SECTION III.

IT has often been asked by antipædobaptists, What are the uses of infant-baptism? What good ends are answered by it? And their own reply to the question may be given in the words of Mr. Birt;* "It is, on every ground hitherto taken for its support, a cause that in this world produces no effect-a means connected with no end-a cloud that affords no rain-a tree that yields no fruit."This representation, I hope to show, has a great deal more in it of boldness, than of truth.

It ought first to be observed, however, that with regard to all such questions as the one so often put and so confidently answered, there is obviously a previous question, namely, that which we have been considering in the preceding sections, Is it, or is it not, a divine institution? If it be once shown to possess the authority of the supreme Lawgiver, it will not be disputed, that our first and immediate duty is compliance. What he appoints, it is ours to observe. Questions of a similar kind might have been asked respecting circumcision. Multitudes of those to whom that rite was administered died in infancy: of what use was it to them? Multitudes who lived till manhood, never obtained the blessings of the temporal inheritence; what was the benefit of it to them ?-But it is not with questions of this nature that we have, in the first instance, to do. Our first inquiry should be, What is God's will not Why is it his will?

Still however we freely admit, it is reasonable to expect that there should be some uses apparent of whatever the God of infinite wisdom enjoins :-and on the present occasion, we feel no difficulty in meeting the inquiry. Of baptism as administered to infants we are at no loss to *Strictures, p. 10.

point out uses, which we conceive to be of no trivial magnitude. We shall endeavor to show these by considering it in the two following lights :-1. As A MEMORIAL OF FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS:-2. As A REMEMBRANCER OF IMPORTANT DUTIES, AND AN ENCOURAGEMENT TO THEIR PERFORMANCE.

Eph.

I. In considering infant-baptism in the former of these views, as a memorial of fundamental truths, it becomes necessary to take some notice, in the first place, of the general signification of the rite itself. It appears, then, to me very evident, that the emblematic significance of baptism is to be found in the purifying nature of the element employed in it,-in the cleansing virtue of water. Almost every instance in which the ordinance is spoken of, or alluded to, with any intimation of its meaning, might be adduced in proof of this. The following passages are but a specimen of many: Acts xxii. 16. "And now, why tarriest thou? Arise and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord." v. 25, 26. "Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it by the washing of water, through the word; that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish." In this latter passage, spiritual purification is no doubt intended; but it contains such an allusion to the ordinance of baptism with water, as leads us to conclude, that this spiritual purification is what it is designed principally to represent.—A similar allusion there seems to be in Tit. iii. 5. "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost."

From these and other passages it appears, that baptism, by the emblem of the cleansing virtue of water, denotes the removal of sin, in its guilt, and in its pollution. Of such allusions, indeed, the scriptures are full. And surely, that view which is most frequently exhibited to our attention, and which both on the subject of justification and sanctification, imparts, if I may so speak, a peculiar figurative complexion to the current language of scrip

ture, I am warranted to consider as at least the principal, if not even the exclusive import of the institution.

But according to the views of our baptist brethren, washing, or cleansing, so far from being the exclusive, is not even the principal, but only a secondary meaning of the rite. Whilst the general tenor of the language of scripture, as well as a number of particular passages, seems to place its symbolical meaning in the nature of the element employed, it is by them placed principally, and by some of them indeed, as would appear from their m of expressing themselves, almost solely, in the mode in which that element is used.

ner

The passages referred to by them, in support of this notion, are the two following: Rom. vi. 3, 4. "Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." Col. ii. 12. "Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen. with him, through the faith of the operation of God who hath raised him from the dead."-In these passages, our brethren conceive, there is an obvious reference to the mode of baptism by immersion. The apostle represents this ordinance, to use the language of Mr. Maclean, in his commission, page 137, as "exhibiting the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, together with the Christian's communion with, and conformity to him therein." The baptized person's communion with Christ in his death and burial, is represented by his being laid under the water; and his communion with him in his resurrection, by his being raised out of it.

Two things may just be noticed here, before proceeding to the explanation of the passages. The first is, that it is obviously incorrect, to speak of the ordinance as exhibiting the death of Christ," as well as his burial and resurrection; for whatever resemblance fancy may imagine to the two latter, there is surely no representation of the former. The death can only be considered as implied in the burial.-The second is, (what has been largely shown by others.*) that even to the burial and resurrec

* See particularly Mr. Ewing's late Essay.

tion of Christ, the immersion of a body under water, and its immersion from it, bear but a very indistinct and remote resemblance. The mind may easily indeed habituate itself to the idea of likeness, between being let down under earth and raised out of it, and being let down under water and raised out of it. But where is the likeness, between the latter of these and the carrying of a body, by a lateral door into a cavern hewn out of a rock, and that body reviving, and coming forth by the same door?— which were the real circumstances of the burial and resurrection of the Saviour. I confess this resemblance, on which so much stress is laid by our baptist brethren, has always appeared to me but a far-fetched fancy. I shall say nothing stronger, lest I should possibly be in the wrong in so considering it. Of one thing, however, I must express my firm conviction, namely, that any allusion at all to the mode of baptism, is in no respect necessary to the right and easy understanding of the passages in question. And if this can be shown, it will follow of course that they form but a flimsy foundation for the superstructure, of sentiment and practice, that has been reared upon them. Let it not be said, that other pædobaptists have thought differently, have admitted an allusion, and endeavored to explain it in other ways. I cannot help that. I state my own views, and wish them to be tried, not by comparison with those of others, but by the test of the Bible. It is a puny and pitiful way of carrying on a controversy, to prowl about amongst different writers on the same side of the question, for the purpose of detecting, and setting forth in contrasted columns, every little discrepancy between them; with the view, covert or avowed, of drawing the reader to the conclusion, that they cannot be right who so differ from one another. Our baptist friends are rather too fond of this attempt to divide us against ourselves. Yet were it altogether an honorable description of warfare, it is one in which we might venture on competition, without despairing of suc

cess.

With regard to the passages in question, Mr. Maclean, the eminent baptist writer referred to a little ago, well explains their spiritual meaning to be-" That, by a gra

cious constitution, Christ sustained the persons of all the elect, in his dying and rising again; that they were so comprehended in, and accounted one with him, as to have died in his death, been buried in his burial, and raised again in his resurrection."* This I take to be the true principle of interpretation for the whole context of the passage in Rom. vi. But that this blessed truth, (with which, as the same writer justly observes, the scriptures abound,) is "signified to believers in their baptism, wherein the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ are re-acted, in a figure, upon their own persons," the language employed does not seem, either necessarily or naturally, to imply.

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To be baptized into Christ” is to be baptized into the faith of him as the Messiah ;-into the faith of his divine mission, character, and work. To be "baptized into his death" is to be baptized into the faith of death, in the view of which the gospel gives of it, as the death of a surety or substitute, making atonement for the sins of those for whom he died.-Now, by being thus "baptized into his death, says the apostle, we are buried with him." The simple meaning of this expression evidently is, that by being baptized into the faith of his death, as the death of our surety and substitute, we become partakers with him in it. When the apostle, pursuing his beautiful illustration of the spiritual connection of believers with Christ, and the practical obligations thence arising, says in the eighth verse, "Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him," he uses a phrase of equivalent import with the one before us. To be dead with Christ, and to be buried with Christ, are the same thing. The latter of the two phrases appears to be used in the fourth verse, chiefly for the sake of completing the apostle's figure. As it was necessary, in order to Christ's rising, that he should be laid in the grave; so, in the figure, it is necessary that we should be viewed as buried with him, in order to our rising with him to newness of life :

"Ours the cross, the grave, the skies."

The simple meaning is this:-Since, in our being bap*Commission, page 140.