Proponents of infant baptism (e.g., Presbyterians; Roman Catholics) often draw a parallel between infants being circumcised under the Old Covenant with their practice—they often argue that baptism, the ordinance initiating one into the New Covenant, can and must have infants as its subject, too.
Alexander Campbell (1788-1866), in his 1852 book on baptism, offered the following points in refutation of this apologetic:
1. Males only were subjects of circumcision; but males and females are subjects of Christian baptism. "Every male child among you shall be circumcised." The Apostles "baptized both men and women."
2. Circumcision was ordained to be performed on the eighth day--the first day of the second week of every male child. Does any party of the Pedobaptists occupy the same day in dispensation the rite of infant baptism? Not one.
3. Adult males circumcised themselves. Do adult believers baptize themselves?
4. Infant males were circumcised by their own parents. Do Christian parents baptize their own infant children?
5. Infant and adult servants were circumcised neither on flesh nor faith, but as property. Does infant baptism ever occupy this place?
6. Circumcision was not the door into the Jewish church. It was four hundred years older than the Jewish church, and introduced neither Isaac, Ishmael, Esau, nor Jacob into any Jewish or patriarchal church. It never was to any Jew, its peculiar and proper subject, an initiatory rite? Why, then, call infant baptism an initiatory rite?
7. The qualifications for circumcision were flesh and property. Faith was never propounded, in any case, to a Jew, or his servants, as a qualification for circumcision. But do not Pedobaptists sometimes say--If thou believest with all thy heart, thou mayest?
8. Infant baptism is frequently called a dedicatory rite. Believers may dedicate themselves, but cannot dedicate others to the Lord in a Christian sense. In the Jewish sense, however, the same persons were dedicated to the Lord. But dedication was never performed by circumcision. The circumcised were afterwards dedicated to the Lord: Numbers viii.13-21. Why, then, make baptism a dedicatory rite in room of circumcision.
9. Circumcision, requiring neither intelligence, faith, nor any moral qualification, neither did nor could communicate any spiritual blessing. No person ever put on Christ, or professed faith in circumcision.
10. Idiots were circumcised: for neither intellect nor any exercise of it was necessary to a covenant in the flesh. Is this true of baptism?
11. Circumcision was a visible appreciable mark, as all signs are, and such was its chief design. Does baptism fill its room in this respect?
12. The duty of circumcision was not personal, but parental. Parents were bound to circumcise their children. The precept ran thus--"Circumcise your children." But in baptism it is personal--"Be baptized every one of you."
13. The right of a child to circumcision, in no case, depended upon intelligence, faith, piety, or morality of the parents. Why, then, in substituting for it infant baptism are its benefits to infants withholden from it, because of the ignorance, impiety, or immorality of its parents? Does infant baptism exactly fill the place of circumcision in this particular?
14. Circumcision was a guarantee of certain temporal benefits to a Jew. Does baptism guaranty any temporal blessing to the subject of it?
15. It was not to be performed in the name of God, nor into the way of any being in heaven or earth Why, then, on the plea of coming in the room of circumcision, is any infant baptized in or into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?
16. The subject of circumcision was a debtor to the whole law. Is this true of every subject of baptism?
Alexander Campbell, Christian baptism: With Its Antecedents and Consequents (Bethany, Va.: L. Johnson and Co, 1852), 242-44
