"Baptism, under the Christian Dispensation, we define to be, a solemn application of water to a professor of the Christian religion, or to a member of his or her family, by a minister of the gospel, (and by the authority of "Christ's command given after his resurrection) in the "name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost." This definition of Baptism, like the lean kind in Pharaoh's vision, devours all the "good definitions" given by the pedo-baptists whom he reviews; and even yet it is not canonical. If it was not for this misfortune, he would enable us to prove that "any mode" of baptism would do, provided only that it were solemn-"It is a solemn application of water," says he. The charity of the Doctor's definition, resembles the charity of the poet

"For modes of faith, let zealous bigots fight,

"His can't be wrong, whose life is in the right."

A solemn application of water," by sprinkling, pouring or dipping, will do, will please the Doctor very well. How easy to prove infant baptism, or sprinkling from it! "To a member of a professor's family," the doctor says. I do not know why the Doctor's charity should be so lame in respect of the subject, when it was so illustrious in the "mode." Why the member of a professor's family? Why not the member of a non-professor's family ?-There is a common case in Virginia, in relation to which, I fear the Doctor's definition is not sufficiently explicit; it is this-sometimes a professor's family is composed of eight or ten children, and three or four families of servants, all of which compose the professor's family or household. Amongst the ser vants, some are professors and some are not; are all to be baptised on account of the professor's profession whose the family is? And are the children of the professing servant to be sprinkled on their father's or their master's profession ? In making this obvious, I fear the Doctor's definition is deficient. But, perhaps, as it was penned in Pennsylvania, it was not intended for Virginia pedo-baptists.

Until the Doctor makes his meaning more plain, and more fully settles this and some other circumstances, I conceive it is most prudent still to retain the old fashioned definitions of the fishermen of Gallilee.

As the Doctor is in the habit of reviewing, and as he insists that the Christian church is a continuation of the Jew. ish, and essentially the same as the Jewish, he would confer a favor on many, who think otherwise, if he would resięw and illustrate the following queries

1. Are not a constitution, laws, ordinances, subjects, and privileges, the chief constituents of a church state?

2. Was the constitution that erected the Jewish nation into a national church, the same as the New Testament, or constitution of the Christian church?

3. Were the laws that regulated the worship, discipline, political economy, judicial proceedings, and common intercourse of the Jews, the same, as those under which the disciples of Christ act?

4. Were the ordinances of the Jewish state, the same, with regard to their import, times of observance, number, the character and quality of the observers or participants of them? 5. Are the subjects of the Christian church to be such in birth, education, temper and character, as the subjects of the commonwealth of Israel ?

6. Are the privileges enjoyed by Christians in the church of Christ just the same as those enjoyed by the Jews?

7. When he has answered the first question in the affirm ative, and the next five in the negative, (which, if he consults the holy oracles, he must) then how are two things the same, which differ in every essential particular ?

When the Doctor shall have answered and illustrated the above seven queries, I would solicit him to consider the following characters of the Jewish and Christian church, as respects the controversy.

The Jewish church embraced a whole nation, and was a national church. It was composed of one man's posterity together with his bought servants and their offspring, and these by natural birth, and a ceremonial holiness, were fit and lawful subjects of all its ordinances, without any grace. It increased by natural generation only, and from it, there was no excommunication but by death, for any crime whatever. The religion of it was incorporated with the civil. government, and consequently, civil, religious and political powers, were lodged in the same hands.

The Christian church never embraced any whole nation, and is not a national church. It is not composed of one man's family, nor of all of such families, a portion of which it embraces. All the members of it are intelligent, voluntary subjects. Nothing but real and personal holiness qualifies for its ordinances. Its subjects increase by supernatural birth, or are the subjects of the regenerating influences of the all creative spirit. It is not of this world, and the ministers of it, as such, cannot exercise any civil authority. Its members may be excommunicated for unbecoming com

duct, and again received when their penitence and reformiation become manifest.

When the Doctor shall have proved the identity of these two states, when he shall have shown that things which dif fer, in every grand circumstance and quality, are one and the same, then shall he have excelled all that have gone before him, then shall he have exhibited a new thing under the sun.

bus.

No. 5.

RICHARD BAXTER,

THE author of the "Saint's Everlasting Rest," and of a Serious Call to the Unconverted," has been by many es teemed one of the greatest saints of modern times. Piety and benevolence, it is said, were in him eminently conspicuWe would be led to suppose, from some of his works and from the commendations of many, that if there ever was a pedo-baptist that was all love and tenderness, in whose bosom the system of pedo-baptism never produced a persecuting emotion, Richard Baxter was that man.-As an illustration of one of the evil tendencies of that system, I will let you hear the learned and pious, humble and affectionate Mr. Baxter, speak for himself. "My 6th argument," said he, shall be against the usual manner of their baptizing, as it is by dipping over head in a river, or other cold water. That which is a plain breach of the 6th commandment "thou shalt not kill,” is no ordinance of God, but a heinous sin.And as Mr. Cradock shows, in his book of Gospel Liberty, the magistrate ought to restrain it, to save the lives of his subjects. That this is flat murder, and no better, being ordinarily and generally used, is undeniable to any under standing man. And I know not what trick, a covetous landlord can find out to get his tenants to die apace, that he may have new fines and heriots, likelier than to encourage such preachers, that he may get them all to turn Anabaptist. I wish that this device be not it which countenanceth such men ; and covetous physicians, methinks, should not be much against them, catarrhs and obstructions, which are the two great fountains of most mortal diseases in man's body, could scarce have a more notable means to produce them, where they are not, or to increase them where they Apoplexies, lethargies, palsies, and all other comaYous diseases, would be promoted by it. So would cephalalgies, hemicranies, phthises, debility of the stomach, crude

are.

ties, and almost all fevers, dysenteries, diarrheas, cholics, fiac passions, convulsions, spasms, and so on. All hepatic, splenetic and pulmonic persons, and hypochondriacs, would soon have enough of it. In a word, it is good for nothing but to dispatch men out of the world, that are burdensome, and to ranken church yards. I conclude, if murder be a sin, then dipping, ordinarily overhead in England is a sing and if those who would make it men's religion to murder themselves, and urge it upon their consciences as a duty, are not to be suffered in a commonwealth, any more than highway murderers; then judge how these Anabaptists, that teach the necessity of such dipping, are to be suffered." To this the celebrated Mr. Booth replies in the fol lowing words: "Poor man, he seems to be afflicted with a violent hydrophobia! For he cannot think of any person being immersed in cold water, but he starts, he is convulsed, he is ready to die with fear. Immersion, you must know, is like Pandora's box ; and pregnant with a great part of those diseases, which Milton's angel presented to the view of our first father. A compassionate regard, therefore, to the lives of his fellow creatures, compels Mr. Bax, ter to solicit the aid of magistrates against this destructive plunging; and to cry out, in the spirit of an exclamation. once heard in the Jewish temple-Yemen of Israel help"!! or Baptist ministers will depopulate your country! Know you not, that these plunging teachers are shrewdly suspected of being pensioned by avaricious landlords, to destroy the lives of your liege subjects? Exert your power! Appre hend the delinquents! Appoint an auto da fe! Let the venal dippers be baptized in blood; and thus put a salutary stop to this pestiferous practice! What a pity it is, that the celebrated history of cold bathing, by Sir John Floyer, was not published half a century sooner! It might, perhaps, have preserved this good man from a multitude of painful paroxysms, occasioned by the thought of immersion in cold water. Were I seriously (adds Mr. Booth) to put a query to these assertions of Mr. Baxter, it would be, with a little variation, in the words of David, "What shall be given unto thee, or what shall be done unto thee thou FALSE pen? ?"

About this time the famous John Bunyan, a baptist that will be held in everlasting remembrance, was confined to prison 12 years. He experienced some of the peaceful and benevolent effects of the spirit that Mr. Baxter breathed in the preceding extracts.

Baxter's Plain Scripture Proof, p. 134–136.

No. 6.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.

THE design of the following questions and answers, is to assist those who are desirous of ascertaining the mind and will of God, concerning this important institution of Christ, on which we have been reasoning. We propose them in such a way, as to lead the reader immediately to the holy oracles for his own satisfaction. The answers which we affix to them, are the only answers that can be given them, from the infallible word. But as we are all fallible and imperfect, I would earnestly solicit the reader never to place implicit confidence in any mortal, nor in himself, but diligently to consult the divine word, and to solicit the Father of Lights for that wisdom which cometh from above.

We are firmly persuaded that no other answers can be given, from the scriptures, to the following queries, but such as are here written.

Query 1st. Who was the first Baptist ?-Ans. John, the forerunner of Christ, called "John the Baptist."

Question 2. Was the baptism of John from Heaven, or of men?-Answer. From Heaven.

Q. 3. How did John receive it ?. From the spirit of God, by immediate revelation.

Q. 4. Did John teach the people, that the baptism he taught was derived from any Jewish rite, or from any ancient cavenant?-Ans. No" He was sent to baptize." John 1, 35.

Q. 5. From whom did the Apostle receive authority to baptize A. From Christ-Matt. 28-at the close.

Q. 6. Did they ever teach, that they had learned it from any Jewish rite or covenant ?-A. No.

Q.7. Whom did they baptize ?-A. Men and women only. 4. 8. What was the indispensible qualification necessasary to their baptism ?-A. Faith, "If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest." Acts 8-37.

Q. 9. Did you ever read of the baptism of any infants in the scriptures ?-A. No.

Q. 10. Did you ever read of the sprinkling of any infants in the scriptures ?-A. No.

Q. 11. Whose commandment, then, do we obey, in having our infants baptized or sprinkled P-A. The commandment of the clergy.

Q. 12. Do we transgress any divine command in neglecting to have our infants baptized A. No-I never read of