Plain tracts for critical times,by a union of clergymen - Softcover

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1838 edition. Excerpt: ...looked upon and baptised as adults, is very clear and satisfactory. The case of " private baptism," already considered, some may view as an exception; for certainly it is not the rule: and as an exception let it avail as much as it will avail. It can avail no further than the analogy extends, that is, to the regeneration and salvation of infants dying in their infancy. But this proves nothing respecting those who live and are introduced into the church by sponsion, the future life of whom must stand for evidence as to what has or what has not taken place at or before baptism. Except in this case, the church proceeds from first to last in the same manner towards infants as towards adults, that is, in all things essential to their public introduction under the covenant of grace by baptism:--1. The 27th Article, which speaks "of baptism," expresses the same things as to adults and infants. There is no constitutional difference made. 2. The Catechism expressly proceeds on the same ground, requiring of infants " repentance and faith," as well as of adults. And it anticipates and answers the objection which arises from the incapacity of their " tender age" to perform what is required, by telling us, that" they promise them both," that is, repentance and faith, " by their sureties," and that, " when they come to age, themselves are bound to perform" this promise. The church charitably admits this suretyship as the act and deed of the infants themselves, and baptises and blesses them accordingly. 3. The baptismal office is (mutatis mutandis) precisely the same for infants as for adults in every material point. The prayers are really, though not verbally, the same--the stipulations of renunciation, of faith and of holy obedience, are the same--the...