8. If the views of the apostles on this subject had been coincident with those of Antipædobaptist divines, could they have refrained from declaring them, when the conduct of the teachers of circumcision was such as to create continual occasions which called for a plain statement of the gospel doctrine of baptism? Did not the state into which the infant church at Antioch had been brought by these teachers particularly require that such statements should be made? Would not a declaration on the part of the apostles, in their assembly at Jerusalem, of the doctrine of Pædobaptism, have tended at once to terminate the controversy? Is it imaginable that they should have refrained, on this occasion, from informing the Gentile converts that, by the substitution of baptism for circumcision, they and their children were exempted for ever from the claims of the circumcisers?
9. What law of the gospel is broken by those parents who, without baptism, prayerfully devote their children to Christ?
10. Are the children of Antipædobaptists, if brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, less likely to become living members of Christ than the children of Pædobaptists; and is there any spiritual benefit conferred on these by the rite, of which those to whom it is not administered are deprived?
11. Whenever a pious Jew might have been asked the question, What benefits are secured to the children and nation of Israel by the rite of circumcision? he could at once, by a reference to the appointment, and to the promises and threatenings connected with it, have given a clear and satisfactory answer to the question; but when a similar question is proposed to Pædobaptists respecting their practice, are they able to give to it a like satisfactory answer? Is there any agreement on the subject? Is not every thing here vague, mystical, and incongruous? And wherefore is this? Is it not simply because that, unlike the Jew, they canot refer to "the law and to the testimony?"
12. Is not the distinction existing in Pædobaptist churches, between persons who are entitled to one only of the sacraments of the gospel, and those who are entitled to both; between unconsciously initiated members, and professed voluntary members, entirely without countenance from the New Testament?
13. Was not baptism in the apostles' days a special means of grace in the church; and was it not always designed to be so? But if it is not a means of grace to infants, does not the baptizing them plainly tend to nullify a gospel ordinance, depriving both them and the church of its benefits?
14. Has not the practice of infant baptism, in all ages of the church, been a pernicious source of delusion? And is there any way of avoiding its injurious influence on the world, and regaining the benefit of the ordinance to the church, but by following up the principles of the New Testament, and abandoning the practice of infant baptism?
Let these inquiries be seriously, impartially, and prayerfully considered, by all who are concerned for the purity and efficiency of the church, the unity of its members, and the glory of its Author.
Antipædobaptist.