of his family is unfairly or defectively exhibited by Dr. Carson. It lies on the face of the regulation, that unless all the male children were circumcised, the parent was not admissible to the passover. But this does not imply that he had "a divine warrant" to circumcise them unconditionally, or a divine warrant to circumcise them at all. The stranger received no command from God on the subject, nor did the law bind him to any particular course. It simply pledged the Israelites not to admit him to the passover, until all his males were circumcised; but as it neither recognised nor created any necessity for his admission, it could not have invested him with authority to force the rite on a reluctant or rebellious adult. The law was in effect for the authorities of the church, and it left the stranger to proceed with the circumcision of the males of his family, according to his own discretion. On a principle somewhat analogous, we contend against the necessity of compulsion in administering the rite to Abraham's household. Nay we affirm compulsion to have been physically impossible. The head of the family could not have administered the rite by force to several hundred of adults. Besides, had any of them refused, or considered Abraham's proposal cruel or preposterous, they could have gone into exile, as Hagar did, when her mistress dealt hardly with her. We do not maintain that all the members possessed true faith, such a regard for the authority of El-Shaddai as prompted voluntary submission, being all that the nature of the case imperatively demanded. So much is to my mind plainly implied in Gen. xvii. 27, comp. xviii. 19, the latter containing a noble prophetic testimony to the righteous deportment of the parties whom Abraham circumcised. "I know him," said Jehovah, "that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice and judgment; that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him."

That circumcision, then, introduced its subjects into a divinely organized religious community rests on the plain unsophisticated sense of Scripture; and that the infant offspring of parents who were members of that community, were legitimate subjects of this initiatory rite, is sustained by the same divine testimony.

CHAPTER SIXTH.

INFANTS IN THE CHURCH TILL CHRIST'S COMING.

SCRIPTURE RECOGNITION OF INFANTS AS A COMPONENT PART OF THE CHURCH UNDER THE ANCIENT ECONOMY. THEIR TITLE EQUALLY VALID WITH THAT OF ABRAHAM AND MOSES. -CHARACTER AND VALUE OF THE RELATION IN WHICH THEY STOOD TO THE SAVING PROMISES OF THE COVENANT. -CONTINUANCE OF INFANTS IN THE CHURCH FROM ITS FOUNDATION TILL THE FULNESS OF TIME. THE COVENANT STANDING OF FEMALES CONSIDERED.-INDIRECT INFLUENCE OF CIRCUMCISION IN SECURING THEIR FEDERAL PRIVILEGES. -OBJECTION FROM EZRA IX. X. AND NEH, XIII. 13, ANSWERED.-GENERAL BEARING OF THE LAW OF ADMISSION INTO THE CHURCH OF THE FATHERS ON THE RIGHT UNDERSTANDING AND INTERPRETATION OF THE ANALOGOUS LAW UNDER THE NEW COVENANT.

We have pointed to circumcision as the door of admission into the ancient church, and among those who were privileged to enter by that door, we have discovered an interesting class composed of the infant children of the covenant. Can we trace their presence within the ancient Zion, and was their abode there permanent?

I. The Scriptures emphatically recognise little children, circumcised infants, as forming a component part of the Old Testament church. We find, for instance, that "the church in the wilderness" consisted of six hundred thousand men, besides women and children. A similar specification, but more minute, and therefore more to our purpose, is furnished in connection with the renewal of the church's covenant engagements, before the death of Moses. In strains of fervid and dignified pathos, that man of God, on the border of Canaan and of eternity, thus addressed the congregated tribes :"Ye stand this day all of you before the LORD your God; your captains of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, with all the men of Israel, your little ones, your wives, and the stranger that is within thy camp, from the hewer of thy wood unto the drawer of thy water: that thou shouldest enter into covenant with the LORD thy God, and into his oath which the LORD thy God maketh with thee this day: that he may establish thee to-day for a people unto himself, and that he may be unto thee a God, as he hath said unto thee, and as he hath sworn unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob."-Deut. xxix. 10-13. We solicit attention to the composition of the assembly which at this period entered into covenant with God. The captains, elders, and officers were all there, the wives, and strangers or proselytes formed part of the vast congregation. Were the children excluded? No. One of the most interesting classes presented on that solemn day before the Lord, consisted of the little ones who were expressly comprehended in the terms of the covenant, and therefore reached by its solemn obligations. These little ones belonged to "the kingdom of heaven." Their title to a place in the covenant, and in God's sanctuary was as valid as that of Abraham or Moses. But it will be objected that the band of little ones was probably made up both of males and females. So much the better eventually for our argument, inasmuch as the cause we plead, is strengthened by the presence of female children in the church, though we should be ignorant of the door by which they entered. For passages enjoining the appearance of all the males before God thrice every year, see Ex. xxiii. 17; Deut. xvi. 16, and xxx. 12, 13.

The recognition of infant membership distinguishes the entire cast and complexion of the ancient church. An opponent disposed to quibble might indeed challenge some of the common proof-passages as not explicitly naming infants in the enumeration of the different classes of God's people; but when the men, the women, and the children are specified without the slightest hint of limitation, we have no more right to understand the children as only a part of the children, than we have to understand the men and women as only a part of the men and women. Besides, the quibble would be unavailing, as infants, sucklings, are expressly mentioned among God's covenanted people. See Joel ii. 16, 17.

But while the position of infants within the church is unassailable, it is a point of some difficulty, as well as interest, to ascertain the precise relation which they sustained to the revealed economy of mercy. When God announced his gracious design to establish the covenant with Isaac, it was explicitly understood that the child of promise should receive the federal seal on the eighth day, and that the observance should be maintained by his descendants throughout their generations. What then was the exact character of the relation thus divinely constituted between the church and the infant