5. The Jews probably owned all the bathing places which were for miles round, and Cornelius had no liberty to occupy them without their confent.

Under thefe circumftances, we may conclude, and very rationally too, that Peter would address the Jews who came from Joppa with him, and others who might poffibly be prefent, and fay to them, with relation to his brethren, who were owners of the bathing places round about Cornelius's habitation, Who of us Jews, who believe in God and in his Son Jefus, can be fo tenacious of our civil privileges, and bear fo much ill will to the Romans, as to forbid water, or the use of some bathing place, that these finners of the Gentiles, who have now received the Holy Ghost as well as we, fhould not be permitted to receive the gofpel ordinance of baptifm? This appears all eafy and natural: but to fuppofe that Peter meant, Can any man forbid a bason of water to be brought in, that these should not be baptized, would be totally and manifeftly unnatural, and inconfiftent with the attending circumftances. Peter was now in Cornelius's houfe: Cornelius had both fervants and foldiers at a moment's command, and it would perhaps have been the laft thing that any one of the company would have thought of, to have forbidden a bowl of water to be brought by one of the fervants, at the command of Cornelius. You, Sir, and the reader will judge which fide, yours or the Baptist's, is favoured by this collateral argument of yours.

V. Say you, "The strong probability, notwithstanding your fuppofitions, that the jailer and his house were not baptized by immersion."

For anfwer, the reader is referred to my fixth Sermon, pages 93, 94, first edition; however, I will reply to a quef tion which you put under this argument. If here was immersion, (fay you) why do we not hear something about a river or bathing place, going out to it, returning, &c.? Anf. We do hear or read in the fame chapter, and with respect to the fame city where the jailer lived, that there was a river running through the city, or by it. It was by the fide of this, where Paul and Silas fpake unto the women, where prayer was wont to be made. We alfo read of the jailer and the apoftles coming in, of confequence they must have gone out.

VI. Say you, page 65, "I will just fubjoin, for I confult brevity as much as poffible, the cafe of Paul, Acts ix. 18, 19. 'And immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been fcales; and he received fight forthwith, and arofe, and was baptized."

Anf. Why, Sir, did you not mention Acts xxii. 16. where the fame hiftory of Paul is related in the following wordsArife, and be baptized, and wash away thy fins, calling on the name of the Lord'? The reafon is fufficiently plain: in this relation of the fame transaction, the manner in which water was to be applied to Paul, in the ordinance of baptism, was mentioned by implication. He was to be bathed or immersed in water, and thus, by a figure, he was to wash away his fins, or to have them apparently or figuratively washed away.

Having faid what you pleased, and probably every thing which you thought plaufible, at leaft the things which you judged moft fo, then you observe, as a kind of conclufion, thus,"I fuggeft these things curforily, not pretending that they furnish demonftration, that the uniform import of the term baptize, as used in the Scriptures, is a partial washing fhort of immerfion; for that is not a point I am aiming to establish, but as furnishing dined proof against your hypothefis, that the word fignifies to immerfe, and that only. If there are exceptions, and we fee that there is abundant evidence that there are, your main proposition relative to baptism falls, and with it must fall, for this reason, as well as for the other previously given, your whole fuperftructure of clofe communion."

Anf. I have, Sir, two objections against this your conclufion. One is, You tell us about dire proof against my hypothefis, when not one paffage which you have brought, nor all of them put together, where baptizō is used, furnish, ftrictly speaking, fo much as one plaufible argument against my hypothefis. When you take the derivative of baptiz there is fomething plausible, but it furnishes no proof, direct or indirect, against it. The most which you can fay with fafety is, that when the apoftle fpeaks of diaphornis baptifmois, divers washings, he might mean, or you believe he meant to include more kinds of wafhings than the multitude of rinsings, fcourings in water, and puttings into water, &c. which were enjoined in the ceremonial law. You have no proof, or at leaft you have given us none, that he intended any other kinds of wathings, which did not imply immersion. Even if you could do what you have not done, produce proof that baptifmis did include fome kinds of washings which were not entire immerfion, fill this would be no direct proof that baptizō was ever ufed to import any thing ort of entire immerfion. Your proof, therefore, fails you erly; hence my hypothefis as yet ftands fecurely,

My other objection is, You tell us that there is abundance of evidence that there are exceptions, i. e. that baptizo does not always mean immersion, or the like. We have received all your Letters, and find no evidence. You have produced feveral pretended witneffes, but they agree not together, nor does any one of them fpeak to the point in hand; and even when we fummed up your own evidence, it was, that immerfion was the only gospel baptifm which you could find; hence my main propofition ftands, and with it must fland my whole fuperftru&ure of clófe communion.

In page 66, you mention the appeals which have been made on both fides, to the learned fathers and critics; and then, in page 67, make this excellent declaration and appeal, "We refufe, Sir, (fay you) to be bound by human testi mony, in an essential article of Chriftian practice: we appeal to the oracles of truth." This is juft the refolution and point to which the Baptifts with to bring your denomination. If you might be inftrumental of purfuading them to refuse human teftimony, as the basis of any effential article in the Chriftian faith, and to take the oracles of truth, as being a fufficient guide in matters of faith and practice, and to be. lieve that the man of God, fo far as he understands them, is perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works, you would do an effential fervice to the caufe of truth, and your praise would be in all the churches. Could this be effected,

we might hope for a speedy union between the two denomi nations. Could we all agree to walk by one rule, we might expect to be foon in one path.

The next thing which in your Letters appears worthy of particular attention, is your folemn addrefs to me, in page 70, a part of which is in the words following,-“ I entreat you to come to a folemn pause, and with your eye upon the judgment day, inquire whether you have authority to exclude all Pædobaptifts from a vifible ftanding in Chrift's kingdom, and from the communion of faints in an ordinance which was given to them as a most valuable bequest of their Redeemer, merely because they have not been baptized in the manner of immerfion?"

My reply to you, Sir, is,

1. It was a folemn belief in a judgment to come, and that the light of that day would detect all error, and discover the truth, and bring me to acknowledge it, which greatly fubdued the rifings of my carnal heart against the clofe communion Baptifts. After I had thought much of the particular fentiments of the Baptifts, and had had no small diffi

culty as to my own practice, their clofe communion scheme, as I then confidered it, appeared to me fo erroneous, that I was upon the point of concluding them to be wrong throughout, and of fettling down upon my old practice; but, Sir, a folemn belief in a judgment to come, calmed my oppofition; and a folemn belief that truth would then appear, and that if the Baptifts were in the truth, they would then appear fo, prevailed upon me to give their diftinguishing fentiments one folemn hearing more. I may fay, it was the judgment day as a mean, which made me a Baptift. I have daily a folemn view, or folemn thoughts, on death, judgment, and eternity; and with reference to thefe, I fometimes defire to do with my might what my hands find to do, for God and the church.

2. My reply is, that I have no authority to exclude you from any place where Chrift hath put you, nor from any ordinance which he hath bequeathed to you; but I have no belief of fprinkling, nor of any thing else fhort of immersion, being gofpel baptifm. I have no belief of a perfon's be longing to Chrift's visible kingdom, before he is baptized. I have no belief of Chrift's having bequeathed the ordinance of the fupper to any, till they belong to his vifible kingdom; confequently, I have no belief of your having any gospel right to partake of that ordinance; hence, my fettled belief is, that I have no liberty to encourage you to come, till you repent of your perversion of the first gofpel ordinance, and be baptized.

Say you again, confider, "I beseech you, how your doctrine belittles the glorious and growing kingdom of, the Meffiah, &c.; how it obliges you to go abreaft of the most affecting facts, I mean the wonderful fuccefs which has attended the labours of thousands of Pædobaptist ministers "

But, my dear Sir, you have forgotten the appeal which you have but just made to the oracles of truth. On the laft page this appeal was made, and now you are appealing to good Pedobaptift minifters, to convict me of an error. I fhall no more confent to fuch an appeal. To the oracles of truth thou hast appealed, and to them thou must go, and by them thou and thy works must be judged. By them convict either me or my doctrines, and I am filent. But at no other tribunal do I for the prefent confent to meet you, or to be tried myself.

Wishing that we may both of us be prepared to meet the od of truth, in Him who is the truth, I am, &c.

I

REVEREND SIR,

LETTER VIII.

your

NOW haften to a review of examination of my
Sermon on the fübjects of baptifm.

In page 72, you complain of my statement of the queftion, which relates to the command to disciple all nations. I ftated it thus: The important queftion to be decided is just this--If I difciple any of you who are parenis, do I, as a necessary confequence, difciple all your children and households ?

You obje&---“ No, Sir, this is not just the queftion; the queftion refpects the object of this act of difcipling. Whom are you to difciple? the text fays, All nations." Very well; and do not nations confift of parents, with their children and households? In the next page you fay, "The capability of the objects muft certainly be fuppofed; but there can be no capability in the infant part of a nation, but by virtue of their relation to their parents." Very well again; this comes to juft what I faid-If your scheme be juft, we difciple the children by difcipling the parents.

Before we proceed any further, we will give our Saviour's definition of a difciple, Luke xiv. 33. 'Whofoever he be of you that forfaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my difciple. Now, Sir, the important question is just thisIf through my inftrumentality a parent forfakes all that he hath, and fo becomes a difciple, do the infant children and household become difciples of courfe? This is your fcheme, Sir, but it is not mine nor the gofpel's.

In connexion, you afk, "Is it impoffible for God to perfect praife from the mouth of babes and fucklings, and that of fuch, in part, his kingdom of grace fhould confift?" From what motive you asked this question, which, from its connexion, tends to deceive the inattentive, I know not, but to it I reply-You have changed the fubject in debate; we are not speaking of the kingdom of grace, but of Chrift's visible kingdom: befides, the babes and fucklings which are fpoken of in the gofpel, and of which Chrift's vifible kingdom does no doubt in part confift, are fuch as cried in the temple, faying, Hofanna to the Son of David.

You complain again, because I fubftituted difciple for teach, and fo make the command of our Lord to be, Go and dif ciple all nations; yet in the next page you fay, "The fubftitution of the term difciple. is much more favourable to

F