into one body, whether Jews or Gentiles, and made to drink into one Spirit?" Could we say, of such a people, that having "been baptized into Christ, they have put on Christ!!" Who could, with any respect to truth, so regard, or represent them in virtue of their infant church membership!

Now if such be the condition of all Pedobaptist churches-assemblies of persons, the great majority of whom are "christened" babies and striplings, and "non-communicating" adults can we regard them in any other light than masses of carnality, differing only in some of the forms of a reflected civilization from those who are yet regarded in the light of unconverted pagans? Their sins and follies, their pride, avarice, and cupidity, are more genteel and fashionable, than the rough and uncourteous vices of the rude barbarian.

They occasionally display the vices of the Pagan world, but with more polished manners and more polished weapons than with the war-whoop, club, and tomahawk of the wild Indian and ferocious savage. But still the baby sprinkled duelist, the courteous land pirate, and the smiling, cheating, swindling trader, are alike prompted by the same spirit, and impelled by the same motives.

True, indeed, that in these communities there are pious and virtuous persons who are bewailing the apathy and indifference, or the positive and flagrant vices of some, nay, of many of their non-communicating brethren. But I am not speaking of the communicating class of the secular churches. These are but a very small portion of the church, and of that small portion there are not a few that give no clear indications of spiritual life. In a church of one hundred families, averaging five persons each, there are seldom more than one hundred communicants. But the four hundred so called baptized non-communicants, though, in virtue of their "infant baptism," as much members of the church as the others, give no symptom of a new heart or a new life. They are as dead in trespasses and sins, as the wild man of the woods.

Not long since, Italy and Spain, as well as Geneva, Scotland, and Holland, were almost all "christened," i. e. "sprinkled into the name of the Trinity," and constituted members of secular churches, both Romanist and Protestant. Of these, not more than one in five partook of the symbolic loaf, or tasted the mystic cup. But there remain, in all these, four-fifths of non-professing christened men and women. Almost all the crimes of every malignant hue are perpetrated by these non-communicating baptized infidels-members of Christ's mystic body, the church, baptized but not communicating

members. These always give character to the profession. If three or four in every five baptized persons are, to all intents and purposes, men of the world, whether polished or unpolished sinners, the community that has owned them by baptism, is morally chargeable with all their sins, and must bear the infamy and the guilt. There is no apology for them. They must excommunicate them, declare them unbaptized pagans, or sprinkled infidels, and never as constitutional subjects of an institution indicating a death unto sin, a burial with Christ, and a resurrection to a new life.

Enough, and perhaps more than enough, has been said to sustain our position and manifest our views of the paralizing and corrupting influence of this Pagan, or Papal, rite of infant sprinkling instead of Christian immersion, of a believing subject. Enough, and more than enough, to prove to every candid and unprejudiced mind that infant affusion is the chief cause of nominal Christianity, and the door that introduces the world, with all its lusts and passions, into a community claiming the high honor and holy relation of a church of Jesus Christ. Need I say that such a contaminating and wasting institution is not to be winked at as a matter of forbearance, but to be opposed as a desolating evil, sowing the church with all the seeds of vice, defection and open apostacy from its rightful law giver and king.

No one can easily exaggerate the deleterious influence of the doctrine of infant church membership. Its introduction was the dawn of that fatal apostacy predicted by the great Apostle to the nations. The man of sin was begotten and born before the last of the consecrated Twelve had entered into rest. But yet he remained a speechless babe till the close of the second century. It was not till then that any one presumed to introduce infants into a membership in the Christian church. Tertullian, the first of the Latin Fathers, resisted their admission to baptism. But he resisted in vain. First boys and then babes, with sponsors, began to be counted as the seed of the church. This was argued from the Jewish institution. They overlooked the great biblical fact that the Jewish covenant was intended to be, and was, in part, a worldly institution; a carnal commandment, or a "commandment concerning the flesh, imposed on them till the time of reformation" or reconstruction. Flesh, not spirit, was the essential and differential characteristic of that institution. The flesh, not the Spirit, nor the divinity of the Messiah, was in the body of Abraham. God insulated, as circumcision circumscribed, the family of the promised seed. But they had no sponsors. And without any will or individual responsibility

on the part of the circumcised, the children of Abraham were Covenantees. God himself the covenanter, so ordained till the seed promised should come. Hence his Harbinger proclaimed a new era, and charged his auditors not to presume on Abrahamic blood. "Think not," said he, to say in your hearts that "Abraham is your father." God is able to raise up out of stones a seed to Abraham. Thus spake Jehovah to David's son and David's Lord:-"A willing people, in the day of thy power, shall come to thee." But now, although Jesus Christ as Lord of all is on the throne and possessed of all power in heaven and earth, still there are those who will carry to Jesus in their arms those who, by reason of age, cannot come to him. They read the promise as if God had said an unwilling people shall be carried to thee when thou art invested with the government of the universe.

But the Jews had no sponsors. How, then, came the Christians, in the third century, to introduce them? No answer but one can be given. They know that Jesus said, "come to me," not carry to me. Individual responsibility was assumed and proclaimed from the days of John the Baptist to the close of the gospel and law of Christ. They felt the necessity of it, and on instituting infant baptism they introduced a sort of proxy responsibility.

The Latin sponsor was the term that indicated their ideas. A sponsor assumed to answer for the babes of the third century. He became responsible for the faith and training of the children of the flesh. On this principle infant immersion was introduced. So ancient history amply records. But we mention this for the great lesson which it imparts. The doctrine of personal responsibility, antecedent to sponsorship, was the doctrine of Christianity, and so soon as they began to depart from the primitive institutions they found it necessary still to have respect to the forms of the apostolic age. They, therefore, had some one both to profess for the babe and to become responsible for his Christian education and deportment.

This was a great and most deleterious innovation, not only as respected the change of the subject of immersion, for yet it was immersion, and immersion only-but in changing the doctrine of personal responsibility. For of all the doctrines, fundamental to moral excellency, that of individual, personal responsibility is of paramount importance. This corrupted, or denied, degrades man from the dignity of a free and voluntary agent, to that of a slave to the opinions and dictates of every demagogue who may chance to ingratiate himself into his confidence and affection.

The introduction of sponsor infant baptism tended directly to en

members. These always give character to the profession. If three or four in every five baptized persons are, to all intents and purposes, men of the world, whether polished or unpolished sinners, the community that has owned them by baptism, is morally chargeable with all their sins, and must bear the infamy and the guilt. There is no apology for them. They must excommunicate them, declare them unbaptized pagans, or sprinkled infidels, and never as constitutional subjects of an institution indicating a death unto sin, a burial with Christ, and a resurrection to a new life.

Enough, and perhaps more than enough, has been said to sustain our position and manifest our views of the paralizing and corrupting influence of this Pagan, or Papal, rite of infant sprinkling instead of Christian immersion, of a believing subject. Enough, and more than enough, to prove to every candid and unprejudiced mind that infant affusion is the chief cause of nominal Christianity, and the door that introduces the world, with all its lusts and passions, into a community claiming the high honor and holy relation of a church of Jesus Christ. Need I say that such a contaminating and wasting institution is not to be winked at as a matter of forbearance, but to be opposed as a desolating evil, sowing the church with all the seeds of vice, defection and open apostacy from its rightful law giver and king.

No one can easily exaggerate the deleterious influence of the doctrine of infant church membership. Its introduction was the dawn of that fatal apostacy predicted by the great Apostle to the nations. The man of sin was begotten and born before the last of the consecrated Twelve had entered into rest. But yet he remained a speechless babe till the close of the second century. It was not till then that any one presumed to introduce infants into a membership in the Christian church. Tertullian, the first of the Latin Fathers, resisted their admission to baptism. But he resisted in vain. First boys and then babes, with sponsors, began to be counted as the seed of the church. This was argued from the Jewish institution. They overlooked the great biblical fact that the Jewish covenant was intended to be, and was, in part, a worldly institution; a carnal commandment, or a "commandment concerning the flesh, imposed on them till the time of reformation" or reconstruction. Flesh, not spirit, was the essential and differential characteristic of that institution. The flesh, not the Spirit, nor the divinity of the Messiah, was in the body of Abraham. God insulated, as circumcision circumscribed, the family of the promised seed. But they had no sponsors. And without any will or individual responsibility

on the part of the circumcised, the children of Abraham were covenantees. God himself the covenanter, so ordained till the seed promised should come. Hence his Harbinger proclaimed a new era, and charged his auditors not to presume on Abrahamic blood. "Think not," said he, to say in your hearts that "Abraham is your father." God is able to raise up out of stones a seed to Abraham. Thus spake Jehovah to David's son and David's Lord:-"A willing people, in the day of thy power, shall come to thee." But now, although Jesus Christ as Lord of all is on the throne and possessed of all power in heaven and earth, still there are those who will carry to Jesus in their arms those who, by reason of age, cannot come to him. They read the promise as if God had said an unwilling people shall be carried to thee when thou art invested with the government of the universe.

But the Jews had no sponsors. How, then, came the Christians, in the third century, to introduce them? No answer but one can be given. They know that Jesus said, “come to me,” not carry to me. Individual responsibility was assumed and proclaimed from the days of John the Baptist to the close of the gospel and law of Christ. They felt the necessity of it, and on instituting infant baptism they introduced a sort of proxy responsibility.

The Latin sponsor was the term that indicated their ideas. A sponsor assumed to answer for the babes of the third century. He became responsible for the faith and training of the children of the flesh. On this principle infant immersion was introduced. So ancient history amply records. But we mention this for the great lesson which it imparts. The doctrine of personal responsibility, antecedent to sponsorship, was the doctrine of Christianity, and so soon as they began to depart from the primitive institutions they found it necessary still to have respect to the forms of the apostolic age. They, therefore, had some one both to profess for the babe and to become responsible for his Christian education and deportment.

This was a great and most deleterious innovation, not only as respected the change of the subject of immersion, for yet it was immersion, and immersion only—but in changing the doctrine of personal responsibility. For of all the doctrines, fundamental to moral excellency, that of individual, personal responsibility is of paramount importance. This corrupted, or denied, degrades man from the dignity of a free and voluntary agent, to that of a slave to the opinions and dictates of every demagogue who may chance to ingratiate himself into his confidence and affection.

The introduction of sponsor infant baptism tended directly to en