4. The baptized were admitted at once to the Lord's table. The words, believers, Toroi, fideles, are commonly used in the ancient liturgies to distinguish those that were baptized and allowed to partake of the holy mysteries from the catechumens. (i. 23.) "Believers were called rλo, the perfect, because they were consummate Christians, who had a right to participate in the holy Eucharist." (i. 26.) "As soon as the ceremonies of baptism were finished, men were admitted to a participation of the Eucharist; for this was rò rλov, the perfection or consummation of a Christian, to which he was entitled by virtue of his baptism. Therefore all the ancient writers speak of this as the concluding privilege of baptism, which in those days was always immediately subjoined to it." (iii. 332.) "In reference to its making men complete members of Christ's body, it (baptism) had the name of resíwors, consummation, because it gave men the perfection of Christians, and a right to partake of the rarov, the Lord's Supper." (i. 123.) "A class of penitents only excepted, all other baptized persons were not only permitted, but by the rules of the church obliged to communicate in the Eucharist under pain of ecclesiastical censure." -Bingham, v. 297.

CHAPTER III.

INFANT-BAPTISM.

SECTION I.-General Considerations to show the Unlawfulness of Infant-Baptism.

WE have seen that baptism is a solemn profession of repentance, faith, and devotedness, which no one but a believer can honestly make, and which therefore ought to be administered to no one without a credible profession of faith. As, then, infants are incapable of such profession, they ought not to be baptized without express authority from Christ, which cannot be adduced, or plain apostolic precedents, which are not to be found.

Since Christ has made baptism to be a voluntary act, what right have his ministers to substitute for it what is perfectly involuntary? No baptized infant has been baptized by his own consent, no person baptized in infancy has ever in his own person honoured Christ's ordinance; but conformity was forced upon him when he was as unconscious as a stone. Can this be right? Since Christ has required baptism as a profession of faith in him, how can his ministers lawfully administer it to those who

can make no profession, and thus, with respect to them, completely alter the whole character of his ordinance? Since he has made repentance and faith necessary to baptism, what right can they have to set his commands aside by baptizing those who have neither repented nor believed? And since he has ordained that saints and faithful brethren should be introduced to fellowship with saints and faithful brethren by this ordinance, how can it be proper that churches should by it receive into their society unregenerate and unconscious infants instead?

Infant-baptism differs essentially from the baptism of believers. The believer is active in his reception of baptism, but the infant is passive; the believer asks for it as a privilege, the infant receives it without its consent; the one by it professes his faith, the other professes nothing. The baptism of the believer and the baptism of the infant are therefore two different baptisms, with different significations and different consequences; and both, therefore, to be lawful, must have a separate warrant from the Lord. Since they are quite different institutions, the precept which enjoins the one rather by inference forbids the other. Since Christ has commanded a baptismal profession, no man may without his authority hinder that baptismal profession by substituting a parental act for the act of the person himself. Since baptismal dedication in infancy sets aside, with reference to all such infants, baptismal profession in after life, the one must not be lightly substituted for the other, lest a human invention be found to subvert a divine

ordinance. The commands of Christ to each penitent believer are plain, "Repent, and be baptized;" "Arise, and wash away thy sins;" "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved." But where is the authority for the baptismal dedication of the infant without profession? In vain do we look through the whole New Testament for a line, for a word, in its favour.

But why, it has been asked, do you not equally insist on express authority for administering the Lord's Supper to women? Men are expressly commanded to receive it, but where is the express command for women? I answer, that there is express authority for their reception of it. Women who believe in Christ are by that faith disciples of Christ, and children of God, as much as believing men, Gal. iii. 26-28; Acts, v. 14. When baptized, they are baptized into the church of Christ, Acts, viii. 3. They are, therefore, members of churches as well as men, and are so addressed, Rom. xvi. 1, &c. &c. They were, therefore, members of the church at Corinth, 1 Cor. xiv. 34. But all this church is said. by the Apostle to have assembled to receive the Lord's Supper, women as well as men, 1 Cor. i. 2; xi. 18, 20, 26. And as this habit was recognised by the Apostle, and not condemned, it had his sanction: see also Acts, ii. 38-42. Besides, if there had been no express authority for the admission of women to the Lord's table, there would have been no similarity between the cases. For in Christ Jesus "there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor

free, there is neither male nor female," Gal. iii. 28. A believing woman before God is exactly as a believing man; and, therefore, the reception of the Lord's Supper by a woman is exactly the same spiritual act as the reception of it by a man: and since "there is neither male nor female in Christ Jesus," a command given to disciples generally is given to women as well as men; and when Jesus said to his disciples respecting the cup, "Drink you all of it," he said it to women as well as men.

What a shallow fallacy likewise it is to argue that because the same spiritual act may be performed by two classes of believers, of which one alone has been named in the precept, that therefore two opposite acts may be performed by these two classes! When one believer receives the Lord's Supper, it is the same act as when another receives it; and we may infer the duty of the one from the duty of the other. But when an unconscious infant has baptism forced upon it, and, being yet unregenerate, receives the sign of regeneration, its baptism is a rite totally different from the baptism of a believer, who, as regenerate, voluntarily expresses by baptism his faith and his obedience. The duty, therefore, of one believer to baptize his infant cannot be inferred from the duty of another believer to be himself baptized; and the case which rests upon so forced an analogy must be weak indeed.

But if there is no analogy between the reception of the Lord's Supper by women who believe and the reception of baptism by unconscious infants, there is