they were to perform the baptism of Christ, the case is altered.  It became them then to wait for the divine help.  For it required more than human power to give that baptism, which should change the disposition and affections of men, and should be able to bring them from darkness unto light, and from the power of Satan unto God.  And here the Quakers observe, that the Apostles never attempted to execute the great commission, till the time fixed upon by our Saviour, in these words:  “But tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.”  This was the day of pentecost.  After this “they preached, as St. Peter says, with the Holy Ghost sent down from Heaven,” and with such efficacy, that “the Holy Ghost fell upon many of them, who heard their words.”

[Footnote 174:  Luke 24.49.]

SECT.  V.

Objection to the foregoing arguments of the Quakers—­namely, “If it be not the baptism of John that is included in the Great Commission, how came the Apostles to baptize with water?”—­Practice and opinions of Peter considered—­also of Paul—­also of Jesus Christ—­This practice, as explained by these opinions, considered by the Quakers to turn out in favour of their own doctrine on this subject.

I have now stated the arguments by which the Quakers have been induced to believe that the baptism by the spirit, and not the baptism by water, was included by Jesus Christ in the great commission which he gave to his Apostles, when he requested them “to go into all nations, and to teach them, baptizing in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”

Against these arguments the following question has been usually started, as an objection:  “If it be not included in the great commission, how came the Apostles to baptize; or would they have baptised, if baptism had not been considered by them as a Christian ordinance?”

The Quakers, in answering this objection, have confined themselves to the consideration of the conduct of the Apostles Peter and Paul.  For though Philip is said to have baptized also, yet he left no writings behind him like the former; nor are so many circumstances recorded of him, by which they may be enabled to judge of his character, or to know what his opinions ultimately were, upon that subject.

The Quakers consider the Apostles as men of the like passions with themselves.  They find the ambition of James and John; the apostacy and dissimulation of Peter; the incredulity of Thomas; the dissention between Paul and Barnabas; and the jealousies which some of them entertained towards one another, recorded in holy writ.  They believe them also to have been mostly men of limited information, and to have had their prejudices, like other people.  Hence it was not to be expected that they should come all at once into the knowledge of Christ’s kingdom; that, educated in a religion of types and ceremonials, they should all at once abandon these; that, expecting a temporal Messiah, they should lay aside at once temporal views; and that they should come immediately into the full purity of the gospel practice.