PART VI.

AN ADDRESS TO PEDOBAPTISTS.

AFTER a long excursion, I have, at last, arrived among you, whose practice I have been vindicating.

It is proper that you should not only know your authority for infant baptism and the legitimacy of its administration by affusion; (both of which have been in modern times much controverted) but also, that you should know and seriously consider the duties belonging to, and the comforts accruing from, the right observation of this ordinance. A practical attention to the duties and privileges of this institution, we would earnestly urge upon you, both for the corroboration of the truth, and the experimental confirmation of the goodness of your cause, and the propriety of our plea.

To three classes we would direct this address. 1st. To parents, guardians or sponsors. 2dly. To children or youth.

3dly. To church officers.

So soon as infants are known to have life they become to the conscious parents characters in whose Behalf, secret, frequent and fervent prayers

hould be offered: Every religious parent will be solicitous to have his child as soon and as visibly as possible under the guardianship of God and regimen of grace. Every mean is to be used. Neither adults when coming themselves nor infants brought by their parents have any merit to plead in their own behalf. But if they have God's promise of gracious acceptance that should encourage. "Whosoever cometh I will in ne wise cast out." Fathers ought to shew a particu-lar solicitude for the spiritual welfare of their baptized children. We may sin as much in respect of them as in respect of ourselves, in being more concerned about what they shall eat, and : what they shall drink, than about their spiritual nourishment and growth in grace. What should we think of the man who would spend his son's estate on trinkets and gewgaws! What trinkets. and trifling playthings are to an estate, that, and less, is an estate to a literary, scientific, and relig. ieas instruction. What an emphasis should be. put upon that commandment, "Bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." The mother who fosters her infants should be particularly attentive to them. She should travail for them the second time, that they may be subjects of a second birth, and as soon as they are capable of knowing any thing, and that is sooner than many imagine, she ought frequently to press them to the breasts of christian and motherly affection, while she tells over and over to them, the all interesting tale of redeeming love.

Let parents bewail, as they see it, that corrup tion which is entailed from father to son through all the successive generations of man. They will have, by this means, an opportunity of seeing a miniature representation of their own unchildlike disposition and undutiful conduct. By teaching their children, parents and they become intellectually and morally knit together. What a harmony and analogy may be traced between their natural and moral dependance! By this parents have a call to improve themselves in christian knowledge. They are called to mature and digest for communication, the rudiments of piety and wisdom, which, in youth, they themselves studied. By this they have a fine oppor tunity of doing good, and of enjoying delight. What raptures of joy may not the parent allow to swell his bosom, while, in obedience to the divine and gracious arrangement, he brings up the child for God, and so obtains a well grounded assurance that his offering has been accepted, and, while he cherishes a joyous anticipation that after a momentary separation, they shall see other again where there shall be no more an infant of days, decrepid age, or lugubrious mortality! What overflowings of joy will be experienced in that immortal state, when all the channels of good shall have converged, and become not distant, but immediate pointers to the great and present Source! Then all terrestrial solicitude shall be soothed into celestial serenity-all painful, parental cares shall be turned into confirmed joy ;

and children's waywardness into glorious adult liberty. It is a pretty sight, even here, to see the Father confidently laying aside the supercilious constriction of countenance, and caution of conduct, which must be, in some degree, maintained in the intercourse with his children, in juvenile life. The children, at the same time, without forgetting the reverence which they early learned to cherish toward their parents, yet venturing to assume, in conversation, a manly confdence. How exquisitely delightful to see them engage in counsels respecting the church; the son perhaps the better informed, yet willing to shew the greatest deference to his father's hoary hairs and sage experience !!! What heart can fail to feel pleasing emotions when such a scene presents itself? But O! how faint is the resemblance? Some may suppose that as there will be neither marrying nor giving in marriage in heaven, there will be there no relative affec tions.

To this I would say-1st. It is not an infirmity but a property of our social nature to love relatives, and I do not know that these properties of our social natures shall be effaced in our future and far more perfect state. 2dly. Grace does not weaken, but rather strengthens and improves our natural affections. What evidence is there, then, that grace consummated in glory will annihilate them? It is true, grace gives the love of God a supreme place, so that compared with this, a man must hate his child, his life; but this does;

not say that the love of children and life is less than before, but only that one is introduced which is greater. Charity is accumulative and perfecting of all benevolent affections, and while it teaches a lesson of active beneficence to all, especially to the household of faith, I know no precept, or principle of this permanent grace, that would forbid a peculiar complacency with our near relatives if they are with us heirs of the same cove. nant of promise and sharers of the same grace of eternal life. Genuine charity begins at home. "He that provideth not for his own, and especially for those of his own house, hath denied the faith and is worse than an infidel." This charity we have reason to believe "never faileth." 3dly. Christ does not now lay aside his affection for his brethren; but says, "I will see you again, and your joy no man shall take away. All whom he draws he loves with an everlasting love; "whom he loves he loves to the end." He says

"Father, I will that they whom thou hast given me may be with me." Why may we not suppose that this same disposition has a place, to a certain degree, in the breasts of departed parents? Of course, when their children shall be brought home to the mansions of their forerunners, to the bosom of Abraham, to the social and celestial banquet of the holy patriarchs, will it not be a scene of delight? How differently will death be viewed by celestial and terrestrial parents! Are not these joys worth some pains? But should the pieture be reversed, What sights, what sighs on