which bears with startling effect in favour of Infant Baptism, provided that that Baptism be joined with Regeneration.

God has so ordered the course of things in this world, that we all derive our being from one stock, and with our being we derive from our progenitor a principle of evil, and so are by nature "children of wrath." We inherit from Adam a depraved nature-we each one of us receive this evil nature in the womb. We receive this taint before we can exercise conscious Faith. We receive it passively —in a state of utter helplessness, not knowing what we receive.

If God has

Such is our generation and our first birth. provided a second birth or regeneration, to be a remedy or the commencement of a remedy for the evils of our first birth, it would seem peculiarly fitting that we should receive the second birth and its attendant benefit in an unconscious and infantile state; seeing that we have received our first birth and its attendant evil in an unconscious or infantile state.

Again, if the essence of this second birth be a grafting into Christ, and a putting on of Christ as the Second Adam (seeing that by our first birth we partake of the sin and condemnation of the first Adam); and if there be a rite specified by which we are to be made partakers of this second birth, it seems only natural and fitting that we should receive this rite and its remedial blessing under the same condition of infantile helplessness under which we received the curse and taint transmitted to us from the first Adam. The Second Adam, the Lord from heaven, Who has made a full atonement for all sin, cannot be supposed, in the communication of His good things, to come short of the first Adam in the communication of his evil things, which He would do if infants, as such, are debarred from being "born

of water and of the Spirit" into Him, though as infants they have all been born of the flesh into the stock of Adam.

The reader cannot but perceive that this argument is in favour of Infant Baptism, solely because it is in favour of the doctrine of Regeneration of infants in Baptism.

In the next place, we have another principle in the theory and practice of the Old Dispensation. Two thousand years before the time of Christ, God entered into a covenant with Abraham and his seed, and decreed at the same time that each infant, on his eighth day, should enter into this covenant. It is then according to the will of the unchangeable God that He should enter into covenant with those who from their tender age can neither understand nor fulfil the conditions of the covenant.

In so far, then, as Baptism is the sign and seal of a covenant on God's part, there is the greatest antecedent probability that it ought to be administered to infants.

There is also the greatest antecedent improbability that God should first introduce a dispensation intended to be preparatory, and should make provision that infants should be entitled to its benefits, so that they might be brought up as members of His Church; and then, when He intro. duced the perfect dispensation by the coming of His Only Begotten Son, should repeal this act of grace to infants, and leave them, as far as man can judge, to His uncovenanted mercies, till in later life, they voluntarily make choice of His service.

It must, however, be distinctly remembered, that if Baptism be a real admission into the Christian covenant, it must introduce the recipient to the characteristic blessing of that covenant, viz. Regeneration, or grafting into Christ.

If circumcision effected (which it unquestionably did) that infants should be children of God under the old

dispensation, Baptism must do the same good office for children under the new; otherwise it is a mere empty substitute for circumcision; indeed, not even that, for circumcision was always the effectual door into the Jewish Church, and its blessings. If Baptism does not now admit all infants into the one Church or body of Christ, it does not effect for the infants of Christians what circumcision did for the infants of Jews; consequently, so far as infants are concerned, Christianity is a restraint upon former mercies, not an enlargement of them.

If Infant Baptism be either unlawful, or, as a rule, unattended with its inward grace, there would be no covenant sign to assure us that infants are grafted into Christ's Church, as there was to assure the Jews that their children were grafted into the Jewish Church.

We have, it is true, no command to baptize our infants on a particular day, as the Jews had to circumcise their children on the eighth day. But what of this?

In this respect Infant Baptism, so far as the New Testament is concerned, is in a better position than the keeping of Sunday.

There is no command throughout the New Testament to keep holy the seventh, much less the first day of the week. Almost every notice of the Sabbath in the Gospels is adverse rather than otherwise to its being adopted (except with great modifications) as a Christian institution. In all lists of sins (such as that in Galatians v.), Sabbath breaking is omitted. St. Paul expressly says (Col. ii. 16), "Let no man judge you.. in respect of the New Moon, or of the Sabbath days." And yet we do keep holy the first day of the week as a Sabbath of rest, and respect it as God's day; assuredly believing that by so doing we are preserving to all classes, and especially to the poor, a precious means of grace.

We argue that if the labouring man among the Jews had a Sabbath of spiritual refreshment and bodily rest, much more ought the labouring man among Christians. We cannot believe that the coming of Christ would deprive His people of such a privilege. And so as regards Infant Baptism, we say that if the Jewish child were entitled in his infancy to receive a rite by which he was adopted into God's family, much more will the child of the Christian be entitled to a similar, but greater privilege.

Then, in the third place, we have the manifest teaching of our Lord's words and significant acts respecting those who, through infantile imbecility, or lunacy, or possession, were unable consciously to come to Him.

The case of such persons is very distinctly recognised and disposed of by our Lord.

In three of the Evangelists, it is recorded that "young children were brought to Christ that He should touch them," or "lay hands on them," and "pray." The disciples endeavoured to prevent this, at which our Lord was "much displeased," and said, "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of God." (Mark x. 13.) This incident is very decisive, both in favour of Infant Baptism, and of our accounting infants Regenerate therein.

In the first place, these children were brought to Christ as children, in order that they might receive some blessing from Him through an outward rite-the "laying on of His hands," or His "touch." They were not brought to be instructed. They were rather brought to receive a blessing which they could not realize at the time, on account of their tender years. They were brought to receive this blessing through the "touch" of Jesus, or through the laying on of His hands; the significance of

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which they could no more understand than our children can understand the significance of Baptism.

It is plain, also, that the blessing looked for was of a spiritual nature; for if they had been afflicted with any disease, the cure would have been recorded, and the disciples, in such a case, would have encouraged, rather than opposed, their being brought to Jesus.

They must have been brought to receive an inward spiritual grace through an outward visible sign, for the laying on of the Redeemer's hands was not the blessing itself, but the outward means of its conveyance.

The more this incident is considered the more decisively it will be found to meet all objections against either Infant Baptism or Infant Regeneration in that Baptism. It shows us that God recognises (as we should expect that He would) the difference between the infantile, and the adult state, and accords to the former what could not be accorded to the latter, for Our Lord could not have laid His hands indiscriminately upon so many adults, as He did upon these infants. If the adults were capable of exercising faith in His power, He must have required them to exhibit that faith. An adult must have recognised in the laying on of His hands the outward token of invisible blessing, but Christ expressly permitted these infants, as infants, to receive an outward rite as a token of grace from Him. He has taught us by this that conscious faith is only required in the case of those who are able to exercise it.

Just as by His natural law written in our hearts He has led us to confer benefits on those who can neither thank us, nor realize what they receive from us, so by this incident He has assured us that in His own kingdom of grace He acts on the same principle.

Again, a large proportion of the miracles of our Lord