believe that regeneration, in adults and infants, is... -~comitant of baptism. Hence, as there can be no regeneration either before or without baptism, unbaptized infants cannot be in a regenerated state. Thirdly, there are those who profess no settled or specific view of the regeneration of infants; only they believe that all infants, dying in infancy, will be finally saved. It is well known to the student in church history, that few, very few, since the days of the apostles, have ever openly held to the damnation of any of those infants who die in infancy. The Calvinistic school forms the largest exception. There have been those who have held that all unbaptized infants, dying in infancy, go to a sort of middle state, between heaven and hell, as the reader will see in the fifth chapter of this work. Others, as St. Austin, (see pp. 209-211,) with more consistency, held that where the want of baptism was not the fruit of any wicked and wilful disposition of the individual, he would be saved without it. The Protestant Episcopal Church, it appears, chooses, in regard to the state of unbaptized infants hereafter, to observe entire silence. (See pp. 270, 271, of this work.) Now, all I wish here to say is, that I do not insist upon any peculiar sense of the word regenerate. The term has been adopted, in the following pages, because it conveniently expresses the doctrine of infant salvation. All I mean by it is, that infants are, whether baptized or not, in a state of grace; that they are embraced in the provisions of the atonement; that, if they die in infancy, they will be saved, and if they live, they will come under the gracious economy of Heaven, and receive the free offer of life. I wish not to contend about a word. I take the words of Christ, Matt. xix, 14, to refer to all infants, as such,—not to "elect" infants, or to baptized infants, or to the infants of Christian parents, merely. On this point, "if any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant." I have only to add, as greater men have said before me, "If I have done well, and what is fitting the [argument,] it is that which I desired; but if slenderly and meanly, it is that which I could attain unto," 2 Mac. xv, 38. Penn Yan, N. Y., Aug. 20, 1842. F. G. HIBBARD. THE INITIATORY RITE OF THE CHURCH ALTERED. The initiatory rite of the church altered under the New Testa- ment dispensation as to its form, and some other circumstances, 61 That the law of initiation, though changed as to its form, and 3. This feature of the initiating rite is vital to the ordinance itself, Silence of New Testament. Our opponents have no right, under the circumstances, to demand even a positive mention of infant 5. We have the same kind of evidence for infant baptism that The New Testament is not silent on the subject of infant baptism, but makes just such mention of it as, under the circumstances of the case, proves it to have been the universal practice of the apostolic churches; that is, it recognises all those facts and principles which necessarily involve the practice. 1. Infants are in a gracious state 2. Infants are capable of being entered into covenant with God.. 3. Their right to the initiatory ordinance recognised in many [1.] In Gal. iii, 29. A believer in Christ comes in the same [2.] Matt. xxviii, 19. The apostles would have understood 2.) From the general fact that they had always been accus- tomed to seeing the initiating ordinance applied to [3.] The New Testament affirms that relationship of infants (b.) The kingdom of heaven includes the visible church; therefore, if infants belong to the former, so also to (6.) Meaning of the words ἡγίασται, ἀκάθαρτα, and ἁγια.. 125 (c.) Incidental arguments afforded by this text [4.] The right of infants to baptism recognised, Acts ii, 38, 39 142 1.) The "promise" here mentioned refers to Gen. xvii, 7... 142 3.) The familiar manner of speaking of household baptisms proves them to have been common, which heightens 4. Infant baptism is corroborated by Eph. vi, 1–4 5. It coincides with the feelings of pious parents 6. And with the obligation of parents to train up their children AFTER THE RISE OF THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. Creed of Pelagius, and its bearing on the question of infant (12.) Testimony of Austin 17. Histories of heresies and schisms for four hundred years |