into their heads to become Jews. Do children baptize themselves? To circumcise one's self was a very general practice on sundry occasions. 3. Infant males were to be circumcised the eighth day. Do they baptize infants on the eighth day?

4. Infants were circumcised by either parent, as the case may be. You all remember the case of Zipporah ! Why then employ ministers to baptize, if these are both seals of the same spiritual church covenant, and if the churches, Jewish and Christian, be identical?

5. A Jew's property in a man or child constrained his circumcision. Abraham's servants, adults and all, because his property, were circumcised. Three hundred and eighteen warriors belonged at one time to his household. Why do not Presbyterians baptize all a man's slaves when he joins the church, on the principle of identity?

6. Circumcision was not the door into any church or religious institution. It was no initiatory rite to any moral institution. The Ishmaelites, and Edomites, and many other nations by Keturah, were circumcised. Into what church did they enter? The Jews were members of the politico-ecclesiastico church by natural birth. Circumcision was no initiatory rite or door to them. But none can enter Christ's church unless "born again," "born from above." How then are the two churches identical?

7. The qualification for circumcision was flesh. Is that the qualification for baptism? for admission into Christ's church?

8. Circumcision was not a dedicatory rite. Pedo-baptists talk much and often about dedicating their infant offspring to the Lord. Now under the law, females were never dedicated, and of males none but the first born! How righteous, over much, in dedicating both male and female! The Lord never asked this much from the Jews. But Pedo-baptist dedication is only nominal. Among the Jews it was real-bona fide dedication. Jesus Christ, being the first born, was dedicated. He was also circumcised and baptized; circumcised the eighth day at home, dedicated the fortieth day in the temple, and baptized when thirty years old in the Jordan. Are the churches identical here? What singular identity! 9. Circumcision, requiring no moral qualification, communicated no spiritual blessings. Ishmael, Esau, and all the servants of the Jewish nation, were circumcised on the faith of their masters.

10. Idiots were circumcised-for not even reason, intellect, or sanity were qualifications-flesh only! It was a covenent in the flesh, and went for preserving the flesh till the Messiah was made of the seed of Abranam and of David, according to the flesh.

11. It was a visible, appreciable mark, as all signs and seals are. Is sprinkling so, or any use of water?

12. It was binding on parents and not on children. The commandment was, "Circumcise your children." But the christian word is, "Be baptized every one of you." No one ever found a precept in the New Testament, commanding parents to baptize their children. Where there is no law, there is no transgression: and where there is no precept, there can be no obedience. There is, therefore, no transgression in the neglect, nor obedience in the performance, of infant baptism.

13. The right to circumcision in no case depended upon the faith, the piety, or the morality of parents. The infant of the most impious Jew, had just as good a right to circumcision as the son of Abraham, David, or Daniel. Why, then, do Pedo-baptists suspend the right to baptism upon

the faith of a father or grandfather, or some kinsman of the infant? Does their practice look like their faith in the substitution of baptism for circumcision, or in the identity of the two churches, the Jewish and the christian? 14. Circumcision, say our Pedo-baptist friends, guarantied certain temporal blessings to the Jews. Query-What temporal blessings does baptism secure to infants?

15. It was not to be performed into the name of any being whatever, neither in heaven nor on earth. Why, then, baptize or sprinkle into any name, if the latter fills the place of the former ?

16. The subject of circumcision, was a debtor to keep the law of Moses in all its institutions: for, says Paul," Whosoever among you is circumcised is a debtor to do the whole law," of which, as before shown, circumcision was a part. Query-Are those infants baptized, debtors to keep all the Jewish ordinances? If not, how does baptism fill the place of circumcision?

These sixteen indisputable facts show-that circumcision was peculiar in its nature, character, and designs-that it was the sign of a national covenant-that it was the sign of the same privilege to all its subjects; and, consequently, never the sign of any spiritual blessing in Christ to any one of them.

That the covenant of which it was a sign was not the covenant of the christian church, will appear most evident from a fact which I will just now state, viz: that some eight hundred years after its establishment, Jeremiah foretold that it should be abolished, and that God would make a new covenant, and instead of writing his new laws upon marble or upon parchment, he would write them upon the hearts of his people. The words are:-" Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah. Not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt. (Which my covenant they break, although I was a husband to them, saith the Lord.) But this shall be the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel. After those days, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts, and will be their God and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest of them, saith the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sins no more."-[Time expired

Monday, Nov. 20-11 o'clock, A. M.. MR. RICE'S SECOND ADDRESS.]

MR. PRESIDENT-I have no objection to holding the laboring oar, or to have something to prove. Many very intelligent persons thought that I proved something, even when the laboring oar was in the gentleman's hand; and, perhaps, I may now accomplish even more than before. I despair, however, of pleasing him. I find it impossible to travel at a gait that will suit him: I am always either too fast or too slow-generally too fast. I must be permitted, in this matter, to pursue my own course; and I shall cheerfully leave him to pursue his. If, however, I should still be far in advance of him, I will often return to pay him my compliments. I venture to say, that I shall be with him as often as he wishes to see me. When I passed on before him in the argument on the mode, he gave me warning, that he should probably soon have the same advan

tage of me; but at the very outset, he is again complaining. Well, I cannot help it.

Infant baptism, the gentleman believes, has done more to corrupt the church, than all things else. Did you not hear on Saturday evening, how eloquently he spoke of "the sacramental host"-the innumerable multitudes of immersionists of olden time, in whose footsteps he was journeying on to a better, world? Alas! the great majority of them were baptized in infancy! From the earliest period to which the history of the church can take us back, infant baptism prevailed universally. If we subtract from the immersionist ranks, all who experienced the sad consequences of being baptized in infancy, his sacramental host dwindles to a very small company. On the other evening, whilst he contemplated them as immersionists, they seemed to his imagination a host of saints and martyrs; but now they are with us most fully, and they appear, in his eyes, sadly, deplorably corrupt!!!

But it is vain to reason against indisputable facts. The baptism of infants has been practiced in our country by Congregationalists, Presbyterians and others, for more than two centuries; and during a much longer period in Scotland and other countries. Now, I ask this intelligent audience, are not the Pedo-baptist churches, that take the Bible as their only rule of faith, as moral, as upright, as virtuous, as pure in their lives, and, so far as man can judge, as pious, as those of the anti-Pedo-baptists ? Where is the corruption which, according to the gentleman's logic, must have flowed like a torrent into our churches? I am more than willing to compare the Presbyterian church with his; and in the comparison, his would have this great advantage; that, being only about sixteen years of age, (!) it has had scarcely time to lose its first love, or to lose any portion of the virtue originally belonging to it. And now I assert, (and those who hear me will bear me witness,) that the Presbyterian church, and the other Pedo-baptist churches that take the Scriptures as their infallible guide, are as moral, as religious, in every respect as pure and pious, as any anti-Pedo-baptist church on earth. Where, then, is the corruption of which the baptism of infants is the prolific cause? The cause has been operating in our own country more than two centuries; but the effect has not appeared. Is it not, then, evident that the gentleman, under the influence of strong prejudices, has fallen into the error so common among men, of ascribing to things they dislike, tendencies which they do not possess?

You heard, whilst we were discussing the mode of baptism, with what pleasure the gentleman counted the number of immersionists. To-day, however, he has quite a distaste for that mode of reasoning! Eckius, the Roman priest, he tells us, boasted of number whilst the world was against Luther. The comparison, however, is unfortunate; for, in the first place, it was not true that the whole christian world was with Eckius. During the first five centuries of the christian era, the church, though becoming gradually corrupt, did not become papists; and in the second place, the assertion of Eckius was true only of those who did not search the Scriptures, and take them as their infallible guide. Luther was an instrument in the hands of God, in commencing a glorious reformation, at a period when it might be emphatically said, "darkness covered the earth, and gross darkness the people;" when the Bible was almost unknown, and the people were not permitted to read it for themselves. It is the peculiar prerogative of Mr. Campbell to have commenced a radical reforma

tion, at a time when the Bible, untrammeled by note or comment, is in the hands of the people, and to proclaim to vast multitudes of the most devout readers and students of that plain book, that they have utterly failed to understand its fundamental doctrines!!! This reformation, methinks, will hereafter be regarded as one of the most singular in its character, and the most absurd in its pretensions, that history records-a general, radical reformation of churches, whose ministers and members make the Bible their daily and prayerful study, and who, in their lives, exhibit the spirit of that blessed book quite as fully, to say the least, as they who would reform them!

The gentleman tells us, that we cannot understand the New Testament without consulting the Old; and yet he finds fault with me because I have appealed to it! Baptism, it is true, is a sacrament of the New Testament; but connected with the subject before us, there are two distinct questions, viz: 1. What persons are entitled to membership in the church of Christ? and, 2. By what ordinance must they be introduced? I do not go to the Old Testament to ascertain, whether persons are to enter the church by circumcision or by baptism. I appeal to the Old Testament, in part, to ascertain who has a right to membership in the church; and I appeal to the New Testament to determine by what ordinance they are to be recognized as members. If you wish to ascertain to whom the rights of citizenship in these United States, belong; you do not go to the transactions of the last congress. You go back to the organization of the government and the adoption of the constitution; and if the last or any preceding congress has changed the forms of recognizing those rights, you will appeal to the latest enactments on that subject to learn what those forms are. And so I go to the organization of the church-the period when the law of membership was passed-to ascertain who are to be admitted as members, and to the new dispensation to learn by what rite or ordinance they are to enter. If in this there is any absurdity, the gen

tleman is welcome to expose it.

He agrees with me, that the commission required the apostles to go and make disciples by baptizing and teaching; but he insists, that he does not make disciples as I do. That is likely enough; but I make them, so far as human instrumentality is concerned, by baptizing and teaching; and if he makes them in any other way, he does not act according to the commission. With the errors and superstitions of Xavier we have no

concern.

He tells the audience, that I went back to Abraham only to get the mark. This is a mistake. I went to Abraham, as every intelligent and attentive hearer saw, for the purpose of finding the church and the law of membership. I care not, so far as the defence of infant-baptism is concerned, whether baptism did, or did not come in the place of circumcision. His fifteen arguments I may notice in passing. I had informed him, that I cared not whether baptism came instead of circumcision; and I will show the audience, that my argument does not at all depend upon establishing that fact. I prove, that infants have the right to a place in the church; and the conclusion is inevitable, that they have a right to enter by the door. Whether it is in the same side of the building as formerly, is of little importance. But his fifteen arguments were in his speech, and, like the lawyer, he must speak them!

The papists, he informs us, do not profess to find infant-baptism in the Bible; and he quotes a certain popish writer to that effect.

The church

of Rome, however, does not make this admission. I have several sermons delivered on the subject of infant-baptism by bishop Kenrick, of Philadelphia, and published with the approbation of bishop Flaget, of Louisville, in which the doctrine is defended at considerable length by the Scriptures.

Dr. Wall, too, he informs us, does not undertake to prove this doctrine by the Scriptures, but relies for its defence on Jewish proselyte baptism. Dr. Wall undertook simply to write the history of infant-baptism, not to go at length into the Bible argument in support of it. Yet he did very repeatedly appeal to the Scriptures in the progress of his history, as clearly teaching the doctrine. As to the Jewish proselyte baptism, I am not particularly concerned about it. I can and will prove the doctrine for which I am contending, independently of that source of evidence. Yet it will require, I think, something more than the mere assertion of the gentleman to disprove a fact which has so generally commanded the belief of the most learned men.

He repeats the declaration, that Calvin claimed the right to change the ordinances of the church. I regret, that he cannot be induced to give us Calvin's language-to let him speak for himself. Until he will do so, I shall pass his assertions without particular notice.

We come now to notice the main point in his speech. He tells us, that God made to Abraham two promises, and formed with him two covenants. I am curious to know where he finds in the Scriptures a plurality of covenants with Abraham. I read of the covenant with Abraham; but I find no mention of the covenants (in the plural.) It is true, Paul, in the Epistle to the Romans, speaks of the covenants of promise;" but unfortunately for the gentleman, he does not say, that these covenants were made with Abraham. It is admitted, that God made to Abraham several promises; but this affords no evidence of a plurality of covenants ; for who does not know, that one covenant may embrace a number of distinct promises? The gospel contains a number of promises; and if there must be a distinct covenant for every promise, it contains quite a number of covenants ! When the gentleman proves, that God made with Abraham two covenants; I will prove, that our Savior has made with his church half a dozen!

In the 12th chapter of Genesis, we find several promises made to Abraham, but not ratified in the form of a covenant. In the 15th, we find the promises repeated, but still not ratified by any seal to be applied to Abraham and his posterity. In the 17th, we find the same promises again repeated, and ratified in the form of a covenant, of which circumcision was the seal to be administered to Abraham and his seed in succeeding generations. "And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God: walk before me and be thou perfect. And I will make my covenant [one covenant only] between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly. And Abram fell on his face and God talked with him, saying, As for me, behold my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations. Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram; but thy name shall be Abraham: for a father of many nations have I made thee. And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee. And I will establish my covenant between me and thee, and thy seed after thee, in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee.