are his property.  You are his by sacred engagement, and you cannot violate this engagement; you cannot renounce His service, and devote yourselves to the service of Satan or of the world, without dishonoring your parents, doing injustice to God, and periling your own salvation.  You may say this contract was formed without my consent, and when too young to understand its requirements.  No matter; this does not release you from obligation to perform it.  Ability and responsibility are not always co-extensive.  We are bound perfectly to keep God’s holy law, and yet no man of himself is able to do it.  His inability, however, does not diminish it’s binding force.  God cannot abate one jot or tittle of the law’s demands, for that would be a confession of its imperfection or of his variableness.  Or, should he diminish his demands because our wickedness has made us incapable of keeping them, then the more wicked we become, the less binding would be his authority, and if we only grew depraved enough we might escape from all obligation to obedience.  Such an idea, cannot, of course, be tolerated.  The truth is, that under the government of God, as well as under human government, children are held responsible for the conduct of their parents.  Parents have a right to act for them, and children must abide by their decisions, and endure the consequences of their acts.  They cannot escape from it, for this is a natural as well as moral law which is continually operating.  The character and destiny of the child are determined mainly by the parent.  He may educate him to be refined, intelligent and useful, or to be vicious, debased and dangerous.  This process is going on continually.  The parent may make positive engagements in behalf of his children, which they are bound to perform, and which the law recognizes as valid.  A father dying, for example, while his children are in infancy or in their minority, may require them to appropriate a portion of his estate for certain ends, as a condition on which they shall receive it.  Another may require of his children a given service, on condition of receiving his blessing; and if the requirement be not morally wrong, who would not feel themselves bound to observe it?  But there are examples, perhaps more in point, in Scripture, in which parents have entered into formal covenants that have had direct reference to their children.  Adam covenanted for himself and posterity.  They had no personal agency in it, in any sense, and yet all are held accountable for its transgression; all suffer a portion of its penalty, as they might, if he had kept it, been made possessors of its blessings.  So Abraham covenanted with God for himself and his seed; and his descendants felt themselves bound to fulfill its requirements.  They knew, in fact, that unless they did, its benefits could not be enjoyed.  The same principle holds good in reference to the baptized.  You are bound by the covenant engagements of your parents.  You cannot be released from