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 I UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, t 
 
THE 
 
 CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 AND 
 
 SEALING ORDINANCES, 
 
 4 • • » > 
 
 
 PHILADELPHIA : 
 PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION, 
 
 NO. 821 CHESTNUT STREET. 
 

 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858, by 
 
 JAMES DUNLAP, Treas., 
 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District 
 
 of Pennsylvania. 
 
 STEREOTYPED BT 
 
 JESPER HARDING & SON, 
 
 INQUIRER BUILDING, SOUTH THIRD STREET, PHILADELPHIA. 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 The following article is republished* 
 by request of the Board of Publication. 
 A few passages have been amplified or 
 modified, in order more fully to elucidate 
 the views presented. A few extracts 
 from other authors have also been added. 
 
 The Author. 
 
 * From the Princeton Eeview. 
 
 (3) 
 
THE 
 
 CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH 
 
 AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 
 
 There are two classes who have no 
 difficulty in determining the precise ec- 
 clesiastical status of the children of the 
 Church. The Baptists cut the matter 
 short by denying them any place what- 
 ever in the Church, until they obtain it 
 by a personal profession of faith. They 
 recognize no difference between the child- 
 ren of believers and others, except so 
 far as their condition is likely to insure 
 superior Christian instruction and train- 
 ing at the hands of pious parents. In all 
 1* (5) 
 
6 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 other respects they are on the visible 
 footing of unbelievers and their children. 
 They belong to " those that are without" 
 the precincts of the Church and the com- 
 munion of saints. They are to be treated 
 and dealt with accordingly. Like all 
 worldlings, heathens, and pagans, until 
 they experience a conscious, inward re- 
 generating change, of which they give a 
 credible account, and make a credible 
 profession, they are to account themselves, 
 and to be accounted and proceeded with, 
 as " aliens from the commonwealth of 
 Israel, strangers to the covenants of pro- 
 mise, without hope, and without God in 
 the world." All this at once flows from, 
 and culminates in, the denial of baptism 
 to infants, the seal of the covenant of 
 grace and badge of membership in the 
 Church. 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. i 
 
 If this extreme, espoused by a small 
 section of Christendom, provides an easy 
 disposal of all questions relative to the 
 children of the Church, by placing them 
 without its pale, the opposite extreme is 
 no less summary and decisive in relieving 
 those who adopt it, of all embarrassment 
 in this regard. The whole ritual school, 
 including Romanists and romanizing 
 Protestants, not only hold that infants 
 are to be baptized, but that they are re- 
 generated by baptism. It matters not 
 whether they say it regenerates by its 
 own inherent mystical efficacy, or whether 
 the Holy Spirit does the regenerating 
 work coinstantaneously with its adminis- 
 tration. On either hypothesis, the re- 
 sult is the same. The rite of baptism 
 brings with it regeneration as an opus 
 operatum. But whoever is regenerate and 
 
8 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 baptized, is a member of the Church vis- 
 ible and invisible, to all intents and pur- 
 poses. He is to be accounted and dealt 
 with as such. He is fully bound to every 
 duty, and entitled to every privilege in 
 the house of God, of which his age and 
 circumstances will admit. 
 
 Between these extremes, which, be- 
 cause they are extremes, thus meet in 
 cutting the knot which they do not untie, 
 ranges the vast body of Protestant and 
 evangelical Christians, who practise in- 
 fant baptism and count it a divine insti- 
 tution. Among these, all grades of opin- 
 ion between the two extremes above 
 noted may be found. Many have no de- 
 terminate opinion on the subject, unless 
 a vague impression that the baptism of 
 infants is a lawful, beautiful and edifying 
 rite, or that it is a token of Christian in- 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 9 
 
 struction being provided for the child, be 
 reckoned such. Many who hold thus 
 much, and hold it strenuously, are wholly 
 at a loss as to the precise status of baptized 
 children, the manner and extent in which 
 baptism either signifies, seals, or procures 
 any advantage which they would not 
 possess without it. Under the influence 
 of this theory, which underlies the Bap- 
 tist system, a large proportion of the 
 members of some Pedobaptist commu- 
 nions neglect or refuse the baptism of 
 their children altogether* Having lost 
 the sense or faith of the things signified 
 by the ordinance, either they will not 
 take the trouble to go through with what 
 they deem a useless ceremony, or they 
 
 * Kecent statistics, published in our religious journals, 
 have shown a wide and deplorable omission in this 
 respect. 
 
10 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 utterly ignore and repudiate it as worse 
 than useless. Baptist proselytism must 
 needs thrive on such aliment. This state 
 of things is, in the long run, inevitable, 
 where the doctrinal inculcations, or prac- 
 tical administration of Churches either 
 imply the unimportance of infant baptism, 
 or. fail to show how far and wherein it is 
 important. Such a system must, by its 
 very incongruity, end in making those 
 who are real, avowed Baptists, or produce 
 a recoil which will lead men to look about 
 for more solid and stable foundations. 
 Occasionally one in the violence of his 
 rebound from this insane rationalistic 
 view, strikes upon ritualism or some 
 vague mysticism not easily distinguished 
 from it. Transcendental theology making 
 Christ chiefly the embodiment and vehicle 
 of a theanthropic life for the race, which 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 11 
 
 life is deposited in the Church, and com- 
 municated by it through the sacraments, 
 often offers the buoyant medium of such 
 a transit to mystic ritualism, and gilds it 
 with a philosophic as well as churchly 
 glare. But the vastly greater number, 
 in fleeing from lifeless rationalism, do not 
 thus overfly the gospel into equally life- 
 less formalism. Believing that there is 
 most precious truth signified, and bless- 
 ing sealed, by infant baptism, and that it 
 is of God, they would not surrender it 
 for worlds. Yet they cannot define its 
 nature and effects fully to their own sat- 
 isfaction, although they possess some dim 
 and struggling conceptions of them. But 
 when they attempt to articulate these 
 conceptions in express statement or defi- 
 nition, they find it difficult to avoid re- 
 presentations which either emasculate it 
 
12 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 down to rationalism, or ossify it into ritu- 
 alism. We have met many evangelical 
 clergymen in precisely this state of mind, 
 full believers in the divine institution of 
 infant baptism, yet craving more light as 
 to its precise import and efficacy, and 
 urging us to examine and discuss the 
 subject. We have met with few who 
 have reached a mode of apprehending the 
 matter altogether satisfactory to them- 
 selves. 
 
 The catholic doctrine on this subject, 
 as shown in the creeds of Christendom, 
 is, that the children of believers are mem- 
 bers of the Church, and are to receive 
 baptism as the badge of such member- 
 ship, and seal of the duties and privileges 
 pertaining to it. But great diversities 
 of opinion and practice prevail in refer- 
 ence to the kind of membership in- 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 13 
 
 volved, and the doctrinal and practical 
 consequences which thence result. There 
 are some firm Pedobaptists, however, 
 who adopt the principle, that the children 
 of believers, as such, are not members of 
 the visible Church, or in covenant with 
 God, until they become so by their own 
 personal and professed faith and repen- 
 tance. They are on the footing of other 
 children in this respect. They hold, that 
 infant baptism imports merely the dedi- 
 cation of the child to God by the parent. 
 It is thus a seal of the membership and 
 covenant interest of the parents, but not of 
 the child.* Our observation has convinced 
 us that this is the highest conception of it 
 
 * This view is elaborately defended in " Inquiry into 
 the end and design of Baptism," by the Kev. Cyprian 
 Strong, one of the leading ministers of Connecticut, in the 
 last century. 
 2 
 
14 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 entertained by great numbers. Whether 
 they have taken pains to examine the 
 subject enough to form any distinct spe- 
 culative principles, or even conceptions, 
 in regard to it or not, all their procedures, 
 with respect to baptized children, (their 
 own or others,) prove that they discern 
 in the rite nothing more than a solemn 
 token of parental desire that the child 
 may be the Lord's. This theory of the 
 position of the children of God's people 
 too is, for substance, that of the Baptists. 
 The only difference respects the adminis- 
 tration of the rite itself, not the actual 
 status of the children who receive it. It 
 results in a substantial adoption of Baptist 
 views and practice, with regard to the 
 children of the Church. Although it 
 finds little countenance in the symbols, 
 or standard theology, or even the prac- 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 15 
 
 tice of evangelical Christendom, as a 
 whole, yet it controls the practice of 
 large masses of evangelical Christians in 
 our country. Hence, it is necessary to 
 signalize it. Herein we are persuaded 
 our Christianity suffers loss. Many are 
 beginning to feel and deplore this defi- 
 ciency, who yet hardly know what to 
 substitute for it, without swinging to the 
 contrary extreme. Peculiar circumstan- 
 ces, to which we may yet advert, have 
 contributed to this state of things in large 
 sections of the American Church. But, 
 whatever be its cause, it calls for a dis- 
 cussion of the subject, in the light of first 
 principles. 
 
 Passing from this barren theory, the 
 catholic doctrine, that the children of 
 Christians are Church members, which 
 alone furnishes a solid basis for the rite of 
 
16 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 infant baptism, has been adopted by 
 various parties in a non-natural sense. 
 These diverse conceptions are shown in 
 the different views taken of their claims to 
 the special instructions and oversight of 
 the Church, during the period of their 
 growth and nurture, the conditions of their 
 admission to the Lord's Supper, and their 
 relation to the discipline of the Church, 
 when come to the age of discretion; and, 
 especially, as inclusive of all else, of the 
 attitude in which they presumptively 
 stand, whether as among or outside of 
 God's people, and if among them, of the 
 way and conditions whereby that connec- 
 tion is supposed to terminate. 
 
 Many hold that they are members 
 only quasi, or in such a sense that the 
 Church owes them no duties nor privi- 
 leges, above the unbaptized. They are not 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 17 
 
 under its inspection, government, or care, 
 in any proper sense, till they profess to 
 have experienced that conscious change, 
 which opens the door of full Church pri- 
 vilege alike to the baptized and unbap- 
 tized. Although they are born, in a sort, 
 members, and as such have the seal of 
 baptism, yet this is a token and pledge 
 of nothing but of that Christian instruc- 
 tion and training, which all pious parents 
 are bound to impart. We are sure it is no 
 exaggeration, when we say, that in a 
 considerable portion of our evangelical 
 Churches, there is no recognition, no 
 consciousness of any relation being held 
 by baptized children, prior to conscious 
 and professed conversion, other than that 
 of outsiders to the Church, in common with 
 the whole world lying in wickedness — at 
 least that portion of the world which, hav- 
 
 2* 
 
18 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 ing the light of the gospel, heeds it not. 
 Hence, as they grow up, until by con- 
 scious conversion they come out of the 
 world, in which this theory puts them, 
 all trace and recognition of their Church 
 relation disappear. Whenever they see 
 their way clear to profess their faith, and 
 come to the Lord's table, it is regarded 
 as joining the Church, just as if they had 
 never belonged to it. No difference is 
 put between them and the unbaptized, 
 in the apprehensions, the procedures, the 
 whole practical life of the Church, except 
 that the latter, in joining its fellowship, 
 receive the initiatory rite, which they 
 have never received before. One great 
 evil of this inadequate system is, that 
 while it makes infant baptism a seal of 
 Christian teaching and training to be 
 given to the child, it always, in some 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 19 
 
 degree, and often wholly, prevents such 
 instruction and nurture, or frustrates 
 their efficacy. The doctrine in ques- 
 tion, withal, is contradicted by every 
 representation which the Bible gives of 
 the nature and significance of baptism; 
 and by all the scriptural covenants, 
 promises, and averments of every kind, 
 on which pedobaptism is based. For 
 these covenants and promises are, that 
 God will be their God, and that his word 
 shall not depart out of their mouth. These 
 children are pronounced " children of the 
 covenant," "holy." This does not ensure 
 that they all are or will be inwardly 
 holy. But it does imply a connection 
 with the people of God, such as subsists 
 between the church visible and invisible, 
 and that such of them as fail to make 
 God their God, are false to their position 
 as children of the covenant. The mere 
 
20 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 outward Jew, who had no circum- 
 cision of the heart, was false to his own 
 position. For his outward circumcision 
 was a sign and seal of the righteousness 
 of faith. Rom. ii. 28, 29; iv. 11. So 
 baptism is a sign and seal of the grace 
 of life; and the baptized unbeliever vio- 
 lates the requirements of his baptism, as 
 the unbelieving professor violates the re- 
 quirements of his profession. 
 
 Another theory, adopted to reconcile 
 the actual church-membership of baptized 
 children, with the negation of the special 
 obligations and privileges pertaining there- 
 to, is that held by Dr. D wight and some 
 other New England divines. It is in sub- 
 stance this, that they are members of the 
 Church universal, but not of any partic- 
 ular organized Church. This results from 
 the cardinal principle of Congregational- 
 ism, that there is no organic Church state 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 21 
 
 except in particular congregations, and 
 that the formal cause of it in them, is the 
 voluntary confederation of the members. 
 Infants being incapable of such voluntary 
 covenanting, of course, cannot be members 
 of any organized Church. Hence they 
 cannot, more than other children, be under 
 Church inspection and discipline. Many, 
 however, who adopted substantially this 
 view% held that by virtue of their member- 
 ship in the Church universal, they have 
 at mature age a right to certain Church 
 privileges, (such as the baptism of their 
 children,) from which the unbaptized, 
 otherwise like them, must be debarred. 
 The scriptural principle plainly is, that 
 all Christians, as members of the 
 body of Christ, and of one another, are 
 bound to have a care of, and to be sub- 
 ject one to another in the Lord; that 
 
22 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 to this end, they should be so organized 
 that all may discharge their obligations 
 of love and fidelity to each, and each 
 may be subject to all : that, irrespective 
 of any formal stipulation, the members 
 of the Church universal should also be 
 members of the particular congregation 
 of believers in which they statedly wor- 
 ship, so as to be subject to the govern- 
 ment, and entitled to the privileges of 
 the Church as therein respectively ad- 
 ministered and enjoyed ; and hence, that 
 for all purposes of this kind, baptized 
 children are members of the same par- 
 ticular Churches as their parents. This 
 last principle was expressly adopted by 
 the great Congregational Synod of Boston 
 in 1662. 
 
 For a long period a large proportion of 
 the New England Churches, with the 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 23 
 
 sanction and recommendation of this 
 Synod, maintained and acted upon the 
 principle that persons baptized in infancy, 
 and free from scandal, on making a pro- 
 fession of faith and good intentions, which 
 still was taken to be short of a profession 
 of saving faith and repentance, were to 
 have the privilege of baptism for their 
 children. This was styled, in the phrase 
 of the day, the Half-way Covenant. 
 Others, of whom Mr. Stoddard, of North- 
 ampton, maternal grandfather of Edwards, 
 was the most distinguished champion and 
 representative, held that such a partial 
 confession or covenant, (one too which 
 men regarding themselves as uncon- 
 verted and graceless, but yet sincere, 
 might properly make,) entitled to the 
 Lord's Supper. It w T as a part of their 
 theory that this Sacrament is a con- 
 
24 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 verting as well as a sanctifying ordinance. 
 This is the scheme which Edwards as- 
 sailed and demolished in his celebrated 
 treatise on the " Qualifications for Com- 
 munion." It was not an unnatural ex- 
 crescence from the half-way covenant 
 system introduced by the Synod, although 
 in direct contradiction of one of its pro- 
 positions. For the effect of recognizing 
 it as proper for those to " give themselves 
 and their children to God"* in express 
 
 * The propositions of the Synod were as follows : — 
 " 1. They that, according to Scripture, are members of 
 the visible Church, are the subjects of baptism. 2. The 
 members of the visible Church according to Scripture, are 
 coofederate believers, in particular Churches, and their in- 
 fant seed, i. e. children in minority, whose next parents, one 
 or both, are in covenant. 3. The infant seed of con- 
 federate visible believers are members of the same 
 Church with their parents, and when grown up are per- 
 sonally under the watch, discipline an4 government of 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 25 
 
 public covenant, who were confessedly 
 unfit for the Lord's Supper, was to make 
 the great mass feel sufficiently secure 
 and hopeful, while shrinking from the 
 higher responsibilities and engagements 
 implied in receiving this sacrament. The 
 consequence was, that in most Churches 
 under this regimen, there were few mem- 
 bers in full communion. The impulse 
 was therefore strong to devise a theory 
 
 that Church. 4 . These adult persons are not therefore 
 to be admitted to full communion, (the Lord's Supper,) 
 because they are and continue members, without such 
 farther qualifications as the word of God requireth 
 thereunto. 5. Church-members who were admitted in 
 minority, understanding the doctrine of faith, and pub- 
 licly professing their assent thereto, not scandalous 
 in life, and solemnly owning the covenant before the 
 Church, wherein they give up themselves and their 
 children to the Lord, and subject themselves to the 
 government of Christ in the Church, their children are 
 to be baptized." 
 
26 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 to meet this state of things, and enlarge 
 the number of communicants.* The 
 theory and practice of these Churches 
 seem to have veered between the propo- 
 sitions of the Synod and the doctrine of 
 Stoddard, until the whole half-way cov- 
 enant system, which had been gradually 
 dying out, became extinct in the early 
 
 * Stoddard's doctrine is thus stated by himself : " That 
 which I am to prove is, that some unsanctified men have 
 a right before God to the Lord's Supper." Appeal to 
 the Learned, p. 20, as quoted by Edwards, Works, New 
 York edition, vol. 4. p. 486. On the same page, he 
 quotes "Rlake, another prominent champion of this school, 
 as saying : " That faith which is the condition of the 
 promise, is not the condition in for o Dei of a title to the 
 seal." The meaning of this is clear. Faith is not 
 necessary to the proper participation of the Lord's Sup- 
 per. Hence those may properly be admitted to it, who 
 in their own judgment and the charitable judgment of 
 the Church, are destitute of piety. 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 27 
 
 part of this century; having received its 
 mortal blow in the treatise of Edwards, 
 to which we have adverted. 
 
 The grand error of the system in- 
 itiated by the Synod does not fully ap- 
 pear on the face of the propositions pro- 
 pounded by its authority. Certainly, 
 baptized parents, duly enlightened, who 
 could conscientiously make the profes- 
 sions and covenants required in the fifth 
 proposition, ought to be adjudged, in foro 
 ecclesioe, entitled to baptism for their 
 children. The error lay in the applica- 
 tion of it, which was both intended and 
 adopted. It was avowedly designed for 
 the use of persons confessedly unfit for the 
 Lord's Supper, and consciously destitute 
 of Christian piety. But it is in reality, if 
 intelligently made, as the proposition 
 supposes, a profession of religion. This 
 
28 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 practice was called " owning the cove- 
 nant/' L e., taking in person, for them- 
 selves, the covenants made for them by 
 their parents in infancy. In the Church 
 records, it was often stated, that those 
 who did it, "recognized their baptismal 
 obligations" — a close approach to the 
 practice of confirmation. 
 
 The practical consequences of this ad- 
 mission to one or both sacraments, of the 
 ungodly, when accounted and accounting 
 themselves such, was that the great bulk 
 of the people, on becoming parents, 
 " owned the covenant," in order to have 
 their children baptized. This they did 
 mostly without making any pretensions 
 to piety. Where the Stoddardean the- 
 ory prevailed, many of them also went 
 to the Lord's table with no pretence of 
 any higher qualification, unless this step 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 29 
 
 might be understood to imply some ear- 
 nestness in seeking conversion. This 
 quasi profession, and membership, with 
 the privilege of baptism for their children, 
 satisfied the consciences of most, while 
 it was more grateful to their wicked 
 hearts, than the obligations of complete 
 ehur^i-standing. Thus vital, experimen- 
 tal piety constantly decayed; a dead 
 formalism supervened. A decent moral- 
 ity, and respectful regard for Christian- 
 ity, were in many cases the great 
 results expected and achieved among the 
 mass of the congregation. Such persons 
 were seldom competent or disposed to 
 give their children a faithful Christian 
 training. Ecclesiastical discipline was 
 paralyzed. This standard of morality 
 was itself vague, fluctuating, elastic to 
 
 every demand of expediency. The system 
 3* 
 
30 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 tended to a ceaseless degeneracy. It 
 was hard to say what shortcomings in 
 parents should debar their children from 
 the boon of baptism. At length the 
 "owning of the covenant" became a mere 
 form, which the heedless, and sometimes 
 the profane, did not scruple to go through ; 
 thus making solemn vows which they pro- 
 fanely violated, in order to obtain holy 
 rites which they openly desecrated. This 
 system contained the seeds of its own 
 dissolution. It must either end in the 
 extinction of religion, or be uprooted by 
 its revival. The latter was the fortunate 
 issue. 
 
 And yet, as every error is but truth 
 exaggerated, belittled, distorted, or in 
 some way torn from its proper relations, 
 supplements, or expletives, so that truth 
 is apt to be lost or disparaged in the pro- 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 31 
 
 cess of recovery from such error Ex- 
 tremes often meet; and they often beget 
 their opposites. The present case is no 
 exception. The abolition of the abuses 
 of the doctrine of infant Church-member- 
 ship has been accomplished in a manner 
 and in circumstances which have led to 
 the forgetting, ignoring, or disowning of 
 that precious truth itself, and the loss of 
 not a little of the sanctifying influence and 
 fruits of holiness that cluster upon it. 
 The consciousness and recognition of the 
 Church-membership of baptized children 
 have widely disappeared from the doc- 
 trinal and practical life of those Churches 
 — a fact deplored by some, and denied 
 by none of authority among them. The 
 strongest form in which it has been 
 held, to any extent, within any recent 
 period, is that already indicated as the 
 
32 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 doctrine of Dr. D wight, viz., that bap- 
 tized children belong to the Church uni- 
 versal, but not to any particular Church. 
 This weakens or destroys its practical 
 power. The result is, that baptized 
 children are, to all practical intents, 
 viewed and led to view themselves as not 
 of the Church, but of the world, until 
 they enter the fold of Christ as other 
 converts from the world do. 
 
 We have dwelt the longer on the his- 
 torical development of doctrine on this 
 subject in the Congregational body, be- 
 cause it has had an influence in shaping 
 the principles and practice of evangelical 
 Christians throughout our land. For as 
 the body of Christ is one, and all its 
 members are actuated by one life, despite 
 all divisions and conflicts, these members 
 will interpenetrate each other with a re- 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 33 
 
 ciprocal energy. Each will be felt by 
 all, and all by each. As between Con- 
 gregationalists and Presbyterians, this 
 has been peculiarly the fact, because, 
 until a very recent period, they were re- 
 garded as substantially one communion, 
 whose chief difference was geographical.* 
 
 * In illustration and proof of this remark, we quote 
 from a tract, in defence of Pedobaptism, published in 
 New Haven, Connecticut, in 1829, and found in Dr. 
 Sprague's Collection of pamphlets in the Princeton 
 Theological Library. The author says, in a preliminary 
 note, "To avoid circumlocution, and to comply with 
 the popular usage in New England, I intend, by the term 
 Presbyterians to designate both Presbyterians and Con- 
 gregational ists. These denominations are, in fact, both 
 one, the difference between them being not in articles of 
 belief, but in a few customs, and every attack which is 
 made upon one being identified with that upon the other. 
 The oneness is constituted also by the complete under- 
 standing and correspondence which exist between them." 
 So recently did New England, and even New Haven 
 
34 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 This was all the more so, in refer- 
 ence to the present subject, because the 
 first controversy that agitated and finally 
 sundered the infant Presbyterian body of 
 this country, had a marked reference to 
 this very point; and because the great 
 awakening of that era, with the mighty 
 truths and errors which it called into 
 life and activity, alike contributed to 
 shape the faith and practice of Presby- 
 terians and Congregationalists on the sub- 
 ject. One question, between the parties 
 in the Presbyterian Church, was, What 
 evidence of faith and holiness ought the 
 
 Congregationalists feel at one with Presbyterians, and 
 call themselves by their name. It is otherwise now. The 
 causes and consequences of the original unity, and 
 the present comparative weakening of the bonds be- 
 tween the two bodies, deserve .profound study, but are 
 aside of our present inquiry. 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 35 
 
 Church to require of candidates for ad- 
 mission to the Lord's Supper? or, rather, 
 What ought it to, account and treat as 
 credible evidence of piety, which, if pre- 
 sented by any, duly qualified otherwise, 
 should give them access to sealing ordi- 
 nances, or the sacred office, as the case 
 may be ? It was, indeed, often stated and 
 argued, in the heat of controversy, as 
 if it were something else : — by the Old 
 Side, as if their antagonists contended 
 that none but the regenerate, and those 
 who could certainly be known, and know 
 themselves as such, had a right to the 
 Sacraments, not only in foro conscientice 
 et Dei, but also in foro ecclesice ; and by 
 the New Side, as if their adversaries 
 held that the unregenerate and ungodly, 
 as such, were entitled to the Lord's Sup- 
 per. Doubtless, in the violence and con- 
 
36 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 fusion of debate, disputants, on the re- 
 spective sides, often said what gave colour 
 to the representations of their adversaries. 
 But after a careful survey of the retrac- 
 tions and qualifications made on both 
 sides, we are persuaded that the Old Side 
 were opposing that method of examina- 
 tion, which proceeds on the theory, that 
 the Church can judge the heart, and find 
 certain evidence as to who are, and who 
 are not regenerate, while they would, by 
 no means, say that the Lord's table was 
 designed for the ungodly and unbelieving ; 
 and that the New Side opposed the idea, 
 that unbelievers were qualified for the 
 holy communion, and insisted that real 
 believers could and should furnish some 
 credible evidence of a saving work in 
 their souls. Doubtless, too, in a low 
 state of Christian life, there had previ- 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 37 
 
 ously been a tendency to attenuate the 
 requisites to a credible profession, and to 
 dwell too little on the necessity of a spirit- 
 ual and experimental work in the soul, 
 which the Old Side were too slow to re- 
 cognize and correct. The reaction from 
 this swung to the contrary extreme of 
 laying too great stress upon the narration 
 of inward experiences, and viewing this 
 as the great criterion.* 
 
 * The seventh specification, in the charges brought by 
 the Old Side against the New, at the meeting of the 
 Synod in 1741, when the disruption was effected, was 
 " Their, or some of them, preaching and maintaining, 
 that all true converts are as certain of their gracious 
 state, as a person can be of what he knows by his out- 
 ward senses, and are able to give a narrative of the time 
 and manner of their conversion, or else they conclude 
 them to be in a natural or graceless state ; and that a 
 gracious person can judge of another's gracious state 
 otherwise than by his profession and life." This charge 
 4 
 
38 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 This relation of experiences was so 
 marked a feature in the great revival 
 of 1740., that some have gone the length 
 
 the New Side repelled as a calumnious caricature. 
 Nevertheless, that some plausible pretext had been given 
 for it, in the course of the awakening, appears from the 
 abundant testimonies of Edwards, to the injurious effect 
 of this principle, and the practice founded on it, upon 
 the revival itself. Gilbert Tennent, likewise, and other 
 prominent leaders in the work, felt afterwards called 
 upon to utter earnest protestations and warnings against 
 it. Tracy (" Great Awakening," p. 74) has, we think, 
 exaggerated, when he says, " The fundamental question 
 between the parties (Old and New Side Presbyterians) 
 was, whether regeneration is a change, attended and fol- 
 lowed by an experience, by which the convert and others 
 can judge of its reality ; and, of course, whether those 
 who have no such experience are to be counted as unre- 
 generate, and, therefore, excluded from the communion 
 of the Church, and deemed unfit for ministers." This 
 statement of the issue accords with the author's theory 
 of the revival. 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 39 
 
 of making this principle the secret of its 
 origin and power.* It was carried to 
 
 * " This doctrine of the new-birth as an ascertainable 
 change, was not generally prevalent in any communion 
 when the revival commenced ; it was urged as of funda- 
 mental importance by the leading promoters of the re- 
 vival ; it took strong hold of those whom the revival af- 
 fected ; it naturally led to such questions as the revival 
 brought up and caused to be discussed ; its perversions 
 naturally grew into, or associated with, such errors as 
 the revival promoted. * * * It must be possible for 
 those who are qualified, to judge whether a man has 
 made those discoveries of religious truth, and felt those 
 emotions, which are essential to religious experience. * 
 
 " The history of the ' Great Awakening' (of 1740) is 
 the history of this idea, making its way through some 
 communities where it had fallen into comparative neglect, 
 and through others where it was nearly or quite unknown ; 
 overturning theories, and habits, and forms of organiza- 
 tion inconsistent with it, * * * and leading to habits of 
 thought and practical arrangements in harmony with 
 it." — The Great Awakening, by Joseph Tracy. Boston, 
 1845 : pp. 9, 12, 13. 
 
40 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 such a pitch of extravagance, that the 
 great Edwards was constrained to publish 
 repeated and solemn protests against its 
 abuses. And yet his protestations prove 
 that, if not he, many of his coadjutors 
 were providentially in an attitude which 
 led them for a time to magnify the im- 
 portance, not of manifestations and 
 avowals of such views as are Christian, 
 and flow from regeneration ; but also of 
 such accounts or other indications of its 
 upspring and progress in the soul, as 
 imply the consciousness of a radical change 
 within some definite and definable period ; 
 that these thus became, and have since 
 continued to be, in the popular mind, to 
 a great extent, the test of piety ; while 
 the value, if not the possibility, of true 
 Christian feeling, inwrought by the Holy 
 Ghost, and developed gradually by 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 41 
 
 Christian nurture, so as sometimes to pre- 
 clude distinct statements of any time be- 
 fore which it was not, or of the manner 
 and order of its progress in the soul, was 
 then, and, with too many has been since, 
 unduly ignored, and altogether under- 
 rated. This was the natural consequence 
 of their revulsion front the great abuses 
 of the principle in question, which they 
 were called to reform.* Yet, although 
 
 * Mr. Tracy (" Great Awakening," p. 14) only re- 
 flects a fashion which originated in times he describes, 
 when he bestows the epithet Arminianism upon " the idea 
 of a gradual, imperceptible, and unascertainable regene- 
 ration." It is of no consequence whether this idea be 
 it right or wrong, belongs to Arminianism or not. 
 Everything depends on the meaning, or rather, the in- 
 tended application of these terms. If by " unascertain- 
 able," be meant that the renewed soul will not let its 
 light shine, and that we are not to know it by its fruits 
 of holiness in profession and life, then such a scheme is 
 4* 
 
42 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 such was the drift, tendency, and effect 
 of the teachings and procedures which 
 
 false, whether Arminian or not. But if it be meant to 
 imply, that we can search or know the hearts, or be sure 
 who are regenerate, this is the prerogative of God. Be 
 occultis Ecclesia non judicat. It judges only of a credible 
 profession ; and it can erect no standard of credible pro- 
 fession, which will keep out all tares, without also ex- 
 cluding the wheat If by " gradual" be meant, that re- 
 generation itself is not instantaneous, that there is not a 
 moment before which the subject of it is not, after which 
 he is, a child of God ; this also is to be utterly repudi- 
 ated. But if it be meant that the development of it in 
 consciousness, may be so gradual as to be, in its succes- 
 sive stages, even " imperceptible," then Mr. Tracy him- 
 self concedes it. He says, page 11, " In some, the pro- 
 cess occupies several years ; in others, it is so rapid that 
 some of the steps are seen only in their results ; in others 
 stiil, it is repeatedly interrupted and resumed. Varieties 
 are caused by the varieties of intellectual character and 
 style of thought," &c. Among the most holy and or- 
 thodox men, whom we have ever known, are those who 
 assured us that they remembered not the time when they did 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 43 
 
 shaped this awakening, in the issue none 
 ever insisted more strenuously than 
 
 not fear God, or when they experienced any marked con- 
 scious revolution in their feelings toward him. In one 
 sense, this regeneration, in such cases, is neither gradual, 
 imperceptible, nor unascertainable. In another, and that 
 probably the sense intended, to some extent at least, by 
 Mr. Tracy and others, it is the subject of all these attri- 
 butes. To limit the Holy One of Israel, who worketh 
 when, where, and how he will, to that mode of renewing 
 the soul, which involves a marked and known era of con- 
 scious change, is far enough from Calvinism and from 
 Scripture, whatever may be its relations to Arminianism. 
 Surely, God sanctifies some from the womb. He makes 
 others, from a child, know the holy Scriptures in a sav- 
 ing sense. Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings he 
 ordains praise. Edwards, whom Mr. Tracy classes on 
 his side, and whose circumstances doubtless led him 
 to emphasise the class of truths weighing on this side of 
 the scale, rather than another class which balance, modi- 
 fy, and interpret them, says, " The Scripture gives us 
 ground to think that some infants have the habit of sav- 
 ing grace, and that they have a new nature given them." 
 — Reply to Williams, vol. 4, p. 578. 
 
44 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 Edwards and Tennent, that the only 
 proper evidence of a work of the Spirit, 
 is the fruits of the Spirit in all holy dis- 
 positions and conduct; and that when 
 these are apparent, or credibly professed, 
 there is credible proof of regeneration, 
 whether the history of any experience 
 can be recited or not ; and that all the 
 raptures which can be portrayed by the 
 tongues of men or angels are worthless 
 without them. This truth they vindi- 
 cated and reiterated, with an emphasis 
 and solemnity worthy of its importance, 
 especially in their later treatises, after 
 the mischiefs of the opposite error had 
 been fully developed. Still, it is appa- 
 rent that this great revival, while it re- 
 sulted in a great and blessed increase of 
 true piety ; while it uplifted the cause of 
 spiritual and experimental religion, not 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 45 
 
 only from depression, but even from a 
 certain undue disparagement, in the mind 
 of the Church ; while it removed the fun- 
 gous misgrowths which sloth and unbelief 
 had educed from the church-membership 
 of baptized children; also, in many 
 quarters, unsettled the faith of the Church 
 in that pregnant truth, and its logical and 
 practical relations. The fruit has ap- 
 peared in the distinguishing features of 
 our American Christianity for better and 
 for worse ; in a remarkable vigour of aggres- 
 sive evangelism upon those that are with- 
 out, and in too often putting without the 
 fold the lambs of the flock, so far, alas ! 
 that immense numbers of them are lost, 
 past recovery, upon the dark mountains 
 of sin ! The latter we ought to correct ; 
 the former we should hold fast, and let 
 none take our crown. These things ought 
 
46 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 we to have done, and not to leave the 
 other undone. Hence, too, our theology 
 has tasked, and often exhausted itself on 
 topics subjective, relative to regeneration 
 and conversion, while it has been more 
 meagre in reference to the objective, di- 
 vine, and heavenly truths, which are the 
 aliment of faith and love. The number 
 is legion, who vaunt it as the super-emi- 
 nent glory of American theology, that it 
 has made the discovery of the sinner's 
 full ability to turn to God. Thus they 
 flatter themselves that the way has been 
 made clear, as it never has been else- 
 where, for alienated children, and all 
 other aliens from Christ's house, to enter 
 it. After all, he who comes to Christ, 
 must be born, " not of blood, nor of the 
 will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, 
 but of God." John i. 12. And herein he 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 47 
 
 will be true to his own covenants. It is 
 in Zion that the children of the Church 
 are born to newness of life. Since He 
 has promised to be their God, it is in 
 training them as if they were his ; as if 
 it were alone congruous with their posi- 
 tion to walk as his children in faith, love, 
 hope, and all holy obedience, that we are 
 to look for that inworking Spirit, and out- 
 working holiness, commensurate with 
 their years, which shall seal them as sons 
 and daughters of the Lord Almighty. 
 This is what we believe to be the bles- 
 sed significance and intent of infant bap- 
 tism. This is what we have at heart in 
 writing these pages ; instead of having 
 our children with the seal of Grod's cove- 
 nant on their foreheads practically cast 
 out, before they cast themselves out, to 
 be classed, and thence class themselves, 
 
48 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 in form and feeling, with the ungodly 
 and profane — a course from which, we 
 believe they, and the cause of religion 
 with them, suffer irreparable loss. 
 
 Our own faith on this subject is ex- 
 pressed with great precision in the stand- 
 ards of our Church, which themselves 
 exhibit the truth in the premises intact 
 and inviolate, however any of her mem- 
 bers may have come short of the duty 
 and privilege thus held forth. And 
 whatever our shortcomings, we believe 
 the tone of opinion and practice among 
 us, is above the average standard among 
 Christian bodies most nearly allied to us. 
 We rejoice that they are beginning to 
 give attention to the subject, and hope 
 that all will contribute to meet a com- 
 mon want. The half-way covenants and 
 mere external covenants, with their af- 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 49 
 
 filiated theories and practice, which infest- 
 ed the New England Churches, and pre- 
 pared the way for extreme reaction, 
 never obtained a foothold in our com- 
 munion. They doubtless originated in the 
 effort to keep the body of communicants, 
 who constituted the independent ruling 
 power, pure, and at the same time to 
 keep their children and children's children 
 within the precincts of the Church. It 
 is indeed true, that the practice of bap- 
 tizing the children of non-communicants 
 has in time past been more or less pre- 
 valent in our Churches, and in the Re- 
 formed Churches of Europe. This, how- 
 ever, has not been done on the basis of 
 any pseudo-covenant or profession which 
 they have made in the capacity of unbe- 
 lievers giving themselves or their children 
 to God; not on any basis, which, admit- 
 
50 THE CHILDREN OP THE CHURCH, 
 
 ting children to baptism, excludes those 
 who offer them from the Lord's table; 
 but either on the ground that their 
 parents being by baptism in the Church 
 and free from scandal, presumptively in 
 the judgment of a discreet charity have 
 faith, in its principle and initial actings, 
 such as would justify baptism for their 
 children, and for themselves if they were 
 unbaptized, though not sufficiently de- 
 veloped as yet to enable them to come 
 with due preparation or confidence to the 
 Lord's Supper; or that some pious per- 
 son or persons adopt them quoad hoc, and 
 undertake to secure their pious nurture.* 
 The practice, however, of baptizing any 
 
 * The early defenders of the New England Synod's 
 propositions, also based the grant of baptism to non- 
 comniunicants, (or their children,) on this distinction be- 
 tween initial and developed faith. 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 51 
 
 but the natural and adopted children of 
 communicants, and such as are reared 
 and trained in their families, is, so far 
 as we know, now obsolete among us. 
 However the practice may have been 
 strained at particular times and places, 
 the prevailing principle has doubtless 
 been, that he who is entitled to the one 
 sacrament for himself or his offspring, is 
 entitled to the other, till he displays some 
 clear disqualification for it in heresy or 
 scandal, — Eadem est ratio atrinsqiie sacra- 
 menti, each being a seal of the same cove- 
 nant of grace.* Those who, giving evi- 
 dence of piety to others, distrust them- 
 selves, who dare not withhold the seal of 
 
 * This substantially, so far as we have been able to 
 discover, has been the common mode of defending this 
 practice among those evangelical Protestants, who have 
 sanctioned it. Of course, on this, as on all other sub- 
 jects, exceptional cases may be found. 
 
52 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 the covenant from their children, and yet 
 dare not come to the Lord's table, lest 
 they eat and drink damnation to them- 
 selves, are in most communions occasion- 
 ally allowed the former privilege, even 
 before they feel warranted to accept the 
 latter; not because different qualifications 
 in kind are requisite for the two sacra- 
 ments, but because the Lord's Supper 
 requires not mere faith, but faith de- 
 veloping and proving itself in self-ex- 
 amination and discerning of the Lord's 
 body. 1 Cor. xi. 28,29. 
 
 The doctrine of our own Church on 
 this whole subject is shown in the follow- 
 ing extracts from the Confession of 
 Faith, Catechisms, and the Directory for 
 Worship : 
 
 1. "The catholic or universal Church, 
 which is invisible, consists of the whole 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 53 
 
 number of the elect, that have been or 
 shall be gathered into one, under Christ 
 the head thereof; and is the spouse, the 
 body, the fulness of Him that filleth all 
 in all. 
 
 2. "The visible Church, which is also 
 catholic or universal under the gospel, 
 (not confined to one nation as before un- 
 der the law,) consists of all those through- 
 out the world that profess the true re- 
 ligion, together with their children; and 
 is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, 
 the house and family of God, out of 
 which there is no ordinary possibility of 
 salvation." Confession of Faith, chap. 25. 
 
 3. " Sacraments are holy signs and 
 seals of the covenant of grace, immediate- 
 ly instituted by God, to represent Christ 
 and his benefits, and to confirm our in- 
 terest in him; as also to put a visible 
 
 5* 
 
54 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 difference between those that belong unto 
 the Church and the rest of the world, 
 and solemnly to engage them to the ser- 
 vice of God in Christ according tv/ nis 
 word." Confession, chap. 27. 
 
 4. " Baptism is a sacrament of the 
 New Testament ordained by Jesus Christ, 
 not only for the solemn admission of the 
 party baptized into the visible Church, 
 but also to be unto him a sign and seal of 
 the covenant of grace, of his ingrafting 
 into Christ, of regeneration, of remission 
 of sins, and of his giving up unto God, 
 through Jesus Christ, to walk in newness 
 of life ; which sacrament is, by Christ's 
 own appointment, to be continued in his 
 Church to the end of the world. 
 
 5. "Not only those that do actually 
 profess faith in, and obedience unto 
 Christ; but also the infants of one or 
 both believing parents are to be baptized. 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 55 
 
 6. " Although it be a great sin to con- 
 temn or neglect this ordinance, yet grace 
 and salvation are not so inseparably an- 
 nexed to it as that no person can be re- 
 generated or saved without it, or that 
 all that are baptized are undoubtedly 
 regenerated. 
 
 7. " The efficacy of baptism is not tied 
 to that moment of time wherein it is ad- 
 ministered ; yet notwithstanding, by the 
 right use of this ordinance the grace pro- 
 mised is not only offered, but really ex- 
 hibited and conferred by the Holy Ghost, 
 to such (whether of age or infants) as 
 that grace belongeth unto, according to 
 the counsel of God's will, in his appoint- 
 ed time." Confession of Faith, chap. 28. 
 
 8. " The Lord's Supper is a sacrament, 
 wherein, by giving and receiving bread 
 and wine, according to Christ's appoint- 
 
56 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 ment, his death is showed forth, and the 
 worthy receivers are, not after a corporal 
 and carnal manner, but by faith, made 
 partakers of his body and blood, with all 
 his benefits, to their spiritual nourishment 
 and growth in grace." Shorter Catechism, 
 Quest. 96. 
 
 9. "They that receive the Lord's 
 Supper, are, before they come, to prepare 
 themselves thereunto, by examining 
 themselves of their being in Christ, of 
 their sins and wants, of the truth and 
 measure of their knowledge, faith, repen- 
 tance, love to God and the brethren, 
 charity to all men, forgiving those that 
 have done them wrong, of their desires 
 after Christ, and of their new obedience, 
 and by renewing the exercise of these 
 graces, by serious meditation and fervent 
 prayer. 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 57 
 
 10. "One who doubteth of his being in 
 Christ, or of his due preparation to the 
 sacrament of the Lord's Supper, may 
 have true interest in Christ, though he 
 be not yet assured thereof; and, in God's 
 account, hath it, if he be duly affected 
 with the apprehension of the want of it, 
 and unfeignedly desirous to be found in 
 Christ, and to depart from iniquity; in 
 which case, (because promises are made, 
 and this sacrament is appointed for the 
 relief even of weak and doubting Chris- 
 tians,) he is to bewail his unbelief, and 
 labour to have his doubts resolved; and so 
 doing, he may and ought to come to the 
 Lord's Supper, that he may be further 
 strengthened." Larger Catechism, Quest. 
 171-2. 
 
 11. " Children born within the pale of 
 the visible Church, and dedicated to God 
 
58 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 in baptism, are under the inspection and 
 government of the Church; and are to be 
 taught to read, and repeat the Catechism, 
 the apostles' creed and the Lord's pray- 
 er. They are to be taught to pray, to 
 abhor sin, to fear God, and obey the 
 Lord Jesus Christ. And, when they 
 come to years of discretion, if they be 
 free from scandal, appear sober and 
 steady, and to have sufficient knowledge 
 to discern the Lord's body, they ought 
 to be informed, it is their duty and pri- 
 vilege to come to the Lord's Supper. 
 
 12. "The years of discretion in young 
 Christians cannot be precisely fixed. 
 This must be left to the prudence of the 
 eldership. The officers of the Church 
 are the judges of the qualifications of 
 those to be admitted to sealing ordinan- 
 ces ; and of the time when it is proper to 
 admit young Christians to them. 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 59 
 
 13. " Those who are to be admitted to 
 sealing ordinances, shall be examined as 
 to their knowledge and piety. 
 
 14. "The ignorant and the scandalous 
 are not to be admitted to the Lord's 
 Supper;" and the minister is directed 
 publicly to "warn the profane, the igno- 
 rant, and scandalous, and those that 
 secretly indulge themselves in any 
 known sin, not to approach the holy 
 table. On the other hand, he shall in- 
 vite to this holy table, such as, sensible 
 of their lost and helpless state by sin, 
 depend upon the atonement of Christ for 
 pardon and acceptance with God; such 
 as, being instructed in the gospel doc- 
 trine, have a competent knowledge to dis- 
 cern the Lord's body, and such as desire 
 to renounce their sins, and are deter- 
 mined to lead a holy and godly life." 
 Directory, chaps. 8, 9. 
 
60 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 To preclude misconstruction in any 
 quarter, we observe, at the outset, that 
 these articles deny all intrinsic efficacy 
 to the sacraments, as such. They avail 
 nothing to those who do not exercise 
 faith in the things of which they are the 
 signs and seals. They are profitable to 
 such, only in so far as their faith is 
 quickened and strengthened by behold- 
 ing the sensible emblems which make 
 the " word visible;" and the seals whereby 
 God ratifies to us his exceeding great 
 and precious promises. They no way 
 contravene, they strenuously uphold, 
 that great Protestant principle, that we 
 get no more from any sacrament than we 
 take by faith* Further, they teach 
 
 * Caeterum, ex hoc sacraruento, quemadmodum ex aliis 
 omnibus, nihil assequimur nisi quantum fide accipiamus. 
 Calvin, de Baptismo. 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 61 
 
 that the grace thus signed and sealed by 
 the sacraments is not tied to them, either 
 as to the persons on whom, or the time 
 when, it is bestowed ; that there may be 
 true believers who receive the grace 
 without its sacramental seals, while many 
 unbelievers receive the outward rite 
 without the thing signified; baptized 
 with water, but not with the Holy 
 Ghost; eating and drinking the bread 
 and wine, and at the same time eating 
 and drinking condemnation to them- 
 selves. And further still, with regard 
 to baptism, even in cases where the gift 
 sealed is bestowed, it may be before or 
 after the administration of the rite. All 
 which is plainly taught in the word of 
 God. 
 
 Keeping this in view, it is next to be 
 observed, that our standards assert that 
 6 
 
62 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 the children of believers are members of 
 the visible Church — not quasi, but ab- 
 solutely. This does not imply that they 
 are therefore to perform functions or en- 
 joy privileges in the Church, proper only 
 to riper years and intelligent piety. But 
 it does imply that they are entitled to 
 every privilege of receiving Christian re- 
 cognition, inspection, government, instruc- 
 tion and guidance, and bound to every of- 
 fice of obedience and love to Christ and 
 his people, which are appropriate to their 
 age and circumstances, as members of 
 the Church. Children are none the less 
 members of civil society, entitled to its 
 care and protection, and bound to serve it 
 loyally, according to their circumstances, 
 although not as yet qualified to vote, or 
 eligible to office. Less than this the 
 language of our Directory cannot import, 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 63 
 
 with regard to the status of baptized child- 
 ren in the visible Church. 
 
 What then is the visible Church, and 
 what the ground of membership in it? 
 We accept the answer which our Confes- 
 sion gives to these questions. But what 
 does this fairly imply? Surely, that the 
 true Church of God is made up of those 
 whom he hath purchased with his own 
 blood; and that those who apparently, or 
 to the eye of a judicious charity, are of 
 this number, are visibly, or for all pur- 
 poses of human judgment and action, of 
 this Church — L e. are the Church visible. 
 Now in what way do they thus become 
 visibly, or for all purposes of human recog- 
 nition and treatment, of the number of 
 Christ's redeemed people, the household 
 of faith ? In two ways : 1. In the case of all 
 capable of it, by a credible " profession of 
 
64 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 the true religion." Without professing it in 
 some form, they cannot appear to possess 
 it. And if this profession of religion be 
 accompanied by heresies or scandals which 
 render the profession of it unworthy of 
 belief, then it does not render those who 
 make it, visible Christians, or visibly 
 members of the Church of God. 2. 
 Those incapable of such profession, may 
 be visibly members of the Church, by 
 virtue of God's revealed covenant or 
 promise to be their God. This is precisely 
 the case with infants and the ground of 
 their baptism. But in either case, mem- 
 bership in the visible church is founded 
 on presumptive membership in the invis- 
 ible, which, as we have seen, "consists of 
 the whole number of the elect, that have 
 been, or are, or shall be gathered into one 
 under Christ, the head thereof." Charnock 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 65 
 
 says: "Baptism supposes faith in the 
 adult, and in the parent, the promise of 
 faith for the child." And Dr. Watts says ; 
 "In my opinion, so far as they (infants) 
 are in any way members of the visible 
 Church, it is upon supposition of their be- 
 ing (with their parents) members of the 
 invisible Church of God." * 
 
 Our standards surely set forth nothing 
 less than this : they direct that baptized 
 children be taught and trained to believe, 
 feel, act, and live as becomes those who 
 are the Lord's ; not merely that it is 
 wrong and perilous to be and do otherwise, 
 which is true of all, whether within or 
 without the Church, but that such a 
 course is inconsistent with their position 
 
 * Both the foregoing quotations are taken from a letter 
 of Eev. Mr. Foxcroft to Edwards, in the works of the 
 latter. Yol. iv. page 450. New York edition. 
 
66 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 as members of the Church, placed in it 
 by the mercy of God, and bound to his 
 service by vows made for them by their 
 parents, whose duty and privilege it was, 
 thus to act for them and give them a place 
 among the people of God, until they be- 
 come competent in their own persons, 
 and of their own choice, either to retain 
 or renounce it. The case is precisely 
 analogous to that of adult professors and 
 non-professors. All are bound to obey 
 Christ on pain of perdition. But who 
 does not admit a specialty in the profes- 
 sor's obligation, and a flagrant breach of 
 the proprieties of his position, if he b8 
 recreant to it ? * 
 
 * "All baptized persons are members of the Church. 
 Their duty, therefore, to acknowledge Christ before the 
 world, rests on yet clearer grounds. It is true, we do 
 not ascribe a regenerating grace to their baptism ; but 
 we do not go to the other extreme of making this precious 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 67 
 
 The Directory still more clearly implies 
 the same presumption in regard to the 
 
 ordinance a nullity. Those who have been baptized, 
 stand in a relation to the Church different from that of 
 the world at large. They have been designated as dis- 
 ciples or learners, and where the parental obligations 
 have been discharged, have been trained in religious 
 knowledge. Such children of the Church should often 
 consider the privileges and benefits sealed in this ordin- 
 ance. They should be humbled for their sins, and for 
 falling short of, or walking contrary to, the grace of bap- 
 tism and its engagements. They should feel bound to 
 the faith and practice signified by their symbolical sep- 
 aration from the world. Children born within the pale 
 of the visible church, and dedicated to God in baptism, 
 are to be taught to read, and repeat the Lord's Prayer, 
 and the Apostles' Creed ; to abhor sin, to fear God, to 
 pray, and to obey the Lord Jesus. And when they ar- 
 rive at years of discretion, it behoves every one of them 
 to consider the duty of ratifying the vows made in their 
 name, by a personal avowal of allegiance to Christ. The 
 case of such is therefore widely different from that of the 
 world without." — " Flain words to a young Communi- 
 cant" By J. W. Alexander, D. D, 
 
68 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 baptized, in asserting it to be their duty 
 and privilege, on reaching the years of 
 discretion, to come to the Lord's table, 
 unless by heresy, ignorance, or scandal, 
 they rebut this presumption ; just as those 
 who in words profess Christ may in works 
 so deny him as to nullify that profession ; 
 while at the same time, it everywhere 
 maintains that piety as well as knowledge, 
 weak or strong it may be, but still evan- 
 gelical and saving, is a qualification re- 
 quisite for the safe and profitable partici- 
 pation of that sacrament. The credible 
 profession of it is requisite inforo eccksiae, 
 the reality or a prevalent conviction of 
 its reality in the light of candid self-ex- 
 amination, inforo conscientiae et Dei. All 
 this imports nothing less than a presump- 
 tion that the children of the Church are 
 and will prove to be the chosen of 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 69 
 
 God, until they dispel that presumption, 
 by their own misconduct.* 
 
 The same thing appears from the very 
 nature of baptism, which is indeed the 
 badge of union to the visible Church, 
 and why ? Because, according to every 
 account of it given in Scripture or our 
 standards, it is a sign of those graces and 
 a seal of those covenants, which per- 
 tain to those who are in Christ, not only 
 of Israel, but Israelites indeed. Now al- 
 though sacramental signs and seals of 
 themselves convey nothing, any more 
 than the seal on a title-deed, and although 
 
 * " Children by baptism are solemnly received into the 
 bosom of the visible Church, distinguished from _ the 
 world, and them that are without, and united with be- 
 lievers." Directory of Church of Scotland, as quoted in 
 Keport on the Discipline of baptized children, to the 
 General Assembly, in 1812, by Drs. Miller, Kichardsand 
 Romeyn. 
 
70 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 they are not attended with any convey- 
 ance of the blessings signified to those 
 who do not in faith accept them, any more 
 than a sealed deed conveys real estate 
 till it is delivered and accepted, j^et the 
 administration of the seal is founded upon 
 a presumption that the things sealed will 
 also be bestowed and accepted, till the 
 contrary appears. On no other ground 
 can infant baptism have significance or 
 propriety. In the case of infants, the 
 parent, guardian or sponsor quoad hoc, ac- 
 cepts or professes to accept for himself 
 and child the blessings signified and of- 
 fered ; he binds the child, so far as such 
 promise depends upon the sponsor for ful- 
 filment, to comply with the conditions of 
 the offer, and accept the covenanted mer- 
 cies when he becomes competent to act 
 for himself. He therefore covenants on 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 71 
 
 his own part, so far as he acts for the 
 child, or can exert an influence in mould- 
 ing his principles, feelings, and conduct, 
 his mind, heart, and life, to train him up 
 in the way in which he should go ; in 
 short, to educate him to think, feel and 
 act as a child of God. When this is done 
 in its true meaning and intent, most com- 
 monly the child, on arriving at riper years, 
 will fulfil his part of the covenant. He 
 will recognize and personally assume his 
 baptismal vows as his own, personally 
 accept by faith the blessings thus stipu- 
 lated and sealed to faith, personally take 
 his place as a professed follower of Christ, 
 and serve him without fear in holiness 
 and righteousness all the days of his life. 
 There are three parties to this covenant 
 sealed in the baptism of children : God, 
 the parent and the child. Originally the 
 
72 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 first two are the responsible stipulators. 
 At the age of majority the child comes 
 in place of the parent. God will be faith- 
 ful. If the other parties fulfil the con- 
 ditions, he will convey the covenanted 
 blessings. If they are not conveyed, the 
 fault is with them, one or both. Let God 
 be true, though every man were a liar. 
 But if the second party, the parent, be 
 faithful, this w 7 ill ordinarily secure the 
 fidelity of the third, by God's blessing. 
 Yet herein he hath not divested himself 
 of his own sovereignty. His promise is 
 fulfilled, if filial faith and piety ordinarily 
 ensue upon faithful parental training. 
 For the principle, that a child rightly 
 trained will not prove false to his training 
 in after life, is one of those general laws 
 of God's providential and gracious deal- 
 ings, which may have its exceptions. It 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 73 
 
 declares the tendency and usual effect, 
 rather than the invariable rule. "A soft 
 answer turneth away wrath/' means that 
 such is its tendency and its ordinary, but 
 not invariable, effect. And who for a 
 moment doubts that the class of baptized 
 recreants would be vastly less than it now 
 is, if Christian parents were generally 
 faithful to their high trust and solemn 
 vows; if, with a just idea of the status of 
 their baptized little ones, they exercised 
 due diligence and discretion, in bringing 
 them to a consciousness of their rank, ob- 
 ligations and privileges as members of 
 the family of God, and in moulding their 
 habits of thinking, feeling and acting, into 
 harmony therewith ? Should we then 
 witness such vast numbers of them taking 
 their place with heathens and publicans, 
 to which a widely prevalent theory and 
 
74 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 practice consign them from the start, in 
 the hope, doubtless, of afterwards possibly 
 reclaiming them ? And should we have 
 such masses, who, instead of owning the 
 God in whose name they were baptized, 
 profane his name, and, under the very 
 shadow of the sanctuary, u live as hea- 
 thens do r We think not. 
 
 The same conclusion is supported by 
 known or conceded facts : 1. With regard 
 to the large number of children of God's 
 people who die in infancy, few whom this 
 discussion concerns, doubt that they are 
 members of the Church invisible, and 
 heirs of salvation. 2. Of those that grow 
 up, a large proportion, even under the 
 most inadequate nurture, and the most 
 unpropitious modes of thinking on this 
 subject, ultimately, (and for the most part 
 in early life,) give such evidence of piety, 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 75 
 
 that they are admitted to the Lord's 
 Supper on a credible profession. Even 
 Baptist churches are replenished from 
 their children more than from any other 
 source. 3. The proportion is still greater, 
 immensely greater, in churches which 
 preserve unimpaired, practically as well 
 as theoretically, the true idea of the 
 status of baptized children, and also keep 
 high the standard of evangelical truth 
 and piety, as in the Free Church of Scot- 
 land. Probably the proportion of them 
 who in time give hopeful evidence of 
 piety, in such bodies, is as large as of 
 those who are first gathered into the visi- 
 ble Church from the world, upon the 
 credible profession of conversion. 4. 
 When Christ bids little children to come 
 to him, it is on the express ground that 
 " of such is the kingdom of heaven." 
 
76 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 But of •whom is this predicated if not of 
 the seed of the pious, whose God he has 
 specially covenanted to be, assuring his 
 people that his Spirit and his word shall 
 not depart out of their mouth, nor out 
 of the mouth of their seed, nor out of the 
 mouth of their seed's seed, from hence- 
 forth and for ever ? Isaiah lix. 21. " The 
 Lord thy God will circumcise thy heart, 
 and the heart of thy seed, to love the 
 Lord thy God with all thy heart, and 
 with all thy soul, that thou mayest live." 
 Deut. xxx. 6. 
 
 If we are not wholly mistaken in this 
 analysis of the doctrine of Scripture and 
 our standards on this subject, which, so 
 far forth, harmonize with all the great 
 Protestant symbols, then we apprehend 
 it follows : 1. That Christian parents, 
 or others in loco parentis, having charge 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 77 
 
 of the religious training of children, are 
 invested with high duties, and encouraged 
 by glorious promises. They are to take 
 these children as those whom Christ has 
 claimed for himself, by affixing to them 
 the seal of his grace. They are to be 
 deeply conscious themselves, and do their 
 utmost to make the child deeply conscious, 
 that, as a visible member of Christ's Church, 
 he is false to his own position if he diso- 
 beys that Saviour, as truly as if he should 
 make war upon his own family, or join 
 the enemies of his country. He is to be 
 made to understand that the feelings, acts, 
 habits, and manners which Christ enjoins, 
 alone befit his position, as truly as if he 
 were an adult professor. He should know 
 that his attitude requires that all questions 
 relative to action be determined in the 
 
 light of Christian principle and divine eom- 
 
 7* 
 
78 THE CHILDREN OE THE CHURCH, 
 
 mand. Of course he should be constantly 
 instructed according to his age and capacity, 
 and in all the ways in which light penetrates 
 the youthful mind, what Christianity is in 
 doctrine and life, what the Lord would 
 have him to do. He should be taught 
 the Bible, and Catechisms suited to bis 
 years. Moreover, by the light of holy 
 example, by all ingenuity of illustration, 
 suggestion, and sweet insinuation, which 
 paternal wisdom, or the delicacy of ma- 
 ternal tact can supply, should the holy 
 truths of the gospel be entwined with 
 the tendrils of the tender, forming mind, 
 to " grow with its growth, and strengthen 
 with its strength." There is a high 
 sense in which the parent and teacher is 
 master of the thoughts, judgments, and 
 consequent feelings of the opening mind. 
 It is on this great truth that the divine 
 
And sealing ordinances. 79 
 
 economy of social life is largely based, 
 and that the covenants and rites which 
 appropriate to God the children of his 
 people are founded. The very end of the 
 mysterious and inviolable oneness effected 
 by the marriage tie is, that parents may 
 have " a godly seed." Hence the seal- 
 ing rite of circumcision, and, by parity 
 of reason, baptism, is extended to servants 
 over whose nurture they have control. 
 Gen. xvii. 12. 
 
 Indispensable, however, as the work 
 of imparting knowledge is, there is a 
 higher, more delicate and difficult work 
 to be done, in all good education, intellec- 
 tual, moral, and religious. It is to train, 
 by which we understand the formation 
 of right practical habits, in that sphere to 
 which the education pertains. And by a 
 right habit, whether of body or soul, we 
 
80 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHUBCH, 
 
 mean simply that state which fits and in- 
 clines the subject to right action in the 
 premises. Habits of vigorous and effect- 
 ive intellectual activity are the grand 
 benefit of a thorough intellectual educa- 
 tion; correct moral habits, founded on 
 good principles, are the grand result of a 
 good moral education. Correct habits of 
 soul, in regard . to spiritual and divine 
 things, are precisely what is wrought in 
 it by regeneration. For this no outward 
 culture or human training is a substitute. 
 But as the Spirit operates not in defiance 
 or suspension of the laws and activities 
 of our rational and moral nature ; not in 
 contravention of, but in giving due effi- 
 cacy to, outward motives and means; and 
 as God's promise is annexed to faithful 
 training ; so where this is faithfully, dis- 
 creetly, and prayerfully given, we have 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 81 
 
 reason to hope and believe that the invisi- 
 ble working of the Spirit will silently 
 mingle with and interpenetrate it, and 
 make it not in vain in the Lord. Now, 
 since there is a wide sphere in which the 
 parent has command of the activity of the 
 child, and can contribute to the formation 
 of outward habits, and even to habits of 
 thought and feeling, he is bound by divine 
 command, by baptismal vows, by every 
 instinct of a gracious soul, to make these 
 habits, so far as he is responsible for them, 
 conformed to the law of God. Hence, 
 God sets it forth as the high commenda- 
 tion of Abraham, and the ground of his 
 large covenants with him and his posterity : 
 " For I know him, that he will command 
 his children and his household after him, 
 and they shall keep the way of the Lord, 
 to do justice and judgment \ that the Lord 
 
82 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 may bring upon Abraham that which he 
 hath spoken of him." (Gen. xviii. 19.) 
 Hence, the holy resolution of Joshua, " As 
 for me and my house we will serve the Lord." 
 Hence the commands and promises with re- 
 gard to training children in the way in 
 which they should go, and bringing them up 
 in the nurture (or discipline) and admoni- 
 tion of the Lord. Hence, according to our 
 Directory, they are to be taught the Lord's 
 prayer ; also " to pray, to abhor sin, to 
 fear God, and obey the Lord Jesus Christ." 
 Much under God depends upon the skill 
 with which this difficult and delicate duty 
 is performed. It is in its nature continu- 
 ous, and in its forms manifold. It requires 
 that mingled firmness, fidelity, gentleness, 
 amenity, and sympathy with the young, 
 which are too seldom found together. The 
 more common and perilous delinquency 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 83 
 
 is a gross negligence which indolently 
 abandons children, without remorse, to 
 their own wayward impulses. Multitudes 
 omit Christian training in every proper 
 sense. But there is a fault so perilous 
 in many who mean to be faithful in this 
 regard, that the Apostle finds occasion 
 expressly to warn them against it. 
 " Fathers, provoke not your children to 
 wrath, but bring them up in the nurture 
 and admonition of the Lord." We have 
 seen the good influence of many a pious 
 father worse than frustrated, by a stern- 
 ness and severity, a harshness and aus- 
 terity, a frowning and unsympathizing 
 distance from his children, which, if it 
 commanded a reluctant eye-service, com- 
 manded nothing better, and repelled their 
 affections, not only from him, but (we 
 fear) from the religion which he thus ini- 
 
84 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 personated before them. And in many 
 such cases, the wonder that children so 
 trained grow up in irreligion, is misplaced. 
 The promise has failed because the con- 
 dition of it has failed. Such children 
 have not been trained as God requires. 
 It is quite as easy to err and fail by 
 governing too much, as by not governing 
 enough.* 
 
 In aid of this domestic Christian nur- 
 ture, come, or ought to come, "the inspec- 
 tion and government of the Church." Of 
 course, so far as direct discipline is con- 
 
 * " His carriage towards his children was with great 
 mildness and gentleness, as one who desired rather to be 
 Joved than to be feared by them. 
 
 He was as careful not to provoke them to wrath, nor 
 to discourage them, as he was to bring them up in the 
 nurture and admonition of the Lord. He ruled indeed, 
 and kept up his authority, but it was with wisdom and 
 love, and not with a high hand. He allowed his children 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 85 
 
 cerned in their younger years, this must 
 be mainly exercised through the parents, 
 by due vigilance and pains-taking on the 
 part of the pastor and elders, to see that 
 they measurably discharge their obliga- 
 tions and vows to train their children up 
 for Christ. But, even in their early days, 
 the officers and members of the Church 
 should manifest a kindly recognition of, 
 and tender interest in, them as lambs of 
 the flock. They should feed them with 
 knowledge, guide them by counsel, and 
 specially commend them to God in prayer. 
 
 a great degree of freedom with him, which gave him the 
 opportunity of reasoning with them, not frightening them 
 into that which is good. He did much towards the in- 
 struction of his children in the way of familiar discourse, 
 according to that excellent directory for religious educa- 
 tion, Deut. vi. 7, which made them love home, and delight 
 in his company, and greatly endeared religion to them." 
 Life of Philip Henry by his son 
 8 
 
86 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 Where the old practice of the pastor meet- 
 ing them, catechizing, and exhorting 
 them as children of the Church, has gone 
 into disuse, it should be revived, and per- 
 petually maintained. All things should 
 be so conducted as to render the child 
 conscious of his Church relations, and to 
 point his mind forward to the time when 
 he will, for himself, be called to assume 
 the privileges and responsibilities of mem- 
 bership; just as minors in the State look 
 forward to the time when they will reach 
 the franchise and obligations of matured 
 citizenship. They should feel that, in 
 either case, they may forfeit the high 
 boon by their miscarriage ; and, in that 
 event, will be exposed to corresponding 
 penalties and privations, at the hands of 
 the proper authorities. When they ap- 
 proach majority, the Church should spare 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 87 
 
 no efforts of instruction, exhortation, re- 
 buke, and encouragement, which their cases 
 may severally require, in order to evoke 
 dormant graces into exercise, and inspire 
 those pious views and feelings which pre- 
 pare and dispose them to come to the 
 Lord's Supper. If they slide into acts or 
 habits incompatible with godliness, either 
 before or after their first approach to the 
 table, they should be visited with faithful 
 and tender admonition; and, if still incor- 
 rigible, with censure; and until they mani- 
 fest repentance, they should be debarred 
 from communion. Even if they display 
 no bar to communion, which human eyes 
 can detect, they are to be taught that 
 allowed secret sin, of omission or commis- 
 sion, disqualifies them in the sight of God 
 and their own consciences ; and that they 
 cannot acceptably receive and give this 
 
88 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 pledge of union to Christ, unless, sensible 
 of their sin and deploring it, they trust his 
 blood for deliverance from it, and are 
 firmly resolved, by his grace assisting, to 
 die unto sin and live unto God, and walk 
 in all his commands and ordinances blame- 
 lessly. But if they know all this, the 
 very act of coming to the Lord's Supper 
 is a solemn profession of faith in, and obe- 
 dience to Christ ; and, unless there be that 
 in their known words or deeds which dis- 
 credits such a profession, the Church 
 cannot lawfully exclude them; for inward 
 disqualifications which they* do not avow 
 or otherwise manifest, while they intelli- 
 gently profess Christ, can be known only 
 to themselves and their God. De occultis 
 ecclesia non judicata 
 
 * Says Edwards : u Not any pretended extraordinary 
 skill of his (the pastor) in discerning the heart, but the 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 89 
 
 Our church wisely requires the officers 
 of the church to examine candidates for the 
 
 person's own serious profession concerning what he finds 
 in his own soul, after he has been well instructed, must 
 regulate the public conduct with respect to him, where 
 there is no other external visible thing to contradict and 
 overrule it. And a serious profession of godliness, under 
 these circumstances, carries in it a visibility to the eye 
 of the Church's rational and Christian judgment." — 
 Qualifications for Communion, vol. iv. page 421. 
 
 In the controversy with his people, which led to their 
 disgraceful rejection of him as their pastor, he offered to 
 be satisfied with the following profession on the part of 
 those baptized in infancy : " I hope I do truly find a heart 
 to give up myself wholly to God, according to the tenor 
 of the covenant of grace which was sealed in my bap- 
 tism, and to walk in a way of obedience to all the com- 
 mandments of God, which the covenant of grace requires, 
 as long as I live." He says : " If there were an exter- 
 nal conversation agreeable thereto, ... I should think 
 that such a person, solemnly making such a profession, had 
 a right to be received as an object of public charity, 
 however he himself might scruple his own conversion, 
 8* 
 
90 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 Lord's Supper, in regard to their " know- 
 ledge and piety f not as therein under- 
 taking to judge the secrets of the heart, 
 but for the purpose of guarding against 
 heedless, ignorant, irreverent intruders, 
 and ensuring, as far as may be, that 
 Christian knowledge, that apparent sin- 
 cere trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
 
 on account of his not remembering the time, not know- 
 ing the method of his own conversion, or finding so much 
 remaining sin, &c. And (if his own scruples did not 
 hinder) I should think a minister or a church had no 
 right to debar such a professor, though he did not think 
 himself converted. For I call that a profession of god- 
 liness, which is a profession of the great things wherein 
 godliness consists, and not a profession of his own opinion 
 of his good estate." Reply to Williams, vol. iv. pp. 
 465 — 6. This will hardly tally with Mr. Tracy's theory 
 of the evidences of regeneration and fitness for the Lord's 
 Supper ; while yet it does not prove that the great re- 
 vival, and this theory, had no mutual interdependence, 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 91 
 
 purpose of obedience to him, which are 
 involved in a credible profession of faith. 
 While they are to be instructed that 
 the absence of these things is a disquali- 
 fication for the Lord's table, our ministers 
 are expressly required to invite to it all 
 " such as, sensible of their lost and help- 
 less estate by sin, depend upon the atone- 
 ment of Christ for pardon and acceptance 
 with God; such as, being instructed in 
 the gospel doctrine, have a competent 
 knowledge to discern the Lord's body ; 
 and such as are determined to renounce 
 their sins, and are determined to lead a 
 holy and godly life." And this none the 
 less, though they can give no history of 
 the time, order, manner of the rise and 
 progress of such exercises of soul. If 
 such are their views and feelings, then 
 have they full warrrant to come to the 
 
92 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 holy feast. Whether they remember the 
 
 time and manner of the beginning and 
 
 progressive development of these states 
 
 of mind and heart, or whether these have 
 
 ingrained themselves so imperceptibly 
 
 into the warp and woof of their inner 
 
 being, that they can mark no distinct 
 
 epoch, or hinge-point in their career, as 
 
 the crisis of the new birth ; it is enough 
 
 that they can say, "Whereas I was blind, 
 
 now I see."* Or even if the sanctifying 
 
 work of the Spirit was coeval with, or 
 1 
 
 * H He would blame those who laid so much stress on 
 people knowing the exact time of their conversion, which 
 he thought was with many not possible to do. Who 
 can so soon be aware of the day-break or the springing 
 up of the seed sown ? The work of grace is better 
 known in its effects than in its causes. He would some- 
 times illustrate this by that saying of the blind man to 
 the Pharisees," &c. — Life of Philip Henry by his son 
 Matthew Henry. 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 93 
 
 anterior to their earliest remembrance, and 
 so combined with their Christian training, 
 as to actuate and rule the growth of the 
 soul in its successive unfoldings ; so that 
 the candidate remembers not the time 
 when he did not fear God, abhor sin, and 
 look to Christ for forgiveness ; he will 
 make none the worse Christian, or be 
 worse qualified for the holy Supper, on 
 that account. " The wind bloweth where 
 it listeth, and thou hearest the sound 
 thereof, but canst not tell whence it 
 cometh and whither it goeth ; so is every 
 one that is born of the Spirit." (Johniii. 
 8.) " So is the kingdom of God, as if a 
 man should cast seed into the ground, 
 and should sleep and rise, night and day; 
 and the seed should spring and grow up, 
 he knoweth not how. For the earth 
 bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the 
 
94 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 blade, then the ear, then the full corn in 
 the ear." (Mark iv. 26—28.) 
 
 Were this idea of the import of infant 
 baptism intelligently and faithfully carried 
 out in the practical regimen of families 
 and churches, we believe the amount of 
 baptized apostasy would be greatly di- 
 minished ; that piety among parents and 
 children would not only be more widely 
 diffused, but more complete, elevated, and 
 symmetrical, as a vital force penetrating 
 all the relations of life ; that the spec- 
 tacle of devout men, fearing God, with 
 all their house, would be as frequent as it is 
 delightful ; that the Church would be en- 
 sured perpetuity and increase, not merely 
 by external conquest and aggregation, but 
 by internal growth and evolution, in the 
 multiplication of those happy families, of 
 which we could say, " Behold how good 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 95 
 
 and how pleasant it is for brethren to 
 dwell together in unity/' " There the Lord 
 hath commanded his blessing, even life 
 for evermore I" Such a cheering faith is 
 warranted by the promises of God, which 
 are none the less true, though our unbelief 
 fail to realize them. Such is the conclu- 
 sion warranted by every rational view of 
 man's nature, as related to the economy 
 of redemption. 
 
 It is easy to say that all this may be ac- 
 complished by God's sovereign grace ac- 
 companying his word, even without making 
 account of the church-state of believers 7 
 children, as has been set forth. True, all 
 things are possible with God ; he can and 
 does sometimes save men without any 
 visible instrumentality but his written 
 word. But is this his ordinary way? 
 Or, as man is constituted, is it likely to 
 
96 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 be the most effective way? No; faith 
 cometh by hearing, and it pleases God, 
 by the foolishness of preaching, to save 
 them that believe. For he works not in 
 violation of, but in conformity to, the laws 
 of man's active and moral powers. So 
 in reference to the children of the cove- 
 nant, his way is the best and most suc- 
 cessful way, whether we can perceive the 
 rationale of it or not. But is it difficult 
 to see this ? Is not the effect of fixing 
 their place, and lot, and sympathies, and 
 associations with the world, at the outset, 
 to give the world the advantage of a prior 
 possession and use, of first moulding their 
 tastes, attachments, and habits, so that 
 the hindrances to their embracing Christ 
 are augmented beyond measure ? Does 
 not the attitude in which one is placed, 
 have much to do in deciding what can be 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 97 
 
 made of him ? And in all its bearings 
 upon the kind of training which will be 
 given to a child, and the effect which that 
 training will have upon him, is there not 
 a heaven-wide difference between the 
 question, whether he shall apostatize from 
 the Church, in which he was born and 
 reared, to the world from which he was 
 taken by the mercy of God, while yet a 
 babe ; or whether he shall renounce the 
 world, and all its associations, to which 
 he has been wedded by a life-long habit 
 and association, to take his place in the 
 Church ? These and similar questions 
 speak their own answer in the light of 
 reason, experience, and the word of God. 
 It was no irrational fear of the two tribes 
 and a half, when they were afraid that 
 the children of the tribes over Jordan 
 should cause their own " children to cease 
 9 
 
98 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 from fearing the Lord/ 7 by treating them 
 as if they had " no part in the Lord." 
 (Josh. xxii. 24, 25.) 
 
 It is true that God is mindful of his 
 covenant, notwithstanding the unbelief 
 and shortcomings of his people, and we 
 rejoice in the multitudes of their offspring, 
 that, even under the most defective views 
 of his covenant, and the most flagrant 
 parental neglect, still become his children 
 by regeneration and adoption. Even so, 
 evermore where sin abounds, grace doth 
 much more abound. Else what, and where 
 were we all ? Nor would we, in the least, 
 disguise or extenuate the danger of 
 abusing such an administration in the 
 house of God, as our standards teach, 
 and we have very imperfectly shadowed 
 forth. Like all other ordinances of God, 
 it may be, and it has been, misconceived 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 99 
 
 by the ignorant, and perverted by the for- 
 mal, from the days of the father of the 
 faithful, with whom the covenant was first 
 in form made, until now. What then? 
 What advantage hath the seed of the 
 pious, and what profit is there in his bap- 
 tism? Much every way; — not to those 
 who pervert it, who take the rite without 
 the substance, or mistake the rite for 
 substance — but to those who justly 
 apprehend it, and believe, and do accord- 
 ingly, and in proportion as they so appre- 
 hend, believe, and do. It is easy to say 
 that the Quakers have piety without ex- 
 ternal rites and ordinances, that the Ro- 
 manists have these in profusion with 
 scarcely any piety. But he who would 
 make an inference from this, would simply 
 show the narrowness of his mind. For 
 another fact consistent with each of these 
 
100 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 is, that piety most flourishes in commu- 
 nions which make evangelical faith the 
 life of the soul, while they use the simple 
 ordinances and sacraments of Scripture, 
 not as barren forms, but according to their 
 divine intent and efficacy, for the promo- 
 tion of that faith. For, however bap- 
 tism may save, there must be more than 
 the outward washing away of the filth 
 of the flesh ; even the answer (sponsion, 
 inepumfia) of a good conscience towards God. 
 All are not Israel that are of Israel. "He 
 is not a Jew that is one outwardly; neither 
 is that circumcision which is outward in 
 the flesh ; but he is a Jew that is one in- 
 wardly, and circumcision is that of the 
 heart, in the spirit and not in the letter; 
 whose praise is not of men, but of God." 
 These views were among the common- 
 places of the Reformed Theology, which 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 101 
 
 gave being and shape to our own stand- 
 ards. They were stated with various 
 degrees of fulness and clearness, by dif- 
 ferent standard authors, according to the 
 measure of completeness and consistency 
 which each one had reached in his own 
 thinking on the subject. Some present 
 the doctrine without those cautions and 
 limitations which are a substantive part of 
 it. Others use a loose phraseology, which 
 puts their real principles in an attitude 
 liable to misconception. But they with 
 great unanimity teach that pedobaptism 
 is legitimate, because, 1. By virtue of 
 the covenant there is a presumption that 
 the children of believers are among God's 
 elect, to whom belong the blessings signi- 
 fied and sealed in baptism ; 2. Because 
 they are capable of receiving saving grace 
 even in infancy. As expressed in the 
 
102 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 first Helvetic Confession, it is a ground 
 of their baptism, that de eorum electione 
 piS est prcesumendum. And since the elect 
 either possess, or are destined to possess, 
 regeneration and adoption, it is not un- 
 common to speak of the elect, the regen- 
 erate, the sanctified, the children of God, 
 as one and the same. In this aspect some 
 writers, Reformed and others, speak of the 
 presumption that the children of believers 
 are elect, till the contrary appears, as a 
 presumption that they are regenerate, and 
 children of God, till the contrary appears. 
 The strong statements of Calvin, which 
 many have tried to wrest to the support 
 of baptismal regeneration, are well known. 
 As God is pleased to covenant with his 
 people to be a God to them and their 
 seed after them, and to permit them to 
 act as the representatives of their off- 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 103 
 
 spring, while these are unable to act for 
 themselves, in stipulating for them the 
 service and accepting the grace signified 
 in baptism, Vitringa founds upon this 
 fact the presumption that the baptized 
 will in person accept the position, the 
 service, and the blessings, thus assumed 
 for them by parental faith. If God is 
 pleased to regard and treat them in their 
 parents, the presumption is that they will 
 themselves assume the vows made for 
 them, till the contrary appears. After 
 showing that the promise of the covenant 
 does not ensure to all and singular of the 
 children of believers the grace of life, 
 since all experience proves the contrary ^ 
 he says, "When God hath begun to man- 
 ifest his grace to the parents or either of 
 them, we may not presume otherwise than 
 that he will confer the like grace upon 
 
104 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 their infants, so long as the contrary does 
 not appear." Non licet aliter prceswnere 
 quam illam eandem gratiam prcestiturum 
 infantibus, quamdiu nobis non liquet con- 
 trarium. He even goes so far as to t 
 say, Juste prcesumimus ex lege charitatis eos 
 esse sanctificatos per Spiritum Sanctum ; a 
 form of statement which, taken by itself, 
 many would take as more than is true, and 
 more than his real doctrine, as gathered 
 from all his representations, means. 
 
 De Moor, commenting on the confession 
 prescribed to parents in the Belgic Lit- 
 urgy, on bringing their infants to bap- 
 tism, that as they are born in sin and 
 thus subject to misery and condemnation, 
 so they are sanctified in Christ, and there- 
 fore to be baptized as members of his 
 church ; {in Christo sanctificatos esse, ideoque 
 tanquam membra ecclesioe ejus debere bapti- 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 105 
 
 zari;) expounds and accepts it in this sense, 
 that a promise of saving grace is given 
 indefinitely to the children of believers 
 in preference to those of unbelievers, and 
 that it is actually bestowed upon some 
 of them in earliest infancy, whence it is 
 permitted specially to entertain a good 
 hope concerning children now offered in 
 baptism by believing parents. Vnde 
 speciatim de Usee liberis, qui nunc offerun- 
 tur baptizandi, spem bonam concipere licet. 
 This hope, however, he is careful to say 
 is often disappointed in the event. He 
 quotes Markius with approbation, as say- 
 ing, that while it is conceded that profes- 
 sion is a prerequisite to baptism in adi^ts, 
 we deem it sufficient in the case of in- 
 fants, if, in the judgment of charity, it 
 be likely to follow. Putamus mfficere si 
 infantibus secundum judicium charitatis sub- 
 
106 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 sequatur. The point to be observed is, that 
 the baptism of children is here founded 
 on the charitable presumption that they 
 will prove to be partakers of the blessings 
 it seals. 
 
 Witsius, having shown that many chil- 
 dren of the pious prove not to be children 
 of God, and thus that the covenant must 
 not be understood as ensuring the grace 
 of life to all and each of them, says, 
 " Charity requires us to count them as 
 beloved children of God, and as of his 
 family, till they evince the contrary by 
 their depraved disposition and conduct." 
 Charitas enim jubet infantes ejusmodi, ut 
 difyctos Dei liberos, ipsiusque Dei familice 
 adnwnerare, donee contr avium pessima indole 
 pravisque facinoribus, &c. The words, " hy- 
 pothesis," " presumption," " supposition," 
 " count," " regard," &c, in such connec- 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 107 
 
 tions, mean not the positive conviction 
 that all the children of the covenant are 
 or will be real children of God, any more 
 than Paul meant that he really believed 
 all whom he addressed as " saints" were 
 really such ; but that they are to be 
 reckoned and treated as among Christ's 
 redeemed ones, till the contrary is 
 evinced. 
 
 We conclude with the following from 
 the Life of Philip Henry by his son Mat- 
 thew, author of the celebrated commen- 
 tary on the Bible, as showing the views, 
 practical and theoretical, of these devout 
 men. If we cannot see our way clear to 
 follow them, so far as there is any appear- 
 ance of requiring authoritatively what 
 ought to be the free act of the child, we 
 think all pious parents should rejoice and 
 labour to bring their baptized children to 
 
108 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 such views and feelings, as would lead 
 them freely and intelligently, in this or 
 equivalent ways, to fulfil their baptismal 
 obligations. 
 
 " He drew up a short form of the bap- 
 tismal covenant for the use of his chil- 
 dren. It was this : 
 
 "'I take God the Father to be my 
 chiefest good and highest end. 
 
 " ' I take God the Son to be my Prince 
 and Saviour. 
 
 " ' I take God the Holy Ghost to be 
 my Sanctifier, Teacher, Guide, and Com- 
 forter. 
 
 " ' I take the word of God to be my rule 
 in all my actions; and the people of 
 God to be my people in all conditions. 
 
 " ' I do likewise devote and dedicate unto 
 the Lord my whole self, all I am, all I 
 have, all I can do. 
 
AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 109 
 
 " c And this I do deliberately, sincerely, 
 freely, and for ever/ 
 
 "This he taught his children; and they 
 each of them solemnly repeated it every 
 Lord's day in the evening after they were 
 catechized, he putting his Amen to it ; and 
 sometimes adding, ' So say, and so do, and 
 you are made for ever.' 
 
 " He also took great pains with them 
 to lead them into the understanding of 
 it, and to persuade them to a free and 
 cheerful consent to it. And, when they 
 grew up, he made them all write it over 
 severally with their own hands, and very 
 solemnly set their names to it, which he 
 told them he would keep by him, and it 
 should be produced as a testimony against 
 them, in case they should afterwards de- 
 part from Grod and turn from following 
 after him. 
 lo 
 
110 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 " He was careful to bring his children 
 betimes, (when they were about sixteen 
 years of age,) to the ordinance of the 
 Lord's Supper, to take the covenant of 
 God upon themselves, and to make their 
 dedication to God their own act and 
 deed ; and a great deal of pains he took 
 with them to prepare them for that great 
 ordinance, and so to translate them into 
 the state of adult church membership. 
 
 "In dealing with his children about 
 their spiritual state, he took hold of them 
 very much by the handle of their infant 
 baptism, and frequently inculcated upon 
 them that they were born in God's house, 
 and were betimes * dedicated and given 
 up to him, and therefore were obliged to 
 be his servants. Psalm cxvi. 16. I am 
 thy servant, because the son of thine hand- 
 maid. — Miscellaneous works of Rev. Mat- 
 thew Henry; Vol. 1 pp. 51, 2.