and themselves, in congregations that profane the Jewish sabbath, and hold the Sunday sabbath to be a positive divine institute. Now as all positive institutes proceed from the same legislator, and ought all to be treated with equal reverence, and as we tolerate irregularities in some of them without any danger to the general law of obedience to positive religion, what imaginable good reason can be produced for making an exception in the case of unbaptized believers ?

This kind of toleration is professedly treated of in the xivth chapter of Romans, and the inspired Apostle defends it on the principles which we have laid down. There is, he affirms, no moral turpitude in mental errors, and the toleration of them is perfectly consistent with the safety of the church, the purity of the faith, and the order of divine worship.

The believer who was baptized in his infancy, claims a right to church fellowship; the church judges he has not been baptized, but he judges he has been baptized in his infancy by sprinkling according to Christ's institution. Now this is his own case; it is a case of innocent irregularity in obeying a positive institute, and he ought to be allowed to judge for himself. Here the fort of those who refuse admission to such members, falls to the ground. They reason thus. All churches require persons to be baptized before they admit them to the Lord's supper; now we deny that infant sprinkling is bap

tism; we therefore require persons, who have been sprinkled in infancy, to be baptized by immersion. When people reason thus for themselves they reason rightly; but when they reason thus for another person they claim a right of judging for him, and consequently deny him that liberty of self-judging, which they themselves exercise under a law, which the common legislator ordained alike for both. We do not then plead for the admission of such a person because we think he hath been baptized, for in our opinion he hath not; but because he judges he has been baptized; and we have no authority to deprive him of the right of private judgment, but on the contrary we are expressly commanded to allow him the liberty of determining for himself.

If any reply, we allow his right of private judgment, and he may join a church of his own sentiments; we answer, that does not alter the case; you are required to allow the exercise of private judgment in your own community, not out of it, where your allowance and disallowance operate nothing.

Agreeably to this principle, when I have had the honour to assist in forming a christian church intending to hold mixed communion, I have first embodied the baptists, and they have afterwards admitted believers, who were satisfied with their infant baptism, on the footing of toleration. The whole christian church, in my opinion, was thus planted in this likeness of Christ's death, and at the same time the laws

of christian liberty and toleration were delivered to them to be made use of as the exigencies of the times should require.

We will conclude this head with two remarks. 1. When an unbaptized believer appears before the brethren at a church meeting, and, professing faith and repentance, requires admission into church fellowship, the true question before the church is not whether he have been baptized, but whether he may judge for himself. 2. No instance can be produced of any Apostle presuming to judge for any primitive christian, and making his opinion the ground of that christian's conduct. On the contrary, instances may be produced of an inspired Apostle's declaring himself of one opinion on positive institutes, and pleading for the liberty of christians to embrace another. I know; and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself; but to him that esteemeth any thing unclean, to him it is unclean. Let every man be persuaded in his own mind.

Thirdly; Let us attend to the law of baptism itself in its original institution. While we pay all due reverence to a divine institute, we ought not to make more of it than the instructer made; neither ought we to remove it from that place in which his wisdom set it. Baptism has been called an initiating ordinance, that is, an ordinance by which we enter into something. Let us remember this is not a scriptural definition of baptism, nor is it admissible except in a

qualified sense. It certainly was not an ordinance by which the first baptists entered into church fellowship; for into what church did the disciples of John enter by baptism? Was Jesus Christ admitted a member of a christian church by baptism? Or into what church did the Eunuch enter, when Philip alone baptized him in the desert. Believers indeed entered on a public profession of christianity in general by baptism, and that was all. If some were added to the church immediately after baptism, it may not be amiss to recollect, that it was immediately after a sermon too, and if this connexion of events afforded any argument for the nature and place of baptism, it might as well be applied to the nature and place of a sermon, and preaching might be denominated an initiating ordinance. The truth is, preaching produced conversion, * conversion baptism, baptism acquaintance and conversation with church members, and conversation church fellowship. When we receive and use an ordinance for all the ends for which it was instituted, we have done all that is required of us; but when we employ it to other ends, the least that can be said of us is, we are wise above what is written. Zeal may animate us; but even zeal, when it does not follow knowledge, will misguide us.

General and vague as this description of the law of baptism is, it is sufficient for all the ends, for which we produce it; however, it may serve to elucidate our meaning, if we be more explicit.

We affirm, then, that baptism is not a church ordinance, that it is not naturally, necessarily, and actually connected with church fellowship, and consequently that the doctrine of initiating into the christian church by baptism is a confused association of ideas, derived from masters whose disciples it is no honour to be.

Baptism, we allow, is a positive institute of the New Testament, and ought to be practised till the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ; but, that it is not a New Testament church ordinance is clear, for it was administered several years before the Jewish economy was dissolved, and consequently before there were any such congregated societies in the world as we call christian churches. When John the Baptist came first preaching and baptizing, Jesus, who afterward founded the christian church, lived a private life at Nazareth; he did not enter on his ministry till the death of John, and he did not dissolve the Jewish ecclesiastical state till his own death. People were baptized all this time on a general profession of faith in the Messiah, and repentance towards God. This notion of baptism was preserved after the resurrection of Christ, and after christian churches had been congregated by his order, as appears by the baptism of the Eunuch, who indeed made a profession of faith, but was not associated to any particular christian church.