and empowered his disciples to do, in the measure he afforded them respectively.

The apostle Paul undoubtedly had an equal share in the gospel commission with any other inspired minister, and was equally bound to baptise in the sense intended therein; but, with water, he declared * he was not sent to baptise: consequently water-baptism was not the baptism enjoined in the commission. But he asserts, he was sent to preach the gospel, which is the special matter of that commission; that is, to teach, baptising into the life and power of the Holy Spirit that qualified him for it. Accordingly he reminds the believers, † "Our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance." He also shews the effect it had on them; "When ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men; but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe." Hence we may observe this distinction, that the preaching of the gospel by immediate inspiration, is to be received as the word of God; but preaching concerning it without inspiration, is only to be esteemed as the word of man.

Many have been trained up to believe, that our Saviour made water-baptism the condition of our admittance into his kingdom. Were it so, the salvation of all mankind depends upon it; and if the sprinkling or dipping of infants be,

* 1 Cor. i 17.

† 1 Thes. i. 5.

Thes. ii. 13.

either the saving baptism, or the sole means through which it is to be received, the salvation of the child who dies before it attains to years of understanding, or power of choice, depends upon the precarious conduct of its parents or that of others, without any will, knowledge or default of its own.

But what rational and considerate person can believe, that the just Creator, and kind Saviour of mankind, is so void of equity and commiseration, as to suffer those innocents who die in their infancy, to fall into everlasting misery, for the want of a ceremonial, which, if it be a duty, cannot be theirs, but that of their parents, or of those who have the care of their concerns upon them, and whose omission must be their fault, if it be any, and not that of the children, who can be no way chargeable with it? The solemn denunciation of the great God, who affords of his * saving grace unto all men, is, † “The soul that sinneth, it shall die." "The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father: neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him."

The tender infant hath neither ability to receive a law, nor to transgress it, therefore it cannot be guilty of the commission of sin; and to hold it guilty, because its primogenitors transgressed long before it existed, and that it is justly punishable merely for descending from them in the state of their fallen nature, which it could

not avoid, is too barbarous for truth and righte ousness to warrant. Yet this cruel notion, the production of error and bigotry, hath been zealously espoused and propagated.

Fidus, an African bishop, in the third century, advised the baptism of infants for the purgation of original sin, alledging that the Jews circumcised theirs. This at first seemed new and strange to Cyprian; but he afterwards fell in with a collection of sixty-six bishops and presbyters, who enjoined it. The practice became preached up afterwards by divers as necessary; and the Milevitan and Carthaginian councils, in the fore part of the fifth century, went so far as to fix an anathema upon all who held that young children might be saved without water-baptism; which was ratified by several succeeding popes. Augustine carried the matter still further, teaching that even embryos, if they had been quickened in the mother's womb, and there died unbaptised, were damned, as guilty of original sin. This put the wisdom of the priesthood upon contriving a remedy; some they took up out of their graves, and christened, as they superstitiously called it, the dead body others they baptised by proxy, in imitation of those early misled professors among the Corinthians, who also doubted of the resurrection; in proof of which, the apostle doubly argued with them; First, from their own practice, who, from notion of the necessity of water-baptism unto salvation, took upon them to be baptised for those who died without it: "What shall they

* 1 Cor. xv. 29, 30.

do," said he, "who are baptised for the dead, if the dead rise not at all?" Why are they then baptised for the dead?" The manner of this baptism was thus; one of them placed himself under the bed of the deceased, who being asked if he would be baptised; the party under his bed answered for him in the affirmative, and then was baptised in his stead; which Godwin, properly enough, compares to the acting of a play upon the stage. See Godwin's Moses and Aaron chapter v.

Secondly, The apostle reasons from his own exercise, and that of his concerned brethren; "Why stand we in jeopardy every hour?" The import of which seems to be, why are we continually baptised in affliction, suffering, and danger, for the sake of those who are dead in trespasses and sins, that they may be quickened, by the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, if none are to be so quickened, and if there shall be no resurrection hereafter ?

As the followers of Jacobus Cyrus took the word water, John iii. 5. in the literal sense, so they did the word fire, Mat. iii. 11. and thence branded their children either in the face, or upon the arm, with a heated iron in the form of a cross. But this having something of cruelty, as well as absurdity in it, did not so generally obtain as water sprinkling; in the ministration of which, the Romish church teemed abundantly with modes and fancies of imaginary significance.

The self-flattering notion, that the new birth of the spirit is either concurrent with or consequent upon the ministration of water-baptism, is

neither supported by scripture nor experience. If it insensibly accompany it, how do we know it? If it immediately follow, how do its fruits appear more in those who have received waterbaptism, than in those who have not? * "The fruit of the spirit," saith the apostle, "is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance."-t "The fruit of the spirit is in all goodness, and righteousness and truth." Are these fruits more conspicuous in the baptised, than in the unbaptised. If those who are baptised with water are born of the spirit and made heirs of the kingdom of heaven, how comes it that such as have received it, either in adult age or infancy, and become afterwards awakened to a sense of their condition, are still conscious of a body of sin remaining within them, and are made to cry out in anxiety of soul, A Saviour, or I die! A Redeemer, or I perish for ever! Are not such painfully sensible, that they still want remission and regeneration, notwithstanding their water baptism?

If any say, This may arise from sins committed after their baptism; I answer, the apostle John saith, "Whosoever is born of God (and abideth in him) doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin, because he is born of God." But is it evident in fact, that he who is baptised only with water, can sin as freely and fully as he who is not therefore he who is baptised with water, is not in consequence born of God.

* Gal. v. 22, 23.

↑ Eph. v. 9.

+1 John iii. 9.

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