parents, believing and unbelieving; yea, the holiness of the children depends upon the sanctification of the unbelieving parent; for if the unbeliever is not sanctified, the children are unclean, and not holy. But, 4. These words are to be understood of matrimonial holiness, even of the very act of marri age, which, in the language of the Jews, is frequently expressed by being sanctified; the word to sanctify, is used in innumer. able places in the Jewish writings, to espouse; and in the same sense the apostle used the word agiazo here, and the words may be rendered, the unbelieving husband is or has been espoused, or married, to the wife, for it relates to the act of marriage past, as valid; and the unbelieving wife has been espoused to the husband; the preposition en translated by, should be rendered to, as it is in the very next verse; God hath called us en eirene to peace; the apostle's inference from it is, else were your children unclean, illegitimate, if their parents were not lawfully espoused and married to each other; but now are they holy, a holy and legitimate seed, as in Ezra ix. 2. see Mal. ii. 15. and no other sense will suit with the case proposed to the apostle, and with his answer to it, and reasoning about it; and which sense has been allowed by many learned interpreters, ancient and modern; as Jerom, Ambrose, Erasmus, Camerarius, Musculus, and others.

There are some objections made to the practice of believers baptism, which are of little force, and to which an answer may easily be returned.

1. That though it may be allowed, that persons, such as repent and believe, are the subjects of baptism, yet it is no where said, that they are the only ones: but if no others can be named as baptized, and the descriptive characters given in scripture of baptized persons are such as can only agree with adult, and not with infants; then it may be reasonably con. cluded, that the former only are the proper subjects of bap tism. 2. It is objected to our practice of baptizing the adult offspring of christians. But our practice is not at all concerned with the parents of the persons baptized by us, whether they

be Christians, Jews, Turks, or Pagans; but with the persons themselves, whether they are believers in Christ or no; to give instances of those who were born of christian parents and brought up by them, as baptised in adult years, cannot reasonably be required of us: but on the other hand, if infant children were admitted to baptism in these times, upon the faith and baptism of their parents, and their becoming christians; it is strange, exceeding strange, that among the many thousands baptized in Jerusalem, Samaria, Corinth, and other places, that there should be no one instance of any of them bringing their children with them to be baptized, and claiming the privilege of baptism for them upon their own faith. This is a case that required no length of time, and yet not a single instance can be produced. 3. It is objected, that no time can be assigned when infants were cast out of covenant, or cut off from the seal of it. If by the covenant is meant the covenant of grace, it should be first proved that they are in it. If by it is meant Abraham's covenant, the covenant of circumcision, the answer is, the cutting off was when circumcision ceased to be an ordinance of God, which was at the death of Christ; if by it is meant the national covenant of the Jews, the ejection of Jewish parents with their chil ren, was when God wrote a Lo-ammi, upon that people, as a body politic and ecclesiastic. 4. A clamorous outcry is made against us, as abridging the privileges of infants, by denying baptism to them; making them to be the lesser under the gospel dispensation than under the law, and the gospel dispensation less glorious. But as to the gospel dispensation, it is the more glorious for infants being left out of its church state; that is, for its being not national and carnal, as before, but congregational and spiritual; consisting not of infants, without understanding, but of rational and spiritual men, believers in Christ: and these not of a single country, as Judea, but in all parts of the world: and as for infants, their privi leges now are many and better, who are eased from the pain. ful rite of circumcision; it is a rich mercy, and a glorious

privilege of the gospel, that the believing Jews and their chil dren are delivered from it; and that the gentiles and theirs are not obliged to it: to which may be added, their being born of christian parents, and having a christian education, and of having opportunities of hearing the gospel, as they grow up; and that not in one country only, but in many; are greater privileges than the Jewish children had under the former dispensation. 5. It is objected, that there are no more express commands in scripture for keeping the first day of the week, as a Sabbath; nor for women's partaking of the Lord's supper, and other things, than for the baptism of infants. As for the first, though there is no express precept for the observance of it, yet there are precedents of its being observed for religious services, Acts xx. 7. 1 Cor. xvi. 1, 2. and though we have no example of infant baptism, yet if there were scriptural precedents of it, we should think ourselves obliged to follow them. As for women's right to partake of the Lord's supper, we have sufficient proof of it; since these were baptized as well as men; and having a right to one ordinance, had to another, and were members of the first church, communicated with it, and women, as well as men were added to it, Acts viii. 12. and i. 14. and v. 1. 14. we have a precept for it; Let a man, a word to both common genders, and equally signifies man and woman, examine him or herself, and so let him or her eat, 1 Cor. xi. 39. and we have also examples of it in Mary the mother of our Lord, and other women, who, with the disciples, constituted the gospel church at Jerusalem; and as they continued with one accord in the apos tles doctrine and in prayer, so in fellowship, and in breaking of bread; let the same proof be given of the baptism of infants, and it will be admitted. 6. Antiquity is urged in fayour of infant baptism; it is pretended that this is a tradition of the church received from the apostles; though of this, no other proof is given, but the testimony of Origen, none before that; and this is taken, not from any of his genuine Greek writings, only from some Latin translations, confessedly in

terpolated, and so corrupted, that it is owned, one is at a loss to find Origen in Origen. No mention is made of this prac tice in the first two centuries, no instance given of it until the third, when Tertullian is the first who spoke of it, and at the same time spoke against it. And could it be carried up higher, it would be of no force, unless it could be proved from the sacred scriptures, to which only we appeal, and by which the thing in debate is to be judged and determined. We know that innovations and corruptions very early obtained, and even in the times of the apostles; and what is pretended to be near those times, is the more to be suspected as the traditions of the false apostles ;* the antiquity of a custom is no proof of the truth and genuineness of it;†t The customs of the people are vain, Jer. x. 3. I proceed to consider,

IV. The way and manner of baptizing; and to prove that it is by immersion, plunging the body in water, and covering it with it. Custom, and the common use of writing in this controversy, have so far prevailed, that for the most part, im. mersion is usually called the mode of baptism; whereas it is properly baptism itself; to say that immersion or dipping is the mode of baptism, is the same thing as to say, that dipping is the mode of dipping; for as Sir John Floyer‡ observes, "Immersion is no circumstance, but the very act of baptism, used by our Saviour and his disciples, in the institution of baptism." And Calving expressly says, "The word baptizing signifies to plunge; and it is certain that the rite of plunging was used by the ancient churches." And as for sprinkling, that cannot, with any propriety, be called a mode of baptism; for it would be just such good sense as to say, sprinkling is the mode of dipping, since baptism and dipping are the same; hence the learned Selden,|| who in the

Quod longinquitas temporis objicitur, eo major suspicio inesse debet, emanasse illas traditiones a Pseudo apostolis; qui mirandum in modum conturbaverunt sanctos apostolos; quo magis cavendum est, viri christiani. Aonii Palearii Testimonium, c. 2. p. 238. + Consuetudo sine veritate vetustas erroris est, Cyprian. epist. 74. p. 195. Dipping of Infants in Baptism. p. 144. Opera, vol. 6. col. 2008,

Essay to Restore the Institut. 1. c. 4. 15. s. 19.

former part of his life, might have seen infants dipped in fonts, but lived to see immersion much disused, had reason to say, "In England of late years, I ever thought the parson baptized his own fingers rather than the child," because he dipped the one, and sprinkled the other. That baptism is immersion, or the dipping of a person in water, is to be proved,

1. From the proper and primary signification of the word baptize, which in its first and primary sence, signifies to dip or plunge into: and so it is rendered by our best Lexicographers, mergo, immergo, dip or plunge into. And in a secondary censequential sense, abluo, lavo, wash, because what is dipped is washed, there being no proper washing but by dipping; but never perfundo or aspergo, pour or sprinkle; so the lexicon published by Constantine, Budæus, &c. and those of Hadrain Junius, Plantinus, Scapula, Stephens, Schrevelius, Stockius, and others; besides a great cumber of critics, as Beza, Casaubon, Witsius, &c. which might be produced. By whose united testimonies, the thing is out of question. Had our translators, instead of adopting the Greek word baptize, in all places where the ordinance of baptism is made mention of, truly translated it, and not have left it untranslated as they have, the controversy about the manner of baptizing, would have been at an end, or rather have prevented; had they used the word dip or immerse, instead of baptize, as they should have done, there would have been no room for a question about it.

11. That baptism was performed by immersion, appears by the places chosen for the administration of it; as the river Jordan by John, where he baptized many, and where our Lord himself was baptized by him, Matt. iii. 6. 13. 16. but why should he choose the river to baptize in, and baptize in it, if he did not administer the ordinance by immersion? had it been done any other way, there was no occasion for any confluence of water, much less a river;* a bason of water

Some respresent the river Jordan, from Sandy's account of it, as if it was a shallow river, and insufficient for immersion; but what Sandy's