"Yes."
The Doctor turned to 1 Cor. 7:14 and read: "'For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband; else were your children unclean but now are they holy.'"
"Hello," said Mr. Page, "that sounds like it."
"It is very plain," said the Doctor. "The apostle has said that a believer must not marry an unbeliever; but then someone may say: 'Suppose a believer has already married an unbeliever, must the believing wife leave her unbelieving husband?' 'No,' says Paul. 'The believing wife sanctifies the husband and thus the marriage is not unclean, but a proper one.' The fact that one of the parties is an unbeliever does not make the union an unclean one, but he says the child of such a union is holy. Note that. What does he mean by that word 'holy'? The Jews, according to the old covenant, regarded all who were not Jews as unclean or unholy; that is, as not partakers of the holy covenant. But all of Abraham's descendants were holy; that is, were partakers of the covenant, and Paul here states that the children of Christian parents, even though only one of the parents was a believer, were holy."
"But, Doctor," said Dorothy, "I do not see anything about infant baptism in all that."
"This is related to infant baptism. The point before us now is as to whether the faith or belief of a parent makes the child holy, and Paul says it does. The question was asked where the Bible taught that the faith of the parent was taken for the faith of the infant, and I mentioned this passage."
"But does this passage teach that?"
"It undoubtedly does. It declares that one believing parent sanctifies the child; that is, makes the child holy, and that is the same thing."
"I am not much on Scripture," broke in the father, "and I guess I had better keep my hands off of this part of the argument, and yet that passage sounded to me as if the writer was trying to keep married couples from separating simply because one of them might be an unbeliever."