[M2.155L]                                                             [M2.155]								155
                                                                      
                                                                      		may be authoritatively set forth by ministers of the
                                                                      		Church of England:  it is not therefore to them that this
                                                                      		letter is addressed   A much larger class are  I trust
                                                                      		those who allowing a certain efficacy to Baptism, they hardly
                                                                      		know what, perhaps more as an act of obedience
                                                                      		than as a Sacrament yet would certainly deny that Christ
                                                                      		was more ready to receive their children then than at any
                                                                      		other time or that there was any correspondence between
                                                                      		the presenting them at the font, and the bringing them "to
                                                                      		the presence of Christ and to his arms."
                                                                      		I entreat those persons at this juncture  carefully to consider
                                                                      		and determine
                                                                      		1st.  What efficacy they suppose to belong to the act at all.
                                                                      		2nd.  In what manner this determined efficacy is attached to it.
                                                                      	1st.	Be clear in your conception of its efficacy;  and in order
                                                                      	A	to do this, do not confuse the question - what Baptism
                                                                      		is, and conveys with the question, whether infants
                                                                      		should be baptised or not  - above all do not argue that
                                                                      		Because baptism is bestowed on infants, there it can only
                                                                      		mean this or that.  You are not distinctly told in the
                                                                      		Bible that Baptism should be given to Infants;  but you
                                                                      		are told very distinctly what Baptism is.  Receive
                                                                      		therefore from the Bible as you would from another book
                                                                      		what you are told distinctly before what you are told
                                                                      		indistinctly.  Treat the question of Infant Baptism
                                                                      		separately altogether

[Version 0.05: May 2008]