SECTION V.

Objection to the foregoing arguments of the Quakers; namely, "If it be not the baptism of John, that is included in the great commission, how came the Apostles to baptize with water?"-Practice and opinion of Peter considered-also of Paul-also of Jesus Christ—This practice, as explained by these opinions, considered by the Quakers to turn out in favour of their own doctrines on this subject.

I HAVE now stated the arguments by which the members of this Society have been induced to believe that the baptism by the Spirit, and not the baptism by water, was included by Jesus Christ in the great commission, which he gave to his apostles, when he requested them "to go into all nations, and to teach them, baptizing in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."

Against these arguments the following question has been usually started as an objection: "If it be not included in the great commission, how came the Apostles to baptize? or, would they have baptized, if baptism had not been considered by them as a Christian ordinance?

The Quakers, in answering this objection, have confined themselves to the consideration of the conduct of the apostles Peter and Paul. For though Philip is said to have baptized also, yet he left no writings behind him, like the former; nor are so many circumstances recorded of him, by which

they may be enabled to judge of his character, or to know what his opinions ultimately were upon that subject.

The Quakers consider the Apostles as men of the like passions with ourselves. They find the ambition of James and John, the apostacy and dissimulation of Peter, the incredulity of Thomas, the dissension between Paul and Barnabas, and the jealousies which some of them entertained towards one another, recorded in Holy Writ. They believe them also to have been mostly men of limited information, and to have had their prejudices like other people. Hence it was not to be expected that they should come all at once into the knowledge of Christ's kingdom; that, educated in a religion of types and ceremonials, they should all at once abandon these; that, expecting a temporal Messiah, they should at once lay aside temporal views; and that they should come immediately into the full purity of the Gospel-practice.

With respect to the apostle Peter, he gave early signs of the dulness of his comprehension with respect to the nature of the character and kingdom of the Messiah ;*-for, when Jesus had given forth but a single parable, Peter was obliged to ask him the meaning of it. This occasioned Jesus to say, "Are ye also yet without understanding?"

In a short time afterwards, when our Saviour told him, that he himself must go into Jerusalem and suffer many things, and be killed, and be raised

*Matt. xv, 16.

+ Matt. xvi, 21, 22.

again the third day, Peter took him and rebuked him; saying, "Be it far from thee, Lord! This shall not be unto thee."

At a subsequent time, namely, just after the transfiguration of Christ, he seems to have known so little about spiritual things, that he expressed a wish to raise three earthly tabernacles; one to Moses, one to Elias, and a third to Jesus, for the retention of signs and shadows as a Gospel-labour, at the very time when Jesus Christ was opening the dismission of all but one, namely, "the tabernacle of God, that is with men."

Nor did he seem at a more remote period to have gained more large or spiritual ideas. He did not even know that the Gospel of Jesus Christ was to be universal. He considered it as limited to the Jews; though the words in the great commission, which he and the other apostles had heard, ordered them to teach all nations. He was unwilling to go and preach to Cornelius on this very account, merely because he was a Roman centurion; or, in other words, a Gentile; so that a vision was necessary to remove his scruples in this particular. It was not till after this vision, and his conversation with Cornelius, that his mind began to be opened; and then he exclaimed, "Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons; but in every nation, he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him."

The mind of Peter began now to be opened, and to see things in a clearer light; when a new occurthat took place nearly at the same time, seems

rence,

to have removed the film still more from his eyes: for, while he preached to Cornelius and the others present, he perceived that "the Holy Ghost fell upon all of them that heard his words, as on himself and the other apostles at the beginning." Then remembered Peter the words of the Lord, how that he said, "John indeed baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost:" that is, Peter finding that Cornelius and his friends had received, by means of his own powerful preaching, the Holy Ghost, perceived then for the first time, to his great surprise, that he had been executing the great commission of Jesus Christ; or that he had taught a Gentile, and baptized him with the Holy Spirit. Here it was that he first made the discrimination between the baptism of John and the baptism of Christ.

From this time, there is reason to think that his eyes became fully open; for in a few years afterwards, when we have an opportunity of viewing his conduct again, we find him an altered man, as to his knowledge of spiritual things. Being called upon, at the council at Jerusalem, to deliberate on the propriety of circumcision to Gentile converts, he maintains that God gives his Holy Spirit as well to the Gentiles as to the Jews. He maintains, again, that God purifies by Faith. And he delivers it as his opinion, that circumcision is to be looked upon as a yoke. And here it may be remarked, that circumcision and baptism uniformly went together, when proselytes of the covenant were made, or

when any of the heathens were desirous of conforming to the whole of the Jewish law.

At a time, again, subsequent to this, or when he wrote his Epistles, which were to go to the strangers all over Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, he discovers himself to be the same fullgrown man in spiritual things on the subject of baptism itself, in those remarkable words which have been quoted, "whose antitype, baptism, doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience towards God) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ;" so that the last opinion of Peter on the subject of water-baptism contradicted his practice when he was but in his noviciate in Christ's kingdom.

With respect to the apostle Paul, whose practice I am to consider next, it is said of him, as of St. Peter, that he baptized.

That Paul baptized is to be collected from his own writings. For it appears by his own account, that there had been divisions among the Corinthians. Of those, who had been converted to Christianity, some called themselves after the name of Cephas, others after the name of Apollos, others after the name of Paul; thus dividing themselves nominally into sects, according to the name of him, who had either baptized or converted them. St. Paul mentions these circumstances; by which it comes to light that he used water-baptism: and he regrets that the persons in question should have made such a bad use of this rite, as to call themselves after him who baptized them, instead of call