tability, is, it appears to me, to make the Sacrament of
Baptism a nullity, and to disfranchise thousands of children of divinely
chartered rights and privileges. Mr. Wesley, in his Treatise on Baptism,
in stating the third benefit of baptism, remarks:--

By baptism we are admitted into the Church, and consequently made
members of Christ, its Head. The Jews were admitted into the Church
by circumcision, so are the Christians by baptism.

Mr. Wesley, speaking of the proper subjects of baptism, says:

If infants are capable of making a covenant, and were and still are
under the evangelical covenant, then they have a right to baptism,
which is the entering seal thereof. But infants are capable of
making a covenant, and were and still are under the evangelical
covenant.

The custom of nations and common reason of mankind prove that
infants may enter into a covenant, and may be obliged by compacts
made by others in their name, and receive advantage by them. But we
have stronger proof than this, even God's own word: "Ye stand this
day all of you before the Lord,--your captains, with all the men of
Israel; your little ones, your wives, and the stranger,--that thou
shouldst enter into covenant with the Lord thy God."--Deut. xxix.
10-12. Now, God would never have made a covenant with little
children, if they had not been capable of it. It is not said
children only, but little children, the Hebrew word properly
signifying infants. And these may be still, as they were of old,
obliged to perform, in aftertime, what they are not capable of
performing at the time of their entering into that obligation.

The infants of believers, the true children of faithful Abraham,
always were under the Gospel covenant. They were included in it,
they had a right to it, and to the seal of it; as an infant heir
has a right to his estate, though he cannot yet have actual
possession.--Vol. x., English Edition, pp. 193, 194. Vol. vi.,
American Edition, pp. 16, 17.

Again, Mr. Wesley's third argument on this subject is so clear, so
touching, and so conclusive, that I will quote it without abridgement,
as follows:--

If infants ought to come to Christ, if they are capable of
admission into the Church of God, and consequently of solemn
sacramental dedication to Him, then they are proper subjects of