an argument against their existence, so the silence of scripture respecting the Lord's Supper is an argument that they never received it. And if these arguments are clearly false, so is that which reasons, from an analogous silence, that there were no baptisms of the believing children of believers.

But is it equally easy to account for the total silence of scripture respecting the baptism of infants? Few in the short periods embraced by the New Testament notices of different churches could have been baptized as believers who had Christian parents; but within the same period there must have been many infants of such parents. The church received no perceptible enlargement from the first of these classes: but if infants were baptized they must in a few years have formed the majority in each church. Is it possible that their baptisms should be wholly overlooked?

When it was recorded that three thousand were baptized on the day of Pentecost, could the remarkable fact, that three hundred or four hundred children, if not more, were baptized with them, be overlooked if it had really happened? In the narrative of the conversion of the Samaritans it is recorded that women were baptized as well as men (Acts, viii. 12); if their children had been also baptized, could this important fact have been overlooked? At the formation of the Corinthian church, "Many of the Corinthians," it is said, "believed and were baptized;" but not a word is said of their children, Acts, xviii. 8.

This silence respecting the baptism of infants affords the stronger evidence that infants were not then baptized, because, had they been required to be baptized, the churches needed information on so many points respecting it. The rule respecting the baptism of believing children of Christians was plain, they were to be baptized as all others; but what was to be the rule adopted by the churches for the baptism of infants? Were the infants of true believers alone to be baptized, or the infants of all baptized persons alone, or the infants of heathens? At what age were children to be baptized on their own profession of faith? Were infants to be baptized as already regenerate through the faith of their parents, or were they to receive regeneration through baptism; or, without receiving regeneration before or after baptism, were they to be received as catechumens? Might infants be baptized without any pledge from their friends that they should have a Christian education; or must such a pledge be given? When believers were baptized, they were baptized for the remission of sins, and their baptismal confession of Christ saved them: were these effects to follow the baptism of infants? On these and similar points the churches much needed information, if they were to baptize their infants, and on these points they did not receive from one apostolical epistle the least ray of light they were left absolutely and entirely to conjecture. And, lastly, after parents had baptized their children, what could be more useful or more necessary than to recall to Christian parents the

stipulations which they had made for their children at the time of their baptism? Yet this is not once done. Not unfrequently are the members of churches reminded of their own baptism, with the duties implied in that solemn act; but never once in the New Testament does one of the writers remind any one of the churches of their dedication of their children in baptism. The duties of parents to children are enforced in several epistles; but among these duties the obligations entailed on them by the baptism of their infants are never once adverted to.

These facts are incompatible with the supposition that the Apostles baptized infants, and therefore prove that infants ought not to be baptized

now.

To the foregoing evidence let me add the following passage in the First Epistle of Peter, addressed to the churches of Asia Minor: "Baptism doth now save us, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the inquiry after God of a good conscience, συνειδήσεως ἀγαθῆς ἐπερώτημα εἰς Θεὸν,” 1 Pet. iii. 21.1 According to this passage, Christian baptism is

1 46 Επερώταω (τὸ χρηστήριον, τὸν Θεόν) to inquire of, to consult."-Liddell. It is the word used by the Septuagint for

77, to seek, e. g. Ezek. xx. 1, 2; and for, to inquire after; Deut. iv. 32; Josh. ix. 14; Jud. i. 1; 1 Kings, xiv. 37; Isa. ΧΧΧ. 2. Επερώταω εἰς τινὰ, is to inquire after any one, as ἐπερώτησε Δαβὶδ εἰς εἰρήνην Ἰωὰβ, καὶ εἰς εἰρήνην τοῦ λαοῦ, 2 Sam. ii. 2 : therefore επερώταειν εἰς Θεὸν is to inquire after God, and ἐπερώenμa sis sòv is an inquiry after God. In a similar sense it is used in Dan. iv. 17, for a demand and the inquiry after God of a good conscience is the inquiry after God made by any

:

the seeking after God with an earnest and upright mind, and with the sense of pardon through the blood of Jesus Christ; and the Apostle describes the churches of Asia Minor as saved by this baptism. But this is evidently the baptism of believers, not the baptism of infants; for how, in that case, can baptism be the "seeking after God with a good conscience?" In all these churches, the only baptism recognised by the Apostle is such a baptism as involves the seeking after God with a good conscience, and such as leads to salvation (Isaiah, lv. 6, 7; Matt. vii. 7), that is, the baptism of believers. Now these churches were founded between A.D. 50 and A.D. 55 (Acts, xvi. 6, 7; xix. 1, 10), and the Epistle of Peter was written about A.D. 65. If infants were baptized during these fifteen years, a part of each church, and in some cases perhaps the larger part, would be composed of members baptized in infancy. How, in such case, could the Apostle, when speaking of baptism, entirely overlook the baptisms of so many? But he does completely overlook them; and speaks of the baptism of them all as though it had been in every case the baptism of believers. One of the latest writings in the New Testament recognises nothing in the churches but the baptism of believers. The last time that baptism is men

one, 1, with sincerity and uprightness, Acts, xxiii. 1; xxiv. 16; 2 Cor. i. 12; 1 Tim. i. 5, 19; iii. 9; 2 Tim. i. 3; Heb. xiii. 18; 1 Pet. iii. 16 (a good conscience being opposed to a defiled conscience, Tit. i. 5); and, 2, with a sense of pardon through the blood of Christ, Heb. xi. 14; x. 2, 22.

tioned by any Apostle, his words indicate that all the baptized, whether adult converts or the children of Christians, were believers, who in baptism heartily sought the Lord, and who in so doing were saved. Is this compatible with the practice of infant-baptism in the apostolic churches?

SECTION VIII.-Argument on behalf of Infant-baptism, from the Practice of the Churches in the first Three Centuries.

Another proof that the Apostles practised infantbaptism has been sought in the practice of the churches during the first three centuries. The argument has been stated in the following terms: "According to the theory of the Baptist brethren, baptism alone was the order of the day in the age which immediately succeeded the apostolic. What followed? Infant-baptism. At all events, its introduction must have had some date; and the later that date, its struggle with adult baptism must have been the more severe, and a record of the struggle the more certain." "Our opponents cannot detect among the fathers of these centuries the origin of infant-baptism. They denounce it as an abuse, a subversion of the law of Christ, a substitution of human device for the ordinance of God. Strange, that of the origin of an abuse so radical, so prevalent, and so permanent, no record should be found. The extent to which