It is not, then, on account of any intrinsic holiness of the parents, or any faith inherent in them, but of "God's abundant mercy," that He hath called us; having committed to His Church the power of administering His Sacraments, and annexing to her exercise of faith in so doing, the blessing of His Sacrament, where there is no opposing will, and accordingly to us, whom He called before we had done either good or evil.
But it was said, regeneration, or rather grace, generally, cannot be bestowed through Baptism; because, if a child, for instance, having received Baptism, were stolen, and educated among Turks and Heathens, it would manifestly itself be in no respect different from other Turks or Heathens. And this, Calvin and others employ triumphantly, as an argument ex absurdo, as if no one of ordinary understanding could hold otherwise. It would, indeed, prove nothing, if true; for why should it follow, in the spiritual, any more than in the natural world, that because a gift was rendered useless for want of cultivation, therefore it had never been given? We see daily, that great intellectual powers are gradually destroyed by the abuse, or neglect, or trifling of their possessors; or by being employed on petty or unworthy objects; and, being made subservient to vanity or sense, are at last lost, so that a man could not employ them if he would; and this, doubtless (as is every thing in nature), was meant as an emblem of things unseen—a warning to us, to take heed to our spiritual faculties, "lest the light which is in us become darkness." But who ever gave us ground to say, that any outward circumstances, in which it should please God to place one, whom He had elected to be, by Baptism, incorporated into the body of His Blessed Son, had the power to annihilate that Baptism, and to make it as if it had never been? "Where wast thou, when God laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding." Job xxxviii. 4. "Add thou not to His words, lest He reprove thee, and thou be found a liar." (Prov. xxx. 6.) Surely, men take too much upon them, in speaking thus positively of the depths of the human heart, and of Divine grace, the workings whereof are as varied as they are unfathomable, unmeasurable, incomprehensible, because it is an
