the Spirit of Christ which was in him did signify, he certainly foretold the calling of the Gentiles; and his meaning plainly is, that the promise which was To THE JEWS FIRST AND TO THEIR CHILDREN, should be TO THE GENTILES ALSO AND TO Their children. Nay, he went on to exhort his hearers to abandon their connection with their unbelieving brethren after the flesh, that they might not lose the promise which they could only enjoy by faith. Ver. 40. " And with many other words. did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward Race."

Precisely in the same strain, and almost in the same words, the apostle Paul asserts the interest which believers in Christ from among the Gentiles, have, in the family promise made to the Jews; and, in the same way as Peter does, he connects this family promise with family Baptism. He is proving in the third chapter of the Epistle to the Galatians, ver. 13, 14. that "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through the faith." And he says, ver. 26-29. « For ye are all the children of God by the faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed,

ACCORDING TO THE PROMISE."

and heirs

If family Baptism had not been practised, as far as

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opportunity permitted, from the beginning, we must admit that the disciples did not act under the eye of their Master while he was personally with them, as they did afterwards, when he went to the Father, and sent his Holy Spirit to lead them into all the truth. If family Baptism was not practised, as far as opportunity permitted, on the day of Pentecost, the disciples did not act, then, as they did afterwards, when taught the final lesson, that God had granted to the Gentiles also, repentance unto life. But the probability is, that, in both these periods, the practice was the same as we are expressly told it was afterwards; because, in the Gospels and Acts, we read of no" Gilgal" (see Josh. v. 2-9.) where the reproach of a neglected ordinance was rolled away.

If family Baptism had not been practised from the beginning to the end of the New Testament history, some case, I ought rather to say, many cases, would certainly have occurred, in which the children of believers, coming to embrace the faith of their parents, would have been said to have been baptized. But there is no case of this kind in the history of scripture; nor the most distant intimation, that Baptism was ever deferred till adult age.

Family Baptism, as mentioned in the New Testament, is the more remarkable, that no other ordinance, and no privilege of any kind, is mentioned in the New Testament, as given to families. Mention is made of churches in the houses of some; but it is not said that those churches consisted of a believer and his

house. Neither is a believer and his house ever said to have received the Lord's Supper.

I shall now be asked, if all or any of the families of believers, where family Baptism is said to have been practised, can be proved to have contained infants? I answer, that "a house," or family, is a term which includes, in its meaning, infants as properly as adult children; and that, in not one of those families mentioned in connection with Baptism, is any exception made, for the purpose of excluding infants. Their continuance in one family is a presumption that the members were either under age, or willing to remain under the influence of parental instruction and example. The sons had not left their father and mother to cleave to a wife, and the daughters had not yet been given in marriage. Or, if they and their connections were inclined to remain, the probability of multiplied infancy was only increased; while the voluntary residence of the adults might be in the divinely taught spirit of a daughter-in-law, when she comforted a widowed heart by saying, "Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me," Ruth i. 16, 17. Unless we admit that infants, nay, every relation both of affinity and descent, which can be considered as his property, are interest

ed in the privileges of a believer's house, I see not a satisfactory meaning of 1 Cor. vii. 12-14. "If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away. And the woman which hath an husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy." That there is nothing in the idea of being "baptized," which should exclude infants, is evident from what Paul says of the children of Israel on their leaving Egypt, when we know they had all their infants with them, 1 Cor. x. 1, 2. "Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea."

If a man and his family are degraded, does not the degradation include infants? If a man and his family are ennobled, does not the nobility include infants? If a man and his family are baptized, does not the language convey a similar meaning, namely, that the Baptism includes infants? In calculating, as some do, the probability of the case, many confine their attention to the four families mentioned in Acts x. Acts xvi. and 1 Cor. i. But these are only a specimen of the hundreds and thousands of families, which, in the first propagation of the gospel, were treated in the same way. When Lydia was baptized with

her house, we are made certain that they were none of them believers, excepting herself. For she urged Christian character, as the argument for prevailing with Paul and Silas to accept her hospitality. Unquestionably she put her argument as strongly as she could; yet, as it was HER heart only which the Lord was said to have opened, ver. 14. so she could not include so much as one in the family, along with herself, as a believer; but was obliged to use the singular number, saying, "If ye have judged ME to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house, and abide,” Acts xvi. 15. Now, if this unbelieving family contained no infants, the case would seem to me to be as embarrassing to an Antipædobaptist, as if they were all infants together.-The house of Stephanas "addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints," 1 Cor. xvi. 15. Were this a proof that they had among them no infants, we might find a proof that the house of the Rechabites had among them no infants, because, in Jer. xxxv. 2—11. they addicted themselves to perform the commandment of their father. The general terms are even stronger in the latter instance than in

* How opposite to this obvious conclusion is the assertion, that the household of Lydia were "the Brethren," whom Paul and Silas are said in v. 40, to have comforted! "The Brethren" is a phrase which includes all the converts at Philippi. Before leaving the city, Paul and Silas went to the house of their hostess, where "the Brethren" had probably been in the habit of meeting them before, where at any rate they now came to bid them farewell; "and, when they had seen the brethren, they comforted them, and departed."