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                                                                      	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 ce[o]r[n]ta[i]i[n]n 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 thoso persons at this juncture  carefully to con-
                                                                      sider and determine
                                                                      1st.  What efficacy they suppose to belong to the act at
                                                                      all.
                                                                      2nd.  In what manner this determined efficacy is at-
                                                                      tached 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 v[w]ery 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 se-
                                                                      parately altogether

[Version 0.05: May 2008]