they thought universal toleration in a state a ne cessary part of sound civil polity. The literati slandered them as an ignorant illiterate crew, because they constantly affirmed, that the New Tcstament was a book so plain, and the religion of it so easy, that any man of common sense might understand it, if he would. Priests calumniated them as an uncandid, sour, malignant, implacable sect, because they thought christianity unchangeable, and compliance and compliments crimes in religion. The gay world called them morose and unsociable, and laughed at their want of taste for rhymes, and novels, and plays, and places of fashionable dissipation, and every coquet exclaimed,-Come into the world without christening, and go out of it without burying! Lord have mercy upon an anabaptist's soul! Do we wonder that such men refuse to tolerate infant sprinkling!

Moreover, they have been distinguished from all other protestants as men the least deserving of equity or pity, and that by protestants too, from whom better treatment might have been expected. Even Crammer thought it no crime to burn an anabaptist woman, and his bloody example was imitated both by Queen Elizabeth and King James I. Some of this denomination were the last that were burnt for religion; and since they were allowed to die in their beds, their corpses were denied the right of what is called christian burial.

Even good men, men, who in all other respects behaved with the dignity of men, and the delicacy of christians, frequently caught the fashionable

ton, and treated this denomination with an insolence truly provoking. They suffered themselves, against the just and humane feelings of their own good hearts, to be made the dupes of interested leaders, who were blinded with prejudice, bloated with pride, and void of every principle except love of self. Let us cease to wonder then, that some baptists treat infant sprinkling with peculiar dislike, and refuse to put it among the errors, that may be tolerated in their communities. It is an excess; but it is an excess of virtue, and excessive virtue is the most pardonable of all vices.

After all, an extreme aversion to one particular error may have arisen from an innocent association of ideas, which have no natural, no necessary, nor scriptural connection. Initiation into church communion and baptism are not always connected together in scripture; but they have always appeared in company in the church of Rome; so the reformers found them, and so they kept them in the churches, which they framed, and perhaps we may have derived them from thence; if so, the sooner we dissociate these two ideas the better. In this case, the ordinance would be placed in our churches precisely in that state, in which it was originally fixed. Sometimes it would be connected with church-fellowship, at other times it would not; but at all times it would be primitive publick profession of faith in Christ, highly honourable to him who made it.

Again: It is not impossible, that strict communion and modesty may have associated themselves

in the minds of some. A modest minister of this opinion, in close connection with others of the same opinion, may look with too much reverence on his fathers and brethren, and think it would be arrogant in him to introduce what would appear to them, he fears, a mark of folly and rashness. A needless blush this among the most placid and friendly of mankind!

Perhaps, also, mixed communion and licentiousness may have been associated by some, because they have observed some particular cases, in which it has not been conducted with wisdom and prudence; but we should distinguish the use of every thing from the abuse of it.

Further: Perhaps toleration of sprinkling and want of zeal for primitive baptism may have been associated in the minds of some; but this connection is not just, for they, who practise free communion, have discovered as much zeal for the ordinance as their brethren of the contrary opinion.

Probably, mixed fellowship and great majorities of unbaptized believers, tending to alter the constitution of a church, may have been associated ideas; but, whatever may have happened in some few particular cases, the connection is not good, for in most mixed churches, where the minister is a baptist, the proportion is not so great as five to a hundred.

I sometimes imagine, I see a pastor of a strict church, consisting of two hundred members, sitting in his chair at a church-meeting, his members all present. I fancy, I see a venerable, grey headed

old gentleman rise, and hear him inform the church, that five gentlemen, and five ladies, now in an adjoining room, desired to be admitted into the assembly to make a profession of their faith in Christ, and repentance toward God, and to declare in the gates of Sion what the Lord had done for their souls, in order to their admission to fellowship, adding, that they resided in the neighbourhood, constantly attended divine worship in that place, and were well known to have undoubted piety and unspotted morality. They held, indeed, infant sprinkling for christian baptism; however, that was no obstacle to him, and he proposed them as members fit to be tolerated in a new testament church. Their names were John Calvin, the reformer, William Tindall, the translator of the bible, John Owen, vice-chancellor of the learned university of Oxford, Matthew Henry, the expositor, and Isaac Watts, the composer of the psalms and hymns on the table. The ladies were Thecla the writer of the Alexandrian manuscript, Mary, Countess Dowager of Warwick, Lady Mary Vere, Lady Mary Armyne, and Mrs. Margaret Baxter, whose praises were in all the churches....The old man moves that they be admitted, and sits down. I fancy a solemn silence ensues....the feelings of the heart rebel against opinion... ...I imagine, I see in the lower seats tears of gratitude flow from the eyes of industrious labourers employed, widows and orphans fed and cloathed, and youths educated by the christian liberality of some of the ladies. In nearer pews stern justice sits voting in the fea

tures of fathers grown wise by the labours of others of the candidates....The junior members smile affection at the name of Watts, and their parents melt at the sight, venerating a man, who allured their much loved offspring out of the world into the principles of religion, and so into the church ....The seven venerable deacons, just at the grave, to them the gate of heaven, catch the fire of a holy ambition to enjoy the great accession of knowledge and virtue, that knocks at their door for admission! ....their souls are in their countenances; they are ready to break the silence with "Lord! now lettest thou thy servants depart in peace, our eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared be fore the face of all people, a light to lighten the gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel." And you.... Pastor of the church you who are both a guide of the blind, and a teacher of babes.... what will you do? Rise from your seat....Stand up, and shew your people the way of salvation; collect the votes of justice, gratitude and love; open the gates, that the righteous nation, which keepeth the truth, may enter in. Were the apostle Peter in your place, he would say, God hath shewn me,

that I should not call any man common or unclean. Of a truth, I perceive, God is no respecter of persons; but in every nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted with him. Forasmuch then as God gave them the like gift as he gave us, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, what am I that I should withstand God? Yea, were the chief shepherd and bishop of souls there,