THE CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE, of New York, the leading journal of American Methodists, said: "The regular Baptist churches in the United States may be considered today as particularly a unit on _three points_--the non-use of infant baptism, the immersion of believers only upon a profession of faith, and the administration of the holy communion to such only as have been immersed by ministers holding these views. In our opinion the Baptist Church owes its amazing prosperity largely to its adherence to these views. In doctrine and government, and in other respects, it is the same as Congregationalists. In numbers, the regular Baptists are more than six times as great as the Congregationalists. It is not bigotry to adhere to one's convictions, provided the spirit of Christian love prevails." THE EPISCOPAL RECORDER said: "The close communion of the Baptist churches is but the necessary sequence of the fundamental idea out of which their existence has grown. No Christian Church would willingly receive to its communion even the humblest and truest believer in Christ who had not been baptized. With Baptists, immersion only is baptism, and they therefore of necessity exclude from the Lord's Table all who have not been immersed. It is an essential part of the system--the legitimate carrying out of the creed." BISHOP COXE, of the Episcopal diocese of Western New York, says: "The Baptists hold that we have never been baptized, and they must exclude us from their communion table, if we were disposed to go there. Are we offended? Do we call it illiberal? No; we call it _principle,_ and we respect it. To say that we have never become members of Christ by baptism seems severe, but it is a conscientious adherence to duty, as they regard it. I should be the bigot, and not they, if I should ask them to violate their discipline in this, or in any other particular." _On Christ. Unity, in "Church Union," July, 1891._ +CHAPTER XII+ INFANT BAPTISM One of the customs held and upheld by Pedobaptist churches, which Baptists seriously condemn, is infant baptism. It is practiced by both Roman Catholics and Protestants as a religious institution; and though not held as sacredly, or practiced as widely as formerly, it still prevails to a wide extent throughout the Christian world. And yet it was not instituted by Christ, nor practiced by His Apostles, nor known in the primitive churches, and has neither sanction nor recognition in the Word of God. It is for this reason that Baptists utterly reject and condemn the custom, as not simply useless and without authority, but as a most pernicious and hurtful usage; that it is injurious both to the child that receives it, and to the church which allows it, can be easily shown. Baptism before faith, and without a profession it, contradicts and does violence to all New Testament teaching. NOT OF SCRIPTURAL AUTHORITY