Moses Stuart, a Congregationalist, called “the father of Biblical literature in America”, says:

On the subject of infant baptism I have said nothing. The present occasion did not call for it; and I have no wish or intention to enter into the controversy respecting it. I have only to say that I believe in both the propriety and expediency of the rite thus administered; and therefore accede to it ex animo. Commands, or plain and certain examples, in the New Testament relative to it, I do not find. Nor, with my views of it, do I need them. (Mode of Christian Baptism, pages 189, 190.)

But I have given enough; it is a thing made out that infant baptism was not an apostolic practice. So, indeed, have all the scholars who have thoroughly investigated this subject conceded. I know of no subject which seems to be more clearly made out, and I can not see how it is possible for any candid man who examines the subject to deny this.

CHAPTER IV.
CONDITIONS OF MEMBERSHIP

As we have already learned that infant baptism was not an apostolic practice, we will give it no further attention at present. The conditions of membership in the apostolic Church naturally divide themselves into two classes—those of admission into the Church and those of continued membership.

CONDITIONS OF ADMISSION

Concerning admission into the Church it is said in connection with its establishment that “the Lord added to them day by day those that were saved” (Acts 2:47). This implies that the Lord saved the people and added them by one and the same process. They were not first saved and then added, nor added and afterward saved, but they were saved in being added, and added by being saved. Hence it was not a formal adding to a local congregation by extending the “hand of fellowship” after salvation from sin, but an adding to the one body of Christ in the obtaining of salvation by obedience to the Gospel. While they were added by the Lord, he added them through certain agencies, both human and divine—the Holy Spirit, the Gospel and the preacher—all present and active in the work. What the Lord did, therefore, he did through these agencies.

In the second chapter of Acts the Holy Spirit gives the directions that God gave to guide sinners into the Church. This being the first time that men were guided into the Church, the directions given would necessarily be more minute and particular in every step than after the way was fully made known to men.

After his resurrection from the dead Jesus said to his disciples, “All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth,” to show them that he had the right and authority to speak the words that come next: “Go ye, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you: and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world” (Matt. 28:19, 20). They were not to go yet, for he had sealed their lips. On the day of his ascension to heaven he said unto them: “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to the whole creation. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that disbelieveth shall be condemned” (Mark 16:15, 16); “but tarry ye in the city, until ye be clothed with power from on high” (Luke 24:49). So they returned to Jerusalem and waited for the coming of the Spirit who was to unseal their lips and to speak to the world in the name of Jesus. The day of Pentecost came, they were in the temple, when suddenly a sound from heaven filled the house where they were sitting, and they felt themselves moved inwardly by a new power, under which they began to speak to the multitude in the temple, addressing them in all the different languages represented by the nations there assembled. The time had come when they can tell to the world all they know about Jesus fully and freely. And when they had praised God, to the amazement of the people, in all their tongues, Peter arose, now having the keys to the kingdom in his hands, now ready to execute his high commission to open the gates and admit those who were entitled to enter, and for the first time in his life begins to inform men who Jesus is. He delivers a discourse in which he says: “Ye men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God unto you by mighty works and wonders and signs which God did by him in the midst of you, even as ye yourselves know; him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye by the hands of lawless men did crucify and slay: whom God raised up, having loosed the pangs of death.”

He quotes language of the prophets to prove this. He then presents the testimony of himself and his fellow apostles to the effect that Jesus had been raised from the dead, and that they had seen him with their eyes and handled him with their hands. He further states that God had said to Jesus: “Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies the footstool of thy feet,” and closes this powerful argument with this soul-stirring appeal: “Let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly that God hath made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom ye crucified.”