Apostles for admitting the Gentiles to the privileges of the Gospel in their uncircumcised state, and how, under this supposed privation, they denied the possibility of their being saved. And now I demand, Is it credible, that they who could thus argue and thus resolutely contend in favour of continuing a mere external ceremony; Is it credible, that they should entirely overlook the circumstance of their children being denied an entrance into the Christian Church by any ceremony whatever, which must have been the case, if infant baptism did not supply the place of circumcision?

Surely, Brethren, it is not natural; it corresponds not with the tender and affectionate feelings of parents towards their offspring; it militates extremely with the well known history of a remarkably rebellious and gainsaying people. I should much sooner have expected to witness, throughout their intercourse with the Apostles, the loudest murmurs and complaints against the new order of things. In some such language as this, they would have been very apt to denounce them and all their adherents; You pretend to meliorate our condition, and to take away a yoke, which you tell us neither we nor our fathers were able to bear: Why then this dreadful outrage upon our natural sympathies? Why do you give us a Chureh, which is to deprive us of our beloved children; which refuses to embrace them in its sheltering arms; which would rend asunder the ties so long and so happily preserved in our own inestimable Zion? It is no good thing that we hear of you; we cannot away with it; we reject it with the utmost scorn and indignation; we are free to declare unto you, that we greatly prefer our native altars; where our children are, there we will be; we will live and we will die with them.

Yes, Brethren, something of this kind I should certainly have expected from Jewish auditors, especially when the new doctrine, excluding infants from the Church, was first broached, and before they could have become familiarized and reconciled to it, by the persuasive arguments of inspired men. And yet, not one syllable of the kind was ever advanced. The opposers of the Gospel, who bitterly inveighed against our Saviour for permitting his disciples to pluck a few ears of corn upon the sabbath day; who reviled him for healing the sick at this season of sacred rest, never once thought of objecting to the Church planted by his Apostles, in consequence of this alleged innovation. Even they, who joined it, and were so de:

sirous of incorporating with it their favourite circumcision, never protested against so extraordinary a departure from the old paths. Their children are not so much as alluded to; their pretended disability does not extract so much as one tear from parental eyes, nor one exclamation of surprise or remonstrance from parental lips. About little things they were loud and vehement in their opposition; but about this so infinitely exceeding them in interest and importance, so deeply calculated to wound the tenderest sensibilities of their hearts, about this they were silent and unconcerned as the dead in their graves: Not only fathers, but mothers. "In Rama, was there" no "voice heard,” no "lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and" refusing to "be comforted, because they" were exiled from the pale of the new Jerusalem.

Wonderful silence! Admirable stoicism! How are we to account for their existence? How are we to reconcile such glaring inconsistency? Simply by endeavouring to remove the veil from the eyes of the blind, and confidently asserting that there was no cause for excitement, no room for animadversion, no disfranchising decree pronounced against the children of Christians. Into the bosom of the Church, they could be admitted by baptism, as their predecessors had been previously admitted by circumcision. Had it been otherwise, all Judea would have been inflamed with resentment, the holy Land would have glowed with indignation. But the unbroken silence of scribes and pharisees, of hypocrites and sinners, of believers and unbelievers, of Apostles and disciples; this very silence furnishes a testimony in behalf of infant baptism, which the collected wisdom and ingenuity of its adversaries can never

overturn.

With this negative, though conclusive evidence, the records of antiquity uniformly agree. Not one primitive writer denies the usage to be of Apostolick origin. Whoever traces it up to its source gives to it the sanction of this inspired authority. Justin Martyr of the second century, the celebrated author of An Apology for the Christians, speaking of certain believers, observes, "a part of these were sixty or seventy years old, who were made disciples to Christ from their infancy;" and I know of no other process but baptism, by which infants could have been made disciples.

Irenæus, a contemporary already mentioned, asserts, that "Christ

came to save all persons, who by him are born again unto God: In-' fants and little ones, and children, and youths, and elder persons;" and as our baptist friends will not contend that they were born again through faith in Jesus, how can they reconcile with their opinions his acknowledged application of this phrase to "infants and little

ones."

Origen, of the third century, is still more direct; "Infants are baptized for the remission of sins." He also assures us, that "the Church hath received the tradition from the Apostles, that baptism ought to be administered to infants."

Cyprian, after the lapse of one hundred and fifty years from the death of the Apostles, with "sixty six bishops" sitting in council at Carthage, decided, that "the Church had allowed of it, yea that children had better right to baptism than elder persons."

The pious and learned Augustin, of the fourth and fifth centuries, declares, “The whole Church practises infant baptism; it was not instituted by councils, but was always in use;" and again, "this the Church has always maintained."

Testimony of the same character might be easily multiplied to an indefinite extent; but these extracts are sufficient; they are corroborated by the practice of the Syrian Church discovered by Buchanan, and must prove eminently satisfactory, if you reflect, that these holy fathers had no slight foundation in the scriptures to justify both the decisive language they employed, and that celebration of infant baptism, which they maintained, and of whose existence in their own times, they at least are credible witnesses. For when our Saviour says, "Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of God:" Why should we obstruct the only visible avenue to the arms, which once encircled and blessed them, and thus refuse them that baptism, by which alone, they can be united to his mystical body, the Church? When he affirms, "Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein:" Why should we contravene his word, and insist that men and women are alone capable of that reception? When he declares, "Whoso shall offend one of these little ones which BELIEVE in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea:" Why should we proclaim them void of the only faith, which our Saviour could have contemplated, the faith of

. believing friends and relatives bringing them in pious charity to his holy baptism?

The truth is, that our divine Lord perpetually makes our own admission, into his glorious Church and kingdom, to depend very materially upon our growing resemblance to the innocence and simplicity of the infant mind. And I must confess to you, that my understanding is not sufficiently acute to perceive the propriety of that opposite doctrine and practice, which require of children, that they must lose their state of negative innocence, that they must grow up into men and women, and become like them, by being defiled with the many pollutions of sin, so as to be able to repent and turn to God with works meet for repentance; which require all this of children, before they can enjoy through baptism the privileges and benefits of a Church, of which Christ evidently considers them the fittest and the purest members. My understanding is not sufficiently acute for this, and therefore, Brethren, instead of insisting, that your infants shall become as you are, before I can consent to minister unto them the sacrament of baptism, I prefer, after the manner of the faithful and true Witness, to exhort those of you, who remain unbaptized, to resemble them ere you venture to seek this instituted mode of admission into the visible kingdom of God.

On the whole, it would appear, that our adherence to the doctrine of infant baptism furnishes a no more valid plea for a separate Church and communion, than does the manner in which the rite itself is celebrated. The bias, springing from early and deep rooted prejudice, may not indeed permit each individual among us to perceive the force and strength of the arguments submitted; but even when they are partially obscured by this, or some other congenial cause, it is of no trifling consequence to connect with the whole subject the claims, which we maintain from having in our possession the authorized ministry of the great Shepherd and Bishop of our Souls.

I remember, that this gracious Being once demanded; "Whether is greater the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift?" And hence, a similar question strikes me, as extremely apt and cogent; Whether is greater, baptism, or the Church and ministry, which through Christ sanctify baptism? I think it extremely apt and cogent, because the correctness of the similitude and of the parts, of which it is composed, cannot be reasonably denied. Of the only fair and

true solution, I leave you to judge, merely remarking, that the thing conferred can never be greater than the authority by which it is conferred. Where then is that authority? To whom has our Saviour Christ, by his Apostles, so clearly committed the ministry of reconciliation, as to promise, that he will be with them; that he will acknowledge all their acts, and sanctify them to the soul's health of such, as rightly receive them? I reply, to the legally ordained ministers of his own Church, and not to those, who venture to administer the sacraments, and preach the word in Churches, that were never heard of prior to the era of the reformation: who contest the mode and the subjects of baptism, without previously vindicating their authority to baptize, in any mode whatever.

And may Almighty God, of his infinite mercy, give you wisdom to discern, and grace to follow and obey from the heart, that form of doctrine, which has been delivered you. May it prove unto you, not only profitable for doctrine; but for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that ye may be perfect, that ye may be thoroughly furnished unto all good works. And to him, the Father, to the Son and Holy Ghost, three persons and one God, in the Unity of an ever blessed Trinity, shall be ascribed all the honour, and glory, and dominion, and praise, world without end. ΑΜΕΝ.

SERMON IX.

ISAIAH lxii. 1.

For Zion's sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth.

YOU are aware, Brethren, that the defence of the Church, in which I am now engaged, is founded upon her close adherence to divine institutions. Usages indifferent in themselves have not been brought forward in a prominent manner. They must be debated