Page:Short illustration of the commission given by Jesus Christ to his apostles.pdf/8

 covenant.” If the enquiry is made as to what covenant they refer, it is readily defined to be that which the Apostle calls the New Covenant; but if the enquiry be further made—Are any of the human race born with an interest in this covenant? an answer in the affirmative, it is evident, would be in direct opposition to what the Scripture testifies of the natural state of every individual. That the Jews should boast of their holiness, as descendants of Abraham, was not very strange; but this we find the Baptist commands them to renounce, as of no avail, and calls upon them to bring forth fruits meet for repentance, as well as those whom they accounted the vilest of society. He describes those who had power to become the Sons of God, as being “born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. The Scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. They that are of faith the same are the children of Abraham. "These declarations are all in strict harmony with the testimony and promise contained in the Commission ,— "he that believeth shall be saved;" and how it can be made out, from such passages as these, that infants are in "a certain sense holy," and, as such the subjects of an ordinance designed to exhibit to the baptized the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, and communion with,