CEYLON BRANCH — ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY. 2 J 



" declare that such a person is to be regarded, not a true 

 " christian, but a baptized heathen : it is popery to suppose tha§ 

 * baptism christens or makes christian. Do we not know, bre* 

 " thren, that by faith, by the calling of Gcp, and by regenera- 

 H tion, on forsaking heathenism, the world and the devil, a man 

 " becomes a christian. Hence then the necessary conclusion that 

 " the children of such baptized heathens may not be baptized* 

 ** unless that which is holy be given unto the dogs. Such chil- 

 " dren can found no right to baptism because forsooth their pa-> 

 •* rents have usurped it, 



" 3 — How &r does Christianity extend ? How far can one, 

 " being a christian in name, proceed before he falls away alto- 

 " gether from Christianity 1 Do not idolatry, devil-worship, in- 

 w cantations and such like cause an entire apostacy ? We trust s 

 " brethren, that your opinion herein also is one with ours ; that 

 " namely the sin of unbelief is apostacy, Rom, 11. 20. If a 

 st person infringes Christ and the covenant of grace ; when for 

 " example like the Jew he does not look for the Messiah, or 

 " like the Turk places Mahomet next to and above Christ s 

 " or like the Socinian denies Christ's atonement ; so also when 

 " he who lapses into the chief sin of heathenism and continues 

 " therein, which is idolatry, not of the second but of the 

 " first commandment, a cleaving to the service of the devil, and 

 •* to incantations, he has forsaken the profession of Christianity s 

 u what else is the meaning of 2 Corinth 6. 14 to 18. 



w 4 — Now follows the last and grand case, (and O may, 

 *- it be the happy state of Gcd's Church among you seldom or 

 " never to witness it) whether we are bound to baptize chil* 

 " dren of such apostates on the ground, that the son shall not 

 ** bear the iniquity of the father, Ezechiel 18; or becru e God 

 " calls the children of the idolatrous Israelites still his children 

 "Ezechiel 16. £1 ? We doubt not that when children of apos- 

 •« tates are brought for baptism you resist them firmly, pointing 

 *' out to the parties that they have excluded themselves from 



