Utility of household consecration. The state of mind essential to its acceptable performance. The distinct and solemn pledge. Its actual bearing on parental duties.

If God has ordained the practice of infant consecration, it is presumptuous to question its utility. Even if we could not at once prove its utility, from its inherent adaptation, or its practical results, we should be bound to maintain it faithfully, and prize it highly. Genuine faith in God shrinks not from obedience, even when his command is dark and mysterious. Here, however, is no dark and mysterious command. The obedience of faith would leave the parent even to sacrifice his son, his only son; his son of promise and of love, if God required it. Here, however, no sacrifice is demanded.

Our belief in the importance of this institution does not depend simply on its divine authority. In its very nature and bearing, there is abundant evidence of its salutary influence. In the living facts of its history, and the wondrous sanctions of the Spirit, there is demonstration strong of its honorable connection with the divine economy. Whether we contemplate its impressive agency on the parent, on the child, on the Church, on the world, we are constrained to believe that, considering simply its practical tendencies, the Christian Church has not another ceremony of equal value.

The reader is requested to bear in mind that I speak of infant dedication as it has been defined and defended in the preceding chapters. I shall not undertake to prove the utility of a spurious consecration. I reject alike that which,

having the form, denies the power, and that which, confident of the power, contemns the form. If there be infant consecration to false gods, or to an imaginary god, or even to the true God, with a false heart, it is no part of mine to eulogize its practical operation. The argument of these chapters is not responsible for the infant dedication of a corrupted Christianity in any land, family, circumstances, or generation.

The infant consecration here solemnly urged, is that which the "father of us all" first practised, and which the Saviour himself modified for all nations, and confirmed for all ages. I shall therefore attempt to show in what manner the ordinance of infant consecration produces the parental faithfulness, and in what manner God blesses that faithfulness in remembrance of his holy covenant. Thus it will appear that through this institution a stream of beneficial influence is conveyed, that makes glad the city of our God.

1. The utility of household consecration is inferred from the state of the mind essentical to its most acceptable performance. The parents are supposed to be true believers, they regard the terms of the covenant as just, its promises as infinitely precious, and its appointed seal as a sig. nificant token of his gracious design, and of their confiding love. They regard the special promise of persevering grace to them, as giving them a strong foundation, for prosecuting their holy plans in their household. They regard the conditional promise of grace for their offspring, as affording them a full opportunity for trying the strength of vigorous, household faith. They see that it opens to their access inexhaustible stores of grace. Promise rises upon promise, prize upon prize. One apartment of mercy opens into another. The angel of the covenant throws wide its portals, and beckons them still to advance. The

continuance of God's Church in their household: the salvation of each individual member the needful temporal welfare: the high attainments of holiness: the distinguished usefulness of their children: the surpassing degrees of celestial glory: and all these not for one generation, but by the extension of the vital principle of conse cration, for a thousand. These are the promises of the covenant, in their glorious gradation; and the pathway of ascent from the lowest to the highest, is open to the aspirings of parental faith!

He regards the sacred seal, as implying an entire consecration of himself and his household to these lofty promises and purposes of the covenant. He is admonished that this relation is gained only through faith, is maintained only through faith. The example of the unbelieving Jew is before him. The danger, the guilt, the consequences of covenant violations, of parental unfaithfulness, are all before him in the history of the Church, and the records of the covenant. Suppose the parent to ponder these things deeply in his heart; then let him come to the altar of consecration, with that state of mind which all these considerations produce and sanction. I appeal to philosophy, to common sense, to experience, when I say that a powerful parental influence must be secured by that state of mind here supposed. The value of the child; its depravity; its exposure; its need of regeneration; the great principle of the divine government in its dealings with parents; the development of that principle in the Abrahamie covenant; the solemen earnestness and fulness of that promise; the privileges conferred by the gospel on the Gentiles; the necessity of self-examination; of genuine faith; of an entire surrender of the young immortal; the conviction of personal parental responsibility combined with a sense of personal insufficiency, and with the strength of parental affection

all these, pressing on the soul, must render the scene of baptism, to the spiritual parent, intensely impressive and over. whelming. If ever strong resolves of parental faithfulness can be formed, they could be formed then. If ever the soul of man braces herself for high and noble efforts, it is just when all the arguments of fear, with all the animation of hope, blend their strength in one impulse, and urge her on to one specific movement. To deny the practical energy of such consecration, would be to reason against all the laws of mind, and all the principles of sound philosophy.

2. The utility of this ordinance is evident from the fact, that the act of consecration involves, on the part of the parents, a distinct and solemn pledge to educate the child for Jehovah.

The reasons why such a pledge might wisely be re quired were stated in the first two chapters. Several fun. damental reasons, not for believing in infant baptism, but for the institution of infant consecration, were then stated. It is reasonable that, if moral influence is in itself so power. ful, and in its family relations so energetic; if depravity is entire and universal, and if God designs to bestow the influences of his grace in connection with parental faithfulness, a distinct and solemn pledge should be required of parents to consecrate their whole parental influence to the Lord. Such a pledge is required and given in the ordinance of infant dedication. The parent there acknowledges the absolute right of God to his child; the capacity of his child for moral government; the force and abiding reality of parental obligation; his own dependence on the atoning and regenerating grace of God; and in view of all the invisible relations connected with the spiritual nature and destiny of his offspring, he gives the pledge that he will faithfully instruct, guide, restrain, and educate, intellectually and mo rally, that immortal spirit for heaven. It is given at the

family altar; it is given in the house of God; it is inscribed on every parental and every Christian memorial ; it is given in presence of his household—of the Church, of the world, of ministering angels, and a covenant-keeping God. It is given in a state of mind most calculated, of all others, to insure it a power, a meaning, and a spiritual energy. It is useless to say, that the parent will discharge his duties as well without giving a pledge as with. We do not reason thus on any other subject. The merchant does not reason thus in his business. God has not reasoned thus in the mar. riage institution, nor in requiring his followers to pledge themselves by a public profession to be faithful. Our fathers did not reason thus in signing the Declaration of Inde. pendence. Nations have not reasoned thus in crowning their monarchs. Among all nations, and in all institutions, human and divine, when great interests are at stake, the pledge, the sacred, inviolable pledge, has been required, both by the dictates of human nature, of reason, and religion. It is folly thus to argue against all the current of human experience, and against all the principles of human practice.

To disprove the utility of a pledge in these circumstances, it is essential to prove that the interest at stake is of small moment; that the common practice of all mankind is useless; or that a pledge, in these circumstances, will not have the same tendency as in others. The opposite of each of these is self-evident, and the demonstration is morally invulnerable, that if a pledge is important any where, it is here. If it is rational any where, it is here. If it is powerful any where, it must be peculiarly powerful here. The souls of a household! entrusted to the mo ral culture of two frail, trembling, and imperfect be ings! Where is the parental heart? where the heart of faith, or mercy, or compassion, which would not wish to