The author of the following discourse hopes it will appear from the perusal of it, that the baptism of infants is a practice which he not only believes to be scriptural, but which he warmly and devoutly loves. As a parent, and as a pastor, one of his most delightful employments has been the dedication of his own children, and of the children of others, to the God of mercy. He endeavours also to cherish in his own heart, and in the hearts of others, the assurance that baptism is a sign of spiritual influences, which our covenant God will graciously bestow upon our children, if we disciple them to Christ by gospel instruction as well as by water, and if we “teach them to observe all things whatsoever Christ has commanded.” The connection between our baptized households and church membership is so intimate, that children should be trained for communion by the parent, as well as by the pastor; and every baptized family should thus strive to be a church of Christ, and seek to possess, by the grace of God, a domestic as well as an individual relationship to “the general assembly and church of the first-born.” Were this made the object of more anxious and prayerful effort, the degree of success, divinely granted, would surprise and bless our hearts; the sacred ordinance in which we delight, would be less ridiculed than it is; the fatal mistakes which are made relative to it, would be corrected; and it would soon become, as in primitive times, universally practiced. “If infant baptism were more improved,” says Philip Henry, “it would be less disputed.”
