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the pool of Sion, were all full. I saw more than three hundred wretches expiring on crosses, with their eyes turned to the meridian sun, whose beams they did not see. I saw a few emaciated forms, that came out of the walls to gather herbs by moonlight; but they were driven back. I heard the low moans of feeble supplication as the gates closed on them, like the distant howl of the jackall on the rocky mountains.

But soon promiscuous death put an end to all their sufferings. The lower city was taken, the fire had leveled every habitation; and the courageous but mistaken zealots were driven to the temple, the last fortress of their hope. But soon the assault was renewed; the cloisters were already torn down or consumed with fire. A desperate soldier cast a brand on the edifice itself. The mild victor-the general-was very anxious to spare that edifice. I see him hold out his hand, and implore them by all the gods of mercy, and the God of Heaven himself, to spare these holy walls and sacred shrines.* In vain: it was already burning; and, amidst dreadful and dying groans, the last vestiges of this ancient religion were destroyed. "The Lord hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Sion; He hath stretched out a line; He hath not withdrawn His hand from destroying; therefore He made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together. Her gates are sunk into the ground; He hath destroyed and broken her bars; her kings and her princes are among the Gentiles; the law is no more; her prophets find no vision from the Lord; the elders of the daughter of Sion sit upon the ground and cast dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth; the virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground."

Thus the proud city, in her splendor fell,

Her solemn temple, both her snare and trust:
All wrapt in hostile fire and blood-bathed.-Well,
Who shall deplore her fall since God is just
Ye Gentiles, come and see the price-ye must-
By which your better privilege was bought;

Ye were idolaters-the darkest-worst

Of Adam's race; yet by their ruin brought

To choose the corner stone their builders set at naught.

Josephus, B. J. Lib. iv, c. 9.

ART. V.-BAPTIST CLOSE COMMUNION.

THE difference of opinion between us and our Baptist brethren, lies back of the creeds which we respectively profess to believe. It lies in the principles of reasoning by which we establish those creeds. They assume that an explicit warrant must be found for all the divine institutions, by some plain enactment in the New Testament; and that inference or analogy can never be rightfully employed to prove them. We deny the former part of this proposition, and affirm the latter. But while we do this, we carry out our principles to all the institutions of God: they restrict theirs to the single practice of Infant Baptism, but reason on other subjects as we do, from inference and analogy.

Now we maintain that inasmuch as Abraham received circumcision as a seal of the righteousness of faith, and was commanded to administer that rite to his male infants; and inasmuch as Paul assures us that believers under the New Testament are the children of Abraham; and inasmuch as circumcision is confessedly abolished and baptism established, and inspired example teaches that it be administered to males and females; and inasmuch as all the language of the New Testament is in conformity to the usage of baptizing infants; we need no explicit warrant such as would be contained in a direct enactment in the New Testament. We consider Infant Baptism as an institution of God, and binding upon all the disciples of Christ, because, in the circumstances of the Apostles, accustomed to the connection of parents and children in the ordinances of the church, there would need to be an express prohibition of Infant Baptism to induce them to depart from all their usages. We cannot account for the mention of household baptism without explanation, and for the language of clean and unclean as applied to the children of believers and unbelievers, (1 Cor. vii, 14,) and for a multitude of other circumstances, without admitting Infant Baptism to be an institution of God. In this manner, and with a great many additional arguments and considerations, we establish that part of our creed in which we preeminently differ from our Baptist brethren. In the same manner and on the same principles, we proceed to show that the Lord's day, or the first day of the week, is the Christian Sabbath; that family prayer is an ordinance of God; that female communion and baptism, as a prerequisite to

We

communion, are of divine appointment. But none of these things we admit, have any express enactment for them in the New Testament; and some of them, neither in the New Testament nor the Old. In all this reasoning we are at least consistent with ourselves. We do not proceed upon one principle for a specific purpose, and then for another purpose abandon it. But the Baptists argue against Infant Baptism on the principle that it has no explicit warrant in the New Testament by way of express enactment; and then argue in favor of the first day Sabbath, family prayer, female communion, baptism as a prerequisite to communion-all by inferential reasoning, without an explicit warrant or an express enactment. We are aware that some of them have formerly maintained that there is no Sabbath under the Christian dispensation, and in this they have shown an unfortunate consistency. But the tendency of that sentiment to evil has so manifestly appeared, that the piety of the denomination has got the better of their logic. believe that at the present time they are generally the advocates of a weekly Sabbath. Be this as it may, the fundamental inconsistency of their mode of reasoning sufficiently appears on the other points. They argue against one thing on the same principle that they argue for another. You can find nothing in the New Testament amounting to a direct enactment of the first day of the week as the Sabbath-nothing that family prayer should be observed-nothing that female communion should be admitted-nothing that baptism must precede communion. Yet the Baptists claim that all these are the institutions of God. Why? In regard to the first day Sabbath, we should like to see an argument conducted on Baptist principles. It would be a desideratum in religious literature. The same may be said of family prayer. In regard to female communion, their argument is, We know that females were baptized; and we know that they were members of the church. Therefore they have a right to communion. Very well-a

good argument for us, but a bad one for them. Here is no explicit warrant contained in a direct command. We know one thing, and therefore we infer another. But on their principles they have no right to their inference. They must have a positive enactment. But where is it to be found? There is neither precept nor example positively set forth in the New Testament for admitting females to the communion. It is all made out both by the Baptists and by us from inferential reasoning.

Next, how do the Baptists prove that baptism is requisite before communion? This is the point on which all the fore

going observations are intended to bear; for we wish to hold our brethren to their principles. Is there any express enactment-any explicit warrant? Examples, they say, are found. But to say nothing of the inference they draw from examples in the absence of their favorite "explicit warrant," what do the examples teach? They teach that the Apostles baptized at one time and communed at another. But there is no evidence except the propriety of the thing and the usage of the Old Testament in regard to circumcision and the passover, and other inferential or analogical reasoning, that baptism was always a prerequisite to the communion. On Baptist principles there is no evidence at all that baptism must always precede communion; for there is no command on this subject-no explicit warrant. We deny their right to come over temporarily to our principles and take advantage of them for a specific purpose, and then desert those principles for another purpose. They must find a positive enactment, or else, according to their principles of reasoning, the practice is not authorized in Scripture. We need not say that no such enactment can be found. And then, too, where is the evidence that Peter and John, James and Bartholomew, were ever baptized at all? You know there is nothing in the New Testament that affirms it. How do you know that they were baptized when they sat down with the Lord Jesus Christ at the first Supper? Since no man can obtain positive proof, the Baptists have no right to an inference here. And especially as there is a presumption against their being baptized at that time, in the fact that Christian baptism, or baptism in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, was not instituted till after the resurrection of Christ. If a Baptist tells us here that John's baptism was of this sort, how does he know? Is there any hint in Scripture that John baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost? On the contrary, is there not an express declaration in the nineteenth of Acts, that certain persons who had been baptized by John, had "not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost?" And, moreover, if John's baptism were Christian baptism, there is no positive evidence that all the twelve had ever received it. If, then, the Apostles were ever baptized at all, agreeably to the Christian institution, it must have been subsequently to their partaking of the Lord's Supper. At any rate, the point is left very indeterminate and loose in the New Testament. Not much this, like building up close communion on the principle of baptism as a prerequisite? No man can prove that the twelve were all baptized previous to the first communion

much less can the Baptists do it on their principles. What, then, becomes of the great argument for close communion derived from baptism?

The inconsistency of reasoning, by which, on Baptist principles, baptism is made the necessary antecedent of communion, is singularly overlooked by our Baptist brethren. They appear to take this for granted as an axiom, because most Christians admit it. But, then, it should be remembered, that they admit it not on the ground of an express command, but only on that of inference and analogy. Such an admission the Baptists have no right to use. To justify themselves they are bound to go beyond inference, and show us an express command. It is very clear to our mind that they cannot prove the great point upon which close communion is founded, namely, that baptism must precede communion, without abandoning the principles upon which their denomination is built.

There is one way which our Baptist brethren take of defending themselves, which they seem to regard as a sort of argumentum ad hominem, but which we cannot but consider as unfair and disingenuous. It is by affirming that they are no more close communionists than we are, because we, like them, require baptism before communion. To this it is obvious to reply, that as our notions of baptism are not so exclusive as theirs, it follows that our communion is not so exclusive as theirs. If we refused to commune with all who had not been baptized by sprinkling, then we should be on a par with the Baptists who refuse to commune with all who have not been baptized by immersion. But as we insist upon no particular mode of baptism, and count it sufficient to have been baptized either by sprinkling, affusion, or immersion, and that, too, either in infancy or in riper years; our practice in regard to communion is as wide from theirs as the heavens from the earth. There is therefore a fallacy in the argument which attempts to make us close communionists, from the fact of our requiring baptism as an antecedent of communion, because baptism, in the Baptist acceptation of the term, is confined to one mode of its administration, while ours is extended to all the modes.

This argumentum ad hominem, as they think it, is carried still further and supposed to convict us of an inconsistency. They tell us that they commune with all who they believe are baptized, while we do not commune with all who we believe are baptized, namely, our infant children. There is this fallacy in their reasoning here: that it takes for granted that a Pedo

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