Discourses on the Mode and Subjects of Christian Baptism, Or, an Attempt to Shew That Pouring or Sprinkling Is a Scriptual Mode, and the Infants of Believers Are Proper Subjects of the Baptism Instituted by Christ; With an Examination of Various Objection (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1811 Excerpt: ...confers greater privileges than former dispensations: But if children are now shut out of covenant, then the gospel, instead of enlarging, has in this respect, diminished our privileges. But says our author, ' The infallibility of the Roman church may be proved iu the same manner; as thus: The people of God under the Old Testament enjoyed the benefit of infallibilty. The high priest had the Urim and Thummim, by which the mind of God was known, &c.; consequently there must be infallibility in the christian church; otherwise the less perfect dispensation of Moses will have a great privilege beyond the christian.'. '.. The truth is, The christian dispensation has this privilege far beyond the Mosaic. The additional revelation of the gospel discovers the mind of God as infallibly, and far more fully and extensively than ever it was discovered by Urim and Thummim.--Such occasional discoveries now are not needed since we have a complete, standing revelation, The author of the letters tells us, that circumcision, ' that Old Testament rite, was a useless, burthensome, injurious ceremony, and treated as such by the Apostles/ And hence he concludes, baptism cannot come in its room to be administered to infants, as that was. But where"do the Apostles treat circumcision in this manner? The ceremonial law indeed is considered as a yoke of bondage; as butlhensome, not injurious, for it would ill become the teachers of religion to represent God as injuring his people by his institutions: But circumcision, considered as a token of the covenant, is treated as a great pri vilege. What advantage hath the Jew? And what profit is there of circumcision? Much every way. It was a great privilege for the children of Jews to have God for their God, in such a sense as he was n...