In page 74, to my argument from your supposed opinion that many dying in infancy are saved, you reply in this manner: "Perhaps your idea is this, that I believe some infants who have not been immersed may go to heaven, and be finally saved. This, Sir, I do believe, but what hath this to do with the present controversy ?" It hath this to do with it, Sir. It entirely refutes your hypothesis. You have no warrant to believe that any human being is saved who is not to you a visible member of the kingdom of Christ. This is the force of the argument, which you have not noticed at all. Your notion of holding people to be good people, and heirs of glory, who have no visible place in the kingdom of God, is an oútrage upon common sense, and a contradiction to the whole Bible. You exclude all infants without exception from this visible kingdom. The consequence is, that no warrant remains for you to consider any of them as saved. All the heirs of salvation are spoken of as being such visibly in this world. Isa. lxi. 9, "And their seed shall be known among the Gentiles and their offspring among the people, all that see them shall acknowledge them that they are the seed which the Lord hath blessed." Hundreds of other texts

there are to the same purpose. Shew us if

you can where your warrant is, to believe in this manner without the visibility of union to Christ.

In imitation of your great English Baptist, Dr. Gill, who has given the world a pamphlet replete with that sort of envenomed raillery, and which some of his followers have had the imprudence to cause to be republished lately in Boston, you have attempted to fix opprobrium upon the doctrine of Pædobaptism, by deriving it from the foul cinque of popery, and upon its abettors as enlisted under the banners of Antichrist. But you have condemned yourself with respect to the first, by conceding, that sprinkling was practised in the case of clinicks, before popery existed, and that infant baptism was in general practice in the days of St. Austin. If, Sir, you really think this sort of language is approved in heaven, why do not you extend it to other subjects, to prayer, and praise, fasting, the celebration of the Eucharist, alms giving, and common honesty?

These were all practised in the Romish church, and were among her decrees. If papistical practice vitiates the one, it vitiates the other. This language may gratify the malignity of a sectarian spirit. But it will be well to remember that forty children

did not revile Elisha with impunity. We will not return this opprobrious treatment. If we are not baptized as Christ was, we will remember his example, "who when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not, but committed himself unto him who judgeth righteously." On the whole, the controversy, with respect to you and I, is brought to an issue. It is this. The foundation of your shadowy fabric was laid in assertion; the superstructure was reared in assertion; it has been attempted to be holden up by assertion; and it has, at last, vanished as a mere shadowy thing. I am, &c.

SIR,

LETTER V.

I WILL now close my public correspondence with you by a slight attention to your last letter.

In this letter you pretend to adduce the sort of evidence which I demanded; i. e. Bible evidence. But here you entirely lose sight of the object you should have had in view, the support of your own theory and

E

practice; and take the offensive part of bringing me under a pretended trial. You presume to erect a court, which you call the court of truth. Thither you summon me as a criminal; produce your indictment of "high crimes and misdemeanors;" call your witnesses; make them say what you please; demand of me whether I plead guilty or not guilty; say that I am, or that I am not, as suits you; that you may best fasten an accumulation of guilt on me at last; finally you pronounce me guilty, and declare the sentence.

"Shame

where is thy blush!" A greater burlesque upon theological discussion never appeared. A more wild and arrogant attempt to confound an antagonist never was witnessed. A political bully could not have gone farther. Is this assumption of infallibility, and thundering out your anathemas the way in which you expect to propagate your baptistical doctrines among reasonable men? This, Sir, is not the court to which I appealed. For what signifies a string of texts, the most of which had been before marshalled out as proving your point, when it has been demonstrably 'shown, that your use of them does but take the thing for granted which is to be made out?

This court which you have erected, and to which you have arrogantly summoned me, is not the Bible. This court is a man, a sinful

and fallible man, who has not given the most unequivocal evidence of the maturity of his judgment, the correctness of his knowledge, or the stability of his faith. This court is Daniel Merrill. Yes, Daniel Merrill has erected himself unasked, unappointed, and against numerous warnings of God's word, into a court of errors, and high crimes and misdemeanors, in relation to eternal concerns. Daniel Merrill is the judge, the accuser, the examiner, the witness, the jury, and, as far as he can be, the executor of the sentence. Reason and conscience, and fact too must bow to his omnipotent decision. And what are the crimes of which you accuse, and for which you condemn me? They are these.

1.. That I have not so much grace as you; for you say, page 05, "Unless God be pleased to give you a large share of grace, you will not so much desire the light of conviction, as the light by which to refute what I have written.

2. That I am Antichrist.-Introduction to the Reader.

3. For violating and profaning the first Gospel ordinance.--Page 87.

4. "For teaching the people to misunderstand the laws of Christ's kingdom."

5. "For doing what I could to bring into this kingdom those who have no Gospel lib.. erty to come."