of Christians imitating the Jews in the point of baptism, says, "He can see no argument for infant baptism so forcible as this, taken from the practice of baptizing Jewish proselytes;" and adds " Nor does Mr. Wall seem to me to rely on any other without this." I guess he had wrote but this (for that his argument required); but seeing that would be too palpable, he altered it for without this. If a man use twenty arguments, none of the nineteen are without the twentieth.

The 4th, 5th, and 6th pages are spent in shewing the sufficiency of the proofs given by me and others of that custom of the Jews to baptize proselytes and their infants. "There being (he says) so many testimonies of the Jewish writers who affirm the fact, and the nature of the fact being to be open and visible, he takes the proof to be of very great force, and not to be slighted by such as cannot say half a quarter so much, indeed can say nothing at all, for proof of the negative. That the Jews saying to John the Baptist Why dost thou baptize? meaning thou who hast no authority, shews that they well understood the nature of baptism, but questioned his authority. That no writer denies this custom while so many affirm it; nor any of them who affirm it, do ever deny that it extends to infants. That all this taken together, ties the argument so hard that the Antipædobaptists cannot solve it. That Sir Norton Knatchbull's exception against it is of no force. That though the books that speak of it be written since Christ's time, yet inasmuch as they shew it to be the custom of their time, and speak of it as a thing that had always been the custom of their ancestors, he cannot think that, if it had not been really before Christ's time, it would ever have become a custom among the Jews afterward; for (says he) would they begin to proselyte persons to their religion by baptism, in imitation of Jesus of Nazareth, whom they held accursed? They would never so far own him as to bring in a new institution in conformity to his command," &c.

Now all this I would have him dispute with Mr. Gale; for though I think his reasons here are conclud

ing, yet I must be no judge of my own arguments; and besides, had rather no use at all should be made of them than that ill one which he makes. But I will say as St. Austin did of two opponents which attacked him on two contrary sides: "Let each of them yield to the other so much as there is of truth in that other's ment, and they will both come to confess the whole truth."

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The use that he makes is, that these arguments from the Jewish baptism do as strongly conclude that none of the posterity of Christians are bound by Christ's commission to be baptized, as they do that new converts, and the infants which they bring with them, are to be baptized; and so both Pædobaptists and Antipædobaptists will, he says, be silenced at one blow; and, as he expresses it a little after, must yield the cause to the Socinians: a perfect Goliath this.

He sets forth our argument thus: Our Lord Jesus left his apostles to apply baptism to all the same subjects as the Jews were wont to do; and therefore to infants as well as others: and his own thus: By the same reason, the Christian baptism was to have no other subjects than the Jewish baptism had, viz. none of the offspring of believers (born in the Church, as he calls it.)

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Whereas he should have laid down his general position thus: Our Lord left his apostles to apply baptism as the Jews were wont to do, except where he gave own particular directions; but that he did in several things he altered the form, making it to be In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; and the extent of it, ordering it to be the religion of all nations and, among other things, that no person whatever should be exempted from the use of it, sav μὴ ris. Except any one have it, he cannot enter, &c. And whereas the Jews were apt to say within themselves, We have Abraham to our father; and so Nicodemus might dream (as our author does) of a sufficient purity by births. He adds the next words, That which is born of the flesh, is flesh; i. e. is in a corrupt and evil state till it be born again; which declaration of our Saviour concerning the state of our first birth, makes

the expression here used by our author and some others, Born in the Church, to be an improper speech. The Church is a society of persons born again: :-almost all divines express themselves so; and particularly they that by the kingdom of God in this text do understand the Church, or dispensation of the Messiah, are by our Saviour's express words tied down to that meaning; for, he says, they cannot enter into that without it. Born within the pale of the Church is an expression that has been used in a sense that may be allowed, viz. within the reach of the opportunities of receiving baptism and Christian instruction.

This determination of our Saviour alone, and especially if there be added to it the other reasons, as, that baptism is to us instead of circumcision, which was always given to the infants of natural Jews as well as of proselytes; and, that the ancient Christians, who must know the apostles' custom, baptized their own children, &c. is a sufficient warrant and injunction to us to recede from the example of the Jews in this particular.

The proofs which Mr. Emlin (p. 8) produces from Scripture for this notion, are but abuses of the texts he quotes. If the root be holy, so are the branches, Rom. xi. 16. Whence he concludes, The children of a holy parent do not need any such engrafting as baptism. St. Paul spoke those words concerning the nation of the Jews in his time; which he shewed to be not a people cast away of God (as some objected) for that some of them had received the faith and were baptized; and concerning the rest who were for the present blinded, and as branches broken off, there was hope they would not abide still in unbelief, but would be grafted in again; for which the gracious regard which God had promised he would always have to that nation for the sake of their fathers, would probably be effectual. To them the gospel and baptism into it were first tendered; and the grace of God, which most of them had rejected hitherto, did yet wait for their return; which St. Paul there speaks of as a thing to be expected, and on that account the Scripture gives them those favourable epi

thets and characters: the children of the promise; holy branches of the tree; beloved for their father's sake, though at present shewing themselves enemies. The whole scope of the places shews that the apostle speaks these things concerning the aptitude they stood in to receive the benefits of the gospel; not that they had as yet received them, nor ever would, except they did repent and were baptized. He calls them holy, because there was ground of hope that they would come in and be baptized; not that they had already and by birth an holiness that would save them without baptism.

If Mr. Emlin will compare the state of a Christian man's child with this state of the Jews, there is, indeed, a like aptitude and likelihood of his being received into Christ's Church; but there is in it no argument against, but rather an argument for the baptizing of the child; for those Jews, of whom St. Paul does so prognosticate good things, were to be baptized before they obtained

them.

On the other text (1 Cor. vii. 14) Now are your children holy; or, your children now are saints; or Christians (from whence most moderns conclude they are to be baptized; and Mr. Emlin, that they need not be baptized at all) I have spoken so largely, both in the book he writes against, and in another (where I shew it to be a common interpretation of the antients, that St. Paul meant by those words, that they were then already baptized, and calls them, as he does other Christians, saints) that I shall not repeat it here; only, whereas Mr. Emlin here makes one objection against that exposition, I shall give my answer to it. I (after the antients which I here cite) take St. Paul's discourse to run thus: Let not the Christian man or wife put away, or go from, his or her partner that is as yet an unbeliever (provided the unbelieving party be willing to cohabit) but stay, in hopes of converting (and, as he styles it, saving) him or her; for this effect does by the grace of God commonly follow, that the unbelieving party has been sanctified (i. e. converted, made a Christian, brought to baptisin) by the believing party. Else (if the

unbelieving party were not ordinarily converted, or if he or she did go away with the children) the children would be unclean (brought up in Heathenism (which the Scripture commonly calls an unclean state) and without baptism (which the Scripture commonly calls a sanctifying of the person); but now (by the cohabitation of the parents, and the unbelieving party being converted) they are saints, i. e. made Christians by baptism.

Here Mr. Emlin says "It is no good consequence which I make the apostle to draw; nor would it follow, that if the husband do not prevail upon his wife to be converted and baptized, the children would be left unbaptized, because, though only the father were a be liever, the child might be brought to baptism.".

It is true it might possibly be so; but it was much more probable if the other parent also were converted. Now the apostle docs often advise some good thing to be done, in order to obtain a good effect, which will much more probably follow, if his advice be followed, than it will if it be not; though it might possibly have followed without it.

P. 9, He interprets a sentence of Tertullian one way which I had interpreted another way. There is no end of reciting his and mine. A reader of tolerable skill and exercise in reading a Latin author, will easily decide the

matter.

Another argument against the baptizing the children of Christians, either infant or adult, he ventures to fetch from the practice of the primitive Christians, which surely will be found against him.

He observes, first, "That in the Acts of the Apostles we find not one instance of the baptizing any, either infants or adult, that had been born of Christian parents; though that history do run through a series of near thirty years; in which time many must have been born to them, and grown up to maturity."

I had (part 2, chap. x.) shewn how weak an argument this makes when it is urged for Antipædobaptism and it is no less weak when urged for this Anti