brethren are under the necessity of supposing that the first Christians were met on the organization of the New Testament church, with an announcement of this kind, and that they acquiesced in it without a feeling of surprise, or a word of murmur! Nay, that this whole retrograde change passed with so little feeling of interest, that it was never so much as mentioned or hinted at in any of the epistles to the churches. But can this supposition be for a moment admitted? It is impossible. We may conclude, then, that the acknowledged silence of the New Testament as to any retraction of the old privileges, or any complaint of its recall, is so far from warranting a conclusion unfavourable to the church membership of infants, that it furnishes a weighty argument of an import directly the reverse.

9. Although the New Testament does not contain any specific texts, which, in so many words, declare that the infant seed of believers are members of the church in virtue of their birth; yet it abounds in passages which cannot reasonably be explained but in harmony with this doctrine. The following are a specimen of the passages to which I refer.

The prophet Isaiah, though not a New Testament writer, speaks much, and in the most interesting manner, of the New Testament times. Speaking of the latter day glory," of that day when "the wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock, and when there shall be nothing to hurt or destroy in all God's holy mountain;" speaking of that day, the inspired prophet declares, " Behold, I create new heavens, and a new earth, and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. For as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labour in vain, nor bring forth for trouble; for they are the seed of the blessed of the Lord, and their offspring with them." Isaiah lxv. 17. 22, 23.

The language of our Lord concerning little children can be reconciled with no other doctrine than that which I am now endeavouring to establish. "Then were there brought unto him little children, that he should put his

hands on them and pray; and his disciples rebuked them. But Jesus said, "Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven. And he laid his hands upon them, and departed thence,' Matt. xix. 13-15. On examining the language used by the several Evangelists in regard to this occurrence, it is evident that the children here spoken of were young children, infants, such as the Saviour could "take in his arms." The language which our Lord himself employs concerning them is remarkable. "Of such is the kingdom of heaven.' That is, theirs is the kingdom of heaven; or, to them belongs the kingdom of heaven. It is precisely the same form of expression, in the original, which our Lord uses in the commencement of his sermon on the mount, when he says, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven;" "Blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." This form of expression, of course, precludes the construction which some have been disposed to put on the passage, in order to evade its force, viz. that it implies, that the kingdom of heaven is made up of such as resemble little children in spirit. We might just as well say, that the kingdom of heaven does not belong to those who are "poor in spirit," but only to those who resemble them; or, that it does not belong to those who are "persecuted for righteousness sake," but only to those who manifest a similar temper. Our Lord's language undoubtedly meant that the kingdom of heaven was really theirs of whom he spake; that it belonged to them; that they are the heirs of it, just as the "poor in spirit," and the "persecuted for righteousness sake," are themselves connected in spirit and in promise with that kingdom.

But what are we to understand by the phrase "the kingdom of heaven," as employed in this place? Most manifestly, we are to understand by it, the visible Church, or the visible kingdom of Christ, as distinguished both from the world, and the old economy. Let any one impartially examine the Evangelists throughout, and he will find this to be the general import of the phrase in question. If this be the meaning, then or Saviour asserts, in the most direct and pointed terms, the reality and the Divine warrant of in

fant church membership. But even if the kingdom of glory be intended, still our argument is not weakened, but rather fortified. For if the kingdom of glory belong to the infant seed of believers, much more have they a title to the privileges of the church on earth.

Another passage of Scripture strongly speaks the same language. I refer to the declaration which we find in the sermon of the apostle Peter, on the day of Pentecost. When a large number of the hearers, on that solemn day, were "pricked in their hearts, and said unto Peter, and to the rest of the apostles, men and brethren, what shall we do?" The reply of the inspired minister of Christ was, "Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call." The apostle is here evidently speaking of the promise of God to his covenant people; that promise in which he engages to be their God, and to constitute them his covenanted family. Now this promise, he declared to those whom he addressed, extended to their children as well as to themselves, and, of course, gave those children a covenant right to the privileges of the family. But if they have a covenant title to a place in this family, we need no formal argument to show that they are entitled to the outward token and seal of that family.

I shall adduce only one more passage of Scripture, at present, in support of the doctrine for which I contend. I refer to that remarkable, and, as it appears to me, conclusive declaration of the apostle Paul, concerning children, which is found in the seventh chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians, in reply to a query addressed to him by the members of that church, respecting the Christian law of marriage: "The unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife; and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband; else were your children unclean, but now are they holy." The great question in relation to this passage is, in what sense does a believing parent "sanctify" an unbelieving one, so that their children are "holy?" It certainly cannot mean, that every pious husband or wife that

is allied to an unbelieving partner, is always instrumental in conferring on that partner true spiritual purity, or, in other words, regeneration and sanctification of heart; nor that every child born of parents of whom one is a believer, is, of course, the subject of Gospel holiness, or of internal sanctification. No one who intelligently reads the Bible, or who has eyes to see what daily passes around him, can possibly put such a construction on the passage. Neither can it be understood to mean, as some have strangely imagined, that where one of the parents is a believer, the children are legitimate; that is, the offspring of parents, one of whom is pious, are no longer bastards, but are to be considered as begotten in lawful wedlock ! The word "holy" is no where applied in Scripture to legitimacy of birth. The advocates of this construction may be challenged to produce a single example of such an application of the term. And as to the suggestion of piety in one party being necessary to render a marriage covenant valid, nothing can be more absurd. Were the marriages of the heathen in the days of Paul all illicit connections? Are the matrimonial contracts which take place every day, among us, where neither of the parties is pious, all illegitimate and invalid? Surely it is not easy to conceive of a subterfuge more completely preposterous, or more adapted to discredit a cause which finds it necessary to resort to such aid.

The terms "holy" and "unclean," as is well known to all attentive readers of Scripture, have not only a spiritual, but also an ecclesiastical sense, in the word of God. While, in some cases, they express that which is internally and spiritually conformed to the Divine image; in others, they quite as plainly designate something set apart to a holy or sacred use; that is, separated from a common or profane, to a holy purpose. Thus, under the Old Testament economy, the peculiar people of God, are said to be a "holy people," and to be "severed from all other people, that they might be the Lord's;" not because they were all, or even a majority of them, really consecrated in heart to God; but because they were all his professing people,— his covenanted people; they all belonged to that external body which he had called out of the world, and established

C*

as the depository of his truth, and the conservator of his glory. In these two senses, the terms "holy" and "unclean" are used in both Testament's times, almost innumerable. And what their meaning is, in any particular case, must be gathered from the scope of the passage. In the case before us, the latter of these two senses is evidently required by the whole spirit of the apostle's reasoning.

It appears that among the Corinthians, to whom the apostle wrote, there were many cases of professing Christians being united by the marriage tie with pagans; the former, perhaps, being converted after marriage; or being so unwise, as, after conversion, deliberately to form this unequal and unhappy connection. What was to be deemed of such marriages, seems to have been the grave question submitted to this inspired teacher.

He pronounces, under the direction of the Holy Spirit, that, in all such cases, when the unbeliever is willing to live with the believer, they ought to continue to live together; that their connection is so sanctified by the character of the believing companion, that their children are "holy," that is, in covenant with God; members of that church with which the believing parent is, in virtue of his profession, united: in one word, that the infidel party is so far, and in such a sense, consecrated by the believing party, that their children shall be reckoned to belong to the sacred family with which the latter is connected, and shall be regarded and treated as members of the Church of God.*

"The passage thus explained," says an able writer, "establishes the church membership of infants in another form. For it assumes the principle, that when both parents are reputed believers, their children belong to the Church of God as a matter of course. The whole difficulty proposed by the Corinthians to Paul, grows out of this principle. Had he taught, or they understood, that no children, be their parents believers or unbelievers, are

* It is worthy of notice that this interpretation of the passage is adopted, and decisively maintained by Augustine, one of the most pious and learned divines of the fourth century. De Sermone Domini in Monte, ch. 27