d
related to Him in a saving way, must come to Him through the church,--must
become a member of it, and that too in the manner and through the medium
He has prescribed, viz., baptism?

He who, for the reason, therefore, that children can have no self-conscious
faith, refuses to have them baptized, but exposes his ignorance of the
divine procedure of grace as developed in the church, of the true moral
relation between parent and child, and of the scripture idea of the
Christian home. Why not for the very same reason refuse to teach them, to
have them pray, to bring them up to church service? Yea, why not deny to
them salvation itself? For the very same reason for which you reject infant
baptism, you must also reject infant salvation; for faith is held up in the
Word of God as a qualification for salvation with more emphasis than as a
qualification for baptism. Hence if you say that infants cannot be baptized
because incapable of faith, you must also say, by a parity of reasoning,
that infants cannot be saved, because incapable of faith.

This is a dilemma, and to avoid it, some enemies to infant baptism have
even confessed that they see no hope for the salvation of children. Thus
Dr. Alexander Carson says, "The gospel has nothing to do with infants. It
is good news, but to infants it is no news at all. None can be saved by the
gospel who do not believe it! Consequently by the gospel no infants can be
saved!" But if out of Christ there is no salvation, then tell me, how will
infants be saved? We have no answer from these enemies, yea, there is no
answer!

Christian parents! what think you of this? When bending over the grave of
a beloved child, with the cherished hope of meeting it in heaven, how would
such intelligence as this startle you from your dream of reunion there, and
cast a deep pall of desolation around your sorrowing hearts? Does not the
parent's faith forbid the intrusion of a doctrine so revolting as this?
Though you have been in your home, the divinely appointed representative of
your child, and in its baptism exercised faith in its behalf, on the ground
of those natural and moral relations which the Lord has constituted between
you and your child, yet in this startling dogma of the enemies of its
baptism, you find a virtual denial of the existence of such moral relations
and parental vicarage; yea, a denial of parental stewardship and of the
religious ministry of the Christian home. The revulsion with whi