orders are given in the' Will: delegated authority is entrusted to the rulers of the christian church: and every regulation, every ceremony of the church, decreed by those rulers (and not contradicted by Scripture), comes to the mind, and commands the obedience, of a christian churchman as if it were a precept of Scripture-so long as the laws and ceremonies introduced by the ruler are confined to matters which the' Will has left undetermined, or wholly unnoticed, they are to be obeyed for conscience' sake, by all christian men.'-Therefore, 'we ought to acquiesce in such rules as have been agreed upon by common consent, and which are recommended to us by long practice, and that are established by those who have the lawful authority over us. Nor can we assign any other bounds to our submission in this case, than those that the Gospel has limited. We must obey God rather than man; and we must, in the first place, render to God the things that are God's, and then give to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's. So that if either church or state have power to make rules and laws in such matters, they must have this extent given them, that till they break in upon the laws of God and the Gospel we must be bound to obey them.

'But this, after all, is to make us the judges. In this one point undoubtedly it is. And to this end is the' Will 'put into our hands, not as an all-sufficient guide to supersede a living voice, a delegated authority, and a discretionary power; but as a rectifier, an infallible standard, in opposition to which, Christian governors ought not to command, nor Christian men to obey.-But,' Gentlemen, 'let no man imagine that he has any scriptural right to disobey a law of the state, or disregard a ceremony of the church (however he may personally dislike it, or however inexpedient, or absurd, or vexatious he may consider it), merely because there is nothing concerning it in the' Will. On the contrary, if there be nothing concerning it in the' Will, then it is clear it cannot be contradictory to the' Will: 'and in that case, the enactment of the ruler (as I have already proved) gives it the authority of the' Will itself.

6

'Surely, then,' Gentlemen, I may anticipate your agreement with me in the conclusion, that the common cry against many of the ceremonies of the church, Where do you find them in the Bible? is altogether unworthy of a place in the disputation of Christian men of enlarged and enlightened minds. The question is not, Are these ceremonies prescribed in the Bible? but, Are they contradictory to the Bible? It is not, Have the rulers authority to act? but, Have they transgressed the scriptural limits of their authority?—

"The church has scriptural authority to decree rites and ceremonies, in addition to what is contained in Scripture, provided there be nothing in them "contrary to God's word written."-Ceremonies in addition to, and not in opposition to the Bible, if decreed by the ruler, must be received, adopted, and practised, for the same conscience' sake.

'To deny her this power, would be to supersede the use of the church altogether-the very purpose for which' the Testator 'instituted this society is defeated; since if she has any authority at all (which he expressly gave her), and has none in matters determined in Scripture, she must have it in things undetermined in Scripture.

-'In matters of discipline, the positive institutions of the church make things right and wrong which were left undetermined in Scripture to consider things which were originally indifferent, as indifferent after the church has enacted regulations respecting them, is an offence against Christ himself, the head of that body:-unreasonable and unscriptural is it in any man to say, I will not conform to such or such a ceremony of the church, because there is no mention made of it in the Scripture. He has the Bible in his hand, commanding him to obey the rulers of the church: the rulers say, Do this; and he replies, No, I will not do it, because it is not specified in the Bible! The soldiers and servants of the Gentile centurion shall rise up in judgment with such a man, and shall condemn him.'*

These are only a portion of the arguments that we have

* Rev. Hugh M'Neile, M.A.

to bring forward to combat the new fangled notion of our opponents, who deny the legality of sprinkling infants. When or whence they obtained the idea of baptism, I imagine cannot be ascertained. It seems to have dwelt in

obscurity for a time, till at last it burst forth from its solitude in the sixteenth century, and made considerable progress in Germany, extending its influence into Holland, Britain, and other countries, in all of which it still maintains its ground.' I call it a new-fangled notion, because 'pædobaptism appears to be as ancient as the apostolic age, while antipædobaptism appears only a modern invention. In Dr. Wall's defence of his learned and elaborate History of Infant Baptism, he affirms, anti-pædobaptism does not appear to have been practised till after the middle of the eleventh century; and that by a people few, ignorant, and quickly converted.'

As the evidence from history enters so essentially into the merits of the question now before this court, I cannot do better than quote from the writings of the learned Dr. Osgood.

We (says he) acknowledge, indeed, that during the ages of darkness which preceded the Protestant Reformation, the institution, as well as the doctrines, of Christ, were exceedingly corrupted by the mixture of human inventions. We learn from history the origin of these corruptions, and that, in each successive age, there were witnesses against them, whose testimony shews that they never were, even at the season of the thickest darkness, universally received. I shall now prove that infant baptism stands not on the foot of these corruptions, was not introduced on them, and during the course of many revolving ages was not scrupled by a single Christian. Of the writings of the primitive fathers, the immediate successors of the apostles, some scattered fragments only have reached modern times: yet in these fragments, we have unquestionable evidence that infant baptism was the general practice in the very century after the apostles. They had been dead about forty years when Justin Martyr published his "Apology," in which he mentions some "aged

Christians who were made disciples in or from their infancy." This is understood as implying that they were baptized, as that was the known method of making visible disciples. Irenæus, who was born before the death of St. John, is yet more full in his testimony. Origen was born about one hundred years after the decease of the apostles, and from whom we have these words: "The church received a tradition or order from the apostles to administer baptism to infants. About fifty years after this, or one hundred and fifty years from the apostles, baptism being then universally considered as supplying the place of circumcision, a question arose, whether it ought not, as circumcision was, to be deferred till the eighth day after the birth of the child. For the discussion of this question, a council of sixty-six bishops, or pastors of churches, were assembled at Carthage. In their result, they gave it as their opinion that 'baptism ought least of all to be referred to a new-born infant;' and as to its being put off to the eighth day, they add, 'there is not one that approves of it: it appears to us all, who are here met in council, far otherwise.' Undoubtedly some of the elders upon this council could remember what the practice of the church had been for seventy or eighty years before, at which period there were probably many living who were born within the age of the apostles, and who must have known what their practice had been. If the baptising of infants had not originated with the apostles, is it credible that all the churches of Christendom should have so soon and so universally departed from the apostolic institution? If so striking and notorious an innovation had been attempted, is it not beyond all belief that it should have been every where received, without a single objection from any of those myriads of saints, confessors, and martyrs who lived in the purest ages of the church?

'The learned Dr. Wall, who inquired most accurately into this subject, says, "For the first four hundred years, there appears only one man, Tertullian, that advised the delay of infant baptism, in some cases; and one Gregory, that did,

perhaps, practise such delay, in the case of his own children: but no society, so thinking, or so practising, nor any one man saying, that it was unlawful to baptize infants. In the next seven hundred years, there is not so much as one man to be found, that either spoke for, or practised, any such delay, but all the contrary. And when, about the year 1130, one sect among the Waldenses declared against the baptising of infants, as being incapable of salvation, the main body of that people rejected their opinion; and those of them that held that opinion quickly dwindled away and disappeared, there being no more heard of who held that tenet, until the rising of the German Anti-pædobaptists, in the year 1522."

'This account, by Dr. Wall, brings us down to the æra of the Protestant Reformation. Amidst the commotions attendant upon that great revolution, sprang up the founders of the present sect of Anabaptists. "Soon after Luther's appearance," says Dr. Robertson, in his history of Charles V., "the rashness or ignorance of some of his disciples led them to publish tenets no less absurd than pernicious; which, being proposed to men extremely illiterate, but fond of novelty, and at a time when their minds were turned wholly towards religious speculations, gained too easy credit and authority among them. The most remarkable of their religious tenets related to the sacrament of baptism, which, as they contended, ought to be administered only to persons grown up to years of understanding, and should be performed, not by sprinkling them with water, but by dipping them in it. For this reason they condemned the baptism of infants, and, rebaptizing all whom they admitted into their society, the sect came to be distinguished by the name of Anabaptists. To this peculiar notion concerning baptism, they added other principles, of a most enthusiastic as well as dangerous nature. By a monstrous and almost incredible conjunction, voluptuousness was engrafted on religion, and dissolute riot accompanied the austerities of devotion. Luther, who had testified against this fanatical spirit on its first appearance, now deeply lamented its progress, and exposed the delusion with great strength of argument, as well as acrimony of style."