Institutes and Commentaries on Scripture, while we can prove the alleged tenet of Luther to be discountenanced by the Libri Symbolici containing the doctrinal standards of the Lutheran church. In common fairness the author should have produced his authority for ascribing such sentiments to these distinguished reformers.

Against the admission of infants into the church militant, the preceding extract contains the semblance of an argument, purporting to be founded on analogy. Infants, it appears, must be excluded from the Christian church, because it would be absurd to raise an army of infants to oppose an invading enemy, and the general who should make such a proposal would be dismissed as insane. We arraign the logic of this argument as vicious, and its theology as unscriptural.

1. Had Dr. Williams contended for a church militant, made up exclusively of infants, his view would have presented dialectic ground for the analogy, by which Dr. Carson has attempted to hold him up to contempt. But neither Dr Williams, nor any other Pædobaptist writer, ever occupied such a position; and hence the reasoning by which he has been so wantonly assailed is totally without foundation. Will it be maintained that infants are not admissible into a community at all, unless on the condition, that if composed entirely of infants, that community would be competent to the discharge of its proper functions? We cannot apprehend that any well informed mind will adopt a principle which derives no support from the history of the church, and of which even the world furnishes palpable contradictions. Some knowledge and experience, it will be admitted, are essential to the efficient discharge of the duties which the British constitution assigns to the house of lords; yet the prince of Wales from the period of his birth or baptism, has occupied the first place on the roll of that Rt. Honourable House. What! An infant legislator!! Should any statesman be absurd enough to propose the organization of a parliament of infants, he would thereby prove himself well qualified for admission into a lunatic asylum. Had Dr. Carson kept before him the distinction between an assembly composed of infants alone, and one in which infants form a fractional part, it would have prevented him from resorting to an argument, which displays indeed his powers of sarcasm, but is illogical in its structure, and palpably unjust to the views of his opponents.

2. We maintain that Dr. Carson's attack on militant infants is as emphatically repugnant to the principles and practice of the word of God, as to the ecclesiastical polity of Pædobaptists. Will any man who has studied his Bible, venture to deny that infants were included in the ancient covenant, and entered into the membership of the Jewish church? The fact stands out so broadly and prominently in the Hebrew Scriptures, that we may be accused of having wasted time in its establishment. But Baptists will probably acknowledge that for all purposes contemplated in this argument, the Jewish church was the church militant; and hence they may perceive, without much difficulty, that Dr. Carson might with equal justice and good taste, have extended his sneer to militant infants received by divine warrant into God's ancient church. No doubt Abraham, or Moses would have accounted it absurd to organize a church composed exclusively of infants; but, under the special direction of the God of the covenant, they saw no objection to the union of the children of his people with their parents in the membership of the church.

The same Scripture principle is beautifully exemplified in the arrangement-Numb. iii. 28-respecting the family of the Kohathites, to all the males of which from a month old and upwards, was intrusted the charge of the sanctuary. "What!" Dr. Carson may exclaim, "infants a month old keep God's sanctuary!! Might we not as well attempt to cure bedlam with syllogisms, as reason with persons who talk of infants keeping a charge." Yet this appointment emanated from the wisdom of the God of Zion, and it presents an interesting example of infant children associated with their parents in the service of the sanctuary, and thus formally entitled to the benefit of early training. Take another instructive instance. When Ammon, Moab, and the inhabitants of Mount Seir marched their combined forces against Jehoshaphat, "All Judah stood before the Lord, with their little ones, their wives and their children," 2 Chron. xx. 13, and their united supplication was, "O our God, wilt thou not judge them? for we have no might against this great company :

but our eyes are upon thee." v. 12. Here are the militant infants again, and they war to some purpose; for who has the heart to deny that the presence of the little ones before God formed part of the instrumentality by which Judah obtained a victory as signal as it was easy and unexpected?

We dare not join in pouring ridicule upon militant infants. We are more disposed to write a book on the vast influence which infants exert in peace and in war, in the world and in the church. We cordially unite in the Psalmist's noble tribute to the power and wisdom of Jehovah our Lord; - "Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength, because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger." Ps. viii. 2. Such is a specimen of the testimonies and arguments which, in our judgment, go to evince the futility of the grounds alleged for the exclusion of infants from the pale of the new dispensation. Anomalous indeed would be the arrangement, if by divine sanction infants have a place in the Abrahamic church, in the Mosaic church, and in the heavenly church; while Christianity stands forward in solitary and inveterate hostility to their admission.

CHAPTER EIGHTH.

ROOM FOR INFANTS IN THE COMMISSION.

THE APOSTOLIC COMMISSION, MAT. XXVIII. 19, 20; MARK XVI. 15, 16, CITED AND CONSIDERED. ITS STRUCTURE VIEWED IN THE LIGHT OF CERTAIN BAPTIST ADMISSIONS. NATURE OF THE CONNECTION IN WHICH THE COMMISSION INTRODUCES BAPTISM. - RELATION OF BAPTISM TO DISCIPLESHIP NOT UNFRIENDLY TO THE ADMISSION OF INFANTS-NOR ITS RELATION TO FAITH-NOR ITS RELATION TO THE SUBSEQUENT TEACHING OF THE BAPTIZED, AS ENJOINED IN MATTHEW. THE LIMITED VIEW OF INFANT BAPTISM SUSTAINED BY THE COMMISSION. POSSIBILITY AND HOPE OF UNIFORM ACTION AMONG THE ADVOCATES OF PÆDOBAPTISM.

Mat. xxviii. 19, 20.-"Go ye therefore, and teach-μαθητεύσατε disciple-all nations, baptizing them in its into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things," &c.

Mark xvi. 15, 16. - "Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature. He that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved; but he that believeth not, shall be damned."

I. THE structure of the commission, as recorded by Matthew, has already engaged our attention. It was observed that the evangelist does not say, -" disciple all nations, and baptize them;" but, - "disciple all nations, baptizing them." The difference is obvious. When the apostle says, Colos. i. 28, "Whom we preach,