The Works of Henry Fielding, vol. 12

. We have grouped them together, and studied them side by side. We have noticed that their sense is uniform, clear, and strong. Unless we are willing to throw aside all sound principles o

birth we know is but a very feeble beginning of life. So faint are the flickerings of the natural life at birth, that it is often doubtful at first whether any life is pr

life of the child, so its spiritual life is beset with perils. While the germs of the new life are there, we must not forget that the roots of sin are also still there. Our Church does not teach with Rome that "sin (original) is destroyed in baptism, so

Not so with the germs of the new life. They, like the most precious plants of the gardens, must be watched and guarded and tended contin

parents' most blessed privilege to keep that child in covenant relationship with the blessed Redeemer. This also belongs to the teaching of the Church of the Reformati

in which it is to be brought up. Second, to instruct the child when it comes to years of discretion, that it has been truly baptized, as Christ has commanded. Third, to pray for the child, that God may keep it in that Covenant of Grace, bless it

ve been baptized and received by baptism into the Covenant of Grace. To preserve them in this baptismal Grace, to develop in them the life of God's spirit, this is one side of Christian education. To contend against sin in the child is the other." Dr. Schmid, in his Christian Ethics,

ace from infancy, and that under God, it rests principally with the parents or guardians whe

the sacred record, he dwelt in God's Tabernacle and "ministered unto the Lord before Eli". As a mere child God used him as a prophet. Of the prophet Jeremiah it is written: (Jer. i. 5) "Before thou earnest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee." Of John the Baptist it is written: (Luke i. 15) "He shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his m

o a child, but to keep that child in His Grace all its days. T

ld or new dispensation. He ordained that infants at eight days old should be brought into His covenant. He recognized infant children as partakers of the blessings of His covenant. "Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise;" "Suffer them to come unto Me." Everywhere it is taken for granted that the children who have received either the Old or New Testament sacrament of initiation are His. Nowhere are parents exhorted to use their endeavors to have such children converted, as though they had never been touched by divine Grace. But everywhere they are exhorted to keep them in that rela

re will be developed, very early, the truest confidence and trust in Christ, and the purest love to God. From the germs will grow the beautiful plant of child-trust and child-love. The graces of the new life may be thus early drawn out, so that the child, in after years, will never know of a time