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It is equally true, that all these baptists allow the piety and virtue of unbaptized believers, account them members of the mystical body of Christ, and some of them possessors of knowledge and piety far superior to their own, and they hold themselves bound to discharge every kind office to them, except this one of admitting them to church fellowship.

It is a fact, that these churches do not believe baptism a saving ordinance, nor do they think it a test of true religion, nor do they hold that unbaptized believers ought not to be tolerated in a state, nor do they deny any intelligent being the right of private judgment; they only refuse to tolerate infant baptism in their own churches.

It is also a clear fact, that these baptists affirm, their refusal does not proceed from wilful ignorance, obstinacy, spirit of party, bigotry, or any. other illiberal disposition; but from a fear of offending God by acting without a sufficient warrant from his written word, the rule of all religious conduct. Their testimony ought to be admitted, because they are the best judges of their own motives, because the general conduct of their lives confirms their testimony, and because (of some of them it must be allowed) they extend candour and compliments and polite professions of liberality of sentiment far, very far indeed, beyond what some of their brethren, who hold free communion, pretend to do.

Moreover, it is a fact unquestionable, that, as some independent churches practising free com

munion have admitted so many baptists members, that the latter have in time formed a great majority, who have chosen a baptist minister, through whose influence the church has become a baptist church; so, on the contrary, some baptist churches holding free communion have admitted so many unbaptized members, that the churches have in time chosen ministers, who held infant-baptism, and lost the ordinance of baptism by immersion.

Lastly it is matter of fact, that the primitive churches, those in Greece, that at Rome, and all others, were originally constituted baptist churches, and that they lost the ordinance of baptism, along with the doctrines of the gospel, and the very nature and essence of christian churches, not by practising a wise toleration towards men of allowed piety, but by setting up certain external qualifications of church members, which in time became tests of orthodoxy, to which wicked men could and did conform, under pretence of authority from Christ to establish uniformity.

All these are facts, but none of these constitute christian law, and, if we would ascertain what is right, we must distinguish what is from what ought to be.

CASE OF RIGHT.

THE question before us is RIGHT to church fellowship, and our inquiry must necessarily be, what makes it just and right for churches to admit of mixed communion. The proper answer to this

inquiry, on the allowed principles of all the disputants, is, THE REVEALED WILL OF JESUS CHRIST, the original projector of church fellowship, and the sole legislator in all the assemblies of his saints.

In strict adherence to this truly protestant ground of action, and in order to try out the question as fairly and clearly as we can, we will ascertain the judge of the controversy, and the law of the case, and in order to this we will turn the subject on both sides, and first shew negatively what does not make the law of the case, and then positively what does.

First, then nothing can be determined concerning the right in question from the universal consent, real or pretended, of men out of our own community. We divide these into four classes, and, although we have all due regard for them, yet we reject each apart, and all together, as judges pronouncing law in this case.

First, the fathers are incompetent, for, if any thing in their writings look like the case before us, it is the case of heretical baptism: but the amount of all our inquiries on this article would be, that one says yea, and another says nay, and both refer us to Jesus Christ, and so we leave off where we began.

Secondly: Roman Catholicks, both in council and out of it, are incompetent; for their proper work, for which they are hired and retained, is not investigation of truth, much less determining protestant controversies; but submission to infallible papal authority. A catholick priest does not de

serve to be made a lord prelate till he has well and thoroughly learnt, that his business is not to examine the load, but to keep the cart on wheels.

Thirdly: polemical divines, and pious ones too, in established reformed churches, utter no law here. The case in hand never came, never could come seriously before them, and, if it had, having previously resigned the right of judging for themselves by subscribing a religious test, they could not prudently, or even uprightly, give an opinion in direct contradiction to it. All baptists judge, that these divines are mistaken in every part of baptism, in the nature, the subject, the mode, and the end of it, and this is one reason of their dissent from them; they cannot therefore consistently allow their opinions on baptism and church government the force of law.

Lastly: Learned criticks, foreign or domestick, have no occasion to interfere in this case, nor can they be offended at our affirming, that the christian church stands in no need of their assistance in this point now before them, for this plain reason, it is not a learned question. It would be a great misfortune to a company of plain homely christians in church fellowship, if any case pertaining to life and godliness must cost fifteen hundred pounds worth of Latin and Greek to make evident and clear.

Should all these four classes of writers agree to make baptism necessary to salvation, necessary to a civil office, necessary to receiving the Lord's supper, necessary to the honour of being enrolled in

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the parish register while we live, and necessary to that of purifying among our neighbours after we are dead, and should any baptist so far forget himself as to urge this universal consent as argument why we should not admit the persons in question to the Lord's table, I will venture to say, it would be an unfair appeal to the sheepishness of some, and the modesty of others, in a case of conscience, where only scripture is law, and Christ alone is judge.

Secondly nothing can be argued for or against this right from the great names in our own churches employed in this controversy. Gale and Foster, Bunyan and Kiffin, along with all the moderns, before whom the case actually came, and who had personal interest in deciding it, are respectable as counsel pleading on different sides of the question, and we calmly attend to what they say; but none of their opinions constitute the law of the case.

Thirdly nothing can be determined for it from general notions of benevolence and usefulness, nor against it from zealous and upright intentions of preserving purity of doctrine and order, for in a case that comes under written revealed law, as the constitution of christian churches evidently does, general dispositions must be regulated by particular directions.

Fourthly: neither can one side infer the right in question from any particular case mentioned in the New Testament, nor can the other support their plea against it by the silence of the New Testament; for the truth is, infant baptism was not then

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