethren, beloved in the Lord, were denied baptism, how cruel would they deem it! Is the cruelty the less because it is inflicted by themselves?

One baptism. Ephes. iv. 5.

The assertion of the apostle in his epistle to the Ephesian church, that as there is "one Lord, one faith," so there is "one baptism," bolts the door on error after it has been closed. It is matter of astonishment and devout grief, that with this passage viewed in connection with the foregoing, any Christian should still remain in error. If there is "one baptism," which consists in "putting on Christ;" then that which claims to be baptism, and yet does not include a putting on Christ, must clearly, if it is baptism at all, be another kind of baptism, essentially different from the former. But however in the Jewish ritual there might be "divers baptisms"-divers immersions of pots, beds, men, and women; the Christian dispensation there is but "one immersion," that of "a profession of repentance towards God and faith in Jesus Christ." Let me ask, what is necessary to constitute oneness? In one case baptism is requested by the candidate- in the other he neither knows nor cares any thing about it; in the one the subject is active,

in

going down into the water"—in the other passive, carried to the font; in the one the baptized makes a solemn renunciation of sin and avowal of faith in Christ-in the other he neither avows or disavows any thing; in the one the candidate "comes up out of the water," and "goes on his way rejoicing"-in the other he is borne away utterly unconscious of what has been doing. Is this identity? Is this "one faith, one baptism?" No;

clearly two baptisms-one with faith, the other without CHAP. faith.a

IV.

the dead.

The phrase," baptized for the dead," has been the Baptism for subject of much controversy among commentators. Dr. 1 Cor. xv.29. Doddridge, the soundness of whose judgment is ordinarily equal to the extent of his research, prefers" in the room of the dead." Macknight thus paraphrases the passage; "What shall they do who are immersed in sufferings for testifying the resurrection of the dead, if the dead rise not at all?" He adds in a note, "baptism being an emblematical representation of the death, burial, and resurrection, not only of Christ, but of all mankind, it was fitly made the rite of initiation into the Christian church; and the person who received it, thereby publicly professing his belief of the resurrection of Christ and of the dead, might with the greatest propriety be said to have been baptized for the dead; that is, for his belief of the resurrection of the dead." Candid, indeed, for a podobaptist! May we not be allowed to differ from Calvin. Has not the "alteration" of baptism lost the "substance" as well as the "form?" Are infants baptized for their belief in the resurrection of the dead?

a good con

The sentiment of the passage in the epistles relating Answer of to baptism is in perfect unison with all that have pre-science. ceded. Peter reminds the Christians to whom he was writing, that baptism was eminently instrumental in our salvation, ("not the putting away the flesh of the flesh, 1 Pet. iii. 21 but the answer-eperotema, profession-of a good con- sμ. science towards God,") being a lively emblem of the

Let it ever be remembered that all our podobaptist friends admit immersion on profession of faith to be baptism. Can any man, contemplating this point with candour, bring himself to believe that the sprinkling an unconscious babe is one and the same baptism with the former.

IV.

CHAP. resurrection of Jesus Christ, on which great fact our salvation is entirely dependent. Here most clearly the mode is immersion, and the subject a true believer. Immersion, because the sprinkling a few drops of water could not have effectuated a literal cleansing of the flesh; as it is here implied that baptism did; immersion, because associated with the deluge (true it rained, but yet all will admit that the world was immersed beneath the flood that covered the highest hills ;)—immersion, because the emersion or resurrection of Christ is referred to. The subject of baptism is a believer, because it is the testimony of a good conscience; the conscience certainly of the person baptized. Dr. Doddridge observes, in his note on this passage," a courageous readiness in the performance of duty, and even in suffering persecution for the sake of truth, was absolutely necessary in order to maintain that good conscience, to which, in their baptism, they professed so much regard, and to the exercise of which they so solemnly engaged themselves." If podobaptists desire to have that testimony of a good conscience to which Peter refers, they must, according to the statement of their own eminent divine, make “in their baptism" those "solemn professions" of which he speaks.b

Review of

the investigation.

Our examination of the inspired writings, so far as they in truth refer to the subject of baptism, is now brought to a close. Has either the immersion or

If the inquirer after truth on the subject of baptism will bear it in mind, he cannot fail, in reading Luther, Calvin, Baxter, Doddridge, Wesley, Clarke, and others, to perceive the frequent selfcontradictions which abound in their writings, arising from their speaking of two baptisms essentially different from each other, as though they were one and the same. For an instance, see the extracts from Calvin, in chap. v. sect. i.

IV.

sprinkling of babes, been directed, recorded, or even CHAP. alluded to? The Acts are as clear of the fact, as the gospels of the command; and the epistles are as free from all suspicion of referring to the baptism of infants as a parental duty, as they are from enjoining it upon the babes themselves. Why should our esteemed friends be "wise above what is written?" Is not the grand principle, the foundation of true religion, "the Scriptures, and the Scriptures alone, the religion of protesttants," greatly endamaged by adopting as an institution of the church, a rite which, in the opinion of the most learned and most pious of their own denominations, has neither the command of Christ, nor the practice of his apostles to sustain it. It is not only devoutly to be wished, but reasonably to be anticipated, that the mists which have beclouded the minds of thousands, will rapidly clear away. That I may leave nothing unattempted which has so happy a tendency, I shall notice in the succeeding chapter some portions of Scripture which have been, erroneously, presumed to relate to the subject under consideration.

e "No article of worship, discipline, government or opinion, which, however well attested, as belonging even to the apostolic churches of the first century, if no where alluded to, or enjoined, in the inspired scriptures, can be binding upon the church in after-times; for we adhere to the belief, and on this very ground renounce Romanism, that, whatever our Lord intended to be of permanent observance in his church, he has caused to be included in the canonical writings; for we may religiously believe that all points, at once of great moment, and of universal application, are so affirmed in scripture as to carry the convictions of every humble and docile mind."—Ancient Christianity, &c. by Isaac Taylor, p. 87.