h water baptism is essential to salvation.

In the case of all adults, the Scriptures represent _faith in Christ_ as
the necessary prerequisite to baptism, and baptism as a rite by which
those who had already consecrated themselves to Christ, or been
converted, made a public profession of the fact, received a pledge of
the divine favor, or of forgiveness of sins, and were admitted to
membership in the visible church. The same inspired records also teach,
that if men are destitute of this faith, if they believe not, they shall
be damned, notwithstanding their baptism. "He that _believeth_ and is
baptized shall be saved, and he that _believeth_ not, shall be damned,"
Matt. xvi. 16. And Philip said to the eunuch, "If thou _believest_ with
all thy heart, thou mayest be baptized," Acts viii. 37. "_Repent_ and be
baptized," Acts ii. 38; viii. 62; xviii. 8. Hence if baptism required
previous faith and repentance, or conversion in adults, and if, when
they were destitute of this faith or conversion, they were damned,
notwithstanding their baptism; it follows that baptism was not, and is
not, a converting ordinance in adults, and does not necessarily effect
or secure their regeneration.

Now that baptism cannot accomplish more in infants than in adults, is
self-evident; hence if it is not a converting ordinance in adults, it
cannot be in infants.

The effects of baptism on _infants are nowhere specified in Scripture;_
hence we must suppose them to be same as in adults, so far as children
are naturally capable of them. Of _regeneration_, in the proper sense of
the term, infants are incapable; for it consists in a radical change in
our religious views of the divine character, law, &c.; a change in our
religious feelings, and in our religions purposes and habits of action;
of none of which are children capable.

Again, as regeneration does not destroy but merely restrains the natural
depravity, or innate, sinful dispositions of the Christian, (for these
still remain in him after conversion,) it must consist mainly in a
change, of that _increased predisposition to sin arising from action, of
that preponderance of _sinful habits_ formed by voluntary indulgence of
our natural depravity, after we have reached years of moral agency. But
infants have no such _increased_ predisposition, no _habits_ of sin
prior to moral agency, consequently there can be no change of them, no
regeneration in this meaning of the term. Hence, if baptism e