In concluding the articles on Infant Baptism, we feel that the following extracts from the Princeton Review, 1858, opens up a wide field for convincing evidence of the unscriptural position of the antipaedobaptist:

"In all the covenants which God has ever formed with man, their children have always been included. The covenant made with Adam was not only for himself, but for all his posterity descending from him by ordinary generation. Without their assent or consent, and even without the possibility of their knowledge or co-operation, he was constituted their federal head and representative, authorised to decide for them their character and destiny. His choice was regarded as their choice. It is a plain historical fact, that his apostasy was the apostasy of his race. When God entered into covenant with His Eternal Son, as the representative of His people, it was without their assent or consent, knowledge or co-operation. And yet they, in virtue of that covenant, are made partakers of all the benefits of redemption. And Christ will stand at the last day before the throne of God and say, 'Behold, I and the children whom Thou hast given Me.'

"It is objected, however, that the old dispensation was external, typical and ceremonial, whereas the new is spiritual; and therefore we cannot argue from the one to the other. Under the old dispensation, natural birth and outward profession were the condition of church membership, whereas under the new, spiritual birth and saving faith are the conditions. The premise in this argument is incorrect. When a man entered the Jewish community, or when a Hebrew parent presented his child for circumcision, he made a profession of the true religion, and the promise of spiritual obedience. Any Hebrew who did what he professed to do was as surely saved as any Christian who is sincere in his baptismal vows.

"The Hebrew took God to be his God; he promised obedience to all His laws, and faith in all His promises. What more does the Christian? All this the Hebrew did for his child; more than this no Christian parent can do for his child. What God, therefore, authorised and commanded Jewish parents to do for their children is precisely what the opposers of Infant Baptism say Christian parents have no right to do for their children; and they found their objection on the very nature of the thing to be done. That is, they pronounce that to be wrong which God enjoined as right. The argument goes further than this. It is not merely that Christian parents may do what Jewish parents were allowed to do, but that they are bound to do it. They violate one of the most obvious and important of their parental obligations if they fail to present their children for baptism. They are bound to profess in their name the Christian faith, to promise for them obedience to the laws of Christ, and to consecrate them to His worship and service. If the Hebrew parent was bound to do this, because he was a parent in covenant with God, so is the Christian parent, for the same reasons. It is not a privilege merely, but a duty arising out of the nature of the relation between parent and child, and their common allegiance to God.

"That circumcision was 'a Token' or seal of the Covenant of Grace is evident from its spiritual import. It was a sign of regeneration. It signified the removal of the defilement of our nature; or, as the Apostle expresses it, the 'putting off the body of the sins of the flesh' (Col. 2: 11). It was the symbol of the circumcision of the heart. On the ground of the covenant into which they had entered by circumcision, Moses exhorted the people, saying, 'Because the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and He chose their seed after them, circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart' (Deut. 10: 15, 16). The prophets presented the rite in the same light (Jer. 4: 4), and so does the apostle in Rom. 2: 28. The true circumcision, he says, that which the outward ceremony signified, was the circumcision of the heart by the Spirit. The 'uncircumcised in heart' are the unrenewed and disobedient (Lev. 30: 41; Jer. 9: 26; Acts 7: 51). As baptism with water is the symbol of the baptism of the Spirit, so circumcision of the flesh was the symbol of the circumcision of the heart. If infants cannot be baptised, because the symbol of regeneration can be applied to those only who give evidence of regeneration, neither can circumcision. The import of the one was the same as the import of the other. It is obvious, therefore, that if circumcision was the symbol of regeneration, the covenant of which it was the badge was the covenant in which regeneration was promised, i.e. the covenant of grace.

"This is still further evident from the nature of the promises made to those who were circumcised, whether adults or infants. The promise was 'I will be their God, and they shall be My people' (Gen. 17: 7), a promise which is declared to be the substance of the Gospel. (Hosea 2: 23; Zech. 8: 8; Heb. 7: 11). This was the blessing promised to Abraham and his seed after him; and this was the promise which every Hebrew claimed for himself and for his children. Still more explicitly it is said, 'The Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live' (Deut. 30: 6). 'The mercy of the Lord,' says the Psalmist,' is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear Him, and His righteousness unto children's children; to such as keep His covenant, and to those that remember His commandments to do them' (Psa. 103. 17, 18). And the prophet says, 'As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the Lord; My Spirit that is upon thee, and My words that I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and for ever' (Isa. 59: 21). Such were the promises included in the covenant of which circumcision was the seal. This is placed beyond all dispute by the express declaration of the apostle in (Rom. 4: 11). Circumcision is there declared to be the seal of righteousness of faith. That is, the seal of the promise of God to regard as righteous all who believe.

"Circumcision, therefore, being the token or seal of that covenant in which God promised salvation through Christ by faith in Him, those to whom the seal was applied professed to accept of that covenant. And as children of professing Jews were circumcised, those children were, in the sight of man, included in the covenant. In other words, they were by divine command to be regarded as members of the Church."