We have seen that in the Abrahamic covenant,—the betrothal of the church,—the infant sons were expressly included on equal terms with their fathers; and that in the Sinai espousal the infants of both sexes were joined with their parents in the bonds of the covenant, and in the reception of its baptismal seal. We have seen the young daughters of Midian purified and admitted to the covenant and church of Israel by the same sacrament. By these unquestionable facts, the principle of infant membership in the church, and the mode of its certification by baptism, are both alike clearly established. The Scriptures contain conclusive evidence that the children of after generations of Israel were received to the covenant and the church in like manner, by baptism with the water of separation. 1. The law of God was explicit that “one ordinance shall be both for you of the congregation and also for the stranger that sojourneth with you, an ordinance forever in your generations; as ye are so shall the stranger be before the Lord. One law and one manner shall be for you and for the stranger that sojourneth with you.”—Num. xv, 14-16. From this law, it results as a necessary conclusion, that inasmuch as the Midianite children were baptized, the same must have been the rule for the infants of Israel. 2. Circumcision was the seal of the Abrahamic covenant, but not of that of Sinai. So long as the church was confined to the family of Israel after the flesh, this rite, as being the proof and seal of membership in that family was essential as a condition precedent to the enjoyment of the privileges of the church; but did not, of itself, seal or convey a right to them. Otherwise, every circumcised person would have been entitled to those privileges; whereas they were reserved exclusively for the clean. 3. While such was the case, it was a fundamental article of the faith from the beginning, that men are all natively unclean. Job, Eliphaz, and Bildad, each severally states it as an unquestionable proposition that man born of woman must be so. (Job xiv, 4; xv, 14; xxv, 4.) David cries: “Behold I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me.... Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean; wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.”—Psalm li, 5-7. He not only recognizes the radical nature of his moral corruption as born in him, but indicates the remedy under the very figure of sprinkling with the water of _nidda_, to which the hyssop refers. The Lord Jesus, speaking at a time when the Old Testament ordinances and system were still in full force, testifies, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.”—John iii, 6, 7.