children to have been still young, and therefore entirely under parental authority, the matter presents no difficulty at all."

If Infant Baptism be a right thing in the sight of God, and (as our Article expresses it) most agreeable to the institution of Christ, it could not have waited till the second or third century to be excogitated by the Church; it must have grown up with the sanction of the Apostles side by side with Adult Baptism; for if it be a privilege for Infants to be baptized, and so be buried with Christ, it is incredible that the Apostolic Christians should not have been informed of it.

All the evidence which bears upon the matter, both in Scripture and antiquity, is in favour of the supposition that those who could have been admitted into the Church of the Old Covenant would not have been excluded from the New. The whole demeanour of Christ towards infants is in favour of their receiving a rite conferring spiritual blessing before they can realize what they receive. The children upon whom Christ laid His hands could not understand the significance of the act of Christ. The Apostles, too, could only have forbidden them for some such reason as is now given to debar infants from receiving Baptism-as, for instance, that they could not understand the nature of what was done to them-and yet our Lord was greatly displeased when those about Him took upon themselves to refuse their claims to have His hands laid upon them, though, of course, they could as little have understood the moral significance of this "laying on of Christ's hands, as they could have understood that of Baptism itself.

Similar in their force are the words of St. Peter, in Acts ii. (words, let the reader remember, which inaugurate the New Dispensation itself): "Repent and be bap

tized every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins for the promise is to you, and to your children." Let it be remembered that these words fell upon the ears of those with whom Infant Church Membership was a first principle of religion. We cannot but draw the same inference from the fact that in the Epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians, two letters written to baptized communities, we have words for children, as if they were as much a part of the Church as their elders.

With all this agree the notices which we have in the scanty records of the early Church; such as that of Irenæus, that "Christ came to save all through means of Himself— all, I say, who through Him are born again to God-infants and children, and boys, and youths, and old men. He therefore passed through every age, becoming an infant for infants, thus sanctifying infants." The term "born again" was in the age of Irenæus so universally connected with Baptism, that it is in reality equivalent to his saying, "all who through Christ are made children of God in Baptism." With this agrees Tertullian's testimony to the prevalence of the practice at the end of the second century, and the direct assertion of Origen (A.D. 220) that the practice was received from the Apostles.

But was there no one to oppose? Yes, Tertullian, in a well-known passage, deprecates the haste displayed by the Christians of his time in bringing young children to Baptism but it is most instructive to mark on what ground he objects. On the almost heretical one that sin after Baptism was all but unpardonable: for it is to be remembered that Tertullian in this passage deprecates not only the Baptism of Infants, but that of unmarried persons, as being, because they were unmarried, more in danger of falling into deadly sins of the flesh. "With no less reason also unmarried persons should be put off, within

whom temptation is already prepared,-as well in virgins, by reason of their ripe age, as in widows, by reason of their wandering about, until they either marry or be confirmed in continency;" and he concludes with the words, "They that understand the weighty nature of Baptism will fear its attainment rather than its postponement."

From this passage we gather, first, that Infant Baptism was the rule in Tertullian's time. Secondly, that an opinion was then gaining some ground, viz. that of the extreme deadliness of sin after Baptism, which would lead to the deferring of Baptism. This latter theory, carried out to its logical consequences, was that which mainly contributed

to Tertullian's own fall.

The teaching of this very passage, rightly apprehended, must lead us to the conclusion that Infant Baptism must have been established in Apostolic times. It could not well have been the product of an age in which notions were growing rife of the all but unpardonable nature of sin committed after Baptism.

In nothing is the practice of the Apostolic age more in contrast with that of every succeeding age than in these two things, the (almost) prodigality with which Baptism itself was given, and the readiness with which the lapsed were restored on their repentance.

With respect to the first of these (the readiness with which Baptism was administered), we read in the New Testament of no long probationary or catechumenical state before Baptism was granted. As soon as faith was professed, the convert seems to have been baptized. There is certainly no record of any long probationary period, or course of discipline, like that which the well-known passage in so early a writer as Justin Martyr indicates. And with respect to the second point (the greater readiness in restoring the lapsed), a man who had committed a sin like

that of the Corinthian fornicator would not, in any other age, have been restored till after years of penance; and this greater strictness, both as regards admission into the Church, and re-admission after excommunication, seems to have commenced very shortly after the Apostolic age.

Infant Baptism, then, was far more likely to have been the product of the Apostolic age than of any after age.

When Baptism was administered freely, after a simple profession of repentance, rather than cautiously after a long course of preparation, it would be considered more in the light of a gift to be bestowed than of a reward to be worked for, or a position to be won; and if so, infants would much more naturally receive it. If Infant Baptism be connected with a gift to be given of free grace, then Infant Baptism seems natural, for infants can receive a gift of grace just as they can receive (and have received) an heritage of evil. If, on the contrary, it is of the nature of a thing which has to be earned after probation, then the bestowment of it is naturally postponed till it has been so earned; on which principle Infants, being incapable of earning it, are debarred from receiving it.

So also with Church membership. If the terms of continuance in Church membership are so strict that the lapsed can hardly be restored after years of penitence, it seems cruel to give Baptism to Infants. It seems more reasonable to wait till we see that the candidate is established in faith and holiness before we confer on him so perilous a gift. From these considerations, then, we infer that no age of the Church, except the Apostolic, could have developed such a practice, for no age was characterized by such readiness to administer Baptism, or such readiness to restore the lapsed on their repentance.

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CHAPTER VI.

BEARING OF SCRIPTURE CRITICISM ON THE CHURCH

DOCTRINE OF BAPTISM.

Two other controversies have, since the publication of this tract, disturbed the Church. One of these busies itself with the criticism, authority, and inspiration of Scripture; the other is occupied with the question whether Christianity be a natural or a supernatural system-whether it be a natural development of the religious thought or devout imagination of one branch of the Semitic race, which, quite apart from any intervention of any Supreme Being, must have arisen in due course; or whether it be the effect of the personal interference of the Supreme Being to restore His fallen creature by means far above and beyond anything which the universe, apart from Him, can afford. I shall in few words indicate how far I conceive the doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration to be affected by these controversies.

And first, by that of the Inspiration of Scripture, with which, in this case, may be joined the whole question of the criticism and interpretation of Scripture.

The line of proof upon which I have chiefly relied in the accompanying tract (and I may say in my other works) seems to me to be out of the reach of criticism or principles of interpretation. It is this. I have shown how universally throughout the word of God the baptized are assumed to be in grace, or to have once received grace. This mode of address is so uniform throughout the sacred