given a very juft and weighty reafon, where he fays, It must be granted, that the prejudices of education have great force upon our minds in favour of the opinions 6 we have imbibed in our younger years.'

If to examine and judge for ourselves in the great affair of religion be of all others the most weighty and important, fo that we are not therein to take things upon truft; furely it muft highly become our Oxonian Gentleman, and every other Pædobaptift, moft feriously to weigh and confider, whether another perfon's doing any thing to them, as an act of religion, without their knowledge and consent, and without any command from God, can be at all acceptable to him; or is fufficient to exempt them afterwards from a perfonal and voluntary fubmiffion and obedience to the inftitution of Chrift, when they come to years of understanding, and are capable of the qualifications, which the fcriptures direct to, and accordingly in the judgment of our established church, are therein required of perfons to be baptized. This leads me to confider his anfwer to the objection against a rational faith, arifing from the practice of infant-baptifm, which begins thus:

5You afk, p. 9. Can a man be baptized into a rational religion? Which question, in the terms in which it is • conceived, is a very extraordinary one. Can a man be baptized, &'c? Why not, Sir? Will you give me leave to afk in my turn: Can a man believe a rational religion, and make profeffion of it? I hope he may. And what does being baptized imply more than this?'

If being baptized imply the believing and making profelfion of a rational religion, or in the terms of their church catechifm, Repentance, whereby they for fake fin; and faith, whereby they fedfaftly believe the promises of God made to them in that facrament; then infants cannot poffibly be the fubjects of it, and this he has moft frankly and honeftly acknowledged in thefe words. 6 But by what follows I guess you would have faid, Can that be a reasonable religion, into which infants are baptized? For you prefently afk again, Where is reafon concerned when babes accept the terms of falvation by deputy? To which be thus replies, The reafon of the infants themfelves is no ways concerned in it. They have no reafon, nor are they therefore capable of religion.' Is it not therefore a very great reproach upon their church, to enact

* Page 18. 5 Oxford Reply, P. 7.

6 Ibid. p. 8.

enact fuch things for them, and in the fame book publicly declare to all the world: That baptifm is only the outward and visible fign of the inward and fpiritual grace in the perfon baptized, fignifying his death unto fin, and new birth unto righteousness; and that infants, by reafon of their tender age, are unable to perform the neceflary requifites for their admiffion to it? Would it not be much wifer and better for our established church to wait, till they are capable of religion; till the inward and fpiritual grace, and all the neceflary qualifications for that facred ordinance appear in them; till they can confefs with the mouth the Lord Jefus, and believe in their heart that God hath raised him from the dead? Rom. x. 8-15. But to eftablifh a method of procedure diametrically oppofite to all this, and at the fame time acknowledge it to be fo, as, I think, their words fufficiently declare, are indeed fuch shocking contradictions, and fuch a glaring reproach to their church, that our Oxonian, in contending with an Infidel, could not pretend to vindicate, and only feems willing to palliate, by adding in very modeft and cautious terms. But they [that is infants,] may, fo far as I can • judge at present, by the mercies of God be capable of being admitted to the benefits of his covenant.' That is, I well hope, to falvation by the mercies of God; for as he afferts elsewhere, 7 Before the use of reason, it [faith] is not neceflary at all; i. e. (....) neceffary to <fave us from the penalties of the law; nor is it neceffary, in this fenfe, at any time afterwards, but according to circumftances.' Agreeable to which he says, 8 Faith is neceffary to all who may be convinced by the • evidence offered; but I do not know that it is neceffary to those, who having done their utmoft cannot free themselves from fcruples; neceffary, I fay, to fave them from the penalties which the gofpel threatens to unbelievers.' And I wifh, that Pædobaptifts in our controverfy would but carefully regard the fame advice and caution, which this Oxonian here directs his author to, namely Say honeftly what the gofpel is, and [Infidels may] do [their] worft. But it is not fair to load it with abfurdities of [their] own inventions.' Such things only make them inconfiftent, and give Infidels advantage; and therefore, if in the paffage I was upon, our young Gentleman means any thing concerning baptifm, as I fear he does, tho' the fcriptures are entirely filent about $ Page 17.

7 Page 55.

any

6

any covenant for their admiffion to it, it is given up again in the very next words directed to his author. You, perhaps, may be of another opinion;' [namely that infants cannot be faved without baptifm, as too many weak Chriftians have pretended.] But what has this question to do with the truth of religion?' [What indeed, as infants are incapable of religion, and the New Testament fays nothing of their being baptized?] But' he goes on plainly denying what the Deift alledged, as I before obferved the Cambridge letter had done, You lay it down peremptorily, that it is the pleasure and ordinance of God that infants should be baptized; because, I fuppofe, it beft fuited your purpose. For you know very well, that all • Chriftians are not of a mind in this matter; and it fhews you are hard put to it for arguments against Chriftianity, to lay hold of a difputed practice, and build upon it as a plain, exprefs law of Chrift.' After this follows a more free and ingenuous confeffion, than is often met with from any Pædobaptifts, but those of our established church. I do not remember any paffage in the New Teftament, which fays exprefsly, that infants fhould be baptized; and as I am informed by better judges, the evidences for this practice from antiquity, tho' very early, do not fully come up to the times of the • apoftles.'

Here is scripture and the best antiquity given up at once by this learned member of our Univerfity, as containing nothing in them expressly for the practice of infant-baptifm; and from this conviction therefore, he very modeftly and very wifely fubjoins: So that if I did believe the receiving children into covenant by baptifm to be so abfurd a thing as you feem to think it; I fhould judge it to be more reasonable to queftion the agreeableness of this practice, (how general foever,) to the inftitution of Chrift, than to reject the gospel on that account.'

This being the whole of our Oxford young Gentleman's Reply to this objection, I fhall only afk him further, how far the continuing a practice, the agreeableness of which to the inftitution of Chrift, he queftions, can be juftified by St. Paul's rule of conduct, Rom. xiv. 22-23. as himself explains it, p. 31, 32: where, as his brother at Cambridge had done, he alfo gives up the validity of their chrurch articles, with her definitions and determinations in matters of religion? The whole paffage runs thus. • But how do you prove, that natural religion will ftand a man in

na

no ftead? Why, by appealing to an article of the church of England, which fays, that works done before the grace of Chrift, are not pleasant to God, nor do they make men meet to receive grace.' [Of what use can infant-baptifm be then?] I am not divine enough, Sir, to fettle the precife meaning of this article. It may poffibly be this, that our best and most perfect natural ftate is fo defective, that we cannot plead acceptance with God, without his free, undeferved mercy in the pardon of our fins; which I think is true. But fuppofing the doctrine of the article to be as you would reprefent it, what would be the confequence? Are you of those who think it reasonable to fet down the decifions of a particular church as the ftandard of the chrif<tian doctrine? For decency you do indeed quote a text of fcripture; Whatfoever is not of faith, is fin. But you cannot, I apprehend, lay any real ftrefs upon this, which even I (unfkilled in the fcriptures as I am) can fee is nothing to the purpofe. The Apoftle was fpeaking of eating certain meats, concerning which the queftion was, whether they might lawfully be eaten or not. In these cases he directs, that every man should take care to fatisfy his own judgment, and not do any thing unperfuaded of the lawfulness of it. I know and am perfuaded that nothing is unclean of itself; but to him that efteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean: Rom. xiv. 14. To eat, whilft I doubt whether I may lawfully eat or not, is not of faith, and Whatfoever is not of faith, is fin, ver. 23. What tendency has this to thew that God will damn men for their most innocent miftakes; or that the best faith they can get, the best life they can lead, will be of no account, if in all points a man believes not aright? If

you know of any other text that fays this, produce it, and it fhall be admitted. But to say that the church of England teaches this is faying nothing. For if it were true that this is the fenfe of the article (which I verily believe it is not) I would an<fwer as I have already answered in another cafe: IT is

MORE REASONABLE TO GIVE UP THE ARTICLE THAN THE GOSPEL.'

The juft fentiments, which thefe our Universities have told us, they church authority, and decifions in are much fuller expreffed by Mr.

young members of entertain concerning matters of religion, Mole, fo as to ex

tend to all Pædobaptift churches, in his anfwer to the fame argument from the article of the church of England, in these words. 9 Our author indeed has an expreffion of his church, which may be of fome fervice with those, who will be concluded by fuch kind of authority but what matters it how his church, or any other fuch church, has expreffed this, or any other mat<ter whatever? Could the decifions of ever so many churches, and ever fo well conftituted, be produced to the contrary; what is there, that the nature of any fuch human affurances can poffibly afford us, that has not more than a ballance in fuch an authority as that of God? The authority our author quotes is of a piece with his affertion, falfhood and abfurdity are upheld by fuch authority; but the doctrine of Chrift, as it is of a • different nature, ftands upon a very different ground.'. But the author of Chriftianity not founded on Argument hath dropped a fuggeftion, of which neither the Cambridge Letter, nor the Oxford Reply, had reason to take any notice, because to be fure they believe it is true. Yet Mr. Mole hath taken occafion from thence to caft fome reflections upon our established church, tho', in my apprehenfion, it does not appear with a very good grace, unÏefs there was more difference between hers, and the Prefbyterian establishment, refpecting the commencement of Chriftianity and church membership in the infants of each, by bringing them to what they both falfly call baptifm, tho' they are equally unqualified for it.

SECT. III.

Remarks on the office of baptifm in the kirk of Scotland, and the English directory by the affembly of divines.

TH

H AT the infants, which commence Chriftians and church-members in the kirk of Scotland, are equally unqualified with thofe in our established church, the practice there as unfcriptural, and founded as intirely upon human authority, is manifeft. The kirk of Scotland in

Grounds of the Chriftian Faith rational, p. 80.

deed