THIS is a boastful and boasted performance. It is affirmed by the publisher that "the American Baptists, like their British brethren, have not ventured either to dispute the FACTS,¹ or to invalidate the EVIDENCES."

      Again: it is affirmed "that an erudite polemic cannot be found, who will seriously controvert Mr. Taylor's oracular position. Baptism, from the day of Pentecost, was administered by the apostles and evangelists to infants, and not by submersion. Therefore, the subsequent FACTS and EVIDENCES are as irrefutable as the truth in Jesus."

      Such is the frontispiece to this learned duodecimo of 236 pages. And so confident is the author of his positions, that he [417] says, "for his facts and evidences he desires neither grace nor favour." P. 7. Again: he says that the more learned Baptists now confess that infants are included in the term oikos, family, as used in the New Testament; while it is curious to observe the difficulties to which they are reduced, who contend that infants are excluded from the term "family,"² and that the word must be restricted to adults. If our translators had employed the term FAMILY, instead of the words HOUSE and HOUSEHOLD, the sect of Baptists never would have existed! What a misfortune, that the English word "family" had not been adopted by the Greeks, Romans, French, Germans, and all other nations, since its mere "adoption" by our translators, would have for ever prevented the existence of that deluded sect called Baptists!

      This disquisition on oikos and oikia, with no less than twelve pictures, (hallowed number!) engravings of ancient baptisms in the porticos of Roman cathedrals or Greek churches, exhibiting some water or oil being poured on the head of the subject, is the sum total of the volume.

      As to the disquisition on oikos and oikia, we have already demonstrated that it is wholly gratuitous. If we should admit that oikos and oikia meant family, and always family, and nothing but family, unless it was proved that every family must necessarily have infants in it, it is of no logical force whatever. It is mere mockery of reason and argument--a puerile assumption, of which any scholar ought to be ashamed. We will most cheerfully concede that some families were baptized in the apostolic age, even many more than reported. What then! We still have among us family baptisms. But two family baptisms are reported in the New Testament--Lydia's and the jailer's. Other households of baptized persons are named--the household of Stephanas; that of Cornelius, the Centurion; that of Onesiphorus; the house of Chloe; the house of Philip; the house of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus; the house of Priscilla and Aquila. In not one of which there is the slightest evidence that there was an infant; but, on the contrary, we have all the internal and circumstantial evidence in each, that in all the points in which they are considered or alluded to, there was not an infant [418] in one of them. No man that has a proper respect for his head and his heart, or his education, can, so far as we ought to judge, argue from oikos, oikia, family, house, or household, in favour of infant baptism. This argument from oikos or oikia was very satisfactorily disposed of almost thirty years ago, in my debate with Dr. McCalla. This was proved, as Christianity itself is sometimes proved, not merely by the first acclamation, but by the thousands and the myriads of intelligent Pedobaptists that have, in our own time, repudiated it, and, by overt acts, have renounced family and infant baptism, and voluntarily put on Christ by an immersion into his death.

      But, besides the argument in favour of infant baptism, deduced from the family baptisms alluded to, we have no less than twelve pictures on the subject, collected from the vestibules and domes of the Greek and Roman Catholic churches. The first is that of the baptism of Christ, placed at the entrance of the great church at Pisa. Pisan tradition says this marble ornament was carried from Jerusalem by the Crusaders, about the commencement of the twelfth century. The Baptist stands with his hand upon the Saviour's head. The second is the baptism of the same subject in Jordan, taken from the church on the Via Ostiensis at Rome. The door which it covers is dated 1070. The third is from the door of the church at Beneventum, in Italy. Here Jesus is standing in a bath up to the middle, and the Baptist is pouring water on his head. The fourth is that of Jesus standing in the Jordan, with the Baptist pouring water, in streams, on his head. There is a centrepiece in the dome of the baptistery at Ravenna, A. D. 454. Here the Baptist stands on the bank of the river, pouring water out of a shell on the Saviour's head. Over his head is a crown of glory, and a dove, personating the Holy Spirit, descending from heaven to his person. The fifth is a representation, in Mosaic, of the Saviour's baptism in Jordan. Here, again, a patera, or a shell, is employed in pouring water on his person. This stands in the church in Cosmedin, at Ravenna, erected A. D. 401. The sixth is a representation of a bath, or baptismal fount, standing in the baptistery of Constantine, in Rome, near the Lateran. This is too shallow for immersion. The seventh argument is the baptism of a heathen king and queen, in a family bath at Chigi, near Naples, with a priest standing as if taking aim at the king's head, with a pitcher in his hand, A. D. 591. The eighth proof is that [419] of a kneeling candidate, with a priest holding a vase, or pitcher, at his head. He seems to be on the dry ground. The ninth is that of a boy, unclothed, receiving a stream from a pitcher. This is found in Rome, though the work of a Greek artist. The tenth is Laurentius, in the church of St. Lawrence, in Rome, or near it--extra muros--receiving a stream from a vase. The eleventh, that of Constantine the Great, Emperor of Rome, being immersed in a bath; but also receiving a stream of oil or water falling upon his head from a vial, held by a long-robed priest. The twelfth is that of Jesus Christ, baptized by John in the Jordan, standing on the bank, with one hand on or near to his head. No shell nor vial is seen in the picture. Probably, the baptizer had dipped his finger in the Jordan. This stands in the chapel of the baptistery, in the small church of the Catacomb Pontianus, with a lamb at his foot. The baptizers, though I have called them priests, from their costume, are said to have been laymen; and Mr. Taylor admits the allegation, and quiets all scruples by the concession, that, in all extreme cases, baptism by the hand of laymen is of Divine authority, and, consequently, canonical and valid.

      Now, the grand and solemn question is, What does all this prove? It proves not when the custom began, nor when these pictures were made; and if it did, they are all hundreds of years too late to prove primitive apostolic baptism. No one can, with any measure of self-respect, deny this. And this admitted, places these twelve arguments on the shelf, lettered, "OLD WIVES' FABLES!"

      In the next place, statuaries, sculptors, and painters are always fond of catering to public taste and fashion, and will make to order any number of marble or other ornaments, just as Mr. Sartain, in his pictorial magazine, or as printers do in the Family Bible--make such representations of angels, men, costumes, and customs, as will command the highest admiration, secure the largest sale, and the most liberal price.

      Thus, we see in one New Testament, in an orthodox pulpit, quite as sacred as the vestibule of St. Peter's, or the dome of St. Paul's, a pictorial representation of Paul's conversion. The admiration and taste of the artist conceived that it would be more pleasing to present Paul as a fine, athletic-looking man, mounted on a fiery Arabian courser, on his way to Damascus. And when arrested on his journey, by a glance of the Lord and [420] the majesty of his voice, the affrighted steed, springing like a deer from its lair, in frenzied mood plunging in the desert, unsaddles his rider and flings him over his head; while the unhorsed apostle, pertinacious of his hold of the bridle, brings him to the ground, and appears as if about to rise, whip in hand, with full intent, in sad distraction, wildly looking hither and thither, as if to lay upon him the weight of his indignant arm. How suitable to such an event is such a scene, however well executed and elegantly decorated by the hand of a gifted artist!

      Again: open our elegant Family Bibles of the nineteenth century, and what idea do they give of the Saviour's baptism in the Jordan! You will see opposite to the account of his baptism, or on the frontispiece of the volume, John the Immerser, alias, John the Baptist, standing upon a bluff bank of the Jordan, or, in other pictures, standing ankle-deep in its margin, lifting up a handful, or pouring a hornful, of the water of the river upon his head; while a dove, on its wing, is descending from an open sky, in the direction of the imposing scene. Now, what does this prove, but the ignorance or impiety of painters of the present day? And just so much, neither more nor less, do these twelve pictures, the twelve unanswerable arguments of C. Taylor, in favour of the pagan rite of sprinkling holy water, under the imposing name of Christian baptism, alias, Roman rantism! It is a fearful deception practised upon the credulity of an untaught and unteachable population. "O my people, they which lead thee (or call thee blessed) cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths!"³ "They have spoken lying words in my name, which I have not commanded them; even I know and am a witness, saith the Lord."⁴ [421]

[CBAC 417-421]