works....Ye have true, real, and proper interest and propriety in God. As ye are his, so he is YOURS. There is a mutual propriety and interest in each other. YE have God UNDER AN ACTUAL OBLIGATION, viz. of his promise to improve and employ ALL HIS ATTRIBUTES for your good, benefit, and advantage, according, or in a way agreeable, to the true tenour of the covenant, and of the various promises of it. You have a present interest in and right to salvation; and, answerably, in case of your death before a forfeiture be made of that interest and right, you shall be infallibly saved." We will suppose the same circle of young persons addressed by their parents on the principles inculcated, and according to the plan of prayer suggested by Mr. Henry, when speaking to such parents. That wellknown author says; "Look upon their baptism, and you will see upon what grounds you go in praying for them. You pray for them, as IN COVENANT WITH GOD, INTERESTED IN THE PROMISES, SEALED TO BE THE LORD'S; and those are good pleas in prayer, to be used for the confirmation of your faith. Pray that God would treat them as his; tell him, and humbly INSIST upon it, that they ARE HIS; whom you gave to him, and of whom he accepted: and will he not take care of his own?"* Now, if this be the language of reverence, of devotion, and of propriety, when parents are addressing God on the behalf of their children, it cannot be improper for the same parents often and earnestly to urge on the * Treatise on Bap. p. 241,242. The following observation of Dr. Owen is worthy of notice, though the principle of it is inimical to this direction of Mr. Henry. "Whereas we may and ought to represent unto God, in our supplications, our faith, or what it is that we believe.... I much question, whether some men can find in their hearts to pray over and plead before him all the arguments and distinctions they make use of;-or enter into judgment with him upon the conclusions they make from them." Doct. of Justification, Introduction. minds, and to fix in the memories of their growing offspring, a conviction of their interest in the covenant, of their claim on the promises, and of their being sealed as Jehovah's peculiar property. Nor can it be doubted, if this conduct be right, but the prayers of the children, when they grow up, should be an echo to those of their parents for them. Yes, on the principles of Messrs. Whiston and Henry, they may boldly say; "Lord, we are in covenant with thee, we are interested in thy promises, we are sealed to be thine; we pray thee, therefore, to treat us as thy own. We farther make free to tell thee, and humbly INSIST upon it, that we ARE THINE; for we were given to thee, and accepted by thee: and wilt thou not take care of thy own? Divine fidelity forbids the painful thought of our ever being abandoned by thee." Thus the children of religious parents are taught, as soon as they can pray at all, to lift up their heads in the presence of God, and to address him, with the modern Jews, as follows: "We are thy people, the children of thy covenant. They are implicitly directed to copy, with a confident front, an ancient example of prayer that Luke has recorded-an example which, though imitated by many, is avowed by few. For the purport of their language is; "We thank thee, O God, that we are not as the children of other men, who are not interested in thy covenant, have no share in thy promises, nor any right in thy confirming seal. We contemplate with peculiar pleasure, the vast difference there is between us and the offspring of our profligate neighbour Publicanus." Now as these are the genuine consequences of Mr. Henry's dictates on the subject before us, I may venture an appeal to the impartial reader; Whether such sentiments imbibed by the children of godly parents, be not adapted to harden their consciences in an unregenerate state, and to render them easy, under a vain supposition of their being the * In Dr. Gill's Exposit. of Rom. ix. 8. favourites of heaven from their earliest infancy? For if, as Dr. Owen observes, "the father of lies himself could hardly have invented a more pernicious opinion," than that which connects regeneration with baptism, this, which unites the grand idea of interest in the covenant, the promises, and the sacred seal, with carnal descent from believing parents, cannot be innocent. Were Mr. Henry now living, some faithful friend, perhaps, might whisper in his ear the following admonition: "Surely, Sir, you teach religious parents to treat the GREAT SUPREME in a very FAMILIAR manner! as if you had been witness to a written agreement between Him and them, and of their having received an earnest from Him, of what he engaged under his own hand and seal to do for their children. Besides, you seem to have entirely forgotten a salutary caution which, on another occasion, you have given to the seed of believers. Among your many excellent practical notes on the scripture, these, which I remember, deserve regard. 'It doth not follow, that because they are the seed of Abraham, therefore they must needs be the children of Godthough it is common for people thus to stretch the meaning of God's promise, to bolster themselves up in a vain hope... . It is the common fault and folly of those that have pious parentage and education, to trust to it, and boast of it, as if it would atone for the want of real holiness. They were Abraham's seed; but what would that avail them, when we find one in hell that could call Abraham father? Saving benefits are not like common privileges, conveyed by entail to us and our issue; nor can a title to heaven be made by descent; neither may we claim as heirs at law, by making out our pedigree.'* Pardon me, Sir, if I take the freedom to intimate, that upon reading your directions to believing parents, in regard to the grounds of devotional addresses for their baptized infants, the prayer which Pelagius is reported to have * Exposit. on Rom. ix. 6,7; John viii. 33. See also on John i. 13. taught a widow came fresh to remembrance. That ancient Briton, as you perhaps may recollect, advised his female disciple thus to address the Omniscient: 'Thou knowest, O Lord, how holy, and pure, and clean, from all wickedness, and iniquity, and rapine, these hands are, which I now lift up to thee; like as the lips with which I offer supplications to thee to have mercy upon me, are pure, and clean, and free from all falsehood.' Forgive my suspicions, dear Sir, if I cannot but apprehend, that there is too great a likeness between the grounds of your parental prayers, and those of this widow, as taught by Pelagius. The reasons of expecting an answer in both cases are, not sovereign mercy and atoning blood; these lie open to a publican, when praying for himself or his offspring-these lie open to the vilest wretch upon earth, if he possess a disposition to pray; but a supposed and an immense difference between the state and character of certain infants in one case, of a widow in the other, compared with those of children and of adults in common."--The following extract from Dr. Willet shall conclude this branch of the subject: "Infants neither have faith in themselves, nor yet are profited or furthered to their salvation by the faith of others.... Infants are not justified, nor relieved or helped forward towards their salvation, by the faith of their parents or godfathers, when they are baptized; for the scripture saith, 'The just shall live by faith;' that is, by his own faith, not the faith of another."† SECT. 3.-Jewish Circumcision. Dr. Willet." Arguments drawn from types and figures conclude not, unless they be types ordained of God to such use; neither are the sacraments of the gospel to be squared out according to the pattern of the * In Dr. Owen, on the Holy Spirit, b.iii. chap. v. p. 266. ceremonies of the law. We also deny, that the ceremonies and rites of the law (as, the paschal lamb, manna, and the rest) are figures and types of our sacraments; but both their sacraments and ours are figures and representations of Christ." Synopsis Papismi, p. 643. 2. Dr. Hammond.-" By all this [account of the Jewish proselyte baptism] it appears, how little needful it will be to defend the baptism of Christian infants from the law of circumcising infants among the Jews, the foundation being far more fitly laid in that other of Jewish baptism, a ceremony of initiation for all, especially for proselytes, as well as that: and whereas that of circumcision belonged only to one, this other being common to both sexes, &c.....Baptism is no more spiritual circumcision, than circumcision is spiritual baptism." Works, vol. i. p. 474, 483. 3. Turrettinus.-" Circumcision represented, not baptism, but the grace of regeneration, which likewise is sealed by baptism. The paschal lamb represented, not the sacred supper, but Christ himself exhibited in the supper. The baptism of the ancient Israelites in the cloud and in the sea, was a sacrament, not of our baptism, but of the thing signified by it; like as the rock and the water flowing from it signified, not the holy supper, but Christ himself, as Paul explains it, 1 Cor. x. 3,4.” Disput. de Bap. Nubis et Maris, § 17. 4. Dr. Clarke." By analogy, drawn from the rite of circumcision, it has for very many ages been the general practice in the Christian church, to receive infants by baptism into the obligations of faith and obedience to the gospel, and to make profession for them, which they are to believe and obey. Whether this analogy be rightly drawn or not, and be a sufficient and adequate foundation for what has been built upon it, is a contro."* Sermons, vol. i. serm. xxxviii. p. 241. Fol. versy. * Mr. Baxter, in a similar case, thus: "I will not stand now upon the question, Whether such arguments from mere analogy |