All my predecessors in the church of God, before Christ, had the privilege of bringing their children into the bonds of the covenant with themselves. If they felt as we do about it (and strict usage, and the rich experience which they had had of its benefits, must have made it inestimably precious to them), it is incredible that a sudden and total discontinuance of it, at the beginning of Christianity, should not have occasioned great clamor. The formalists, at least, would have remonstrated at the seeming violation, by this new order of things, of natural affection. For, as Doddridge well observes, "What would have been done with the infants, or male children, of Christians?"--that is, of converted Jews, as well as others. They could not circumcise them; but their teachers, being spiritually-minded men, knew that circumcision was a seal of faith, not merely of nationality, and must not the converts have required some sign and symbol still for their children? Now they had long been used to the baptism of proselytes and their children; so that baptizing their own children, as a substitute for circumcising them, could not have been a violent change with those whom Peter's vision of the sheet had taught that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs. And when he, in one of his first sermons, said to the whole house of Israel, "Ye are the children of the covenant," and "The promise is unto you and to your children," we can account for their utter silence as to any revocation by Christianity of the right and privilege of applying the initiatory ordinance of religion, for the time being, to a believer's child. "But," said Mr. Benson, "the Saviour said, 'He that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved.' The apostles said, 'Repent and be baptized, every one of you.' Show us, now, why this does not prove that repentance and faith were not thus made essential to baptism. According to these passages, none could be baptized who had not repented and believed. This would exclude infants. 'Believe, and be baptized;' how do you dispose of that, sir?" "Very easily," said I. Mrs. Benson exclaimed, "O, sir, if you can, all my difficulty is at an end!" "Well, then," said I, "in the first place, there is no such requirement in the Bible. You see the expression very often, but it is not found in Scripture. But tell me exactly what your difficulty is." "Why," said she, "my husband has just stated it. People tell us the Bible says, 'He that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved.' So they insist that no one should be baptized who is not old enough to believe." I told her that I could remove her difficulty in very few words. "Suppose," said I, "that Abraham is preaching to full-grown men in Canaan, and is trying to proselyte them from their idolatry to the worship of God. He would say to them, 'Believe and be circumcised,' would he not? for God ordained that certain proselytes should be circumcised." "Yes, sir," said two or three voices at once.