doing it, you say, is to make a covenant with Him in your own name. But have you not done this already?

If you are re-baptized, you will come forth before the world, not so much to make a covenant with God, as to renounce the covenant already made for you, with your parents, by your God and Saviour. Your language will be, "I do not believe that God made a covenant with my parents for me." But if He did, as we believe, you may put a stop to the blessings of that covenant, and to the answer of the prayers made for you by pious parents and the church at your Baptism;-prayers yet waiting to be fulfilled in blessings upon you and yours to many generations.

CHAPTER X.

THE MODE OF BAPTISM.

Sprinkling is valid Baptism. Ex-
I. Saul of Tarsus.
III. The Eunuch.
V. The three thousand

amination of cases in the New Testament.
II. The Jailor of Phillippi, and his house.
IV. John's Baptism. Baptism of Christ.
at Pentecost.

But perhaps you cannot feel that you were baptized in infancy, because you doubt whether sprinkling is Baptism.

It will be easy to show that sprinkling is valid Baptism, and, therefore, that there is no objection, so far as the mode is concerned, to the practice of Infant Baptism.

Let us consider some of the more prominent cases of Baptism recorded in the New Testament, and see what appears to have been the probable mode of Baptism in those cases.

I. We will begin with the case of Saul of Tarsus.

Saul was struck to the earth, on his way to Damascus, by a sudden blaze of light; and a voice proclaimed, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.'

His eyes were 'blasted with excess of light,' so that he was blind three days and three nights. You can easily imagine his excitement of mind, and his consequent prostration of bodily strength, especially when you consider that during these three days and three nights, 'he neither did eat nor drink.'

As he sat in the house, there came to him one of his intended victims, the leader of the Christian band, and probably the one to whom he would first have done violence. The meek disciple lays his hand upon the blind man's head, and says, 'Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, who appeared to thee in the way as thou camest, has sent me that thou mayest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost.' Were there no strong emotions in the mind of Saul, at the pressure of that hand, and at the sound of that voice? And when 'there fell from his eyes as it had been scales, and he received sight,' and looked round upon the little company of disciples watching him with wonder and compassion, and compared the scene with the anticipated scenes of blood for which he had come to that place, could his condition have been such as to admit of his being led out to a river to be immersed? He had not eaten anything for three days and three nights, and did not eat till he had been baptized; for it is said, 'He arose and was baptized; and when he received meat he was

BAPTISM OF THE JAILER.

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strengthened.' How natural to suppose that water was applied to him in a way consistent with his exhausted condition. It is most rational to suppose that it was done by affusion.

The public Baptism of Saul, the persecutor, in 'Abana or Pharpar, rivers of Damascus,' would have made such an impression in favour of Christianity, that it is probable it would not have been omitted, if the practice of the apostles had been to baptize by immersion. They would have strengthened him with meat, and then would have made a great occasion of his Baptism. Had this been done, it seems probable that so exciting a scene would have been noticed by the sacred historian. But the Baptism is passed over with a few words, because, as we believe, it took place in the house, and was performed by sprinkling, inasmuch as the condition of Saul could not have permitted any other mode.

II. Another case in which there is every reason to believe that the mode of Baptism was not immersion, is that of the jailer at Philippi. Paul and Silas were bruised and sore, from the stripes which they had but just received. The earthquake had, of course, alarmed the city, and the streets. were not so empty and still as at other times. Can any one suppose that Paul and Silas would have ventured forth, with a whole household, into the

streets of a city just alarmed by an earthquake? Would the jailer have had such disregard for his own life, and for that of the apostles, as to have carried these state prisoners outside the prison gates at midnight? Would the apostles have ventured into a river, at that season, in the wounded state of their bodies? Can any one suppose that immersion held such a place in the minds of the apostles that they would disregard all these circumstances, for the purpose of getting this family into the river at the dead of night?

"But the jailer, and his household, and Saul, may have been immersed in a bathing vessel." And they may have been sprinkled. One supposition is as good as the other.

There is more probability that sprinkling or pouring was used, than immersion in a bathing vessel. There is something offensive and unnatural in the supposition of the latter mode. Think of the process of baptizing a whole family in this manner. From the expression, 'all his house,' there would seem to have been a considerable number in the jailer's family, either of adults or children. Suppose that they were all adults; — and that some of them were such, is probable from the occupation of the jailer, which required assistants or servants. A bathing vessel is filled; the jailer is ordered to prepare himself, his family and domestics, to be

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