But when the Visible Church was to become Chriftian, our Saviour commiffionated his Apoftles to go into all the World, and to difciple all Nations, and Baptize them. Now if this commiffioning extended to the Baptizing the little Children of Christian Parents, as well as the Chriftian Parents themselves; then here is Warrant and Authority enough for fuch Parents to engage their Children by Baptizing them in Covenant with God, and to oblige them to perform the terms of it when they fhall be capable of endeavouring to do fo.

And that this Commiffion of our Saviour did extend to the Authorizing the Apostles to Baptize fuch little Children, I have endeavoured to make out in another difcourfe which I fhall not here repeat, but refer the Reader to it. [Address from p. 29. to p.80.] The fubitance of what is there faid, is reducible to thefe two head's.

1. To fhew what reafon the Apostles had to understand the words D

of

of their Commiffion to Baptize in this Latitude.

What reason we have to believe that they did understand the words of their Commiffion in this extenfive fenfe, and that they did praЯice accordingly.

Unto what I have faid there, I shall here add one very confiderable reafon to induce us to believe that the Apostles did Baptize the little Children of Chriftians, taken from the unanimous agréement of all Christians in all parts of the World, in the practice of Baptizing Infants in the purer times of the Church, and before the defection into Popery. Now there are fome things which render it morally impoffible, that there fhould be fuch an unanimous agreement in fuch a practice, unless they had it from the Apostles, or others fent by them, in their firft planting of Christianity in thofe places.

The Apostles went into all the World to Preach the Gofpel, and were our Saviours Witnefes unto the

utter

23.

uttermost parts of the earth,according to his Commiffion. Their found went into all the Earth, and Rom.10. Col. 1.6: their words unto the ends of the World: The Gospel was Preached to every Creature under Heaven, as St. Paul faith. There are fome things which make it morally impoffible that there fhould be fuch an univerfal agreement as aforefaid in all places, upon any other account, or for any other reason than their first receiving this practice of Baptizing Infants, from the Apoftles, in their first planting of Christianity

there. As

1. The vast distance of one place' from another, where the Chriftians lived, made it morally impoffible they should come into this ufage by combination, or imitation of one another.

2. The diversity of their Languages made it impoffible that this fameness of practice should grow out of any mutual correfpondence, or intelligence held by them.

D 2

3. If

3. If these things had not made it impoffible, and if it could be fup posed that the Chriftians in all parts, notwithstanding their distance of place, and diverfity of Language, might have held fuch correfpondence as by agreement to have introduced. fuch a practice as they had not from the Apostles, but had been impofed upon them at first by fome Innovators; yet it is morally impoffible it fhould fteal into all Churches, and every where, without some known opposition from fome good men or other, if it had not been Apoftolical.

We cannot with any reason think that all Christians both in office, and out of office in the Church, would have fuffered fuch an Innovation as this (if it had been an Innovation) without fuch confiderable oppofition as would have been taken notice of by fome Author or other, who lived in or near fuch time in which it had been first brought into the Church.

Since then no man is able to affign the beginning of this practice fhort of

the

the Apostles times: And fince the whole world of Chriftians were agreed in it, in the pureft times of the Church, for ought appears to the contrary: And fince all Chriftians, how much foever they have differed in other things, have yet all along agreed in this, as much as they have in the observation of the Lords day, a very few only excepted, and those chiefly, or rather only, as have appeared fince Luthers days, or the beginning of the Reformation: And fince the Apostles practice recorded in Scripture of their Baptizing whole Houfholds, gives us ground to believe they practifed the fame in all places where they have been, and that their doing fo, was the reason and ground of the univerfal practice of Baptizing Infants in all Churches first planted by them, and in thofe fucceeding them: I fay all these things confidered, there remains little reafon for any impartial man to doubt, but that the Apostles did practife Infant Baptifm