"Not only have all my doubts been removed," said I, "but the baptism of my child has been the source of the richest instruction and comfort."
"I am glad to hear you say so," said Mrs. K.
"But," said Mr. K., "you do not, of course, derive your warrant for it from the word of God. That is our only guide, you know. There is no more authority in the Bible for baptizing children than there is for praying to saints. You are probably aware that the practice originated in the third century of the Christian era."
Mr. M. It originated with a man by the name of Abraham, I believe, sir, two or three thousand years before Christ.
Mr. K. O, then, you go to Judaism for it!
Mr. M. Judaism comes to me with it, and hands it over to me. There was something good in Judaism, we all think. Judaism was not a Mormonism, as certain ways of speaking of it not unfrequently would make us think it to have been; it was not an exploded folly, but the form which the church of God bore for two thousand years. But it began before Judaism; it is older than Moses. Judaism received it from Abraham. It is like a great river rising in a desert place, and seeming to lose itself in a lake, but flowing out again into another lake, and thence to the sea. So Judaism was only a great lake, which took and seemingly held this river of baptism for a time, but its current went on and flowed into another lake, the Christian dispensation. But you cannot say that a river which makes a chain of lakes, rises, for that reason, in the first lake. No, its head spring, in this case, was antecedent to the lake.
Mr. K. Did Abraham or the Jews baptize children, Mr. M.?
I answered, "Every male child of Abraham's descendants, who should not receive the sign of consecration to God, was to be cut off from among the people. Proselytes of the covenant and their children were baptized, very early."
Mr. K. But where is the command to apply baptism to children?
Mr. M. Where, my dear sir, is the command to discontinue that which was enjoined upon the founder of the race of believers for all time? I believe in the perpetuity of Abraham's relation to us as the father of the faithful, as I believe in Adam's relation to us as the representative of the race, and in the Saviour's relation to us as our representative. God seems to love these federal headships, as we call them. Abraham did not receive circumcision being a Jew, but, as the apostle says, "as a seal of the righteousness which is by faith, which he had while he was yet uncircumcised." We have Scripture for that, Mr. Kelly. And "the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after," did not disannul that covenant "that was confirmed before of God in Christ." How can you call circumcision a Jewish ordinance, when the Bible so explicitly denies it to be of Jewish origin?