The errors, Sir, which you plead for, and I against, are three:

1. Sprinkling, or partial washing, is baptifm.

2. That manifest unbelievers are proper and gospel subjects of baptifm.

3. That baptifm is not neceffary to membership in the vifible church of Christ.

These three principles of yours are confidered to be errors, and at war with the gofpel of our Lord Jefus Chrift. You confider them to be a part of his gofpel. What you have in your Letters faid, directly or indirectly, in their favour, it will be a part of my business to refute. It also belongs to me to fhow the inconclusiveness of your supposed refutation of my arguments in favour of the three following truths.

1. Immersion, in the name of the Lord Jefus, or in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghoft, is the only gofpel baptifm.

2. No perfon hath a right to gospel baptifm, but upon his making a profeffion of gofpel faith.

3. No perfon is a member of Chrift's vifible church till he be baptized.

From these principles you draw fome popular objections against my fermons. In the fecond fentence of your fir Letter you fay, and you meant the world should hear it, "that I must now confider you as one of the antichristian world." In the 8th, 9th, and 10th pages you very much enlarge this of all objections the most popular. My readers, Sir, fhall have your objection fet before them in its full ftrength for if it be conclufive against my principles, let it deftroy them; but if it have no weight, let it be fet down for nothing. Your objection is in the following, words:

"Are you fure that you act under the divine approbation, whilft merely because I am not a baptized person, according to your notion of baptism, you place me without, where are dogs, and forcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolators, and whofoever loveth and maketh a lie? To these extremities you are driven, by the radical principle of your book, by holding that complete immerfion is the only Chriftian baptifm, and that baptifm is effential to a perfon's being a vifible member of Chrift's kingdom: and by this principle you fhut out thousands with whom, in regard to piety and Christian refpectability, probably you, certainly I, can claim no comparison. You enroll among the vifible enemies of God, Leighton, Flavel, Doddridge, Watts, Gardiner, the Edwardses, the. Brainerds,, and a multitude of eminently

holy men, whofe names it is impoffible you should recollectTM but with deep veneration."

Yes, Sir, I recollect their names with veneration, and their errors with regret. But what hath veneration or regret to do with principles?

I must here state three things:

1. That the manner in which you throw the objection before the public, has a very natural tendency to give an incautious reader a very unjust idea of the tendency of my principles.

2. That great men and great names can never change truth into a lie.

3. Your argument against the juftnefs of my principles is not fufficient to prove them wrong.

1. The manner in which you throw the objection before the public, has a very natural tendency to give an incautious reader a very unjust idea of the tendency of my principles. He would naturally enough conclude that I muft, if confiftent with myself, believe that no one except the Baptists has any religion; that I confider and treat all others as being impenitent and ungodly; yes, as being "profligate and unregenerate." A more unjust idea could not be communicated. Such an idea is not only inconfiftent with my principles, but they forbid any person's suggesting that such an idea could fairly be deduced from them. One of our principles is, that no perfon is a fit fubject of baptifm, unless he be a penitent, a godly, a regenerate perfon.

Belides, Sir, I am not fingular, in confidering men to be not of the visible church, but vifibly with the world, till they are baptized. This hath ever been the fentiment of the church. It was always mine, fince I had any fentiment on the subject.

I will put a cafe. Suppose there be a reformation at this prefent time at Worcester, where you refide. Suppose fifty perfons of the brightest talents be converted. Not one of them has been baptized, or even fo much as sprinkled. I providentially ride through the town next week. By chance I meet Mr. Austin in the street, and put this question,Have thofe very respectable characters, who have been of late hopefully converted, joined the church, (meaning the vifible church)? your reply would be ready, No, but fome of them have paffed examination, and give full fatisfaction, who with the rest will probably join in a fhort time. Indeed, Sir, you would have no idea of telling me that they belonged to the vifible church, unless you are contrary from all men whom

I have ever yet seen. It is an offence against the common fenfe of Chriftians of all denominations, who believe in gofpel ordinances, to advocate, that perfons belong to the visible church, and yet never baptized. Were your fide not hard preffed, you would never think of fuch an expedient to get out of difficulty.

This being the cafe, the Baptifts do but confider and treat you and your denomination, as you do the wifest and most pious among yourselves, till they be baptized. Hence, you can but fee that you condemn in us what you allow, and almoft univerfally practife among yourfelves. Happy, Sir, is he that condemneth not himself in that which he alloweth. 2. Great men and great names can never change truth into a lie.

Suppose our principles be fuch as to lead us to believe, that fome great and good men, who will not join the visible church, are not members of it. By the way, this is just what you believe yourfelves. Because we believe thus, do you with us to be reproached before all men, as being superstitiously different from all Chriftians and reafonable men? Befides, my dear Sir, what have great and venerable names to do in determining in your favour the truth or falfehood of a principle, when the faith and practice of the fame great and good men have always been in the face of your theory? Did you not introduce this whole affair, about excluding pious and venerable men from communion, in order to pre poffefs the feelings and paffions of your readers in your favour, before you ventured to try the ftrength of the gofpel principles, or those which you are pleased to term mine? If you did not, I fee but one other motive which you could have, that is, to make room for a retreat, and fave for yourself. a ftanding in the vifible church, though you might not be able to prove sprinkling or partial washing to be baptifm, or to refute my arguments for immersion.

3. Your argument against the juftnefs of my princples.is, not able to prove them wrong.

But

Your argument is, Great names and confeffors. great names have no authority to overturn principles which are founded on revelation. As to confeffors, you have none. Not one hath been called to fuffer in defence of your principles, and against mine. If none have suffered in defence of your principles, your hoft of confeffors are at most but great names. Hence, your whole argument is, if my principle be just, many great and good men have (through

neglect of duty, for want of light, inclination, or opportunity) never been members of the vitible kingdom or church of Chrift. Your argument I grant, but deny that it injures my principles. If your argument deftroy my principles, one of these two things is true;-either 1. That there never were any good men among any heathen nation, tribe, or language, where the vifible church of Chrift was unknown; or 2. That these good men belonged to Chrift's visible church, where there was none. To affert the firft would be prefumption; to advocate the laft would be abfurd: hence my principles as yet are out of danger.

Sir, you do not appear fully to comprehend the Baptift idea of church membership; it is therefore expedient to come to definitions.

1. None but vifible faints are to be baptized.

2. Every baptized perfon, so long as he manifefts himself to be a vifible faint, is a member of the visible church.

3. Every baptized perfon, who joins himself to a fociety of baptized believers, is a member of a particular visible church.

In your note, pages 12 and 13, you fee fit to contradict what appears to have been the general, if not the universal, fentiment of the church in all ages of Christianity, and the fentiment of the Bible too, as I expect to make manifest. This, your contradiction against the church of God, and against his word, confifts in your denying that baptism is the ordinance of introduction into the vifible church of Christ, or is necessary to a visible standing in it.

Your note in pages 18 and 19, was probably confidered by you, and will be by many of your readers, as containing a difficulty which I should not be able to get rid of handfomely. I will transcribe the passage in which the apparent and fuppofed difficulty is contained.

"Mr. Merrill (fay you) tells us, page 51, that John baptized none but such as brought forth visible fruits of repentance. These persons he was making ready for the Lord; when prepared, they were to compofe that kingdom, or the beginning of that kingdom, which shall never be destroyed. He adds, It appears to be this kingdom which was now at hand, almoft ready to be fet up, of which Christ spake to Nicodemus, when he faid, John iii. 5. Except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the king. dom of God.' But this is to concede, either that John's baptifm was not Christian baptism, but of an entirely differ ent mature, or that baptifm does not introduce into the king

dom, as a line of feparation, &c.; for after these multitudes were baptized, according to the reprefentation of Mr. Merrill, they were only made ready for the kingdom, which had not yet even a being. Here, then, he gives up his darling doctrine.”

As to this difficulty, in which you confider me now to be, let it be remarked,

1. That it puts me not to the leaft difficulty as to the principal point in debate, namely, That no perfon can be a member of Chrift's vifible church, till he be baptized; for thefe perfons were confeffedly of this defcription."

2. "It puts my darling doctrine," as you exprefs it, not to the leaft hazard, any more than the peculiar circumftances of the firft fetting up of Chrift's vifible kingdom would, and muft manifeftly have done, on fuppofition that my darling doctrine were perfectly true, and fo my fentiment correct. For, does not an examination by an authorized officer, and the enlisting of the examined perfon, constitute him a foldier? Yet the first person so enlisted cannot be faid to belong to the army; nor can he belong to it till numbers more are enlisted, and the army organized. At the fame time, thefe very things, his examination and enlisting would, after the army is conftituted, be confidered as the introductory and indifpenfable pre-requifites. The application is eafy, and the conclufion this,-That I have no neceffity of conceding to either of the things which you fuppofe; either that John's baptifm is not Chriftian baptifm, or that baptifm does not introduce into the kingdom, as a line of fepa

ration.

3. Were it fo that the quotations which you make would crowd me, even as clofely as you fuppofe, ftill your own principles would ftand in the most hazardous pofition, and muft receive the firft fhock. For, fay you, pages 12, 13, fpeaking of what initiates into the vifible church, “It is that evidence, whatever it be, which is furnished by the fubject, or by God himself, that a man is a faint." It is a given truth, Sir, that many of John's disciples furnished this evidence, when they were but in part made ready, that is, before they were baptized. Hence your principle brings you to this felf contradictory conclufion, that perfons are members of Chrift's vifible church, and at the fame time are not made ready for him. For it was by preaching the baptifm of repentance, and by baptizing the penitents, that John made ready a people prepared for the Lord. Here is, upon your own principles, a difficulty, which I know not