desirous of giving up themselves to Christ, whom others called Clinics."—Comment on Matt. 3. 6.

SPRINKLING PREVAILED.

In the Roman Church pouring for baptism was tolerated in the eighth century, and in the sixteenth century generally adopted as a matter of convenience, that hierarchy presumptuously arrogating the right to change ordinances.

Dr. Wall says:

"

France seems to have been the first country in the world where baptism by affusion was used ordinarily to persons in health, and in the public way of administering it."—Hist. Inf. Bap., p. II., ch. 9, p. 470.

The same learned author states that Calvin prepared for the Genevan Church, and afterward published to the world, "a form of administering the sacraments," in respect to which he adds, "for an office, or liturgy of any Church, this is, I believe, the first in the world that prescribes aspersion absolutely."—Hist. Inf. Bap. See above.

Dr. Wall adds:

"And for sprinkling, properly called, it seems it was, at A.d. 1645, just then beginning, and used by very few." But sprinkling for the common use of baptizing was really introduced (in France first, and then in other popish countries) in times of popery."—Hist. Inf. Bap., p. II., ch. 9, p. 470.

Of England, he says:

"The offices and liturgies did all along enjoin dipping, without any mention of pouring or sprinkling." About 1550,

however, aspersion began to prevail, being used first in the case of "weak children," and within the space of half a century, from 1550 to 1600, prevailed to be the more general." The English Churches finally came to imitate the Genevan, and casting off the dominion of the pope, bowed to the authority of Calvin, and adopted pouring in the place of dipping.-Wall's Hist. Inf. Bap., p. II., ch. 9, pp. 463-475.

The Assembly Of Divines, in Convocation in 1643, voted by one majority, mainly through the influence of Dr. Lightfoot, probably the most influential member of the Assembly, against baptizing by immersion, and the year following Parliament sanctioned their decision, and decreed that sprinkling should be the legal mode of administering baptism. Both immersion and sprinkling had been in common use. This action ruled out immersion and made sprinkling sufficient. The following is the form finally decided and fixed by the Assembly for the minister to use in baptism:

He is to baptize the child with water, which, for the manner of doing, is not only lawful, but also sufficient and most expedient to be by pouring or sprinkling water on the face of the child without any other ceremony."—Pittman and Lightfoot's Works, Vol. XIII., p. 300. Cited in Debates of Camp, and Rice, pp. 241-2.

The Edinburgh Encyclopedia gives the following account of the rise of sprinkling :

"The first law to sanction aspersion as a mode of baptism was by Pope Stephen II., A. D. 753. But it was not till the year 1311 that a Council held at Ravenna declared immersion or sprinkling to be indifferent. In this country

(Scotland), however, sprinkling was never practiced in ordinary cases till after the Reformation; and in England, even in the reign of Edward VI. (about 1550), immersion was commonly observed."—Article Baptism.

But during the reign of the Catholic Mary, who succeeded to the throne on the death of Edward VI., 1553, persecution drove many of the Protestants from their homes, not a few of whom, especially the Scotch, found an asylum in Geneva, where, under the influence of John Calvin, they imbibed a preference for sprinkling.—Edinb. Ency., Art. Baptism.

"These Scottish exiles," says the last-quoted authority, "who had renounced the authority of the pope, implicitly acknowledged the authority of Calvin; and returning to their own country, with John Knox at their head, in 1559 established sprinkling in Scotland. From Scotland, this practice made its way into England in the reign of Elizabeth, but was not authorized by the established Church."

It was not authorized in England until, as above stated, the action of the Westminster Assembly in 1643, and confirmed by Parliament in 1644.

The Encyclopedia Britannica states the case, much to the same effect, as follows:

"What principally tended to confirm the practice of affusion or sprinkling, was that several of our Protestant divines, flying into Germany and Switzerland during the bloody reign of Queen Mary, and coming home when Queen Elizabeth came to the crown, brought back with them a great zeal for the Protestant churches beyond the sea, where they had been received and sheltered. And having observed that at

Geneva, and some other places, baptism was administered by sprinkling, they thought they could not do the Church of England a greater service than by introducing a practice dictated by so great an oracle as Calvin."—Ency. Britan., Article Baptism,

Thus we have given, briefly, but accurately, the rise, progress, and final prevalence of this perversion—the substitution of sprinkling for immersion, in the administration of Christian baptism.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE LORD'S SUPPER.

THE Lord's Supper in its institution, and also as to its symbolic import, as well as in its relation to Christian life and doctrine, has already been considered. It would be useless, in this place, to attempt a history of the rite, especially a detail of the perversions of its uses, the bitter controversies concerning it, or the false claims set up for its sacramental efficacy in working grace in its subjects.

The one question with which we are now concerned is a purely denominational one, having reference to the proper subjects of the ordinance, and the spiritual and ritual qualifications of those who partake of it. Also as to the proper and rightful authority of the Church in restricting its use, and judging of the qualifications of the participants.

EUCHARISTIC PROPOSITIONS.

The following propositions may be stated : PROP. 1.—The Gospel calls on all men, everywhere, to repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ unto salvation. This is the first act of submission to divine authority required of men.

PROP. 2.—Such as have exercised saving faith in