Fifth day. I turned my face homeward, having a meeting at Newtown Kilns, at the eleventh hour, and another in the town at evening. They were favoured seasons; although the latter was somewhat interrupted at the close, by a hireling minister, of the Presbyterian persuasion, who took some exceptions to the doctrines delivered respecting water baptism, imputative righteousness, and the hire of ministers. The arguments he advanced in support of these appeared very weak, being unfounded and fallacious; and the scripture passages which he quoted to prove his positions, were in direct opposition thereto. For his proof of water baptism, he made use of the doctrine of the apostle Paul; and especially that part wherein he thanks God that he had baptized but a very small number, positively asserting, that Christ sent him not to baptize; therefore, if so great a minister as Paul had no commission or authority to baptize, that is with water, who had converted so many to the Christian faith, and set up and established many churches, in parts where no other of the primitive ministers had yet travelled, surely he could not think it needful, or otherwise he must have fallen very far short of fulfilling his ministry; but if we conclude, as I apprehend we are all bound to do, that Paul, as he himself asserts, was not a whit behind the chiefest of the primitive apostles, we may then safely conclude that water baptism has no part in the commission of a gospel minister, and consequently is no part of the gospel dispensation, but was only made use of in condescension to the weak state of the Jewish believers, in the same way as circumcision was made use of by Paul. Indeed it is abundantly evident, that the rituals of the law were continued for many years by many of the Jewish Christians. It is clear, however, that it was all in condescension to the weak state that the believers were in, through the force of tradition and custom. Having been long in the use of outward shadows and types, the way did not open to shake them all off at once; but as the light of the glorious gospel should arise, they would gradually recede and give place to the substance, just as when the sun rises above the horizon, all the shadows of the night flee away.