sequence of this, where we might otherwise look for fruit, we find it not. When we go about to purify the church of God, by distinguishing between children that are exactly alike in themselves, and born of parents in covenant, we probably make out about as well as mortals generally do, when they attempt to improve upon the ordinances of Heaven. Whether some peculiar glory may not be thrown around this "special effort," by the fact, that while the children who by no act of theirs could forfeit their rights, are thrust out, the parents, who are judged to have forfeited theirs by their sins, are left within the church, is submitted to the consideration of the wise, the just, and the benevolent. Be their judgment what it may, a sound will linger on our ears -"As the new wine is found in the cluster, and one saith destroy it not, for a blessing is in it; so saith the Lord will I do for my servant's sake, that I may not destroy them all;" and as we listen, the question from the action of our noblest sentiments rises, why should not the spiritual husbandman do so

also, with the tender clusters in the vineyard of the Lord?

There is a sovereignty of grace in God's designation of the heirs to the external inheritance of the church, which is closely analagous to that by which "the joint heirs with Christ" are appointed to their everlasting reward. We interfere with this sovereignty of grace, when we insist upon the merits of a pious parentage, as necessary to secure an interest to the children in a dispensation of mercy. The plan is not God's. Abraham was called from an idolatrous country and kindred. The great mass of the immediate parents of the Abrahamic tribes, were rebellious to a proverb. Yet the seed God owned as his. As none were chosen for their own, or their father's merits; so those merits could not secure what grace had not resolved to give. Isaac was a man of God, yet of his children is it written, "Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated." "He hath mercy on whom he will have mercy." For myself, when I see a number of children presented for the holy ordinance of baptism, some the offspring of

pious parents, and others not, instead of trembling at the profanation of holy things, which a portion of the service appears to present to some, I think I see, and with a rejoicing spirit too, that which is analagous to the movements of God, as he goes forth for the accomplishment of the purposes of his grace. Here he takes the child of many prayers and tears; there he quickens and saves the offspring of the Christless and profane. Do you ask the reason? It is the very same as that, which designated the subjects of the external means of grace. "He hath mercy on whom he will have mercy," And surely the New Testament Dispensation furnishes as ample a field for the manifestation of the sovereignty of grace, in all its varied forms, as imagination can conceive. And here it will reign, in spite of our ungracious doctrine of the merit of parental piety.

The only difficulty with which many minds are plagued, arises from the doings of the church herself. The form of baptism of the Dutch Church, goes far to incorporate the action of the parent, with the rite of baptism

of the child. With all my veneration for her, whom I shall rejoice to call my mother till my dying day, I could wish that the way was opened to make the act more exclusively the act of the church. The promises which are now required, and which form no part of the baptism itself, are often required under circumstances, which give offence to the conscientious. Were such an arrangement made as would do away with this difficulty, and present the church in the attitude of a mother offering her own child to God, and binding herself to take care of it for him, as she is unquestionably bound to do, a spectacle would be presented, which instead of appearing to profane the holy things of the sanctuary, would preeminently magnify, and illustrate the grace which reigns in the constitution of the visible church. But even as it is, the church's wrong in the circumstance of baptism, should not be allowed to cancel rights, which are secured by the everlasting covenant of God.

7*

IF there be no express modification of the covenant in regard to the proper subjects of the seal, and if there be nothing in the nature of the case requiring a different rule under the New Testament, from that under the Old, something most undoubted and unequivocal in the way of inference is required to justify a departure from the practice of receiving into the church, all that are born of parents in covenant-i. e. parents who have been baptized, and who have not been excluded from the church, by regular discipline.

1. For the purpose of justifying such a departure, great stress has been laid on the requirement of faith in Adults, in order to their own baptism. "I am not aware," says one, "from any facts, or principles in the