The revulsion with which the
Christian heart receives such a denial of infant baptism is at least a
presumptive evidence against it. But we think enough has been said to lay
the foundation of some practical comments upon the subject of Christian
baptism.
If it is a fact that infants are proper subjects of baptism, then it is the
duty of Christian parents to have them baptized. It is not only a duty, but
a delightful privilege, to consecrate them to God in a perpetual covenant
never to be forgotten, regarding them as the members of the kingdom of
Christ, and so called to be God's children by adoption and grace.
Their baptism involves many parental duties and responsibilities. If it is
both a sign and a seal of the covenant of grace, and a means of grace, so
that the parent's faith, in their baptism, places the child in covenant
relation to the Incarnate Word, through the life-giving Spirit, then it is
plain that the parent is bound to secure for the child those blessings
which that baptism contemplates, and which hang upon the exercise of a
receiving faith. This sacrament gives the child a churchly claim upon
parental interposition in its behalf, in all things pertaining to its
spiritual culture,--in a true religious training, in a proper direction in
the use of the means of grace, in a holy Christian example. Here it is the
parent's duty to represent the church, to act for the church in religious
ministrations to the child, to be the steward of the church in the
Christian home, to rear up the child for a responsible membership.
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