THE doctrine of the Bible, on any particular subject of inquiry, can be clearly and satisfactorily ascertained only by a full induction of all that is found in it upon that subject. When the induction is perfect and complete, and fully comprehended on any one point, we never can have any more divine light upon that subject. This is our method of learning and of teaching what the Holy Spirit has taught on any given question.

      Who may, with divine approbation, be baptized? or, as usually expressed, who are the proper subjects of Christian baptism? is the question now under consideration. It having been universally admitted that baptism is an ordinance of the New Testament, or an ordinance of Jesus Christ, our inquiry upon the action, subject, or design of Christian baptism must be confined to an induction of whatever is said on any of these topics by the writers of that volume. So far, we have pursued this method. Nothing that was written before or after the apostolic age can be rationally admitted as evidence in this case.

      In the preceding chapter, we not only examined the [233] commission given to the Apostles, which instituted and ordained Christian baptism; but also adduced and examined every case of baptism reported in the Acts of the Apostles, from the giving of the commission to the end of that treatise--a period of some thirty years. The book, indeed, furnishes only some nine cases in all; but they are of a peculiarly striking impressive, and circumstantial character, and include under them several thousand persons. The first of these occurs in Jerusalem, and embraces three thousand Pentecostian converts. The subjects of that baptism are represented as believers--as persons who had previously "gladly received the word," and were then baptized. Not one was baptized who had not gladly received the gospel that Peter preached.

      The city of Samaria is next on record. When the citizens of Samaria heard and believed Philip, "preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women." The word children is not added; because there were none such baptized. The particularity of detail which mentioned "men and women" would, doubtless, have mentioned infants, if there had been any such baptized.

      The Ethiopian nobleman is the third case. That he professed faith is just as clearly stated as that he was baptized; or as that, after baptism, "he went on his way rejoicing."

      Saul of Tarsus, afterwards Paul the Apostle, is the fourth case. Then come the Gentiles at Cesarea Philippi, and Peter's success among them as the fifth case. The whole audience believed, received the Holy Spirit, and were baptized. Down to this time, we have the prominent details of almost seven years from the ascension, and the addition of not less than ten thousand persons to the original one hundred and twenty, and not one infant or child as yet named or alluded to as having been baptized.

      Then we have the household of Lydia and of the Philippian jailer; in neither of which is there any evidence that there was any departure from the preceding usage. Such are the sixth and seventh cases on record. Then have we the case of the Corinthians and that of the Ephesians; in both of which we are expressly informed that they "heard, believed, and were baptized." So that, in the Four Gospels, and in the Acts of the Apostles, reaching down to the year of our Lord 63, in which [234] we have the accounts of many myriads of converts, comprising Jews, Samaritans, and Gentiles, we have no example of the baptism of any other than believing and professing persons. May we not, then, say with the utmost assurance, that, so far as all sacred history deposes, there is not any evidence whatever that a single infant or non-professing person had been admitted to baptism during the lives of the Apostles?

      What now remains of biblical authoritative evidence, except the Apostles' Epistles? To these, then, we must next turn our attention. We shall take them up in the order in which they usually stand in the received version. In examining them, we may expect to find sundry allusions to Christian baptism, and from these, doubtless, we may infer some things corroborative of the historical evidence now before us.

      In the sixth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, we find a very lucid reference to baptism, indicative of the character of its subjects. The Apostle affirms, that "so many of us as have been baptized into Jesus Christ, have been baptized into his death; therefore, we are buried with him by baptism into death--that like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of his Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life!" Can this apply to infants? Have they been baptized into Christ's death, and risen with him to walk in a new life? This putting off of the old man and putting on the new is not the work of infantile minds, but of those whose senses are exercised to discern both good and evil. Had the Romans been accustomed to have their infants baptized, could Paul have thus written to them?

      There are more frequent allusions to baptism in the first letter to the Corinthians than in any other epistle. In Acts xviii., we have learned who were first baptized in Corinth--men and women only. We shall now inquire whether, in his letters to them, Paul indicates that any other than men and women, or, persons of age and reflection, had, at the date of this epistle, been baptized. 1 Cor. i. 13, he asks the question, "Were you baptized into the name of Paul?" Could any persons baptized in infancy answer such a question? Could they say either in or into what name, by whom or for what they had been baptized? This alone intimates that the primitive subjects of baptism could remember and reflect upon the design of their baptism, as well as the time of it. [235]

      In the same connection, he adds, "I thank God that I baptized none of you but Crispus and Gaius. I baptized also the household of Stephanas; and I know not whether I baptized any other: for Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel." Unless, then, there should be found some infants in the household of Stephanas, there is none in this passage. But the Apostle relieves us from all dubiety on that subject, by informing us of the character of this household: chap. xvi. 15, "You know," says he, "the family of Stephanas that it is the first-fruits of Achaia, and that they have addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints." They were not infants; but they were the first converts in Achaia, and they were remarkable for their devotion to the service of the saints.

      The other allusions to baptism, in this epistle, are rather figurative than literal references to the subject. Chap. x. 1, "All our fathers were baptized into Moses, in the cloud and sea; and they all eat the mystic manna and drank the mystic rock." And, again, chap. xii. 13, "For by one Spirit we are baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, and we all have drunk of the one Spirit." "Else, what shall they do who are baptized for the dead, or in the hope of the resurrection of the dead?" These all are indicative of thought, faith, feeling, emotion, and hope, on the part of the baptized. As yet, there is not found a single intimation, allusion or hint to infant baptism.

      In the letter to the Galatians, we have another reference to baptism. It is found, chap. iii. 27: "As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ." This passage is very similar to that quoted from Romans. It is, indeed, more definitive of the character of those baptized. They had, without a single exception, been professors of the faith. Of all the baptized of all the churches, in the province of Galatia, Paul affirms there was not one that had not by a profession of faith put on Christ. Could any one say this of all the baptized in any Pedobaptist church in the world? We, however, with Paul, can say that all the baptized in our church, in the United States, have put on Christ--have confessed and assumed him as their Saviour and their Guide.

      We have not yet done with Paul's epistles. To the Ephesians, he says, chap. iv., "There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism." There are not, then, infant baptism and adult baptism for these are, certainly, two baptisms, and not one. Sprinkling [236] and pouring are not one immersion, neither are immersion and sprinkling one pouring: no more are infant and adult baptism one baptism. A baptism for sins pardoned, and a baptism for sins to be pardoned, or for no pardon of sins at all, past, present, or future, cannot be regarded as one and the same baptism. In one baptism, there must be a unity, as respects subject, action, and design.

      To the Colossians, chap. ii. 12, Paul speaks of baptism as to the Romans. Of them, he says, they were "buried with Christ in baptism, in which they were also risen with him through the faith of the operation" (or work) "of God, who hath raised him from the dead." So far, and no farther, deposeth Paul in his epistles. We know not another passage, in all his writings, that has any allusion whatever to the subjects of baptism, not now laid before our readers. So far, then, there is but one voice in all the writings of Paul and Luke, as well as the other Evangelists, upon the proper subjects of baptism. As to John's baptism, its very name precludes the supposition that any but persons of knowledge and faith could be subjects of it. It is called "the baptism of repentance:" of course, infants are positively excluded. They need not to repent; nor are they capable of repentance. They are not more incapable of repentance than they are of sins to be repented of.

      We have yet another allusion to baptism in the Epistles. Peter says, "The antetype" of the salvation of Noah in the ark by water, is Christian baptism. "Baptism," says he, "doth also now save us (not in the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but through the answer of a good conscience towards God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ." Infants are wholly incapable of the response of a good conscience towards God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This requires both knowledge, reflection, and faith--of which they are not susceptible.

      Now, as James, John, and Jude do not, in their epistles, allude at all to baptism, we have laid before the reader every passage that relates to the subject of baptism found in the apostolic epistles. We have, then, the whole history of the Christian church from its origin to the close of the volume of inspiration, whether in the form of history or epistolary details, without meeting with a single case of infant baptism, expressed or implied. In all the instances before us, there is not one of doubtful [237] disputation. This, of course, will be satisfactory to all persons who believe that Christianity is all found in the New Testament. But there are some who, through an erroneous and defective education, are led to look for it in the law of Moses, or in the philosophy of the schools. But, would it not be a reflection upon the character of the Founder of Christianity, if, in this most essential institution, he had failed to develop his whole law to his people? Had Moses sent the Jews to Noah to learn what, as Israelites, they should believe and do, it would have been, on his part, an indication of incompetency--a disparagement of his own commission. Still more preposterous and inadmissible the imputation against the mediatorial dignity of the Lord Messiah, if, as is assumed, he failed to reveal his own ordinances, and sent us to Moses or left us to the schools of philosophy to ascertain what are the positive ordinances of his religion, and what are the first duties of those who desire constitutionally to place themselves under his protection and guidance. We cannot, as intelligent believers of the plenary inspiration, divine mission, and authority of our Lawgiver and King, for one moment admit that he has left us to infer from Patriarchal or Jewish customs, or from the traditions of the elders, what is expedient and fitting as respects the positive ordinances of the New Institution.

      We scarcely know whether it is compatible with the dignity of our Master, that, in pleading his cause with the corrupters of his institution, we should gravely discuss the traditions and conjectures by which they have made of no effect his laws. And, certainly, infant baptism, so far as it prevails, makes void and annuls believer's baptism. If, then, believer's baptism be a divine institution, it must follow that they who prevent it by anticipating it, and substituting for it a human institution, do, as far as in them lies, annul and make void the commandments and ordinances of God. All that are born in every Pedobaptist community are deprived of the blessings of the Messiah's institution--of the pleasure which the Lord himself had in honouring the divine institution preached by John, and which all the Apostles and first Christians enjoyed during the times of the original proclamation of the kingdom of God.

      We, therefore, judge it expedient to advert to some of the reasonings by which many are deluded, unintentionally it may be, in some instances, on the part of those who so far sophisticate [238] their minds, by fallacious reasonings, into the opinion that infant baptism is pleasing to God, because required by him. They produce no precept for it. They produce no precedent for it in all the oracles of God; nay, they admit it has neither divine precept nor example; but they infer that it is pleasing to God and useful to children, if not to men, to be early initiated into the church, and made members thereof; assuming, as they advance, that God's Church always had infant members in it, and that they inherited blessings consequent upon such membership. They, moreover, assume that the Jewish nation was the Church of God in the same sense that any community now may be called the Church of God; and that the covenant of circumcision is the everlasting covenant or constitution of the Christian church, &c. &c. They even argue the identity, the perfect and complete identity of the Jewish nation and the Christian church. They call it "the Jewish church," not desiring to call it a nation, as God and the people called it; because, to say that the Jewish nation and the Christian church are identical, is rather too gross a form of speech for Christian ears.

      In assuming these premises, which they cannot sustain, it lays upon us, not the necessity of assailing their position by formally disproving the assertion, but merely of noting the grounds on which they sometimes seek inferentially to sustain it. But as we write not for mere logicians, but for the great multitude, we shall not stand upon logical niceties, but proceed to suggest some reasons, and facts, too, why we cannot, for a moment, admit the identity of the Jewish nation and the Christian church--the identity of their constitutions, or the essential or formal identity of their initiatory rites and ordinances. We shall rely on a few palpable facts and evidences.

      I. The words nation and church are neither literally nor spiritually identical. A nation is the whole population of any given country, with the mere exception of sojourners and pilgrims. A church is a select society called out of a nation. A nation, then, is the aggregate population: a church, a select community. The former comes from the Roman natio--from nasci, natus, to be born--the people born in any given country; the latter, literally, the kuriakee, or house of the Lord, from ecclesia, the called out, the chosen people. Hence, the Christian community is a people called out of the world--a people formerly [239] called out of the Jewish nation, and out of the Greek and Roman nations. They constitute a holy and spiritual nation--sons and daughters born to God. All, then, that are born of the flesh in any country, are its nation; and those that are born of the Spirit in any nation are its church in that nation. "A national church" is, therefore, a great national absurdity--an absurdity both in language and in fact. If a whole nation constitute but one society, how can that one society be called out of it? What remains, when all are taken? In Roman Catholic nations, it is all church and no world; or rather, all world and no church.

      II. The Jewish nation, as a nation, was a part of the descendants of Abraham, had a national covenant based upon the flesh, guarantying only fleshly, temporal, and worldly privileges. They were, indeed, as respected the world, an election according to the flesh. God loved the fathers and chose their children not for their own sake, but for that of their fathers: Rom. xi. They had a law written on tables of stone, a fallible lawgiver, ordinances concerning the flesh, a carnal priesthood, a brazen altar, animal sacrifices, a worldly sanctuary, a temporal and earthly inheritance, governed by degenerate kings. Can any one, then, consistently affirm that the Jewish and Christian churches, or, more properly, the Jewish nation and the Christian church, are, therefore, one and the same religious, spiritual, and moral community--identically one and the same church?! If so, he is more infatuated by system than guided by reason or truth; and, therefore, more to be pitied; or, as the case may sometimes be, more to be contemned than reasoned with on the subject.

      III. The Christian church is described as called out of the world, born again, regenerated, illuminated, justified, sanctified, adopted, saved, a holy nation, a peculiar people, a royal priesthood, a spiritual family, a royal race--having "an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away." Not so the Jewish, in one single point. Not so any nation or people on the earth, in the aggregate.

      IV. Hence the Apostles, in calling out of the world a people for the Lord, or, what is the same thing, in building a church, demanded just as much from the Jew as from the Samaritan or from the Greek--as much from the excellent Cornelius and the amiable Lydia as from the betrayers and murderers of the Son of God. To the Jew and to the Greek they preached [240] "repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ;" and thus God "visited the nations to take out of them a people for his name:" Acts xv. 14.

      V. Hence, the Church of Jesus Christ is called a new body--a "new man." It has a "new covenant," or constitution, a new Lawgiver, a new Prophet, a new King. It has a new altar, a new sacrifice, a new High-Priest. It has new ordinances, a new baptism, a new supper, and a new Lord's day. It was introduced and consummated by a better Mediator than Moses, and is established upon "better promises."

      The door of admission into the Jewish community was as wide as the door into the world. No intellectual, moral, or spiritual qualification was required of any man, in order to admission into it. If he were legitimately or illegitimately born of Jewish blood, or even bought by Jewish money, he was entitled to its initiatory and solemn rites and ordinances.

      It had, indeed, no initiatory rites whatever, except for adult proselytes from pagan nations. The children of Jews were not circumcised to make them Jews, but they were circumcised because they were born Jews. Circumcision only marked their flesh and identified it with that of Abraham. It was to them a sign, a proof of lineage and of blood; but indicated neither moral qualification nor moral change. What profit, then, had the Jew in his circumcision? Its national advantages were very considerable; but its chief benefit was, that "unto them were committed the oracles of God." They had the means of illumination and of salvation. But so have the nations of Europe and of Christendom. But does the mere possession of these oracles secure the salvation of any man? No, no; not one. Still, the possession of them is sometimes, and may often become, the greatest blessing to those that hold them, and not only hold them, but who are held, and led, and guided by them.

      But the advocates for infant baptism argue the identity of the Jewish nation and the Christian church for the sake of its alleged covenant of circumcision, and for the purpose of pleading their national, natural, fleshly infant membership. Though it must be admitted, that "the covenant of circumcision" is neither the covenant of grace nor the constitution of the Jewish nation; for circumcision is not of Moses, but of Abraham and the Patriarchs; yet they seek to make it the root of their ecclesiastic constitution or church covenant, and strangely infer the [241] rite of infant baptism from the bloody rite of infant circumcision. Strange, that the putting of water upon an infant could doctrinally be the same with taking blood from it; or the immersing it in water, identical, in covenant import, with cutting off a portion of its flesh! That one and the same covenant could have had two seals, at two different periods, so discordant and uncongenial, would, methinks, require very explicit and very satisfactory proof.

      But, still more revolting to my mind, that any covenant ratified by human blood could be the same with that ratified by the blood of the Son of God! And is not the Christian church founded upon the new constitution sealed and ratified by the blood of Jesus Christ? Was, then, the Jewish church, assumed to be founded upon the bloody rite of circumcision identically the same with the Christian church founded upon the blood of the slain Lamb of God!! In what absurd predicaments do the advocates for infant baptism on the ground of the covenant of circumcision, place themselves before the world, in their attempts to sustain the antiquated tradition commended to them by the great godmother of antichristian innovations?

      But as all may not intuitively see the justness or relevancy of these remarks, we shall present the subject in a somewhat more tangible and intelligible form. We need only premise that when any one thing comes in the room or place of another, it must occupy the room or place of that thing. Now, as most Pedobaptists of the Presbyterian and Congregational schools affirm baptism is a sort of spiritual circumcision, standing in the same relation to our church covenant as did circumcision to the Jewish covenant, we shall proceed to examine this hypothesis, by inquiring in what particular does infant baptism fill the place or occupy the room of circumcision.

      On former occasions, we have found some sixteen points in which these two institutions do not fill the place or room of one another. Indeed, they do not at all resemble one another in any one of these particulars:

      1. Males only were subjects of circumcision; but males and females are subjects of Christian baptism. "Every male child among you shall be circumcised." The Apostles "baptized both men and women."

      2. Circumcision was ordained to be performed on the eighth day--the first day of the second week of every male child. [242] Does any party of Pedobaptists occupy the same day in dispensing the rite of infant baptism? Not one.

      3. Adult males circumcised themselves. Do adult believers baptize themselves?

      4. Infant males were circumcised by their own parents. Do Christian parents baptize their own infant children?

      5. Infant and adult servants were circumcised neither on flesh nor faith, but as property. Does infant baptism ever occupy this place?

      6. Circumcision was not the door into the Jewish church. It was four hundred years older than the Jewish church, and introduced neither Isaac, Ishmael, Esau, nor Jacob into any Jewish or patriarchal church. It never was to any Jew, its peculiar and proper subject, an initiatory rite? Why, then, call infant baptism an initiatory rite?

      7. The qualifications for circumcision were flesh and property. Faith was never propounded, in any case, to a Jew, or his servants, as a qualification for circumcision. But do not Pedobaptists sometimes say--If thou believest with all thy heart, thou mayest?

      8. Infant baptism is frequently called a dedicatory rite. Believers may dedicate themselves, but cannot dedicate others to the Lord in a Christian sense. In the Jewish sense, however, the same persons were dedicated to the Lord. But dedication was never performed by circumcision. The circumcised were afterwards dedicated to the Lord: Numbers viii. 13-21. Why, then, make baptism a dedicatory rite in room of circumcision?

      9. Circumcision, requiring neither intelligence, faith, nor any moral qualification, neither did nor could communicate any spiritual blessing. No person ever put an Christ, or professed faith in circumcision.

      10. Idiots were circumcised: for neither intellect nor any exercise of it was necessary to a covenant in the flesh. Is this true of baptism?

      11. Circumcision was a visible, appreciable mark, as all signs are, and such was its chief design. Does baptism fill its room in this respect?

      12. The duty of circumcision was not personal, but parental. Parents were bound to circumcise their children. The precept ran thus--"Circumcise your children." But in baptism it is personal--"Be baptized, every one of you." [243]

      13. The right of a child to circumcision, in no case, depended upon the intelligence, faith, piety, or morality of the parents. Why, then, in substituting for it infant baptism, are its benefits to infants withholden from it, because of the ignorance, impiety, or immorality of its parents? Does infant baptism exactly fill the place of circumcision in this particular?

      14. Circumcision was a guarantee of certain temporal benefits to a Jew. Does baptism guaranty any temporal blessing to the subject of it?

      15. It was not to be performed in the name of God, nor into the name of any being in heaven or earth. Why, then, on the plea of coming in the room of circumcision, is any infant baptized in or into the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?

      16. The subject of circumcision was a debtor to the whole law. Is this true of every subject of baptism?

      If these discrepancies do not fully annul the pretensions of baptism as coming in the room and place of circumcision, we know not what discrepancies, either in number or kind, would be sufficient for such a purpose!

      These sixteen indisputable facts are truly distinct and demonstrable attributes and properties of circumcision, each of which differs, and of course the aggregate differs from baptism as now administered by Romanists and Protestants. Had we deemed it at all important, we could as easily, in all the other alleged points of identity between the Jewish and Christian institutions, have made out lists of specifications, either more or less numerous than the preceding. But that being only to multiply words to no profit, I am content to annihilate infant church membership as founded upon the identity of signs and seals. A thousand vague generalities are worth nothing--absolutely worth nothing in a question of identity.¹

      How entirely unfounded and gratuitous the assumption that baptism and circumcision are seals of the same covenant, or that the former came in room of the latter, must appear evident and demonstrative to those who read, with a discriminating eye, the history of baptism as reported in the New Testament.

      All the subjects of John's baptism had been circumcised. The Messiah was circumcised the eighth day.² As the [244] first-born of his mother, he was on the fortieth day dedicated to the Lord according to law. He was baptized in his thirtieth year. Was baptism, in his case, a substitute for circumcision?! All the males baptized by the Harbinger, (and we read of no females baptized by him,) had been circumcised. In these cases, then, there is no favour shown to the fond speculations of Pedobaptists.

      And who were the persons baptized in Pentecost, Jerusalem, and Samaria? The three thousand? The five thousand? The myriads of Jews that had been baptized and were all zealous of the law? Had they not all, to a man, been circumcised? Yes, circumcised and baptized also. Where now the phantom of baptism--of infant baptism, a substitute for infant circumcision? Can any one sensibly and truthfully say that the latter is a substitute for the former?

      But one assumption usually requires the aid of another. It is assumed that circumcision is done away, and that baptism is come in room of it. "Done away," by what authority? It was not done away, so far down the Christian age as New Testament history reaches. A report had gone abroad that Paul forbade the Jews to circumcise their children. This, so late as the year sixty, brought Paul into some trouble. He was, indeed, at considerable expense and labor in denying the charge, and in contradicting those who slandered him in this particular.³

      The believing Jews continued circumcision till entirely amalgamated with the believing Gentiles in the Christian church. They never gave it up because of baptism. It was their national badge and peculiarity, and stood not in the way of their baptism and communion with the believing Gentiles. Those Judaizers who sought to bring the Gentiles into the practice of it were severely reproved; and those Gentiles or Jews that presumed to say that it must be added to Christianity, were informed that if they added circumcision to the gospel, "they became debtors to do the law," and "that Christ should profit them nothing."

      There is, then, not any foundation whatever, in the New Testament, for the assumed identity of "the Jewish and Christian churches," or of the covenants on which they are respectively founded. The Christian church is founded upon the New Covenant; Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone, and not on the covenant of circumcision. Baptism has not come in the [245] room of any thing. It is a New Testament ordinance of great significance and value to the Christian church. It is a personal duty which every believer owes to himself and to the Lord.

      The gospel of Jesus Christ, and all its institutions, are addressed to persons who can learn, who can hear, understand, and obey. "It proclaims liberty to the captive." It emancipates man from the slavery of sin. It treats him as one who must think, and reason, and learn and obey for himself. It inspires man with a spirit of liberty and mental independence. "If the Son shall make you free; you shall be free indeed," is one of the Messiah's own promises.

      We have now, I hope, satisfactorily seen, from a full induction of every case of baptism reported or alluded to in the historical and epistolary writings of the New Testament, that there is not one instance of infant baptism, expressed or implied, from the, first to the last page of that apostolic and Divine Volume. There is neither precept, precedent, nor allusion, directly or remotely squinting at it, in all the pages of inspiration. As soon may we find the legends of purgatory, auricular confession, transubstantiation, the invocation of the Virgin, or prayers for the dead, as find in that volume any authority whatever for infant baptism or infant communion.

      No one need ask, Why, then, so early introduced and so long in practice, and why believed by so many great, and learned, and excellent men? Ah me! what profane tenets, what fatal aberrations from the Sacred Scriptures may not be maintained and defended in this way! How ancient the alleged saving virtue of celibacy--the fasts, the feasts, the penances, and works of supererogation of Papal superstition! Nay, how many excellent Roman worshippers of the Virgin Mary! What Fenelons, and Rollins, and Pascals, and St. Pierres adorn the annals and fill the niches of Papal fame! If great, and learned, and reverend names can authenticate tradition, silence demurs, and satisfy weak consciences, there is not an error in Popery nor an imagination in the ramblings of monkish fanaticism and religious buffoonery that may not be favourably regarded, and cherished with a profound and worshipful respect. But we have not so learned Christ. [246]

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