"That passover, however," said I, "was the means of saving those children, who, many of them, were the first-born in their respective families. Yet they were saved by the passover through the faith of their parents. Do not understand me as urging the comparison to an extreme; I only say that there we have an example of parents acting for the child in a matter of faith. The infant child was incapable of believing, and even where the first-born was grown up, the parent acted for him in the ordinance, by sprinkling the door with blood. I do not prove infant baptism by this, but I use it to show that parents may use an ordinance for their infants. Mr. K. asks if baptized infants are buried with Christ in baptism into death,--that is, die unto sin and rise to newness of life. The parents profess by the baptism that they will use means to effect this in their children, through the grace of the Holy Spirit. I should like to ask Mr. Kelly if he believes that every person who is immersed, is buried into death, spiritually, with Christ, or is actually dead to sin forever; or, whether it is only a profession of one's hope and intention. For we have all known some, who had been buried in water, that did not prove to have died unto sin." _Mr. K._ Of course it is a symbol; and all we insist on is, that Paul must have had immersion in mind, as the form of baptism, when he spoke of being buried by baptism. _Mr. M._ When Paul says, "I am crucified with Christ," do you suppose that the idea of a cross was in his mind? Did he intimate that sanctification is effected by a piece of wood, with a transverse beam, used as a gibbet? Or did he simply mean, I am dead to the world, and the world is dead to me, yea, and put to death (not merely dying in a natural way), through the power of the Saviour's sufferings and death on my behalf? The burial of Christ, following his death for sin, and so completing the idea of dying, is enough to have suggested the figure, I think, of our being not only dead with Christ, but buried with him, by a Christian profession; that is, we utterly cease from the world and sin, professedly, as Christ not only died, but went into the tomb. But what does "risen" refer to in that passage,--the water or death?--"from whence also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God." _Mr. M._ Why, how do you understand it?