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    Paul blaines Ppter for Judaizing out of Palestine , he not only circumcised Timothy , as being born of a Jewish mother , but performed bis vows in the tempte » and acted as other Jews

    did , a conduct more unjustifiable than was the duplicity of Peter upon any other ground than that , whilst the Jewish temple and polity continued , he and every Jew was bound in Palestine to observe the Mosaic ritual .

    And if the Mosaic ritual was to be observed during the continuance of the temple and its service , the bap * tism of John by immersion was of course to be continued , because it

    was the appointed ordinance by which the man who was convinced by the heraldizing of John or Jesus , or their disciples , gave notice publicly of their change of sqptiment and their union with those who left the Jewish church

    to become members of the new dispensation * i . e . in Jewish phraseology , of their being born again , 2 , That this was the case is farther evident from the command Jesus

    gave to his eleven disciples to bap . * tize , for he gives the command in connexion with the reception of the Holy Spirit and the continuance of the Jewish age .

    The command was given to the eleven disciples only to baptize , and the others baptized as well as they > yet it does not appear that any received the gifts of the Spirit but " such

    on whorn they laid their hands - , and those who were baptized , their bap . tism was considered as imperfect and incomplete unless they had received the gifts of the Spirit , for this was the Divine seal or testimony to their

    sincerity . My deductions from tjxis are three : 1 . That seeing the ordinance of imnaersiou was appointed as a testimony to the Israelitish nation , who has a right to extend the ordinance beyond the period appointed by its institutor , the political existence of the Jewish

    nation ? ~ . Jesus gave the command connected with a promise to be received ° i * obedience to it , the baptism of » - ^ - - ^ ¦*» - *>^ ** m v m . a - % ^ m ^ r vm »_ ^ v * W m . mm ^ . w Athe

    Spirit : does it not naturally and necessaril y follow , that unless a new comman d is given for the extension ° * the time , and wholly independent L the promise , that when the period * pircs for which the command was

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    given and the proiriised gift cease ^ to be communicated , that of course the ordinance which was to precede the gift ceases also ? 3 . That this command to baptize was given by Jesus to the eleven apostles only ; and the history of the Acts and the writings of Paul shew that

    though others did baptize yet the apostles themselves always completed the act by laying on of hands , and conferring the gifts of the Spirit , Who then is the man that has a right to take upon him to perform an office belonging solely to the apostles ? And of what avail can a ceremony be , when it carries not with it the seal

    of the Divine approbation to the sincerity of the person or to God ' s approving of the deed ? To confirm this view of the subject of baptism by immersion , that it

    never was intended by the institutor of it to be more than an initiatory introduction to Christianity , during the continuance o ! the Mosaic economy and Jewish polity , I observe ,

    1 . That it is invariably spoken of in connexion with the gifts of the Spirit , and that our Lord notices to Nicodemus , unless he be ^ b orn of the water and the Spirit a man cannot • «~~ -w « «»««¦*• « j « - *>^ *~ > •* Am m-v % m ulkiaaa V / UtlUV / v

    enter into the kingdom of God , to receive both of which baptisms has been impossible since the destruction of Jerusalem ; the apostles alone conferring the latter , and they , perhaps John excepted , dying before that period , and there is no evidence of his baptizing after that era .

    2 * Every apostolic allusion to baptism proves the ordinance to lie temporary . 3 . That Paul the Apostle of the Gentiles expressly declares , that he was not sent to immerse , and those few who were immersed by him were most probably not Gentiles but Jews .

    4 . There is no direct evidence that any Gentiles but Cornelius tvere immersed , and his immersion might be from the misplaced zeal of Peter , or from his having embraced Judaism , or from his being in Judea . 5 . The multitudes converted and

    immersed by Peter appear to have beeu all Jews , as the prejudices of the apostles at that time would not have admitted Gentiles into the church . 6 . The apostolic injunctions were

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    Arguments for the NofaPerpetuitg of Baptis m * 603

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1826, page 603, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2553/page/31/