of infants, that we have no mention in all the New Testament of any one infant that was baptized by Christ or his Apostles, or by their direction. Upon the strength of this, they will not believe that any were baptized by them, or in their time; and from thence they infer, that it was not commanded nor allowed by our Saviour, and therefore ought not to be practised.

I shall now endeavour to point out to the reader the answers this objection is capable of, by which I flatter myself the weakness and falsehood of it will be made manifest.

In the first place, then, this is but an argument by consequence against the baptizing of infants, which it does not become those to use, who contend we must have express Scripture only for our rule. And it is a forced and strained consequence to conclude, that this was not done because it is not particularly mentioned, and therefore might not be done. It is not reasonable to draw such a consequence from this, that the baptizing of any infant is not mentioned expressly, unless they can produce a declaration in so many words, that all the Apostles did in the discharge of their office is particularly related; but that they cannot do. And if this declaration be nowhere discoverable in the New Testament, then there might be several things done by the Apostles which are not

recorded, and this might be one.

No argument, therefore, can be framed from hence, because it might have been done, though it is not related.

Besides all this, an objection of this sort condemns our opponents also: For, if we may do nothing in the worship of God but what we have express precept for, or what is said in the New Testament was done by Christ or his Apostles, they themselves are condemned in some things which they do, by this principle. And they are certainly in an error, either in their practice, or in the principle and argument which condemns their practice. They are themselves condemned by this argument in these two things: viz.1. In that they defer the baptizing of the infants of baptized parents till they are grown up; and-2. In that they plunge those whom they baptize wholly under water. Now, of neither of these have they one precedent or example in any part of the New Testament. They cannot name any one person whose baptism was deferred, in the time of the Apostles, from his infancy, and administered when he was grown to years of understanding, though his parents were believers and baptized Christians at the time of his infancy. It must be observed, they are greatly deceived when they are made to believe, that our Saviour himself is a precedent of this, because the Virgin Mary, his mother, was a believer in his infancy.

For it must be said, our Saviour did not put off his baptism by St. John till he was of grown years, when he might have had it sooner; for, indeed, he was at grown years himself before John began his baptism. Besides, it is to be observed, that the question we are disputing is, whether or not there is any one precedent of a person, whose baptism was put off from the time of his infancy, and administered to him when he had come to years of understanding, though his parents were believers in Christ, and baptized with his baptism at the time of that person's infancy; and certainly they will not say, that the Virgin Mary was baptized with Christ's baptism, while Christ himself was an infant, that is, before either his preaching had commenced, or his baptism had been instituted. This, then, is no precedent or example of what they insist upon and practise, that is, of the deferring to baptize the infants of parents baptized with Christ's baptism until they had arrived at maturity; and of this they have no one precedent in all the New Testament. And this is the more remarkable, because the space of time which is taken in within the reach of the history of the New Testament is reckoned to be about sixty years. It is true that we find mention made in the New Testament of several grown persons who were baptized, but there is no appearance in the instance of any one

of them, that their parents had been converted and baptized into the Christian faith at the time when these persons were infants.

Nor have the Baptists so much as one precedent or example in all the New Testament of any one person that was baptized, either by Christ or his Apostles, by dipping or plunging him all over into the water, and covering him with it. It is nowhere said, that any were so baptized, nor indeed is it intimated, nor can it be collected or concluded from any one text. The proper word for dipping, which is used in several places of the New Testament, particularly in these that follow, Mat. xxvi. 23; Mark, xiv. 20; John, xiii. 26; Rev. xix. 13; is never applied to any of the baptisms, said to be administered in the New Testament; and the word Baptize does not confine us to understand it of dipping. Although our Saviour was baptized of John in Jordan, and John baptized the multitudes that came to him in Enon, near to Salim, where there was much water, it is not said either that our Saviour was dipped by John in Jordan, or that the multitudes at Enon were so baptized by dipping: we are simply told that they were baptized there. The multitudes might he baptized in a river, or whereever there was much water, without being completely immersed therein for a little water would not suffice to baptize great multitudes, were it only

to be poured or thrown upon them with the baptizer's hand. For this reason probably it was that John baptized at a place where there was much water, though he did not absolutely dip them in it. And though it is said, Acts, viii. 38, That the Ethiopian nobleman went down into the water from his chariot to be baptized by Philip, there is no mention of his having been plunged in that element. For he might have gone in, and be said to have done so, though he went in only so far as to cover his feet with it. Besides, I would request the Antipædobaptist to observe, that the same expression is applied both to Philip and the Eunuch it is said, they went down both of them into the water. If then, by this phrase, we are to understand that the nobleman was plunged all over, it must also mean that Philip was so too, for he went down into the water as well as the distinguished proselyte. But do the Baptists, I would ask, dip themselves all over into the water when they dip those whom they baptize? I believe not. This text then gives a precedent or example for the baptizer also to plunge himself all over at the same time that he baptizes, as well as that he dip the person baptized; and if the Baptists do not thus when they administer this sacrament, they are without a precedent in this text for the manner of their doing it.

Another argument in favour of Infant Baptism