the baptistic question.  When we shall have thrown sufficient light upon it to convince the Christian parent, that it is a duty to have little children dedicated to God in baptism, our plan shall be fully executed.  We must either admit infant baptism, or deny that the Christian covenant includes children, and that the parent is bound to dedicate them to God.  Hence the objection brought against infant baptism can, with equal propriety, be urged against circumcision; for the latter is the type of the former.  In baptism Christ places Himself in true organic relations to the child, and thus opens up to it the sources from which alone the Christian life can proceed and develop itself.

The baptism of our children is grounded in their need of salvation at every age and stage of development.  It is also based upon the very idea of Christ Himself; upon primitive christianity; upon the extent and compass of the Christian covenant; and upon those vital relations which believing parents sustain to their offspring.  It might be proven from the commission given by Christ to His disciples to “preach the gospel to every creature;” from His language and conduct in reference to children; from the usage of the Apostles and of the apostolic church.  The idea and mission of Christ Himself, we think, would be a sufficient argument in favor of infant baptism.  He included in His life the stage of childhood, and came to save the child as well as the man.  His own infancy and childhood are securities for this.  He entered into and passed through all the various states and stages of man’s development on earth, and thus became adapted to the wants of every period of our life,—­man’s infancy as well as man’s maturity.  Ireneus says, “Christ Jesus became a child to children, a youth to youth, and a man to man.”  The fact, too, that the blessings of the covenant of grace are extended to the children of believing parents, is sufficient to prove the validity of infant baptism.  Peter said on the day of Pentecost, when he called upon his hearers to be baptized:  “for the promise is to you, and your children, and all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.”

Thus His gospel excludes none, neither is it restricted to a certain age or capacity.  As the child, as well as the man, fell and died in the first Adam, so the child, as well as the man, can be made alive in the second Adam.  As infants, therefore, are subjects of grace, why not subjects also of baptism?  As they are included in the covenant, why not enter it by the divinely constituted sacrament of initiation?  As they are included in the plan of salvation, why not receive it in a churchly way?  If Christ is the Saviour of infants, why not bring them to Him through baptism?

Besides, the idea of following Christ reaches its full meaning only through infant baptism.  His own infancy, as we have already seen, is a warrant of this.  Without it He cannot penetrate and rule in every natural stage of human life.  Hence a denial of infant baptism is a subversion of the fundamentals of Christian doctrine.  The very constitution of the Christian family, its unity and mission must be overthrown; for infant baptism is incorporated with the nature of christianity itself, with the conception and necessities of the individual Christian life, and of the Christian family life.