4. And mark, that on whomsoever you build an infant's right, you may as well say, that he may suffer for other men's default; for if you build it on the magistrate, the minister, the church, the godfathers, any of them may fail; they may deny him baptism itself; they may fail in his education; shall he suffer then for want of baptism or good education when it is their faults? Whoever a child or a man is to receive a benefit by, the failing of that person may deprive him of that benefit. More objections I must pretermit, to avoid prolixity. [287] Eph. vi. 4, 5; Col. iii. 21; Gen. xviii. 19; Deut. vi. 6-8; xi. 18-20. [288] Second commandment. Prov. xx. 7. [289] The Holy Ghost is promised in baptism to give the child grace in his parents' and his own faithful use of the appointed means. [290] Mr. Whiston, p. 53. As Abraham as a single person in the covenant was to accept of and perform the conditions of the covenant--so as a parent he had something of duty incumbent on him with reference to his (immediate) seed; and as his faithful performance of that duty incumbent on him in his single capacity, so his performing that duty incumbent on him as a parent in reference to his seed, was absolutely necessary in order to his enjoying the good promised, with reference to himself and his seed: proved Gen. xvii. 1; xviii. 19. He proveth that the promise is conditional, and that as to the continuance of the covenant state the conditions are, 1. The parent's upright life. 2. His duty to his children well done. 3. The children's own duty as they are capable. Quest. XLIV. _Doth baptism always oblige us at the present, and give grace at the present? And is the grace which is not given till long after, given by baptism: or an effect of baptism?_ _Answ._ I add this case for two reasons: 1. To open their pernicious error who think that a covenant or promise made by us to God, only for a future, distant duty, (as to repent and believe before we die,) is all that is essential to our baptismal covenanting. 2. To open the ordinary saying of many divines, who say, that baptism worketh not always at the present, but sometimes only long afterward. The truth I think may be thus expressed. 1. It is not baptism, if there be not the profession of a present belief, a present consent, and a present dedition, or resignation, or dedication of the person to God, by the adult for themselves, and by parents for their infants. He that only saith, I promise to believe, repent, and obey only at twenty or thirty years of age, is not morally baptized; for it is another covenant of his own which he would make, which God accepteth not. 2. It is not only a future, but a present relation to God, as his own, his subjects, his children by redemption, to which the baptized person doth consent.