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in like manner, for their character, as distinguished from other Congregational bodies, to the influence of their Presbyterian brethren. No community can isolate itself. The subtle influence which pervades the whole, permeates through every barrier, as little suspected and yet as effective as the magnetic or electric fluid in nature. This fact may be explained in a manner more or less obvious or profound according to our philosophy or disposition, but it cannot be denied, and should not be disregarded.

We are, therefore, not uninterested spectators of the changes. going on in New England. They are changes in the body of which we are members, and their effects, for good or evil, we must share. We are not therefore stepping out of our own sphere, or meddling with what does not concern us, in calling attention to Dr Bushnell's book, and to the discussions to which it has given rise.

The history of this little volume is somewhat singular. Dr Bushnell was appointed by the Ministerial Association of which he is a member to discuss the subject of Christian training. He produced two discourses from his pulpit, and read the argument before the Association, who requested its publication. To this he assented; but before his purpose was executed, a request came from a member of the committee of the Massachusetts Sabbath School Society that the publication should be made by them. The manuscript was forwarded to the committee, who retained it in their possession six months, twice returned it to the author for modifications, and finally published it with their approbation. It excited no little attention, being favourably noticed in some quarters, and unfavourably in others. So much disapprobation, however, was soon manifested, that the committee felt called upon to suspend its publication. We are not surprised at any of these facts. We do not wonder that the committee kept the book so long under advisement, or that they should ultimately venture on its publication; or that, when published, it should create such a sensation, or meet with the fate which actually befel it. There is enough in the book to account for all this. Enough of truth most appropriate for our times, powerfully presented, to make the committee anxious to bring it before the churches; enough of what was new in form and strange in aspect, to create doubt as to its effect and its reception; and enough of apparent and formidable error to account for the alarm and uneasiness consequent on its publication. We cannot regret that the book has seen the light, and done, or at least begun, its work. We anticipate immeasurably more good than evil from its publication. What is wrong we trust will be sifted out and perish, what is right will live and operate.

The truths which give value to this publication, and from which we anticipated such favourable results, are principally the following: First, the fact that there is such a divinelyconstituted relation between the piety of parents and that of their children, as to lay a scriptural foundation for a confident expectation, in the use of the appointed means, that the children of believers will become truly the children of God. We do not like the form in which Dr Bushnell states this fact; much less, as we shall probably state more fully in the sequel, the mode in which he accounts for it; but the fact itself is most true and precious. It is founded on the express and repeated declaration and promise of God. He said to Abraham, “I will establish my covenant between me and thee, and thy seed after thee, in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be a God to thee and to thy seed after thee." Deut. vii. 9: "Know, therefore, that Jehovah thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him, and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations." Deut. xxx. 6: "The Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God, with all thine heart and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live." Isa. lix. 21: "As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the Lord, my Spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, from henceforth for ever." In the New Testament the fact that the promises made to believers include their children, was recognised from the very foundation of the Christian church. In the sermon delivered by Peter on the day of Pentecost, he said, "The promise is unto you and to your chil dren." And Paul assures us, even with regard to outcast Israel, "The children are beloved for the father's sake." It is, therefore, true, as might be much more fully proved, that by divine appointment the children of believers are introduced into the covenant into which their parents enter with God, and that the promises of that covenant are made no less to the children than to the parents. He promises to be their God, to give them his Spirit, to renew their hearts, and to cause them to live.

This promise, however, like all others of a similar character, is general, expressing what is to be the general course of events, and not what is to be the result in every particular case. When God promised that summer and winter, seed time and harvest, should succeed each other to the end of time, he did not pledge himself that there never should be a failure in this succession, that a famine should never occur, or that the expectations of the husbandman should never be disappointed.

Nor does the declaration, "Train up a child in the way in which he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it," contain a promise that no well-disciplined child shall ever wander from the right path. It is enough that it expresses the tendency and ordinary result of proper training. In like manner, the promise of God to give his Spirit to the children. of believers, does not imply that every such child shall be made the subject of saving blessings. It is enough that it indicates the channel in which his grace ordinarily flows, and the general course of his dispensations.

Again, it is to be remembered that these promises are conditional. God has never promised to make no distinction between faithful and unfaithful parents, between those who bring up their offspring in the nurture of the Lord and those who utterly neglect their religious training. The condition, which from the nature of the case is implied in this promise, is in many cases expressly stated. His promise is to "those who keep his covenant, and to those who remember his commandments to do them." It is involved in the very nature of a covenant that it should have conditions; and although in one important sense, the conditions of the covenant of grace have been performed by Christ, still its promises are suspended on conditions to be performed by or in his people. And this is expressly declared to be the case with regard to the promise of the divine blessing to the children of believers. They must keep his covenant. They must train up their children for God. They must use the means which he has appointed for their conversion and sanctification, or the promise does not apply to them. Then, again, there is a condition to be performed by the children themselves. God promises to be their God, but they must consent to be his people. He promises them his Spirit, but they must seek and cherish his influence. If they renounce the covenant, and refuse to have God for their God, and to walk in the way of his commandments, then the promise no longer pertains to them.

It will naturally be objected, that if this is so, the promise amounts to nothing. If, after all, it is not the children of believers, as such, and consequently all such children who are to be saved; if the promise to them is general as a class, and not to each individual; if it is conditioned on the fidelity of parents, and of the children themselves, its whole value is gone. What have they more than others? What advantage have the children of the covenant? or what profit is there in baptism? It is precisely thus the Jews reasoned against the apostle. When he proved that it was not the Jews, as Jews, and simply because Jews, who were to be the heirs of salvation, and that circumcision could profit them nothing unless they kept the law,

they immediately asked, "What advantage then hath the Jew, and what profit is there of circumcision?" "Much every way," answered the apostle,-chiefly because "unto them were committed the oracles of God." To them "belonged the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service and the promises :" theirs "were the fathers, and of them, as concerning the flesh, Christ came." "Salvation was of the Jews." All the religion that was in the world was found among them. It was therefore a great advantage to be found among that favoured people, even although from the want of faithfulness, on the part both of parents and children, so many of them perished. In like manner, it is a great blessing to be born within the covenant, to be the children of believers-to them belong the adoption and the promises-they are the channel in which the Spirit flows, and from among them the vast majority of the heirs of salvation are taken, notwithstanding the multitudes who perish through their own fault, or the fault of their parents.

It is, therefore, a scriptural truth, that the children of believers are the children of God, as being within his covenant with their parents; he promises to them his Spirit; he has established a connection between faithful parental training and the salvation of children, as he has between seed-time and harvest, diligence and riches, education and knowledge. In no one case is absolute certainty secured or the sovereignty of God excluded. But in all, the divinely-appointed connection between means and end is obvious.

That this connection is not more apparent, in the case of parents and children, is due, in a great measure, to the sad deficiency in parental fidelity. If we look over the Christian world, how few nominally Christian parents even pretend to bring up their children for God. In a great majority of cases the attainment of some worldly object is avowedly made the end of education; and all the influences to which a child is exposed are designed and adapted to make him a man of the world. And even within the pale of evangelical churches, it must be confessed, there is great neglect as to this duty. Where is the parent whose children have turned aside from God, whose heart will not rather reproach him, than charge God with forgetting his promise? Our very want of faith in the promise is one great reason of our failure. We have forgotten the covenant. We have forgotten that our children belong to God; that he has promised to be their God, if we are faithful to our trust. We do not say that all the children of the most faithful parent will certainly be saved, any more than we would say that every diligent man will become rich; but the Scriptures do say that the children of believers are the sub

jects of the divine promise, as clearly as they say, "the hand of the diligent maketh rich.”

This doctrine is clearly implied in the circumcision and baptism of children. Why is the sign and seal of the covenant attached to them, if they are not within the covenant? What are the promises of that covenant but that God will be their God, that he will forgive their sins, give them his Spirit, renew their hearts, and cause them to live? These promises are therefore made to them, and are sealed to them in their baptism, just as much as they are to their parents. This has been the uniform doctrine of the Christian church. It is avowed. in all Confessions, and involved in the usages of all communions.

In the Appendix to the Geneva Catechism, in the form for the administration of baptism, it is said: "Quamobrem etsi fidelium liberi sint ex Adami corrupta stirpe ac genere, eos ad se nihilominus admittit, propter fœdus videlicet cum eorum parentibus initium, eosque pro liberis suis habet ac numerat ; ob eamque causam jam inde ab initio nascentis ecclesiæ voluit infantibus circumcisionis notam imprimi, qua quidem nota jam eadem omnia significabat ac demonstrabat, quæ hodie in baptismo designantur. . . . . Minime dubium est, quin liberi nostri hæredes sint ejus vitæ ac salutis, quam nobis est pollicitus: qua de causa eos sanctificari Paulus affirmat, jam inde ab utero matris, quo ab Ethnicorum et e vera religione abhorrentium hominum liberis discernantur." Belgic Confession, art. 34: "Nos eos (infantes) eadem ratione baptizandos et signo fœderis obsignandos esse credimus, qua olim in Israële parvuli eircumcidebantur, nimirum propter easdem promissiones infantibus nostris factas. Et revera Christus non minus sanguinem suum effudit, ut fidelium infantes, quam ut adultos ablueret."

Heidelberg Catechism: "Ought young children to be baptized? Yes, because they, as well as adults, are embraced in the covenant and church of God. And because to them the deliverance from sin through the blood of Christ, and the Holy Ghost, are no less promised than to adults; they should therefore be united by baptism, the sign of the covenant, to the church, and distinguished from the children of unbelievers, as under the Old Testament was done by circumcision, in the place of which baptism is appointed."

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Helvetic Confession, c. 20: Damnamus Anabaptistas, qui negant baptisandos esse infantulos recens natos à fidelibus. Nam juxta doctrinam evangelicam, horum est regnum Dei, et sunt in fœdere Dei, cur itaque non daretur eis signum fœderis

*This may not agree verbatim with the common English version of this Catechism. It is taken from the German, the only copy we have at hand.

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