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When they tell us we cannot find the word "infant" in connection with baptism in the Scriptures, and therefore have no "Thus saith the Lord" for it-"no Scripture precedent"--I answer, They cannot find the words boy, girl, old man, young man, yet they occasionally baptize some of each. This is very much like a man rejecting the doctrine of the Trinity, because he does not find the word Trinity in the Scriptures.

I shall produce one more evidence from the Scriptures, 1 Cor. vii, 14: "For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife," &c., " else were your children unclean; but now are they holy." Mr. B. has given, Sermon, pp. 12, 13, a caricature of the argument of Pedobaptists on this passage. He says, "Some of them contend that infants ought to be baptized, because they are pure, and others contend that they need it because they are impure" and then gravely says, "but I cannot see the force of the argument." What argument? If he had taken as much pains to present the Pedobaptist view of the passage as he has to give the fanciful and far-fetched exposition of the Rev. Mr. Dagg, the reader might have had some idea of the argument for infant baptism drawn from the passage.

In many places in the Scriptures (Exod. xix, 6; Lev. x, 10; 1 Chron. xxii, 19; 2 Chron. xxiii, 6; Ezek. xxii, 26; Luke ii, 23; Acts x, 28, and xi, 8, 9; Heb. ix, 13) the word "holy" is applied to things or persons, separated from

common, and devoted to religious uses; separated from the world and devoted to God: and is often applied to the visible church, under different dispensations. Hence the Jews are called a "holy people ;" and Peter calls the Christian church" a holy nation." They were so, professionally, being "separated from the world to God;" although each individual member was not "intrinsically holy.”

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While our opponents say that the word holy," as applied to the children in the text, signifies that they were "legitimate" children, they do not pretend to furnish a single text from the Scriptures where the word has that sense; while they expect us to take their interpretation without proof, the good Mr. Baxter has shown, (Baxter's Inf. Ch. Membership,) that in near six hundred places in the Bible, the word has the sense which I have given it above, i. e., "a separation to God." This evidence, I should think, must be decisive with all who do not interpret Scripture by a creed, but are content to take their creed out of the Scriptures. If, then, the children of Christians are "holy," i. e., "separated to God," are they separated to God in the church, or out of it? If it is replied, They are separated to him in the church; then they must be church members, and that is what we wish to prove; if, on the other hand, it be replied, They are "separated to God" in the world; then truly they present an anomalous case, they are truly "peculiar." They do not belong to the church, they do not belong to the

world. "The church is in Christ;"_" the world lieth in the wicked one," but those hapless children are in neither; they neither belong to God nor the devil!

If they are not "unclean" but "holy," the apostle clearly establishes, or asserts, a distinction between the children of heathens, who were unclean, and devoted to heathen gods, and the children of professing Christians, which were separated and devoted to God. "The unbelieving husband (being one flesh with the believing wife) is sanctified by the wife," and vice versa; so that the children are not "unclean," or left in a heathen state, but "separated to God" with the believing parent. I am supported in this opinion by the learned Whitby. His language is" And though one of the parents be still a heathen, yet is the denomination to be taken from the better, and so their offspring are to be esteemed, not as heathens, i. e., unclean, but holy, as all Christians by denomination are." See Whitby on the place. Clemens Alexandrinus held the same view of this passage. Hence, then," says Whitby, "the argument for infant baptism runs thus: If the holy seed among the Jews was therefore to be circumcised, and be made federally holy, by receiving the sign of the covenant, and being admitted into the number of God's 'holy people,' because they were born in sanctity, or were seminally holy; for the root being holy, so are the branches also; then, by like reason, the holy seed of Christians ought to be admitted

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to baptism, and receive the sign of the Christian Covenant."

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What merit "Mr. Dagg's Exposition" may possess as a whole, I am unprepared to say, but the specimen Mr. B. has given of it surely does not present it in a very favourable light. Hear him: "If a believing husband must leave his wife because she is an unbeliever, for the same reason your offspring must be cast off; for they would, upon the principle herein involved, be as unclean, on account of unbelief, to the believing parents, as an unbelieving husband or wife would be to the other who is a believer." But perhaps Mr. B. may bring a Lexicon to prove that the term translated "children" means "posterity." Certainly it does, and so includes the youngest infants. Now, although Mr. D. and Mr. B. both talk about infants or children "being in unbelief," one says, they are "unclean on account of unbelief," the other says, "infants are baptized in unbelief." I should like those gentlemen to furnish one single text of Scripture where either children or infants have unbelief attributed to them, or are said to be "in unbelief." There is a manifest discrepancy, not to say a flat contradiction, in the language used by Mr. B. in his Strictures, p. 10, and in his Sermon, pp. 7 and 26. When reasoning, in the Strictures, on the salvation of infants, he says, "The gospel cannot condemn them, because they cannot be guilty of the sin of unbelief." In his sermon, when he wants to exclude them from the rite of baptism, he says, "I will engage

to prove, my hearers, that the commission actually excludes all unbelievers, whether unconscious infants or unbelieving adults." Again he says, "Thousands of believers omit it, (i. e., baptism,) because they were baptized while in unbelief!!" I think this needs a salvo; there is, at least, α glorious uncertainty" about it.

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We have seen, from the evidence produced above, that the children of those Corinthians were not "unclean," but "holy;" and as no instance can be given of a person being called holy who was not a member of the visible church of God, the inference is undeniable that holy infants belonged to the visible church of Christ.

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Having thus established their membership, I shall take their baptism for granted, till our Baptist brethren admit people into their churches without the ordinance."-D. Isaac, p. 164.

Mr. B. asks a question on this point, which I must say a word in reply to. "Was baptism designed for the benefit of holy beings? The commission in that case ought to be read, Go ye, &c., and baptize all you find who are holy. Upon that plan, all adults would be excluded, seeing all adults are sinners." He says, Sermon, p. 23, "Baptism brings us, after regeneration, into the visible kingdom of Jesus Christ." Are they "regenerated," and yet sinners—“ buried with Christ in baptism," and yet sinners—" crucified with Christ, that the body of sin might be destroyed," and yet sinners? The apostle says, "their children were holy;" and take Mr. B.'s

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