114 / 652
404
CHRISTIAN BAPTISM.
[SERM.
VII.
longed
properly
to the
Jewish
nation, and
admitted
none
but
males
:
But
all
professors
of
the gospel must receive
this ceremony, and
be
baptised in the name
of
the
Fa=
ther,
Son
and Holy
Ghost
;
and this
is
the most common
account
the New
Testament
gives
us
of
this
matter,
that
when
persons professed
their
faith
in
Christ, they
were
baptized.
Texts of
this kind
need
not
be
cited they are
so
numerous.
But
in
the christian church
from its
early
ages,
and
we
think
from the apostles' time, it
bath
been
the custom
also to
baptize the infant children
of
professed
christians;
and though there
be
im
such express and plain commands
or
examples
of
it written
in
scripture
as
We
might have
expected, yet there
are
several inferences to
be drawn
from
what
is
written,
which afford
a just
and reasonable
encouragement
to this
practice, and guard
it
from
the
censure of superstition
and
will
worship.
This
has been
a
long
and troublesome dispute indeed among the
churches
since
the
reformation
:
I
shall
not pretend
to
debate it
here,
but
only
rehearse a
few
hints
of argument,
which
are
commonly used
to
vindicate the
practice
of
baptizing children,
viz.
1.
That
ever since
God
called the family
of
Abraham,
and
settled
his visible
church
in it, he has
never suffered
it
to fail.
It
was
an
"
everlasting covenant
that
he
made
with
Abraham, to
be his
God, and the
God of
his
seed;"
Gen.
xvii.
7,
8.
"
that
he
might
be
the
Father
both
of
Jews
and
gentiles," who were brought into
the church,
as in Rom.
iv.
11,
16.
2.
The
Jewish and
the
christian church are
but
one and the same
visible
church
in
a
continued
succes-
sion,
though
under
different administrations and ordin-
ances.
The
same
spiritual
promises and blessings which
belonged
to
the church
under
the Old
Testament,
belong
also to
it
under
the New
;
Acts
ii.
39.
2
Cor.
i.
20.
Abraham
is
represented
as
the root or
stock
of
the
visible
church
:
Rom. xi. 16,
17, &c.
The Jewish
church are
the
natural
branches of
it,
the gentiles are ingrafted into
the
same
stock, verses
17,
24.
and
partake
of
the
bles-
sings of
it.
3.
The children
of
the Jews
were visible members
of
the Jewish church
under
the
covenant
of
Abraham, and
as
such they
were
recognised, acknowledged and receiv-
ed
into
it by
circumcision,
as the
door of entrance
:
Now