bounds of our own uncharitable prejudices? If CHRIST was pleased to leave the door of his church, which was open to children under the Jewish difpenfation, still open to them under the Christian; as he gave his difciples to understand, by telling them to "fuffer little children to come to him, for of fuch was the kingdom of God;" (or, as the meaning may be better expreffed, for theirs is the kingdom of GOD, or the kingdom of GOD belongs to them;) it feems an unaccountable infatuation, that parents, who in all other cafes fail not to manifest a zeal for the maintenance of their children's privileges, fhould in this be fo ready to give them up.

I would ask fuch parents a queftion-Do they think that their children, dying unbaptized, are capable of admiffion into the kingdom of heaven? Relying on the mercy of GOD, (though uncovenanted mercy is

all

upon which they can, in this inftance, place any just dependence) they will doubtlefs answer, Yes.

But perfons who are capable of the greater, are certainly capable of the lefs, which is contained within it. If through Divine mercy, then, unbaptized children are capable of admiffion, into the kingdom of God in heaven, they are surely capable, through the fame mercy, of admiffion into the

church, which is the kingdom of GOD on earth. If they are capable of receiving the fulness of Divine mercy in the poffeffion of everlasting bleffedness in heaven; where CHRIST has told us, "their angels continually behold his Father's face," (Matth. xviii.) they are surely capable of being admitted into that church membership, which was defigned only as preparatory to it.

Although infants, therefore, fhould not fuffer for the negligence, obftinacy, or self-opinion, of their parents; yet parents would do well to confider what may be the confequence to themselves, for fhewing lefs attention to the fpiritual condition of their children, than GOD has done; by ftraitening that covenant, which, in the original delivery of it, was exprefsly extended to them; and, in the Jewish church, fcrupulously continued to them. At the fame time they may remember, that though the child of Mofes fuffered no punishment for the delay of his circumcifion, yet the father (as we read Exodus iv. 24) very narrowly escaped it on a memorable occafion.

But it may be obferved further, in anfwer to thofe who object to the admiffion of infants to baptifm on account of incapacity, that the Jewish infants were admitted into the covenant by circumcifion at eight

days old, by GoD's exprefs command. That there is the fame reafon for infants of Chriftian parents to be admitted to baptifm, is to be thus proved.

nant.

The covenant entered into by GOD with ABRAHAM (an account of which we have in the feventeenth chapter of Genefis) was, as ST. PAUL plainly tells us in the third chapter of Galatians, the Gofpel cove"The fcripture, (fays the Apostle) foreseeing that GOD would juftify the heathen through faith, preached before the Gospel to Abraham,” delivered beforehand the glad-tidings of that event to ABRAHAM in the following words: "In thee fhall all the nations of the earth be bleffed." "Now to ABRA

HAM and his feed were the promises made. He faith not, And to feeds, as of many; but as of one: And to thy feed, which is CHRIST. This I fay, that the covenant that was confirmed before of GOD in CHRIST; the law which was four hundred and thirty years after cannot difannul, that it should make the promife of none effect." "From thefe words, which diftinguifh fo plainly between the covenant which GOD made with ABRAHAM, or the promise which he made unto him, and the law; it is evident, that the beginning of the Jewish church, purely confidered as a church, is to be dated from

the covenant which GOD made with ABRAHAM; and therefore, in the fecond place, the way to find out the nature of the Abrahamical or pure Jewish church, is to confider the nature of the covenant or promise upon which it was founded; and if we examine the fcriptures, we fhall find, that it was an Evangelical covenant, for fubftance the fame with that which is fince made betwixt GoD and us, thro CHRIST. This will appear upon a review of those fcriptures which teach us, That faith was the condition of this Abrahamical covenant; that it wasi made with ABRAHAM,* as the father of the faithful, and in him with all believers, with his fpiritual as well as carnal feed, proceeding from him by Spiritual as well as carnal generation; and that the bleffings or promises of this covenant belonged unto them upon the fame account of their faith."||

* "Fide autem stare juftitiam, et illic effe vitam predictum eft apud HABAKKUC. Fustus autem ex fide vivet. Inde ABRAHÁM Pater Gentium credidit. In Genes. credidit ABRAHAM DEO, et. deputatum eft ei ad juftitiam. Cognofcitis ergo qui ex fide sunt, h; funt filii ABRAHA, providens fcriptura quia ex fide, &c."

CYPRIAN advers. Judæos. "Succeffiffe verò in eorum locum Chriftianos fide Dominum promerentes, et de omnibus gentibus, ac toto orbe venientes."

CYPRIAN ad Quirin. Testim. I. iii.

"Cafe of Infant Baptifm by the Dean of Worcefter." See

London Cafes, No. 15.

The covenant, then, that was made by GoD with ABRAHAM, was the Gospel covenant, containing the promise of bleffing to all nations in CHRIST. Of admiffion into this covenant circumcifion was, at that time, the appointed feal. Ci cumcifion, therefore, was not a legal inftitution, but the feal of the Gofpel covenant, administered to ABRAHAM four hundred and thirty years before the introduction of the law. Agreeably to which our SAVIOUR told the Jews, that "MOSES gave unto them circumcifion, not because it was of Moses, but of the fathers."

All the alteration that took place in this business, upon our SAVIOUR'S establishment of his church, was in the nature of the feal of the covenant; our SAVIOUR having exchanged the fevere and painful one of circumcifion, for the more mild and practicable one of baptifm. The feal, then, is altered, but the covenant remains the fame.

The covenant, therefore, into which Chriftians are admitted by baptifm, being the fame Gospel covenant, which was confirmed before to ABRAHAM in ritual can make

CHRIST; the mere change in the

no difference with refpect to the

parties to be admitted into it.

capability of the

Confequently the

precept delivered to ABRAHAM, (Gen. x. 17) re